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Steno Tedeschi (1881–1911) was an Italian intellectual and academic. His works were associated with the ideas of the Graz School and he is noted for contributing to its object theory and Stephan Witasek's aesthetics. Tedeschi was Italo Svevo's cousin.

Biography

Tedeschi was born in 1881 in Trieste, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a cousin of Italo Svevo. Tedeschi studied in Graz from 1904 to 1906. There, he became a student of the Austrian philosopher, Alexius Meinong. Tedeschi would study and illustrate the latter's theory of objects. Under the tutelage of Stephan Witasek, Tadeschi was introduced to the notion of habit through the latter's idea of value beauty or Wertschönheit. He would expand Witasek's position that habits possess the capacity of creating needs and values. When he returned to Trieste, he attempted to promote and defend the ideas of the Graz School. After completing his education, he first taught the Municipal Gymnasium of Trieste. He became a professor of philosophy and is said to have taught and inspired the Italian writer Giani Stuparich.

In 1911, Tedeschi committed suicide in front of his dying mother, Peppina Tedeschi.

Works

One of Tedeschi's notable works was a review of Otto Weininger's Geschlecht und Charackter (1903), which – for some in Italy – became an alternative to Freudian psychoanalysis. Weininger also committed suicide. Tedeschi was working on the Italian translation of the Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik when he also took his own life. The text, which was completed by Mariano Graziussi, included three essays that explored Witasek's conceptualization of value and beauty. These were published as part of the introductory article called "La coscienza estetica secondo Stefano Witasek" ("The aesthetic consciousness according to Stefan Witasek").

Tedeschi also authored critical analyses of other thinkers. For example, he identified Otto Weininger as "the antifeminist philosopher", who was able to effectively expand the feminism theme – a topic that he said was vaguely developed in the works of his contemporaries such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and August Strindberg. In his examination of Witasek's conception of value and beauty, Tedeschi suggested that habit has immense potential for creating values and that it facilitates "the apperception of the produced representations", leading to enhanced enjoyment. Tedeschi considered himself a bridge between the Graz and the Florentine schools. Tedeschi's works were published in periodicals such as Cantoni, Cultura, Rivista di Psic., and Rivista d'Italia.

Publications

• Tedeschi, Steno (1907). "La coscienza estetica secondo Stefano Witasek", La Cultura Filosofica, I, 5, pp. 128-135
• Tedeschi, Steno (1908). "Un'equivalente aprioristica della metafisica (la teoria degli oggetti)", Rivista filosofica, X, 11.3, pp. 289-303.
• Tedeschi, Steno. (1910). "Sulla funzione conoscitiva del guidizio", La Cultura Filosofica, IV. pp. 32-39.
• Tedeschi, Steno. (1912). "Intorno agli oggetti del pensiero", Rivista di Filosofia, IV, pp. 107-118.

References

1. Coda, Elena (1972). Italo Svevo. Department of English, Purdue University. ISBN 978-0-8057-6649-3.
2. ^ Raspa, Venanzio (2010). The Aesthetics of the Graz School. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. p. 40. ISBN 978-3-86838-076-7.
3. "CFP: Alexius Meinong and His Contemporaries". groups.io. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
4. Raspa, Venanzio (2013). Meinongian Issues in Contemporary Italian Philosophy. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books. p. 16. ISBN 978-3-938793-35-0.
5. ^ Di Giovanni, Piero; Genna, Caterina (2015). Collana di Filosofia Italiana. Milan: FrancoAngeli. p. 95.
6. Weiss, Beno (1987). Italo Svevo. Woodbridge, CT: Twayne Publishers. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-8057-6649-3.
7. Fava, Sabrina (2021). "Inquietudine e disincanto tra i banchi: Un anno di scuola di Giani Stuparich dal racconto al film". Journal of Theories and Research in Education. 16 (1): 205–215.
8. Raspa, Venanzio (2014-06-01). "L'estetica dimenticata: la vicenda della scuola di Graz". Rivista di estetica (in Italian) (56): 217–252. doi:10.4000/estetica.904. ISSN 0035-6212.
9. Minghelli, Giuliana (2002). In the Shadow of the Mammoth: Italo Svevo and the Emergence of Modernism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 61. ISBN 0-8020-3638-4.
10. McCourt, John; McCourt, Associate Professor of English Literature John (2000). The Years of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste, 1904-1920. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-299-16980-0.
11. Raspa, Venanzio (2010). The Aesthetics of the Graz School. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. p. 41. ISBN 978-3-86838-076-7.
12. Rivista di filosofia (in Italian). A.F. Formiggini. 1912.

• 1881 births
• 1911 deaths
• Italian essayists
• Writers from Trieste
• Abstract object theory
• Philosophy academics
• Philosophy writers
• Suicides in Italy