{{Short description|Italian philosopher (1902–1991)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Ernesto Grassi | image = Grassi Zuerich Mitte der 80er Jahre.jpg | caption = Professor Grassi at the lectern in Berlin | birth_date = {{Birth date|1902|5|2|df=y}} | birth_place = Milan, Kingdom of Italy | death_date = {{Death date and age|1991|12|22|1902|5|2|df=y}} | death_place = Munich, Bavaria, Germany | occupation = Philosopher }}
'''Ernesto Grassi''' (2 May 1902 – 22 December 1991) was an Italian philosopher.
==Personal life== {{Expand section|date=March 2023}} He maintained an intimate friendship with Donald Phillip Verene.<ref>Timothy Crusius. "New Preface" in Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition. Trans. John Michael Krois and Azizeh Azodi. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.</ref>
==Career and works== Grassi sought to take up the Heideggerean ''Destruktion'' of metaphysics, grounding his philosophical enterprise instead in the tradition of rhetoric.<ref>Ernesto Grassi and John Michael Krois. "Italian Humanism and Heidegger's Thesis of the End of Philosophy." ''Philosophy & Rhetoric'', Vol. 13, No. 2 (Spring, 1980), pp. 79-98.</ref> He identified the Italian humanist tradition as a potential site to begin this development of philosophy, and his works often contain copious references to the Italian humanists. In this tradition, "work and metaphor are the source of human history and society", an approach to thought which must reject the rational, proceeding as it does from "general and necessary premises."<ref>Ernesto Grassi and John Michael Krois. "Can Rhetoric Provide a New Basis for Philosophizing? The Humanist Tradition." ''Philosophy & Rhetoric'' Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring 1978.</ref>
His work ''Rhetoric as Philosophy'' is considered "the first protracted attempt to synthesize Italian humanism with rhetoric, as a source of philosophical invention."<ref>Thomas B. Farell. ''Rhetoric Review'', Vol. 21, No. 1, (2002), p. 101.</ref>
== Theory on rhetoric and humanism ==
Looking at the theory of Ernesto Grassi of rhetoric and humanism, he inherited ideas from the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian to help introduce and assure his theory. Grassi was quite specific when it came to understanding his ideas. He starts with making sure that the "description of the nature of rhetoric is to summarize the distinction he draws between critical or rational discourse and topical discourse," (Golden. Berquist, Coleman, & Sprouse. 2011, 307). When it comes to his theory, he normally would side with Giambattista Vico (an Italian philosopher, 1668–1744).
There are three primary faculties of true rhetoric:
* Ingenium: The most important and essential to the understanding of humanistic tradition. Those who have an issue within this "trait" have issues with traditional humanistic advances within their lives. * Work: This "trait", according to Grassi, helps develop the understanding of need and development of the history of mankind. It allows us to create our imprints of today for the history of tomorrow. * Metaphor: With this, according to Grassi, a person must be able to bring together Ingenium and work, making Metaphor beneficial for the continuation of growth and development.
Ingenium, Work, and Metaphor are intertwined with knowledge, rationality, language and play a role in nature.<ref>Golden, J. L., Berquist, G. F., Coleman, W. E., & Sproule, J. M. (2011). [https://archive.org/details/rhetoricofwester0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up?q=grassi The rhetoric of Western thought: From the Mediterranean World to the global setting] (10th Ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == {{wikiquote}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grassi, Ernesto}} Category:1902 births Category:1991 deaths Category:20th-century Italian philosophers
{{Italy-philosopher-stub}}