Thirty-Two VINCENZO GIOBERTI

Thirty-Two VINCENZO GIOBERTI 1. Vincenzo Gioberti’s Life and Studies. Giuseppe Mazzini and Gioberti Gioberti was born in Turin on 5 April 1801 and studied with the Priests of the Oratory. On 9 January 1823, he graduated with a degree in theology. On 11 August 1825, he joined the College of Theology of the University of Turin, while his fame continued to spread. He studied Kant very early in life and compared him to Aristotle; and read ancient and modern philosophers. As custom demanded he came under the influence of the Scottish School, of Jo- seph Mari Degérando, Ludovico A. Breme, Ermes Visconti, Ottavio Falletti, and their attempt to renew the old Sensism with the help of the Ideology. It was under these last influences that, according to Santino Caramella, a well- deserving scholar on the evolution of Gioberti’s thought, Gioberti moved from the early acceptance of Kant to a critique of Kant, criticism that will be manifest to any person who will move from the reading of Miscellanee to that of Meditazioni filosofiche. Connected with Meditazioni filosofiche, which perhaps contains its first preparatory notes, is the doctoral thesis of 1825, in Turin, De deo et naturali religione, De antiquo foedere, De Christiana religione (On God and natural religion, On the ancient covenant, On the Christian religion), in which it is possible to find Galluppi’s influence as well, and the assertion of the concur- ring of sense and intellect in knowledge. As already noticed, Gioberti was at this time half way between Galluppi and Rosmini. The document of an always more precise criticism of Sensism is the unpublished Responsiones ad obiecta (Answers to objections). To the period between 1830 and 1834 are to be attributed the fragments gathered and published by Arrigo Solmi with the title Teorica della mente umana (Theory of the human mind), which very strangely Solmi attributed to 1850–1852, but that first by Gentile and then by Caramella were recognized as of an earlier period, but not before 1830, be- cause of a reference to Rosmini, “in whom it appears that the ingenuity of Pythagoras and of the first Zeno have returned to a new life.” The so much admired Rosmini is already criticized and convinced of psychologism, or of sensism, “The capital error of the theory of Rosmini is the idea of being as 892 HISTORY OF ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY capable of expressing only mental and possible beings, and this psychological error destroys ontology” (errore capitale della teorica di Rosmini. Egli con- sidera l’idea dell’essere, come esprimente il solo essere mentale e possible, e questo error psicologico distrugge l’ontologia). In 1834, in La Giovane Italia, the famous letter appeared in which with the exaltation of Vico, Gioberti exalted Bruno as the representative “of a pantheism founded on truth, healthy, moral, and religious” (di un panteismo, fon- dato in verità, sano, morale, religioso). This pantheism was present in the pages written by Mazzini, to whom Gioberti confessed, “I think that I am no- ticing in some parts of your journal some mention and some presentiment of this pantheism, and in your political doctrine an application of its dictates.” This pantheism appeared as “the only true and solid philosophy, destined to flourish one day with the unanimous vote of all good minds” (la sola vera e soda filosofia, destinata a fiorire un giorno col voto unanime dei buoni ingegni). Gioberti believed to have found in Mazzini’s religiousness something agreeable with his intrinsic unity of religion, philosophy, and human freedom, “Religion … is philosophy itself; and … philosophy is freedom” (la religione … è la filosofia medesima … e la filosofia è la libertà). He was not aware of the profound distance existing between his meditation and the moralism of Mazzini, certainly rigorous, but still so vague, nourished by sentiment, made of human sympathy, and permeated by a humanitarian religion of Sansimon- ismo origin. Mazzini and Gioberti could come together in the polemic, in the necessity of liberty, but in their constructive program they were as distant from each other as, at the political level, democracy is from liberalism. On the doctrinal plain, how far from Mazzini was he who in the natural religion of the English and Rousseau pointed out “a defective and superficial system that does not satisfy profound and speculative spirits!” The formula “God and people”(Dio e popolo) to the ears of Gioberti sounded as a renewed Christian- ity fighting for the humble against the oppressors, fighting for truth against hypocrisy and mendacity. In this spirit, Gioberti once exclaimed: Compare the pope and Christ—and after you have made the comparison and shown the great difference that runs between the one and the other, between the sublime redeemer of peoples and that vile oppressor of nations, who in addition to the tyranny and murdering of his own, blesses all despots, hits with anathema all who are oppressed, praises an heretic prince swollen with the blood of a Catholic and generous na- tion, proclaims the crusade against every civilization, sanctifies tyranny as a right, imposes slavery as a duty, and condemns liberty as a crime—then, I dare to say, as you have completed this comparison, dedicate courageously yourselves to this true and alive Christianity, clarify it, publicize it, proclaim its doctrines in order to suppress tyranny, without fearing that someone would confuse it with that religion of slavery and barbarism, that today still reigns (Paragonate il papa al .

Load more