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VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1668-1744)
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See also:VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1668-1744) , See also:Italian jurist and philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Naples on the 23rd of See also:June 1668. At the university he made rapid progress, especially in See also:jurisprudence, though preferring the study of See also:history, literature, juridical See also:science and See also:philosophy. Being appointed See also:tutor to the nephews of the See also:bishop of See also:Ischia, G. B. Rocca, he accompanied them to the See also:castle of Vatolla, near Cilento, in the See also:province of See also:Salerno. There he passed nine studious years, chiefly de-voted to classical See also:reading, See also:Plato and See also:Tacitus being his favourite authors, because " the former described the ideal See also:man, and the latter man as he really is. On his return to Naples he found himself out of See also:touch with the prevailing See also:Cartesianism, and lived quietly until in 1697 he gained the professorship of See also:rhetoric at the university, with a scanty See also:stipend of too scudi. On this he supported a growing See also:family and gave himself to untiring study. Two authors exercised a weighty See also:influence on his mind—See also:Francis See also: With See also:calm courage he returned to his poverty and his favourite studies, and in 1725 published the first edition of the See also:work that forms the basis of his renown, Principii d' una scienza nuova. In 1730 he produced a second edition of the Scienza nuova, so much altered in See also:style and with so many substantial additions that it was practically a new work. In 1735 See also: Three men, however, obtained a wider recognition. By his exposition of the See also:political history of the See also:kingdom, based on a study of its See also:laws and institutions and of the legal conflicts between the See also:state and the See also:court of See also:Rome, Pietro See also:Giannone was the initiator of what has been since known as See also:civil history. Giovan Vincenzo See also:Gravina wrote a history of See also:Roman law, specially distinguished for its accuracy and elegance. Vico raised the problem to a higher See also:plane, by tracing the origin of law in the human mind and explaining the historical changes of the one by those of the other. Thus he made the See also:original See also:discovery of certain ideas which constitute the See also:modern psychologico-historic method. This problem he proceeded to develop in various works, until in his Scienza nuova he arrived at a more See also:complete See also:solution, which may be formulated as follows: If the principle of See also:justice and law be one, eternal and immutable, why should there be so many different codes of legislation? These See also:differences are not caused by difference of See also:nationality only, but are to be noted in the history of the same See also:people, even in that of the See also:Romans. This problem is touched upon in his Orations or Inaugural Addresses (Orazioni o Prolusioni) and in his See also:Minor Works (Scritti minori). Finally he applied himself to its solution in his Universal Law (Diritto universale), which is divided into two books. The first of these, De uno et universi lures principio et fine uno, was subdivided into two parts; so like See also:wise was the second, with the respective titles of De constantia philologiae and De constantia jurisprudentis. The following is the See also:general See also:idea derived from these researches. Vico held See also:God to be the ruler of the See also:world of nations, but ruling, not as the See also:providence of the See also:middle ages by means of continued miracles, but as He rules nature, by means of natural laws. If, therefore, the physicist seeks to discover the laws of nature by study of natural phenomena, so the philosopher must seek the laws of historical See also:change by the investigation of human events and of the human mind. According to Vico, law emanates from the See also:conscience of mankind, in whom God has infused a sentiment of justice. and is therefore in See also:close and continual relation with the human mind, and participates in its changes. This sentiment of justice is at first confused, uncertain and almost instinctive—is, as it were, a divine and religious See also:inspiration instilled by See also:Heaven into the See also:primitive tribes of the See also:earth. It is an unconscious, universal sentiment, not the personal, conscious and rational sentiment of the See also:superior few. Hence the law to which it gives See also:birth is enwrapped in religious forms which are likewise visible and palpable, inasmuch as primitive man is incapable of abstract, philosophical ideas. This law is not the individual work of any philosophical legislator, for no man was, or could be, a philosopher at that time. It is first displayed in the shape of natural and necessary usages consecrated by See also:religion. The names of leading legislators, which we so often find recorded in the history of primitive peoples, are symbols and myths, merely serving to See also:mark an historic See also:period or See also:epoch by some definite and personal See also:denomination. For nations, or rather tribes, were then distinguished by personal names only. The first obscure and See also:con-fused conception of law gradually becomes clearer and better defined. Its visible and religious forms then give way to abstract formulae, which in their turn are slowly replaced by the rational manifestation of the philosophic principles of law that gains the victory in the final See also:stage of development, designated by Vico as that of civil and human law. This is the period of individual and philosophic legislators. Thus Roman law has passed through three great periods—the divine, the heroic and the human—which are like-wise the three See also:chief periods of the history of Rome, with which it is intimately and intrinsically connected. Nevertheless, on careful examination of these three successive stages, it will easily be seen that, in spite of the apparent difference between them, all have a See also:common See also:foundation, source and purpose. The human and civil philosophic law of the third period is assuredly very different in See also:form from the primitive law; but in substance it is merely the abstract, scientific and philosophic manifestation of the same sentiment of justice and the same principles which were vaguely See also:felt in primitive times. Hence one development of law may be easily translated into another. Thus in the varied manifestations of law Vico was able to discover a single and enduring principle (De universi juris uno principio et fine uno). On these grounds it has been sought to establish a close relation between Vico and Grotius. The latter clearly distinguished between a See also:positive law differing in different nations and a natural law based on a general and unchanging principle of human nature, and therefore obligatory upon all. But Vico was opposed to Grotius, especially as regards his conception of the origin of society, and therefore of law. Grotius holds that its origin was not divine, but human, and neither collective, spontaneous nor unconscious, but personal, rational and conscious. He believed, moreover, that natural law and positive law moved on almost See also:constant and immutable parallel lines. But Vico maintained that the one was continually progressing towards the other, positive law showing an increasing tendency to draw nearer to natural and rational law. Hence the conception that law is of See also:necessity a spontaneous birth, not the creation of any individual legislator; and hence the idea that it necessarily proceeds by a natural and logical See also:process of See also:evolution constituting its history. Vico may have derived from Grotius the idea of natural law; but his discovery of the historic evolution of law was first suggested to him by his study of Roman law. He saw that the history of Roman jurisprudence was a continuous progress of the narrow, rigorous, primitive and almost See also:iron law of the XII. Tables towards the wider, more general and more humane See also:jus gentium. Having once derived this conception from Roman history, he was easily and indeed necessarily carried on to the next—that the positive law of all nations, throughout history, is a continual advance, keeping See also:pace with the progress of See also:civilization, towards the philosophic and natural law founded on the principles of human nature and human See also:reason. As already stated, the Scienza nuova appeared in three different See also:editions. The third may be disregarded; but the first and second editions are almost distinct works. In the former the author sets forth the See also:analytical process by which the laws he discovered were deduced from facts. In the second he not only enlarges his See also:matter and gives multiplied applications of his ideas, but also follows the synthetic method, first expounding the laws he had discovered and then proving them by the facts to which they are applied. In this edition the fragmentary and jerky arrangement, the intricate style, and a See also:peculiar and often purely conventional terminology seriously checked the See also:diffusion of the work, which accordingly was little studied in See also:Italy and remained almost unknown to the See also:rest of See also:Europe. Its fundamental idea consists in that which Vico, in his peculiar terminology, styles " poetical See also:wisdom " (sapienza poetica) and " occult wisdom " (sapienza riposta), and in the historical process by which the one is merged in the other. He frequently declares that this discovery was the result of the See also:literary labours of his whole See also:life. Vico was the first thinker who asked, Why have we a science of nature, but no science of history? Because our glance can easily be turned outwards and survey the exterior world; but it is far harder to turn the mind's See also:eye inwards and contemplate the world of the spirit. All our errors in explaining the origin of human society arise from our obstinacy in believing that primitive man was entirely similar to ourselves, who are civilized, i.e. See also:developed by the results of a lengthy process of anterior historic evolution. We must learn to issue from ourselves, transport ourselves back to other times, and become See also:children again in See also:order to comprehend the See also:infancy of the human See also:race. As in children, See also:imagination and the senses prevailed in those men of the past. They had no abstract ideas; in their minds all was See also:concrete, visible and tangible. All the phenomena, forces and laws of nature, together with See also:mental conceptions, were alike personified. To suppose that all mythical stories are fables invented by the philosophers is to write history backwards and confound the instinctive, impersonal, poetic wisdom of the earliest times with the civilized, rational and abstract occult wisdom of our own See also:day. But how can we explain the formation of this poetic wisdom, which, albeit the work of ignorant men, has so deep and See also:intrinsic a philosophic value? The only possible reply is that already given when treating of the origin of law. Providence has instilled into the See also:heart of man a sentiment of justice and goodness, of beauty and of truth, that is manifested differently at different times. The ideal truth within us, constituting the inner life that is studied by philosophers, becomes transmuted by the facts of history into assured reality. For Vico See also:psychology and history were the two poles of the new world he discovered. After having extolled the work of God and proclaimed Him the source of all knowledge, he adds that a great truth is continually flashed on us and proved to us by history, namely, " that this world of nations is the work of man, and its explanation therefore only to be found in the mind of man." Thus poetical wisdom, appearing as a spontaneous See also:emanation of the human conscience, is almost the product of divine inspiration. From this, by the aid of civilization, reason and philosophy, there is gradually developed the civil, occultwisdom. The continual, slow and laborious progress from the one to the other is that which really constitutes history, and man be-comes civilized by rendering himself the conscious and See also:independent possessor of all that in poetical wisdom remained impersonal, unconscious, that came, as it were, from without by divine. afflatus. Vico gives many applications of this fundamental idea. .The religion of primitive peoples is no less mythical than their history, since they could only conceive of it by means of myths. On these lines he interprets the whole history of primitive Rome. One See also:book of the second edition of the Scienza nuova is devoted to "The Discovery of the True See also:Homer." Why all the cities of See also:Greece dispute the See also:honour of being his birthplace is because the Iliad and the Odyssey are not the work of one, but of many popular poets, and a true creation of the See also:Greek people which is in every See also:city of Greece. And because the primitive peoples are unconscious and self-ignorant Homer is represented as being See also:blind. In all parts of history in which he was best versed Vico pursues a stricter and more scientific method, and arrives at safer conclusions. This is the See also:case in Roman history, especially in such portions as related to the history of law. Here he sometimes attains, even in details, to divinations of the truth afterwards confirmed by new documents and later See also:research. The aristocratic origin of Rome, the struggle between the See also:patricians and the plebeians, the laws of the XII. Tables, not, as tradition would have it, imported from Greece, but the natural and spontaneous product of See also:ancient Roman customs, and many other similar theories were discovered by Vieo, and expounded with his usual originality, though not always without blunders and exaggerations. Vico may be said to See also:base his considerations on the history of two nations. The greater See also:part of his ideas on poetical wisdom were derived from Greece. Nearly all the rest, more especially the transition from poetical to occult wisdom, was derived from Rome. Having once formulated his idea, he made it more general in order to apply it to the history of all nations. From the See also:savage state, through the terror that gives birth to religions, through the creation of families by See also:marriage, through burial See also:rites and • piety towards the dead, men approach civilization with the aid of poetic wisdom, and pass through three periods—the divine, heroic and human--'-in which they have three forms of See also:government, See also:language, literature, jurisprudence and civilization. The See also:primary government is aristocratic. Patrician tyranny rouses the populace to revolt, and then democratic equality is established under a See also:republic. Democratic excesses cause the rise of an See also:empire, which, becoming corrupt, declines into barbarism, and, again emerging from it, re-traces the same course. This is the law of cycles, constituting that which is designated by Vico as the " eternal ideal'history, or rather course of humanity, invariably followed by all nations." It must not be held to imply that one nation imitates the course pursued by another, nor that the points of resemblance between. them are transmitted by tradition from one to the other, but erely that all are subject to one law, inasmuch.as this is based on the human nature common to all alike. Thus, while on the one See also:hand the various cycles traced and retraced by all nations are similar and yet independent, on the other hand, being actually derived, from Roman history, they become converted in the Scienaa 'nuova into a See also:bed of See also:Procrustes, to which the history of all nations has to be fitted by force. And wherever Vico's historical know-ledge failed he was led into increased See also:error by this artificial and arbitrary effort. It has been justly observed by many that this continuous cyclical See also:movement entirely excludes the progress of humanity towards a better future. It has been replied that these cycles are similar without being identical, and that, if one might differ from another, the idea of progress was not necessarily excluded by the law of cycles. Vico undoubtedly considered the poetic wisdom of the Middle Ages to be different from that of the Greeks and Romans, and See also:Christianity to be very superior to the See also:pagan religion. But,he never investigated the question whether, since there is a law of progressive evolution in the history of different nations, separately examined, there may not likewise be another law ruling the general history of these nations, every one of which must have represented a new period, as it were, in the history of humanity at. large. There-fore, although the Scienza nuova cannot be said absolutely to deny the law of progress, it must be allowed that Vico not only failed to solve the problem but even shrank from attacking it. Vico founded no school, and though during his lifetime and for a while after his See also:death he had many admirers both in Naples and the See also:northern cities, his fame and name were soon obscured, especially as the Kantian See also:system dominated the world of thought. At the beginning of the 19th century, however, some Neapolitan exiles at See also:Milan called See also:attention to the merits of their great countryman, and his reinstatement was completed by See also:Michelet, who in 1827 translated the Scienza nuova and other works with a laudatory introduction. Vico's writings suffer through their author's not having followed 'a See also:regular course of studies, and his style is very involved. He was a deeply religious man, but his exemption of Jewish origins from the canons of historical inquiry which he elsewhere applied was probably due to the conditions of his See also:age, which preceded the See also:dawn of Semitic investigation and regarded the Old Testament' and the See also:Hebrew religion as sui generis. For Vito's personal history see his autobiography, written at the See also:request of the See also:Conte di Porcia, and his letters; also Cantoni, G. B. Vico, Studii Critici e Comparativi (See also:Turin, 1867); R. See also:Flint, Vico (See also:Edinburgh and See also:London, 1884). For editions of Vico's own works, see Opere, ed. Giuseppe See also:Ferrari, with See also:introductory See also:essay, " La Mente de Vico " (6 vols., Milan, 1834—35), and Michelet, CEuvres Choisies de Vico (2 vols., See also:Paris, 1835). A full See also:list is given in B. Croce, Bibliografia Vichiana (Naples, 1904). See also O. Klemm, G. B. Vico als Geschichtsphilosoph and Volkerpsycholog (See also:Leipzig. 1906); M. H. Rafferty in See also:Journal of the Society of See also:Comparative Legislation, New See also:Series, xvii., xx. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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