Roberto Felice Ardigò was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 philosopher. He was an influential leader of Italian positivism

Positivism

Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

 and former Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

.

Ardigò was born in Casteldidone

Casteldidone

Casteldidone is a comune in the Province of Cremona in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 110 km southeast of Milan and about 30 km east of Cremona....

, in what is now the province of Cremona

Province of Cremona

The Province of Cremona is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Cremona.The province has an area of 1,771 km² and in 2008 census, had a population of 358,628. There are 115 comuni...

, Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

. He resigned from the Church in 1871 after abandoning theology in 1869. He was appointed a professor of theology at the University of Padua

University of Padua

The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...

 in 1881 in a time when a reaction to idealism had taken place in the philosophic circles.

Inspired by Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

, Ardigò differed from his mentor in that he considered thought more important than matter and insisted on psychological disquisitions. He believed thought was dominate in every action and the result of every action, and disappears only in a state of general corruption.

He died in Mantova in 1920.

Works

• Psychology as a Positive Science (1870)
• The Moral of the Positivists (1879).