Bertrando Spaventa

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Bertrando Spaventa (born June 26, 1817 in Bomba , Chieti province , † February 20, 1883 in Naples ) was an Italian philosopher and historian of philosophy.

Life

Bertrando Spaventa was the older son of Eustachio Spaventa and his wife Maria Croce. The future politician Silvio Spaventa was his younger brother. After attending school in his hometown, Spaventa was able to attend the Jesuit college in Chieti with his brother - supported by a scholarship from a relative . After successfully completing his studies, the Societas Jesu sent him as a lecturer at the seminary in Montecassino . Spaventa was ordained a priest there.

From 1840 Spaventa worked as a teacher in Naples and also completed his studies. Especially by Antonio Tari and Ottavio Colecchi , Spaventa was influenced to deal with the theories of the German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Immanuel Kant .

In 1846 Spaventa founded his own school, a small group of interested students who, in addition to philosophical and current political issues, sometimes discussed very controversial issues. In the following year, this school was "suspected of sedition" and was closed by the authorities.

In the same year Spaventa accepted a position as tutor to General Francesco Pignatelli , Prince of Strongoli. When he went into exile in Florence in 1849 for political reasons , Spaventa accompanied him.

In 1850 there was a radical break in Bertrando Spaventa's life. He left his order, quit his job as a tutor and settled in Turin as a journalist . In his first publications there, Spaventa mostly addressed the philosophical and political attitudes of the Jesuit order. Under the premise that religion was only one step in the fundamental further development of the spirit, Spaventa inevitably had to reject the Pope's claim to authority.

In 1859 Spaventa accepted a position as professor for philosophy at the University of Modena , where he taught legal philosophy . In the autumn of 1860 he was brought to the University of Bologna where he found his main focus in legal philosophy. In addition to a few smaller writings, he was able to establish himself as a philosopher in the same year with his work "La filosofia di Kant e la sua relazione colla filosofia italiana". In Augusto Vera he found a committed colleague. In this work he tried to prove that Antonio Rosmini, despite his polemics against Kant, essentially agreed with the German philosopher.

In 1861 Spaventa was brought to the University of Naples as a professor of philosophy , where he became an important representative of German idealism through his teaching activities and, of course, his publications . His main work "La filosofia di Gioberti" dealt very critically with the theories of Vincenzo Gioberti and his epistemology was largely based on the "phenomenology" of Hegel.

Spaventa also thematized the theories of non-Italian philosophers of the Renaissance such as Francis Bacon , René Descartes , Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, Immanuel Kant and Baruch Spinoza and compared them to his “circularity of Italian philosophy” and tried to develop them further. The summary by the philosopher Vincenzo Gioberti is controversial in the history of philosophy, but in some cases met with interest.

Between 1867 and 1876 Spaventa was a member of the Italian Parliament and as such was instrumental in founding the journal Giornale napoletano di filosofia e lettere . Around 1875 Spaventa gave up his teaching activity due to reasons of age and devoted himself only to research in the last years of his life. From 1876 he was a corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei . Bertrando Spaventa died in Naples on February 20, 1883 at the age of 65.

Works (selection)

  • La filosofia di Kant e la sua relazione colla filosofia italiana . Turin 1860
  • Carattere e sviluppo della filosofia italiana . Modena 1860
  • Le prime categorie della logica di Hegel . Naples 1864
  • Spazio e tempo nella prima forma del sistema di Gioberti . Naples 1865
  • Il concetto dell 'opposizione e lo Spinozismo . Naples 1867
  • La scolastica e Cartesio . Naples 1867
  • Saggi di critica filosofia, politica e religiosa (studies on Giordano Bruno , Tommaso Campanella , Terenzio Mamiani and others) Naples 1867
  • Paolottismo, positivismo, razionalismo . Bologna 1868
  • Studî sull 'etica di Hegel . Naples 1869
  • Idealismo o realismo . Naples 1874
  • La legge del più forte . Naples 1874

literature

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Spaventa, Bertrando
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian philosopher and politician, member of the Camera dei deputati
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Bomba , Chieti Province
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1883
Place of death Naples