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Napoli: Francesco Perrella, [1917]. Pp. 221. 1

The International Journal of Ethics, 28 (Apr 1918) 444-45

Professor Aliotta’s book has a topical title, but except for a patriotic passage at the end he confines himself to philosophical issues. 2 His task is a popular presentation of a species of Humanism. Sig. Aliotta comes out of the idealistic tradition, and has developed a relative idealism, with a strong propension toward Pure Experience. His Empiricism stops at the subject-object relation, beyond which he believes we can penetrate no further. He begins by an assault upon naturalism and positivism (“freedom is an inner experience”); 3 and no less forcibly attacks absolute idealism (e.g. Royce’s absolute will, 43), 4 and the “Spirit” of neo-Hegelians (a “spirit” which is not the spirit of any concrete person). 5 “The primitive fact” in his own words “is the experience of an individual subject in time.” 6 From experience “it is impossible for us to escape; we must not grieve thereat, because this is the concrete reality, the living model of any and every conceivable form of existence” (58). 7 “The object is only real in its relation to the subject, and vice versa . . . outside of this relationship the two terms are mere abstractions.” 8

I have not been able to trace the links between this thesis and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which Professor Aliotta holds with equal emphasis. 9 Nor is the theory of Evil–as a conflict of wills which is disappearing in the “progressive co-ordination” of the world–altogether satisfactory. 10 Is the ideal of civilisation merelyorganisation? Professor Aliotta seems to think so (163, 185). 11 And there is perhaps a little trick of passe-passein his argument for vitalism versus mechanism (187). 12 But the book is vigorous and entertaining, and is not intended as a technical treatise of the bulletproof sort. It is pleasant to find that Croce and Gentile are spoken of as “polluting (at least contaminando) Hegel with Bergson.” 13

t. s. e.

Published By:   Faber & Faber logo    Johns Hopkins University Press

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