History of Italian Philosophy

This Introductory Essay presents a general survey of Benedetto Croce's life and work to the general reader. Croce, one of the twentieth century's Italian Idealist philosophers, is a notoriously difficult thinker to understand if he is not approached with some knowledge of the intellectual culture which preceded him and the problems that he was trying to solve. A brief biography of Croce's life is presented in this essay as well as an overview of his philosophical thought. His period of friendship with fellow philosopher - and some-time Fascist ideologue - Giovanni Gentile is also touched upon, though the main focus of this essay is the challenging work that it introduces, the 'Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept'. It is a work of Italian Idealism and is best understood in the light of Kantian thought to which it is in some ways a return. Immanuel Kant's own theories of Logic and Concepts are invested with new life by Croce and the 'Critique of Pure Reason' is essential reading for properly appreciating the philosophical background of the author. This essay is followed by a Select Bibliography of works by Croce (including translations into English) as well as reference to some useful books written about him. This essay is by no means for the specialist in Italian Philosophy - who will know most facts contained herein as a matter of course - but it will serve as a useful introduction to those who are not familiar with this highly neglected yet greatly influential strand of European Thought.

Il presente saggio affronta l’opera di Giulio Pietranera come interprete di Marx, concentrandosi sul nesso fra legge del valore e legge della caduta del saggio del profitto. L’esame di tale nesso consente, infatti, di cogliere l’intreccio di continuità e discontinuità che caratterizza lo sviluppo del pensiero pietraneriano nel periodo 1947-1963. L’autore mostra innanzitutto che il nesso di identità tra le due leggi marxiane è stato instaurato da Pietranera nella seconda metà degli anni Quaranta, attraverso la critica della teoria pura dell’interesse basata sulla nozione di preferenza temporale. L’autore sostiene inoltre che il medesimo nesso è stato approfondito e corroborato negli anni Cinquanta, attraverso un’analisi della dinamica capitalistica, con particolare riguardo al ruolo dell’innovazione nel mutamento di una configurazione produttiva. L’autore argomenta anche che, procedendo in tale "messa a punto storica", Pietranera ha seguito le linee metodologiche tracciate da Galvano Della Volpe nella sua Logica come scienza positiva. Infine, l’autore individua la specificità del "dellavolpismo" di
Pietranera nell’attitudine a distinguere la verificabilità storico-empirica dei concetti di Marx dalla loro validità esplicativa, nonché a considerare tali concetti secondo il loro differente livello, o grado, di generalità.

This essay deals with Giulio Pietranera’s interpretation of Marx, focusing on the linkage between labour theory of value and tendency of the profit rate to fall. In fact, the exam of this linkage allows us to grasp the twine between continuity and discontinuity which marks the development of Pietranera’s thought in the period 1947-1963. First of all, the author shows that the relation of identity between the two Marxian laws has been established by Pietranera in the second half of the 1940s, through the critique of the pure time preference theory of interest. Furthermore, the author maintains that the same relation has been enhanced and validated by the Italian economist in 1950s, through an analysis of the capitalist dynamics, with particular attention to the role of the "innovation" in the change of a productive pattern. The author also argues that, in this "historical fine-tuning", Pietranera has followed methodological lines traced by Galvano Della Volpe in his Logica come scienza positiva. Finally, the author identifies the peculiarity of Pietranera’s adhesion to Della Volpe’s Marxism in the attitude to distinguish the historical-empirical verifiability of Marx’s concepts from their explicative validity, as well as to consider these concepts ac cording to their different level, or degree, of generality.

█ Abstract. In the context of nineteenth-century philosophical reflection, Francesco Bonatelli (1830-1911) set himself the following goal: to defend the pillars of Spiritualism (the existence of a human subject with intellectual or supra-sensitive cognitive functions) and ontology (the notions of esse and substantia) through an careful examination of psychic contents and consciousness, while closely contesting both the psychology and the psychophysiology of Positivism (without rejecting its results in toto) and Spiritualism itself (with all its uncritical assumptions and unnecessary metaphysical speculations). In works such as Pensiero e conoscenza (1864), La coscienza e il meccanesimo interiore (1872), and Percezione e pensiero (1892-1895) Bonatelli puts forward his " critical experience-grounded philosophy " and proposes an original solution to the problem of the nature of the subject, (self-)consciousness and its unity, using an analysis of " sentiments " to reveal the inseparable tangle of the cognitive and ontological dimensions of the self.
█ Riassunto. Francesco Bonatelli: un approccio critico (a base sperimentale) alla coscienza e al soggetto umano tra spiritualismo e positivismo – Nel contesto della riflessione filosofica dell'Ottocento, Francesco Bonatelli (1830-1911) scelse come proprio ufficio la difesa dei capisaldi dello spiritualismo (l'esistenza di un sogget-to umano dotato di funzioni cognitive intellettive o sovra-sensitive) e dell'ontologia (le nozioni di esse e di substantia), mediante un attento esame dei contenuti psichici e della coscienza stessa, in un serrato con-fronto con la psicologia e psicofisiologia del positivismo (senza rifiutarne in blocco i risultati) e con lo spi-ritualismo stesso (con tutte le sue acritiche assunzioni e superfetazioni metafisiche). In opere come Pensie-ro e conoscenza (1864), La coscienza e il meccanesimo interiore (1872) e Percezione e pensiero (1892-1895), Bonatelli espose la propria " filosofia critica a base sperimentale " e propose una soluzione originale al pro-blema della natura del soggetto, della coscienza (come auto-coscienza) e della sua unità, mostrando come nell'analisi dei sentimenti si riveli l'inscindibile intreccio delle due dimensioni, cognitiva e ontologica, dell'io.

Filosofia italiana e filosofia russa. Incontro di studio su Giovanni Mastroianni.
17-18 ottobre 2019 c/o Sala Lauree ex Scienze della Formazione, Palazzo Nuovo, via Sant'Ottavio 20, Torino.
A cura di Università degli Studi di Torino, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell'Educazione, Consorzio di Dottorato FINO.

The essay examines the works devoted by the Italian historicist of
philosophy Rodolfo Mondolfo (1877-1976) to the experimental theory of
knowledge in the Renaissance, particularly Da Vinci’s and Galilei’s
method, between the 1940s and the 1960s. These works provide evidence
of a conflict between Mondolfo’s philosophical perspective – marked by
the refusal of realism and of the gap between human and divine
knowledge – and his historiographical interest for thinkers and
conceptions strictly related to these issues. The terms of the
contradiction can be clarified by the examination of theoretical
meanings and implications rooted in Mondolfo’s main historiographical
category, i.e. the equation between “knowledge” and “production”.