• Probing the limits of Crocean historicism

    Author(s):
    Charles L. Leavitt IV (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    CLCS 20th- and 21st-Century, LLC 20th- and 21st-Century Italian, TM Literary Criticism
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Historicism, Benedetto Croce, Giacomo Debenedetti, Carlo Ginzburg, Antonio Gramsci
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/gdrm-v759
    Abstract:
    This article reconsiders the post-war reaction against Benedetto Croce, focusing on the critical reappraisal of Crocean historicism that followed the defeat of Italian Fascism. Motivated by a growing sense of historical uncertainty, Italians increasingly dissented from Croce, but they remained more wedded to Crocean thought – and in particular to Crocean historicism – than has often been argued. Like their predecessors in previous generations, post-war Italian intellectuals positioned themselves dialogically, in constant conversation with Croce’s hegemonic philosophy. The antecedents of their reaction against Crocean historicism can therefore be identified in earlier responses to Croce’s thought, and in this essay I examine two such responses: those of Antonio Gramsci and Renato Serra. I also examine the contemporary resonances of the (partial) anti-Crocean turn, exemplified by a consequential 1992 debate over Holocaust historiography pitting Carlo Ginzburg against Hayden White. Comparing these various assaults on the ‘Crocean citadel of historicist idealism’, I argue that the challenge to Croce has been posed most cogently by those whose dissent from his dominant intellectual paradigm was inspired not by outright opposition but rather by doubt and scepticism. In the essay’s conclusion, I explore the significance of such scepticism, exemplified by the post-war critique of Crocean historicism, for the ongoing debates over ‘probing the limits of representation’.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1080/02614340.2017.1409309
    Publisher:
    Informa UK Limited
    Pub. Date:
    2018-3-16
    Journal:
    The Italianist
    Volume:
    37
    Issue:
    3
    Page Range:
    387 - 406
    ISSN:
    0261-4340,1748-619X
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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