Abstract

The relation between academic philosophy and the widespread town culture are inquired. Existentialism came out in Turin in the last thirties, and on the one hand it entered idealistic philosophy, whereas on the other hand it helped to construct a philosophical alternative to idealism. From the first perspective a form of catholic philosophy was born in Turin, which contributed to reconciliation between catholicism and Marxism. From the second perspective existentialism, in a particular "positive" outlook, produced "neoilluminismo", a philosophy quite outside the main Italian philosophical culture.