Italian idealism, born from interest in theGerman movement and particularly inHegelian doctrine, developed inItaly starting from thespiritualism of the nineteenth-centuryRisorgimento tradition, and culminated in the first half of the twentieth century in its two greatest exponents:Benedetto Croce andGiovanni Gentile.
In theage of Romanticism, Italian patriots'philosophical circles tried to give aspiritual,moral andideal imprint to the historical path towardsnational unification.[1][2]
Initially, bothAntonio Rosmini (1797–1855) andVincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852) revived theAugustinianneoplatonic themes of theinteriority ofconscience anddivine illumination, but the former aspired to reformKantianism in anontological andtranscendent sense, the latter more oriented towards countering thesubjectivism ofmodern philosophy emerging fromDescartes, reaffirming theobjective preeminence ofGod, or "Entity-Idea", on which to build anontologism understood in an almostpantheistic manner.[3]
Later, therevolutionary and liberal tendencies of the Risorgimentobourgeoisie, especially inNaples, found inHegelianidealism the way to a cultural and ideological renewal of the country.[1]
The interest in the Hegelian doctrine in Italy spread especially for the works ofAugusto Vera (1813–1885) andBertrando Spaventa (1817–1883), without omitting also the importance of the studies onHegelian "Aesthetic" byFrancesco De Sanctis (1817–1883), author of theHistory of Italian Literature.[4]
De Sanctis's concept ofart and ofliterary history, inspired by Hegel, will stimulate the genesis of Crocian idealism.[5]
Augusto Vera, author of writings and commentaries about Hegel, was a famous philosopher in Europe, who interpreted the HegelianAbsolute in areligious andtranscendent sense.[6]
An opposite interpretation was formulated by theneo-hegelianBertrand Spaventa, for whom the Spirit wasimmanent in thehistory of philosophy.
Reconstructing the development ofItalian philosophy, Spaventa argued thatItalian Renaissance thought ofBruno andCampanella had been at the origin ofmodern philosophy, but had stopped due to theCounter-Reformation. Its task now was to catch up withEuropean philosophy, linking up withVico's mind philosophy, which along with those ofGalluppi,Rosmini, andGioberti, had anticipated themes ofKantism andGerman idealism.
Se la filosofia non è una vana esercitazione dell'intelletto, ma quella forma reale della vita umana, nella quale si compendiano e trovano il loro vero significato tutti i momenti anteriori dello spirito, è cosa naturale che un popolo libero si riconosca e abbia la vera coscienza di se stesso anche ne' suoi filosofi.[7]
If philosophy is not a vain exercise of the intellect, but the real form of human life within which are compounded and find their true meaning all the past moments of the spirit, then it is natural for a free people to recognize itself and find the true conscience of itself in its own philosophers.[7]
Spaventa reformulated theHegelian dialectic, reinterpreting it from the perspective ofKantian andFichtian conscientialism orsubjectivism.He considered the act ofthinking prevalent with respect to the phases ofobjectification and synthesis. That is, he supported the need to «mentalise»Hegel, because theMind is the protagonist of every original production.Thesynthesis of the actual thinking of the Spirit was then placed by Spaventa, as the only reality, not only after the hegelian moments ofIdea and ofNature, but so as to permeate them also from the beginning.[8]
After a parenthesis characterized bypositivism, in 1913Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) with the publication ofThe reform of Hegelian dialectics resumed Spaventa's interpretation of the HegelianIdea, seeing in Hegelian Spirit the category ofbecoming as coinciding with thepure act of thought in which the wholereality of nature, history and spirit was transfused.[9]Every thing exists only in the mental act of thinking it: there are no single empirical entities separated from thetranscendentalconsciousness; even thepast lives only in the actual,present moment of memory. To Gentile, who considered himself the "philosopher ofFascism",[10]actual idealism was the sole remedy tophilosophically preservingfreeagency, by making the act of thinking self-creative, and, therefore, without any contingency and not in the potency of any other fact.[9]
Gentile reproachedHegel for having built hisdialectic with elements proper to "thought", that is to say that of determinedthought and of thesciences. For Gentile, instead, only in "thinking in action" is dialecticalself-consciousness that includes everything.
Una concezione idealistica mira a concepire lo stesso assoluto, il tutto, come idea: ed è perciò intrinsecamente idealismo assoluto. Ma assoluto l'idealismo non può essere se l'idea non coincide con lo stesso atto del conoscerla; perché - è questa la più profonda origine delle difficoltà in cui si dibatte il platonismo - se l'idea non fosse lo stesso atto per cui l'idea si conosce, l'idea lascerebbe fuori di sè qualche cosa, e l'idealismo pertanto non sarebbe più assoluto.[11]
An idealistic conception aims at conceiving the absolute, the whole, as an idea, and is therefore intrinsically absolute idealism. But absolute it cannot be unless the idea coincides with the act of knowing it, because — and here we find the very root of the difficulty in which Platonism is entangled — were the idea not the act itself through which it is known, it would leave something outside itself, and the idealism would then no longer be absolute.[11]
Gentile made a pivotal distinction to factors concerning Idealism's own criteria for reality, which have stood sinceBerkeley's adage «esse est percipi» by distinguishing between theconcrete real «act of thinking» (pensiero pensante), and the abstract «static thought» (pensiero pensato).[9]
To his actual vision was opposed since 1913Benedetto Croce (1866–1952, cousin ofBertrando Spaventa) who in hisEssay on Hegel interpreted Hegelian thought as immanentisthistoricism: he also understood the Hegelian dialectic of theopposites in a different way, integrating it with that of the «distincts».[9] According to Croce, in fact, the life of the Spirit also consists of autonomous moments that are not opposed, but rather distinct, that is:
Referring toGiambattista Vico, Croce identifiedphilosophy withhistory, understood not as a capricious sequence of events, but the implementation ofReason, in the light of which it becomes possible the historical understanding of the genesis of facts, and their simultaneous justification with her own unfolding.
La storia non è mai giustiziera, ma sempre giustificatrice; e giustiziera non potrebbe farsi se non facendosi ingiusta, ossia confondendo il pensiero con la vita, e assumendo come giudizio del pensiero le attrazioni e le repulsioni del sentimento.[12]
History never metes out justice, but alwaysjustifies; she could not carry out the former act without making herself unjust — that is to say, confounding thought with life, taking the attractions and repulsions of sentiment for the judgments of thought.[12]
Historian's task is therefore to overcome every form ofemotionality towards the studied matter, and to present it in form ofknowledge, without referring to good or evil.[9]Croce also affirmed thecontemporaneity of history, since any event or problem from thepast becomes present the moment it is studied and thought about.[13] In spirit thusphilosophy andhistory coincide, so that the latter is an ever-livingprogress towardfreedom: «Life and reality are history, and nothing but history».[14]
Among the other exponents of this idealistic era in Italy, there wasGuido De Ruggiero (1888–1948),[15] a student of Croce and Gentile, who saw inStateinstitutions the privileged place for the manifestation and development of the hegelianSpirit, in a continuous process towards a growingself-awareness and realization of theIdea. He derived from it an idealism of asocial liberal nature,[15] thanks to which the possession ofhistory helps one not to be possessed or conditioned by it.[16]
Other students of Gentile were divided between a "left-wing" orientation,[17] such asUgo Spirito (1896–1979) who defended actualistimmanentism to the point of adopting so-called "problematicism",[18] and a right-wing orientation, such asArmando Carlini (1878–1959),[17] and laterAugusto Del Noce (1910–1989), who advocated the need for openness to religioustranscendence.[19]Adolfo Omodeo (1889–1946) instead brought about a convergence between Croce's idealistichistoricism and Gentile'sactualism, uniting historical knowledge ofthought and creativeaction in the synthesis of the spirit.[16]
Finally, outside of academic idealism, the esotericistJulius Evola (1898–1974) aimed to transformphilosophical theory intopracticalrealization, something that for him could only occur in themagical-hermetic dimension, that is, in amagical idealism, the term he gave to his metaphysical system.[20]
After having characterized Italian philosophicalculture for over forty years, after theSecond World War the neo-idealism entered a crisis, replaced byexistentialism,neo-positivism,phenomenology, andmarxism,[9] of which the chief exponent,Antonio Gramsci, was partly indebted to the input of Italian idealism.[21]
