A confirm of the absolute spirit: Giovanni Gentile

The philosophical think of Giovanni Gentile(1875-1944) is called in history of philosophy as actualism, this word has owner meaning in Aristotelian philosophy, this is from act, that in opinion of Aristotle is the action ended, that is from a will, that the potency, the action ended it the act terminated, this is the pragmatic or intellectual action; it is distinct from possibility of make something, what is? The potency in opinion of Aristotle is a possibility, for example: make something, we can see something but we can close the eyes and don’t see something and nothing, we can make an act or no, it is the potency; it is normal action, thereupon it isn’t philosophy, but simple desire or will; Aristotle distinguished these actions common names, but this possibility and realization are the potency and the act, one is consequence of other, if we can’t something we can realize it; it is normal, but we must consider that before of Aristotle nobody has ennobled these daily action through the philosophy; it is specular philosophy, whose Aristotle is founder; hence in Gentile’s opinion the act is definition of reality, objective reality, that is from human think, this is a humanization of think of Barkeley(1685-1753), whose after. It is this is the conception that thinks the reality exists alone because it is thought,  much Gentile’s pamphlets explains what is actualism; he has took the think of George Berkeley, an Irish philosopher, that has thought the reality alone a translation of God will; it is the Platonism in poor version, in fact Gentile is explaining the think of Berkeley says: “…the reality isn’t the object or content of human think, and neither think of this brain, but alone the whole of representations that are correspondent to objective braine, absolute, presupposition of itself human brain…although the same Berkeley that has thought the reality to perception, he given a distinction between think that thinks now the word, and absolute Think, eternal, transcendent the single brain…This eternal think isn’t out think, that in every moment ascertains owner limits; this think is God. God is wherefore is the condition that through we can think the think of man as it is reality, and reality as think…”, so aid it isn’t a philosophical concept but alone a declaration of war, because it hasn’t meaning, because is very strange from our reality; but the explication is simple, Berkeley is saying that everything that we think is possible think to God; I have called it poor Platonism, because the originality of this philosophical concept is inexistent because he known also the ancient Greek, whereby he has read the books of Plato and has took this concept. Gentile has took from Hegel(1770-1831) and Kant(1724-1804), and has thought the absolute wit, that for Kant was alone metaphysic and Hegel, was never explained what is the absolute spirit, was human, but he, I repeat, never has clarified it, with the actualism of Gentile we have had a explication of this concept, that is speculative philosophy, as Aristotle, and now is, differently from Kant and Berkeley, no certainly metaphysic but alone human; hence it confirms that Hegel has thought the absolute spirit as the human brain, that can think, and through the act, make something, that become the act because is thought, the act is present also before the man thinks it, but when the man see something it is become a concept, philosophical concept, whereby it is present in brain, therefore exists. Other example: “We can distinguish the Divine comedy from Dante that has written and from us that read it; but we can think that this Divine comedy, that is distinguished from us,  is in us, this is in our brain, and thought distinguished from us. It is, this is, in us because we think it, hence it isn’t stranger to us that have thought it. Detach therefore the fact of wit from real life, it is as lost it and don’t see it from the intimate nature for that it are when are realized. Other chapter explains better, at last in two lines, the concept of human wit as the absolutely spirit: “The subject as act. Who says spiritual act, says wit, and to say spirit is to say concrete individually, historical, subject that isn’t thought but relized”, this is he is present because he is thought from himself. Therefore it isn’t spirit and spiritual act that we must know, but alone the wit as subject…and we can know it because its objectivity is manifest in real activity of subject that knows it.”. It is the human nature that through the activity, this is the act, knows his spirit, this is his concrete nature and the external nature; therefore the man.But the explication that is between real and ideal is in Gentile’s actualism in these words, above all because these words deny that the ideal annuls the empiric: “Unity of transcendental I and multiplicity of empiric I. We not believe that the concept of this deeper personality, this is of person that has not plural, excludes and annuls the empiric I. The idealism doesn’t, because this absolute I, that is one and in himself unifies every particular I and empiric, unifies and doesn’t destroys…”; it is the Hegel’s concept that has unifies in himself the particular, this is the empiric, and ideal, in fact after we read: “The reality of transcendental I includes also the reality of empiric I, whose badly they speak when they prescind from his immanent(direct) rapport to transcendental I”, it is the human version of abstract absolute spirit of Hegel, that is human always. The following chapter is more explicit for hegelian and Aristotelian nature of this transcendental spirit: “So that we can understand the nature of this subject…and it is impossible that it stopped him in front of other spiritual being different from it and it hasn’t in front other that himself…”, mentioned so it is a problem because the hegelian and Aristotelian read aren’t certainly frequent, but it is a concept that says that the absolute spirit can see alone himself, because everything is this absolute spirit; for major and practical understanding, it is as we in front of a mirror, we can gaze alone ourselves, because other isn’t, the absolute spirit is same, this is it can gazes alone itself; but it is the think of think of Aristotle and after of Hegel, and this nature is more explicit in these words: “The concept of truth coincides to the made”; the comments are, it is normal, certainly but overcome this obviousness it is meaningful because the human nature expresses itself in the made, thereupon the human nature is also the transcendental concept. Other words very truth: “True is that we make”. The modest connection to Platonism is in following words: “In the nature we see alone dark and mystery. Every that we think our work, its evident that the truth is in ourselves. For example: what is a right line? We can know it because we build it through our fantasy, in our think. The right line isn’t in nature, and we can think it alone through the brain…”. A concept very human is expressed in following words, gentile taking some step of Giambattista Vico(1668-1744), that in his major book, The new science, has expressed a laic think regard to history and his formation, this is the human and not certainly divine built, and Gentile: “So in The new science the same Vico says that the human brain can know the law of eternal historical process(this is the develop of spirit) because in same human brain it is the cause and the first origin of every historical occurs”. It is the laic consideration that Gentile took for explication of human become, and the historical become, because the historical occurs are alone the human built. He translated other mention from William Humbold(1767-1835), a German philosopher, that regard to longue has said: “The langue isn’t work but working, it isn’t the result of linguistic process, but this process self, that is developing in act. Hence the each longue, it we can know in his definitive process (that isn’t) but alone grade after grade during his develop”. It is the real become of history that is alone human, in its develop hence its occur; and: “Destroy the grades of become and you have destroyed the develop, this is the same reality that we must make and know”; the knowledge in opinion of Gentile is the actualism this is, I repeat, the capacity of man of make something, the capacity of man, hence the wit, of make. Other mention: “True is that the made, through the true is converted, because is same spiritual reality that realizes itself, it isn’t a fact but a become, thereupon is right say: “verum et fieri convertentur (true and become are converted)”, this dynamic evaluation of become of human and nature is expressed in other chapter: “Nature and spirit. The stone is, because it is it can be: it has realized its essence. It is also the plant, and the same animal since every their determinations are consequence necessary and ordered of their nature, that is all those can be, and can’t freely determiners itself though new manifestations unforeseeable, this is not determined from their nature, and hence isn’t… In nature, everything is determined by nature; in the spirit nothing is nobody or nothing is by nature; but it is all that becomes by its work ”. It is meaningful and says that what is determined in his nature can become in conformity of his nature, as the plant and stone, but the man can change his nature or character, because the mankind is mutable. We can follow the discourse with this mention: “We don’t know nothing spirit that is overcome its manifestations; and we consider these manifestations as interior and essential realization”, this is the spirit isn’t abstract but it is concrete and real, because it realizes itself by works. The our spirit is alone the spirit of our experience, we don’t confuse the experience with its content, but the act of experience, or pure experience, that is liver, it is actually alone live and real in our experience”; it is says alone that the dynamic of our experience is act, necessary to move the spirit, but independently by experience; it is alone the capacity of human with and brain to understand what an experience brings so we grow. The Hegelian and Aristotelian influence on Gentile is in this step: “The infinity of conscience. The conscience in fact is a globe whose ray is infinitive; and any tentative we can make to think and imagine other things or consciences beyond our conscience, those things or consciences are in our conscience…”; this seems a valuation of Gentile and its quite, but we must consider that same think, regard the absolute spirit and think of think was expressed from Aristotle and Hegel, in this case hence the conscience can think and refer alone itself, it is the think of twice alone mentioned.   

  Alessandro Lusana