Ernesto Grassi

ERNESTO GRASSI

Ernest Grassi (1902-1991), born in Milan, Italy, dedicated his life's work to a historical retrieval of Italian Humanist
rhetoric in order to show its importance for contemporary thought. As a youth, after a life-threatening illness, Grassi
developed an interest in philosophy. He studied philosophy at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and finally earned his doctorate at University of Milan in 1925, the same year he married his wife, Elena Stigler. In 1929, Grassi began lecturing on Italian literature at University of Freiburg and, in 1935, was given an honorary professorship there. At Freiburg, Grassi attended several lectures of Martin Heidegger, which lead him to work with Heidegger for the next ten years. He was named director of the Italian Institute for Humanistic Studies in Berlin, but, shortly thereafter, fled from the Nazi regime to Florence, Italy. He served as visiting professor in philosophy at University of
Zurich from 1943 to 1946, and, in 1948, he accepted a professorhip at University of Munich and became director of the
Center for the Study of Philosophy and Humanism after returning to Germany. Grassi also served as the president of the International Center for the Study of Humanism in Rome, and he published a series of volumes, Zurcher Gesprache [Conversation in Zurich] based on a series of philosophy seminars. His publications in English include Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition (1980), Heidegger and the Question of Renaissance Humanism (1983), Folly and Insanity in Renaissance Literature (1986), coauthored with Maristella Lorch, and Vico and Humanism: Essays on Vico, Heidegger, and Rhetoric (1990).

Links

Ernesto Grassi on Rhetoric
"Vico and Grassi: Humanism in Rhetoric"
"Rhetoric and Philosophy" by Ernesto Grassi
"On the History of Rhetoric and Psychology" by Brent Dean Robbins
Martin Heidegger page
Giambattista Vico Home Page
Giambattista Vico Home Page (different one)
A brief intro to Vico
Another brief intro to Vico
Jimmy Lo on Vico
Vico at Infoplease
Vico's Scienza Nuova
"Vico--The New Science" at Milton Web
Vico's "dipintura"
"Imagination and HistoricalKnowledge in Vico:
A Critique of Leon Pompa’s Recent Work" by Randall E. Auxier
"The Vision of Human Progress: Vico, Gibbon and Condorcet" at The History Guide
"The New Science"
"Vico's Sensus Communis" by Erik Growen
"Vico's New Science: The Unity of Piety and Wisdom" (abstract) Joseph P. Vincenzo
"Shades of Vico" (book review) by Aubrey Rosenberg
"Vico, The New Science and Finnegan's Wake" by Charles Cave
"Giambattista Vico and Ernest Borman"
"A Brief Overview of Rhetoric" by Joseph Petraglia-Bahri
"The Rationality of Metaphor" by Bernhard Debatin
"Kelly, Bannister and a Story Telling Psychology" by Miller Mair
The Promise of Tolerance: the Political Theory of Giambattista Vico (abstract) by Jason Mullany Haynes
Hypertext and Giambattista Vico
Boundary Mathematics and Architecture Theory
Building an Understanding of Constructivism