Lucio Colletti

Lucio Colletti[lower-alpha 1] (8 December 1924, Rome – 3 November 2001, Venturina Terme, Campiglia Marittima, Province of Livorno) was an Italian Western Marxist philosopher. Colletti started to be known outside Italy because of a long interview with him that Marxist historian Perry Anderson published in the New Left Review in 1974.[1]

Lucio Colletti
Lucio Colletti in 1996
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
9 May 1996 – 3 November 2001
ConstituencyLombardy 1 (1996-2001)
ConstituencyVeneto 2 (2001)
Personal details
Born(1924-12-08)8 December 1924
Rome, Italy
Died3 November 2001(2001-11-03) (aged 76)
Campiglia Marittima, Italy
Political party
Academic background
Alma materSapienza University of Rome
Academic advisorsCarlo Antoni
InfluencesGalvano Della Volpe
Academic work
DisciplinePhilosophy
Sub-disciplinePolitical philosophy
School or traditionWestern Marxism (early)

Biography

Colletti studied philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he earned a laurea with a thesis entitled La logica di Benedetto Croce (The Logic of Benedetto Croce), which was supervised by Carlo Antoni.[2] Inspired by the Western Marxist philosopher Galvano Della Volpe, he then gravitated towards communism.[3] Colletti was well known as a critic of Hegelian idealism and later became a noted critic of Marxism. He wrote the foreword for the Italian edition of Alfred Schmidt's The Concept of Nature in Marx.[4]

Colletti changed his political beliefs very often and abandoned many of his early Marxist ideals. Having been a member of the anti-fascist Action Party (Partito d'Azione; PdA) in his youth, he joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1949 and emerged as an important cultural party figure.[5] In 1964, Coletti left the PCI because the party's break with its semi-Stalinist past was leading towards what he called, in his view, a "patently rightward direction."[6] In the 1970s he was among the supporters of Socialist leader Bettino Craxi. From 1996 until his death he was elected on the list of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing political party, as a member of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) in the Italian parliament.

Selected publications
  • The Manifesto of 101
  • "The Theory of the Crash". Telos, 13 (Fall 1972). New York: Telos Press.
  • 1972 (1974) From Rousseau to Lenin
  • 1973 (1979) Marxism and Hegel

Notes
  1. Italian pronunciation: [ˈluːtʃo kolˈletti].

References
  1. Colletti, Lucio (July–August 1974). "A political and philosophical interview". New Left Review. New Left Review. I (86).
  2. Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas, University of California Press, 1984, p. 444. ISBN 9780520057425.
  3. Stella Gian Antonio, Colletti. Il pifferaio rosso della Volpe, Corriere della Sera, 1 July 2000, p. 33.
  4. Alfred Schmidt: Il concetto di natura in Marx. Translated by Giorgio Baratta and Giuseppe Bedeschi. Pref. Lucio Colletti. 2nd ed. Bari: Laterza, 1973.
  5. Sarti, Roland. Italy: a reference guide from the Renaissance to the present. New York : Facts On File, 2004: 208.
  6. Jay, M. Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984: 429.
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