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Benedetto Croce and the Dilemmas of Liberal Restoration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David D. Roberts
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Extract

The challenge of fascism led Italy's most distinguished philosopher, Benedetto Croce, to focus on the condition of the philosophical foundations of liberalism. Partly as a result, Croce became a central figure in the liberal opposition to fascism, and when, in the early 1940's, it became possible to envision the reconstruction of a liberal political order in Italy, he had no choice but to play a major role, even though he was seventy-seven years old in 1943. Largely because of Croce's direct involvement, the ensuing debate over political priorities brought to the surface, to an unusual degree, major questions about the intellectual underpinnings of liberalism. Croce had been seeking to bring liberal theory up to date, with some promising results, but his immediate practical preoccupations during the 1940's diluted the force of his argument, so the contribution which he could have made to a modern recasting of liberalism, both for Italy and for modern culture in general, was not appreciated. Instead, Croce's stance contributed to tensions that quickly caused Italian liberalism to fragment — and to shrink — and of course the resulting weakness has been crucial to postwar Italian history. On the European level as well, the new liberalism he had in mind never fully coalesced, and thus in part, liberalism has been widely considered passé among European intellectuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 214 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1982

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References

1 See Matteucci, Nicola, Il liberalismo in un mondo in trasfotmazione (Bologna, 1972), pp. 15–23, 160Google Scholar, for some perceptive remarks on the weakness of contemporary liberal culture — both in Italy and in Europe.

2 For a useful, and generally typical, critical overview, see Onufrio, Salvatore, “Note su Croce, il partito liberale e il partito d'azione,” in Benedetto Croce, ed. Bruno, Antonino (Catania, 1974), pp. 313–39Google Scholar. See also Garin, Eugenio, “Quindici anni dopo 1945/1960,” appendix to Cronache di filosqfia italiana, 1900/1943 (Bari, 1975), pp. 491–617Google Scholar, on the decline of Croce's hegemony in Italian culture after fascism.

3 See Gambino, Antonio, Storia del dopoguerra dalla liberazione al potere DC (Rome and Bari, 1975)Google Scholar, for a detailed narrative treatment; and Catalano, Franco, “I partiti: Ideologic, strutture, militanti,” in Piscitelli, Enzo et al. , Italia 1945–48: Le origini delta Repubblica (Turin, 1974), pp. 293–351Google Scholar, for a good political overview.

4 See especially Valiani, Leo, “I1 partito d'azione,” in Valiani, Leo, Bianchi, Gianfranco, and Ragionierī, Ernesto, Azionisti cattolici e comunisti nella resistenza (Milan, 1971), pp. 11–148Google Scholar. On the resistance framework, Delzell, Charles F., Mussolini's Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance (Princeton, 1961)Google Scholar, remains fundamental. See also his more recent “The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance in Retrospect: Three Decades of Historiography,” Journal of Modern History, 47, no. 1 (03 1975), 66–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Croce's former collaborator Alfredo Parente offers a spirited defense of Croce's political comportment in practice during this period, citing the dilemmas he faced, in “Croce dopo il fascismo,” in Croce per lumi sparsi: Problemi e ricordi (Florence, 1975), pp. 286–313Google Scholar. For remarks about Croce's rigidity and nitpicking, see Calogero, , Difesa, p. 40Google Scholar; and Calogero, Guido, “Croce as a Scholar,” in Murray, , Brosio, , and Calogero, , Benedetto Croce, p. 13Google Scholar.

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10 Ibid., 2:237–39.

11 For Croce's interpretation of fascism, see ibid., 1:7–16 (1943); and 2:156–57 (1945), 174 (1945), 361 (1947). SDP, 2:172–77 (1945), is roce's review of Lussu's, EmilioMania su Roma e ditorni (see especially the new edition [Turin, 1974]Google Scholar, with introduction and notes by Franco Antonicelli), an influential interpretation of fascism by a leader in the Left Wing of the Action party. See also Omodeo, Adolfo, Liberià e storia: Scritti e discorsi politici (Turin, 1960), p. 367 (1945)Google Scholar, for a non-Crocean interpretation of fascism by a major Crocean who opted for the Action party.

12 Calogero, , Difesa, especially pp. 43, 59–60, 70, 76–77, 80, 87–91, 154–55Google Scholar. See also pp. 199–226, for the two manifestoes of liberalsocialismo (1940 and 1941). Setta, Sandro summarizes the debate in Croce, il liberalismo e l'Italia post-fascista (Rome, 1979), pp. 54–57Google Scholar. See also Calogero, Guido, Lezioni di filosofia, vol. 2: Etica (Turin, 1960), pp. 335–55Google Scholar.

13 This is a major theme in Croce's output of the 1940's. See especially Discorsi di varia filosqfia (Bari, 1959), 1:261–62 (1943)Google Scholar; and three articles in explicit polemic with Calogero, , in Pagine sparse, 2nd ed. (Bari, 1960), 3:15–18Google Scholar; and in Nuove pagine sparse (Bari, 1966), 1:357–60Google Scholar. See also Carattere della filosofia moderna (Bari, 1963), pp. 122–23 (1939)Google Scholar, and Pagine sparse, 2:528–31 (1938)Google Scholar, for Croce's discussion of this theme in a slightly earlier, less polemical context; and SDP, 2:223–24 (1945), 386–87 (1947)Google Scholar, and Nuove pagine sparse, 2:252–56 (1946)Google Scholar, for further discussion during the 1940's.

14 See especially Calogero, , Difesa, pp. 78–80, 102–103Google Scholar. See also Calogero, , Lezioni, 2:326Google Scholar; and Calogero, Guido, Saggi di etica e di teoria del diritto (Bari, 1947), p. 42Google Scholar.

15 Calogero, , Difesa, pp. 34, 257–61Google Scholar. For other examples, see Gramsci, Antonio, Quaderni del carcere (Turin, 1975), 2:1229–32Google Scholar; and Bobbio, Norberto, Politica e cultura (Turin, 1955), pp. 257–61Google Scholar.

16 Croce, , Il carattere della filosofia moderna, pp. 117–21, 127 (1939)Google Scholar; Croce, , SDP, 2:386–87 (1947)Google Scholar.

17 Major liberal critics tend to emphasize this point. See especially Bobbio, , Politica e cultura, pp. 246–49Google Scholar; Matteucci, , Il liberalismo, pp. 36–38Google Scholar; and Sartori, Giovanni, Stato e politica nel pensiero di Benedetto Croce (Naples, 1966), pp. 96–102Google Scholar. In addition, see Bobbio, , Politica e cultura, pp. 239–49Google Scholar, on Croce's, “illiberal” intellectual background, but also the dissenting note by Stella, Vittorio, Il giudizio su Croce: Momenti per una storia delle interpretazioni (Pescara, 1971), pp. 30–31Google Scholar, on the possible value of such heterodoxy in the attempt to rebuild liberalism.

18 See especially Croce, Benedetto, Cultura e vita morale: Intermézzi polemici (Bari, 1955), pp. 245–47 (1923)Google Scholar; and Croce, Benedetto, Etica e politica (Bari, 1967), pp. 236, 242 (1927)Google Scholar. See also Matteucci, , Il liberalismo, pp. 30–32, 41Google Scholar; and Zeppi, Stelio, Il pensiero politico dell'idealismo italiano e il nazionalfascismo (Florence, 1973), pp. 86n–87nGoogle Scholar.

19 See Croce, , Etica e politica, pp. 189–91 (1924)Google Scholar, for the classic statement of this theme. See also Croce, , Cultura e vita morale, pp. 246–47 (1923)Google Scholar, and 289 (1925). On the element of anti-intellectualism implicit in Croce's conception of political motivation, see Sartori, , Stato e politica, pp. 15–16, 23Google Scholar.

20 Croce, , Etica e politica, 151–53 (Fr. di etica, XLIII)Google Scholar.

21 Croce, , Discorsi di varia filosofia, 1:280Google Scholar. On the role of political parties in the liberal dialectic, see Croce, , Etica e politica, pp. 192–94 (1924)Google Scholar; Croce, Benedetto, La storia Come pensiero e come azione (Bari, 1966), p. 208 (1938)Google Scholar; and Croce, , SDP, 1:102 (1943)Google Scholar.

22 Croce, Benedetto, History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, trans. Furst, Henry (New York, 1933), p. 32Google Scholar and overall. For expressions of incredulity over Croce's apparent reversal of the historical relationship between liberalism and democracy, see Bobbio, , Politica e cultura, pp. 250–53Google Scholar; and De Ruggiero, Guido, Il ritorno alla ragione (Bari, 1946), pp. 34–35Google Scholar.

23 See especially Croce, Benedetto, Terze pagine sparse (Bari, 1955), 1:291–92 (1950)Google Scholar. See also Croce, , History of Europe, pp. 11–12, 320–22Google Scholar, on human equality in freedom and on the value of political democracy.

24 The major statements on both sides of this debate are collected in Croce, Benedetto and Einaudi, Luigi, Liberismo e liberalismo, ed. Solari, Paolo (Milan and Naples, 1957)Google Scholar. Most of the Einaudi pieces can also be found in Einaudi, Luigi, Il buongoverno: Saggi di economia e politica, 1897–1954, ed. Rossi, Ernesto, 2 vols. (Bari, 1973)Google Scholar. For typical statements by Croce, , see Il carattere della filosofia moderna, pp. 121–24 (1939)Google Scholar; and SDP, 2:149–51 (1945)Google Scholar.

25 See especially Croce, Benedetto, Ultimi saggi (Bari, 1963), pp. 310–11 (1933)Google Scholar.

26 Bobbio, , Politica e cultura, pp. 246–52, 263–67Google Scholar; Sartori, , Stato e politica, pp. 96–102Google Scholar.

27 See Shklar, Judith, After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith (Princeton, 1957; reprint ed., 1969), pp. 235–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a good summary of this brand of twentieth-century conservatism.

28 Calogero, , Difesa, pp. 156–59Google Scholar.

29 Calogero, , Lezioni, 2:343–44Google Scholar.

30 See Discorsi di varia filosofia, 1:261–76 (1943)Google Scholar, for Croce's major statement on the relationship between liberty and justice; see especially pp. 266, 273–75. On the same theme, see Croce, , SDP, 2:151 (1945), 223 (1945), and 387 (1947)Google Scholar, and Croce, , Nuove pagine sparse, 1:358Google Scholar. Croce's conception of justice may fruitfully be compared with the conception which emerges from Pitkin's, Hanna F. reading of linguistic philosophy in her Wittgenstein and Justice: On the Significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Social and Political Thought (Berkeley, 1972)Google Scholar.

31 For example, see Croce, , SDP, 1:92–95 (1943), and 135 (1944)Google Scholar. See also Croce's diary entry of 13 Nov. 1943 in SDP, 1:209; and Setta, , Croce, pp. 58–61Google Scholar.

32 Croce, , SDP, 1:85n. (11 1943)Google Scholar, and 209–11 (diary entry of 13 Nov. 1943).

33 Calogero, , Difesa, pp. 77, 193Google Scholar. See also Setta, , Croce, p. 61Google Scholar.

34 See Nicolini, Fausto, Benedetto Croce (Turin, 1962), pp. 399–401Google Scholar; and Setta, , Croce, pp. 11–12Google Scholar, for indications of Croce's state of mind during this period.

35 For Croce's conception of the PLI, see his speech of 4 June 1944 to the first congress of the party, in SDP, 1:119–41, especially pp. 121–22, 131. See also SDP, 1:86–87 (02 1943)Google Scholar, and 2:456–59 (Nov. 1947). For a similar interpretation by a disciple who stuck with Croce, see Parente, Alfredo, Il pensiero politico di Benedetto Croce e il nuovo liberalismo, 2nd ed. (Naples, 1944), pp. 37–45, 54–56Google Scholar. For some suggestive observations on the problems with Croce's conception of the PLI, see Carini, Carlo, Benedetto Croce e il partito politico (Florence, 1975), pp. 179, 184–87Google Scholar; and Garin, , “Quindici anni dopo,” pp. 493–97Google Scholar. For an indication of Croce's admiration for British politics, see SDP, 2:152–53 (1945)Google Scholar.

36 Setta, , Croce, pp. 146–55Google Scholar. See also Salvemini, Gaetano, “Che cosa è un ‘liberale’ italiano nel 1946,” in Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio et al. , Benedetto Croce (Boston, [1946]), pp. 18–19, 30–33Google Scholar, for use of this argument against Croce by the influential radical emigré.

37 See, for example, Croce, , SDP, 2:241–43 (1945)Google Scholar, 350–51 (1947), and 358–59 (1947). See also Croce, , History of Europe, p. 260Google Scholar, on the ceto medio, as well as Setta, , Croce, p. 125Google Scholar, and Garosci, Aldo, “Sul concetto di ‘borghesia’: Verifica storica di un saggio crociano,” in Miscellanea Walter Maturi (Turin, 1966), pp. 473–75Google Scholar, on Croce's use and abuse of the class concept in this connection.

38 Calogero, , Difesa, p. 37Google Scholar.

39 Croce, , SDP, 1:124–27 (1944), and 2:216 (1945)Google Scholar. See also Onufrio, , “Note su Croce,” pp. 319–24Google Scholar, on the peculiarity of the Liberal party's conception of political programs.

40 See especially Carini, , Benedetto Croce, pp. 184–87Google Scholar; a major theme of this book is Croce's ongoing distrust of parties — and, in a sense, liberal politics itself. For Croce's, earlier position, see the well-known essay “Il partito come giudizio e come pregiudizio” (1912), in Cultura e vita morale, pp. 191–98Google Scholar; and the influential interpretation by Mautino, Aldo, La formazione della filosofia politica di Benedetto Croce, 3rd ed. (Bari, 1953), pp. 259–62Google Scholar, which links Croce's misgivings about political parties to Giolittian political practice. However, see also Croce, , Pagine sparse, 2:531n.Google Scholar, for Croce's partial dissent from Mautino's interpretation.

41 For example, see Salvemini, , “Che cosa è un ‘liberale,’” p. 33Google Scholar.

42 Carini, , Benedetto Croce, pp. 187, 195–97Google Scholar. Sandro Setta similarly accents conservatism, but his more nuanced interpretation emphasizes Croce's shift to the right in practice in the mid-1940s, rather than deeming Croce's conception inherently conservative; see Croce, pp. 26, 95–96, 121–22, 154–55. See also Onufrio, , “Note su Croce,” pp. 336–39Google Scholar.

43 Parente, Alfredo, “Croce, la ‘Resistenza’ e la sua presunta involuzione politica,” in Croce per lumi sparsi, pp. 318–19, 324–25Google Scholar; this piece is a response to Setta's interpretation. Matteucci, , Il liberalismo, pp. 37–39Google Scholar.

44 Calogero, , “Some Personal Reflections,” pp. 34–36Google Scholar.

45 Setta, , in Croce, pp. 152–53Google Scholar, notes that in practice Croce proved to favor free market economic forms, despite his theoretical openness on t he question.

46 Calogero, for example, wondered why Croce failed to advocate educational reform; see Difesa, p. 158 (1945).

47 See Biscione, Michele, Interpreti di Croce (Naples, 1968), pp. 109–18Google Scholar, for a useful summary of the dispute; and Garin, Eugenio, Intellettuali italiani del XX secolo, pp. 105–36Google Scholar, for a provocative essay on the ambiguities in De Ruggiero's political thinking. See also De Felice, Renzo, “Introduzione,” to De Ruggiero, Guido, Scritti politici 1912–1926 (Bologna, 1963), pp. 30–31Google Scholar, for excerpts from an unpublished piece by De Ruggiero written in 1945, and playing down Croce's iniluence on his own political thinking.

48 Ruggiero, De, Il ritorno alla ragione, pp. 13–19, 27–29, 35–36Google Scholar.

49 Calogero, , Lezioni, 2:333–34, 352–53Google Scholar; Calogero, , Saggi, p. 37Google Scholar.

50 Croce, , Nuove pagine sparse, 1:151–59 (1945), especially pp. 154–55Google Scholar; Croce, , SDP, 2:169–72 (1945)Google Scholar; and Croce, Benedetto, “Agli amici che cercano il ‘trascendente’” (1945)Google Scholar, an appendix to Etica e politica, pp. 378–84. See also Gilbert, Catherine, “The Vital Disequilibrium in Croce's Historicism,” in Essays in Political Theory Presented to George H. Sabine, ed. Konvitz, Milton R. and Murphy, Arthur E. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1948), pp. 206–27Google Scholar.

51 Ruggiero, De, Il ritorno alla ragione, pp. 16–19Google Scholar. Calogero, made essentially the same charge in “Croce as a Scholar,” p. 13Google Scholar. Croce sought to deal with this objection on a number of occasions; see especially Ultimi saggi, p. 314 (1933); History of Europe, p. 354; and Il carattere delta filosofia moderna, pp. 90–106.

52 Calogero, , Saggi, pp. 34–37Google Scholar; Calogero, , Lezioni, 1:333–34Google Scholar. Calogero's admission, in the latter piece, that persuasion is ultimately more effective than coercion would not absolve him of charges of arrogance from Croce's point of view.

53 Calogero, , in Difesa, pp. 40, 77, 191–92Google Scholar, stresses the vital role of Croce's ideas in the emergence of liberalsocialismo among his own cohort of students at Pisa in the 1930s.

54 Croce, Benedetto, Filosofia e storia: Saggi (Bari, 1969), pp. 313–19 (1946)Google Scholar.

55 Calogero, , Difesa, pp. 336–37Google Scholar. See also Giordano, Renato, “Guido Dorso e ‘L'Azione,’” Nord e Sud, 07 1971, pp. 39–40Google Scholar, for another participant's observations about the problem Croce posed for the Action party.

56 Some of the most striking testimony comes from another noted Crocean, Luigi Russo. See especially Il dialogo dei popoli, 2nd ed. (Florence, 1955), pp. 128–38, 282–361Google Scholar, and De vera religione: Notarelle e schermaglie, 1943–1948 (Turin, 1949), pp. 232–56Google Scholar, on his evolution beyond Croce and toward Gramsci. See also Garin, Eugenio, La cultura italiana tra '800 e '900 (Rome and Bari, 1976), pp. 207–11Google Scholar, as well as the testimony of one of Russo's guides along the way, Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi, Dal diario di un borghese e altri scritti, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1962), pp. 61, 79–80, and especially pp. 231–45Google Scholar, a lecture of 1947 which explicitly portrays Gramsci as the key to transcending Croce. See also Ragghianti, Carlo L., Disegno della liberazione italiana, 3rd ed. (Florence, 1975), p. 99Google Scholar, on the path from liberalsocialismo to communism.