Pure act, impure act: A critical comparison between Giovanni Gentile and Antonio Gramsci

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, European Marxists participated in the difficult process of self-interrogation known as revisionism. In Italy, through multiple authors, publications and debates, these reflections culminated in Antonio Gramsci's philosophy of praxis, which will have an outsized importance not only for Italian communism. Although the direct ascendency of Italian Neo-Idealism over Gramsci's thought, and especially Benedetto Croce's philosophy, has always been evident and universally recognized, the influence of Giovanni Gentile's actualism on the philosophy of praxis is still debated, and often underestimated. Starting from an analysis of Gramsci's 64th note of the 11th Quaderno del carcere, where he distinguishes his ‘impure act’ from Gentile's ‘pure act’, this article intends to compare the two authors’ thoughts and their role in the philosophical revision of Marxism. By discussing various interpretations about the alleged connections between Gramsci's and Gentile's conceptions—from the most orthodox Marxist readings to the ones that, first of all, see a form of ‘post-actualism’ in the philosophy of praxis —it will attempt to highlight from a philosophical perspective their contact points, and to demonstrate how and where they are different.