The struggle with fascism

The test was to be fascism, the political attitude that places the nation or race at the centre of life and history and disregards individuals and their rights. So gradual was this preparation that Croce himself did not at once perceive it. He confessed that he first saw in fascism a movement to the right of the political spectrum that might restrain and counteract the leftist tendencies toward unrestricted individual freedom released by World War I. But as the character of the Benito Mussolini regime revealed itself, his opposition hardened, becoming absolute, beyond compromise. He became, within and without Italy, the symbol of the opposition to fascism, the rallying point of the lovers of liberty. In fascism Croce saw not merely another form of political tyranny. He saw it as the emergence of that other Italy, in which egoism displaced civic virtue, rhetoric dislodged poetry and truth, and the pretentious gesture replaced authentic action.

His consciousness of his role as the moral teacher of Italy was strengthened. Instruction now took the form of the composition of the great histories—a history of Europe in the 19th century, of Italy from 1871 to 1915, and of the Kingdom of Naples. Their didactic character was unmistakable. In them Croce pointed out how the historical path of Italy had become la via smarrita (“the lost way”). Moreover, the lesson was intended for Europe and for the entire Western world as well.

In the maelstrom of conflict and ambiguity that followed Italy’s defeat in World War II, a voice of moral authority that could speak for the true Italy was demanded. Croce’s was unanimously recognized as that voice. And with authority that voice recalled Italy to the inner spiritual resources through which it might renew itself. It matters little that Croce’s own project for the rebuilding of Italy—the retention of the monarchy with certain dynastic changes, the return to the principles of a revived Liberal Party in government—was not the one realized in history. More important is the fact that the new Italy, in its democratic form, was inspired by his spirit.

That last public duty fulfilled, Croce returned to his studies. In his own library—one of the finest collections in Europe within its own scope—he established the Italian Institute for Historical Studies as a research centre. Asked about his state of health, he replied with true stoic equanimity, “I am dying at my work.” He died at age 86.

Croce’s philosophy of the spirit

At about the time he founded La Critica, Croce began the systematic exposition of his “philosophy of the spirit,” his chief intellectual achievement. That term designates two distinct, but related, aspects of his thought:

(1) In the first aspect, philosophy of spirit designates the construction of a philosophical system on the remote pattern of the rationalism (i.e., idealism) of classical Romantic philosophy. Its principle is the “circularity” of spirit (mind, or consciousness) within the structure of the system and in historical time. The phases, or moments, of spirit in this system are theoretical and practical. They are distinguished, respectively, into aesthetic and logical, on the one hand, and economic (or utilitarian) and ethical, on the other. The circular dynamic moves between both the lesser and the greater moments. The law of this circularity is that of absolute immanence. This system is documented in the volumes Estetica come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale (1902; Aesthetic As Science of Expression and General Linguistic), Logica come scienza del concetto puro (1909; Logic As the Science of the Pure Concept), Filosofia della pratica: economia ed etica (1909; Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic), and Teoria e storia della storiografia (1917; History: Its Theory and Practice).

(2) Croce gradually abandoned, without explicitly renouncing, that schematism primarily in response to methodological considerations in history. Its moments are not dissolved but are concretized into the flow of historical action and thought. History becomes the unique mediational principle for all the moments of spirit, while spirit is completely spontaneous, without a predetermined structure. This change is signaled by the publication of La storia come pensiero e come azione (1938; History As the Story of Liberty). To that period some have attached the term historical positivism, but Croce himself called it absolute historicism and identified it as the definitive form of his thought. The philosophy of spirit in its asystematic form produced the effective method of Croce’s later work, as in the anthology Filosofia, poesia, storia (1951; Philosophy, Poetry, History).

Croce’s aesthetic expressionism

The most important and influential aspect of Croce’s philosophy was his aesthetic theory, in particular his view that art is essentially expressive—an expression of an emotion, attitude, or experience of the artist. Croce was responsible for the contemporary distinction in aesthetics between the expressive and the representative functions of art. By introducing it, he sought to dismiss representation as aesthetically irrelevant and to elevate expression into the single, true aesthetic function. The former, he argued, is descriptive or conceptual, concerned with classifying objects according to their common properties and so done merely to satisfy the viewer’s (or the listener’s or the reader’s) curiosity. The latter, by contrast, is intuitive, concerned with presenting its subject matter (an “intuition”) in its immediate concrete reality, so that it may be seen as it is in itself. In understanding expression, one’s attitude passes from mere curiosity to immediate awareness of the concrete particular that is the core of aesthetic experience. Croce conceived his expressionism as providing the philosophical justification for the artistic revolutions of the 19th century and, in particular, for the Impressionist style of painting, in which representation gives way to the attempt to convey experience directly onto the canvas.

Croce wrote an entry on aesthetics for the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.