biography
pronunciation:
[jenteelay]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1875–1944)
|
| biography:
| Italian politician and philosopher, born in Castelvetrano, Sicily, S Italy. He was professor of philosophy successively at Naples (1898–1906), Palmero (1906–14), Pisa (1914–17), and Rome (1917–44). He became with Croce the leading exponent of 20th-c Italian idealism and collaborated with him in editing the periodical La Critica (1903–22), but later quarrelled with his complex distinctions between the theoretical and practical categories of mind, arguing that nothing is real except the pure act of thought. He later became an apologist for fascism and an ideological mouthpiece for Mussolini. He was the fascist minister of public instruction (1922–4), and planned the new Enciclopedia Italiana (35 vols, 1929–36), which became the main cultural monument of the regime. He played an important part in Italian cultural policy during the Fascist years. He reformed secondary education (1922–4) and was responsible for the Manifesto degli intellettuali del fascismo (The Fascist Intellectuals' Manifesto) of 1925. He attempted to give Fascism a historical justification by linking it to the Risorgimento. After the 1943 Gran Consiglio meeting he remained faithful to the party and participated in the Salò Republic, became chancellor of the Scuola Normale di Pisa (1932–43), and president of the Italian Encyclopedia. His philosophy, although inspired by Hegel, does away with transcendence. Philosophical truth is called by Gentile, attualismo, the pure act, which is absolute knowledge. Politically, he saw the state as the supreme representative of morality. He was assassinated by an anti-Fascist Communist in Florence. |
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