A natural heir of the Renaissance and once tightly conjoined to its study, continental philosophy broke from Renaissance studies around the time of World War II. In The Other Renaissance, Rocco Rubini achieves what many have attempted to do since: bring them back together. Telling the story of modern Italian philosophy through the lens of Renaissance scholarship, he recovers a strand of philosophic history that sought to reactivate the humanist ideals of the Renaissance, even as philosophy elsewhere progressed toward decidedly antihumanist sentiments. Bookended by Giambattista Vico and Antonio Gramsci, this strand of Renaissance-influenced philosophy arose in reaction to the major revolutions of the time in Italy, such as national unity, fascism, and democracy. Exploring the ways its thinkers critically assimilated the thought of their northern counterparts, Rubini uncovers new possibilities in our intellectual history: that antihumanism could have been forestalled and that our postmodern condition could have been entirely different. In doing so, he offers an important new way of thinking about the origins of modernity, one that renews a trust in human dignity and the Western legacy as a whole.
About the AuthorRocco Rubini is assistant professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. He is the editor of The Renaissance from an Italian Perspective: An Anthology of Essays, 1860-1968.
Reviews"Rubini's book is not just for Renaissance aficionados and historians-it is a study that sets standards of how intellectual history should be done: through entering the minds of the partners in the debate, understanding the philosophical issues from the inside, locating them in the human/personal as well as social and political contexts, and paying attention to the shifts and changes over time." (Paul Richard Blum, Loyola University Maryland)"
Book InformationISBN 9780226186139
Author Rocco RubiniFormat Hardback
Page Count 408
Imprint University of Chicago PressPublisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 709g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 3mm