Galvano Della Volpe (24 September 1895 – 13 July 1968) was an Italian professor of

philosophy 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 ...

and

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 ...

theorist.

Life

Born on 24 September 1895 in

Imola Imola (; or ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, located on the river Santerno, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The city is traditionally considered the western entrance to the historical region Romagna ...

, in the then

province of Bologna The province of Bologna () was a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital was the city of Bologna. The province of Bologna covered an area of and had a total population of 1,004,323 inhabitants as of 31 December 2014 ...

, Della Volpe served in the First World War and afterwards completed his studies at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

. Della Volpe taught history and philosophy in a ''

liceo The Gran Teatre del Liceu (; ; ), or simply Liceu, is a theater in Barcelona, Spain. Situated on La Rambla, it is the city's oldest theater building still in use for its original purpose. Founded in 1837 at another location, the Liceu ope ...

'' in

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

and at the University of Bologna from 1925 to 1938, when he became chair of history and philosophy at the

University of Messina The University of Messina (; Latin: ''Studiorum Universitas Messanae''), known colloquially as UniME, is a state university located in Messina, Sicily, Italy. Founded in 1548 by Pope Paul III, it was the world's first Jesuit college, and today it ...

, a post he held until his retirement in 1965. Della Volpe died on 13 July 1968 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, ...

Work

Initially an idealist philosopher in the tradition of

Giovanni Gentile Giovanni Gentile ( , ; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian pedagogue, philosopher, and politician. He, alongside Benedetto Croce, was one of the major exponents of Italian idealism in Italian philosophy, and also devised his own sys ...

, by the early 1940s and after an engagement with empiricist philosophy he turned strongly against idealism. In Italy, Della Volpe's work was seen by many as a scientific alternative to the Gramscian Marxism which the

Communist Party of Italy The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

(among others) had claimed as its guide. He was critical of Gramsci in part because the latter's work was rooted philosophically in the thought of Gentile and

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce, ( , ; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A Cultural liberalism, poli ...

. Della Volpe was also noted for his writings on aesthetics including writings on film theory. He was an atheist. His major contributions to logic, aesthetics, and political philosophy form a distinct school within Western Marxism, often referred to as "scientific Marxism." One key aspect of Della Volpe's mature thought was his attempt to develop a strictly materialist theory of aesthetics as he emphasised the role of structural characteristics and the social process of production of works of art in the formation of aesthetic judgment in opposition to Croce's doctrine of intuition which he considered a continuation of the romantic and mystical tradition of the 19th century. He developed the concept of taste as the primary source of aesthetic judgment itself. Della Volpe also wrote on issues of political philosophy, particularly the relations between the thought of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

and

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

. This allowed him to explore the relations between what he called the two freedoms of

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

thought, namely the civic liberties of

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...

and

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

which became embodied in

bourgeois democracy Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: ...

and the egalitarian freedoms described in Rousseau’s ''

Social Contract In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is an idea, theory, or model that usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment, it ...

'' and the ''

Discourse on Inequality ''Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'' (), also commonly known as the "Second Discourse", is a 1755 treatise by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the topic of social inequality and its origins. The work was written in ...

''. What particularly interested Della Volpe was the contrast of the formal equality of

Kantian Kantianism () is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mi ...

legal freedoms, indifferent to substantive social inequality between persons, with the proportional inequality of Rousseau's social contract as an egalitarian mediation between persons. He saw Rousseau's thought on these issues as being the precursor of Marx’s famous attacks on

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

law in the ''

Critique of the Gotha Programme The ''Critique of the Gotha Programme'' () is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP), with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association. Offerin ...

'' and other writings. Some of his most notable works include: * ''Critique of Taste'' (

Verso Books Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review'' (NLR) and includes Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson on its board of directors. According to its webs ...

, 1991). * '' Logic as a Positive Science'' (

, 1980). * ''Rousseau and Marx: And Other Writings'' (

Lawrence and Wishart Lawrence & Wishart is a British publishing company formerly associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was formed in 1936 through the merger of Martin Lawrence, the Communist Party's press, and Wishart Ltd, a family-owned left-wing ...

, 1987). *Crisi dell'estetica romantica (1963) Della Volpe had a number of students and disciples, including Ignazio Ambrogio, Umberto Cerroni,

Lucio Colletti Lucio Colletti (; 8 December 1924 – 3 November 2001) was an Italian Western Marxist philosopher. Colletti started to be known outside Italy because of a long interview with him that Marxist historian Perry Anderson published in the ''New ...

, Alessandro Mazzone, Nicolao Merker,

Franco Moretti Franco Moretti (born 1950 in Sondrio) is an Italian literary historian and theorist. He graduated in Modern Literatures from the University of Rome in 1972. He has taught at the universities of Salerno (1979–1983) and Verona (1983–1990); in th ...

, Armando Plebe, Mario Rossi and Carlo Violi.Epstein, Mark W
"Della Volpe, Galvano," The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
/ref>

Articles

* Della Volpe, Galvano. "The Marxist Critique of Rousseau". ''New Left Review'' I/59 (1970): 101–109. * Della Volpe, Galvano. "Settling Accounts with the Russian Formalists". ''New Left Review'' I/113–114 (1979).

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Della Volpe, Galvano 1895 births 1968 deaths 20th-century Italian philosophers Italian political philosophers Marxist theorists Italian Marxists Italian Communist Party politicians 20th-century Italian politicians Italian Marxist writers Atheist philosophers Film theorists Academic staff of the University of Messina

Life

Work

Articles

References

Further reading

External links