Croce, Benedetto [key], 1866–1952, Italian philosopher, historian, and critic. He lived mostly in Naples, devoting himself to studying and writing. He founded and edited (1903–44) Critica, a review of literature, history, and philosophy, which in 1944 became Quaderni della critica. Croce was made a senator in 1910 and was minister of education (1920–21). A staunch opponent of Fascism, he lived in retirement until 1943, when he became a leader of the Liberal party. Croce's system of philosophy is related to the idealistic school in that spirit, monistic in manifestation, constitutes the only reality. In his works on aesthetics Croce held that an artist's mental images, communicated by physical artifacts, constitute works of art. Viewing history as an interpretation of the past, he argued that history is not only a form of thought but the culmination of philosophy. The general title of the work presenting his system is Philosophy of the Spirit (1902–17; tr. 1909–21), which is divided into four parts, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, Logic as the Science of Pure Concept, Philosophy of the Practical, and History: Its Theory and Practice. Among his other works are A History of Italy, 1871–1915 (1927; tr. 1929) and History as the Story of Liberty (1938; tr. 1941).
See his essays My Philosophy (tr. 1949); M. E. Moss, Benedetto Croce Reconsidered (1987); D. Roberts, Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism (1987).
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