(Page 9 of 27) - Understanding Democratization: Can National Liberation and Unification be Achieved Through Peaceful Mean of Self Government authored by Sabetti, Filippo.

army, capable of taking the lead on the military and diplomatic front while inspiring
liberals throughout the peninsula to favour unification under its banners. After 1849, from
his refuge in Switzerland, Cattaneo focused most of his attention and correspondence,
and used all his power of persuasion and prestige, in trying to convince radical liberals
and republican revolutionaries not to engage in secret conspiracies and revolutionary
activities, as they would in the end skew outcomes in favour of a military solution which
would bring a unitary system of government under the Savoy monarchy. This was the
paradox of the Italian revolution.

Creating A New Cognitive Map

In 1851, Giuseppe Ferrari, the Milanese radical friend of Cattaneo who had earlier

moved to France, published a book on the philosophy of revolution. The theme of
Ferrari's work was the revolution of ideas that had swept Europe with the scientific
movement of the seventeenth century. He interpreted the events of 1789-1791 in France
as giving concrete dimensions to the earlier affirmation of human reason and natural
equality. In Ferrari’s view, the French Revolution had proclaimed the reign of science, or
secular culture, and the reign of equality, although he was compelled to concede that the
attainment of both remained elusive as late as 1851. In the words of Clara Lovett, who
has written a moving biography of Ferrari's intellectual odyssey, "The revolutionary
tradition, of which (Ferrari) felt very much a part, was the constant struggle to attain
those goals" (Lovett 1979, 75).

Much of what Ferrari has to say coincides with Cattaneo's understanding of the

Western epistemological tradition. In an initial review of Ferrari's book, Cattaneo
sympathetically summarized the main points of the work. In keeping with his practice, he
returned to the book a few months later with a longer review essay. The earlier praise was
still there, for Cattaneo was not unmindful of the French contribution to the civilizing
process and the positive revolution in ideas that it implied. As he noted later on, "when
the American people proclaimed their independence and when the French people
proclaimed the Rights of Man, they gave a lesson in philosophy to the rest of the world"
(Cattaneo [1860] 1960, SF, 1:371). But, now he went beyond Ferrari's argument to reflect
on the challenge of transforming the revolution of ideas into principles of self-governance
(Cattaneo [1851] 1960, SF, 1:272-86).

Cattaneo found that, while academics continued to be largely concerned with the

history of ideas, people beyond university porticoes and in work places, social circles and
on street corners were struggling to do political theory. These "obscure Socrates" – so
Cattaneo called them - were posing new and unexpected questions about what goods and
bads life offered, the monstrous inequality of conditions in which they lived and what
constituted the constitution of a good society. This was "truly philosophical material and
true philosophy: man studies man and “know thyself” [nosce te ipsum], as the ancient
saying goes" (Cattaneo [1851] 1960, SF, 1:281-2). While official, university, culture still
focused on arcane metaphysical disquisitions, revolutionary ideas discussed among
common people were gaining popularity and arming revolts.