FERRI, LUIGI. - Philosopher, b. in Bologna on 15 June 1826, d. in Rome on 19 March 1895. He completed his early studies in his native city, continued them in Paris at the Lycée Bonaparte and at the École Normale. He taught in various institutions (Évreux, Dieppe, Toulouse). Having returned to Italy, he taught philosophy at Annecy and at Casale Monferrato. He was chief of cabinet of the minister of education Terenzio Mamiani in 1860; three years later he was professor of the history of philosophy at the Istituto superiore of Florence, and then in 1871 professor of theoretical philosophy in Rome.
A pupil of Jules Simon and of Saisset, he sought to reconcile the psychological eclecticism of Cousin and his school with the doctrines of Rosmini and Gioberti. Since nature is a complex of forces, that is, of principles of energy, and since the spirit is likewise such, although endowed with consciousness in a higher degree, they are reconciled in the generic unity of nature and of laws. Wherefore the true is defined as a conformity of thought to its own laws and to the laws of being. The objective value of substance depends on the principle of cause, which with respect to us we perceive directly and with respect to things deterministically, analogically, through the notion of force. God is at the same time immanent and transcendent. Without immanence God becomes an abstract being; without transcendence he loses his unity and personality.
F.'s personal ideas are found principally in the three memoirs read to the Accademia dei Lincei between 1885 and 1888: Analisi del concetto di sostanza, di causa e di forza; Dell'idea del vero e sua relazione con l'idea dell'essere; Dell'idea dell'essere.
Among his principal works on the history of philosophy, mention should be made of: Della filosofia del diritto presso Aristotele (1855); Il genio di Aristotele (1886); Essai sur l'histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXe siècle (1869); La psicologia di Pomponazzi (1877); La psychologie de l'association depuis Hobbes (1883).
Bibliography3 works
Andrea Ferro