Chapter Neoidealismo e dintorni. La vita come ‘lavoro’

Abstract

This essay reconstructs the idea of work in the tradition of Italian idealism and neo-idealism: from Bertrando Spaventa to Benedetto Croce to Giovanni Gentile, Ugo Spirito, as well as other philosophers who started from neo-idealism and then also met different philosophical currents: Adriano Tlgher, Felice Battaglia and Antimo Negri. Neo-idealism emerges as a thought linked to a productivist vision of civilization in which work plays a key role. For Gentile, for example, work is a system of purposes hierarchically placed with respect to the supreme end of men’s dominion over nature. Both Gentile and Croce, however, developing the position of Spaventa, tried to think of technique not as an end but as a means to realize human values.