The Discovery of the Possible: Excerpts from Political Writings and Correspondence II

Literary Nonfiction. Italian American Studies. Jewish Studies. Just as philosophy does not make progress by resolving eternal problems, but rather by rigorously meditating on particular facts, procedures and methods, and leaving the general systemic position in the background, deliberately inaccurate and only hinted at; so also politics, in my view, will not move forward by retouching its ideological structure, setting out the formulations and solutions for eternal problems; but by keeping its eye on developing events and trying to influence them using the most effective and unbiased methods; always, of course, in the light of some basic positions which it should be enough to have clear in one's heart and, I would say, in one's instincts, without needing to bend all your efforts toward giving them a clear and exact and logical formulation.--from Letter to Altiero Spinelli, 1943