Tocco, Felice

TOCCO, FELICE. - Historian of culture and philosophy, philologist, b. at Catanzaro on 12 Sept. 1845, d. at Florence on 6 June 1911.

A disciple of Spaventa (v.) and of Settembrini (v.) at Naples and then of Fiorentino (v.) at Bologna, whose influence he felt most strongly, he taught anthropology at Rome and subsequently history of philosophy first at Pisa and then at the Institute of Higher Studies in Florence. His theoretical orientation is in the line of neo-Kantianism, but it presents no original features; T. was a man of culture rather than a philosopher, a scholar and a philologist of notable stature. His studies on the Eresia nel medioevo (Florence 1884) belong to the history of culture; to the best philology belong his Ricerche platoniche (ibid. 1876), a notable contribution to the question of the chronology of the Dialogues. A good monographic work is the G. Bruno (ibid. 1886), of which T. edited, together with G. Vitelli (v.), parts 3 and 4 of the Opere latine (ibid. 1889-91); to the Nolan he also dedicated the study on Le opere latine di G. Bruno esposte e confrontate con le Italiane (ibid. 1889). Subsequently T. occupied himself, among the first in Italy, with F. Nietzsche (ibid. 1897) and again with E. Kant, Principi metafisici della scienza della natura e passaggio dalla metafisica alla fisica (ibid. 1899). Of little importance are his Lezioni di filosofia (1869) and the Pensieri sulla storia della filosofia (1877).

Michele Federico Sciacca