Ugo Spirito (September 9, 1896, Arezzo – April 28, 1979, Rome) was an Italian philosopher. At first a fascist political philosopher and subsequently an idealist thinker, he was also an academic and a university teacher.
Early life
Spirito undertook academic study in law and philosophy.[1] He was initially an advocate of positivism. In 1918, whilst attending Sapienza University of Rome, he abandoned his position to become a follower of the actual idealism of Giovanni Gentile.[2] By the age of 22, he was a self-proclaimed fascist and actualist.[2]
Fascism
Spirito's particular interest in fascism was corporatism and he came to discuss the subject in depth through the journal Nuovi Studi di Diritto, Economica e Politica.[2] 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.[3] This belief in integral corporatism was sometimes equated with a commitment to common ownership,[4] 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.[5] Spirito's economically left-wing ideals did not come to fruition in Fascist Italy and in the later years of fascism fell out of favour with Benito Mussolini.[2] In 1942, he even attempted to publish a book of his theories (Revolutionary War) but permission was denied by Mussolini.[6]
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.[2] Initially, his academic attention was taken up with economics and criminal law, but, later in his career, he became more interested in philosophical questions.[1] 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.[1]
^P. Davies & D. Lynch, Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right, 2002, p. 241
^Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism 1914-45, Routledge, 1995, p. 220
^Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism 1914-45, Routledge, 1995, p. 387
Further reading
Italian
Cammarana, Antonio, Proposizioni sulla filosofia di Giovanni Gentile, prefazione del Sen. Armando Plebe, Roma, Gruppo parlamentare MSI-DN, Senato della Repubblica, 1975, 157 Pagine, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze BN 758951.
Cammarana, Antonio, Teorica della reazione dialettica : filosofia del postcomunismo, Roma, Gruppo parlamentare MSI-DN, Senato della Repubblica, 1976, 109 Pagine, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze BN 775492.
Russo, Antonio (1999). Ugo Spirito. Dal positivismo all'antiscienza. Milan: Guerini editore.
