The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile | H. S. Harris | Harris omits some logical conclusions,...

book: The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile | H. S. Harris

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The Social Philoso...

	The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile H. S. Harris University of Illinois Press, 1966 - 387 pages average customer review:based on 1 review
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Harris omits some logical conclusions, but puts all the pieces before you

I've been reading over H. S. Harris' "The social philosophy of Giovanni Gentile" again recently, and being impressed both by Gentile's extremely progressive dialectical view of government, and also with Harris' inability to see the reliance Gentile put into the unification of opposites in government even while explaining that facet clearly to the readers about Gentile's ontological philosophy.....

Harris seems to just be taking the position that most English-speaking social commentators make regarding the soundness of philosophical Fascism by noting its "contradictions" as unworkable, yet denying the interplay which lies at the heart of them that individuals like Gentile were trying to get at.

Mostly, I was struck with the description of Gentile's acceptance of the Corporative model of group level autonomy and privatized (devolved) conception of guild law granted in the theoretical Corporative state, after much denial of it as a kind of denial of state's sovereignty. Eventually hailing it as a reciprocal means to unifying the national will in an organic, flowing way to a true leveling toward a national collective state will & ideal. Harris continues to say Gentile should have accepted one or another because they contradict, and fails to associate the dialectical world-view he espoused for every aspect of life to that as well.

Quite sad really, it doesn't take an overly astute individual to see Harris was simply playing to the sentiment of anti-Fascism in the western world, when he should have been using this instance to uphold Fascism as a philosophical ideal distinct from it's empirical instances of manifestation in the way Communists say their ideals haven't truly materialized by any governments claiming such. A lesser reader might be lead to agree with Harris and discount the rich philosophical governmental systematization had in Fascism as a historical political movement rather than as a contemporary political epithet.

Though looking past this, a very good and informative read.

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