Actual idealism was a form of idealism, developed
by Giovanni Gentile, that grew into a 'grounded'
idealism, contrasting the transcendental idealism
of Immanuel Kant, and the absolute idealism
of G. W. F. Hegel. To Gentile, who considered
himself the "philosopher of Fascism," actualism
was the sole remedy to philosophically preserving
free agency, by making the act of thinking
self-creative and, therefore, without any
contingency and not in the potency of any
other fact.
== Central tenets ==
Actual idealism holds that it is the act of
thinking as perception, not creative thought
as imagination, which defines reality. Therefore,
one idea, or another, can only be a formulation
of particulars within the bounds of a known
totality, in which one idea is not on any
side of those particulars. Totality constituting
the whole cohesive reality, is negated in
such idea by itself. Integration of totality
against idea, in appealing to oneself, is
the sole fruitful means of idea, which poses
no favoritism to the developed ideas giving
a knowing precedence to the world it has created
itself into. Anything less is a presupposition
and therefore innately unreal. This totality
is the act of thinking, not thoughts so regarded
by thinking.
While realists agree that the world known
to them is the only one they possibly know
'as a static concept,' they continue to regard
something real about the concept having nothing
to do with their thinking. Actual idealists
disregard the static concept, as totally false,
in regard to the world for them where the
only real is in 'the act of thinking' within
being.
The stance of realism claims that repeatability
of experience gives proof of a basis, which
transcends and outruns our percepts, refuting
Idealism. Yet it does not consider that the
process of thinking, as creation, and the
thought about thinking, as abstraction, interchange
depending on the quality of one's act. It
is the process of thinking that creates thought,
which may not recur, but what occurs as thinking
of it is what cannot be outrun as a conceptualization,
for it is the very immanent process of it,
which is what definitely is. Not as thoughts
perceived, but as perceptive thinking prior
to being construed outside its own totality
as a thought, not made an abstraction, which
cannot exist or be supposed to exist in any
form outside one's thinking. Only one's thought
reached from -and thus put outside of- thinking
can be surpassed; but only by thinking, not
by an abstract external.
Actual idealism, therefore, rejects the Hegelian
'Absolute' as being a presupposition unprovable
to the mind, unless considered to be synonymous
with what's known or the totality of the act
of thinking. Which therein would put the dialectical
processes making 'self' & 'not self' a consideration
proving external existence real, insofar as
it is in reality part of the self's own thinking,
since the self, regarded alone, is always
a concept and cannot be given reality as such.
Neither does Actual idealism admit archetypal
concepts in that possible conception of them
in relation to all else gives them no reality.
Gentile made a pivotal distinction to factors
concerning Idealism's own criteria for reality,
which have stood since Berkeley's adage "Esse
est percipi" by distinguishing between "pensiero
pensante" the 'act of thinking', and the 'static
thought' "pensiero pensato".
Gentile posited then, that knowledge as thought
fixed against a fuller range of thinking limits
thinking's every proposition. If truth is
what surpasses the conditions of every proposition,
taking a known postulate as truth removes
its criteria from having that capability in
thinking. Objectifying actuality. Truth then
cannot be known by thought, since knowledge
held as thought is privative toward thinking
as decided by what's thought. Only thinking
as it penetrates, not given in to what categories
of thought orient it, can be truth, so long
as it does not resort to thought in doing
so which would objectify it. Such thinking
is truth because it therefore defines reality
as by that thinking, rather than excluding
truth from the possibility of thinking because
of its relation to yielding thoughts. Only
because thinking's results, namely thoughts,
do not pertain to what is arising from its
act, the truth, does thinking itself become
questioned as a proper conductor of truth.
That however does not detract from the nature
of truths being defined within the act as
the concrete. Thinking, being the condition
in which truths are measured, in fact affirms
thinking's own condition as truth, and when
coupled with the idea that it generates thoughts
which negate it, must the concrete be identified
with thinking rather than simply being denied
to thought, seen as abstract, and having that
together assumed with thinking as denied also.
For thinking cannot therefore be solely a
producer of thoughts alone to Gentile, as
is the position taken by materialists, because
thoughts are to him what negate it, but must
also be what produces the stable environment
wherein being happens. Which then is the direct
result of oneself as the further quality in
which reality is not negated, as it is by
thoughts to themselves.
Therefore, this postulate maintains that thinking
is an active process and the static conception
of a thought is its dialectical opposite.
Where thinking is the vitality of psychological
being, a thought is opposed to that vitality
and therefore would be opposed to that immanent
quality where alone existence takes on its
reality to the actual idealist. No sense or
imagining of something beyond or external
to the act of thinking in itself for the thinker
can be real, and therefore cannot be said
to exist, even if, to continue the act of
thinking it must be said that it does exist
as a creation of the act of thinking if even
then it remains unreal. Which in considering
it the measure of its existence is realized
for then it is exposed to the act of thinking
and is subject to reality; from an a priori
beginning to a non-empirical conclusion without
presupposition.
== Reception ==
Actual idealism was successful in that it
promoted a theory of regarding thought, that
garnered enough attention, to prove a competition
to the new waves of positivism, and therefore
materialist conceptions of social life that
were vying for reformist tendencies in the
politics of the time. Its ideas, therefore,
were key to helping the Fascist party consolidate
power in Italy with its own reform, and integral
to giving Fascism the content of its philosophical
sentiment. Despite this, Gentile claimed actual
idealism to be the true variety of positivism,
and the proper interpretation of the concept
of positivism.
== Criticism ==
Benedetto Croce objected that Gentile's "pure
act" is nothing other than Schopenhauer's
will. However Schopenhauer "…came to rest
in an Absolute which transcends concrete experience
… and for (Schopenhauer) the Critical Philosophy
was only a prolegomena or propaedeutic to
a speculative or 'transcendent' philosophy
of the kind which Gentile and Kant are united
in opposing", according to H. S. Harris's
book on the basic metaphysics of Giovanni
Gentile in contrast to that of Schopenhauer.
== See also ==
Constructivist epistemology
Dialectical monism
Plane of immanence
Platonic epistemology
Process philosophy
