View source for Benedetto Croce

{{short description|Italian philosopher (1866–1952)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = 
| name                = Benedetto Croce
| honorific-suffix    = [[Order of the Crown of Italy|OCI]] [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus|COSML]]
| image               = Benedetto Croce 01.jpg
| caption             = Croce in 1909
| office              = Member of the [[Senate of the Republic (Italy)|Senate of the Republic]]
| term_start          = 8 May 1948
| term_end            = 20 November 1952
| constituency        = [[Naples]]
| office1             = Member of the [[Constituent Assembly of Italy|Constituent Assembly]]
| term_start1         = 25 June 1946
| term_end1           = 31 January 1948
| constituency1       = [[At-large|Italy at-large]]
| office2             = [[Italian Minister of Education|Minister of Public Education]]
| primeminister2      = [[Giovanni Giolitti]]
| term_start2         = 15 June 1920
| term_end2           = 4 July 1921
| predecessor2        = Andrea Torre
| successor2          = [[Orso Mario Corbino]]
| office3             = Member of the [[Senate of the Kingdom of Italy|Senate of the Kingdom]]
| appointer3            = [[Victor Emmanuel III of Italy|Victor Emmanuel III]]
| term_start3         = 26 January 1910
| term_end3           = 24 June 1946
| birth_date          = {{birth date|df=y|1866|2|25}}
| birth_place         = [[Pescasseroli]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]]
| death_date          = {{death date and age|df=y|1952|11|20|1866|2|25}}
| death_place         = [[Naples]], Italy
| party               = [[Italian Liberal Party]]<br />(1922–1952)
| spouse              = {{marriage|Adele Rossi|1914}}
| partner             = {{marriage|Angelina Zampanelli|1893|1913|end=her d.}}
| children            = 4
| profession          = {{hlist|Historian|writer|landowner}}
| signature           = FirmaBCroce.png
| alma_mater          = [[University of Naples]]
| module              = {{Infobox philosopher|embed=yes
| era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| region           = 
{{Tree list}}
* [[Western philosophy]]
** [[Italian philosophy]]
{{Tree list/end}}
| school_tradition = [[Neo-Hegelianism]]<br />[[Classical liberalism]]<br />[[Historism]]<!--Not historicism--><ref>Robin Headlam Wells, Glenn Burgess, Rowland Wymer (eds.), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=M_WPMPLP3PsC&q=%22Historicism%22 Neo-historicism: Studies in Renaissance Literature, History, and Politics]'' 
Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2000, p. 3.</ref> (''storicismo'')
| main_interests   = {{hlist|[[History]]|[[aesthetics]]|[[politics]]}}
| notable_ideas    = [[Liberism]]<br />[[Aesthetic expressivism]]
}}
}}
'''Benedetto Croce''', {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Order of the Crown of Italy|OCI]], [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus|COSML]]}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|r|oʊ|tʃ|eɪ}} {{respell|KROH|chay}}; {{IPA|it|beneˈdetto ˈkroːtʃe|lang}}; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952)<ref name="historypageit">{{Cite web |title=BIOGRAPHY OF BENEDETTO CROCE – HistoriaPage |url=https://www.historypage.it/biography-of-benedetto-croce/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200923064641/https://www.historypage.it/biography-of-benedetto-croce/ |archive-date=23 September 2020 |access-date=2020-10-07}}</ref>
was an Italian [[idealist philosopher]],<ref>{{Cite news|last=Koch|first=Adrienne|date=1944-07-30|title=Croce and the Germans; GERMANY AND EUROPE: A Spiritual Dissension. By Benedetto Croce. Translated and with an Introduction by Vincent Sheean. 83 pp. New York: Random House. $1.25. (Published 1944)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1944/07/30/archives/croce-and-the-germans-germany-and-europe-a-spiritual-dissension-by.html|access-date=2020-10-07|issn=0362-4331}} "...distinguished philosopher..."</ref> historian,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Benedetto Croce {{!}} Italian philosopher|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benedetto-Croce|access-date=2020-10-07|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, [[historiography]], and [[aesthetics]]. A [[Cultural liberalism|political liberal]] in most regards, he formulated a distinction between [[liberalism]] (as support for [[civil liberties]]) and "[[liberism]]" (as support for ''laissez-faire'' economics and [[capitalism]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Croce ed Einaudi: un confronto su liberalismo e liberismo in "Croce e Gentile" |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/croce-ed-einaudi-un-confronto-su-liberalismo-e-liberismo_(Croce-e-Gentile) |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=www.treccani.it |language=it-IT}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Croce e il liberalismo in "Croce e Gentile" |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/croce-e-il-liberalismo_(Croce-e-Gentile) |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=www.treccani.it |language=it-IT}}</ref> Croce had considerable influence on other Italian intellectuals, from [[Marxists]] to [[Italian fascists]], such as [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Giovanni Gentile]], respectively.<ref name=historypageit/>

He had a long career in the [[Italian Parliament]], joining the [[Senate of the Kingdom of Italy]] in 1910, serving through Fascism and the Second World War before being elected to the [[Constituent Assembly of Italy|Constituent Assembly]] as a Liberal. In the [[1948 Italian general election|1948 general election]] he was elected to the [[Senate of the Republic (Italy)|new republican Senate]] and served there until his death. He was a longtime member of the [[Italian Liberal Party]], serving as its president from 1944 to 1947.

Croce was the president of the worldwide writers' association [[PEN International]] from 1949 until 1952. He was nominated for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] 16 times.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=2027|title=Nomination Database|publisher=Nobel Foundation|access-date=31 January 2017}}</ref>
He is also noted for his "major contributions to the rebirth of Italian democracy".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rizi|first=Fabio Fernando|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a_OADwAAQBAJ|title=Benedetto Croce and the Birth of the Italian Republic, 1943-1952|date=2019-01-09|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4875-0446-5|language=en}}</ref> He was an elected International Member of both the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] and the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Benedetto Croce |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/benedetto-croce |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |date=9 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Benedetto+Croce&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

==Biography==
Croce was born in [[Pescasseroli]] in the [[Abruzzo]] region of Italy. His family was influential and wealthy, and he was raised in a very strict Roman Catholic environment. Around the age of 16, he quit Catholicism and developed a personal [[philosophy of life|philosophy of spiritual life]], in which religion cannot be anything but a historical institution where the creative strength of mankind can be expressed. He kept this philosophy for the rest of his life.

In 1883, an [[1883 Casamicciola earthquake|earthquake occurred in the village of Casamicciola]] on the island of [[Ischia]] near [[Naples]], where he was on holiday with his family, destroying the home they lived in. His mother, father, and only sister were all killed, and he was buried for a long time and barely survived. After the earthquake, he inherited his family's fortune and—much like [[Schopenhauer]]—was able to live the rest of his life in relative leisure, devoting a great deal of time to philosophy as an independent intellectual writing from his [[palazzo]] in [[Naples]] (Ryn, 2000:xi<ref name="lib"/>).

He studied law, but never graduated, at the [[University of Naples]], while reading extensively on [[historical materialism]]. His ideas were publicized at the [[Sapienza University of Rome|University of Rome]] towards the end of the 1890s by Professor [[Antonio Labriola]]. Croce was well acquainted with and sympathetic to the developments in European socialist philosophy exemplified by [[August Bebel]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Karl Kautsky]], [[Paul Lafargue]], [[Wilhelm Liebknecht]], and [[Filippo Turati]].

Influenced by Neapolitan-born [[Gianbattista Vico]]'s thoughts about art and history,<ref>Croce, Benedetto 'The Philosophy of [[Giambattista Vico]]' trans R.G.Collingwood London, 1923</ref> he began studying philosophy in 1893. Croce also purchased the house in which Vico had lived. His friend, the philosopher [[Giovanni Gentile]], encouraged him to read [[G. W. F. Hegel|Hegel]]. Croce's famous commentary on Hegel, ''What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel'', was published in 1907.

=== Political involvement ===
As his fame increased, Croce was persuaded, against his initial wishes,{{verify source|date=November 2012}} to become involved in politics. In 1910, he was appointed to the Italian Senate, a lifelong position (Ryn, 2000:xi).<ref name="lib"/> He was an open critic of Italy's participation in [[World War I]], feeling that it was a suicidal trade war. Although this made him initially unpopular, his reputation was restored after the war. In 1919, he supported the government of [[Francesco Saverio Nitti]] while also expressing his admiration for the nascent [[Weimar Republic]] and the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rizi |first1=Fabio Fernando |title=Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism |date=2003 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |page=34}}</ref> He was Minister of Public Education between 1920 and 1921 for the 5th and last government headed by [[Giovanni Giolitti]]. [[Benito Mussolini]] assumed power slightly more than a year after Croce's exit from the government; Mussolini's first Minister of Public Education was Giovanni Gentile, an independent who later became a fascist and with whom Croce had earlier cooperated in a philosophical [[polemic]] against [[positivism]]. Gentile remained minister for only a year but managed to begin a comprehensive [[education reform|reform]] of Italian education that was based partly on Croce's earlier suggestions. Gentile's reform remained in force well beyond the Fascist regime and was only partly abolished in 1962.

Croce was instrumental in the relocation of the [[Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III]] to the [[Royal Palace of Naples]] in 1923.

=== Relations with Italian fascism ===
Croce initially supported Mussolini's [[Italian fascism]] government that took power in 1922.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Denis Mack |date=1973 |title=Benedetto Croce: History and Politics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/260068 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=41–61 |doi=10.1177/002200947300800103 |jstor=260068 |issn=0022-0094|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The assassination by the [[National Fascist Party]] and [[Blackshirts]] of the [[socialist]] politician [[Giacomo Matteotti]] in June 1924 shook Croce's support for Mussolini. In May 1925, Croce was one of the signatories to the [[Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals]] which had been written by Croce himself; however, in June 1924, he had voted in the Senate in support of the Mussolini government. He later explained that he had hoped that the support for Mussolini in parliament would weaken the more extreme Fascists who, he believed, were responsible for Matteotti's murder.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Croce later became one of the firmest opponents of fascism.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gallo|first=Max|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9clBAAAAIAAJ&q=Benedetto+Croce+mussolini+Matteotti|title=Mussolini's Italy; Twenty Years of the Fascist Era|date=1973|publisher=Macmillan|page=188|language=en}}</ref>

In 1928, Croce voted against the law which effectively abolished free elections in Italy by requiring electors to vote for a list of candidates approved by the Grand Council of Fascism.<ref name="Rizi" /> He became increasingly dismayed by the number of ex-democrats who had abandoned their former principles.<ref name="Rizi" /> Croce frequently provided financial assistance to [[anti-fascist]] writers and dissidents, such as [[Giorgio Amendola]], [[Ivanoe Bonomi]], and [[Meuccio Ruini]], as well as those who wanted to maintain intellectual and political independence from the regime, and covertly helped them get published.<ref name="Rizi" /> Croce's house in Turin became a popular destination for anti-fascists. After the war, Amendola, along with [[communists]] like Eugenio Reale reflected that Croce offered aid and encouragement to both [[Liberalism|liberal]] and [[Marxist]] resistance members during the crucial years.<ref name="Rizi" />

Croce was seriously threatened by Mussolini's regime, and suffered the only act of physical violence at the hands of the fascists in November 1926, when fascists ransacked his home and library in Naples.<ref>See the detailed description in a letter by Fausto Nicolini to Giovanni Gentile published in {{cite book |title=Per invigilare me stesso |first=Gennaro |last=Sasso |publisher=Il mulino |location=Bologna |year=1989 |pages=139–40 }}</ref> Although he managed to stay outside prison thanks to his reputation, he remained subject to surveillance, and his academic work was kept in obscurity by the government, to the extent that no mainstream newspaper or academic publication ever referred to him. Croce later coined the term ''onagrocrazia'' (literally "government by asses") to emphasize the anti-intellectual and boorish tendencies of parts of the Fascist regime.<ref>It is a disdainful term for misgovernment, a late and satirical addition to [[Aristotle]]'s famous three: [[tyranny]], [[oligarchy]], and democracy.</ref> However, in describing Fascism as anti-intellectual Croce ignored the many Italian intellectuals who at the time actively supported Mussolini's regime, including Croce's former friend and colleague, Gentile. Croce also described Fascism as ''malattia morale'' (literally "moral illness"). When Mussolini's government adopted [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] policies in 1938, Croce was the only non-Jewish intellectual who refused to complete a government questionnaire designed to collect information on the so-called "racial background" of Italian intellectuals.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Chiarini|first=Roberto|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OXQPAQAAMAAJ&q=Benedetto+croce|title=L'intellettuale antisemita|date=2008|publisher=Marsilio|isbn=978-88-317-9635-4|page=94|language=it}} ''BENEDETTO CROCE. Il filosofo napoletano fu l'unico grande intellettuale a prendere pubblicamente posizione in Italia contro le concezioni razziste e contro le persecuzioni antiebraiche attuate dal nazismo e dal fascismo, in scritti e interventi pubblicati sulla sua rivista « La Critica » e su organi di stampa stranieri.''</ref><ref>[[Nuova Rivista Storica]]. gen-apr2020, Vol. 104 Issue 1, p1-137. 137p. Di Rienzo Eugenio</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Ceresatto|first1=Alessandro|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qOy7AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Benedetto+croce%22|title=Salvare la memoria: come studiare la storia di ieri per non essere indifferenti oggi : la persecuzione antiebraica in Italia dal 1938 al 1945 nelle testimonianze raccolte da un gruppo di studenti e insegnanti dei licei scientifici "Allende" e "Cremona" di Milano|last2=Fossati|first2=Marco|date=1995|publisher=Anabasi|isbn=978-88-417-6008-6|page=113|language=it}}</ref><ref>
{{Cite book|last1=Tagliacozzo|first1=Franca|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O_wvAQAAIAAJ&q=Benedetto+croce|title=Gli ebrei nella storia e nella società contemporanea|last2=Migliau|first2=Bice|date=1993|publisher=La Nuova Italia|isbn=978-88-221-1223-1|language=it}}</ref> Besides writing in his periodical, Croce used other means to express his [[anti-racism]] and to make public statements against the persecution of the Jews.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Rizi|first1=Fabio Fernando|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wkt9M1FD44cC&pg=PA224|title=Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism|last2=Rizi|date=2003-01-01|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-3762-6|page=224|language=en}}</ref>

=== Brief government stints and constitutional referendum ===
In 1944, when democracy was restored in Southern Italy, Croce, as an "icon of [[liberal anti-fascism]]", became [[minister without portfolio]] in governments headed by [[Pietro Badoglio]] for about a month and again for a month by [[Ivanoe Bonomi]] (Ryn, 2000:xi–xii<ref name="lib"/>) He left the government in July 1944 but remained president of the [[Italian Liberal Party|Liberal Party]] until 1947 (Ryn, 2000:xii<ref name="lib"/>).

Croce voted for the Monarchy in the [[1946 Italian constitutional referendum]], after having persuaded his Liberal Party to adopt a neutral stance. He was elected to the [[Constituent Assembly of Italy|Constituent Assembly]] which existed in Italy between June 1946 and January 1948. He spoke in the Assembly against the [[Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947|Peace treaty]] (signed in February 1947), which he regarded as humiliating for Italy. He declined to stand as provisional [[President of Italy]].

=== Philosophical works ===
Croce's most interesting philosophical ideas are expounded in three works: ''Aesthetic'' (1902), ''Logic'' (1908), and ''Philosophy of the Practical'' (1908), but his complete work is spread over 80 books and 40 years worth of publications in his own bi-monthly literary magazine, ''[[La Critica]]'' (Ryn, 2000:xi<ref name="lib">History as the story of liberty: English translation of Croce's 1938 collection of essays originally in Italian; translation published by [[Liberty Fund Inc.]] in the US in 2000 with a [[foreword]] by [[Claes G. Ryn]]. {{ISBN|0-86597-268-0}} (hardback). See {{harvnb|Croce|1938}}.</ref>) Croce was philosophically a [[pantheist]], but, from a religious point of view, an [[agnostic]];<ref>La Critica. Rivista di Letteratura, Storia e Filosofia diretta da B. Croce, 1, 1903 p. 372</ref> however, he published an essay entitled "Why We Cannot Help Calling Ourselves Christians". This essay shows the Christian roots of European culture, but religion is considered by Croce a mere [[propaedeutic]] study for philosophy, which is the only true science: philosophy is, in fact, the science of spirit (the "Philosophy of Spirit").

==Philosophy of spirit==
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2011}}
Heavily influenced by [[Hegel]] and other German Idealists such as [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Schelling]], Croce produced what was called, by him, the Philosophy of Spirit. His preferred designations were "[[absolute idealism]]" or "absolute historicism". Croce's work can be seen as a second attempt (contra [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]) to resolve the problems and conflicts between [[empiricism]] and [[rationalism]] (or sensationalism and transcendentalism, respectively). He calls his way ''immanentism'', and concentrates on the lived human experience, as it happens in specific places and times. Since the root of reality is this immanent existence in concrete experience, Croce places [[aesthetics]] at the foundation of his philosophy.

===Domains of mind===
Croce's methodological approach to philosophy is expressed in his divisions of the spirit, or mind. He divides mental activity first into the theoretical, and then the practical. The theoretical division splits between aesthetics and logic. This theoretical aesthetic includes most importantly: intuitions and history. The logical includes concepts and relations. Practical spirit is concerned with economics and ethics. Economics is here to be understood as an exhaustive term for all utilitarian matters.

Each of these divisions has an underlying structure that colours, or dictates, the sort of thinking that goes on within them. While aesthetics are driven by beauty, logic is subject to truth, economics is concerned with what is useful, and the moral, or ethics, is bound to the good. This schema is descriptive in that it attempts to elucidate the logic of human thought; however, it is prescriptive as well, in that these ideas form the basis for epistemological claims and confidence.

==History==
Croce also had great esteem for [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]] and shared his opinion that history should be written by philosophers. Croce's ''On History'' sets forth the view of history as "philosophy in motion", that there is no "cosmic design" or ultimate plan in history, and that the "science of history" was a farce.

==Aesthetics<!--'Aesthetic expressivism' redirects here-->==
Croce's work ''Breviario di estetica'' (''The Essence of Aesthetics'') appears in the form of four lessons (''quattro lezioni'') in [[aesthetics]] that he was asked to write and deliver at the inauguration of [[Rice University]] in 1912. He declined an invitation to attend the event, but he wrote the lessons and submitted them for translation so that they could be read in his absence.

In this brief, but dense, work, Croce sets forth his theory of art. He believed that art is more important than science or metaphysics since only art edifies us. He claimed that all we know can be reduced to imaginative knowledge. Art springs from the latter, making it at its heart, pure imagery. All thought is based in part on this, and it precedes all other thought. The task of an artist is then to invent the perfect image that they can produce for their viewer since this is what beauty fundamentally is&nbsp;– the formation of inward, mental images in their ideal state. Our intuition is the basis for forming these concepts within us.

Croce was the first to develop a position later known as '''aesthetic expressivism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->,<ref name=RCA>Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes, ''The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics'', Routledge, 2002, ch. 11: "Expressivism: Croce and Collingwood."</ref> the idea that art expresses emotions, not ideas.<ref>Benedetto Croce, ''Breviario di estetica'', 1912: "Not the idea, but the feeling, is what confers upon art the airy lightness of a symbol: an aspiration enclosed in the circle of a representation—that is art." [''Non l'idea, ma il sentimento è quel che conferisce all'arte l'aerea leggerezza del simbolo: un'aspirazione chiusa nel giro di una rappresentazione, ecco l'arte''.]</ref> ([[R. G. Collingwood]] later developed a similar thesis.)<ref name=RCA/>

Croce's theory was later debated by such contemporary Italian philosophers as [[Umberto Eco]], who locates the aesthetic within a semiotic construction.<ref>Umberto Eco, ''A Theory of Semiotics'' (Indiana University Press, 1976).</ref>

==Contributions to liberal political theory==
{{Liberalism sidebar}}
Croce's liberalism differs from the theories advocated by most proponents of liberal political thought, including those in Britain and the United States. While Croce theorises that the individual is the basis of society, he rejects [[Atomism (social)|social atomism]]. While Croce accepts [[limited government]], he disputes the idea that the government should have fixed legitimate powers. Croce did not agree with [[John Locke]] about the nature of liberty.  Croce believed that liberty is not a [[natural right]] but an earned right that arises out of the continuing historical struggle for its maintenance. Croce defined civilization as the "continual vigilance" against barbarism, and liberty conformed to his ideal for civilization as it allows one to experience the full potential of life. Croce also rejects [[egalitarianism]] as absurd. In short, his variety of liberalism is [[aristocracy|aristocratic]], as he views society as being led by the few who can create the goodness of truth, civilization, and beauty, with the great mass of citizens, simply benefiting from them but unable to fully comprehend their creations (Ryn, 2000:xii).<ref name="lib"/>

In ''Etica e politica'' (1931), Croce defines liberalism as an ethical conception of life that rejects dogmatism and favours diversity, and in the name of liberty and free choice of the individual, is hostile to the authoritarianism of fascism, communism, and the Catholic Church.<ref name="Rizi">{{cite book |last1=Rizi |first1=Fabio Fernando |title=Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism |date=2003 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=124–139}}</ref> While Croce realizes that democracy can sometimes threaten individual liberty, he sees liberalism and democracy as predicated on the same ideals of moral equality and opposition to authority.<ref name="Rizi" /> Furthermore, he acknowledged the positive historical role played by the Socialist parties in Italy in their struggles to improve conditions for the working class, and urged modern socialists to swear off dictatorial solutions.<ref name="Rizi" /> In contrast to the socialists, who Croce viewed as part of modernity along with liberals, his condemnation of reactionaries is unremittingly harsh.<ref name="Rizi"/>

Croce draws a distinction between liberalism and capitalism or ''[[laissez-faire]]'' economic doctrines.<ref name="Rizi"/> For Croce, capitalism only emerged to meet certain economic needs of society, and could be changed or even replaced if better solutions to those needs were found, if it failed to promote freedom, or if economic values clashed with higher values.<ref name="Rizi"/> Thus liberalism could welcome socialistic proposals so long as they promoted freedom.<ref name="Rizi"/> Croce's ideas on the separation between liberalism as an ethical principle and the contingent ''laissez-faire'' economic doctrines which accompanied it in certain contexts would influence Italian social democrats such as [[Leo Valiani]] and [[Giuseppe Saragat]] as well as the [[liberal socialist]] synthesis of [[Carlo Rosselli]].<ref name="Rizi"/>

==Principal works==
* ''Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica'' (1900), translated into English by C.M. Meredith as [https://archive.org/details/historicalmateri00crocuoft ''Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx''] (1914); [https://archive.org/details/materialismostor00croc full text of revised 4th Italian edition (1921)], final Italian edition revised by author 1951
* ''L'Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale'' (1902), translated into English by [[Douglas Ainslie]] as [https://archive.org/details/aestheticasscien0000croc_y4e9 ''Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic'' (2nd edition, based on revised 5th Italian edition)], new translation by Colin Lyas as [https://archive.org/details/aestheticasscien0000croc_q9z2 ''The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in General''] (1992); [https://archive.org/details/esteticacomesci00crocgoog full text of revised 3rd Italian edition (1908)], final Italian edition revised by author 1950
* ''Filosofia della pratica, economica ed etica'' (1909), translated into English by Douglas Ainslie as [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.507026 ''Philosophy of the Practical Economic and Ethic''] (1913); [https://archive.org/details/filosofiadellapr00croc full text of revised 3rd Italian edition (1923)], final Italian edition revised by author 1950
* ''Logica come scienza del concetto puro'' (1905), translated as [https://archive.org/details/logicasscienceof00croc ''Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept''] (1917, based on revised 3rd Italian edition); [https://archive.org/details/logicacomescienz02croc full text of revised 4th Italian edition (1920)], final edition revised by author 1947
* ''La filosofia di Giambattista Vico'' (1911) 
* ''Filosofia dello spirito'' (1912)
* [https://archive.org/details/larivoluzionenap00crocuoft ''La rivoluzione napoletana del 1799. Biografie, racconti, ricerche''] (revised 3rd edition, 1912); final edition revised by author 1948
* ''Breviario di estetica'' (1913)
* [https://archive.org/details/cu31924029044729 ''What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel (Saggio sullo Hegel)''], translated by Douglas Ainslie (1915)
* ''Contributo alla critica di me stesso'' (1918); revised edition 1945
* ''Storie e leggende napoletane'' (1919)
* [https://archive.org/details/teoriaestoriadel00crocuoft ''Teoria e storia della storiografia''] (1920), translated into English by Douglas Ainslie as ''Theory and History of Historiography'' (1921)
* ''Racconto degli racconti'' (first translation into Italian from [[Neapolitan language|Neapolitan]] of [[Giambattista Basile]]'s ''[[Pentamerone]]'', ''Lo cunto de li cunti'', 1925)
* "[[Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals]]" (in ''La Critica'', 1 May 1925)
* [https://archive.org/details/croce-storia-del-regno-di-napoli ''Storia del regno di Napoli''] (1925), translated into English by Frances Frenaye as [https://archive.org/details/historyofkingdom0000croc ''History of the Kingdom of Naples''] (1970, based on the revised 3rd edition of 1953)
* ''History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century'' (1933)
* ''Ultimi saggi'' (1935)
* ''La poesia'' (1936)
* {{wikicite |ref={{harvid|Croce|1938}} |reference=''La storia come pensiero e come azione'';<ref name="lib"/> 1938), translated into English by [[Sylvia Sprigge]] as ''History as the Story of Liberty'' (1941) in London}}
* ''Il carattere della filosofia moderna'' (1941)
* ''Perché non possiamo non dirci "cristiani"'' (1942)
* [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503215 ''Politics and Morals''] (1945). Croce's dynamic conception of liberty, liberalism and the relation of individual morality to the State.
* ''Filosofia e storiografia'' (1949)

==See also==
* [[Contributions to liberal theory]]
* [[Francesco Ruffini]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
* Alfredo Parente, ''Il pensiero politico di Benedetto Croce e il nuovo liberalismo'' (1944).
* Hayden White, "The Abiding Relevance of Croce's Idea of History." The Journal of Modern History, vol. XXXV, no 2, June 1963, pp.&nbsp;109–124. 
* Hayden White, "The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory", History and Theory, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb. 1984), pp.&nbsp;1–33.
* Myra E. Moss, ''Benedetto Croce reconsidered: Truth and Error in Theories of Art, Literature, and History '', Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1987.
* Ernesto Paolozzi, ''Science and Philosophy in Benedetto Croce'', in "Rivista di Studi Italiani", University of Toronto, 2002.
* Janos Keleman, ''A Paradoxical Truth. Croce's Thesis of Contemporary History'', in "Rivista di Studi Italiani, University of Toronto, 2002.
* Giuseppe Gembillo, ''Croce and the Theorists of Complexity'', in "Rivista di Studi Italiani, University of Toronto, 2002.
* Fabio Fernando Rizi, ''Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism'', University of Toronto Press, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-8020-3762-6}}.
* Ernesto Paolozzi, ''Benedetto Croce'', Cassitto, Naples, 1998 (translated by M. Verdicchio (2008) www.ernestopaolozzi.it)
* Carlo Schirru, Per un’analisi interlinguistica d’epoca: Grazia Deledda e contemporanei, Rivista Italiana di Linguistica e di Dialettologia, Fabrizio Serra editore, Pisa–Roma, Anno XI, 2009, pp.&nbsp;9–32
* Matteo Veronesi, ''Il critico come artista dall'estetismo agli ermetici. D'Annunzio, Croce, Serra, Luzi e altri'', Bologna, Azeta Fastpress, 2006, {{ISBN|88-89982-05-5}}, [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46092588_Il_critico_come_artista_dall'Estetismo_agli_Ermetici (PDF) Il critico come artista dall'Estetismo agli Ermetici]
* David D. Roberts, ''Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism''.  Berkeley: U of California Press, (1987).
* Claes G. Ryn, ''Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality'' (1997; 1986).
* [[R. G. Collingwood]], [https://archive.org/stream/crocesphilosophy00colluoft#page/n1/mode/2up "Croce's Philosophy of History"] in ''The Hibbert Journal'', XIX: 263–278 (1921), collected in Collingwood, ''Essays in the Philosophy of History'', ed. William Debbins (University of Texas 1965) at 3–22.
* Roberts, Jeremy, ''Benito Mussolini'', Twenty-First Century Books, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-8225-2648-3}}.
* Richard Bellamy, ''A Modern Interpreter: Benedetto Croce and the Politics of Italian Culture'', in The European Legacy, 2000, 5:6, pp.&nbsp;845–861. DOI: [https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713665534 A Modern Interpreter: Benedetto Croce and the Politics of Italian Culture]
* Daniela La Penna, '' The Rise and Fall of Benedetto Croce: Intellectual Positionings in the Italian Cultural Field, 1944–1947'', in Modern Italy, 2016, 21:2, pp.&nbsp;139–155. DOI: [https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/mit.2016.5 The rise and fall of Benedetto Croce. Intellectual positionings in the Italian cultural field, 1944–1947]

==External links==
{{commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* [http://www.fondazionebenedettocroce.it/ Fondazione Biblioteca Benedetto Croce]
* [http://www.iiss.it/ Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, founded by Benedetto Croce]
* {{Gutenberg author|id=3007}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Benedetto Croce}}
* {{Librivox author|id=10425}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Croce%2c%20Benedetto%2c%201866%2d1952 Online English translations of books by Croce]
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/croce-aesthetics/ Croce's Aesthetics] At the [[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]
* [http://pen-international.org/ PEN International]
* [[Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20160305023500/http://www.fondazione-einaudi.it/Download/lezione_Scognamiglio_2011.pdf "Liberismo e liberalismo nella polemica fra Croce ed Einaudi"] {{in lang|it}}
* Antonio Zanfarino, [https://web.archive.org/web/20131215210151/http://www.mps.it/NR/rdonlyres/67C85B48-2745-42EE-9086-746C83017B44/34464/b1_zanfarino.pdf "Liberalismo e liberismo. Il confronto Croce-Einaudi"] {{in lang|it}}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/003551}}

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