Valori perduti e perduta libertà. Croce e il dibattito tedesco sulla relatività dei valori

Abstract

The relativism of values (Werterelativismus) is a problem very central for the historicism debate, which concerned historians and phi- losophers at the beginning of the twentieth century. The historization of all knowledge and all values leads to their historical devaluation. How can values still be formulated and maintained in face of this relativization? This was the question of theorists such as Otto Hintze, Friedrich Meinecke, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, as well as of the philosopher Benedetto Croce in times of emerging Fascism, that was regarded as a political and moral threat. As representatives of an intellectual and social liberalism, these academics developed their own strategies of solution, which the contribution presents and compares in its peculiarities.