La diligente salute

Contini sul significato dell’attività intellettuale

Abstract

The Diligent Health: Contini on the Meaning of Intellectual Activity 

Starting from his work L’influenza culturale di Benedetto Croce, the paper proposes a reconstruction of Gianfranco Contini’s conception of intellectual activity. In particular, it argues that the philologist conceived of this activity as a ‘health method’, which is to say as a rational activity that lends order to reality and assuages human anxieties. At the same time, the paper highlights the indebtedness of Contini’s conception to thinkers such as Spitzer, Hölderlin, Rosmini and, indeed, Croce himself.