Martinetti: l'etica religiosa di Socrate

Martinetti approached Plato, curiously enough, almost only at the end and beginning of his career, mainly as a witness to Socrates, whom Martinetti felt particularly close to his own sensibility. There are two main elements that explain this closeness. Firstly, Socrates' link between philosophy and life, which Martinetti clearly perceived especially when he preferred to give up his professorship rather than join Fascism. Secondly, for Martinetti Socrates - not only Plato's, but also Xenophon's - seems to be a key figure to reconcile the lofty demands of a wholly spiritual ethics of the Kantian type with the demands of establishing a nexus between virtue and happiness, which is instead a salient aspect of ancient ethics. Martinetti resolves the dilemma by attributing to Socrates a kind of philosophical religion grounded on inner intuition, capable of rising far above the reason alone and its utilitarian calculations. Regardless of whether this position can be attributed to the historical Socrates, it nevertheless captures a philosophical problem of the utmost importance. Even if the emphasis is placed, as the ancients mainly did, on the goal of happiness, it remains that it seems difficult to establish what human happiness is on the ground of rational calculation alone. Rather, it seems that the choice here is left to our preliminary intuitions about life and what makes it worth living.