Gustavo Bontadini: Between Idealism and Ontology

Moving from Leonardo Messinese's recent volume, the paper traces the way Gustavo Bontadini valorises modern thought in order to a renewal of classical metaphysics. In particular, he offers an original interpretation of Giovanni Gentile's Actualism concerning the concepts of Unity of Experience and Whole. . Bontadini shows that the former does not coincide with the latter, but must be transcended by a non-becoming and creative Absolute. The distinction between metaphysics (the rigorous knowledge grounded in the principle of non-contradiction) and philosophy (the outcome of the existential choice that the individual inevitably makes about himself in the face of being) is then examined, and the resulting consequences for the relationship between reason and faith are analysed.