DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This introductory chapter discusses the coverage of this book, which is about Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It explains that relative to other areas of Vico studies, the ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the coverage of this book, which is about Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It explains that relative to other areas of Vico studies, the Autobiography is Vico's forgotten work and it has never been analysed as part of his philosophy. This book attempts to reconnect points and quotations from Autobiography with other parts or aspects of Vico's thought. It considers Vico as the founder of the new art of autobiography and describes the highlights and low points in his career.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the coverage of this book, which is about Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It explains that relative to other areas of Vico studies, the Autobiography is Vico's forgotten work and it has never been analysed as part of his philosophy. This book attempts to reconnect points and quotations from Autobiography with other parts or aspects of Vico's thought. It considers Vico as the founder of the new art of autobiography and describes the highlights and low points in his career.
Terence Ball
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279952
- eISBN:
- 9780191598753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279957.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Although both Giambattista Vico and Karl Marx claimed that men `make’ their own history, each had a different view of what `making’ means and what it entails. Both agreed that humans have a special ...
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Although both Giambattista Vico and Karl Marx claimed that men `make’ their own history, each had a different view of what `making’ means and what it entails. Both agreed that humans have a special sort of knowledge—`maker's knowledge—of what they have made. But Vico's view that Verum et factum convertuntur—that knowing and making are one—relies on a distinctly non‐material or linguistic–communicative conception of making (as in making a promise or making sense), while Marx's conception of making is decidedly materialist and is concerned with the human transformation of nature through productive labour.Less
Although both Giambattista Vico and Karl Marx claimed that men `make’ their own history, each had a different view of what `making’ means and what it entails. Both agreed that humans have a special sort of knowledge—`maker's knowledge—of what they have made. But Vico's view that Verum et factum convertuntur—that knowing and making are one—relies on a distinctly non‐material or linguistic–communicative conception of making (as in making a promise or making sense), while Marx's conception of making is decidedly materialist and is concerned with the human transformation of nature through productive labour.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter suggests that Giambattista Vico has employed in his autobiography one of the fundamental conceptions of his philosophy for the representation of himself and that his autobiography is a ...
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This chapter suggests that Giambattista Vico has employed in his autobiography one of the fundamental conceptions of his philosophy for the representation of himself and that his autobiography is a fable of himself. It explains that Vico considers the fable as the first true form of human speech and the form in which any basic concept of first truth about the human world can be stated. It contends that Vico's autobiographical narration draws upon the fable and form to convey the basic truths of his life as a philosopher.Less
This chapter suggests that Giambattista Vico has employed in his autobiography one of the fundamental conceptions of his philosophy for the representation of himself and that his autobiography is a fable of himself. It explains that Vico considers the fable as the first true form of human speech and the form in which any basic concept of first truth about the human world can be stated. It contends that Vico's autobiographical narration draws upon the fable and form to convey the basic truths of his life as a philosopher.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter examines the idea of autobiography in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It provides informative remarks concerning the study of autobiography and the extent to which Vico ...
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This chapter examines the idea of autobiography in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It provides informative remarks concerning the study of autobiography and the extent to which Vico has and has not figured in it. It discusses the particular idea that led to the publication of Vico's autobiography itself and suggests that the Vichian conception of autography is derived from the ancient problem of self-knowledge.Less
This chapter examines the idea of autobiography in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It provides informative remarks concerning the study of autobiography and the extent to which Vico has and has not figured in it. It discusses the particular idea that led to the publication of Vico's autobiography itself and suggests that the Vichian conception of autography is derived from the ancient problem of self-knowledge.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might ...
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This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might throw on how to understand Vico's project. It also discusses Vico's decision not to mention the Confessions in his own autobiography and his efforts to invent the true art of autobiography against the feigned autobiography of Descartes.Less
This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might throw on how to understand Vico's project. It also discusses Vico's decision not to mention the Confessions in his own autobiography and his efforts to invent the true art of autobiography against the feigned autobiography of Descartes.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter examines Giambattista Vico's conception of his own philosophy based on his autobiography. It analyses Vico's life as a series of philosophical thoughts and suggests that pedagogy, law, ...
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This chapter examines Giambattista Vico's conception of his own philosophy based on his autobiography. It analyses Vico's life as a series of philosophical thoughts and suggests that pedagogy, law, and the search for a science of wisdom dominate his though and career. It evaluates Vico's New Science and argues that his telling of his own life is a verification of the principles of his own philosophy.Less
This chapter examines Giambattista Vico's conception of his own philosophy based on his autobiography. It analyses Vico's life as a series of philosophical thoughts and suggests that pedagogy, law, and the search for a science of wisdom dominate his though and career. It evaluates Vico's New Science and argues that his telling of his own life is a verification of the principles of his own philosophy.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. In writing his autobiography Vico has devised a new art to write his own life and he invented ...
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This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. In writing his autobiography Vico has devised a new art to write his own life and he invented philosophical history which he called the new science concerning the common nature of nations. The results also suggests that Vico's aims in his New Science was not to produce a special kind of knowledge but to produce a complete speech about the human world that can bring the reader back to the most powerful maxims of humanity and history.Less
This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. In writing his autobiography Vico has devised a new art to write his own life and he invented philosophical history which he called the new science concerning the common nature of nations. The results also suggests that Vico's aims in his New Science was not to produce a special kind of knowledge but to produce a complete speech about the human world that can bring the reader back to the most powerful maxims of humanity and history.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This first study of Giambattista Vico's highly original autobiography discusses its place in the history of the genre. This book views the Autobiography as a work in which Vico applies the principles ...
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This first study of Giambattista Vico's highly original autobiography discusses its place in the history of the genre. This book views the Autobiography as a work in which Vico applies the principles of human history discussed in his New Science, making the telling of his own life an application and verification of his philosophy. The book places Vico's book within the general development of the genre, considering it in relation to Augustine's Confessions, Descartes's Discourse, and Rousseau's Confessions. The book shows Vico to be not only the founder of the philosophy of history, but also the originator of a philosophical art of self-narrative which is the response by a modern thinker to the ancient problem of self-knowledge.Less
This first study of Giambattista Vico's highly original autobiography discusses its place in the history of the genre. This book views the Autobiography as a work in which Vico applies the principles of human history discussed in his New Science, making the telling of his own life an application and verification of his philosophy. The book places Vico's book within the general development of the genre, considering it in relation to Augustine's Confessions, Descartes's Discourse, and Rousseau's Confessions. The book shows Vico to be not only the founder of the philosophy of history, but also the originator of a philosophical art of self-narrative which is the response by a modern thinker to the ancient problem of self-knowledge.
Amos Funkenstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691181356
- eISBN:
- 9780691184265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691181356.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter analyzes how, since the seventeenth century, versions of the invisible-hand explanation were employed to illuminate the course of history, the evolution of society. Giambattista Vico ...
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This chapter analyzes how, since the seventeenth century, versions of the invisible-hand explanation were employed to illuminate the course of history, the evolution of society. Giambattista Vico described at length the slow process by which man created his social nature out of his initial brutish existence, arguing that it was a spontaneous process. Vico named this process “providence” and stressed time and again the oblique nature of its operation—unintended by individuals and unknown to them. A strong sense of the absolute autonomy and spontaneity of human history is common to all historical constructions of the invisible hand. From Vico to Marx, they envision the subject of history as capable of generating all of its institutions, beliefs, and achievements of itself.Less
This chapter analyzes how, since the seventeenth century, versions of the invisible-hand explanation were employed to illuminate the course of history, the evolution of society. Giambattista Vico described at length the slow process by which man created his social nature out of his initial brutish existence, arguing that it was a spontaneous process. Vico named this process “providence” and stressed time and again the oblique nature of its operation—unintended by individuals and unknown to them. A strong sense of the absolute autonomy and spontaneity of human history is common to all historical constructions of the invisible hand. From Vico to Marx, they envision the subject of history as capable of generating all of its institutions, beliefs, and achievements of itself.
Giovanna Ceserani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199744275
- eISBN:
- 9780199932139
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744275.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, American History: pre-Columbian BCE to 500CE
This chapter complicates the received notion of the Magna Graecia's modern discovery during the 'Hellenic turn’ of eighteenth-century Europe. The historical geography of Leandro Alberti and others ...
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This chapter complicates the received notion of the Magna Graecia's modern discovery during the 'Hellenic turn’ of eighteenth-century Europe. The historical geography of Leandro Alberti and others shows earlier Renaissance antiquarianism's perceptions of Greek South Italy as a place of picturesque natural beauty and lost antiquity, seemingly irreconcilable with the wider Italian classical past. The eighteenth-century rediscovery of Paestum is examined within its Neapolitan intellectual context, which includes the figures of Giambattista Vico, Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi and even J.J. Winckelmann, and in relation to the emergence of vase studies analysis that reveals the differential investment of Italian and foreign scholars in Magna Graecia, with latter bent on a search for an ideal conception of classical Greece that would effectively relegate Magna Graecia to the margins of classical study.Less
This chapter complicates the received notion of the Magna Graecia's modern discovery during the 'Hellenic turn’ of eighteenth-century Europe. The historical geography of Leandro Alberti and others shows earlier Renaissance antiquarianism's perceptions of Greek South Italy as a place of picturesque natural beauty and lost antiquity, seemingly irreconcilable with the wider Italian classical past. The eighteenth-century rediscovery of Paestum is examined within its Neapolitan intellectual context, which includes the figures of Giambattista Vico, Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi and even J.J. Winckelmann, and in relation to the emergence of vase studies analysis that reveals the differential investment of Italian and foreign scholars in Magna Graecia, with latter bent on a search for an ideal conception of classical Greece that would effectively relegate Magna Graecia to the margins of classical study.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700163
- eISBN:
- 9781501701863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700163.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter comments on the genesis of the New Science, with particular emphasis on two principal decisions made by Giambattista Vico: his rejection of Cartesianism and his extension of his ...
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This chapter comments on the genesis of the New Science, with particular emphasis on two principal decisions made by Giambattista Vico: his rejection of Cartesianism and his extension of his conception of universal law to a doctrine of universal history. It first considers Vico’s dismissal of René Descartes’s first truth of the cogito ergo sum and his articulation of the basis from which rightly to obtain first truths. It then discusses Vico’s constant revision of the New Science, writing several annotations to the book even while he was rewriting and printing it. In summary, Vico published three editions of the New Science: in 1725, 1730, and 1744. The chapter shows that the genesis of Vico’s new science goes back to his confrontation with Cartesianism in his 1709 oration On the Study Methods of Our Time, and that he offset Descartes’s fatherhood of modern science by a science of history that combines philosophy and philology.Less
This chapter comments on the genesis of the New Science, with particular emphasis on two principal decisions made by Giambattista Vico: his rejection of Cartesianism and his extension of his conception of universal law to a doctrine of universal history. It first considers Vico’s dismissal of René Descartes’s first truth of the cogito ergo sum and his articulation of the basis from which rightly to obtain first truths. It then discusses Vico’s constant revision of the New Science, writing several annotations to the book even while he was rewriting and printing it. In summary, Vico published three editions of the New Science: in 1725, 1730, and 1744. The chapter shows that the genesis of Vico’s new science goes back to his confrontation with Cartesianism in his 1709 oration On the Study Methods of Our Time, and that he offset Descartes’s fatherhood of modern science by a science of history that combines philosophy and philology.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206088
- eISBN:
- 9780191676970
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206088.003.0035
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) and Paolo Mattia Doria (1662–1746) are often characterized as ‘anti-moderns’ and it is not hard to see why. Cartesianism initiated the assault on received ideas and ...
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Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) and Paolo Mattia Doria (1662–1746) are often characterized as ‘anti-moderns’ and it is not hard to see why. Cartesianism initiated the assault on received ideas and tradition in Italy in the last two decades of the 17th century. But having first espoused Descartes' ideas, like the rest of the Neapolitan philosophical coterie at that time, both philosophers subsequently abjured Cartesianism — Vico during the first decade of the new century, Doria rather later. In his On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (1710) Vico roundly rejects Descartes' ideas on substance, mind, matter, and motion. Later, in the 1730s, as Locke's ideas penetrated Italy, Doria became the leading opponent of the new empirical philosophy in Italy; while his learned colleague, if less outspoken in this regard, at any rate has nothing positive to say about Locke or the Lochisti.Less
Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) and Paolo Mattia Doria (1662–1746) are often characterized as ‘anti-moderns’ and it is not hard to see why. Cartesianism initiated the assault on received ideas and tradition in Italy in the last two decades of the 17th century. But having first espoused Descartes' ideas, like the rest of the Neapolitan philosophical coterie at that time, both philosophers subsequently abjured Cartesianism — Vico during the first decade of the new century, Doria rather later. In his On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (1710) Vico roundly rejects Descartes' ideas on substance, mind, matter, and motion. Later, in the 1730s, as Locke's ideas penetrated Italy, Doria became the leading opponent of the new empirical philosophy in Italy; while his learned colleague, if less outspoken in this regard, at any rate has nothing positive to say about Locke or the Lochisti.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700163
- eISBN:
- 9781501701863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700163.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter discusses the Elements section of the New Science. According to Giambattista Vico, the axioms he puts forth in the Elements are intended to give form to the materials presented on the ...
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This chapter discusses the Elements section of the New Science. According to Giambattista Vico, the axioms he puts forth in the Elements are intended to give form to the materials presented on the Chronological Table. This form will be not static but dynamic. Vico employs the image of the circulation of the blood in On the Study Methods of Our Time to suggest that one should never lose sight of the aim of the learning process from its beginning to its end. The aim is to study the ancients against the moderns in an effort to find a balance between them. This chapter considers the axioms articulated by Vico in the Elements, his conception of the natural law of the gentes, and his doctrine of poetic wisdom. It also examines how Vico has taken the elements of the threefold distinction employed by Plato in his quarrel with poets in the Republic and put them into positive relationship.Less
This chapter discusses the Elements section of the New Science. According to Giambattista Vico, the axioms he puts forth in the Elements are intended to give form to the materials presented on the Chronological Table. This form will be not static but dynamic. Vico employs the image of the circulation of the blood in On the Study Methods of Our Time to suggest that one should never lose sight of the aim of the learning process from its beginning to its end. The aim is to study the ancients against the moderns in an effort to find a balance between them. This chapter considers the axioms articulated by Vico in the Elements, his conception of the natural law of the gentes, and his doctrine of poetic wisdom. It also examines how Vico has taken the elements of the threefold distinction employed by Plato in his quarrel with poets in the Republic and put them into positive relationship.
Barbara Ann Naddeo
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449161
- eISBN:
- 9780801460876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449161.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples. His magnum opus, the Scienza nuova (3rd ed., 1744), has been hailed by many contemporary scholars as the precursor of modern social theory and its disciplinary affiliations. In particular, the chapter identifies the oft-neglected aspects of Vico's social theory as exemplified in his ideals of a metropolis. The second half of the chapter elaborates on the particular subject of Vico's investigations—Naples—and the questions of society and citizenship brought about by its urbanization and expansion during the early eighteenth century.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples. His magnum opus, the Scienza nuova (3rd ed., 1744), has been hailed by many contemporary scholars as the precursor of modern social theory and its disciplinary affiliations. In particular, the chapter identifies the oft-neglected aspects of Vico's social theory as exemplified in his ideals of a metropolis. The second half of the chapter elaborates on the particular subject of Vico's investigations—Naples—and the questions of society and citizenship brought about by its urbanization and expansion during the early eighteenth century.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700163
- eISBN:
- 9781501701863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700163.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter comments on the sense and method of the New Science. It begins by examining the New Science in relation to the works of Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Hugo ...
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This chapter comments on the sense and method of the New Science. It begins by examining the New Science in relation to the works of Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Hugo Grotius. It then considers Giambattista Vico’s two new sciences, the science of history combined with the science of mythology, and suggests that what Galileo, Newton, and Bacon had done for our comprehension of nature, Vico would do for our comprehension of history. It also discusses the method on which Vico founds the new science: to join philosophy and philology, which in the New Science he calls a “new critical art.” Finally, it describes Vico’s discovery of the verum-factum principle, found in the opening chapter of On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (1710), as the basis of knowledge.Less
This chapter comments on the sense and method of the New Science. It begins by examining the New Science in relation to the works of Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Hugo Grotius. It then considers Giambattista Vico’s two new sciences, the science of history combined with the science of mythology, and suggests that what Galileo, Newton, and Bacon had done for our comprehension of nature, Vico would do for our comprehension of history. It also discusses the method on which Vico founds the new science: to join philosophy and philology, which in the New Science he calls a “new critical art.” Finally, it describes Vico’s discovery of the verum-factum principle, found in the opening chapter of On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (1710), as the basis of knowledge.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700163
- eISBN:
- 9781501701863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700163.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter offers a philosophical commentary on Giambattista Vico’s notion of poetic wisdom (sapienza poetica), which forms a section of the New Science. Poetic wisdom is a wisdom of the senses ...
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This chapter offers a philosophical commentary on Giambattista Vico’s notion of poetic wisdom (sapienza poetica), which forms a section of the New Science. Poetic wisdom is a wisdom of the senses that is presupposed by philosophic wisdom (sapienza filosofica), a wisdom of the intellect. In On the Study Methods of Our Time, Vico endorsed the need for proper education to be based on a wisdom of the whole. He argues that among the ancients a single thinker was a whole university, whereas among the moderns students are taught by various specialists without what is taught being governed by a vision of the whole. This chapter examines Vico’s two schemes in which to organize the fields of knowledge in their original poetic form: as a tree of knowledge and as the nine Muses. It also considers why Vico identifies the nine Muses with the nine sciences of his poetic tree of knowledge.Less
This chapter offers a philosophical commentary on Giambattista Vico’s notion of poetic wisdom (sapienza poetica), which forms a section of the New Science. Poetic wisdom is a wisdom of the senses that is presupposed by philosophic wisdom (sapienza filosofica), a wisdom of the intellect. In On the Study Methods of Our Time, Vico endorsed the need for proper education to be based on a wisdom of the whole. He argues that among the ancients a single thinker was a whole university, whereas among the moderns students are taught by various specialists without what is taught being governed by a vision of the whole. This chapter examines Vico’s two schemes in which to organize the fields of knowledge in their original poetic form: as a tree of knowledge and as the nine Muses. It also considers why Vico identifies the nine Muses with the nine sciences of his poetic tree of knowledge.
Donald Phillip Verene
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700163
- eISBN:
- 9781501701863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700163.003.0024
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter comments on Giambattista Vico’s conception of a fourth kind of republic that is natural and eternal (the first three forms of government correspond to those of the three ages of ideal ...
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This chapter comments on Giambattista Vico’s conception of a fourth kind of republic that is natural and eternal (the first three forms of government correspond to those of the three ages of ideal eternal history) in his conclusion to the New Science. Vico first summarizes the essential points of the new science before moving the reader’s emotions with the picture of a people who, through malgovernance, “are rotting in that ultimate civil disease.” This is a state of the “barbarism of reflection” that infects Vico’s time as well as our own, because his time and ours is the same period of history. This chapter examines Plato’s connection to the first principle of Vico’s new science, providence, and to the first requirement for attaining wisdom, piety. In particular, it considers Vico’s interpretation of Plato’s Republic as well as his discussion of poetic wisdom. It also analyzes what Vico means by “an eternal natural republic, the best of its kind, ordained by divine providence.”Less
This chapter comments on Giambattista Vico’s conception of a fourth kind of republic that is natural and eternal (the first three forms of government correspond to those of the three ages of ideal eternal history) in his conclusion to the New Science. Vico first summarizes the essential points of the new science before moving the reader’s emotions with the picture of a people who, through malgovernance, “are rotting in that ultimate civil disease.” This is a state of the “barbarism of reflection” that infects Vico’s time as well as our own, because his time and ours is the same period of history. This chapter examines Plato’s connection to the first principle of Vico’s new science, providence, and to the first requirement for attaining wisdom, piety. In particular, it considers Vico’s interpretation of Plato’s Republic as well as his discussion of poetic wisdom. It also analyzes what Vico means by “an eternal natural republic, the best of its kind, ordained by divine providence.”
ANDREW LOUTH
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198261964
- eISBN:
- 9780191682261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198261964.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Early Christian Studies
This chapter presents an essay on the division between science and the humanities during the Enlightenment period. It explains that the awareness of radical differences between the sciences and the ...
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This chapter presents an essay on the division between science and the humanities during the Enlightenment period. It explains that the awareness of radical differences between the sciences and the humanities emerged as a protest against the tendency of the Enlightenment to regard the advances of modern science as proving the paradigmatic character of the sciences for all human knowing. The first person to launch such as a protest was Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico. His work was followed by a more elaborate one by Wilhelm Dilthey.Less
This chapter presents an essay on the division between science and the humanities during the Enlightenment period. It explains that the awareness of radical differences between the sciences and the humanities emerged as a protest against the tendency of the Enlightenment to regard the advances of modern science as proving the paradigmatic character of the sciences for all human knowing. The first person to launch such as a protest was Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico. His work was followed by a more elaborate one by Wilhelm Dilthey.
Jason P. Rosenblatt
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199286133
- eISBN:
- 9780191713859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286133.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The history of the religious toleration of Jews in England is incomplete without acknowledgment of the direct impact of Selden’s uncommonly generous Hebrew scholarship. It is not the least of ...
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The history of the religious toleration of Jews in England is incomplete without acknowledgment of the direct impact of Selden’s uncommonly generous Hebrew scholarship. It is not the least of Selden’s historical and philological achievements that he can represent the synagogue as a positive model of church institutions, and the Sanhedrin as a civil court that the English Parliament would do well to imitate. Even in the 21st century, those two cold Greek words respectively connote Jewish inferiority and cruelty: synagoga, the decrepit old woman vanquished by a vital and young ecclesia, and Sanhedrin, the tribunal that handed Christ over to the Romans to be crucified. If contemporary readers of Selden can remove the overlay of prejudice that begrimes not only the words synagogue and Sanhedrin but also Pharisee (whose negative connotations Selden, a partisan of the oral law, did much to expunge), then his cultural influence will not have ended.Less
The history of the religious toleration of Jews in England is incomplete without acknowledgment of the direct impact of Selden’s uncommonly generous Hebrew scholarship. It is not the least of Selden’s historical and philological achievements that he can represent the synagogue as a positive model of church institutions, and the Sanhedrin as a civil court that the English Parliament would do well to imitate. Even in the 21st century, those two cold Greek words respectively connote Jewish inferiority and cruelty: synagoga, the decrepit old woman vanquished by a vital and young ecclesia, and Sanhedrin, the tribunal that handed Christ over to the Romans to be crucified. If contemporary readers of Selden can remove the overlay of prejudice that begrimes not only the words synagogue and Sanhedrin but also Pharisee (whose negative connotations Selden, a partisan of the oral law, did much to expunge), then his cultural influence will not have ended.
Rocco Rubini
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226186139
- eISBN:
- 9780226186276
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226186276.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter narrates the emergence of a self-consciously construed Italian philosophical tradition from the time of the Risorgimento, the nineteenth-century political and cultural unification ...
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This chapter narrates the emergence of a self-consciously construed Italian philosophical tradition from the time of the Risorgimento, the nineteenth-century political and cultural unification movement, to the early twentieth century. Among the protagonists of this transgenerational conversation are: Vincenzo Cuoco (1770-1823), who was the first to turn to the philosophy of Giambattista Vico programmatically in reaction to the French Revolution; Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-1852), the champion of Italy’s intellectual and cultural “primato” (or preeminence) and of a renewed political Guelphism; Bertrando Spaventa (1817-1883) and Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883), who together introduced and “naturalized” Hegel in Italy; and their self-avowed heirs, Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), the sponsors and guardians of the so-called idealist “hegemony.” Through a parallel investigation of these thinkers’ work, this chapter shows Italian philosophy to be a Vichianism, that is, an enduring application of Vico’s humanism as it sustains the Italian modern or Risorgimento intellectual’s self-defining confrontation with his Renaissance prototype. Indeed, this chapter argues that Italian intellectual identity (or lack thereof) was founded on a Renaissance “shame,” the Renaissance moment, with its enduring political failures, being the specter that Italy must chase out in order to achieve the “modernity” it heralded but never itself enjoyed.Less
This chapter narrates the emergence of a self-consciously construed Italian philosophical tradition from the time of the Risorgimento, the nineteenth-century political and cultural unification movement, to the early twentieth century. Among the protagonists of this transgenerational conversation are: Vincenzo Cuoco (1770-1823), who was the first to turn to the philosophy of Giambattista Vico programmatically in reaction to the French Revolution; Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-1852), the champion of Italy’s intellectual and cultural “primato” (or preeminence) and of a renewed political Guelphism; Bertrando Spaventa (1817-1883) and Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883), who together introduced and “naturalized” Hegel in Italy; and their self-avowed heirs, Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), the sponsors and guardians of the so-called idealist “hegemony.” Through a parallel investigation of these thinkers’ work, this chapter shows Italian philosophy to be a Vichianism, that is, an enduring application of Vico’s humanism as it sustains the Italian modern or Risorgimento intellectual’s self-defining confrontation with his Renaissance prototype. Indeed, this chapter argues that Italian intellectual identity (or lack thereof) was founded on a Renaissance “shame,” the Renaissance moment, with its enduring political failures, being the specter that Italy must chase out in order to achieve the “modernity” it heralded but never itself enjoyed.
