/lit/ - Literature

>Our Democracy is...LE BAD
>Fascism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexworkerphobia is...LE GOOD

>>20005526
Gentile was influenced by Vico, Fitche, Marx, and most certainly Kant and Hegel. Kant being the most important philosophically.

>>20005537
>Fascism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexworkerphobia is...LE GOOD

>>20005567
The only two of these I'm knowledgeable about are Kant and Marx and Kant is the one I have by far spent the most time on. Should I brush up on my Marx before hand?

>>20005615
I’d say brush up on Marx after listening to this video, https://youtu.be/oofMtUmqt9Q

As for Gentile himself, he’s a subjective idealist, If you really want to get into Fascist Metaphysics you might want to start with brief overview. Roger W. Holme's 'The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile' is a great introductory work.

Gentile's most accessible work in English is 'The Reform of Education'. Once you get an understanding of the history I'd read the doctrine of Fascism. So you might want to understand them first if you want to tackle his 'Theory of Mind as Pure Act'. His magnum opus 'The System of Logic as Theory of Knowledge' has not been translated. Maybe you'll want to read 'Genesis and Structure of Society' after.

Fascist theory is mostly untranslated. There is quite a voluminous quantity of work for an 'anti-intellectual' movement. If you don't know Italian you have to get your information through secondary sources.

Read
>Beiser, Fate of Reason
>Beiser, The Romantic Imperative
>Beiser, Hegel
>Beiser, After Hegel
>Beiser, German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism
You could read German Idealism second instead (right after Fate of Reason), but it's the longest and most difficult so it's easier to read the other three short ones and circle back to the big one. You could also read Norman di Giovanni's Between Kant and Hegel, but I recommend only reading this after reading at least Fate of Reason first.

You could read Isaiah Berlin's Three Critics of Enlightenment, and his lectures on romanticism. Charles Taylor's Hegel is still useful too if you need more of an introduction to Hegel.

For understanding Gentile specifically, I highly recommend reading Croce's What is Living and What is Dead in Hegel's Philosophy.

It would also be helpful to read about the progress of left Hegelianism. A good starting point is Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, all pre-Marx chapters (on Left Hegelianism and the Young Hegelians) in volumes one, then optionally the chapters on Lukacs, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, and Gramsci in the other volumes. Horkheimer's essay on "Critical and Traditional Theory" and something by Martin Jay or Susan Buck-Morss on the essence of Adorno's negative dialectics would also help train your Hegelian thinking and teach you how left Hegelians differ from right Hegelians. One helpful guideline is to understand how, as Kolakowski puts it, the left Hegelians after Hegel re-"Fichteanised" Hegel. This had massive implications for the development of Marxism, since it constitutes a decision about how to handle a central ambiguity in Hegel's thought. On a similar note, understanding how Adorno's negative dialectics were a re-Kantianisation of Hegelian thought will also refine your ability to think with Hegel. All of these things will because they are themselves developments of ambiguities and problems in Hegel's thought, which Gentile has to deal with too.

I also recommend reading Sorel's "The Decomposition of Marxism" (translated in Horowitz) for another approach to problems caused by ambiguities in Hegelianism, specifically as a departure from the left Hegelian solutions in an irrationalist (but not irrational or arbitrary) direction.

>>20005615
The more Marx you read, if you read him properly anyway, the more you will understand left Hegelian thought. But it's also time consuming to understand him well.

>>20005662
I forgot to recommend one other thing. Trendelenburg's essays criticising Hegel are useful for a sense of the post-Hegelian breakdown, since he hated Hegel and was part of the generation that was extremely annoyed at the perceived monopoly on philosophy the Hegelians exercised until they were thrown out. I think some of his writings were translated into English in the 1870s a "The Logical Question in Hegel," about what exactly Hegelian logic or "pure thought" actually ever meant. This is helpful to read because it will show you that it was by no means settled what paradigmatic "Hegelian philosophy" even was in the 19th century. There are central ambiguities in Hegelian thinking and you have to learn to identify them and take stances on them. Being mystified about these is what leads to vulgar pseudo-Hegelianism like people who read only the Phenomenology of Spirit and read all kinds of arbitrary shit into it.

>>20005662
>>20005700
Good posts bro, not OP but I will remember this, thanks

>>20005662
>>20005700
great posts

>>20005662
>>20005700
OP here. Excellent posts man. You've greatly helped to orient me within my planned study of Third Positionalist philosophy.

>>20005526
bump