Antonio Labriola (; 2 July 1843 – 12 February 1904) was an Italian
Marxist theoretician and
philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
. Although an
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
philosopher and never an active member of any
Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
political party, his thought exerted influence on many political theorists in Italy during the early 20th century, including the founder of the
Italian Liberal Party,
Benedetto Croce, as well as the leaders of the
Italian Communist Party,
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...
and
Amadeo Bordiga. He also influenced the Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician
Leon Trotsky.
Biography
Labriola was born in
Cassino
Cassino () is a ''comune'' in the province of Frosinone at the southern end of the region of Lazio. It's the last city of the Valle Latina, Latin Valley.
It is located at the foot of Monte Cairo near the confluence of the Gari (river), Gari and ...
(then in the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...
), the son of a schoolteacher. In 1861, he entered the
University of Naples. Upon graduating, he remained in
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
and became a schoolteacher. During this period, he pursued an interest in philosophy,
history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
and
ethnography
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
. The early 1870s saw Labriola take up
journalism
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...
, and his writings from this time expressed
liberal and
anticlerical views.
In 1874, Labriola was appointed as a
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
in
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, where he would spend the rest of his life teaching, writing, and debating. Although he had been critical of liberalism since 1873, his move towards
Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
was gradual, and he did not explicitly express a
socialist
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
viewpoint until 1889. He died in Rome on 2 February 1904.
Philosophical work
Heavily influenced by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...
and
Johann Friedrich Herbart, Labriola's approach to Marxist theory was more open-ended than that of theorists such as
Karl Kautsky. He saw Marxism not as a final, self-sufficient schematisation of history, but rather as a collection of pointers to the understanding of human affairs.
These pointers needed to be somewhat imprecise if Marxism was to take into account the complicated social processes and variety of forces at work in history. Marxist theory was to be understood as a theory
critical of
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...
,
[Jan Rehmann, ''Theories of Ideology: The Powers of Alienation and Subjection'', BRILL, 2013, p. 62.] in that it sees no truths as everlasting, and was ready to drop its own ideas if experience should so dictate. His description of Marxism as a "philosophy of
praxis" would appear again in Gramsci's ''
Prison Notebooks''.
References
External links
''Antonio Labriola Archive''at
Marxists Internet Archive
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Labriola, Antonio
1843 births
1904 deaths
People from Cassino
Italian Marxists
Italian socialists
Marxist theorists
University of Naples Federico II alumni
Burials in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome
19th-century Italian philosophers
Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome