Political thought of Italian Idealism. Croce, Gentile and Fascism

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What is perhaps the most instructive and stimulating episode in the story of contemporary Italian philosophy is the polemic between Benedetto Croce (1866- 1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-1943). This debate is very instructive because therein is reflected in their volumes the main questions and answers of pre-fascism thought in Italy. It is highly stimulating because we can see enacted on the stage of reason the dramatic struggle of two great minds with the basic issues of human experience. The strife of systems, which characterizes the whole history of ideas, is foreshortened in their unique types of neo-Hegelian idealism to a grand climax.From 1896 forward, Gentile developed an intellectual friendship with Croce. As to philosophy, Croce was under Kant's influence, but this influence did not last for very long. Under Gentile's driving influence Croce tried to overcome the philosophy of Kant and to acquire his own system of the idealistic thought. On the contrary, younger Gentile accep … More ted the economical and intellectual aids. What intercourses and correspondences were there between them? It's a most interesting problem.But, in front of Fascism, they took the opposite positions, anti-Fascism and pro-Fascism. In troubled times, Gentile appeared a more militant and therefore relevant thinker than the detached and Olympian Croce. Gentile's philosophical defense of Fascism did not simply reflect his conservative and nationalistic ideas. Croce and Gentile had fairly similar prejudices and expectations. But Croce's views and their articulation in thought were open to revision in the light of evidence, and Gentile's were not, owing to the extreme abstraction from reality, which was sanctioned by his method. By insisting on the identity of thought and action, he excluded all criteria whereby political action could be criticized.The aim of this research, of course, is to settle the dispute between the two Italian great thinkers, but rather to exhibit it in all its poignancy. My work will have served its purpose and not have been written in vain if it reveals somewhat the quintessence of the life of reason itself, whose drama has been so superbly incarnated in the major Platonic dialogues. And as I suggested in my papers, Gentile is by far the best match for Croce. For in the arena of intellectual contention, the stronger the opponents, the better the fighting. Less