This book is a retrospective view of modern philosophical anthropology through the works of two of its greatest exponents. the author demonstrates how mythology, the philosophy of history and language and Vico's concept of man had as a constant referral point Malebranche's psychology with its Cartesian formulation. The idolatrous and mythopoietic imagination that is described in La Scienza Nuova (New Science) has much in common with the "pagan" mind (that is to say the mind subjugated to passions, sensitivity and fantasy that is described in La Recherche (The Search after Truth). Some of the themes discussed here are myth, the metaphoric nature of thought, idolatry, the formation of mentality, the relationships which bind passions and representations and the association of ideas through iconic images. Also discussed are other themes such as the structure of society and imagination, imitation, persuasion and social relationships, communication within society between illustrious imaginations. Moreover in Malebranche has been found a complex and complete theory of imaginative universals (universali fantastici).

The article is based on theories of meaning creation and the concepts of archaic mind of Juri Lotman and Giambattista Vico. It compares the notions fantasia, ingegno, memoria and poetic logic by Vico with Lotman’s concepts of text, memory and modelling systems. Donald Phillip Verene’s and Marcel Danesi’s interpretations of Giambattista Vico’s work are also taken into consideration in the analysis. The article aims to bring out the characteristic features of archaic meaning creation. The archaic mind is considered to be fundamentally poetic. Its main mechanism of generating new meaning is metaphorical identification of two otherwise separate elements. The creativity of this act lies in the presumption that imagination is needed to bring these two elements together — they cannot be identified with each other by the means of syllogistic logic. The archaic mind does not operate mainly with generic concepts, as rational mind does. It forms imaginative universals instead, which are based on the sense of identity between objects or their parts, not on the sense of similarity/ dissimilarity of distinct features of objects. This process forms t

Universals have occupied a central role in philosophy ever since the Socratic quest for definitions. The need to find concepts both universal and shareable is rooted in the Western philosophical tradition, in order to capture and control the disorder that besets human life. In other words, Universals occur as part of a rational attitude by which to substantiate knowledge and its evaluation. My aim in this paper is to confront Vico’s discovery of imaginative universals with the classical paradigm of rational thought that, formed by abstraction from empirical experience, reduces the knowledge to a rigorous process of inference. Against this barbarism of reflection, what Vico does in his works is to chart out possible new ways in which science can innovate itself.

Originally presented at the Foundation for Mythological Studies' Conference: "Nature and Human Nature," held at the Santa Barbara Center, 2007. Giambattista Vico, considered a foundational thinker for Cognitive Science, insisted that for wise, eloquent, and prudent action, one needed to cultivate Sapienza Poetica, or poetic wisdom. To achieve this kind of wisdom, one needed to grasp the originary foundations of human knowing, which were considered to be poetic images. A professor of rhetoric utterly opposed to Cartesian thinking, Vico developed a “New Science” for cultivating Sapienza Poetica. This science articulated how humanity found, through “ingenium,” the originary topoi or commonplaces for Sapienza Poetica. Vico’s ideas provide a way of knowing and finding our way within the topoi of the psyche as well as the actual landscape topoi that these times have lost imaginative connection to. Vico described our modern age as one of “Intellectual Barbarism” in which imaginative insight, speech, and wisdom were lost to the inhumanity of abstractions. We are in need of a new topos, or commonplace, out of which we can ingeniously find new Hermetic connections and ways of imagining, knowing, and responding to our environmental crisis. This paper reintroduces Vico’s essential ideas and discusses Vico’s articulation of epistemological and rhetorical knowing which can heal the split currently producing the environmental crises of our times. This brief paper provides an exemplum of Vico's rhetorical ingenuity and imagination relevant to psychological imagination and knowing.

Giambattista Vico and Thomas Hobbes both are known for the particular emphasis they put on the workings of imagination in human understanding. Their respective concepts of imagination are compared in this article, with attention to the sensory basis and cultural products related to this capability. The connections and contrasts established in the analysis are contextualized by the notion of affective semiosis. An affective component can be traced at the basis of the process of image creation in both authors. The primary level of human semiotic activity where the most basic differentiation and identification processes take place must describe not only in terms of sensation but also affect, imagination, and memory. The expression of these processes on the level of culture is however understood and valued differently by Vico and Hobbes. Vico sees in myth and metaphor the necessary elements of imaginative sensemaking, for Hobbes they take the role of by-products in mind’s struggle toward rationality.