Gentile, Education and Mind

This essay explains and criticizes Gentile's attempts to connect his metaphysical theories with his ideas about education, and especially the relationship between education and nationalism. It begins with a critical examination of the distinguishing features of the view Gentile specifies in Theory of Mind as Pure Act. Vincent then considers Gentile's account of how this theory, for which mind is an act of perpetual self-creation, leads to a conception of education with an explicitly nationalist bent. His attempts to connect these are ultimately unsuccessful, argues Vincent; actual idealism does not give rise to any specific political order, and certainly not the kind of state-led nationalism that Gentile ultimately supported.