Blackwell Reference Online

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Italian philosopher, born in Naples, taught at University of Naples. In his major work The New Science (1725, with revised editions 1730 and 1744), Vico developed a speculative philosophy of history. He argued that because what is true and what is made are convertible, we can only know what we have made. As a consequence, man must be understood historically, and language is significant for historical understanding. He held that the history of each nation develops in determined recurring cycles of the divine, the heroic, and the rational, and that at any given stage a society presents a coherent structure. He also claimed that the study of history and other humane disciplines is methodologically distinct from the study of natural science. ... log in or subscribe to read full text