Background
Bonatelli, Francesco was born on April 25, 1830 in Iseo. Brescia, Italy.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Francesco Bonatelli
Edit ProfileChristian spiritualist philosopher
Education
He first studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and later taught that subject at the universities of Bologna (1861–1867) and Padua (1867–1911).
Career
He was responsible for the introduction the analytic method of German psychologists Johann Friedrich Herbart and Rudolf Hermann Lotze into Italy. Bonatelli theorised on the nature of consciousness, trying to explain consciousness" capacity for free action while nevertheless being involved with mechanical and logical necessities. Bonatelli"s grandson was the famous Italian philosopher Bernardino Varisco.
Bonatelli died in Padua, Italy on May 13, 1911.
Views
Against positivism Bonatelli argued the spiritual character of psychological awareness and its nonreducibility to pure mechanism. Against idealist philosophers opposed to any notion of transcendence Bonatelli further attempted to demonstrate the existence of an ideal order, founded on the divine, which guarantees the objective value of every principle of thought and action. This work involved a subtle reworking of the philosophies of Plato and Rosmini, undertaken in constant awareness of German philosophers such as Herbart. Fechner and Lotze, philosophers who owed their reputation in Italy largely to Bonatelli. Of these philosophers he was closest to Lotze, translating his Microcosm in 1911. Bonatelli begins with the belief that psychological observation shows there to be a duality between mere psychological psychic internal mechanisms and consciousness. Consciousness is nothing other than the act of judgement, the simple act in which we say to ourselves that something is or is not the case in some way or other. This act cannot be reduced to sensation. Consciousness is thought turned on itself, creating itself and willingly accepting the laws of logic. Thought is governed not merely by psychological laws concerning the ways in which we in fact think, but by metaphy sical and logical laws concerning the contents of our thoughts according to a necessity that has to do with the rights and wrongs of thoughts. The laws of empirical psychology are incomplete and the laws of logic and metaphysics make good what is lacking. By these laws we formulate such concepts as identity, substance, causality, force, matter, spirit and the like, concepts which structure things and our thinking about them and through which thought can become objective knowledge. Thought infinitely turns back on itself. This is not an aimless infinite progression but an advance in self-understanding.
Membership
He was a member of the Italian societies Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti.
-
Born
-
Died
March 13, 1911 (aged 80) -
Nationality
Italy -
Religion
Roman Catholic