Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
The New Science
The ages of gods, heroes and men: a science of the common nature of nations.
Introduction
Vico published the first “New Science” in Naples in 1725, rewrote it completely in 1730, and revised it again for the edition of 1744, which appeared shortly after his death; this third version is the one usually read. It opens with an allegorical engraving whose explanation summarises the whole work. Vico starts from the principle that humans can know what they themselves have made, and therefore the civil world. He reconstructs the “poetic wisdom” of early peoples from myths, languages and laws and argues, for example, that “Homer” was not a single poet but the voice of the Greek people. Jules Michelet’s French adaptation of 1827 made Vico widely known.
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Connections
Criticizes
- Discourse on the Method1637 · René Descartes
Taken up in
- Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic1902 · Benedetto Croce
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