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Writer's pictureAndy McIlvain

The Ideal Eternal History of Giambattista Vico


Video from Promethean Gnosis


The Ideal Eternal History of Giambattista Vico

"Giovan Battista Vico (1668 – 1744). Almost everyone who reads the New Science seems to come away from it with a different interpretation. This usually entails severing the link between Christianity and Vico's thought. In this video I have tried to portray Vico's philosophy in a manner consistent with his religiosity, along with the conclusions to be taken from his warning against Cartesianism." from video introduction


Giambattista Vico (1668—1744)

"Giambattista Vico is often credited with the invention of the philosophy of history. Specifically, he was the first to take seriously the possibility that people had fundamentally different schema of thought in different historical eras. Thus, Vico became the first to chart a course of history that depended on the way the structure of thought changed over time.

To illustrate the difference between modern thought and ancient thought, Vico developed a remarkable theory of the imagination. This theory led to an account of myth based on ritual and imitation that would resemble some twentieth century anthropological theories. He also developed an account of the development of human institutions that contrasts sharply with his contemporaries in social contract theory. Vico’s account centered on the class struggle that prefigures nineteenth and twentieth century discussions.

Vico did not achieve much fame during his lifetime or after. Nevertheless, a wide variety of important thinkers were influenced by Vico’s writings. Some of the more notable names on this list are Johann Gottfried von Herder, Karl Marx, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Joyce, Benedetto Croce, R. G. Collingwood and Max Horkheimer. References to Vico’s works can be found in the more contemporary writings of Jürgen Habermas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Alasdair MacIntyre and many others..." from the article: Giambattista Vico (1668—1744)


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