Giambattista Vico's recognition as one of history's leading philosophers has come in the last two centuries. During his life, the fame and prestige that he enjoys today were repeatedly denied him and only in his native Naples did he gain some relevance, although not enough to leave behind his miserable life. He was born in 1668. His father was a poor bookseller and his mother the daughter of a coachbuilder. The first years of his life are marked by illness. His father's efforts made him study Law at the University of Naples, although his attendance at classes at the Faculty of Jurisprudence was nil and, something habitual in his life, he preferred to learn on his own by locking himself in the library of the Friars Minor.
After a brief foray into the world of law, the Bishop of Ischia arranged for Vico to take charge of the education of the children of his brother, the Marquis of Rocia . To this end he moved to the castle of Vatolla del Cilento where he stayed for seven years. In 1694 he returned to Naples and had to support himself by writing commissioned eulogies for weddings, funerals, etc. Five years later he managed to take over the chair of rhetoric at the University of Naples, but the income he earned was so meager that he was not allowed to abandon his assignment. Years later, in 1723, he aspired to the chair of law at that same university but was rejected, which accentuated his already solitary character. In 1741 he abandoned his chair of rhetoric and lost his memory during the last years of his life. He passed away in 1744.
Vico wrote several works throughout his life, none of which managed to surpass the local setting of southern Italy. The main one, Principles of a new science, she was coldly received by the Neapolitans. The dark and difficult language, the heavy and excessively ornate style and the originality of his approaches prevented him from having a greater success. It was published in 1723 but underwent numerous reissues due to the corrections and modifications introduced by the author:between 1723 and 1744 we find three successive versions and a large number of copies apostilled by hand by Vico.
The Principles they are divided into five sections in which Vico shows his erudition and the importance he attaches to the whole of the humanities. In the first he exposes the principles of what he considers a "new science". The second deals with poetic wisdom. In the third he applies his theories to the discovery of "Homeric truths". In the fourth he pauses in the study of the course that follows the history of nations. And in the last one he focuses on the return of the "revolution itself when destroyed societies rise on its ruins".
The objective of the work is to expose, through an elaborate, methodical and data-rich analysis, the principles that underpin the “scienza nuova ”. Vico manages to combine the three minimum conditions for the emergence of the philosophy of history:the scientific method, the foundation of human subjectivity and the category of the process. He will be the first philosopher to turn history into a science and carry out a profound methodological revolution in it. He uses the thesis of Bacon and Grotius to combine the primacy of the document (an element of philology) with the logical systematization of philosophy. To do this, he uses various social sciences (sociology, cultural anthropology and semiology) that he incorporates into his approaches.
According to Vico, man can only know what he believes. Therefore, the only "comprehensible" laws are those that come from the acts of men. The laws of nature, on the other hand, cannot be understood because they come from God. In this way, the human being can understand history because he is the one who conceives it. Through this reasoning he gives history the status of science since it is man (and not God, or chance, or "perhaps") who is the protagonist. He seeks to go back to the origins of humanity
The conception of human progress is also original to Vico. It is neither linear nor cyclical, it moves in a spiral. History does not repeat itself and men can, through the application of the principles of their new science , stop the possible decline of nations. History ceases to be a mere narration of a series of events of static human nature, to be the logic of a social and dynamic evolution.
He divides the life of nations into three ages:(i) The age of the gods, in which sensitivity and common sense predominate and the personification of the forces of nature into terrible divinities. Wisdom in this age takes a poetic form and monastic republics organized in theocratic regimes rule. (ii) The age of heroes, in which imagination and fantasy predominate. The aristocracy is the predominant political system and its right is based on force. (iii) The age of men, in which reason and reflection prevail over imagination. The plebeians manage to impose themselves on the patricians and democratic and egalitarian republics are organized.