Antonio Banfi (Vimercate, 30 September 1886 – Milano, 22 July 1957) was an Italian philosopher and senator. He is also noted for founding the Italian philosophical school called

critical rationalism Critical rationalism is an epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper on the basis that, if a statement cannot be logically deduced (from what is known), it might nevertheless be possible to logically falsify it. Following Hume, Poppe ...

. Although influenced by the

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approxima ...

neo-Kantians and

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

, whom he knew personally, Banfi moved away from Idealism and instead focused on

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

, in particular,

historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

. Banfi joined the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) ...

in 1947. He was elected to the Italian senate in 1948 and again in 1953. Antonio Banfi was a chair of the University of Milan's History of Philosophy department.Giovanni, Piero Di (2002). ''Le avanguardie della filosofia italiana nel XX secolo'' (in Italian). Milan: FrancoAngeli. p. 157.

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition an ...

978-88-464-3693-1. Among his students were Dino Formaggio and Mario Dal Pra.

References

* Garin, E., "Banfi, Antonio" in Brochert, D. M. (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Second Edition, vol. 1 (Thomson Gale, 2006), p. 476. * Garin, E.,
History of Italian Philosophy
', vol. 2 (Rodopi, 2008), p. 1292. * Guiat, C.,
The French and Italian Communist Parties: Comrades and Culture
' (Frank Cass Publishers, 2003), pp. 144–150. {{DEFAULTSORT:Banfi, Antonio 1886 births 1957 deaths People from Vimercate Italian Communist Party politicians Senators of Legislature I of Italy Senators of Legislature II of Italy Members of the Italian Senate from Lombardy 20th-century Italian philosophers Materialists Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals