The article focuses on Oakeshott’s attempt to maintain a categorial distinction between political philosophy and normative prescription. It accepts the thrust of Oakeshott’s argument against rationalism in politics, but contends that the residual normative dimension in Oakeshott’s thinking should not be dismissed as philosophically irrelevant. The article takes seriously the practical demands made on agents in difficult circumstances. It focuses specifically on what may be said to be going on when we ‘pursue intimations’. By concentrating on what Oakeshott actually does (...) (rather than what he claims to be doing) the article places Oakeshott much closer to the mainstream in western political philosophy. (shrink)

Mi preocupación en este trabajo, siguiendo las directrices de Verene, es cambiar la dirección de la lectura habitual de la Vita, la autobiografía de Vico. En lugar de usar la Vita con el fin de clarificar algunos oscuros pasajes de la Scienza nuova, me gustaría usar la Scienza nuova como si fuera una clave interpretativa de la Vita. Lo que me propongo es elegir algunos temas de cierta significación filosófica de la Scienza nuova que Vico elabora en la Vita y (...) que, discutiblemente, arrojan alguna luz sobre la significación filosófica de la autobiografía como género literario.My concern in this paper, following Verene, is to reverse the usual reading of the Vita, Vico’s autobiography. Instead of using the Vita to clarify obscure passages in the Scienza nuova, I want to use the Scienza nuova as an interpretative key to the Vita. What I want to do instead is to pick out central philosophical themes from the Scienza nuova which Vico works into the Vita and which, arguably, shed some light on the philosophical signficance of autobiography as a genere. (shrink)

The article focuses on Vincenzo Cuoco’s attempt to learn theoretical and political lessons from the failed Neapolitan Revolution of 1799. His Saggio storico sought to steer a course between revolution and reaction, arguing that practical reforms should be couched in terms that reflected traditional understandings within Neapolitan popular culture. He highlighted the responsibility of political leaders to shape popular culture rather than to impose ‘ideal’ solutions to political questions. The position he espoused became a dominant motif in later liberal nationalist (...) positions, enabling moderates to champion constitutional reform without embarking on radical economic and social change. (shrink)

The Italian author Giovanni Gentile occupied a radical position among philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century. He tried in earnest to revolutionize idealist theory, developing a doctrine that retained the idealist conception of the thinking subject as the centre and source of any intelligible reality, while eschewing many of the unwarranted abstractions that had pervaded earlier varieties of idealism and led their adherents astray. Given his great prominence during his lifetime, it is perhaps remarkable that Gentile is (...) so little discussed, and even then so poorly understood, in the English-speaking world. Few of his works have ever been translated into English, and these represent only a fraction of his great corpus and the many topics discussed therein. This neglect is partly explained by his close association with the Partito Nazionale Fascista, of which he remained a loyal member and supporter between 1923 and his assassination in 1944. The volume comprises eleven essays. Seven of these are new pieces written especially for Thought Thinking, and are intended both to contribute to ongoing debates about Gentile's philosophy and to indicate just a few of its many aspects that continue to draw the attention of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians. These are supplemented by new English translations of four of Gentile's shorter works, selected to offer some direct insight into his ideas and style of writing. (shrink)