Epilogue

Summary

This Epilogue outlines the influence and legacy of nineteenth-century Italian Hegelianism by investigating how Benedetto Croce, Giovanni Gentile, and Antonio Gramsci re-elaborated this tradition in order to develop their own philosophical systems. The recasting of Hegelian political thought by nineteenth-century Italian Hegelians had a huge influence on the way in which these thinkers interpreted Hegel, Marx, and the relationship between politics and ethics, as well as their understanding of Italian history and of the role of intellectuals in the formation of the Italian state. This Epilogue argues that these thinkers were in constant dialogue with the Italian tradition of political thought identified in this book: an intellectual history by virtue of which a specific recasting of the themes presented by Hegel’s philosophy forged an understanding of history as the realm in which philosophy acquires its political relevance, and ideas their practical dimension.