23 chapters
6 hour read
Selected Chapters
23 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
My reasons for believing that a new exposition of Vico's philosophy is required may easily be inferred from the observations on the effects of his work and the biographical notes which form respectively the second and fourth appendices to this volume. Here I merely wish to state that my exposition is not meant for a summary of Vico's writings work by work and part by part. It rather presupposes an acquaintance with these writings, and, where that is lacking, is intended to induce the reader to p
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
This volume represents the author's La Filosofia di Giambattista Vico (Bari, 1911) forming vol. ii. of his Saggi filosofici ; and also contains a paper read before the Accademia Pontaniana in March 1912 entitled "Le Fonti della gnoseologia vichiana," which figures here as Appendix III. The whole of the translation has been revised by the Author. R. G. C. OXFORD, 1913. [Pg x] [Pg xi]...
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VICO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: FIRST PHASE
VICO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: FIRST PHASE
The earliest phase of Vico's theory of knowledge takes the form of a direct criticism of and antithesis to the Cartesianism which had guided European thought for more than half a century, and was to maintain its supremacy over mind and spirit for another hundred years. Descartes, as is well known, had placed the ideal of perfect science in geometry, and endeavoured to reform philosophy and every other branch of knowledge upon this model. Now the geometrical method proceeds analytically till it r
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VICO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: SECOND PHASE
VICO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: SECOND PHASE
The will to believe, which in Vico's case was very strong, and the complete sway which the Catholicism of his country and age held over his mind, bound him firmly down to the Christian Platonic metaphysic and theory of knowledge; a theory whose inherent contradictions were prevented by the above psychological facts from coming explicitly before his mind. The idea of God at once dominated and supported him; he neither had the audacity nor realised the necessity to probe to the bottom such problem
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE NEW SCIENCE
INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE NEW SCIENCE
The lack of clearness on the relation of philosophy to philology, and the failure to distinguish between the two quite different ways of conceiving the reduction of philology to a science, are at once the consequences and the causes of the obscurity which prevails in the "New Science." By this name we refer to the whole mass of research and theory which Vico was producing from 1720 to 1730, elaborated above all in three works, the De uno universi iuris principio et fine uno and the first and sec
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE IMAGINATIVE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE (POETRY AND LANGUAGE)
THE IMAGINATIVE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE (POETRY AND LANGUAGE)
The chief, almost indeed the only, forms of the mind studied by Vico in the New Science are the inferior, individualising activities to which he gives the general name of "certitude." These are, in the region of theoretic mind, imagination: in that of the practical mind, power or will: and in the empirical science corresponding to the philosophy of mind, the barbaric society and poetic wisdom whose examination occupies, in his own words, "almost the whole bulk of the work." His deep interest in
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE SEMI-IMAGINATIVE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE (MYTH AND RELIGION)
THE SEMI-IMAGINATIVE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE (MYTH AND RELIGION)
Vico's doctrine of mythology, while no less original and profound than that of poetry, is also, like the latter, not entirely lucid: for the relations between poetry and myth are so close that the shadow cast upon the one must of necessity extend to some degree over the other. In proceeding to inquire, as we have hitherto done and shall continue to do, into the state of contemporary knowledge of the several sciences and problems with which Vico set out to deal, we may briefly recall à propos of
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS
THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Vico's other doctrines on the theoretical reason, that is to say on the logic of philosophy, of physical and mathematical science and of historical study, have been expounded above in the statement of his theory of knowledge, and are drawn almost entirely from his early works, since in the New Science the phase of the "completely developed mind" hardly appears except as a limit of the field of study. Here it will suffice to mention that he also touches upon the problem of the relation of poetry
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
MORALITY AND RELIGION
MORALITY AND RELIGION
But this internal fear, shame or moral consciousness is aroused in man by religion. The fear is the fear of God, the shame is abasement before his face. Primitive man wanders over the earth alone, wild, fierce, without articulate speech, without a permanent mate, at the mercy of his unbridled and violent passions, a "brute" rather than a man. What can restrain him? what can rescue him from at last destroying himself? Wise men cannot direct him, for we cannot say whence or how they can reach him.
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
MORALITY AND LAW
MORALITY AND LAW
With the dazzling light of his originality still shining before our eyes, it is impossible to fix our attention upon those doctrines and classifications which Vico drew from the traditional philosophy and placed especially in the first book of the Diritto universale : though it is precisely these that have become favourites with many readers, and are now almost common property through the frequent quotation of them. That God is "infinite power knowledge and will" ( posse nosse velle infinitum )
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE HISTORICAL ASPECT OF LAW
THE HISTORICAL ASPECT OF LAW
As the cognitive mind passes from feeling without noticing to noticing with disturbed and confused faculties, and thence to the reflection of the clear mind, so analogously the volitional mind passes from the state of nature to practical certitude and thence to practical truth. In the correlative empirical science, the transition is more or less that from the savage to the heroic or barbaric condition and from the latter to the civilised. In these three types of society, all the manifestations o
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PROVIDENCE
PROVIDENCE
The true and only reality then, in the world of nations, is the course of their history: and the principle which regulates this course is Providence. From this point of view the New Science may be defined as a "rational civil theology of the divine providence." Bacon, among his historical sciences, had named a Historia Nemeseos (history of Divine Retribution). What for Bacon was little more than a mere name was for Vico a clearly stated problem and a developed theory. Philosophers, according to
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE LAW OF REFLUX
THE LAW OF REFLUX
The mind, after traversing its course of progress, after rising from sensation successively to the imaginative and the rational universal and from violence to equity, is bound in conformity with its eternal nature to re-traverse the course, to relapse into violence and sensation, and thence to renew its upward movement, to commence a reflux. This is the philosophical meaning of Vico's "reflux," but not the exact manner in which we find it expressed in his writings, where the eternal circle is co
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
METAPHYSICS
METAPHYSICS
By "metaphysics" we understand Vico's conception of reality as a whole, not of the world of man by itself; and we also include in the meaning of the word his ultimate negative conclusion asserting the unknowability or the imperfect knowability of one or more spheres of reality, or of that highest sphere in which the others reunite. In point of fact, as we observed in considering the second and latest form of his theory of knowledge, Vico drew a sharp line between the world of man and the world o
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TRANSITION TO HISTORY: GENERAL CHARACTER OF VICO'S TREATMENT OF HISTORY
TRANSITION TO HISTORY: GENERAL CHARACTER OF VICO'S TREATMENT OF HISTORY
It is clear from the facts above discussed that the historical portion of the New Science could not take the shape of a history of the human race in which peoples and individuals were recognised as playing each its own unique part in the whole course of events. To enable it to fulfil such a function Vico would have had to close up his system of thought, which was still at one point incomplete and not impervious to the religious idea, and to elevate his provident deity into a progressive deity, d
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
NEW PRINCIPLES FOR THE HISTORY OF OBSCURE AND LEGENDARY PERIODS
NEW PRINCIPLES FOR THE HISTORY OF OBSCURE AND LEGENDARY PERIODS
The period of historical research which preceded the life of Vico was, as we have said, by no means credulous or uncritical. The day was past when "chronicles of the world" were compiled, when any fable and any falsification however gross was accepted as history: and the seed sown by a few humanists had borne fruit in the Italian men of learning, the French juridical school, the school of Scaliger mentioned above, and all the great chronologists, epigraphists, archaeologists, topographers and ge
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
HEROIC SOCIETY
HEROIC SOCIETY
As the Franks, in the compilations of national history made by the Jesuit colleges and other French schools, appear stripped of all their characteristic features and reduced to wise monarchs, pious queens and devoted warriors of the Church, so ancient and primitive history, thanks to the rhetoric and the naïve ideas of scholars, has been painted in brilliant and untrue colours of the same kind as those with which Lebrun or Luca Giordano painted their pompous and theatrical pictures. Kings who de
26 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
HOMER AND PRIMITIVE POETRY
HOMER AND PRIMITIVE POETRY
The poet of primitive society was Homer: and if such was his character, he could not have enjoyed the profound wisdom, the delicate and lofty sense of morality, and the supreme knowledge of all the sublimest arts and sciences which ancient philosophers and writers fancied him to possess, and the common opinion of literary men and critics still attributed to him in the seventeenth century. What an extravagant philosopher Homer would have been, if he had indeed been a philosopher: how miserably, h
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE HISTORY OF ROME AND THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY
THE HISTORY OF ROME AND THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY
Heroic society in the period of youthful vigour above described contains within itself, rigorously repressed, and in fact made into a support, the element of opposition; the slaves, clients or vassals, that is to say the plebs. But this element little by little succeeds in detaching itself from and opposing itself to the society, engaging it in a continual and undisguised conflict, so as by degrees to overthrow this old society and give life and form to a new society of which it is itself the ma
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE RETURN OF BARBARISM: THE MIDDLE AGES
THE RETURN OF BARBARISM: THE MIDDLE AGES
Of this kind of "reflux" Vico mentions and examines only one instance: the period of European history which had in his own days for the first time been marked out definitely by historians and given the name (though Vico does not use it) of the "Middle Ages." That this was a period of decadence and barbarism was certainly not a new thought for consciousness: for, especially in the humanistic period, a general feeling of estrangement and repulsion had been felt towards these centuries of "middle a
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VICO AND THE TENDENCIES OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
VICO AND THE TENDENCIES OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
Having reached, in his review of the course of history, his own time, a time of civilisation spread over all nations, Vico gives a rapid description of the contemporary world and then says no more: perhaps unsatisfied, at any rate uncertain or cautious. As he was not led to embark upon the New Science by the direct call of political problems,1 at least in the ordinary meaning of the phrase, he never descends from the contemplations of the New Science to: the practical life, even in the form whic
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CONCLUSION: VICO AND THE LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL THOUGHT
CONCLUSION: VICO AND THE LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL THOUGHT
The reader need not expect that having brought our exposition to a close we shall add a verdict upon Vico's work, or what is known as an "appreciation" of it. If the verdict has not already emerged as a result of the exposition itself, or as identical with it, if description and criticism have been not one and same, the fault lies either with ourselves or with the reader's lack of attention; and in either case it cannot now be repaired by ornamental additions or redundant repetitions. We confess
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
APPENDICES
APPENDICES
The transformation, half rhetorical, half mythical, which the heat of the national reawakening effected in poets, philosophers, and almost every character of any importance in Italian history, representing them as patriots, liberals, and in open rebellion or secret revolt against the throne and the altar, tried for a time to touch with its magic wand and to work its will upon Giambattista Vico. It was said, among other things, that Vico, conscious of the severe blow dealt by his thought to the t
3 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter