Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile (IPA:) (May 30, 1875 - April 15, 1944) was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as a 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism (1932) for Benito Mussolini. He also founded the Actual Idealism movement.

Life and thought

Gentile was born in Castelvetrano, Sicily. Gentile was inspired by such Italian thinkers as Mazzini, Rosmini, Gioberti and Spaventa from whom he borrowed the idea of autoctisi or self-construction, but was just as strongly influenced by the German idealist and materialist schools of thought. Namely Karl Marx, Hegel, and Fichte with whom he shared the ideal of creating a Wissenschaftslehre, or theory for a structure of knowledge which makes no assumptions. Nietzsche too, played an influence on Gentile, as can be seen in an analogy between Nietzsche's Übermensch and Gentile's Uomo Fascista.

He held the University professor of philosophy chair at Palermo from 1907 to 1914, and was later Mussolini's minister of Public Education at Pisa University. Following the formulation of his ideas in importants works soon after such as The Theory of Mind as Pure Act (1916) & Logic as Theory of Knowledge (1917), Gentile devised what he called Actual Idealism, a unified metaphysical system reinforcing his sentiments that philosophy when isolated from life, and alternately, life when isolated from philosophy are two modes of the same backwards cultural bankruptcy. It was a theory that for him could finally realise how philosophy could directly influence, mould, and penetrate into life to govern it.

His system did this in how the theory took thought to the all-embracing, to whence he claimed none could actually leave their sphere of thinking or exceed their thought itself. Reality to Gentile then could not be thinkable except in relation to the activity by means where it becomes thinkable. Gentile posited this as a unity held within the active subject along with the multitude of abstract separate phenomena of all that was. Wherein each phenomena when truly realized was in fact then centered in this unity and it was therefore innately spiritual, transcendent & immanent to all other possible things that were in contact with it. This created for Gentile a framework to begin an entire systematizing of all otherwise seemingly disparate items of interest to this rule of absolute self-identification, and would make all consequences that arise from that hypothesis the correct ones. Resulting in what may be interpreted for an idealist foundation of Legal Naturalism.

Gentile, described both by himself and Mussolini as 'the philosopher of Fascism', ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. It first appeared in 1932 in the Italian Encyclopedia (which was edited by Gentile). In it he described the traits characteristic of Italian Fascism at the time: compulsory state corporatism, führerprinzip, abolition of the parliamentary system, and autarky. He also wrote the Manifesto of the Italian Fascist Intellectuals which was signed by many thinkers and writers such as Pirandello. Gentile was minister of education and later a member of the Fascist Grand Council during the Fascist regime. He stayed loyal to Mussolini after the establishment of the Republic of Salò and accepted an appointment from the government. In 1944 he was killed by a group of anti-fascist partisans while returning from the Prefecture in Florence, ironically, where he was arguing for the release of anti-fascist thinkers.

Gentile had believed so firmly in the philosophical concreteness of Fascism as having a dialectical intelligence surpassing intellectual scrutiny, that he presumed intellectual opposition could only reinforce and give credence to help the truth of his conception of Fascism as a superior and liberally thinking polity.

Phases of his thought

There are a number of developments within his thought and career which defined his philosophy. The discovery of Actual Idealism in his work Theory of the Pure Act (1903) The political favour he felt for the invasion of Libya (1911) and the entry of Italy into World War I (1915) The dispute with Benedetto Croce over the historic inevitability of Fascism. His role as education minister (1923) His belief that Fascism could be made to be subserviant to his thought and the gathering of influence through the work of such students as Ugo Spirito.

Philosophy

Gentile's philosophical basis for fascism was rooted in his understanding of ontology and epistemology, in which he found vindication for the rejection of individualism, acceptance of collectivism, with the state as the ultimate location of authority and loyalty to which the individual found in the conception of individuality no meaning outside of the state (which in turn justified totalitarianism).

Ultimately, Gentile foresaw a social order wherein opposites of all kinds weren't to be given sanction as existing independently from each other; that 'publicness' and 'privateness' as broad interpretations were currently false as imposed by all former kinds of Government; capitalism, communism, and that only the reciprocal totalitarian state of Corporative Syndicalism, a Fascist state, could defeat these problems made from reifing as an external that which is in fact to Gentile only a thinking reality. Whereas it was common in the philosophy of the time to see conditional subject as abstract and object as concrete, Gentile postulated the opposite, that subject was the concrete and objectification was abstraction (or rather; that what was conventionally dubbed "subject" was in fact only conditional object, and that true subject was the 'act of' being or essence above any object).

Gentile was a notable philosophical theorist of his time throughout Europe, since having developed his 'Actual Idealism' system of Idealism, sometimes called 'Actualism.' It was especially in which his ideas put subject to the position of a transcending truth above positivism that garnered attention; by way that all senses about the world only take the form of ideas within one's mind in any real sense; to Gentile even the analogy between the function & location of the physical brain with the functions of the physical body were a consistent creation of the mind (and not brain; which was a creation of the mind and not the other way around). An example of Actual Idealism in Theology is the idea that although man may have invented the concept of God, it does not make God any less real in any sense possible as far as it is not presupposed to exist as abstraction and except in case qualities about what existence actually entails (i.e. being invented apart from the thinking making it) are presupposed.

Therefore Gentile proposed a form of what he called 'absolute Immanentism' in which the divine was the present conception of reality in the totality of one's individual thinking as an evolving, growing and dynamic process. Many times accused of Solipsism, Gentile maintained his philosophy to be a Humanism that sensed the possibility of nothing beyond what was contingent; the self's human thinking, in order to communicate as immanence is to be human like oneself, made a cohesive empathy of the self-same, without an external division, and therefore not modelled as objects to one's own thinking.

Gentile maintained the need for an intelligent opposition to the intellectualizing of systems into being, divorced from practice, which he would classify 'abstract' and for that reason unwieldy if not unworkable. Though this stand is cited by his terminology as "anti-intellectualism" he attributes to it still the factor of intelligence. Meaning 'intelligence' is as it penetrates, and not as it is object, i.e. not as it is when in the "intellectual" tense of the word. In the common meaning of this term outside of Gentiles highly analytic interpretation of it to his philosophy, Gentiles philosophy in fact contains all of the criteria in regard to comporting a favorable position toward having "intellectual" pursuits.

Gentile took the stand against psychology and psycho-analysis that one cannot abstract (i.e. make object out of) the source that creates its own surrounding reality, as one does by his own philosophy, and that any empirical observations of behavioral anthropology appear true because empiricalism always adheres to its own laws, being a closed system it is true within its own considered vacuum. Rather than look to the external for the source of ones mentality, Gentile held that any colourations on what the external first manifests as are initially created within the self, and therefore the external is a product of ones psychology and not the other way around.

Gentile's theory may be considered an extreme form of Occam's Razor, though it can appear to common sense to defy Occam's Razor outright by the complex thinking involved to relate with his theory. Gentile however deduced that common sense in considering material reality was to him unphilosophical because it was not self-critical of its sensory presuppositions. To Gentile, making a thought category of his theory itself defied it by turning it into object, as any such idea of the philosophy that was not kept in subject or truly 'actual' could not be Actual Idealism.

One of his most important works is Genesi e Struttura della Società in which he argues that the individual is an abstraction originating from analysis of society. One of the consequences he draws is that the state and the individual are one and the same and that their division is an example of formal abstraction. The work was written after Mussolini had been deposed by the Fascist Grand Council but before the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on September 8th 1943 and the Republic of Salò on September 14th 1943.

Complete writings of Giovanni Gentile as published by Le Lettere

Opere sistematiche

I-II. Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica. (Vol. I: Pedagogia generale; vol. II: Didattica). III. Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro. IV. I fondamenti della filosofia del diritto. V-VI. Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (voll. 2). VII. La riforma dell'educazione. VIII. La filosofia dell'arte. IX. Genesi e struttura della società.

Opere storiche

X. Storia della filosofia. Dalle origini a Platone. XI. Storia della filosofia italiana (fino a Lorenzo Valla). XII. I problemi della Scolastica e il pensiero italiano. XIII. Studi su Dante. XIV Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento. XV. Studi sul Rinascimento. XVI. Studi vichiani. XVII. L'eredità di Vittorio Alfieri. XVIII-XIX. Storia della filosofia italiana dal Genovesi al Galluppi (voll. 2). XX-XXI. Albori della nuova Italia (voll. 2). XXII. Vincenzo Cuoco. Studi e appunti. XXIII. Gino Capponi e la cultura toscana nel secolo decimonono. XXIV. Manzoni e Leopardi. XXV. Rosmini e Gioberti. XXVI. I profeti del Risorgimento italiano. XXVII. La riforma della dialettica hegeliana. XXVIII. La filosofia di Marx. XXIX. Bertrando Spaventa. XXX. Il tramonto della cultura siciliana. XXXI-XXXIV. Le origini della filosofia contemporanea in Italia. (Vol. I: I platonici; vol. II: I positivisti; voll. III e IV: I neokantiani e gli hegeliani). XXXV. Il modernismo e i rapporti fra religione e filosofia.

Opere varie

XXXVI. Introduzione alla filosofia. XXXVII. Discorsi di religione. XXXVIII. Difesa della filosofia. XXXIX. Educazione e scuola laica. XL. La nuova scuola media. XLI. La riforma della scuola in Italia. XLII. Preliminari allo studio del fanciullo. XLIII. Guerra e fede. XLIV. Dopo la vittoria. XLV-XLVI. Politica e cultura (voll. 2).

Fragments

XLVII-XLVIII. Frammenti di estetica e di teoria della storia (voll. 2). XLIX-L. Frammenti di critica e storia letteraria. LI-LII. Frammenti di filosofia. LIII-LV. Frammenti di storia della filosofia.

Letter collections

I-II. Carteggio Gentile-Jaja (voll. 2) III-VII. Lettere a Benedetto Croce (voll. 5) VIII. Carteggio Gentile-D'Ancona IX. Carteggio Gentile-Omodeo X. Carteggio Gentile-Maturi XI. Carteggio Gentile-Pintor XII. Carteggio Gentile-Chiavacci XIII. Carteggio Gentile-Calogero XIV. Carteggio Gentile-Donati

Rare and unpublished

1. Eraclito. Vita e frammenti. 2. La filosofia della storia. Saggi e inediti.

The Writings of Giovanni Gentile (to 1935)

Delle Commedie di Antonfranceso Grazzi, detto "Il Lasca" (1896)
Una critica del materialismo storico (1897)
Rosmini e Gioberti (1898)
La filosofia di Marx (1899)
Il concetto della storia (1899)
L'insegnamento della filosofia nei licei (1900)
Il concetto scientifico della pedagogia (1900)
Della vita e degli scritti di B. Spaventa (1900)
Polemica hegeliana (1902)
L'unita della scuola secondaria e la libertà degli studi (1902)
Filosofia ed empiricismo (1902)
La rinascità dell'idealismo (1903)
Dal Genovesi al Galluppi (1903)
Studi sullo Stoicismo romano del I sec. d. C. (1904)
Riforme liceali (1905)
Il figlio di G. B. Vico (1905)
La riforma della scuola media (1906)
Le varie redazioni del De sensu rerum di T. Campanella (1906)
Giordano Bruno nella storia della cultura (1907)
Il primo processo d'eresia di T. Campanella (1907)
Per la scuola primeria allo stato (1907)
Vincenzo Gioberti nel primo centenario dell sua nascità (1907)
Il concetto della storia della filosofia (1908)
Vincenzo Cuoco pedagoista (1908)
Scuola e filosofia (1908)
Ilmodernismo e i rapporti fra religione e filosofia (1909)
Un poeta del pensiero. Cultura (1911)
Bernardino Telesio (1911)
L'atto del pensare come atto puro (1912)
Il programma della Biblioteca Filosofica di Palermo (1912)
Intorno all'idealismo attuale: ricordi e confessioni (1913)
I problemi della scolastica e il pensiero italiano (1913)
La riforma della dialettica hegeliana (1913)
Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica (1913)
Il torto e il diritto del positivismo (1914)
La filosofia della guerra (1914)
Pascuale Galluppi giacobino? (1914)
Documenti pisani della vita e delle idee di V. Gioberti (1915)
Donato Jaja (1915)
Biblografia delle lettere a stampa di V. Gioberti (1915)
Studi vichiani (1915)
L'esperienza pura e la realtà storica (1915)
Per la riforma deglie insegamenti filosofici (1916)
Il concetto dell'uomo nel rinascimento (1916)
I fondamenti della filosofia del diritto (1916)
Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (1916)
Le origini della filosofia contemporanea in Italia (1917)
Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (1917)
Il carattere storico della filosofia italiana (1918)
Esiste una scuola italiana? (1918)
Il Marxismo di Benedetto Croce (1918)
Il tramonto della cultura Siciliana (1919)
Mazzini (1919)
Il realismo politico di V. Gioberti (1919)
Guerra e fede (1919)
Dopo la vittoria (1920)
Il problema scolastico del dopoguerra (1920)
La riforma dell'educazione (1920)
Discorsi di religione (1920)
Giordano Bruno e il pensiero del rinascimento (1920)
Arte e religione (1920)
Bertrando Spaventa (1920)
Difesa della filosofia (1920)
Storia della cultura piedmontese della 2a meta del sec. XIX (1921)
Frammenti di estetica e letteratura (1921)
Albori della nuova Italia (1921)
Educazione e scuola laica (1921)
Saggi critici (1921)
La filosofia di Dante (1921)
Il concetto moderno della scienza e il problema universitario (1921)
G. Capponi e la cultura toscana nel secolo decimonono (1922)
Studi sul rinascimento (1923)
Dante e Manzoni, con un saggio su Arte e religione (1923)
I profeti del Risorgimento Italiano (1923)
Intorno alla logica del concreto (1924)
Preliminari allo studio del fanciullo (1924)
La riforma della scuola (1924)
Il fascismo e la Sicilia (1924)
Il fascismo al governo della scuola (1924)
Che cosa è fascismo (1925)
La nuova scuola media (1925)
Avvertimenti attualisti (1926)
Frammenti di storia della filosofia (1926)
Saggi critici (1926)
L'eredità di Vittorio Alfieri (1926)
Cultura fascista (1926)
Il problema religioso in Italia (1927)
Il pensiero italiano del secolo XIX (1928)
Fascismo e cultura (1928)
La filosofia del fascismo (1928)
La legge del Gran Consiglio (1928)
Manzoni e Leopardi (1929)
Origini e dottrina del fascismo (1929)
La filosofia dell'arte (1931)
La riforma della scuola in Italia (1932)
Introduzione alla filosofia (1933)
La donna e il fanciullo (1934)
Origini e dottrina del fascismo (1934)
Economia ed etica (1934)
Leonardo da Vinci (Gentile one of contributors, 1935)

Works about Giovanni Gentile in English

Mussolini's Fascist Philosopher, Giovanni Gentile Reconsidered (M. E. Moss, Lang, 2004). ISBN 082046838X
A. James Gregor, Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher of Fascism (Transaction Publishers, 2001). ISBN 0765800721
A. James Gregor, Origins and Doctrine of Fascism: With Selections from Other Works by Giovanni Gentile (Transaction Publishers, 2004). ISBN 0765805774

Works about Giovanni Gentile in Italian

Giovanni Gentile (Augusto del Noce, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990)
Giovanni Gentile filosofo europeo (Salvatore Natoli, Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1989)
Giovanni Gentile (Antimo Negri, Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975)

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