Considered by some to be the most prominent Italian philosopher of the twentieth century, Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944) organically fulfilled the “humanism of labor” in his work-testament, Genesis and Structure of Society (published posthumously in 1946). Gentile believed that the modern world had come to understand the spiritual value of labor in the same way that he had understood the spiritual value of culture. He recognized the “sense” of intellectual and manual labor as having a methodological and crucial significance because of its unbreakable connection to the “Absolute Spirit,” which enables understanding of the formative significance of working action. Gentile’s thesis emphasizes the significance of the interaction between “intellectuals” and “workers” in the framework of human values, identifying a real union of labor and culture.
Chapter 13 · Abstract