The Other Renaissance
Italian Humanism between Hegel and Heidegger
- Contents
- Review Quotes
- Awards

List of Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: How We Came to Be Such As We Are and Not Otherwise
Humanism as Cartesianism
Humanism as Vichianism
A Peninsular Philosophy
Supplementing a Well-Known Story
Renaissance Scholarship and the History of Philosophy
A Note on Method
1. Philosophy and Revolution: Italian Vichianism and the “Renaissance Shame”
Introduction
Vincenzo Cuoco and Italy’s “Passive Revolution”
Italians as Disciples of God: Vincenzo Gioberti and Neo-Guelphism
Overcoming the “Renaissance Shame”: Italian Hegelianism
Humanism Reborn and Fulfilled: From Positivism to Giovanni Gentile’s Actualism
Conclusion: A Problem Unsolved
2. The (Re)Generation of Italian Thought: The Interwar Period
Introduction: Philosophizing in the Time of Fascism and Beyond
Twentieth-Century Humanists and Scholastics
Problematicism and Dialogism: Ugo Spirito and Guido Calogero
Philosophers in the Middle: The “Outsiders”
Rehearsing Deprovincialization: Enrico Castelli and Nicola Abbagnano
Positive Existentialism
Conclusion
3. Averting the End of Tradition: Ernesto Grassi
Introduction
Between Italy and France: A Christian Thinker’s Discontents
Heideggerianism Is a Platonism
Heideggerian Platonism May or May Not Be a (Nietzschean) True Humanism
Italian Renaissance Humanism Is Also a Humanism
Conclusion: Starting from Scratch (More or Less)
4. Holding It Together: Eugenio Garin
Introduction
Pichian Existentialism
Cassirer, Gentile, and the History of Italian Philosophy
The Making of the Italian Paradigm: Garin, Grassi, and Castelli
The Italian Paradigm Continued: Baron’s “Civic Humanism” Is Also an Existentialism
Conclusion: Historicizing the Present through Gramsci’s “Humanism”
5. A Philosopher’s Humanism: Paul Oskar Kristeller
Introduction: The Italian(s’) Renaissance beyond Italy
Italy in the Interim: Between Gentile and Saitta
Ficino, a Diamond in the Rough: Kristeller’s Neo-Kantianism
Conclusion: Renaissance Scholarship as Philosophical Discourse
Conclusion: Humanism before Cartesianism (despite Heidegger)
Index
American Association of Italian Studies: AAIS Book Prize
Won
Journal of the History of Ideas: JHI-Morris D. Forkosch Prize
Won
History: European History | History of Ideas
Philosophy: General Philosophy | History and Classic Works
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