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This book encompasses a profound meditation on the twentieth-century fortunes of historicism as a philosophical model. After a reconstruction of its decline (as a unified and compact philosophical "ism" and as the direct heir of idealism, especially in Italy) and of its persistence as a philosophical style, the volume then penetrates the frontier of the neo-historicisms, probing two of their European faces in the shape of José Ortega y Gasset and Theodor W. Adorno. It then goes on to develop various Italian paths: from Fazio-Allmayer to Garin (and his school) from Dal Pra to Massolo, and up to Preti (was he really an "anti-historicist"?). In all these paths the centrality of historicism and its post-metaphysical aspect are clearly focused, as also in the case of the School of Naples, which now represents the most outstanding and significant heir to such critical (and open) neo-historicism.

In the period following the Second World War Giulio Preti was one of the leading exponents of Italian philosophy. A master of open critical thought, cultivated in the light of a rationalism that dialogued with, and integrated into his own philosophical model, many of the currents and stances of the global research scenario. Phenomenology, Marxism, pragmatism, neopositivism, transcendentalism and structuralism: in Preti all of these found an organic and original synthesis. Further, his particular brand of rationalist-critical thought touched on many aspects of philosophical knowledge: theoretical philosophy, the philosophy of science, that of language and that of art, from ethics to politics and even taking in the history of philosophy, offering authoritative contributions in every sphere. One hundred years after his birth, the University of Florence and the heir to the Faculty in which he lectured at length, the Faculty of Education, has decided to honour his memory with this anthology of studies, penned by former pupils and others and also by younger scholars, to once again focus the wealth of this thought and its, in many respects, current relevance. Even now, this particular brand of open, critical rationalism can offer a benchmark for addressing the new issues for philosophical reflection thrown up by modern society and culture.

The keynote of the recent history of the faculty of educational science of Florence University is change. This has emerged in response to the demands for education expressed by a new knowledge society, spawned by the processes of globalisation, and the social need to foster interculturalism and the dialogue between diversities. In this new dimension of change, education becomes the framework for preparation, but also for re-integrating and updating life itineraries that are swift and precarious, veined with insecurity and disillusionment. Even in the new approach, the scientific and cultural benchmark continues to be a consistent adherence to the secular, historic-pedagogic and educational tradition represented by the masters of the "Florence School". Since its creation in 1996, the new faculty has staked forcefully on the centrality of training in relation to the traditional focus on the professionalism of primary and secondary school teachers, and on the new extra-scholastic training issues: the educational professions; pedagogic care; the social education of adults; the technologies of education and instruction; the philosophic, sociological, psychological and anthropological dimension of education; the broad sphere of hardship and marginalisation and the different faces of diversity.