La guerra di Benedetto Croce tra realismo storico-politico, prova filosofica e autocontrollo patriottico. Considerazioni in contrafforte

The publication of Carlo Nitsch’s research works about Benedetto Croce’s experience of the IWW gives the opportunity to reflect on the peculiarity of Croce’s stance during the war. In the following paper three elements are highlighted: Croce’s sensitivity for the “dark” force-rooted side of politics and history, whose analysis allows to read Croce’s position under the signs of political realism and historical fatalism; the challenges presented by the war to Croce’s idealistic philosophical system, regarding the relationships between the distinct forms of the spirit and the tension between the thought, the verbal expression of it and the national speech; finally, the peculiarity of Croce’s patriotism. What emerges is the opportunity to read Croce’s pages in the European comparative perspective opened by the intellectual mobilization, which involved in those years many thinkers and intellectuals all over the Continent.