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Croce's Theory of Economic Action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Extract
While reflecting recently on what the historian means by greatness, I was led to examine Croce's theory of economic action. It seemed to promise an answer to the troublesome problem of the relationship between greatness and moral goodness. How those hopes were disappointed will be explained presently, but Croce's theory must first be considered on its merits. I shall confine the discussion as far as possible to Croce's philosophy of the practical, avoiding any detailed reference, e.g., to the somewhat artificial parallelism within the dialectic of the spirit between the forms of theoretical and those of practical activity. Since, however, Croce teaches—and his practice is in accordance with his teaching—that any severance of part from whole does violence to philosophy, it will be necessary to touch on certain larger questions before we close.
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References
page 285 note 1 Filosofia della pratica, 248 (references here and elsewhere to the Italian edition of 1909).
page 286 note 1 Filosofia della practica, 238–239.
page 286 note 2 Ibid., 220, 233.
page 286 note 3 Croce’s assertion that the distinction, being philosophical, not psychological, is grounded, not on observation of contingent fact, but on the necessary process of the spirit, must not be understood to imply that economicity is merely a moment in volition that is also ethical, or that no purely economic acts actually occur in human experience. The contrary is explicitly stated (F. d. pr., 245, 369). Such acts, except at the premoral level, intervene in the midst of other acts which are both moral and economic through a temporary suspension of the moral life. What Croce is concerned to show (217 ff.) is that philosophical distinctions are not to be explained by an appeal to facts which are admittedly approximative, but vice versa.
page 286 note 4 Filosofia della practica, 219, 221, 223; cf. La Critica, x, 233, “i valori universalmente umani che si dicono di cultura,” and F. d. pr., 302, 312.Google Scholar
page 286 note 5 Ibid., 219.
page 287 note 1 Not, of course, as measured by overt success; the event (accadimento) depends on conditions largely beyond the control of the individual agent.
page 287 note 2 Filosofia della practica, 221.
page 287 note 3 Ibid., 310–311.
page 287 note 4 Ibid., 239.
page 287 note 5 Ibid., 300–301.
page 288 note 1 Filosofia delta pradica, 230–231, 298.
page 288 note 2 Ibid., 245.
page 288 note 3 Ibid., 240.
page 288 note 4 Ibid., 240, 246–247, 250, 369.
page 289 note 1 Certain of these contributions are contained in the short volume entitled Frammenti di Etica.
page 289 note 2 La Crit., xiv, 483.
page 289 note 3 F. d. pr., 240, 369.
page 289 note 4 Ibid., 247.
page 289 note 5 Ibid., 248.
page 290 note 1 F. d. pr., 250.
page 290 note 2 Ibid., 221.
page 290 note 3 Ibid., 222.
page 290 note 4 Ibid., 246, 250, 253.
page 290 note 5 Ibid., 231.
page 291 note 1 F. d. pr., 220.
page 291 note 2 Ibid., 223.
page 291 note 3 Ibid., 368–369; La Crit., xiv, 241–242.
page 291 note 4 Framm., xxxiii, p. 143.
page 291 note 5 Ibid., xxxv, 150–151.
page 291 note 6 See, for example, Joseph, : Some Problems of Ethics, ad fin., pp. 133–135.Google Scholar
page 291 note 7 Loc. cit.
page 291 note 8 La Crit., loc. cit.
page 292 note 1 La Crit., 78, 81: “una vera Real-Politik, la quale non sarà veraments reale se non sarà insieme ideale, giacchè la seria idealità e la seria realtà coincidono.”
page 292 note 2 Ibid., xiv, 483.
page 292 note 3 F. d. pr., 287.
page 292 note 4 Saggio, p. 161.
page 292 note 5 Teoria e Storia della Storiografica, p. 252.
page 292 note 6 La Crit., xiv, 242.
page 292 note 7 Framm., xxxvi, 156; cf. Saggio, 161: “per lo Stato si potrà sacrificare… perfino la salute dell’ anima propria, ma non la moralità, per la contradizione che non lo consente.” A wide door is here left open for the conscientious objector within the field of politics.
page 293 note 1 See my Presidential addresses (I) to the Aristotelian Society, Session 1931— 1932 (Proc of the Ar. Soc, N.S., xxxii, on “Greatness and Goodness”) and (2) to the Joint Conference of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, 1932 (Proc. of the Ar. Soc, Suppl., vol. xi, on “Historical Greatness”).
page 293 note 2 Teoria è Storia della Storiografica, p. 83.
page 293 note 3 Log (ed. 1928), 197 f.
page 294 note 1 Log, 191; cf. F. d. pr., 178.
page 294 note 2 F. d. pr., 221.
page 294 note 3 On valori di cultura, La Crit., X, 233 ff.; cf. F. d. pr., 302, 312.
page 296 note 1 F. d. pr., 178–179.
page 296 note 2 Ibid., 222–223.
page 296 note 3 Teoria e Storia delta Storiografica, 86–87.
page 297 note 1 Teoria e Storia della Storiografica, 166–162.
page 297 note 2 See Log, 299, 306.
page 297 note 3 F. d. pr., 310.
page 297 note 4 Ibid., 308.
page 297 note 5 Log, 162.
page 297 note 6 Ibid., 43.
page 298 note 1 Eth. St., 231; cf. 205.
page 298 note 2 Ibid., 344.
page 298 note 3 The same difficulty arises in Gentile's Philosophy of the Spirit, in regard to the relation of the “empirical” to the “transcendental” Ego; see my paper on Gentile, in Philosophy, No. 13, vol. iv.Google Scholar
page 298 note 4 “For that which is individual and finite, essence and existence do not coincide; it changes at every moment, and while at every moment it is the universal, it is equated with it only at infinity (lo adegua solamente all’ infinite),” Log, 106.
page 298 note 5 In Log, 110, he defines “that mysterious and inqualifiable faculty called Faith” as “an intuition which would intuite the universal, or a thought of the universal without the logical process of thought.” Cf. 45, on intellectual intuition as caprice.
page 298 note 6 F. d. pr., 180, 310–311.
page 299 note 1 Evil, we are told, is quâ evil negative; its positivity is an activity of Spirit and therefore good. Why good is positive, evil negative, and not vice versa, is nowhere explained. Both are abstract moments in the Spirit’s movement, with equal claim to positivity.
page 299 note 2 Alexander, : Space, Time and Deity, I, 233: “The so-called ‘concrete universal’ is, in fact, not a universal but a universe.”Google Scholar
page 299 note 3 See Log, Part I, Sect, iii, chaps. 1 and 2; Part II, chaps. 3 and 4, and p. 135: “Truths of reason and truths of fact, analytic and synthetic judgments, definitory and individual judgments, as distinct one from the other, are abstractions. The logical act is single; identity of definition and individual judgment, the thought of the pure concept.”
page 299 note 4 Storiografica, 137.
page 299 note 5 I refer, of course, to the doctrine of “subsistent” universals and values in a realm of being other than that of existence and actuality.