Giuseppe Rensi
Giuseppe Rensi (May 31, 1871 in Villafranca di Verona – February 14, 1941 in Genoa) was an Italian philosopher.
Work
Rensi taught as a professor at the University of Genoa and was considered a proponent of Relativism and a supporter of the Conservative Revolution in Italy. In his 1920 tract Filosofia dell'autorità, he argued that, because different worldviews cannot be reconciled intellectually, there needs to be a single political authority backed by physical force in order to establish order in society. On this ground he was initially a backer of the then nascent Fascist movement.[1] By 1925, however, with his work Apologia dell'ateismo, he opposed Benito Mussolini and was counted among the supporters of Benedetto Croce, who wrote a manifesto against Fascism the same year. In 1927 he was given garden leave from his lectureship and arrested for a time in 1930. Finally he was dismissed from his post in 1934, after having published further critical writing.[2] In reference to his opposition, written upon his tombstone is "Etiam si omnes, ego non".
References
Secondary literature
- E. Buonaiuti: G. R. Lo scettico credente (Rome 1945)
- L'inquieto esistere, ed. V. R. Chiarenza (Genoa 1993)
- G. De Liguori: Il sentiero dei perplessi (Naples 1995)
- N. Greco: Giuseppe Rensi. Politica, autorità, storia (Palermo 2005)