VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. – Italian philosopher, born in Naples on 23 June 1668, died there on 22 January 1744.
I. LIFE
Born to a modest bookseller, G. B. V., after his early studies partly on his own and partly with the Jesuits, was introduced to philosophy by the nominalist Fr. Del Balzo; he then continued under Fr. Ricci and finally studied Suárez on his own. He then studied law and practiced with a lawyer. But his metaphysical mind could not be satisfied by the quibbles of legal disputes. He thus accepted an invitation to serve as tutor in the household of the Rocca family at Vatolla in the Cilento region, where he remained for nine years. This was the decisive period of his humanistic formation through the study of Italian and Latin classics, Roman law, and Greek and Christian philosophy. Upon his return to Naples, he won in 1699 the chair of rhetoric at the university.These were politically difficult years, as the War of the Spanish Succession led to the Kingdom of Naples being detached (1707) from Spain, where the Bourbons took power, and temporarily passing under the Austrian crown. Vico, however, remained aloof from politics, living a rather secluded life while devoting equal scrupulousness to his duties as a family man and teacher. He never managed to secure a stable prosperity that would free him from financial worries, which he sought to address by accepting commissions for dedications and commemorative inscriptions that he composed in excellent Latin. Unlucky with his children, awkward in his dealings with others, embittered in academic life—he did not obtain the chair of jurisprudence for which he competed in 1723—Vico lived entirely absorbed in the effort to clarify for himself and communicate to others the great intuitions of the *New Science*, which he continually reworked, never satisfied, until the definitive edition appeared just months before his death. A belated consolation—though keenly felt by him, as he keenly felt any recognition as much as any disregard of his merits—came to him in 1735 with his appointment as royal historiographer and in 1741 with the confirmation of his son Gennaro’s succession to the chair of rhetoric he had held for so many years at the university.
Among the many issues concerning Vico’s life, some more directly pertain to his philosophical formation and his stance toward orthodoxy. Was Vico implicated in the famous trial of the “Neapolitan atheists” of 1688–93? It is certain that during his nine years at Vatolla, Vico was not so self-taught and cut off from the world as one might think from reading his *Autobiography*; he had connections with circles and individuals, some of whose names appear among those indicted in the famous trial. Yet no evidence exists that he himself was implicated. One might also see an indication of a period of youthful doctrinal heterodoxy in the canzone *Affetti di un disperato* and in some expressions from a letter to Fr. Giacco (of 12 Oct. 1720) that refer to “weaknesses and errors of youth.” But the pessimism of the former, though unusual for the philosopher of Providence, can be understood within the limits of a psychological crisis, and as for the “weaknesses and errors” in the latter, there is no reason to regard them as specifically theoretical, philosophical, or religious in nature. It is the idealistic interpretation (Nicolini, Croce) that, aware of the intrinsic weakness of its own doctrinal reconstruction of Vichian thought, would seek to bolster it with extrinsic reasons drawn from the philosopher’s life. Moreover, in the face of the orthodoxy of a thought entrusted to the bulk of his writings, even if documented, youthful wanderings and heterodoxies would have little (philosophical) interest, since those very works refute them (cf., on this point, C. Cappello, *G. B. V. e il processo contro ateisti napoletani del 1688–93*, in *Salesianum*, 1947, pp. 326–42).
A question of greater real interest is that concerning the formation of Vichian philosophy. The *Autobiography*, though a fundamental document, was written very late and thus contains omissions, emphases, and elisions that can be misleading; it must be supplemented and corrected by examining his other writings (cf. F. Nicolini, *La giovinezza di G. B. V.*, Bari 1932, and J. Chaix-Ruy, *La formation de la pensée philosophique de J.-B. V.*, Geneva 1945).
Vico studied St. Augustine, knew Scholastic thought, certainly Suárez and Scotism, read at least the *Ethics* of Aristotle, but at the same time kept abreast of philosophical novelties then hotly debated in Naples, where, particularly in certain circles, Epicurus, Descartes, Gassendi, Bacon, Bruno, the Italian Neoplatonists, and the anticurialist ideas of part of the Neapolitan bourgeoisie were being combined. The question of sources obviously requires a twofold assessment: of the authors studied or otherwise known to Vico and of the influence they exerted on his mind. Now, it may be admitted that Vico owed more to some of these authors—particularly Descartes—than he was willing to acknowledge, but it remains incontestable that the formation of Vichian philosophy is in an anticartesian, antisensist, anti-Enlightenment direction. Any suggestions from heterodox philosophies—such as those of Epicurus, Hobbes, or Bruno—ultimately resolve into cultural, erudite, and philosophically rather negative influences, just as, similarly, anticurialism, even if not merely episodic or superficial, never amounts to anticlericalism or irreligion. Vico himself wished to summarize in four names the influences he deemed decisive for his doctrinal conception: Plato, Tacitus, Bacon, and Grotius. Contemporary criticism recognizes the legitimacy of this declaration insofar as Plato would represent the demand for truth and philosophy, Tacitus for certainty and philology, Bacon for the synthesis of both, and Grotius would point the way to the realization of that synthesis, which, as is well known, is the aim of the *New Science* (cf. G. Fassò, *I quattro «autori» del V.*, Bologna 1949).
II. WORKS
All of Vico’s significant writings are oriented toward the masterpiece, preparing for II. Disregarding occasional works (dedications, inscriptions, commemorations, allocutions, eulogies), minor writings (among which should be noted the *Vindiciae*, a vigorous response to a harsh review of the *New Science* that appeared in 1727 in the *Acta Eruditorum* of Leipzig; the *De mente heroica*, published in 1731; a commentary on the *Epistle to the Pisos* and the *Institutiones oratoriae* of 1711, reworked in 1738—works that introduce us to his university teaching), and historical writings (such as the *De rebus gestis Antonii Carafa* [1716] and the *Historia coniurationis principum neapolitanorum anni 1701*, which is the history of the so-called Macchia conspiracy, unpublished until the last century), we turn to the works of more properly philosophical scope. Between 1699 and 1707, Vico delivered seven inaugural orations for the academic year, only one of which was published at the time (1708), reworked and significantly expanded under the title *De nostri temporis studiorum ratione*, containing an early and effective critique of the Cartesian direction in culture and studies. The other orations, though predominantly rhetorical-pedagogical in character, contain philosophical insights important for the history of the formation of Vichian doctrine. The *De antiquissima italorum sapientia*, conceived in three parts—metaphysical, physical, and moral—of which only the first remains, dates to 1710. The title refers to the work’s approach, in the sense that Vico claims to derive doctrines
VICO, Giovanni Battista - Portrait, canvas by an anonymous artist - Rome, Biblioteca Angelica.
He expounds his analysis of the Latin language understood as bearing the traces of the most ancient wisdom of the Italic peoples. In the first section, he sets forth his gnoseological ideas, including the famous *verum factum* principle. In the subsequent sections, he develops cosmological and metaphysical concepts, presenting a monadistic view of the world, akin to that of the ancient Zeno, and partly analogous to Leibniz’s monadism, in opposition to Descartes’ mechanism. He aroused lively controversies, whose understanding is essential to clarify certain passages of his work, which is generally far from perspicuous. These controversies involved two articles in the *Giornale dei letterati d’Italia*, to which Vico responded with two *Risposte* in the years 1711–12. Opinions differ regarding the relationship between *De antiquissima* and *Scienza nuova*, with some emphasizing their convergence and others their divergence. Among the latter, B. Croce, in contrast to the “rationalism” of *Scienza nuova*, would prefer to see in *De antiquissima* an “absolute skepticism” (*Le fonti della gnoseologia vichiana*, in *Saggio sullo Hegel*, Bari 1913, p. 246). After a decade of preparation, between 1720 and 1723, the so-called *Diritto universale* was published, consisting of *De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno*, *De constantia iurisprudentis*, and a volume of *Notae*, expansions and elucidations of the two preceding treatises.
With these works, Vico had definitively centered his interest and speculative effort on the realm of human society, studying law as its most significant manifestation, in order to understand it in its evolution and justify the modalities of its development among various peoples and ages. Nearly all the motifs that would later constitute the framework and foundation of *Scienza nuova* are present in *Diritto universale*, to the extent that some consider it a first, immature draft of the masterpiece, which would later extend to the interpretation of the entire historical process the principles and methods demonstrated in the more limited sphere of the juridical world. Vico himself reveals that the first exposition of *Scienza nuova* was “in negative form” (*Autob.*, p. 48) [references to this and other works are to the Nicolini edition]. What remain are only the various drafts of *Scienza nuova* in positive form, the first of which dates to 1725 and bears the title *Principi di una Scienza nuova d’intorno alla natura delle nazioni*. In 1730, a second edition appeared, which was in fact a complete reworking of the first. On this basis, Vico continued to revise, add, and clarify in view of the definitive edition of 1744. The most important documents for understanding the formation and meaning of Vico’s philosophy are his *Epistolario* and the aforementioned *Autobiografia*, written in 1725 and later expanded with additions up to 1731.
Vico’s works are today available in the edition edited by F. Nicolini (Bari 1914 ff.), which includes meticulous historical-biographical information. It comprises 8 volumes and renders nearly all previous editions—both partial ones, such as those by Villarosa (4 vols., Naples 1823) and Corcia (2 vols., ibid. 1834), and complete ones, such as that by Ferrari (6 vols., Milan 1835–37)—superfluous. The masterpiece, *Scienza nuova*, has had many other editions. Nicolini published a *Commento storico* to the second *Scienza nuova* (Rome 1949) and reissued the *Autobiografia* (Milan 1947).
III. Doctrine
From a general opposition to Cartesianism as a culture and intellectual formation—of which the most notable documents are *De studiorum ratione* and certain letters (especially that of January 12, 1729, to Estevan and that of January 20, 1726, to De Vitry)—Vico moves to a more precise critique of Cartesianism as a philosophical method and system, particularly in *De antiquissima*.Cartesianism, as a culture, accords exclusive importance to the physical-mathematical disciplines and to pure abstract reason. In contrast, it is necessary to vindicate the rights of humanistic and classical culture, in which poetry, the arts, law, and history develop the full scope of the human spirit, rich in wit, feeling, and imagination, as well as critical reason. Cartesianism as a philosophy is erroneous in both its criterion and its starting point: in its criterion (the clarity and distinctness of ideas), which is subjective and from which nothing more can be derived than “an inoperable skepticism of truth” (*Seconda risposta*, p. 274); in its starting point, which is the *cogito*, a vulgar-precritical beginning and not a properly critical one. The critical and scientific character of knowledge, for Vico, lies in the reflective and mediated, whereas the *cogito* is immediate presence and pure constatation: it is an indubitable sign of my being, i.e., it gives me certainty, but does not yield scientific knowledge of being, i.e., it does not grant me truth (*Prime risposte*, p. 209).
In *De antiquissima*, Vico thus arrives at the formulation of his new criterion, aimed at deepening the explanatory character of the intellect, the *verum factum*. If explaining a thing is knowing its cause, knowing the cause implies being its cause. To be a cause, *efficere*, must be understood in the cognitive sphere and not in the existential one. “Making the object” means possessing in the mind the elements in such a way as to be able to reconstruct the structure of the object; in this act of reconstruction, one acquires the critical certainty of truth, whereby knowing (critically) and making—the *verum* and the *factum* in this sense—are identified: “*dum mens colligit eius veri elementa, quod contemplatur, fieri non potest quin faciat vera, quae cognoscit*” (*De ant.*, p. 135; cf. p. 141).
The idealistic conception according to which knowing is making in the sense of “bringing the object into being” is therefore alien to the Vichian meaning of this famous principle. In it, the vindication of the dynamism of knowing as a condition of its critical value does not lead to the negation of its informative value, nor of the transcendence of the norm that makes it such (divine science is that “*ad cuius veri normam vera humana metiri debemus*”: *De ant.*, p. 141).
The application of this criterion leads to the affirmation of divine omniscience “*quia Deus in se continet elementa ex quibus omnia componit*” (*De ant.*, p. 132). As for human science, it cannot pertain to physics, but only to mathematics as an abstract construction of the mind, and to history as a concrete construction of the same mind. The application of the *verum factum* to history had not yet been achieved in *De antiquissima*,
It remained set within a still philosophical-scientific mentality, not in any anti-Cartesian sense. Only through the Universal Law did V. arrive at the new philosophical-historical perspective that enabled him to exploit the gnoseological principle of *De antiquissima* in a manner both ingenious and previously unnoticed. The problem of V. is the problem of history—not a prospective problem, but a retrospective one, even though in its solution he believed he had attained principles (those constituting the ideal eternal history) that allowed him to give the *New Science* a deductive character and even a prophetic stance (cf. *The diagnostic art of the New Science* in the first part). History is seen by V. both as science and as philosophy. As science, inasmuch as it is a ‘critical art... that provides the rules for distinguishing truth in all gentile histories’ (*New Science*, § 91; cf. *Autobiography*, p. 49). As philosophy, inasmuch as it seeks in the ultimate reasons of history some absolute law of human becoming, the ‘ideal eternal history’ (*New Science*, § 349). In V., these two meanings are not always distinct, which certainly does not contribute to the clarity of the Vichian masterpiece; yet there can be no doubt that this is the pregnant sense of the expression ‘New Science.’ Now, the ‘scientific’ nature of historical knowledge derives from the applicability to it of the *verum factum* criterion: ‘this civil world has certainly been made by men, so that its principles can, indeed must, be sought within the modifications of our own human mind’ (*New Science*, § 331).
According to Vichian discoveries, history is at once the ascertainment of the certain and the verification of the true, the certain being what is established, i.e., the given, the particular (not the physical datum, which is grounded in nature, but the civil datum, such as laws, customs, etc., grounded in human authority), while the true is what is truly known, i.e., reason, the universal. History is thus also a synthesis of philology (which ‘observes the authority of human choice, whence comes the consciousness of the certain’: *New Science*, § 10) and of philosophy (which ‘contemplates reason, whence comes the science of the true’: *New Science*, ibid.). With this, V. rescues history from the twin dangers of remaining insignificant erudition or of filling itself with anachronistic and arbitrary meanings: a condemnation of the historiographical fashions of his time and of those that followed, both positivistic and idealistic. In this understanding of history, the concrete richness of human nature is revealed according to a rhythm that V. defines as sense, fantasy, and reason, expressing three successive moments of historical becoming: the age of the gods, of heroes, and of men; in which men first ‘feel without perceiving, then perceive with disturbed and moved soul, and finally reflect with pure mind’ (ibid., § 53). V. believes he has thereby grasped the law of historical becoming, i.e., the ideal eternal history upon which the histories of all nations run their course in time’ (ibid., § 349). Through it, one can thus ‘verify’ historical events and introduce into them that ‘had to, must, will have to’ (cf. ibid., § 348), without which history is not a ‘science.’
The problem of history presented itself to V. essentially as a problem of origins. The field of origins—even for highly civilized nations like Greece—teems with chronological, moral, and other incongruities and absurdities (ibid., §§ 79–80). If V. holds the key to understanding human history, this key must first unlock the closed gates of that absurd world. Indeed, V. directly addresses the problem of the absolute origins of human society, which he takes from that presocial state—a hypothesis then common among natural law theorists—and vividly depicts in famous pages such as that of primitive bestioni (ibid., Bk. II, Prologue, ch. 3). Yet V.’s ‘bestione’ is filled with a meaning entirely different from that of Hobbes and the natural law theorists with whom V. is always polemical. On the one hand, it is reconnected with biblical data (ibid., § 42), and on the other, it is recognized in its human integration, however degraded (ibid., §§ 6, 446, etc.). The problem, then, may be stated generally as follows: how is it that ‘fallen Adam,’ i.e., primitive men, rough, all sense and passion, were able to build the society and civilization that, in the age of fully unfolded reason, not even they could preserve (ibid., §§ 79–80)? The answer to this question introduces the concept of Providence; the disproportion between the ends and means of action on the one hand (self-interest and the narrowness of primitive minds) and the result achieved on the other (society and civilization) implies the presence of divine collaboration: the law of heterogeneous ends is Vico’s proof of Providence (ibid., § 1108). It is no accident that the *New Science* aims to be also a reasoned civil theology of divine providence (ibid., § 342). This transcendent Providence acts in history not through miracles, but through natural means, by way of human knowledge and will. Insofar as minds know, venerate, fear, and love a being superior to themselves, God (and this knowledge and will are religion), men are enabled to overcome selfishness and passions, to become moralized and civilized. Hence the intimate and necessary connection between religion and civilization, one of the dominant themes of the *New Science*. The beginnings of civilization coincide with the first awakening of the idea of God (cf. § 30). However aberrant and imperfect such religions may be, they are better than atheism, for ‘with them the most luminous nations were founded, but with atheism none were ever founded in the world’ (ibid., § 518). But it is clear, then, that if society and civilization are the result of human-divine collaboration, abandoning God means compromising society and civilization. This becomes possible when the spontaneity of the sensitive-fantastic nature, naturally open to truth, is succeeded by the reflection of fully unfolded reason, which, through the abuse of liberty and the creation of malice, can close itself to truth and rebel against II.
In this comprehensive vision, the tripartite division of sense, fantasy, and reason reveals itself as a rather mechanical and superficial schema, and acquires its true and profound meaning only insofar as it resolves into the dichotomy spontaneity-reflection, vulgar wisdom-reflected wisdom, which constitutes, in fact, the true and profound dialectic of history.
A large part of the *Scienza nuova* (Book II) is devoted to outlining the primitive world, which—as has been said—is that which most arouses Vico’s interest. This world, first of beasts, then of giants and heroes, is the world of sensitive-fantastic spontaneity, the world of humankind in its childhood (cf. § 49), but it is also the world of “poetic wisdom.” Wisdom, because within it truth is present. The sensitive-fantastic moment is not an illogical moment; if it were, it would be inhuman. Yet the logos, the truth present in it, is not in its perfect form—the critical form of reason—but in an imperfect form, the form of common sense clothed in imaginative expression, which is precisely the hallmark of the poetic attitude (cf. the doctrine of the *fantastic universal* or poetic character, e.g., § 49). Here we find recognition of a precious value, not only practical but also theoretical, in common sense, the true “wisdom of humankind” (*Scienza nuova*, § 46), and thus in the poetry in which it lives. In his doctrine of poetry, conceiving it as the natural expression of the fantastic mind, Vico opposes the dilettantish and intellectualist aesthetics of his time and of all time, claiming for himself the merit of initiating modern aesthetics; and by vindicating a truth-value in poetic expression, he distances himself from the exalters of pure fantasy and aligns himself with modern mythological science. Much of the *Scienza nuova* is indeed devoted to the unveiling of myths, hitherto mistakenly understood as idle inventions or obscene fables or disguises of philosophical truths. Instead, they are “true and severe histories” (*Scienza nuova*, § 7); they always express a natural truth (as Neptune, which signifies the sea) or a civil truth (as Minerva, which signifies heroes armed in assembly) or a metaphysical truth (as Jupiter, which signifies the first notion of the divine). Thus, myths are the witnesses and authentic documents of the ages in which they arose, ages to which it is futile to seek to return by tracing the footsteps of writers and historians like Herodotus and Livy, or by applying reflected conventionalist and intellectualist criteria. In this same poetic wisdom lies the value of human authority, which underpins customs, laws, and civil usages—that is, the *certum* that is not merely fact and historicity but also reason, however much “obscurity of reason” (*cf.* § 111), as Vico takes pains to show, may be said to permeate every page of the *Diritto universale* and the *Scienza nuova*.
In the earliest ages, everything arises naturally, shaped by the logic of sense and fantasy, of passion and feeling: language and religion, property and family, economy and law, and even geography, physics, and astronomy. On the basis of this fantastic logic, Vico seeks to discover the authentic meaning of what the logic of reason has hitherto declared foolish, absurd, and—at any rate—incomprehensible, thereby offering us an original and strikingly effective picture of many aspects of ancient civilization. In this domain, Vico has not infrequently anticipated the most recent historical criticism, deducing from his philosophical principles what historical erudition would later attain by its own slow paths. Among the countless anticipations in the field of the most ancient history of Rome and Greece, it suffices to recall the bold thesis that Homer was not a historical person but a poetic character of the Greeks insofar as they, in singing, narrated their own histories” (*cf.* the entire Book III of the *Scienza nuova*).
Vico’s best-known and most misunderstood doctrine is that of *corsi e ricorsi* (cycles and recurrences). It presents itself, without doubt, as a law of historical becoming, yet it does not imply either the necessity or the repetition of events, since it concerns not the content of history—the events—but only their form, that is, the mentality that “verifies” them. When the course of history, having passed through sensitive-fantastic spontaneity, reaches the reflection of fully unfolded reason, and this dissolves with the dissolution of civil society, the process does not halt; for in that dissolution, humanity rediscovers its primitive spontaneity, which, by conditioning the resumption of contact with God and religion, makes possible the resumption of its journey. What recurs, then, is the mind, the form—not the facts, the things: infinite contents and infinite values can be expressed equally in a sensitive-fantastic modality or in a reflective-rational one. Vico believes he finds a demonstration of his thesis of recurrence in the Middle Ages, of which he attempts a brilliant interpretation precisely as a return to primitive, sensitive-fantastic mentality (*ibid.*, Book V).