Vico, Giambattista(1668–1744)
Born in Naples, Italy, in 1668, Giambattista Vico is best known for his critique of the Cartesian method and his philosophy of history. Beyond these areas, he is also known for contributions to linguistic theory, legal history, and cultural anthropology. Many have construed Vico as an eighteenth-century thinker who expressed the germ of ideas more fully developed in the nineteenth century. Thus, for example, Karl Löwith understands Vico's master work The New Science to anticipate "not only fundamental ideas of Herder and Hegel, Dilthey and Spengler, but also the more particular discoveries of Roman history by Niebuhr and Mommsen, the theory of Homer by Wolf, the interpretation of mythology by Bachofen, the reconstruction of ancient life through etymology by Grimm, the historical understanding of laws by Savigny, of the ancient city and of feudalism by Fustel de Coulanges, and of the class struggles by Marx and Sorel" (1949, p. 115).
The familiar picture of Vico as the "great anticipator" contains some truth. More recent scholarship, in contrast, has tried to understand Vico as a thinker in his own right. The result has been a proliferation of different and often incompatible interpretations. These include views of Vico as a pioneer of contemporary hermeneutics; a creator of the modern social sciences; an architect of a uniquely Christian synthesis of philosophy and poetry; an advocate of a naturalistic Epicureanism thinly disguised as orthodox piety; a proponent of a Counter-Enlightenment approach to politics; and an author of a "genealogy of morals" that exposes the roots of modern secularism in pagan idolatry, divination, and sacrifice.
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