Vico's New Science of the Intersubjective World

Vittorio Hösle, Francis R. Hittinger

Description

Among the classics of the history of philosophy, the Scienza nuova (New Science) by Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was largely neglected and generally misunderstood during the author's lifetime. From the nineteenth century onwards Vico’s views found a wider audience, and today his influence is widespread in the humanities and social sciences. The New Science is often taught in courses at colleges and universities, both in philosophy and Italian departments and in general humanities courses. Despite the excellent English translations of this enigmatic book and numerous studies in English of Vico, many sections of the work remain challenging to the modern reader. Vico's New Science of the Intersubjective World offers both an in-depth analysis of all the important ideas of the book and an evaluation of their contribution to our present understanding of the social world.

In the first chapter, Vittorio Hösle examines Vico’s life, sources, and writings. The second and third chapters discuss the concerns and problems of the Scienza nuova. The fourth chapter traces the broader history of Vico’s reception. Hösle facilitates the understanding of many passages in the work as well as the overarching structure of its claims, which are often dispersed over many sections. Hösle reformulates Vico’s vision in such a way that it is not only of historical interest but may inspire ongoing debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences as well as many other issues on which Vico sheds light, from the relation of poetry and poetics to the development of law. This book will prepare students and scholars for a precise study of the Scienza nuova, equipping them with the necessary categories and context and familiarizing them with the most important problems in the critical debate on Vico's philosophy.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la psychologie
• Philosophers
• HISTORY
• PHILOSOPHY
• Histoire
• Italian philosophy
• Italy
• My Last Duchess
• Social
• Giambattista Vico
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268100315
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

VICO S NEW SCIENCE OF THE INTERSUBJECTIVE WORLD
VICO S NEW SCIENCE OF THE INTERSUBJECTIVE WORLD

VITTORIO H SLE
translated and edited by Francis R. Hittinger IV
University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Copyright 2016 by University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: H sle, Vittorio, 1960- author. | Hittinger, Francis R., translator, editor.
Title: Vico s New science of the intersubjective world / Vittorio H sle ; translated and edited by Francis R. Hittinger.
Other titles: Einleitung, Vico und die Idee der Kulturwissenschaft. English
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2016. |
Translation of: Einleitung: Vico und die Idee der Kulturwissenschaft : Genese, Themen und Wirkungsgeschichte der Scienza nuova ; originally published in v. 1 of Prinzipien einer neuen Wissenschaft uber die gemeinsame Natur der V olker. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016029261 (print) | LCCN 2016034741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780268100285 (hardback) | ISBN 0268100284 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780268100308 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268100315 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Vico, Giambattista, 1668-1744. Principi di una scienza nuova. | History-Philosophy. | Philosophy. | Social sciences. | BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / General. | HISTORY / Europe / Italy. | BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Philosophers. | PHILOSOPHY / Social.
Classification: LCC B3581.P73 H6713 2016 (print) | LCC B3581.P73 (ebook) |
DDC 195-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029261
ISBN 9780268100315
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper) .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
For Jan Rohls, in gratitude and admiration for his splendid history of Christianity .
CONTENTS
Preface of the Author to the English Translation
Works of Vico and Translator s Note
Introduction
ONE
Vico s Life, Sources, and Works
1.1
The Formative Years
1.2
Writings
TWO
Structure and Themes of the Scienza nuova : Formal and Methodological Aspects
2.1
The Structure and Organization of the Scienza nuova
2.2
The Aims of the Scienza nuova
2.3
The Privileged Position of the Humanities within the System of Knowledge Based on the Verum-Factum Principle
2.4
Philosophy and Philology: Universal and Particular in the Sciences of Culture
2.5
History s Conformity to Laws
2.6
The Working of Providence in History
2.7
Jews and Pagans: Vico s Chronological System
2.8
The Principles of Historical Development: Norm and History
2.9
The Unity of Culture
2.10
The Problem of the Knowledge of Different Cultures: Vico s Method
THREE
Structure and Themes of the Scienza nuova : Material Aspects
3.1
Primitive Humans
3.2
Myth and Poetic Wisdom
3.3
Language and Writing
3.4
Art and Reflection
3.5
Class Warfare and Heroes
3.6
The Idea of Law and the History of Law
3.7
The Doctrine of the Forms of State
3.8
The Barbarism of Reflection and the Decline of Civilizations
3.9
The Homeric Question
3.10
Roman History
3.11
The Middle Ages and Feudalism
3.12
The Modern Age
FOUR
Cursory Notes on the History of Vico s Reception
Notes
References
Index
PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
When in 1990 Christoph Jermann and I published the first complete German translation of the critical edition of Vico s Scienza nuova-Prinzipien einer neuen Wissenschaft ber die gemeinsame Natur der V lker (Hamburg: Felix Meiner)-because of the enormous complexity of the work, I deemed it necessary to add a long introduction, which was in fact a monograph. In 1997, it came out in Italian as Introduzione a Vico (Milan: Guerini e Associati), translated by Claudia and Giovanni Stelli, and edited by Giovanni Stelli. The text has been widely used in both Germany and Italy, because it was conceived as an introduction for people who are not yet Vico scholars and because it tried, at the same time, to cover as many as possible of the variegated themes that pervade the New Science . My model was Croce s 1911 book La filosofia di Giambattista Vico , even if I disagree with him on most philosophical issues.
The possible main merit of this text consists not so much in the familiarity with most facets of Vico s main work, which was the result of the quite demanding task of translating it into a non-Romance language, nor in the relatively comprehensive reception of the secondary literature, mainly German and Italian, but in the philosophical evaluation of Vico s project. The appropriation of his main thoughts, rather than mere historical erudition, was the aim of the book, which prepared my later systematic study of 1997, Moral und Politik: Grundlagen einer politischen Ethik f r das 21. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck).
Since the latter book came out in English in 2004 as Morals and Politics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), I am particularly glad to see an English translation of this study on Vico. My former student, Francis Hittinger, combines stylistic elegance with an excellent command of Latin and Italian, and also his knowledge of German is remarkable. He has mainly worked from the Italian version, but I have compared his translation with the German original, of which it is a faithful rendition. Needless to say, I have added a lot of material in the notes and in the bibliography to render justice to some of the most important studies of the last twenty-five years; I also deleted some notes that were dealing with literature relevant at the time, but today of less importance. I am aware that some of my notes are rather long: they usually contain discussions of secondary literature or of historical details that are of interest primarily for the scholar but that the person mainly interested in the basic structure of Vico s work may skip through.
The structure of the book has remained the same-even if I subdivided the original large second part into two parts-because the structure truly corresponds to the book s topic. After having taught Vico twice in the United States, I am convinced that my book will help the student, and probably also many colleagues, to have a philosophically fruitful, philologically reliable, and holistic view of what Vico was after, which of his claims were true innovations and where he went wrong, and what his lasting place in the history of European thought is.
WORKS OF VICO AND TRANSLATOR S NOTE
In the present work, reference is always made to the classic multivolume edition of Vico s works edited by Fausto Nicolini (1911-1941; Opere , 11 books in 8 volumes; Bari: Laterza). Giovanni Gentile collaborated on the first volume, and Benedetto Croce, who had unilaterally edited the first edition of the fifth volume, published in 1911, collaborated with Nicolini on the second edition of that volume (revised and expanded). Nearly identical editions of the Italian set of volumes listed below-varying only in dates of publication or volume number in some instances and with minor addenda and revisions in others, but largely with the same pagination as cited in the text-have been made openly accessible online, thanks to the digitization of the Scrittori d Italia series by the Universit di Roma, Sapienza. These digitized texts can be consulted at the Biblioteca italiana website ( http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/ ) and make it possible for an attentive reader or specialist to conveniently locate the full textual citations as cited within this work.
The volumes with their respective titles and years of publication are listed below, including abbreviations as cited in the text:
I.
Le orazioni inaugurali, il De italorum sapientia e le polemiche (1914); in text, O for the inaugural orations, NT for the De nostri temporis studiorum ratione , and LM for Liber metaphysicus .
II.
Diritto universale (1936); in text DU , divided into the following:
II, 1. Sinopsi e De uno ; in text, UI for De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno .
II, 2. De constantia iurisprudentis ; in text, CI .
II, 3. Notae, Dissertationes, nota bibliografica e indici ; in text, N .
III.
La scienza nuova prima, con la polemica contro gli Atti degli eruditi di Lipsia (1931); in text, as 1 SN .
IV.
La scienza nuova seconda giusta: L edizione del 1744 con le varianti dell edizione del 1730 e di due redazioni intermedie inedite (1911-1916 [1st ed.], 1953 [4th ed.]); in text, 3 SN :
IV, 1. Libri 1-2 (books 1-2; 3 SN 1- 779).
IV, 2. Libri 3-5 e appendice (books 3-5 and appendix; 3 SN 780- 1112).
V.
L autobiografia, il carteggio e le poesie varie (1911 [1st ed.], 1929 [2nd ed.]); in text, A , referring to the Vita or Autobiography, otherwise material cited by volume.
VI.
Scritti storici (1939).
VII.
Scritti vari e pagine sparse (1940); in text, MH for Mente heroica , otherwise material cited by volume.
VIII.
Versi d occasione e scritti di scuola, con appendice e bibliografia generale delle opere (1941).
The abbreviations are also listed below alphabetically, as an aid to readers:
A
Vita or Autobiography
CI
De constantia iurisprudentis
DU
Diritto universale
LM
Liber metaphysicus
MH
Mente heroica
N
Notae and Dissertationes
NT
De nostri temporis studiorum ratione
O
inaugural orations
1 SN
Scienza nuova , first edition
3 SN
Scienza nuova , third (1744) edition
UI
De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno
As indicated in the lists above, references to the third and last (1744) edition of the Scienza nuova appear with the designation 3 SN (instead of the slightly misleading 2 SN of the original) and the standard section number ( )