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Philosophical History

 

Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

 

Knowledge of Things Human and Divine: Vico's New Science and Finnegan's Wake by Donald Phillip Verene (Yale University Press) is the first book to examine rather extensively the interconnections between 's New Science and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Maintaining that Joyce is the greatest modern "interpreter" of Vico, Donald Phillip Verene demonstrates how images from Joyce's work offer keys to Vico's philosophy. More a general introduction to the enterprise of Vico, Verene presents the entire course of Vico's philosophical thought as it develops in his major works, with Joyce's words and insights serving as commentator here and there. Knowledge of Things Human and Divine devotes a chapter to each period of Vico's thought, from his early orations on education to his anti-Cartesian metaphysics and his conception of universal law, culminating in his new science of the history of nations. Verene analyzes Vico's major works, including all three editions of the New Science. The volume also features a detailed chronology of the philosopher's career, historical illustrations related to his works, and an extensive bibliography of Vico scholarship and all English translations of his writings. Though tantalizingly suggestive of how the eminent, obscure and abstruse Wake might revitalize a poetics of human science, Verene is much more comfortable giving the main outlines of Vico's development and philosophy than in adumbrating just how adept Joyce's reversions are. Throughout the Wake, recyclings of Vico's work course in abundance, but course no longer in unremarked, cryptic puns, thanks to Verene's gleaning and showing. This book uses Joyce as a frame for Vichian hangings in a fashion that resembles Joyce's use of Vico; it's not for the sake of doctrine, but joy, that each informs on the other. Given that Verene is one of the most preeminent interpreters of the Neapolitan, the volume is a great general introduction to Vico. Clearly, Verene concerns himself more with clarification and contextualization of Vico's life and works than Joyce's (to which he devotes a single, hearty chapter), however this Vico book itself is strong and its author's ability to plop a pitch of Joyce for every single passage of Vico proves dazzling. A hazardously detailed chronology relates the major events in the life of Vico. The bibliography proves a heavy bias in favor of Vico work with scant nod given to scholars of Joyce. Recommended to all who are willing to learn more about Vico than Joyce and to all who are willing to traverse much Joyce to learn about Vico.

New Science: Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations by Giambattista Vico, Introduction by Anthony Grafton, translated by David Marsh (Penguin Classics)

The New Science of Giambattista Vico by Giambattista Vico, translated by Thomas G. Bergin and Max H. Fisch (Cornell University Press) was the initial translation and retains its authority even if not its readability.

 A bold new translation of a masterpiece of early social science that has found enthusiasts among such artists and scholars as James Joyce and Harold Bloom.
Although Vico lived his whole life as an obscure academic in Naples, his New Science is an astonishingly ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive science of all human society by decoding the history, mythology, and law of the ancient world. It argues that the key to true understanding lies in accepting that the customs and emotional lives of the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Jews, and Babylonians were utterly different from our own. In examining these huge themes, Vico offers countless fresh insights into topics ranging from physics to politics, money to monsters, and family structures to the Flood. Deeply influential since the dawn of Romanticism, the New Science even inspired the framework for Joyce's Finnegans Wake. This powerful new translation makes it clear why this work marked a turning-point in humanist thinking as significant as Newton's contemporary revolution in physics.

REWORK That Vico is largely unknown, even by the so-called experts teaching in our universities, while mediocrities and worse of the past half century are lauded and taught widely is yet another indication that our educational standards are dumbed down considerably. Vico is difficult to read, and we are increasingly an intellectually lazy people who prefer simplistic platitudes that sooth our postmodernist prejudices.

I give this Penguin edition only a 4 not because New Science is not itself a 5 or because the translation itself is weak, but because Vico requires copious notes. Most who read this work will do so on their own, and they need considerable help unless they are already as well read in the Classics and works of the Medieval and Renaissance eras as was Vico himself. Perhaps soon we will see an edition that meets that need, which also might encourage a few more to teach Vico, before we fall into the re-barbarism.
An eighteenth century alternative to a Cartesian hegemony of philosophic vision. Herein lies a pride of imaginative erudition and practice for the reader in allegorical and metaphorical thought--a poetic more than meets the mind. "Poetic Wisdom" offers a gamboling philological development of human institutions--all that is, explained. And this book has a chapter on "The Discovery of the True Homer." He was so much fun to look for and we are glad he's found. This edition has a detailed table of contents and an introduction by Anthony Grafton as a bonus for readers.

CONTENTS

Introduction Anthony Grafton
Translator's Preface Idea of the work
Explanation of the Frontispiece
BOOK I: ESTABLISHING PRINCIPLES
Chronological Table
SECTION 1. NOTES ON THE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
SECTION 2. ELEMENTS
SECTION 3. PRINCIPLES
SECTION 4. METHOD
BOOK 2: POETIC WISDOM
Prolegomena; Introduction; Wisdom in General; Introduction to Poetic Wisdom and its Divisions; The Universal Flood and the Giants
SECTION 1. POETIC METAPHYSICS
Poetic Metaphysics as the Origin of Poetry, Idolatry, Divination, and Sacrifices; Corollaries on the Principal Aspects of the New Science
SECTION 2. POETIC LOGIC
Poetic Logic; Corollaries on Poetic Figures of Speech, Monsters,and Metamorphoses ; Collaries on the Speech in Poetic Archetypes of the First Nations; Corollaries on the Origins of Languages and Letters; Including the Origins of Hieroglyphics, Laws, Names, Family Arms, Medals, and Money; and the Origins of the First Language and Literature of the Natural Law of Nations; Corollaries on the Origins of Poetic Style, Digressions, Inversions, Prose Rhythm, Song, and Verse; Further Corollaries; Final Corollaries on Logic in Educated People
SECTION 3. POETIC MORALITY
Poetic Morality and the Origins of the Common Virtues Taught by Religion through the Institution of Matrimony
SECTION 4. POETIC ECONOMICS, OR HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT
Household Management in Nuclear Families; Extended Families of Family Servants as Essential to the Founding of Cities; Corollaries on Contracts Sealed by Simple Consent; A Principle of Mythology
SECTION 5. POETIC POLITICS
Poetic Politics: The Severely Aristocratic; Form of the First Commonwealths; All Commonwealths Arise from Invariable Principles of Fiefs; Origins of the Census and Public Treasury; The Origin of Roman Assemblies; Corollary: Divine Providence Ordains both Commonwealths and the Natural Law of Nations; Heroic Politics Continued Corollaries on Roman Antiquities, Particularly the Imaginary Monarchy at Rome and the Imaginary Popular Liberty Established Junius Brutus; Corollary on the Heroism of the First Peoples
SECTION 6. EPITOMES OF POETIC HISTORY
Epitomes of Poetic History
SECTION 7. POETIC PHYSICS
Poetic Physics; Poetic Physics of the Human Body: Heroic Nature
Corollary on Heroic Statements; Corollary on Heroic Descriptions; Corollary on Heroic Customs
SECTION 8. POETIC COSMOGRAPHY
Poetic Cosmography
SECTION 9. POETIC ASTRONOMY
Poetic Astronomy; Astronomical, Physical, and Historical Proof that All Ancient Pagan Nations Shared Uniform Astronomical Principles
SECTION 10. POETIC CHRONOLOGY
Poetic Chronology; Canon of Chronology for Determining the Origins of Universal History, Which Must Antedate the Monarchy of Ninus, its Traditional Starting Point
SECTION 11. POETIC GEOGRAPHY
Poetic Geography; Corollary on Aeneas' Arrival in Italy; Names and Descriptions of Heroic Cities; Conclusion
BOOK 3: DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE HOMER
SECTION I. THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUE HOMER
Introduction; The Esoteric Wisdom Attributed to Homer; Homer's Native Land; Homer's Age; Homer's Incomparable Gift for Heroic Poetry; Philosophical Proofs for the Discovery of the True Homer; Philosophical Proofs for the Discovery of the True Homer
SECTION 2. DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE HOMER
Introduction
Inconsistencies and Improbabilities in the Traditional Homer Become Consistent and Necessary in the Homer Discovered Here;
Homer's Epics: Two Great Repositories of the Natural Law of the Greeks
Appendix. A Rational History of the Dramatic and Lyric Poets
BOOK 4: THE COURSE OF NATIONS
Introduction
SECTION 1. THREE KINDS OF HUMAN NATURE
SECTION 2. THREE KINDS OF CUSTOMS
SECTION 3. THREE KINDS OF NATURAL LAW
SECTION 4. THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT
SECTION 5. THREE KINDS OF LANGUAGE
SECTION 6. THREE KINDS OF SYMBOLS
SECTION 7. THREE KINDS OF JURISPRUDENCE
SECTION 8. THREE KINDS OF AUTHORITY
SECTION 9. THREE KINDS OF REASON
Divine Reason and Reason of State: Corollary on the Ancient Romans' Wisdom of State; Corollary: The Fundamental History of Roman Law
SECTION 10. THREE KINDS OF JUDGMENTS
First Kind: Divine Judgments; Corollary on Duels and Reprisals; Second Kind: Ordinary Judgments; Third Kind: Human Judgments
SECTION II. THREE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
Schools of Thought in Religious, Punctilious, and Civil Ages
SECTION 12. FURTHER PROOFS DRAWN FROM THE PROPERTIES OF HEROIC ARISTOCRACIES
Introduction; The Guarding of Boundaries; The Guarding of Social Orders; The Guarding of the Laws
SECTION 13
Further Proofs Drawn from Mixed Commonwealths Which Combine Earlier Governments with Later States An Eternal and Natural `Royal Law' By Which Nations Come to Rest in Monarchies; A Refutation of the Principles of Political Theory Based on the System of Jean Bodin
SECTION 14. FINAL PROOFS CONFIRMING THE COURSE OF NATIONS
Punishments, Wars, and the Order of Numbers Corollary: Ancient Roman Law as Serious Epic Poem, and Ancient Jurisprudence as Severe Poetry Containing the First Rough Outlines of Legal Metaphysics; also, the Legal Origins of Greek Philosophy
BOOK 5: THE RESURGENCE OF NATIONS AND THE RECURRENCE OF HUMAN INSTITUTIONS
Introduction; Medieval Barbaric History Illuminated by Ancient Barbaric History; The Recurrence of the Invariable Nature of Fiefs, and the Recurrence of Ancient Roman; Law in Feudal Law; Description of the Ancient and Modern Worlds in the light of the New Science
CONCLUSION OF THE WORK On the Eternal Natural Commonwealth, Best in its Kind, Ordained; Divine Providence; Index and Glossary

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