Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets (exoplanets), and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no center.
Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.
Nicola Abbagnano was an Italian existential philosopher.
The culture of Italy encompasses the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, and customs of the Italian peninsula and of the Italians throughout history. Italy has been the centre of the Roman civilization and of the Catholic Church, as well as the starting point of movements with a great international impact such as the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Futurism, and Fascism. Italy is considered a cultural superpower and the Italian peninsula one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Due to its comparatively late unification, and the historical autonomy of the regions that comprise the Italian peninsula, many traditions and customs that are now recognized as distinctly Italian can be identified by their regions of origin. Despite the political and social isolation of some of these regions, Italy made significant contributions to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe.
John David Caputo is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a major figure associated with postmodern Christianity and continental philosophy of religion, as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction, and theology.
Anthony James Gregor was an American political scientist and eugenicist and professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, known for his research on fascism, Marxism, and national security.
Benedetto Croce, KOCI, COSML was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A political liberal in most regards, he formulated a distinction between liberalism and "liberism". Croce had considerable influence on other Italian intellectuals, from Marxists to Italian fascists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Giovanni Gentile, respectively.
The Sapienza University of Rome, formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza, is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is as such one of the world's oldest universities, and with 122.000 students, it is the largest university in Europe by enrollment. Due to its size, funding, and numerous laboratories and libraries, Sapienza is a major education and research centre in Southern Europe. The University is located mainly in the Città Universitaria, which covers 44 ha near the Tiburtina Station, with different campuses, libraries and laboratories in various locations in Rome.
Gianteresio Vattimo was an Italian philosopher and politician.
Luciano Floridi is an Italian and British philosopher. He is the director of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale University. He is also a Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies, where he is the director of the Centre for Digital Ethics. He is adjunct professor, Department of Economics, American University, Washington D.C. He is married to the neuroscientist Anna Christina Nobre.
Mario De Caro is an Italian philosopher, professor of moral philosophy at the University of Rome III in Italy. Since 2000, he has also been teaching at Tufts University, where he is regularly a visiting professor. He is interested in moral philosophy, the free-will controversy, theory of action, history of science, Donald Davidson's and Hilary Putnam's philosophies, and early modern philosophy. With David Macarthur, he has defended a metaphilosohical view called liberal naturalism.
The migration waves of Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek studies that led to the development of the Renaissance humanism and science. These émigrés brought to Western Europe the relatively well-preserved remnants and accumulated knowledge of their own (Greek) civilization, which had mostly not survived the Early Middle Ages in the West. The Encyclopædia Britannica claims: "Many modern scholars also agree that the exodus of Greeks to Italy as a result of this event marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance", although few scholars date the start of the Italian Renaissance this late.
Sebastiano Maffettone is a political philosopher and University Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, where he teaches Political Philosophy and Theories of Globalization. He has taught in several Italian universities as well as International universities. Maffettone graduated summa cum laude from the University of Naples in 1970, and he completed his graduate studies in social philosophy LSE in 1976, under the supervision of philosophers such as Karl Popper and Amartya K. Sen.
Bernardino Varisco, was an Italian philosopher and a professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Rome La Sapienza from 1905 to 1925.
Over the ages, Italian philosophy had a vast influence on Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and going onto Renaissance humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and modern philosophy. Philosophy was brought to Italy by Pythagoras, founder of the school of philosophy in Crotone, Magna Graecia. Major philosophers of the Greek period include Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles and Gorgias. Roman philosophers include Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca the Younger, Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Clement of Alexandria, Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Augustine of Hippo, Philoponus of Alexandria and Boethius.
Giulio Giorello was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, and epistemologist.
Dario Edoardo Viganò is an Italian Catholic priest, writer and university teacher. He was named Director of Vatican Television Center in 2013. He served as the first Prefect of the newly established Secretariat for Communications from 27 June 2015 to 21 March 2018, resigning "a week after his mishandling of a letter from retired Pope Benedict XVI provoked a global outcry".
Maurizio Ferraris is an Italian continental philosopher and scholar, whose name is associated especially with the philosophical current named "new realism"—Ferraris wrote the Manifesto of New Realism in 2012, which was published by SUNY Press in 2014) -- which shares significant similarities with speculative realism and object oriented ontology.
Giovanni Reale was an Italian historian of philosophy.
Sergio Cotta was an Italian philosopher, jurist and university professor. He was considered a specialist on the political thought of the Enlightenment. Cotta, along with André Masson and Robert Shackleton, was considered the most important interpreter of Montesquieu during the 20th century.
