Giovanni Gentile's classic exposition concerns the philosophical theory of absolute solipsism. The theory postulates that only the spirit or mind is real. The original text was first published in 1922.

Excerpt from The Theory of Mind as Pure Act The book which I have translated is intended by its author to be the initial volume of a series of his Philosophical Works. Giovanni Gentile was born at Casteltravano in Sicily the 29th May 1875. He was educated at Pisa and later was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy in the University of that city. In 1917 he received the appointment he now holds of Professor of the History of Philosophy in the University of Rome. He has become famous in his own country on account of his historical and philo sophical writings and even more by the number and fervour of the disciples he has attracted. The present work is designed to give form to the maturity of his philosophical thinking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A new theory proposes that thinking is a learned action. In this remarkable monograph, Derek Melser argues that the core assumption of both folk psychology and cognitive science—that thinking goes on in the head—is mistaken. Melser argues that thinking is not an intracranial process of any kind, mental or neural, but is rather a learned action of the person. After an introduction in which he makes a prima facie case that thinking is an action, Melser reviews action-based theories of thinking advanced by Ryle, Vygotsky, Hampshire and others. He then presents his own theory of "token concerting," according to which thinking is a special kind of token performance, by the individual, of certain social, concerted activity. He examines the developmental role of concerted activity, the token performance of concerted activity, the functions of speech, the mechanics and uses of covert tokening, empathy, the origins of solo action, the actional nature of perception, and various kinds and aspects of mature thinking. In addition, he analyzes the role of metaphors in the folk notion of mind. While intending his theory as a contribution to the philosophy of mind, Melser aims also at a larger goal: to establish actions as a legitimate philosophical given, self-explanatory and sui generis. To this end, he argues in the final chapter against the possibility of scientific explanation of actions. The Act of Thinking opens up a large new area for philosophical research.

Giovanni Gentile's philosophy of mind and consciousness remains a landmark of early 20th century thinking, his perspectives on reality and being. A firm follower of Hegel's phenomenology, Gentile sought to build upon the Hegelian theories. He believes that reality and everything around us is conceived by consciousness, and that while objects in the world physically exist, they are essentially an extension of the conscious being. Early in the book, Gentile investigates what earlier philosophers have to say on the nature of mind and reality, appraising their thoughts and adding his own insights. Later, discussions range across the spiritual and the metaphysical, and how thought gives rise to the phenomena humanity are familiar with. This book built upon the philosophical themes for which Gentile was known, alongside his writings on Italian culture and traditions, on education and pedagogy, plus the attitudes and lives of other thinkers through history. In the modern era, Gentile is remembered most for his political philosophy: advocating for a form of Italian fascism, he was favored by the government of Mussolini for providing an intellectual basis for fascist rule.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

The Italian author Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944) occupied a radical position among philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century. He tried in earnest to revolutionize idealist theory, developing a doctrine that retained the idealist conception of the thinking subject as the centre and source of any intelligible reality, while eschewing many of the unwarranted abstractions that had pervaded earlier varieties of idealism and led their adherents astray. Given his great prominence during his lifetime, it is perhaps remarkable that Gentile is so little discussed, and even then so poorly understood, in the English-speaking world. Few of his works have ever been translated into English, and these represent only a fraction of his great corpus and the many topics discussed therein. This neglect is partly explained by his close association with the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party), of which he remained a loyal member and supporter between 1923 and his assassination in 1944. The volume comprises eleven essays. Seven of these are new pieces written especially for Thought Thinking, and are intended both to contribute to ongoing debates about Gentile's philosophy and to indicate just a few of its many aspects that continue to draw the attention of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians. These are supplemented by new English translations of four of Gentile's shorter works, selected to offer some direct insight into his ideas and style of writing.