Giambattista Vico (1668–1744,) originally Giovan Battista Vico, was an Italian philosopher, historian, rhetorician, and jurist of the Italian Enlightenment. His profound insights into the philosophy of history and the evolution of civilizations continue to wield considerable influence in the realms of philosophy, history, and cultural studies.
Born in Naples, Italy, Vico received his education from the Jesuits. His intellectual journey led him to a professorship of rhetoric at the University of Naples, where he began formulating groundbreaking ideas that would later be acknowledged as a precursor to cultural anthropology.
Vico’s magnum opus, Scienza Nuova (1725, New Science,) laid the groundwork for his revolutionary theories on the cyclical nature of history. Emphasizing societies’ recurring cycles of development, decline, and renewal, Vico introduced concepts such as the ‘verum-factum’ principle, asserting that true understanding arises from what humans create.
Critical of modern rationalism, Vico championed classical antiquity and pioneered social science, making him a pivotal figure in the Counter-Enlightenment movement. Although initially overlooked during his lifetime, Scienza Nuova gained recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries, influencing subsequent philosophers and historians. Among his other notable works are De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (1709, On the Study Methods of Our Times) and De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia (1710, On the Ancient Wisdom of the Italians.)
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It is true that men themselves made this world of nations… but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Nationality, Nationalism, Nation, Nations
Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Philosophy
Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Agreement
Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Luxury, Corruption
The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Language
Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Common Sense
The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.
—Giambattista Vico
Topics: Human Nature, Humanity
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