# 061 - Modern Philosophy Chapter 70 Italian Philosophy

An episode of [History of Philosophy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877164155), 10 Mar 2026, 11 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69897682/061_modern_philosophy_chapter_70_italian_philosophy.mp3

Dive into the captivating journey of philosophical thought through the ages with History of Philosophy. This podcast unravels the rich tapestry of philosophical opinions, systems, and schools of thought, exploring the lives of influential philosophers and the intricate connections between different schools of philosophy. Discover the origins of Ancient Philosophy across cultures like Babylon, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the profound insights of the Christian Era, featuring thinkers such as St. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham. Journey into Modern Philosophy with giants like Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, all guided by the insightful narration of Beth Thomas. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Chapter seventy of History of Philosophy. This is a LibriVox recording.
[0:05] Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
[0:09] Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. History
[0:15] Speaker 1: of Philosophy by William Turner, Chapter seventy. Italian Philosophy. The
[0:23] Speaker 1: founder of modern Italian philosophy is Giovanni Battista Vico sixteen
[0:28] Speaker 1: sixty eight to seventeen forty four, who, at the beginning
[0:31] Speaker 1: of the eighteenth century opposed the Cartesian method in philosophy
[0:35] Speaker 1: and anticipated the historical method subsequently developed by Herder and Hegel.
[0:40] Speaker 1: The mind, Vico teaches, can only know that which it
[0:43] Speaker 1: can produce through its own activity. This activity is manifested
[0:48] Speaker 1: in the historical development of civilization, the basis of which
[0:51] Speaker 1: is divine providence. Human experience is therefore to be interpreted
[0:57] Speaker 1: and rendered reasonable by referring it to the princes by
[1:00] Speaker 1: which human nature has developed itself. In this development, Vico
[1:05] Speaker 1: distinguishes three stages, the divine theocracy, the heroic aristocracy, and
[1:12] Speaker 1: the human monarchy and democracy. In the movement of philosophic
[1:18] Speaker 1: thought in Italy during the nineteenth century, we may distinguish
[1:22] Speaker 1: one sensism and empiricism, of which the chief representatives are
[1:27] Speaker 1: Joia seventeen sixty seven to eighteen twenty nine and Romagnosi
[1:32] Speaker 1: seventeen sixty one to eighteen thirty five. These represent the
[1:36] Speaker 1: Italian phase of the sensistic philosophy of condiloc which, as
[1:41] Speaker 1: we have seen, was dominant in France at the beginning
[1:44] Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century. Two criticism, of which the chief
[1:50] Speaker 1: exponent iss Pasquali Geloupi seventeen seventy to eighteen forty six, who,
[1:55] Speaker 1: while he assumes the immediate consciousness of the ego and
[1:59] Speaker 1: the objectivity of sensation, reduces the intellectual element of thought
[2:04] Speaker 1: to the synthetic relations raporti of identity and difference, which
[2:09] Speaker 1: are a priori products of the activity of the mind.
[2:12] Speaker 1: In this as well as in his emphatic assertion of
[2:15] Speaker 1: the supremacy of moral obligation, Galupi betrays the influence of
[2:19] Speaker 1: Kant Three Idealism. The principal representative of idealism in Italy
[2:27] Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century is Antonio Rosmini Rosmini life Antonio
[2:35] Speaker 1: Rosmini Settabatti seventeen ninety seven to eighteen fifty five, the
[2:39] Speaker 1: founder of Italian idealism. Was born at Rovereto, near Trent.
[2:44] Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty one he entered the priesthood, and in
[2:47] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight founded the Institute of Charity, a religious
[2:51] Speaker 1: society devoted to corporal, intellectual and spiritual works of charity.
[2:56] Speaker 1: In eighteen forty eight he went to Rome a special
[2:59] Speaker 1: envos of King Charles Albert. In the same year he
[3:03] Speaker 1: became Minister of Instruction in the papal Cabinet and was
[3:06] Speaker 1: considered a candidate for the honors of the Cardinalate. After
[3:10] Speaker 1: the murder of Rossi November eighteen forty eight and the
[3:13] Speaker 1: flight of Pious the Ninth to Gaieta, changes in the
[3:17] Speaker 1: policy of the Pontifical court necessitated Rosmini's retirement. The last
[3:22] Speaker 1: years of his life he spent at Stresa, near Lago Maggiore,
[3:26] Speaker 1: where he had established a house of his order. There
[3:29] Speaker 1: he led a quiet, studious life, edifying his brethren by
[3:33] Speaker 1: his many virtues, and especially by the humility with which
[3:37] Speaker 1: he received the condemnation of two of his works. He
[3:41] Speaker 1: died in eighteen fifty five. Sources the treatises in which
[3:47] Speaker 1: Rosmini sets forth his metaphysical and psychological doctrines are Theodicia
[3:54] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight, Nuovo Saggio Surigine de la Idea thirty
[4:01] Speaker 1: il Renovamenta de la Philosophia in Italia eighteen thirty six,
[4:06] Speaker 1: Anthropologia eighteen thirty eight, p Sicologia eighteen forty six, eighteen fifty,
[4:13] Speaker 1: Intro Duzione ala Philosophia eighteen fifty, Lalogica eighteen fifty three,
[4:20] Speaker 1: and theeo Sophia eighteen fifty nine. For a full bibliographical list, C. F.
[4:26] Speaker 1: Davidson Rosmini's Philosophical System, London, eighteen eighty two doctrines. Rosmini
[4:35] Speaker 1: distinguishes the matter and the form of thought, the matter
[4:38] Speaker 1: being sensation and the form being the pure intellectual element. Now,
[4:44] Speaker 1: the matter of thought is multiple and diverse. The form, however,
[4:48] Speaker 1: is one and self identical, namely, the intuition of being
[4:53] Speaker 1: in its transcendental ideality lessere idiale ente universale. This intuition
[5:01] Speaker 1: cannot result from experience, abstraction, or reflection. It is an
[5:05] Speaker 1: innate concept and is of divine origin. Nosmini does not,
[5:10] Speaker 1: it is true, expressly identify this idea of being with
[5:14] Speaker 1: the idea of God, for he teaches that lesere idyal,
[5:18] Speaker 1: though it is necessary, eternal, immutable, and identical for all minds,
[5:24] Speaker 1: is a principle of knowledge, not a principle of existence. Nevertheless,
[5:29] Speaker 1: Nosmini cannot consistently maintain a distinction between leesre idial and God,
[5:35] Speaker 1: because although he maintains that God is both real and ideal,
[5:39] Speaker 1: lesere reale ideal, he teaches that the reality of lesere
[5:44] Speaker 1: Iniziale is a reality of pure indetermination. Indeed, in the
[5:49] Speaker 1: Theeo Sophia, all attempts at discriminating between leisere Iniziale and
[5:54] Speaker 1: God are abandoned, and we are told that the former
[5:57] Speaker 1: is something of the Word, which the Father distinguishes from
[6:01] Speaker 1: the Word by a distinction which is merely logical distingue
[6:05] Speaker 1: non relmente masacondo la ragioni dl verbo. There is, therefore,
[6:11] Speaker 1: in Rosmini's teaching only too much foundation for the almost
[6:15] Speaker 1: unanimous verdict of his critics that he was an ontologist and,
[6:20] Speaker 1: by implication, a pantheist. In his account of the soul
[6:24] Speaker 1: and its faculties, Rosmini teaches that the soul is not
[6:28] Speaker 1: the substantial form of the body, but is united to
[6:31] Speaker 1: it by a fundamental sensibility sentimento fundamentale, that the essence
[6:37] Speaker 1: of the soul is sensibility sentimento primitivo es sostanziale, and
[6:43] Speaker 1: that the soul becomes intelligent by the intuition of being
[6:47] Speaker 1: in its ideality essere ilale ontologism. Vincenzo Joberti eighteen o
[6:56] Speaker 1: one eighteen fifty two, who was a priest, a revolutiontionary leader,
[7:00] Speaker 1: a statesman, and a controversialist il Jesuito Maderno. His first
[7:05] Speaker 1: known controversial work appeared in eighteen forty six, opposed the
[7:10] Speaker 1: philosophy of Rosmini and formulated a system of his own
[7:13] Speaker 1: which is characterized by ontologism. He begins as a metaphysician
[7:19] Speaker 1: rather than as a psychologist. He does not examine the
[7:22] Speaker 1: contents of the mind, nor does he subject mental processes
[7:26] Speaker 1: to analysis. He simply postulates a primitive intuition with which
[7:31] Speaker 1: constructive synthesis begins. The content of this intuition is not
[7:37] Speaker 1: being in its ideality, nor God, but God as creating ends,
[7:42] Speaker 1: creat as his stenius. Through the intuition of this principle,
[7:47] Speaker 1: the mind is in possession at once of the real
[7:50] Speaker 1: and the ideal. For the first member of the formula
[7:53] Speaker 1: being contains the object the absolute idea, as well as
[7:57] Speaker 1: the absolute substance and cause. The second existences gives the
[8:03] Speaker 1: organic multiplicity of contingent substances and causes and relative ideas.
[8:09] Speaker 1: The third, the creative act, expresses the relation existing between
[8:14] Speaker 1: the absolute and the relative, the production of real and
[8:18] Speaker 1: ideal existences from the absolute. The primum philosophicum is therefore
[8:24] Speaker 1: an organic truth, containing in itself the primum ontologicum and
[8:29] Speaker 1: the primum psychologicum. Gioberti's posthumous works, published by Massai eighteen
[8:35] Speaker 1: fifty six to eighteen fifty nine, exhibit a more advanced
[8:38] Speaker 1: form of ontologism than that which has just been sketched.
[8:42] Speaker 1: Among the later ontologists may be reckoned Terenzio Mammiani eighteen
[8:47] Speaker 1: hundred eighteen eighty five, who during the later half of
[8:50] Speaker 1: the century associated his name and influence with the rationalistic
[8:54] Speaker 1: movement represented by Feeddi eighteen twenty six to eighteen ninety five,
[8:59] Speaker 1: Ferrati eighteen twelve to eighteen seventy six and Alsonio Franchi c.
[9:04] Speaker 1: Bonavino eighteen twenty one to eighteen ninety five. Positivism. The
[9:11] Speaker 1: principles of positivism were defended by the three rationalistic writers
[9:15] Speaker 1: just mentioned, and taught systematically by Roberto Rdigo born eighteen
[9:21] Speaker 1: twenty eight, Andrea Ajuli eighteen thirty seven to eighteen ninety
[9:26] Speaker 1: and others Hegalianism. The most distinguished of the Italian representatives
[9:33] Speaker 1: of Hegalianism, Augosto Vera eighteen thirteen to eighteen eighty five,
[9:38] Speaker 1: was by education and long residence of Frenchmen rather than
[9:41] Speaker 1: in Italian. His works, some of which were composed in French,
[9:46] Speaker 1: others in Italian, and others in English, are devoted to
[9:49] Speaker 1: the interpretation and exposition of Hegel's philosophy Scholasticism. The history
[9:57] Speaker 1: of scholastic philosophy in Italy during the nine eighteenth century
[10:01] Speaker 1: will be given in the chapter devoted to the history
[10:03] Speaker 1: of Catholic philosophy historical position. The systems which have just
[10:09] Speaker 1: been outlined do not, with the exception of Rosmini's idealism,
[10:13] Speaker 1: exhibit any sustained effort at independent construction. The most distinctive
[10:19] Speaker 1: trade of modern Italian philosophy is its tendency to treat
[10:23] Speaker 1: religious and political philosophy in the controversial or polemical spirit,
[10:28] Speaker 1: rather than in the spirit of constructive synthesis, a tendency
[10:32] Speaker 1: easily traceable to the influence of the events which determine
[10:35] Speaker 1: the political history of Italy during the nineteenth century. End
[10:41] Speaker 1: of Chapter seventy

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