DE SARLO, FRANCESCO. – Philosopher, born in S. Chirico Raparo (Potenza) on 15 February 1854, died in Florence on 14 January 1937. He began as a physician, but soon devoted himself to philosophy and psychology. It was the period of triumphant positivism, and D. S.’s merit was to oppose the conclusions that were claimed to be deduced, in the moral and religious spheres, by the method of positive inquiry. He openly proclaimed himself a spiritualist and theist, although he intended to give his spiritualism an exclusively psychological basis, and presented his theism only as a hypothesis, not demonstrable by reason, but nevertheless supported by considerations that made it more probable than the others (cf. Metafisica, scienza e moralità, Roma 1898).
In 1900 he was appointed to the chair of theoretical philosophy at the Istituto di studi superiori in Florence, and in 1903 he published I dati dell’esperienza psichica; in the same year, at that institute, he founded a laboratory of experimental psychology, the first in Italy. From it emerged, in 1906–1907, the two volumes of Ricerche di psicologia, containing works by him and his pupils. He also promoted these studies outside the university with great fervor. But he did not neglect the moral problem, as is shown by the two volumes published in 1907: L’attività pratica e la coscienza morale and Principi di scienza etica. Through these works D. S. moved ever farther away from positivism, accepting the principle of value, which has meaning only for consciousness and requires a spiritual point of view. In that same year he founded a journal, La cultura filosofica, which enjoyed a prosperous decade of existence, publishing many writings by him and by his most distinguished pupils. An important characteristic of La cultura filosofica was its opposition not only to positivism, but even more to idealism, which was then emerging and spreading rapidly in Italy. Against idealism D. S. always firmly maintained two principal points: the dualism of subject and object, that is, the existence of the external world as something other than and independent of consciousness; and the individuality of consciousness, namely, its concrete existence in the multiplicity of subjects, even while they remain related to one another. In this opposition to idealism, D. S. increasingly emphasized his closeness to positivism, insofar as, for him too, philosophy must, like every other science, be founded on experience, while having as its particular task reflection on the epistemological and logical principles presupposed by science—principles that, for him, are always centered on the study of human psychological activity. Cf. on this point the two volumes of Psicologia e filosofia (1918), and still more, as a comprehensive exposition of his thought, the Introduzione alla filosofia (Roma 1928); cf. also Esame di coscienza: quarant’anni dopo la laurea (Firenze 1928). As for his polemic against idealism, its arguments are summarized in the volume Gentile e Croce: lettere filosofiche di un superato (Firenze 1933). The consequence of this dual polemical attitude, at once anti-positivist and anti-idealist, was, in metaphysics, a mild agnosticism. While recognizing the necessity of positing an absolute principle and the legitimacy of problems that transcend experience, he held that it was not the task of philosophy to discuss such questions: at most, it can advance conjectures and seek to grasp some glimmer or fragment of the rational order governing the world; the rest is entrusted to religious faith, which, while answering an irrepressible need of the human spirit, can dispense with proofs. Also worthy of note is the interest he demonstrated and promoted in his school in knowledge of contemporary thought: among others, see his volumes Il pensiero moderno (Palermo 1915) and Filosofi del tempo nostro (Firenze 1916). For his position on the ethical-political question, cf. the volume L’uomo nella vita sociale (Bari 1931).