The Logocentric Predicament and the Philosophy of Fascism

Evan Jack
21 min readJan 20, 2022

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[Gentile’s logic of the concrete] is not demonstrable; it admits no measuring rod outside of itself for its evaluation.

— Roger W. Holmes, The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile

An Interesting Turn to the Philosopher of Fascism

The logocentric predicament, simply stated, is that we suppose logic’s validity in its employment. This leads to an almost void-like epistemic frame of thinking. But solutions have been put forward but also dealt with (see my first essay for this independent study, Responses to the Logocentric Predicament: Some Criticisms). There are two solutions that I have found that remain: the solution of Robert Hanna (which I will analyze in great detail in a future essay hopefully) and then the solution of the philosopher of fascism, Giovanni Gentile. Some may be surprised or dumbfounded that the philosopher of fascism even addressed the issue, though he only inadvertently did. It is Roger W. Holmes’ book The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile that makes the explicit connection between Gentile’s idealism and the logocentric predicament. Thus, let us turn to Holmes’ interpretation of Gentile to see if Gentile gets out of the predicament.

In response to the idealisms of the past, Gentile rejects a major part of the idealistic position. And this rejection is done not through just critique but also the founding of a positive idealist project. This positive movement is “the idealistic demand for a universal and necessary knowledge with unique rigor, and brings the tendency toward the exclusive reality to its logical limit by recognizing that any division of reality is a product of the act of thinking and that if we seek certain knowledge of the real we must look toward the act of thinking in its essential unity” (Holmes xv). Thinking is essential for Gentile and his idealism, as we will soon learn very well.

Actual Idealism

The founding libidinal movement that underlies Gentile’s project is the desire for “a universal and necessary knowledge made up of undeniable judgments about the nature of reality” (Holmes 3). Ironically, it would be the charge of the Deleuzo-Guattarian’s, or at least the ones I know, that this would be a fascistic movement. The only fault with this pejorative charge is that Gentile would not deny it but embrace it. It seems then that the irony at the highest stages of philosophical abstraction is great in abundance — and irony is always a welcome addition to the construction of philosophy. The movement that Gentile first does to separate himself from the idealisms of the past is the refusal of their proposition that “truth and reality are independent of the act of knowing” (Holmes 3). For Gentile, any such truths independent of the act of knowing are nothing less than contentless abstraction. Actual idealism, the idealism of Gentile, contra the idealisms of the past, holds that “all reality is gathered within the unity of the act of thinking” (Holmes 3). Thought itself is at the basis of Gentile’s metaphysic.

Gentile first starts with Kant, as one probably should,[1] and, unsurprisingly, takes issue with Kant’s idea of the Noumenon, as, for Gentile, something outside of the act of knowing is already suspect. Furthermore, it is “the distinciton between knowledge and action implied by Kant in the separation of pure and practical reasons” that is probably the most highly contentious proposal of Kant’s metaphysical project for Gentile (Holmes 4). With Kant, the problem within idealism is immediately recognized by Gentile: the separation of knowing and acting. For Gentile, knowing and action can hardly be separated, for “knowledge is the only real activity” as it is the act of knowing that is at the basis of reality (Holmes 4). Holmes rightly recongizes that it is this very movement that gives actual idealism. It is for Gentile’s philosophy, and Holmes sees this to be present in Fichte’s philosophy, it is the activity of knowledge that causes experiences rather than the common idealist metaphysical postulation that it is intuitions that are impressed upon the mind through external objects that leads to sensory experience. But, different from Fichte, Gentile does not necessarily “start” with the Ego in that, whereas Fichte supposes a real thinking entity, Gentile, contrary to Fichte, starts “with the act of thinking which must be creative even of that entity” (Holmes 5). Thus, and Holmes recognizes this, the specter of “solipsism” haunts Gentile’s metaphysic, because, for Gentile, “the act of thinking must somehow contain within itself all moral and all truth value” (Holmes 5). Obviously, though, the solipsism that Holmes speaks of hardly has anything to do with an absolute egoism of the Fichtean type nor does it have anything to do with individualism. It is neither the Absolute Ego nor the individual that is at the start of everything for Gentile as we have already recognized, rather “all existence centers around the act of thinking in and for itself and creative of everything which it thinks” (Holmes 5). This essential proposition, that it is the act of thinking[2] at the start of everything, is in a certain sense then the only actual proposition that Gentile makes. Nevertheless, from Kant and Fichte, we move to Hegel. Gentile’s critique of Hegel is a critique of his idea of the Absolute. The critique of the Absolute is the critique of Kant’s Noumenon and Fichte’s Ego in that the Absolute’s essentially boundlessness makes it unknowable to the finite mind and its finite thinking. For Gentile then, Hegel makes the same error that the idealists of the past have made: they have separated their subject (Kant has the Noumenon, Fichte has the Ego, and Hegel has the Absolute) from the act of thinking. Gentile is holding not to something outside of thought or separable from it, but rather to thought itself.

We have spoken of thought itself thus far, but what separates Gentile’s conceptualization of thinking from the idealisms of the past other than the primary role he gives it? He further delineates himself from them in his claim that “the only philosophic real is the dialectic [of thinking] in act” (Holmes 6). The only thing that is real for Gentile is, therefore, the mind. Gentile does nothing less than take idealism to its logical limit. Deleuzo-Guattarians may see the essential movement here within Gentile’s philosophy again as fascistic in that, for Gentile, “[a]ny multiplicity … is arbitrary” (Holmes 8). Thus, when Gentile argues that only the mind is real, he is not saying all those multiple activities that take place within the mind of real. Rather, he is saying that all that is real is the act of thinking. “Not only is the act of thinking real but it is the only real and indivisible. Everything else is immanent in it” (Holmes 8). We must be clear about what this means, so let us be: “the act of thinking of Gentile, the pensiero pensante, is something more than any individual thought once thought, any pensiero pensato. The real for Gentile is the act of thinking, not a static concept produced by that act” (Holmes 8). Gentile certainly has a philosophy of immanence, or, as Holmes calls it, “complete immanentism” (Holmes 8). Some may then see Gentile as irrelevant with his complete immanentism, but they are quite wrong. They are quite wrong for a single reason though, at least in my opinion: for Gentile, actual idealism is not egocentric but rather logocentric. For Gentile, “[t]he act of thinking, with its self-contained logical principles, is all that Gentile has to utilize,” everything else is abstraction (Holmes 9). The act of thinking then is not egocentric as the Ego is just arbitrary abstraction, rather the act of thinking is logocentric. It is this that sets up Gentile to have an inevitable encounter with the logocentric predicament, but that is for later in this essay. Now, by abstraction, Gentile is not dismissing everything else as irrelevant, in fact, Gentile “does not mean that there are no objects in our rooms or rooms in our houses, nor that there are not men and women in the world, nor that there are no natural laws. He does mean that these things are figments of the imagination” (Holmes 11–12). Rather, Gentile is just putting forth logocentrism found within his philosophy: Gentile “argues only that the demands of logic limit the conclusions that may be reached in our thinking about these entities and laws (Holmes 12). Essentially, all Gentile is saying is that we can put forward speculations and conjectures about these objects, but it is not possible to make real conclusions about them, and any conclusions which try to act as if they are real conclusions are abstraction. If the real is the act of thinking then the real is “the totality of the thinkable” (Holmes 12). Therefore, multiplicity and those things which compose the multiplicity cannot be real, but rather it is “the unity into which all multiplicities are gathered” that is real, and that unity is the act of thinking itself (Holmes 12). Nevertheless, Holmes concludes that, for Gentile, “[a]bstractions are necessary and inescapable,” but that does not make them real (Holmes 15). Now, let’s get more into the logocentric character of Gentile’s philosophy.

Holmes explains, “Man first developed a logic of contradictories; this is the logic of all abstract systems, whether empirical or rational, and hence called by Gentile the ‘logic of the abstract’” (Holmes 16). The issue with the logic of the abstract, and the reason why Gentile rejects abstraction, is that those initial postulates upon which the logic of the abstract depends are outside of the act of thinking, and thus they are not. This rejection of the logic of the abstract turns Gentile to the dialectic of Fichte. “The phrase, ‘act of thinking,’ implies mobility and change” (Holmes 17). The thesis is “the initial act of thinking,” the antithesis is “the thought which is produced by that act,” and the synthesis “is the synthesis of the two in the new act of thinking which takes cognizance of what has gone before” (Holmes 17). But, because it is a process, “these stages merge into one another … the progress involved [in the process] is one, according to Gentile, which our thinking cannot escape; it is the nature of thinking in action” (Holmes 17). The act of thinking then is a dialectical yet unified process. It is from this dialectical expression the act of thinking that more positive content for Gentile’s project of actual idealism appears: the first stage is self-expression; the second stage is the production of that which expresses the self through the act of thinking,[3] it is thought thinking something. It is the second stage which has many implications. Essentially, God (as the object of theology) and Nature (as the object of science) cannot be above the act of thinking. Holmes explains this succinctly, “We cannot think of God or of nature without thinking something which our own act of thinking has created” (Holmes 19). But once we look at the first and second stage together we realize that the act of thinking is self-expressive and thus creative. In terms of ethics, this has radical implications. The act of thinking itself creates its own morality: “according to Gentile every man creates himself as a moral being” (Holmes 21). This moral interpellation of the thinking subject is based on a certain freedom though, specifically it is based upon “the freedom to act according to the principles of one’s own nature” (Holmes 21). But the act of thinking itself is not predicated on this freedom, nor is it predicated on anything other than itself, for “the act of thinking itself contains the principles according to which it proceeds and is not constrained by demands arising elsewhere” (Holmes 21). Thus, contra Plato, “[t]he good is not something outside of man, to which he must submit himself, but is the progress itself of his own development. The duty of man is to be man, to carry the development of his thinking and his action to the highest possible point. This development, governed by the dialectic, is in itself good. Indeed it is the only good” (Holmes 21). Thus, the logocentrism present in the act of thinking expresses itself once more. If A ought to do anything, it ought to be A, and it thus ought to be A to the highest degree that it can be A. But this dialectical understanding of thinking has other implications as well. It helps us conclude that there is no distinction between “theory and practice” because “[m]an always acts in accordance with his thinking, and cannot do otherwise” (Holmes 21).[4]

Moving from theory to practice is an almost inherently political issue, but for Gentile it is already solved. In terms of political critique, Gentile takes issue with democracy because of the individualism inherent to it. Democracy necessitates abstraction because it requires a conception of the individual man as an individual discontinuity within a larger continuous community of men which it is separable from. Individualism is something which is to be transcended for Gentile. Society is not there for the individual, but rather the individual is there for society in that that society expresses the multiplicity of individuals within it, and, therefore, in this sense, society is a unity. This leads Gentile to nationalism. Nationalism arises out of that moment when an individual man no longer sees society as something for him and thus it arises when he sees that he is for society. Holmes says, “Nationality comes from within the citizens of a nation in the sense that it is part of the principle by which each individual thinks” (Holmes 22). Even then, internationalism can only develop out of nationalism. Internationalism is not about individuality, but rather the full realization of nationalism. But how does this lead us to Gentile’s fascism? It is this social ontology of relationships that Gentile uses to think about the state. For Gentile, “[t]he state is not for him a reality external to the individual in which the individual completely loses his identity … The state is in interiore homine: it is the ethical substance of human beings” (Holmes 23). The state’s power comes from the fact that it is a unity of individuals. The state then arises from individuals following a sense of discipline. It is discipline that leads to freedom: “The discipline of a foreign language gives the freedom to explore the literature of that language; the discipline of temperance frees us from slavery to alcohol. The school boy who demands his ‘freedom’ to stay away from school, and the imbier who demands his ‘freedom’ to indulge intemperately, are both demanding an abstract and unreal freedom” (Holmes 23). The individual does not discipline himself for himself, but rather for “the sake of a super-individual spirituality … in which the individual partakes. Without it the individual ceases to be real; without the individual it is empty” (Holmes 23). It is the state that maintains the individual subject and vice versa. Things in themselves are abstraction, but through relation with another, reality comes into play.

Running back to ethics, Gentilian doctrine puts forth that “[n]othing once thought, objectified and therefore static, can be real” for what is real is the act of thinking, reality is a movement, it is an active process (Holmes 24). Thus, the good is not some static thing we pursue, rather “[w]e are constantly improving our moral insight; at no point may we call a halt. It is this improvement, this continuous widening of the horizon of understanding, that is the good” (Holmes 24). And, it is because the real is not static but active that “[t]ruth is dynamic; it is constantly being made. And today’s truth is tomorrow’s error” (Holmes 24). In this way, truth is also a process continually being realized. Thus, “[t]he only truth is the striving for truth; and the only good is striving for good” (Holmes 24). But, it is good and evil that explain Gentile’s social ontology, and also liberty and the law explain his social ontology as well: “Liberty is opposed to law, and each requires the other in order to achieve real significance … The man who is not tempted cannot be good, just as the man who knows no fear cannot be courageous. Goodness involves the presence rather than the absence of evil” (Holmes 24). This logic of duality found within Gentile’s social ontology explains his fascism in that the individual necessitates the unity of society, for without something to oppose itself to, without something to constitute itself upon, it is not. Individuality cannot constitute itself upon itself, for if it is all that is, then it is not a category: a circle without lines is not a circle, it is not. Individuality therefore needs the unity of the social to categorically oppose it. But, this also means that the individual must maintain the state to maintain itself, and that the state must also maintain individuals. And this dual maintenance can be done through: 1. Individuals discipling themselves in relation to the state and then 2. The state being the movement of those individuals that compose it.

This dynamic understanding of the real has historical implications too: “With so dynamic a reality, one in which today’s truth is tomorrow’s error and today’s virtue tomorrow’s vice, the very facts of history cease to be important as such. The real history is the thinking of the historian in action” (Holmes 25). History aims at nothing other than the act of thinking. History is dynamic. There are also pedagogical implications stemming from the logic of duality present in Gentile’s social ontology, but they are not so pressing that we will analyze them. The only thing about education that will be said comes from Holmes: “Education is not to be found in books: it is to be found in thinking” (Holmes 27).

The Logocentric Character of Actual Idealism

Returning to the logocentirc character of actual idealism, Holmes says, “A study of the act of thinking will be a study in the field of logic” (Holmes 30). Actual idealism is thus not only a metaphysic but also an understanding of logic: “A study of ultimate logical norms involves a study of reality; and a study of reality involves the logic of thinking” (Holmes 30). Gentile in fact took this idea so far he even named one of his books the System of Logic or, in Italian, the Sistema di logica. Gentile looks at noetic logics which have to do with ethics (even axiology), epistemology, and thus metaphysics. What Gentile is not looking at is relational logic. Gentile is looking at Logos. For Gentile, Logos “is the norm of thinking … It provides truth value for judgements … which makes the Logos synonymous with reality” (Holmes 34). Gentile inadvertently recognizes the logocentric predicament here: “Logic in itself (i.e. relational proceeds backward in an infinite regress … unless metaphysics is invoked” (Holmes 35). Things get complicated though. Logos is the basis for the noetic logic that Gentile uses. But at the same time, Logos “transcends the act of thing … Logos transcends thought [and] it provides a measure of it” (Holmes 37). If this is true, then is Logos not like God? Is Logos not an abstraction? How can Logos be real if it is outside the act of thinking? The fact that Logos is static “unchanging truth” outside of the dynamic act of thinking leads Holmes to conclude that “[Logos] must necessary be presupposed” (Holmes 37). A sort of transcendental argument is then being made by Holmes here: “The contradictory assertion (i.e. that some do not presuppose that Logos) has only to be entertained to demonstrate that it is untenable, for it contradicts itself in the very process of claiming validity” (Holmes 38). For Gentile then, “Logos [is] previous to all judgements about it” (Holmes 38). Critique is growling… it is hungry, and there is a glaring issue with this doctrine of the transcendent Logos: “What happens when the truth value of the Logos is brought into question? If the Logos is presupposed, is there left open a way of discovering wheter or not our description of it … is true?” (Holmes 38). This leads Gentile to conclude, “A truth transcending the subject is neither a truth nor a knowable reality” (qtd. in Holmes 38). Thus, Gentile parts ways with the idea of transcendent Logos: “A truth immanent in the subject but transcending the act of the knowing subject is not truth” (qtd. in Holmes 40). Gentile continues to make conclusions, “A truth immanent in the subject itself as knowledge, but transcending the actuality of this knowledge in a naturalistic conception of thought, is not truth” (qtd. in Holmes 41). The issue with transcendent Logos is precisely the logocentirc predicament in terms of format: “How can one justify Logos as true if justification itself supposes the presupposition and then employment of Logos’ justification?”

Returning to what we know, for Gentile what is real and true is what is immanent in the act of thinking. As Holmes says, “The act of knowing is the final refuge of an immanent Logos” (Holmes 41). For Gentile then, the way an immanent understanding of truth, of Logos, must operate in relation to the act of thinking which it is immanet within is as follows: “‘I think Edinburgh is north of London’ — the truth relation being between ‘I think’ and ‘Edinburgh is the north of London’” (Holmes 42). Now, obviously, an issue arises with all of this: if nothing can be outside of the act of thinking and justified and we are questioning the very validity of the act of thinking, then can one verify it without begging the question, or being viciously circular and infinitely regressive? The logocentric predicament arises once again: how can we verify our method if we cannot go outside of our method? What justifies our method in a non-circular and regressive manner? Gentile heads toward an attempt of answering our question: “it is true because we freely so think it” (Holmes 43). But, what if we are questioning the truth of thinking itself? We end up in a circle again. Essentially, here is how the regression works: 1. I think, therefore I am 2. I think I think, therefore I am 3. I think I think I think, therefore I am… and so on and so on. What Holmes, contrary to this, puts forward is this: “I think, therefore I (as thinking) am” (Holmes 44). But the latter form of regression can still take place. That “I think am” can be deduced from “I think” may not necessarily be a proper deduction in that fictional ontology can be proposed, or skepticism. Nevertheless, “I think I am” and “I think” are not within an analytic relation unless thinking and Being are synonymous. For Gentile, thinking and Being are synonymous but this just leads to a presuppositon. How can one verify his latter proposition without presupposing immanent Logos? And, therefore, how can one verify, justify, etc. (which ever word you want to use) immanent Logos without first presupposing immanent Logos? Holmes says this, “No thought may deny the existence of thinking without being absurd” (Holmes 44). Obviously, though, Gentile and Holmes here obviously cannot stand up to rigorous skepticism. That the act of thinking can become a self-undermining notion is obviously problematic: and this problem is precisely the logocentric predicament. The transcendental argument is not a very good argument if the very thing we are questioning are those necessary conditions. Then again, Holmes is actually making a much broader point here: when one argues or speaks, there is always a latent “I think” in front of it. For example, “I’m going to go get some food” = “(I think) I’m going to go get some food.” Now, this is all very interesting, but nevertheless, a bind appears: Gentile’s philosophy is predicated on the act of thinking and it comes to the conclusion that the act of thinking is immanently self-justifying. It is easily circular, and it uses logical binds to argue that to try to deny Gentile would be a performative and practical contradiction, but obviously this falls right into the logocentric predicament. The movement toward Logos does not mean anything because what is supposed is that logical inference is a justified method of thought. Multiple more binds appear, and each continually demonstrate the circularity of Gentile’s philosophy. Now, circularity isn’t necessarily untenable, rather it is vicious circularity that is untenable. Gentile is obviously trying to argue that “[t]hought is a reality producing itself, a reality sui generis, an activity,” but such a claim begs the question and leads to infinite regress in that for it to generate itself, it would have to be (Holmes 46). I think, therefore I think I am again supposes both the “I” and, in the case of Gentile, the “think,” and the issue is that to even attempt to justify the statement “I think” we must suppose that we are thinking subjects, for if we do not then we are not and do not think, and therefore Gentile wouldn’t be correct. This means he is forced into a double bind of either a. He supposes thought exists but cannot therefore justify that thought exists without supposing thought or b. Thought does not exist and Gentile is therefore wrong. Now, when it comes to Gentile’s argument that there is no difference between pure and practical reason, he argues that “[i]n a doctrine in which the act of thinking is the only reality there can be no real distinction between thinking and doing,” but obviously this supposes that the act of thinking is the only reality, and the only way Gentile could justify such a claim is through thought, because for him only thought is real, which therefore means thought would be trying to justify itself because of itself — the vicious circularity appears. Thought cannot be justified in saying it is the source of justification without first supposing that it is justified, for if it is the only thing that is real, then no other thing could be the source of justification. Therefore, thought could never justify itself without first supposing that it was justified. Because I am repeating myself, and have been for a while, I will try to be more concise: That thought is justified in its arbitration that it is self-justifying cannot be justified without first employing thought and thus supposing it is justified in its arbitration. Therefore, it cannot say that it is self-justifying without first supposing it is justified, and if it is all that is, then it has nothing to appeal to for its justification except itself, but if it appeals to itself then it will fall into the latter infinite circle of supposing it is justified to then make the conclusion that it is justified (or self-justifying). Gentile’s philosophy then begs the question “How can we justify thought without first presupposing thought and then employing it?” The simple answer: we can’t because we would be infinitely supposing that thought is justified in its arbitration of what is justified by employing it to try and justify itself arbitration. Okay, I’ve stated the bind Gentile is in too many times because I cannot find the right way to word it. Nevertheless, the point has been made: Gentile in no way escapes the logocentric predicament. In fact, for Gentile to make any of his conclusions he must first suppose and then employ logic which is to say he must fall into the logocentric predicament. To come to all of his conclusions he has reasoned and done logical inference. HE CANNOT ESCAPE THE LOGOCENTRIC PREDICAMENT! We can just replace “logic” with “thought” within Sheffer’s original sentence about the logocentric predicament: “The attempt to formulate the foundations of thought is rendered arduous by a ‘logocentric’ predicament. In order to give an account of thought, we must first presuppose and employ logic” or, in other words, in order to justify thought as a method which our truth claims are grounded in, we must think, and therefore suppose it as our method, therefore taking away the possibility of justifying thought without first supposing it is justified, i.e., without first thinking. Now in Sistema di logica, Gentile address this when he says, “Thinking presupposes nothing but thought definitely presupposes thinking” (qtd. in Holmes 75). Thus, let us reformulate this and it will be no trouble: “The attempt to justify thinking is rendered arduous by a ‘logocentric’ predicament. In order to give an account of thinking, we must first presuppose and employ logic” or, in other words, in order to justify thinking as a method which our truth claims are grounded in, thinking must take place (we must think), and therefore suppose it as our method, therefore taking away the possibility of justifying thinking without first suppsoing it is justified, i.e., without first thinking. Even then, this whole issue still supposes logical inference and reasoning… The logocentric predicament seems to hunat Gentile just like communism haunted Europe (in Marx’s opinion at least). Let me, very quickly, use Holmes to better explicate the problem I’m raising for Gentile: “[thinking and its justification] presupposes the act by which it is produced [which is the act of thinking]” (Holmes 75). Thus thinking presupposes itself and its justification, and because, for Gentile at least, there is nothing other than thinking to appeal to, it cannot, therefore, be non-circularly and non-viciously justified. Again, it presupposes it is justified. Thinking, by itself, is not justified. I don’t even know how the vicious circularity is not recognized: “Thinking is described by Gentile as like a point moving in a circle. The moving point is pensiero pensante and the circle it generates is pensiero pensato” (Holmes 77). And it gets even better: “if the Logos were external to thinking, we should have neither truth according to the Gentilian requirements nor the circularity which we have found characteristic of thought” (Holmes 78).

P1: Thinking is justified.[5]

P2: (I think) Logos is contained within thinking.

C1: Therefore, thinking is justified.

If P1 has to be there because P2 is thought, and if P1 wasn’t there then there is no way we could justify P2. In fact, let me give another expression of this syllogistically:

P1: (I think) Thinking is justified.

P2: (I think) Logos is contained within thinking.

C1: (I think) Therefore, thinking is justified.

That Gentile begs the question, that he commits the fallacy of petito princippi is clear. That “I think” precedes “Thinking is justified” demonstrates that “Thinking is justified” is presupposed immediately as “I think” comes into play.

Notes

[1]: Kant is surely the beginning of the end of the philosophy, which is to say he is the beginning, the founder, the father of the movement that has been, is, and will be the completion of philosophy.

[2]: Which we have also called the act of knowing, but remember that there is no difference between knowledge and action and thus we come to speaking about this essential part of Gentile’s philosophy as the act of thinking. Thought is “the activity of the knower” (Holmes 6).

[3]: “The act of thinking is essentially an act which thinks something. It is productive” (Holmes 18).

[4]: I love being an armchair. “To use Gentile’s own figure, the philosopher does not sit in the second-story window contemplating the hubbub of his fellow men in the street, he joins his fellow men and acts with them” (Holmes 21–22). Obviously, Gentile means here action “in the broadest sense as being the entire sphere of practical activity” (Homles 22).

[5]: By “Thinking is justified” I mean that thinking is justified as a method of arbitration and also in its judgment when it comes to truth claims and all that jazz.

Work Cited

Holmes, Roger W. The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile. The Macmillan Company, 1937.

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Evan Jack

How sweet terror is, not a single line, or a ray of morning sunlight fails to contain the sweetness of anguish. - Georges Bataille