Great Italians of the Past:
Norberto Bobbio
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This ambivalence will dictate his academic guidance, always hovering between a realist position and an idealist orientation, an original vision that will allow him to analyze the European major events of the ‘900 through a thought always aimed to doubt.He himself will declare in the following years: "The task of intellectuals is today more than ever tosow doubts, not to collect certainties".
In 1942 Norberto Bobbio participates in the Liberal movement, and then enrolls at the Partito d’Azione (Action Party). He will be arrested in Padua in December 1943 for illegal activity and will remain threemonthsin prison. In 1945 an anthology of his writings with the patriot Carlo Cattaneo is published, entitled “Stati Uniti d’Italia” (United States of Italy), where Bobbio emphasizes the need for federalism in Italy based on largecenters of democratic participation.
The moral, human and intellectual stature of Norberto Bobbio goes well beyond his outstanding academic merits. His life experience, his liberal (in the European sense) vision of the world, his freedom of judgment,combined with an extraordinary humanity, make of Bobbio one of the greatest Italianthinkers of '900.
Born in Turin on October 18, 1909, he studies with Luigi Einaudi and graduates in Law in 1931. He then gets a second degree in Philosophy in 1933, with honors too. In the meantime, he joins the National Fascist Party. He spends his youth, as he himself will later declare, "between a convinced fascism in my patriotic family, and a deep anti-fascism at school".