Giambattista Vico: Keys to the "New Science": Translations, Commentaries, and Essays

Introduction: Interpreting the New Science

1 Introduction Interpreting the New Science Vico’s Genetic Method Giambattista Vico’s New Science was published in two versions, one in 1725 and another in 1730. In his Autobiography Vico refers to these as the First New Science and the Second New Science (A 192). Prior to the First New Science Vico published his three books of Universal Law (1720–22). In his Autobiography Vico describes these three books on jurisprudence as a sketch of his “new science”— a first version of the First New Science (A 193). Immediately after the appearance of the Second New Science, Vico began what would become several sets of “corrections, meliorations , and additions” that, as he notes in his Autobiography, can be incorporated into a third edition of his work (A 197). In 1735–36 Vico drafted a revised definitive text for a third edition that was given to the printer, with further annotations, in late 1743. Vico died in January 1744 while seeing this edition through the press. It appeared posthumously in July 1744. This third edition of the second version is what has become known to the world as Vico’s New Science—its full title being New Science concerning the Common Nature of the Nations (1730/1744). Nothing characterizes Vico’s thought more closely than his use of the genetic method. In the preface to the English translation of Vico’s Autobiography Max Harold Fisch writes that the work is “the first application of the genetic method by an original thinker to his own writings” (A v). As the founder of the modern form of intellectual autobiography, as well as of the philosophy of history, Giambattista Vico: Keys to the New Science 2 Vico comprehends all human phenomena in terms of their origins and courses of development. To comprehend the genesis of something in the human world, as Vico says of his own life, is to grasp its causes, both natural and moral, and the occasions of fortune that affect it. Most readers who are attracted to the New Science take what they wish from it, allowing it to become a source for their own thought, returning from time to time for rereadings of it as a whole or of its various parts. Our initial reading of Vico’s work is enriched if we approach it through his own genetic method, if we explore certain parts of his other writings that are the background for the third edition of the New Science. The basis for such exploration can be found in passages from his theory of jurisprudence, his conception of his ideal reader, his response to the reception of the First New Science, and his additions to the Second New Science that do not appear in its English translation. Many of the items crucial to our comprehension of the New Science have not until recently been available in English. Over the past decade and a half, the annual New Vico Studies has published translations, commentaries, and essays on textual issues that, taken together, provide the reader of the New Science with some valuable keys to its nature and background. The selections that follow are all from issues of New Vico Studies. The purpose of the present volume is to bring these together and to edit and introduce them in a manner that will prove useful to readers of Vico. There are some repetitions among the selections and essays. Readers may wish to approach the contents of the volume not from beginning to end but to make use of the selections according to their own specific interests. Thus, every effort has been made to have each selection stand on its own. No claim is made that this volume provides a systematic treatment of the background materials of the New Science, either within or without the development of Vico’s thought; no single volume could accomplish such a task. The purpose of this volume is to offer some points of reference within Vico’s own thought that may make central features of Vico’s New Science more evident and strike some new chords in readers’ consideration of it. With the appearance of these items in New Vico Studies and with the recent Introduction: Interpreting the New Science 3 appearance of other translations of Vico’s works, nearly all of Vico’s works are now available in English (see appendix, “Vico’s Writings in English Translation”). Vico’s Method...