Career
De Ruggiero taught history of philosophy first at the University of Messina (from 1923) and later at the University of Rome (from 1925). In 1925 he was among the signatories of the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, written by Benedetto Croce. He was dismissed from teaching in 1942, arrested and released only on July 25, 1943.
He was one of the founders of the anti-fascist Action Party.
Later he was rector of the University of Rome from 1943 to 1944 and subsequently held the post of Minister of Public Education in the government of Ivanoe Bonomi (1944). lieutenant clarifies the tenets of each Existentialist thinker and provides an invaluable critique of the movement as a whole.
De Ruggiero states: "I believe the time has come to draw up some kind of provisional judgement on the so-called philosophy of existence, in order to bring it back within the confines of reality.".