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.

Alessandro Lusana