Benedetto
Croce
Benedetto Croce, (b. Feb.
25, 1866, Pescasseroli, Italy—d. Nov. 20, 1952, Naples),
historian, humanist, and foremost Italian philosopher of the
first half of the 20th century.
Early life.
Croce belonged to a family of landed proprietors with
estates in the Abruzzi region of central Italy but chiefly
resident in Naples. His background was religious,
monarchical, and conservative. Croce spent almost his whole
life in Naples, becoming intimately identified with and a
keen observer of its life and a biographer of its heroes.
His life, of which he left a too-modest record in his
autobiography, falls roughly into four phases; each develops
the dual theme of his intellectual and moral growth and his
gradual, ever-deepening identification with the moral
character and destiny of the Italian nation.
The first period of Croce’s
life (until about 1900) was the period of Croce’s agony.
Orphaned (with his brother, Alfonso) by the earthquake of
Casamicciola in 1883, his life became, in his words, a “bad
dream.” The stable world of childhood and youth was
shattered, leaving him forever marked. Henceforth, he was a
solitary figure, despite his considerable activity in the
world.
His salvation lay in work.
Disillusioned with the university, he set out upon an
austere course of study, to become one of the great
self-taught students of history. His writings of this period
are universally alert, intelligent, and engaging; although
limited in scope, they show a fine sobriety of style, as
well as wit, irony, and a fiery polemical spirit, although
lyricism, which he eulogized, eluded him. Ostensibly, he had
little taste for politics; actually, several basic attitudes
were forming. Disillusioned with the nationalistic liberal
leaders of the period following the Risorgimento (the
19th-century movement for Italian unity), he began to
develop his own convictions on how an ethical, democratic,
liberal government should be structured. He
“coquetted”—according to his autobiography—with socialism
and Marxism, eventually discarding these views after a
thorough examination and severe criticism of both positions.
Nevertheless, he was subject to a constant and profound
malaise. Subliminally, he desired but saw no public
relevance for his activity; the limited world of erudition
palled on him.
Founding of La Critica.
He was delivered from this malaise, and the second
period of his life was opened in 1903 by the founding of La
Critica, a journal of cultural criticism, in which, during
the course of the next 41 years, he published nearly all his
writings and reviewed all of the most important historical,
philosophical, and literary work that was being produced in
Europe at the time. At this same time he began the
systematic exposition of his “Philosophy of the Spirit,” his
chief intellectual achievement. This term designates two
distinct, but related, aspects of his thought: (1) In the
first aspect, philosophy of spirit designates the
construction of a philosophical system on the remote pattern
of the Rationalism of classical Romantic philosophy. Its
principle is the “circularity” of spirit within the
structure of the system and in historical time. The phases,
or moments, of spirit in this system are theoretical and
practical; they are distinguished, respectively, into
aesthetic, logical, and economic and ethical. The circular
dynamic moves between both the lesser and the greater
moments. The law of this circularity is that of absolute
immanence. This system is documented in the volumes Estetica
come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale (1902;
Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic),
Logica come scienza del concetto puro (1909; “Logic as the
Science of Pure Conception”; Eng. trans. Logic), Filosofia
della pratica: economia ed etica (1909; Philosophy of the
Practical: Economic and Ethic), and Teoria e storia della
storiografia (1917; History: Its Theory and Practice). (2)
Croce gradually abandoned, without explicitly renouncing,
this schematism in response primarily to methodological
considerations in history. Its moments are not dissolved but
are concretized into the flow of historical action and
thought. History becomes the unique mediational principle
for all the moments of spirit, while spirit—i.e., human
consciousness—is completely spontaneous, without a
predetermined structure. This change is signaled by the
publication of La storia come pensiero e come azione (1938;
“History as Thought and Action”; Eng. trans. History as the
Story of Liberty). To this period some have attached the
term historical positivism, but Croce himself has called it
absolute historicism and identified it as the definitive
form of his thought. The philosophy of spirit in its
asystematic form produced the effective method of Croce’s
later work, as in the anthology Filosofia, poesia, storia
(1951; Philosophy, Poetry, History).
According to Croce, “The
foundation of La Critica marked the beginning of a new
period in my life, the period of maturity or harmony between
myself and reality.” Through this journal he found the
larger public theatre he sought. “La Critica was the most
direct service I could render to Italian culture. . . . I
was engaged in politics in the broad sense . . . uniting the
role of a student and of a citizen.” Through La Critica
Croce’s public role as teacher of modern Italy emerged.
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the prime minister who
presided over the formation of a unified Italy, had said,
“Having made Italy, we must make Italians.” La Critica took
up this task.
The image of the Italian
which animates this work is severe and beautiful. Creative
effort, a passion for freedom united to a profound sense of
civic duty, a life-style purged of all rhetoric and
sentimental romanticism, unambiguous norms of public and
private truth, a sense of history united to an obligation to
the future, unceasing but constructive self-criticism: these
were its elements. This image strongly reflected the
personal ideal that Croce had gradually formed for himself.
But history was preparing to put this ideal to the test.
Struggle with fascism.
The test was to be fascism, the political attitude that
places the nation or race at the centre of life and history
and disregards the individual and his rights. So gradual was
this preparation that Croce himself did not at once perceive
it. He confessed that he first saw in fascism a movement to
the right of the political spectrum that might restrain and
counteract the leftist tendencies toward unrestricted
individual freedom released by World War I. But as the
character of the Benito Mussolini regime revealed itself,
his opposition hardened, becoming absolute, beyond
compromise. He became, within and without Italy, the symbol
of the opposition to fascism, the rallying point of the
lovers of liberty. In fascism Croce saw not merely another
form of political tyranny. He saw it as the emergence of
that other Italy, in which egoism displaced civic virtue,
rhetoric dislodged poetry and truth, and the pretentious
gesture replaced authentic action.
His consciousness of his
role as the moral teacher of Italy was strengthened.
Instruction now took the form of the composition of the
great histories—a history of Europe in the 19th century, of
Italy from 1871 to 1915, and of the Kingdom of Naples. Their
didactic character was unmistakable; in them Croce pointed
out how the historical path of Italy had become la via
smarrita (“the lost way”). Moreover, the lesson was intended
for Europe and for the entire Western world as well.
In the maelstrom of
conflict and ambiguity that followed Italy’s defeat in World
War II, a voice of moral authority that could speak for the
true Italy was demanded. Croce’s was unanimously recognized
as that voice. And with authority that voice recalled Italy
to the inner spiritual resources through which it might
renew itself. It matters little that Croce’s own project for
the rebuilding of Italy—the retention of the monarchy with
certain dynastic changes, the return to the principles of a
revived Liberal Party in government—was not the one realized
in history. More important is the fact that the new Italy,
in its democratic form, was inspired by his spirit.
This last public duty
fulfilled, Croce returned to his studies. In his own
library—one of the finest collections in Europe within its
own scope—he established the Italian Institute for
Historical Studies as a research centre. Asked his state of
health, he replied with true stoic equanimity, “I am dying
at my work.” He died at age 86.
A. Robert Caponigri
