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What is Living and What is Dead in the Philosophy of Croce?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

H. S. Harris
Affiliation:
Glendon College, York University

Extract

When Croce published his celebrated essay on “What is living and what is dead in the philosophy of Hegel” in 1907, Hegel was already seventy-six years dead. In 1966 we reached the centennial of Croce's birth; but even now, in 1968, it is only sixteen years since death took the pen from the hand of the indefatigable “Don Benedetto.” Clearly therefore, it is still too early to draw up anything like a final balance sheet for the heritage that he has left us. But since the centennial was marked for us by the appearance of an English translation of the great anthology of essays on Philosophy, Poetry, History selected by the author himself at the very end of his life and often referred to in Italy as “Croce in one volume,” it is perhaps appropriate now to raise the question about the enduring heritage of Croce, if only to see more clearly how far, and in what ways, we are still not in a position either to appropriate it or to estimate it.

Type
Critical Notices/Etudes critiques
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1967

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References

2 The philosophic reader will certainly raise an eyebrow when he encounters “the universal concrete” (p. 49 etc.). I thought at first that this inversion was a deliberate attempt to express the new bias and emphasis of Croce's logical doctrine. But after I came upon “prime biblical” (193), “efficacity” (266), “imaginous” (298 etc.), “aestheticity” (303 etc.), “poeticity” (303 etc.), “lyricity” (363 etc.), “systematicity” (461 etc.), “logicity” (481 etc.), I gave up this hypothesis.

There are, as one would expect, a few plain slips, some of which should cause the editorial staff to blush: e.g. “sixteenth century” for settecento (518), “Lantini” for Landino (832) and “ninth book” for “ninth chapter” (of Aristotle's Poetics!) (884). On 851 a subheading, and on 729 a date ‘1915’ is omitted; the date ‘1937’ on 508 should probably be ‘1917’—but this is an error taken over from the Italian edition.

3 Originally published by Bowes and Bowes (Cambridge, 1952).

4 Giansiro Ferrata cited by Assunto, op. cit., p. 64.

5 “La critica letteraria,” op. cit., pp. 197–220 (See especially pp. 207 ff).

6 See Philosophy, Poetry, History, p. 221.

7 Neo-Idealistic Aesthetics, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1966, p. 10.Google Scholar

8 “Punti acquisiti e punti problematici dell'etica crociana” in Interpretazioni crociane, p. 141. (I cite the translation in Philosophy, Poetry, History p. 583. The quotation is from History as the Story of Liberty Chapter XI).

9 In the section of Philosophy, Poetry, History headed “Economics and Ethics” there is very little that has not been translated before. In the section on “The Theory of History” there is rather more new material but it consists mainly of applications and illustrations rather than theoretical discussions.

10 History and Liberty, London, Allen and Unwin, 1955.Google Scholar

11 Naples, Morano, 1966.

12 “Croce e la metodologia storiografica, ”Interpretazioni crociane, pp. 171–195.

13 Compare Interpretazioni crociane, pp. 144–151, with Franchini La theoria della storia di Benedetto Croce, Chapter IV (especially pp. 64–66).

14 “Croce e la storia della filosofia” in Interpretazioni crociane pp. 153–169; compare Franchini, op. cit., Chapter X. The crucial text at issue is the essay on “The concept of the history of philosophy,” Philosophy, Poetry, History, pp. 121–137.