Vico Giambattista: Biography and Works

The founder of the study of the historical process, the Italian philosopher the second half of the sixteenth and the first - the seventeenth century, is devoted to this article. Vico Giambattista characterized the course of history as a providential and objective process where each nation develops cyclically in three epochs - the divine (when the state is not yet, all power is with the priests), the heroic (when the state is in the hands of aristocrats) and the human (when either a representative monarchy, Or a democratic republic).

Biography

Neapolitan philosopher and scientist Vico Giambattista was born in June 1668 in a large family. My father sold books, so he joined the sciences quite early, before entering the Jesuit school. No wonder that the level of training there did not suit him. Vico Jambattista was so hard at self-education that the school structure itself hampered this occupation, so I had to leave it. He acquired knowledge quickly, and the most extensive, versatile and profound.

Among his studies were not only the ancient languages: besides Latin and Italian Vico Giambattista studied literature, law, philosophy, history, freely lived in the elements of the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio and many others. True fame in his native city, he earned as a lawyer and a home teacher, but despite this material constraint was his usual condition. Therefore, the great man did not shy away from writing articles, speeches, poems, and the like.

Recognition of works

At the age of thirty, Vico became a professor of university rhetoric in Naples, where she has worked for more than half a century, and his works and philological scholarship have become widely known. Giambattista Vico was born a whole series of purely scholarly works on the foundations of the Latin language, from which appeared the ancient Italian worldview, the modern method in science, about Antonio Caraffe - "Four Books", on the basis of the goal of universal law, which are unified, on the laws and their Constancy and many other thoroughly studied topics found their embodiment in books.

And in 1725 the main work of his life came out, which is still the subject of study. Written by Vico Giambattista, "The Foundations of a New Science on the Nature of Nations," and this work was instantly sold out and literally read by the general public, who with great interest discussed the ideological messages of the author. The controversy was acute, and this topic is considered vital until now. The author's name was recognized in the most remote corners of the European scholar, but many colleagues did not share the worldview that Giambattista Vico adhered to. The sources of the progressive development of mankind they found elsewhere.

Upholding the views

Giambattista Vico is a representative of science, which can not refuse from his beliefs, and therefore he tried to influence colleagues' opinions in various ways, to convince them of their rightness. That is why two new editions were prepared for him, where he tried to develop the ideas of the former work in the form of polemics with critics as lucidly as possible.

Then Giambattista Vico, whose conception did not change in the views on the nature of nations, wrote an autobiography, and if not purely scientific, then, so to speak, intellectual, where all his searches and discoveries in the world of science were reflected. In 1735 he was entrusted with the place of the historiographer of the whole kingdom of Naples and, therefore, he finally ceased to feel the material defect. However, he did not give up teaching: Latin literature and rhetoric taught students at home.

Basic Ideas

The real mentors of the scientist, whose ideas he considered more than close, were Tacitus, Plato, Francis Bacon and Hugo Grotius. Giambattista Vico is a representative of the field of knowledge, which can not do without the works of Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Galileo and Georgiano Bruno, and also Niccolo Machiavelli had a great influence on the worldview of the scientist.

Until a certain moment Vico wrote all his works in Latin, then he realized that he could significantly expand the possibilities and limits of his native language, and therefore Giambattista Vico's New Science was published in Italian. Rather, it turned out to be not quite Italian - it was not even in the world as a single national language, it was a funny and intricate Neapolitan dialect.

New in philosophy

The style of the presentation of this book has remained the same - it was purely scientific, and therefore confusing and dark for understanding, and when the above mentioned not only the Napolean language was comprehended yet - not every Italian could get to the ideas that were laid down in the book Author, and feel them.

The book was constructed with the help of the axiomatic-deductive method and as a normal geometric treatise in which Jambattista Vico developed her ideas, furiously criticizing the bias and subjectivism inherent not only to individuals, but also to entire peoples.

He also did not like extrapolation methods, which at that time dominated all humanitarian knowledge. Discovered the shortcomings of Descartes' philosophy. Excessive rationalism and subjectivism in the ideas of this opponent of empiricism were often the objects of criticism that Giambattista Vico made.

Sociology

A new science, designated as historiosophy, the author defined as theology, only rationalized and secular. Giambattista Vico of legal progress wrote unheard of things at that time.

For example, that social laws are, of course, established by God (or Providence), but natural internal causes often unfold the course of the historical process in the other direction from divine plans. This is the objective nature of this phenomenon.

Human activity is realized with natural determinism, that is, according to the laws of universal causation, and historical laws direct and regulate the spontaneity of the struggle for human interests.

Public circulation

Innovator Vico revealed the principle of the unity of mankind with the subordination of all nations and countries without exception to social development in accordance with universal laws. The theory of social circulation, outlined by Giambattista, is known now.

Peoples develop cyclically, as if living a childhood, youth and maturity, developing along an ascending line, where each stage denies the previous one, and the social epochs created by social conflicts change the epochs. The cause of conflicts is, as always, property relations.

The cycle always ends with a crisis of society, its disintegration, and all the cells of the social organism are degraded. Then a new cycle begins.

Three "centuries"

Vico shows social processes as the integrity of the interaction of the parties. Each stage - the "century" - has its own right and language, customs and religion, social and economic institutions. The foundation for his generalizations Vico chose the history of Rome. "The age of gods" - primitive savagery and bestial freedom without borders, the absence of any statehood. The power of the gods (or rather, the priests). The world is ruled by piety and fear. Then the fathers of families start a war with servants and households, for the termination of which a state is necessary, under which the former will rule, and the latter will cultivate the land. At this moment, the "age of heroes" begins, when the fathers of families appear to know, and from the servants and the household - a simple people. Patricians and plebeians. The character of the state is aristocratic, the feudal lords use force and deceit to retain power. A time when the strong is always right.

However, the common people are waiting for their turn to win. "The Age of Heroes" ends with the beginning of the "century of people" - the highest stage of the cycle. A simple people overcomes and destroys feudal lords. A republic or a monarchy with civil and political equality is distinguished by a humane character, mind, conscience and duty triumph. Law becomes rational. Prosperity of science, crafts, art, in the early periods of absent. Trade unites peoples, humanity receives unity, prosperity. But democratic freedoms tend to develop to the extent of anarchy, which leads to the destruction of the entire social order. There comes the collapse of the state and the beginning of a new "age of gods".

Exceptions

However, Carthage does not fit into this historiographical scheme. And not only him. Vico admitted that exceptions exist, and the concept, which is presented above, covers only a certain majority. The achievements in science that Vico provided us with are a dialectic in the study of numerous spheres of society and the spread of historicism. In all this, this author was much superior to even the French Enlightenment. In addition, many new Vico brought to the consideration of the problems of philosophy and history, philosophy and law, comparative linguistics, philology and so on.

He considered studying of the legislation, mythology, national ceremonies and first of all - language as the most important means for understanding history. Vico dreamed about the development and establishment of the unity of sciences, the wide dissemination of enlightenment. It turned out right. Synthesis of sciences is now an important factor for the development of technology. He worshiped the eternal writings of Homer - "Iliad" and "Odyssey", considering them a historical source full and accurate, but he proved to everyone that Homer himself is a mythical figure. The ideas that were formulated by him have not been forgotten, although many centuries have passed since the time of the transition from the New Age to the Enlightenment.