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Benedetto Croce

Born 25 February 1866

Pescasseroli, Italy

Died 20 November 1952 (aged 86)

Naples, Italy

Era 20th-century

Region Western philosophy

School Hegelianism, Idealism, Liberalism,

Historism

Main interests History, aesthetics, politics

Notable ideas Art is expression

Benedetto Croce

Benedetto CroceFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benedetto Croce (Italian: [benedetto

krote]; 25 February 1866 20 November

1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, and

occasionally also politician. He wrote on

numerous topics, including philosophy,

history, methodology of history writing and

aesthetics. He was a prominent liberal,

although he opposed laissez-faire free trade,

and had considerable influence on other

prominent Italian intellectuals including both

marxist Antonio Gramsci and fascist Giovanni

Gentile.

Contents

1 Biography

1.1 Political involvement

1.2 Relations with Fascism

1.3 The new Republic

1.4 Philosophical works2 The Philosophy of Spirit

2.1 The Domains of Mind

3 History

4 Beauty

5 Contributions to liberal political

theory

6 Selected quotations

7 Selected bibliography

8 Further reading9 See also

10 References

11 External links

Biography

Croce was born in Pescasseroli in the Abruzzo region of Italy. He came from an influential and

wealthy family, and was raised in a very strict Catholic environment. Around the age of 16, heturned away from Catholicism and developed a personal view of spiritual life, in which religion

cannot be anything but an historical institution where the creative strength of mankind can be

expressed. He kept this position for the rest of his life.

Influenced by

Influenced

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In 1883, an earthquake hit the village of Casamicciola on the island of Ischia near Naples,

where he was on holiday with his family, destroying the home they lived in. His mother, father,

and only sister were all killed, while he was buried for a very long time and barely survived.

After the incident he inherited his family's fortune and much like Schopenhauer before him was

able to live the rest of his life in relative leisure, enabling him to devote a great deal of time to

philosophy as an independent intellectual writing from his palazzo in Naples. (Ryn, 2000:xi[1]).

There, he graduated in law at the University of Naples, while reading extensively in historical

materialism. His ideas were spread at the University of Rome towards the ends of the 1890s by

Professor Antonio Labriola. Croce was well acquainted with and sympathetic to the

developments in European socialist thought exemplified by Filippo Turati, Anna Kuliscioff,

Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky and Paul Lafargue.

Under the influence of Neapolitan born Gianbattista Vico's thoughts about art and history, he

turned to philosophy in 1893. Croce also purchased the house in which Vico had lived. His

friend, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile encouraged him to read Hegel. Croce's famous

commentary on Hegel, What is Living and What is Dead in the Philosophy of Hegel, appearedin 1907.

Political involvement

As his fame increased, Croce was persuaded, against his wishes, to go into politics. He was

appointed to the Italian Senate, a lifelong position, in 1910. (Ryn, 2000:xi[1]). He was an open

critic of Italy's participation in World War I, feeling that it was a suicidal trade war. Though this

made him initially unpopular, his reputation was restored after the war and he became a

well-loved public figure. He was Minister of Public Education between 1920 and 1921 in the

5th and last goverment headed by Giovanni Giolitti. Benito Mussolini took power just over a

year after Croce's exit from government; Mussolini's first Minister or Public Education was

Giovanni Gentile, an independent who later became a fascist and with whom Croce had earlier

cooperated in a philosophical polemic against positivism. Gentile remained minister for only a

year, but managed to launch a comprehensive reform of Italian education that was partly based

on Croce's earlier suggestions. Gentile's reform remained in force well beyond the Fascist

regime, and was only abolished in 1962.

Croce was instrumental in the move to Naples' Palazzo Reale of the Biblioteca NazionaleVittorio Emanuele III in 1923.

Relations with Fascism

Croce initially supported Mussolini's Fascist government that took power in 1922. [2] The

assassination by Fascists of Giacomo Matteotti in June 1924 shook Croce's support for

Mussolini. In May 1925 Croce was one of the signatories the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist

Intellectuals which had been written by Croce himself; however in June of the same year he

voted in the Senate in support of the Mussolini government. He later explained that he hadhoped that the support for Mussolini in parliament would weaken the more extreme Fascists

who he believed were responsible for Matteotti's murder.

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Croce was seriously threatened by Mussolini's regime, though the only act of physical violence

he suffered at the hands of the fascists was the ransacking of his home and library in Naples in

November 1926.[3] Although he managed to stay outside prison thanks to his reputation, he

remained under surveillance, and his academic work was kept in obscurity by the government,

to the extent that no mainstream newspaper or academic publication ever referred to him. Croce

later coined the term onagrocrazia (literally "government by asses") to emphasize the

anti-intellectual and boorish tendencies of parts of the Fascist regime.[4] However Croce'sdescription of Fascism as anti-intellectual ignored the fact that many Italian intellectuals at the

time actively supported Mussolini's regime, including Croce's former friend and colleague

Gentile. Croce also described Fascism as malattia morale (literally "moral illness"). When

Mussolini's government adopted antisemitic policies in 1938, Croce was the only non-Jewish

intellectual who refused to complete a government questionnaire designed to collect

information on the racial background of Italian intellectuals.

The new Republic

In 1944, when democracy was restored in Southern Italy, Croce, as an "icon of liberal

anti-fascism", became minister without portfolio in governments headed by Pietro Badoglio and

by Ivanoe Bonomi (Ryn, 2000:xixii[1]).[5] He left the government in July 1944 but remained

president of the Liberal Party until 1947 (Ryn, 2000:xii[1]).

Croce voted for the Monarchy in the Constitutional referendum of June 1946, after having

persuaded his Liberal party to adopt a neutral stance. He was elected to the Constituent

Assembly which existed in Italy between June 1946 and January 1948. He spoke in the

Assembly against the Peace treaty (signed in February 1947), which he regarded as humiliatingfor Italy. He declined to stand as provisional President of Italy.

Croce was an atheist.[6]

Philosophical works

His most interesting philosophical ideas are divided into three works:Aesthetic (1902),Logic

(1908), and Philosophy of the practical (1908), but his complete work is spread over 80 books

and 40 years worth of publications in his own bimonthly literary magazine,La Cri tica. (Ryn,2000:xi[1])

The Philosophy of Spirit

Heavily influenced by Hegel and other German Idealists such as Fichte, Croce produced what

was called, by him, the Philosophy of Spirit. His preferred designations were "Absolute

Idealism" or "Absolute Historicism". Croce's work can be seen as a second attempt (contra

Kant) to resolve the problems and conflicts between empiricism and rationalism (orsensationalism and transcendentalism, respectively). He calls his way immanentism, and

concentrates on the lived human experience, as it happens in specific places and times. Since

the root of reality is this immanent existence in concrete experience, Croce places aesthetics at

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the foundation of his philosophy.

The Domains of Mind

Croce's methodological approach to philosophy is expressed in his divisions of the spirit, or

mind. He divides mental activity first into the theoretical, and then the practical. The theoretical

division splits between aesthetic and logic. This theoretical aesthetic includes most importantly:intuitions and history. The logical includes concepts and relations. Practical spirit is concerned

with economics and ethics. Economics is here to be understood as an exhaustive term for all

utilitarian matters.

Each of these divisions have an underlying structure that colors, or dictates, the sort of thinking

that goes on within them. While Aesthetic is driven by beauty, Logic is subject to truth,

Economics is concerned with what is useful, and the moral, or Ethics, is bound to the good.

This schema is descriptive in that it attempts to elucidate the logic of human thought; however,

it is prescriptive as well, in that these ideas form the basis for epistemological claims and

confidence.

History

Croce also held great esteem for Vico, and shared his view that history should be written by

philosophers. Croce's On History sets forth the view of history as "philosophy in motion", that

there is no greater "cosmic design" or ultimate plan in history, and that the "science of history"

was a farce.

Beauty

Croce's workBreviario di estetica (The Essence of Aesthetic) appears in the form of four

lessons (quattro lezioni), as he was asked to write and deliver them at the inauguration of Rice

University in 1912. He declined the invitation to attend the event; however, he wrote the

lessons and submitted them for translation, so that they could be read in his absence.

In this brief, but dense, work, Croce sets forth his theory of art. He claimed that art is more

important than science or metaphysics, since only the former edifies us. He felt that all weknow can be reduced to logical and imaginative knowledge. Art springs from the latter, making

it at its heart, pure imagery. All thought is based in part on this, and it precedes all other

thought. The task of an artist is then to put forth the perfect image that they can produce for

their viewer, since this is what beauty fundamentally is the formation of inward, mental

images in their ideal state. Our intuition is the basis of forming these concepts within us.

This theory was later heavily debated by such contemporary Italian thinkers as Umberto Eco,

who locates the aesthetic within a semiotic construction.[7]

Contributions to liberal political theory

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Croce's liberalism differs from the theories advocated by most proponents of liberal political

thought, including those in Britain and in the United States of America: while Croce theorises

that the individual is the centre of society, he rejects social atomism, and while Croce accepts

limited government, he refuses that the government should have fixed legitimate powers.

Croce disagrees with John Locke in the nature of liberty, in the sense that he believes that

liberty is not a natural right but an earned right that arises out of continuing historical struggle

for its maintenance.

Croce defined civilization as the "continual vigilance" against barbarism, and liberty fit into his

ideal for civilization as it allows one to experience the full potential of life.

Croce also rejects egalitarianism as absurd. In short, his variety of liberalism is aristocratic, as he

views society being led by the few who can create the goodness of truth, civilization, and

beauty, with the great mass of citizens simply benefiting from them but unable to fully

comprehend their creations (Ryn, 2000:xii[1]).

Selected quotations

"All history is contemporary history."[8]

"As an historian, [I] realize how arbitrary, fantastic and inconclusive are theories of

race."[9]

Selected bibliography

Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica (1900).# English edition:Historical

Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004. See also:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/croce/

L'Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale (1902), commonly

referred to asAesthetic in English.

Logica come scienza del concetto puro (1909)

Breviario di estetica (1912)

Saggio sul Hegel (1907), (1912)# English edition: What is Living and What is Dead inthe Philosophy of Hegel, transl. by Douglas Ainslie. London: Macmillan, 1915. See also:

Croce at the Marxists Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/croce/) .

Teoria e storia della storiografia (1916). English edition: Theory and history of

Historiography, translation by Douglas Ainslie, Editor: George G. Harrap. London

(1921).

Racconto degli racconti (first translation into Italian from Neapolitan of Giambattista

Basile's Pentamerone,Lo cunto de li cunti, 1925)

"Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals" (1 May 1925 inLa Critica)

Ultimi saggi (1935)La poesia (1936)

La storia come pensiero e come azione (meaningHistory as thought and as action[1])

(1938), translated in English by Sylvia Sprigge asHistory as the story of liberty in 1941

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in London by George Allen & Unwin and in USA by W.W. Norton. The most recent

edited translation based on that of Sprigge is Liberty Fund Inc. in 2000. The 1941 English

translation is accessible online through Questia.

Il carattere della filosofia moderna (1941)

Filosofia e storiografia (1949)

Further reading

Parente, Alfredo.Il pensiero politico di Benedetto Croce e i l nuovo liberalismo (1944).

Myra E. Moss,Benedetto Croce reconsidered: Truth and Error in Theories of Art,

Literature, and History ,(1987). Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1987.

Ernesto Paolozzi, Science and Philosophy in Benedetto Croce, in "Rivista di Studi

Italiani", University of Toronto, 2002.

Janos Keleman,A Paradoxical Truth. Croce's Thesis of Contemporary History, in

"Rivista di Studi Italiani, University of Toronto, 2002.

Giuseppe Gembillo, Croce and the Theorists of Complexity, in "Rivista di Studi Italiani,University of Toronto, 2002.

Fabio Fernando Rizi,Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism, University of Toronto Press,

2003. ISBN 978-0-8020-3762-6.

Ernesto Paolozzi,Benedetto Croce, Cassitto, Naples, 1998 (translated by M. Verdicchio

(2008) www.ernestopaolozzi.it)

Carlo Schirru, Per unanalisi interlinguistica depoca: Grazia Deledda e contemporanei,

Rivista Italiana di Linguistica e di Dialettologia, Fabrizio Serra editore, PisaRoma, Anno

XI, 2009, pp. 932

Matteo Veronesi,Il critico come artista dall'estetismo agli ermetici. D'Annunzio,

Croce, Serra, Luzi e altri , Bologna, Azeta Fastpress, 2006, ISBN 88-89982-05-5

Roberts, David D.Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism. Berkeley: U of

California Press, (1987).

Claes G. Ryn, Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality

(1997; 1986).

R. G. Collingwood, "Croce's Philosophy of History" in The Hibbert Journal, XIX:

263278 (1921), collected in Collingwood,Essays in the Phi losophy of History, ed.

William Debbins (University of Texas 1965) at 322.

Roberts, Jeremy,Beni to Mussolini, Twenty-First Century Books, 2005. ISBN

978-0-8225-2648-3.

See also

Liberalism

Contributions to liberal theory

References

^a

b

c

d

efg

History as the story of liberty:

English translation of Croce's 1938 collection

1.

of essays originally in Italian; translation

published by Liberty Fun Inc. in the USA in

2000 with a foreword by Claes G. Ryn. ISBN

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0-86597-268-0 (hardback). See Croce 1938.

^ Denis Mack Smith, "Benedetto Croce:

History and Politics",Journal of

Contemporary History Vol 8(1) Jan 1973 pg

47.

2.

^ See the detailed description in a letter by

Fausto Nicolini to Giovanni Gentile published

in Sasso, Gennaro (1989). Per invigilare me

stesso. Bologna: Il mulino. pp. 13940.

3.

^ It is a disdainful term for misgovernment, a

late and satirical addition to Aristotle's famous

three: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.

4.

^ For about a month in the the so-called

Second Badoglio government and again for a

month in the Second Bonomi government.

5.

^ Gramsci, Antonio,Il materialismo storico e

la filosofia di Benedetto Croce, Einaudi,

1966, p. 310.

6.

^ Umberto Eco, "A Theory of Semiotics"

(Indiana University Press. 1976)

7.

^ Allan, George (1972). "Croce and

Whitehead On Concrescence"

(http://www.religion-online.org

/showarticle.asp?title=2328) . Process Studies

2 (2): 95111. http://www.religion-online.org

/showarticle.asp?title=2328. Allan lists the

sources Croce,History as the Story of

Liberty, London: George Allen & Unwin,

1941 (see Croce 1938) and Croce,History: Its

Theory and Practice, New York: Russell &

Russell, 1960.

8.

^ Template:Quoted in Salomone, William A.,

''Italy from Risorgimento to Fascism: an

Inquiry into the Origins of the Totalitarian

State

9.

External links

Fondazione Biblioteca Benedetto Croce (http://www.fondazionebenedettocroce.it/)

Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, founded by Benedetto Croce (http://www.iiss.it/)

Online English translations of books by Croce (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Croce%2c%20Benedetto%2c%201866%2d1952)

Works by Benedetto Croce (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Benedetto+Croce) at Project

Gutenberg

Croce's Aesthetics (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/croce-aesthetics/)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benedetto_Croce&

oldid=531480264"

Categories: 1866 births 1952 deaths People from the Province of L'Aquila

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