Ugo Spirito (September 9, 1896,

Arezzo Arezzo ( , ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the Province of Arezzo, province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of Above mean sea level, above sea level. As of 2 ...

– April 28, 1979,

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, ...

) was an Italian philosopher. At first a

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

political philosopher and subsequently an idealist thinker, he was also an academic and a

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

teacher.

Early life

Spirito undertook academic study in law and philosophy. Philip Rees, '' Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890'', Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 371 He was initially an advocate of

positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...

. In 1918, whilst attending

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...

, he abandoned his position to become a follower of the actual idealism 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 ...

.C.P. Blamires, ''World Fascism - A Historical Encyclopedia'', ABC-CLIO, 2006, p. 629-30 By the age of 22, he was a self-proclaimed fascist and actualist.

Fascism

Spirito's particular interest in fascism was

corporatism Corporatism is an ideology and political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby Corporate group (sociology), corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come toget ...

and he came to discuss the subject in depth through the journal ''Nuovi Studi di Diritto, Economica e Politica''. He wrote extensively on his favoured topic of integral corporatism, a system where ownership would be concentrated in the hands of workers rather than shareholders. This belief in integral corporatism was sometimes equated with a commitment to

common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...

, and he represented the left-wing of fascism by supporting corporatism as a means of mass nationalisation and was the butt of criticism from other fascists who accused him of Bolshevism. Spirito's economically

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

ideals did not come to fruition in

Fascist Italy Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. Th ...

and in the later years of fascism fell out of favour with

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

. In 1942, he even attempted to publish a book of his theories (''Revolutionary War'') but permission was denied by Mussolini.

Stanley G. Payne Stanley George Payne (born September 9, 1934) is an American historian of modern Spain and Europe, European fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He retired from full-time teaching in 2004 and is currently Professor Emeritus at its Dep ...

, ''A History of Fascism 1914-45'', Routledge, 1995, p. 387

Academic career

Outside of his involvement in fascist politics, Spirito held professorships at the University of Pisa, University of Messina, University of Genoa, and at Rome itself. Initially, his academic attention was taken up with economics and criminal law, but, later in his career, he became more interested in philosophical questions. In terms of publications, he served as editor of the ''Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana'' and the ''Enciclopedia Italiana'', and as joint director of the ''Nuovi Studi di Diritto, Economica e Politica''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spirito, Ugo 1896 births 1979 deaths People from Arezzo Idealists Italian fascists Sapienza University of Rome alumni Academic staff of the University of Pisa Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome 20th-century Italian philosophers Academic staff of the University of Messina

Early life

Fascism

Academic career

References

Further reading

External links