1917. Filosofia e guerra

Abstract

The aim of this study is to present the positions that some philosophers have expressed in 1917 (and in the immediate surrounding years) about the First World War. Texts of some representative thinkers are examined: Scheler, Simmel, Husserl, Jünger, Bergson, Hofmannsthal, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset and Croce. Germany, France, Austria, Italy and Spain are also paradigmatic cases of nations on opposite sides and of a non-interventionist position. From the analysis emerges a very differentiated picture, which however presents at least two common elements: neither an emphatic not a moralistic reflection on the war, and a defense of the national element as an essential contribution to the development of the European spirit. Despite their criticism of nationalism and their common desire to overcome the war, the philosophers examined here are convinced that the defense of the nation is the basis for the preservation both of European identity and of Europe as a whole