Luigi Stefanini, the Italian personalist philosopher, taught at Messina and Padua. He was a founder of the Gallarate movement and the founder and first editor of the Rivista di estetica. Much of Stefanini's own philosophy is to be found in his work on the history of philosophy. He tried to demonstrate by careful historical analysis that authentic religious and metaphysical needs are adequately met by certain historical positions, especially those of St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure. His guiding principle, "paradigmatism," is of Platonic and Neoplatonic origin and may be stated thus: that which is created in the image of another (as is man) has as its constitutive imperative, or life vocation, the expression in itself of its transcendental model.

Stefanini professed in turn Christian idealism, spiritualism, and personalism. His Christian idealism was based on a critique of Giovanni Gentile's claim that the self generates...