Carlo Raimondo Michelstaedter or Michelstädter (German pronunciation: [ˈmɪçl̩ˌʃtɛtɐ]; 3 June 1887 – 17 October 1910) was an Italian philosopher, artist, and man of letters.

[1] Carlo was considered an introverted boy, but by the end of high school (completed in Gorizia), he developed into a brilliant, athletic, intelligent youth.

There he formed friendships with other students, and in the end, enrolled in the department of letters of the local Istituto di Studi Superiori (1905).

In 1908 Michelstaedter added his voice to those of Henrik Ibsen, Otto Weininger, Scipio Slataper, and Giovanni Amendola in Italy, who would turn to "tragic thought" as a response to the abyss opened by nihilism.

In 1909, catalysed by the task of writing a university thesis on the concepts of persuasion and rhetoric in the works of Plato and Aristotle, Michelstaedter's thought underwent a shift – one that would continue after he returned to Gorizia.

His analysis now sought to provide the possibility of resisting the abstracting force that social consensus exercised on both philosophical and quotidian forms of thought.

It is clear in his later writings that he understood that all philosophical approaches must be analysed in terms of how they are abstracted (alienated) from themselves within the structures of societal consensus.

Building on this foundation, he came to understand culture as societal behavior rather than as something created by the subject; this paved the way for a series of reflections on the relationship between epistemology and ideological consensus that would have more in common with Lukács's ideas in History and Class Consciousness (1922).

''Their degeneration is called civil education, their hunger is the activity of progress, their fear is morality, their violence and egoistic hatred—the sword of justice.

However, the work should be regarded equally as important; in the poem "I Figli del Mare", Michelstaedter profoundly writes about persuasion and rhetoric in a poetic way.

The poem in question can be understood as it follows that the struggle in the fury of the sea is never-ending, it never-achieves its goal, and thus necessarily and unavoidably implies a degree of error.

In this context, the way to persuasion is an infinite path through and in error, and moving in the right direction implies awareness of one's own inadequacy and a consistent self-reflexive negation of any rhetorically affirmed value.