03/2020 – Carlo Curcio (1898-1971) tra impegno scientifico e militanza intellettuale / 1

Abstracts

Paolo Bagnoli, Carlo Curcio’s Contribution to the “Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto” by Giorgio Del Vecchio

The report reconstructs Curcio’s collaboration with the review, edited by Giorgio Del Vecchio, between 1926 and 1937 including the unpublished correspondence the two. In 1938 Del Vecchio was sent away from the editorship for racial reasons: he was Jewish. The collaboration was resumed only after the war. Curcio’s contribution is important and peculiar both for the working out of the themes and the study of the characters, aiming at reconstructing the development of “an italian thought” starting from Medio-Eve. Fascism provided the background for his work as a historical solution of a long journey toward a new concept of State based on corporatism. By that, in the field of Dottrine Politiche, his work represent a valid meditation from the historiography point of view.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Giorgio Del Vecchio, Fascism, Corporatism

 

Federico Trocini, From the Risorgimento to Fascism. Rethinking the Italian Liberal Tradition through the Relationship between Michels and Curcio

The analysis of the relationship between Michels and Curcio allows to retrace an important segment of their respective intellectual biographies. It allows also to examine more closely the political-cultural milieu which aggregated around the “Facoltà Fascista di Scienze Politiche” of Perugia. The essay is therefore articulated in two main directions. On the one hand, it examines some unpublished documents; on the other, it analyzes Michels’ Italien von heute (1930) and Curcio’s L’eredità del Risorgimento (1931). In this way the article focuses on the context that served as a backdrop to the intertwining of their relationship and at the same time to heighten an important portion of their ideal dialogue.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Roberto Michels, Risorgimento, Liberalism

 

Rosanna Marsala, Carlo Curcio, Rodolfo De Mattei: Parallel and Converging Lives

Carlo Curcio and Rodolfo De Mattei are rightly part of the so called “season of the masters”. Both of them, were not only lecturers in the History of Political Doctrines and carried out an intense publicity activity, but they greatly contributed to the debate on the methodology and nature of this discipline. Animated by civil passion, they have devoted their lives as scholars to researching those ethical principles that are at the basis of politics, constitute its soul and survive beyond the contingencies of an (THEIR) era.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Rodolfo De Mattei, History of Political Thought, Political Realism

 

Maria Corona Corrias, Carlo Curcio and Paola Maria Arcari: Methodological Disagreement and Common Sense

The memory of consideration by Curcio on a methodological divergence with her colleague Arcari led the author to deepen the discussion on the History of political thought that developed among scholars in the 1930s. Curcio aimed to preserve the autonomy of discipline, so he repeatedly expressed his considerations on the method object and content of the discipline in the prestigious “Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del diritto” since 1929. Instead, P. M. Arcari dedicated to it Premise of Storia delle dottrine politiche italiane (1942), proposing an inclusive perspective open to multidisciplinary contributions.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Paola Maria Arcari, History of Political Thought, Political Realism

 

Leonardo Varasano, Curcio in Umbria: Historian and Professor

Carlo Curcio’s private and intellectual paths are intertwine with Perugia and Umbria. Such links are clear: firstly, his academic work – because of his scientific credentials and political loyalty, the Neapolitan scholar was among the young intellectuals called to teach in the then new fascist faculty of Political Sciences at the illustrious University of Perugia. Secondly, Curcio showed an interest in the history of Umbrian political thought, which is “ever so noble and unique”, from Saint Francis of Assisi to Baldo of Ubaldi. Thirdly, Curcio’s close ties with Umbria are evident in the special bond with Perugia, the city where he lived, worked, made friends and professional collaborations for nearly twenty years.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Facoltà Fascista di Scienze politiche, Perugia, Fascism

 

Francesco Ingravalle, The Object of the History of Political Doctrines. Carlo Curcio’s Criticism of Gaetano Mosca

Carlo Curcio criticizes the reduction made by Gaetano Mosca of the history of political doctrines to the historical dimension of the State. According to Curcio, this reduction is typical of the perspective of the Germanic Staatswissenschaft. The extra-State dimension of politics is however important: the dimension of international relations, the dimension of the “social”, are instead central to an understanding of politics in depth. As scholars such as Skinner, Pocock, Brunner, and Foucault among others have recently shown.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Gaetano Mosca, History of Political Thought, Political Realism

 

 

Sandro Ciurlia, «History is a Colossal Saturn»: The Comparison between Carlo Curcio and Machiavelli’s Thought

The essay aims to reconstruct the critical coordinates of the Carlo Curcio’s interpretation of the figure of Machiavelli, in the context of his studies on the Italian political Renaissance. Curcio draws an original interpretation of Machiavelli, highlighting the machiavellian political realism, the idea of ​​the autonomy of politics in front of morals and religion, the praise of the human will and political virtue. Nonetheless, Curcio does not neglect to highlight Machiavelli’s profound pessimism about the human condition, the machiavellian crude disenchantment and the absence of a political planning able to overcome the present and to represent the future development for the human race. For this reasons, according to Curcio, the relationship between our time and Machiavelli is ambivalent.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Niccolò Machiavelli, Political realism, Renaissance

 

Laura Mitarotondo, Carlo Curcio and the Humanism. A Never Heard before Interpretation of the Modern Age in the History of Political Thought

With his reflections on political literature of the 15^th Century, Carlo Curcio doesn’t just aim to save from oblivion a theoretical phase incubating modernity, moreover a crucial one for the Italian civil tradition. Humanism, that the Neapolitan values under the history of thought profile, represents, in fact, a precious paradigm to investigate or delve into other thematic scopes regularly inspected, from the figure of Machiavelli and his fortune, to utopian literature, up to the problem of defining an epistemological statute for the history of political doctrines. This contribution therefore intends to underline the polysemic nature of this interpretation of political Humanism and to investigate the connection between Humanism and modernity, which cannot be defined, as per Curcio’s judgement, neglecting the evolution of the relationship between the State and the individual, that took place in the 15^th Century.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Utopism, Humanism, Niccolò Machiavelli

 

Gennaro Maria Barbuto, Carlo Curcio and the Renaissance’s Utopian Thought

The paper is an analysis of Curcio’s  thought about the italian utopia in the late Renaissance and about the affinities and the discordances with the national (Rodolfo De Mattei, Delio Cantimori, Luigi Firpo) and international (especially Karl Mannheim) context about the same theme.

Keywords: Carlo Curcio, Utopia, Karl Mannheim, Renaissance

 

Davide Ragnolini, The Eternal Return in IR: Mearsheimer, Neorealism and Time in International Relations

The whole work of John J. Mearsheimer, among the most significant exponents in contemporary neorealist studies, allows us to focus on a fundamental issue of IR literature: the value of temporal dimension and the specific capacity conveyed by this discipline to understand predictable events in international politics. In the light of the so-called ‘international turn’ in IR, the following article aims at inquiring about the temporal paradigm underpinning neorealism (and, more generally, realism), thus pointing out a theoretical key to access Mearsheimer’s political theory. In so doing, it may be offered not only and introduction to the temporal paradigm in neorealist perspectives, but also a ‘metacritic’ of the temporal conceptualizing in IR.

Keywords: Political Realism, International Relations, Political Theory, John J. Mearsheimer

 

Carlo Simon-Belli, The Time Variable in the Strategic Choices of International Politics

In the domain of international politics we need to study the effects, on a strategic level, of the inevitable indetermination with which systems can be analysed. Also by means of the topological surfaces of the Catastrophe Theory, we shall show how strategic action must adapt to the inevitable uncertainty of political and social systems, and how the lines of action can be optimised through the introduction of non-deterministic forecasting techniques. We shall also try to clarify how, in the current condition of strong “environmental” uncertainty in which the contemporary international system finds itself (environmental and financial crises, migratory flows, pandemic health emergencies, etc.), it is more than appropriate to renounce great medium-long term strategies; rather, the focus should be on maximising the capacity to monitor the feedbacks of the policies implemented from time to time.

Keywords: Political Realism, International Relations, Political Theory, Time in International Relations