European Thought? Nationality and circulation of philosophy in Bertrando Spaventa

This essay develops the idea of the circulation of European philosophy by Bertrando Spaventa, focussing on his writing Italian philosophy in Relation to European Philosophy (1861). The thesis of the circulation of European thought hinges upon two main points : a) the idea of the Italian Renaissance as a forerunner of the same intuitions later developed by modern philosophy ; b) a dialectical understanding of the history of the philosophy, borrowed from Hegel, which implies the progressive development of philosophical ideas. The aim of this essay is to show how Spaventa’s position and his reworking of Hegel’s thought can still provide a precious contribution today in order to understand philosophy as a national cultural expression, not in the sense of an ambivalent form of nationalism, but rather as the result of a process of circulation connecting several European philosophical traditions.