• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Philosophy Professor logo

PhilosophyProfessor.com

  • Philosophers
  • Philosophies

Giambattista Vico

Giambattista VicoGiambattista Vico (1668-1744).

Table of Contents

  • 1 Ideas
  • 2 Biography
  • 3 Major Works of Giambattista Vico
    • 3.1 Related:
  • 4 Videos
  • 5 Related Products
    • 5.1 New Science (Penguin Classics)
    • 5.2 The New Science
    • 5.3 On the Study Methods of Our Time
    • 5.4 On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians: Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language
    • 5.5 New Science (Penguin Classics) by Vico, Giambattista(January 1, 2000) Paperback
    • 5.6 Giambattista Vico: Keys to the "New Science": Translations, Commentaries, and Essays
    • 5.7 The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico (Cornell Paperbacks)
    • 5.8 The New Science Of Giambattista Vico
    • 5.9 Vico: The First New Science (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
    • 5.10 Giambattista Vico: An International Symposium

Ideas

– There is no fixed human nature that remains identical regardless of time, place, and circumstance; human nature develops in accordance with self-knowledge and with insight into the essences of things.

– A Divine Providence gives human beings those nonrational creative capacities, operating on associative principles, that will produce false beliefs from which ones will follow.

– The ultimate goal of Providence is the preservation of humanity.

– Human history is knowable because human being have made it, just as nature is known to God because he has made it.

– Human beings will act for the sake of their own particular ends, but the socialized nature of those ends will bring about unforeseen changes in society itself.

– Historically, society evolves in cycles from one governed by imagination, superstition, and custom to one governed by rational understanding and that, in turn, declines into a society governed by imagination; in a parallel fashion, the political nature of society evolves from anarchy to oligarchy and then to democracy and monarchy, and finally declines to anarchy.

– The subject of the new science is the world of nations.

Biography

Giambattista Vico (or Giovanni Battista Vico) was a Neapolitan philosopher, historian, and jurist.

Vico is famous for his concept of truth as an act, verum factum.

His major work is the New Science (Scienza Nuova), published in 1725 and, as a completely rewritten work, in 1730. His major idea — that truth is an act, is discussed in this work as a principle of history — that it is made by humans, and so humans are able to fully understand it, just like mathematics, which is product of human imagination.

Vico suggested study of tradition, mythology and language as methods for investigating history. He is believed to be the pioneer of ethnology. The historical life follows similar pattern — although not in details — in every nation, according to Vico. The first humans thought in mythical terms, universali fantastici or poetic characters. All nations begin by fantasia, the power of imagination and the age of gods which are needed to comprehend the world. After that, there comes a second age in which fantasia is used to form social institutions and heroes are used to inspire moral virtues. The third and final age is the age of rationality, in which humanity declines into barbarie della reflessione — barbarism of reflection. According to Vico, this is a cycle — gods, heroes and humans — which repeats itself within the world of nations, forming storia ideale eterna — ideal eternal history.

Vico was an isolated genius, who lived in near poverty and never met a thinker of equivalent magnitude. However, his views have influenced many philosophers in the nineteenth century. Karl Marx studied Vico, and owes much to him. Also, Vico’s notion verum factum anticipates pragmatism and pragmaticism of Charles Sanders Peirce. He was able to predict historical development of Europe with appalling accuracy. In the 20th century, his ideas of the myth and nation were embraced by James Joyce, as well as Edward W. Said.

Major Works of Giambattista Vico

– On the Ancient Wisdom (1710)
– The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico (1725, 1728, 1731)
– The New Science (1725, 1730, 1744)

Related:

  • Robin George Collingwood
  • Wilhelm Dilthey
  • Nicolas Malebranche
  • Reinhold Niebuhr
  • historicism

  • Videos

  • Related Products

     
    New Science (Penguin Classics)
    18 Reviews

    New Science (Penguin Classics)

    • Penguin Classics
    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 560 Pages - 01/01/2000 (Publication Date) - Penguin Classics (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    The New Science

    The New Science

    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 480 Pages - 01/07/2020 (Publication Date) - Yale University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    On the Study Methods of Our Time

    On the Study Methods of Our Time

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 144 Pages - 10/23/1990 (Publication Date) - Cornell University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians: Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language

    On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians: Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 198 Pages - 08/23/1988 (Publication Date) - Cornell University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    New Science (Penguin Classics) by Vico, Giambattista(January 1, 2000) Paperback

    New Science (Penguin Classics) by Vico, Giambattista(January 1, 2000) Paperback

    • 01/21/2021 (Publication Date) - Penguin Classics (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Giambattista Vico: Keys to the 'New Science': Translations, Commentaries, and Essays

    Giambattista Vico: Keys to the "New Science": Translations, Commentaries, and Essays

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 224 Pages - 11/15/2008 (Publication Date) - Cornell University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico (Cornell Paperbacks)

    The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico (Cornell Paperbacks)

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Vico, Giambattista (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 248 Pages - 02/15/1963 (Publication Date) - Cornell University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    The New Science Of Giambattista Vico

    The New Science Of Giambattista Vico

    • Goddard Bergin, Thomas (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 426 Pages - 08/24/2017 (Publication Date) - Andesite Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Vico: The First New Science (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

    Vico: The First New Science (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Vico, Leon (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 368 Pages - 08/12/2002 (Publication Date) - Cambridge University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Giambattista Vico: An International Symposium

    Giambattista Vico: An International Symposium

    • Used Book in Good Condition
    • Hardcover Book
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 528 Pages - 10/01/1969 (Publication Date) - The Johns Hopkins University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
  • Last update 2020-06-17. Price and product availability may change.

    Marie Antoine Condorcet

    Richard von Mises

    Gabriel Marcel

    Charles Sanders Peirce

    Jules Henri Poincare

    • Contact
    • Facebook

    Copyright © 2021 · CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. “AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES.”