Nicola Abbagnano Quotes
Nicola Abbagnano was an Italian philosopher and the principal architect of what he called positive existentialism. After early work in Naples and many years as professor at Turin, he developed a philosophy that took existence as irreducibly possibility rather than necessity and the openness of being as a ground for hope rather than for despair. The quotes below are attributed to Nicola Abbagnano, organized by topic.
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Nicola Abbagnano on Freedom
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Attributed to Nicola Abbagnano:
“Existence is possibility, not necessity.”
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Attributed to Nicola Abbagnano:
“Positive existentialism finds the openness of being a ground for hope, not despair.”
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Attributed to Nicola Abbagnano:
“What is possible for me defines what I am.”
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“Secularism should be considered as mutual autonomy not only between political and religious thought, but between all human activities, which must be subordinate to one another in a relationship of hierarchical dependence, nor can they be subject to ends or interests that are foreign to them, but must autonomously carry out their own purposes and internal rules. This corresponds, in the relationships between activities, to freedom in the relationships between individuals.”
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Nicola Abbagnano on Justice
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“Truth is precisely the abstract and symbolic expression of a given moment in life; and just as this is never equal to itself but transforms into a motion that has no rest, so too does its correlative aspect change according to its rhythm.”
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Nicola Abbagnano on Knowledge
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“From “'Storia della filosofia”', UTET, Turin, 1948.”
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“From “'Scritti neoilluministici. 1948-1965”', edited by Bruno Maiorca, UTET, 2001.”
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“The final situation of the effort towards being realises its essential unity with the initial situation.”
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“From “'La struttura dell'esistenza”', Paravia, 1939).”
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Nicola Abbagnano on Life
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“Existence appears as an “ex-sistere” from nothingness.”
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“From La struttura dell'esistenza (“The Structure of Existence”).”
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Nicola Abbagnano on Mind
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Attributed to Nicola Abbagnano:
“Philosophy is the conscious life of the human in question.”
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“The ideal of reason that had emerged in the modern world with Grotius and Descartes found one of its first typical expressions in Spinoza .”
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“Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find its place in logic.”
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“From “'The Irrational Sources of Thought”', F. Perrella, Genoa – Naples – Florence – Città di Castello, 1923.”
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“To discover the authentic objectivity of the world, man must not think of the world as a part of himself, but must feel himself as a part of the world.”
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Nicola Abbagnano on Time
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Attributed to Nicola Abbagnano:
“Every existence projects itself toward what it is not yet.”