Benedetto Croce

Italian philosopher and historian

• Born: February 25, 1866
• Birthplace: Pescassèroli, L'Aquila, Italy
• Died: November 20, 1952
• Place of death: Naples, Italy

Croce was modern Italy’s premier philosopher. His extensive writing on philosophy, history, aesthetics, and literary criticism represents a major contribution to European culture. For his reserved but firm opposition to Benito Mussolini’s regime, Croce became recognized worldwide as an antifascist symbol and as the intellectual guardian of Italy’s democratic political heritage.

Early Life

Benedetto Croce (bay-nay-DAYT-toh KROH-chay) was born in the southern Italian region of Abruzzi. His family’s substantial property wealth afforded him a comfortable childhood in Naples. After his parents died in an earthquake in 1883, Croce moved to Rome to live with his uncle, Silvio Spaventa, a prominent intellectual and conservative politician. The Italy of Croce’s youth was a country struggling with all the problems attendant to a newly formed nation-state. The heroic era of the national unification movement, the Risorgimento, had ended in 1871. In the years that followed the Risorgimento period, Italian political life settled into the more uninspiring routine of parliamentary politics, budgetary battles, and electoral campaigns. Croce’s early exposure to politics came from the lively social and political gatherings at the Spaventa household. As a young man, he demonstrated little interest in politics, and his uncle’s conservative rhetoric only reinforced his apolitical disposition. Croce later recalled his time in Rome as “a bad dream . . . the darkest and most bitter years of my life.” His only consolation was in attending lectures on philosophy at the University of Rome.

Life’s Work

In 1886, Croce returned to Naples. His inheritance enabled him to devote his entire life to scholarship. Over several decades, he accumulated an impressive private library and made his residence in the Palazzo Filomarino, an important center of intellectual activity in Italy. Croce’s early research and writing dealt with local history and culture. He discovered in Naples a rich intellectual heritage that included the eighteenth century idealist philosopher Giambattista Vico and the Risorgimento literary critic Francesco De Sanctis. Like many of the scholars of his generation, Croce became intrigued with the economic theories of Karl Marx. After several years of intense study, he wrote a critique of Marxism, Materialismo storico ed economia marxista (Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx, 1914) in 1899 and published it in 1900. Croce followed his rejection of Marx’s “scientific” socialism with a broader criticism of the pervasive influence of science among European intellectuals.

During the late nineteenth century, European thought was dominated by positivism the belief that the methods of empirical science were the best means of arriving at a true understanding of all natural phenomena. Even human behavior became the valid subject of scientific inquiry through the pioneering work in psychology and sociology. Croce took the lead in the intellectual revolt against positivism. He had little regard for scientific methodology, especially when applied to the study of human activity. He sought to defend those expressions of human creativity especially art, poetry, and literature from “scientific” critiques. He also argued that history, like art, was subjective. He denied that history could be written or understood with the detached objectivity of a scientist. Croce’s assertion that “all history is contemporary history” refers to the manner in which the historian’s own time and place and personal biases are reflected in his or her understanding and writings about the past. Croce attempted a systematic approach to the fundamental problems of aesthestics, logic, practical philosophy, and history in his monumental four-volume Filosofia come scienza dello spirito , which was published between 1902 and 1917 and which was later translated into English volume by volume. In addition to the ideas of Vico and De Sanctis, he drew heavily on German philosophy most notably the thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He modified Hegel’s idealism by emphasizing the importance of the manifestation of the ideal in human creativity in a given time and place. Croce’s synthesis of Hegelian idealism and historical relativism gave new life to idealist philosophy. Croce reiterated and further developed his ideas in his journal of Italian culture, La Critica , which he cofounded with Giovanni Gentile in January, 1903. For more than forty years, Croce published this highly regarded journal and reviewed current developments in the cultural life of Italy.

The Italian government acknowledged Croce’s intellectual contribution in 1910 by appointing him Senator of the Realm a position for life. As a senator, he initially opposed Italian intervention on the side of England and France in World War I. He urged neutrality not only because of high regard for German culture but also because of a sincere belief that Italy had no valid reason for joining in the conflict. When the Italian parliament finally decided the issue, he voted for war and supported the war effort as his duty. At the same time, he tried to mitigate some of the anti-German hysteria, especially among Italian intellectuals.

Croce joined the government of Giovanni Giolitti as minister of public instruction following World War I. The government lasted only a year, until 1921, and Benito Mussolini seized power the following year. At first, Croce and many other conservative intellectuals welcomed the change in government, hoping that Mussolini might resolve the postwar political crisis and bring a new vitality to the nation. He later came under criticism for his early endorsement of fascism. During the first years of Mussolini’s regime, Croce slowly moved to the opposition. He became increasingly concerned with the government’s harsh suppression of political dissent and its attempts to restrict the nation’s intellectual and cultural life. In 1925, Croce published his Manifesto of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals in La Critica, in which he defended the principle of intellectual and cultural freedom. Croce’s manifesto was a landmark in the history of the antifascist resistance movement. In a movement dominated by socialist and communist factions, his became the conservative voice of opposition. Many Italians who had been reluctant to join with the opposition because of the radical elements were reassured by Croce’s dissent and rallied to the antifascist ranks. Although Croce established himself as a leading critic of the Fascist Party government, his opposition often appeared subtle and reserved. The esoteric character of his criticism and his international prestige protected him from government persecution while he continued to publish La Critica through the fascist period.

The fascist era in Italy marked the most productive years for Croce as a historian. The works that signaled a new direction in his studies included Storia d’Italia, 1871-1915 (1928; A History of Italy, 1871-1915 , 1929), Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono (1932; History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century , 1933), and La storia come pensiero e come azione (1938; History as the Story of Liberty , 1941). In these histories, Croce sought to refute the prevailing interpretation by radicals on both the right and left, who argued that Europe had entered into a period of profound social crisis at the end of the nineteenth century and that democratic governments were so laden with incompetence and corruption that only revolutionary changes could save Europe from total collapse. Croce instead highlighted the political progress and cultural achievements of late nineteenth century Europe. He admonished those who depreciated the mundane political life of post-unification Italy simply because it failed to match the excitement and heroics of the Risorgimento. He conceded that parliamentary democracy, particularly in Italy, had been severely flawed, but he emphasized that such imperfections were an unavoidable part of the natural development of liberal political institutions. Croce’s writings in the 1920’s and 1930’s challenged the fascist government’s negative assessment of post-unification Italy and held out the prospects for a restoration of democratic government and political freedom.

Croce had come to symbolize the antifascist resistance for many Italians during Mussolini’s dictatorship. As a consequence, following the fall of the fascist regime in 1943, he lent political prestige to the liberation government by serving as an adviser and helped reorganize the conservative party. Yet Croce never had a great love for politics. He was a scholar and preferred his library-study to the parliamentary chambers. He retired from political life shortly after the war and continued his studies until his death in 1952.

Significance

In modern Europe, no historian has dominated the intellectual life of his or her country as did Croce. He never received an academic degree (aside from honorary ones), nor did he hold a university position. Yet his scholarship by itself has become an intellectual tradition in Italy, and he influenced a generation of European scholars. He left behind several books and hundreds of essays dealing with an incredible range of subjects: aesthetics, economics, ethics, literary criticism, philosophy, history, and historiography. Croce’s thought represents a continuation of the humanist-idealist philosophical tradition in Western civilization an intellectual legacy that spans two thousand years, from the Greek philosopher Plato to modern times. Croce attempted to reconcile this tradition with the growing influence of more scientific and pragmatic philosophies, especially positivism, in the modern world.

At the turn of the century, Croce sought to counter the cynicism and pessimism among European intellectuals with a new optimism, a revitalized faith in the progress of humanity. Even after World War I, when Europe experienced severe political and economic crises and many countries including Italy fell under the control of authoritarian governments, Croce retained his hope for the future and reaffirmed the idea of history as the advance of human freedom.

Bibliography

Croce, Benedetto. An Autobiography. Translated by R. G. Collingwood. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. Croce’s autobiography, first published in 1927, gives a brief, personal account of his intellectual journey through the crosscurrents of European thought.

D’Amico, Jack, Dain A. Trafton, and Massimo Verdicchio, eds. The Legacy of Benedetto Croce: Contemporary Critical Views. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Scholars in several disciplines analyze Croce’s life and work, including his ideas on history, national politics, rhetoric, aesthetics, and art.

Hughes, H. Stuart. Consciousness and Society. 1958. New ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2002. A landmark study in European intellectual history, this work offers a perceptive analysis of Croce’s philosophy in the context of the revolt against positivism and the “crisis of consciousness” in early twentieth century Europe. This edition includes a new introduction.

Orsini, Gian N. G. Benedetto Croce: Philosopher of Art and Literary Critic. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961. The author provides a helpful commentary on Croce’s esoteric and often perplexing writings on aesthetics and literary criticism.

Rizi, Fabio Fernando. Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 2003. This biography of Croce focuses on his political life, with Rizi concluding that Croce played an active role in efforts to resist fascism.

Roberts, David D. Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. This critical reassessment is the best intellectual biography of Croce available in English. The author includes an impressive bibliography, covering major themes of modern European intellectual history.

Sprigge, Cecil. Benedetto Croce: Man and Thinker. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952. Sprigge’s admiring, though not uncritical, account of Croce’s life and thought is probably the best general biography of Croce available in English.