Abstract

Antonio Gramsci is one of those philosophers, like Socrates, whose philosophizing consists in the critical examination of particular practical problems in terms of certain fundamental concepts. To Socrates' well known moral problems correspond Gramsci's concern with such things as improving the condition of subaltern classes, the interaction between intellectual elites and popular masses, the democratic operation of a political party, the viability of alternative models of revolution which differ from Bolshevism, and the religious component of political activity and political aspects of religions. And to the Socratic concepts that are so familiar to philosophers correspond Gramsci's notions of hegemony, passive revolution, the modern "Prince," philosophy of praxis, integral journalism, Americanism and Fordism, the national-popular, Jacobinism, and folklore. Thus the proper philosophical appreciation of Gramsci has to overcome the widespread equation of philosophy with system, as well as two more external obstacles: the Franco-German hegemony over "continental philosophy" has the effect of relegating this Italian giant to the status of an unavoidably minor, however quaint, figure; and Gramsci's personal involvement with the political fortunes and misfortunes of the Italian Communist Party leads many philosophers to dismiss him as being merely a political leader.