Sul problema dell'astratto. La Meditatio Mortis nella filosofia di G. Gentile

This research is focused on the analysis and commentary of the main textual places where Giovanni Gentile dealt with the concept of death and his twin: the concept of immortality. The dissertation is based on mainly four Gentile's works, corresponding to the four chapters: General Theory of the Spirit as Pure Act – Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (1916) –; System of Logic as Theory of Knowing – Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (1917-22) –; The Philosophy of Art – La filosofia dell’arte (1931) –; Genesis and Structure of Society – Genesi e struttura della società (1946). The philosopher's study of meditatio mortis is one of the most prominent and paradigmatic point in which it is possible to illuminate both the fundamental terms, disconnected from its further consideration, both the radical questions of the actualism. As regards the conceptual elements of Gentile argument, they may be schematically listed as follows: the "concrete" (ie the thinking act which constitutes the transcendental horizon of reality); the "abstract concretely conceived" (determination meant by the concrete); the "abstract abstractly conceived"(the nothingness beyond the eternal circle of the concrete). Precisely the relationship between these terms and the attempt to understand their primary ontological status leads to the deepest aporia in actualism: if the concrete is defined from the outset as "eternal", and if the abstract abstractly conceived, being nothing, is designed as what is "always dead", the question becomes more complex as regards the existence of the abstract concretely conceived, namely the thought of that object which, while realizing the life of the concrete (eternal), it seems to swing between existence and non-existence. Through the analysis of some of the most complex and intricate speculative places spring from the philosopher's "meditatio mortis", this study is committed to register the many conceptual oscillations contained in the reflection of Gentile and to show the most implicit and obscure aspects of actualism.