Giuseppe Rensi

Giuseppe Rensi (31 May 1871 – 14 February 1941) was an Italian philosopher born in Villafranca di Verona. His father, Gaetano, was a doctor, and his mother was Emilia Wallner. He studied law, graduating in Rome in 1893. Early in his career, he contributed to socialist publications like *Rivista popolare* and *Critica Sociale*, moving to Milan to engage with socialist circles. Following the Milan food riots of 1898, he fled to Switzerland, where he was sentenced to prison in absentia. He gained Swiss citizenship in 1903 and served as a socialist deputy in the Canton of Ticino's parliament. He worked as a lawyer, married Lauretta Perucchi, and had two daughters, Emilia and Algisa. He also contributed to various newspapers and edited *Coenobium*. Returning to Italy in 1908, he shifted focus to philosophy, influenced by Josiah Royce, writing works like *Il genio etico ed altri saggi*. He served in local government in Verona and lectured in moral philosophy in Bologna, Ferrara, and Florence before settling in Genoa. Rensi is associated with Relativism and the Conservative Revolution in Italy. The First World War deeply affected his philosophical outlook, leading to skepticism and a tragic view of reason's limitations, articulated in *Lineamenti di filosofia scettica* (1919). His *Filosofia dell’autorità* (1921) argued for authoritarianism to maintain social order, initially aligning him with the nascent Fascist movement. However, by 1925, with *Apologia dell'ateismo*, he opposed Mussolini and joined Benedetto Croce's anti-fascist signatories. He was persecuted by the fascist regime, suspended from teaching in 1927, and arrested in 1930 for political conspiracy. He was definitively dismissed from the University of Genoa in 1934 and confined to the university library. During this period, his intellectual output became more fragmented, taking the form of diary entries and essays. Rensi died in Genoa in 1941 and is buried in Staglieno cemetery. His tombstone bears the Latin inscription "Etiam si omnes, ego non" ("Even if all, I not"). His daughter, Emilia Rensi, was also a notable free-thinker and writer.