Vico: Genealogist of Modernity - Rilegato

Miner, Robert C.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0268034680 ISBN 13: 9780268034689

Casa editrice: Univ of Notre Dame Pr, 2002

Riassunto

In this lucid and probing study, Robert C. Miner argues that Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was the architect of a subversive, genealogical approach to modernity. Miner documents the genesis of Vico’s stance toward modernity in the first phase of his thought. Through close examination of his early writings, centering on Vico’s critique of Descartes and his elaboration of the ‘verum-factum’ principle, Vico, Genealogist of Modernity reveals that Vico strives to acknowledge the technical advances of modernity while unmasking its origins in human pride.

Miner’s careful analysis of the often neglected Universal Law shows how Vico uses Augustine to articulate a new conception of natural law that mediates between the idealism of Plato and Aristotle and the realism of Tacitus and Machiavelli. Vico emerges as a penetrating reader of traditional philosophy and philology, as well as a radical pioneer of modern historical consciousness.

Miner also traces important connections between Vico’s magnum opus, the New Science, and his earlier writings, arguing that the New Science is not merely a work of scientific history. Miner contends that this work is more fundamentally a genealogy that enacts Nietzsche’s desire to treat etymology and language as signposts for understanding the development of moral concepts. Miner shows how Vico’s genealogy attempts to disclose hidden continuities between the culture of secular modernity and the pagan institutions of idolatry, divination, and sacrifice.

Throughout this engaging work, Miner portrays Vico’s genealogy as expressly Augustinian and Catholic, yet sufficiently complex to resist assimilation to reactionary anti-modernism. According to Miner, the goal of Vico’s genealogy is to encompass the best of ancient and medieval traditions within an “encyclopedic” fusion of history and philosophy that is both modern and Christian. Although Vico sees the “age of man” as moving toward the “barbarism of reflection,” his trust in divine providence saves him from nihilistic despair. Miner concludes that Vico’s thought not only anticipates later efforts to infuse philosophy with historical consciousness, but also contains the seeds of a coherent alternative to the program of postmodern genealogy.

 

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Miner has produced something very remarkable a short, clear account of Vico s writings based upon a comprehensive knowledge of all the crucial texts. Vico, Genealogist of Modernity does not shirk Vico s difficulties, and yet it comes to clear conclusions which I think help us at last to make sense of what Vico is really saying. It establishes beyond doubt that Vico was not a secular skeptic, but an Orthodox Catholic thinker, who nonetheless re-expressed this Orthodoxy in a fashion so radical that it outflanked the radicalism of the Enlightenment. This book is a winner. John Milbank, Frances Myers Ball Professor of Philosophical Theology, University of Virginia

In this erudite, sharply written book, Robert Miner passionately argues that Vico s thought represents a radical alternative to the dominant paradigms about modernity, which are steadily shadowed by nihilism, are blinded by scholarly and self-centered conceits, and wander in their own discontents. By rigorous and close textual readings, Miner s analysis focuses on the two major works by Vico: the Diritto universale and the New Science, and in both texts he finds a compelling case for a philosophy born not of pride but of humility. In the poetic-rational account Miner weaves, Vico's philosophy, which is articulated in the wake of Christian and classical traditions of thought, is capable of questioning modernity's scientific self-delusions. It also enables us to reflect on the future of humanity as it unveils the historical and providential design of our culture. Giuseppe Mazzotta, Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University and author of The New Map of the World: The Poetic Philosophy of Giambattista Vico

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Univ of Notre Dame Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0268034680
• ISBN 13: 9780268034689
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 215
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile