Roberto Ardigò

Roberto Felice Ardigò (01/28/1828 ‑ 09/15/1920), was an Italian philosopher, an influential leader of Italian positivism and former Catholic priest.

Ardigò was born in Casteldidone, in what is the province of Cremona, Lombardy. resigned from the Church in 1871 after abandoning theology in 1869. Appointed a professor of theology at the University of Padua in 1881 near the time an idealistic reaction had taken place which influenced philosophic circles.

Inspired by Auguste Comte, Ardigò differed from his mentor in that he considered thought more important than matter and insisted on psychological disquisitions. He believed thought was dominate in every action and the result of every action, and disappears only in a state of general corruption.

He died in Mantova in 1920 with 92 years.

Works

*"Psychology as a Positive Science" (1870)
*"The Moral of the Positivists" (1879).