Vico, Giambattista

In recent debates on empathy in various disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, psychopathology, cognitive sciences, neurophysiology, the discussion has focused on empathic experiences within the intersubjective context, either between two individuals or among groups. But this is only one side of the coin. Since ancient times, subject-object and even object-object relationships were described in a way that cultural anthropology has defined as “animation”, that rhetorics has named “personification”, and that we would today call “empathic”. The chapter aims at exploring these objectual implications of empathy. Pinotti particularly criticizes the projective “hydraulic” model of communicating vessels–from subject to object–which builds the hermeneutical mainstream paradigm of any theorization of such relationships. With recourse to alternative theoretical perspectives, such as Gestalt theory of expression, “realistic” phenomenology, and theory of symbolic forms, the author proposes a newfound characterological approach that engages with acknowledging the originary expressive and pathemic character of things in themselves, and therefore in defending the fundamentum in re of objectual empathy.

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.

Horace first drew a link between ornament and monstrosity in Ars poetica, characterising as misbegotten any attempts of ornament to claim a voice and agency of its own. Sixteenth-century artists embraced monstrous ornament, called grottesche, to do just what Horace feared; scrambling conventions and rupturing settled argument. More than an aesthetic choice, it was a means to grapple with the contests of meaning unloosed in early modern Europe. Giambattista Vico expanded upon these debates in his 1725 study, The New Science, creating a theoretical armature for ornament's broader cultural agency. Vico offers insights into the deployment of 'monstrous' ornament by artists in the Renaissance and in subsequent periods of radical change, including Gonkar Gyatso, Yinka Shonibare, and Hew Locke.

Questo libro è la prima messa a fuoco del rapporto fra Ugo Foscolo e il secolare commento alla Commedia di Dante. Singoli aspetti dell’edizione dantesca curata da Foscolo durante l’esilio inglese sono già stati vagliati, ma questa ricerca assume una prospettiva più ampia, poiché esplora fonti inedite o poco note in diversi linguaggi e in diversi contesti culturali. Desunto da Giambattista Vico il criterio ecdotico della prosodia vocalica della Commedia, Foscolo allestisce un apparato di taglio filologico paragonabile a quello di Quirico Viviani, in cui assume come testo-base
la vulgata della Crusca, fruita secondo le revisioni di Giovanni Antonio Volpi e di Gaetano Poggiali. I dantisti veronesi, Giovanni Iacopo Dionisi e Bartolomeo Perazzini, gli mettono a disposizione ignoti documenti d’archivio, la cui pertinenza e veridicità sono spesso riscontrate grazie al commento di Baldassarre Lombardi, in base al principio euristico della
«scienza dei fatti» vichiana. Il risultato è un «libro da Italiani» – in forma di Library Book – parallelo al progetto di traduzione omerica, in cui Foscolo ridiscute alcuni snodi della propria biografia letteraria (ad esempio l’eredità alfieriana, contesa con Niccolò Giosafatte Biagioli, o quella pariniana, contesa con Vincenzo Monti).

Dante è considerato il padre della letteratura italiana. In che modo hanno guardato a lui i friulani, così fieri della propria cultura e della propria lingua? Questo volume prova a rispondere alla domanda esaminando gli episodi più significativi della fortuna del poeta in Friuli a partire dall’Ottocento risorgimentale. Ne deriva un percorso ricco di stimoli, che spazia dalla leggenda del soggiorno di Dante in Friuli a un discorso che lo addita a modello di morale e di lingua per la gioventù, passando poi dalle celebrazioni del 1865 e del 1921 alle traduzioni in friulano della Commedia, per giungere sino alla fantasmagorica rivisitazione del poema ad opera del pittore Anzil, in dialogo con lo scrittore Carlo Sgorlon.

ARTÍCULOS

1) Fabrizio Desideri (Università degli Studi di Firenze)

Otra deducción de los juicios estéticos. Por una superación de la dicotomía entre hechos y valores

Resumen

El artículo parte de una reconsideración, del importante ensayo de Hilary Putnam “The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy” desde el punto de vista de la estética. El primer paso consiste en un análisis de las propiedades estéticas y de los juicios relacionados como caso paradigmático para la superación de esta vieja dicotomía. La tesis es que los juicios estéticos son cognitivos de una manera no conceptual, así como normativos sin presuponer normas definidas. Al unificar niveles de descriptividad (negativa) con niveles de evaluación (positiva) en una sola instancia, los juicios estéticos socavan irreparablemente la solidaridad del fisicalismo y el emocionalismo. Por lo tanto, el presente artículo tiene como objetivo una deducción de los juicios estéticos, en el sentido kantiano, que conecte no obstante dos niveles de análisis estratégicamente diferenciados por el mismo Kant, i.e., los niveles de exposición empírica (fisiológica) y de deducción (trascendental) de los juicios estéticos. El núcleo teórico de la deducción consiste en la idea de un “mecanismo estético” subyacente en tanto fundamento de la epigénesis de la estética.


2) Daniele Petrella (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba)

Sobre la estética de Benedetto Croce

Resumen

El propósito de este artículo es trazar los lineamientos fundamentales de la estética filosófica de Benedetto Croce y mostrar cómo la palabra “estética” no indica un ámbito de estudio específico de objetos que solemos llamar artísticos. Hace referencia, más bien, a la filosofía misma como pensamiento crítico. En este sentido y en los términos kantianos de la Crítica de la facultad de juzgar, vinculamos la estética de Croce a una reflexión sobre la originariedad de la sensibilidad y del sentir como condición de posibilidad del conocimiento. Al mismo tiempo hacemos hincapié en que la influencia de Giambattista Vico es central para que Croce pueda definir la poesía como la lengua materna de la humanidad y caracterizarla como producción que exhibe ejemplarmente la originariedad del sentir en relación con la razón.

NOTA CRÍTICA

Pablo E. Pavesi
(Universidad de Buenos Aires Universidad Torcuato Di Tella)

A Real Eye Opener. La fotografía de Vivian Maier

Resumen

La fotografía callejera de Vivian Maier nos hace ver una súbita transfiguración de la realidad por la cual las personas, las escenas y las cosas devienen féricas, neologismo que nos permitimos para recoger del inglés el universo de las faeries y traducir a la vez uno de los sentidos del francés féerie, pieza de teatro en la que aparecen seres sobrenaturales (o, en este caso, infranaturales). Esa transfiguración, proponemos, es en rigor una verdadera aparición: una epifanía feérica (siempre carnal) que se despliega en dos direcciones, solar y subterránea. Nos detendremos en el cuerpo de Maier, reflejado en sus autorretratos, para proponer, finalmente, que su mirada es un daimon, intermediaria entre éste y otros mundos.


COMENTARIOS BIBLIOGRÁFICOS

María Jimena Vignati (UMSA-UADE): José María González García. La mirada de la justicia. Madrid: La balsa de la medusa, 2016.

Yanina Benítez Ocampo (UNSAM), Diana Pérez y Ricardo Ibarlucía (comps.), Hechos y valores en filosofía teórica, filosofía práctica y filosofía del arte, Buenos Aires: CIF-SADAF, 2016

Giambattista Vico’s philosophy offers very interesting and stimulating
arguments now that – in the ‘post-modern’ age – we can critically outline and
experience the outcomes (and the failures) of modernity.
Underrated, and probably also misunderstood, by many of his contemporaries –
for his critical approach towards several aspects of the evolving modern thought
at the beginning of Enlightment – Vico (1668-1744) developed, through a
‘solitary’ although not isolated path, a diverse and original philosophy, deeply
related with the humanistic tradition of classical thought.
Such a view nowadays appears to be for many aspects alternative to the modern
vision, and, for that reason, rich of interesting suggestions for the contemporary
reflection, also in the field of legal philosophy.
SUMMARY: Introduction – 1. Vico’s critique of modernity

Lo studio indaga gli albori del percorso pavesiano in campo etnologico e antropologico mediante l'analisi delle "tracce di lettura" (postille autografe e sottolineature d'autore), rinvenute all'interno di un campione significativo di volumi appartenuti alla biblioteca giovanile di Pavese. I volumi erano conservati presso il Centro Studi "Guido Gozzano" di Torino.

Este artículo se propone dar cuenta de dos usos diferentes del término poética en Giambattista Vico: por un lado, como adjetivo de la palabra sabiduría (sabiduría poética) y, por otro, como sustantivo, poética en sentido lato. Esto con el fin de comprender el desarrollo temático e histórico de lo poético y dar cuenta de la intención del autor por recuperar, en tiempos de una racionalidad abstracta y reductiva, una racionalidad poética que sea capaz de permear los dominios de lo práctico y de restaurar la unidad perdida entre teoría y praxis, entre poética y praxis. No se trata, entonces, de volver a los tiempos de la sabiduría poética, sino de recuperar una dimensión poética de la existencia.

Let us take a walk together...We will not be taking the Information Superhighway to get back to Christopher Giarda's speech, Bibliothecae Alexandrinae Icones Symbolicae, spoken in 1626. Our journey will not take us speeding towards Useful Data in his words, nor will we grab at insights like at a fast-food take-out bag launched to us from a drive-thru window. The Hermes we meet on that road, torn from his Olympian birthright and forced to become a frustrated human postal service employee, has been lost to priority-shipping, e-mailing, net-surfing, speed-dialing, conference-calling, cell-phoning, automated-answering, and the home-shopping network.

We make connections, move incessantly from here to there, but miss the embodied experience. We go back and forth, but no longer go up to the climes of Olympus; and we no longer go down, no longer enter the melancholic wine cellar where such manic movement ends and initiation begins. The Dionysian labyrinth of embodied initiation, where death is possible and soul illuminates as Ariadne Wreath, has become non-substantial web, forged through Titanic Technology, by which we perform our Netscape TM from the chains binding Prometheus.

No, our journey begins with an act of being, rather than will, a movement of the heart, rather than by the brain. We begin with an indirect glance out of the corner of our eyes, a magical indirection of gesture, enchanted word-spells, and turns of phrase. We will be wand-erring through psychological landscapes, touching upon what touches us in relation to Giarda's speech. We will be forming a background so that Giarda's words and images will inform us.

This paper collects unpublished manuscripts on Giambattista Vico and Friedrich Schelling by the German philologist Walter Friedrich Otto (1874-1958), most of which were written in the early 1930s. The manuscripts are edited in German with Italian translation, a commentary, and an introduction. They consist in a comparative analysis of Vico’s and Schelling’s interpretations of the origin of human civilization. Otto stresses that Vico’s approach is based on jurisprudence, while Schelling’s on philosophy. Otto deals extensively with Vico’s account of the origin of civilisation, focusing in particular on the sacred institution of marriage in ancient Roman Law. According to Otto, this institution does not found the community (as Vico claims), but presupposes it, since every marital union can exist only if legitimated by the gens and the gentilitial law. Schelling’s account of the origin of civilization has a different approach. Otto holds that Schelling recalls the construction of the tower of Babel to show that the confusion of languages hindered mankind to be part of a common civilization. Since it was God who created the dispersion of tongues, language(s) should be regarded as the mythical origin of civilization. Otto is explicit about his preference for Schelling’s interpretation, an author who played a major role in the seminal work on Greek religion, Dionysus (1933), which Otto wrote under the influence of Schelling. Despite his preference for Schelling, Otto went on dealing with Vico over the years: this paper features writings (most of which are fragmentary or short notes) on the following seminal topics of Vico's Scienza Nuova: verum-factum, probability, critique of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, the origin of religion, and political theory (= note on Witzenmann's book on Vico: Politischer Aktivismus und sozialer Mythos, 1935).

Il presente volume contiene i risultati delle ricerche svolte – da parte dell’autore – tra il 2005 e il 2018.
La parte I del volume („Lecturae Dantis”) comprende le analisi di sette canti della Commedia: Inferno I, VIII, IX, XI, XII, XVII, inoltre Purgatorio IX.
Il titolo della parte II („La teologia politica di Dante: fonti, contesto, ricezione”) circoscrive in modo adeguato la problematica dei capitoli inclusi in questa parte.
La parte III („Alcuni momenti-chiave della ricezione dell’Alighieri: al centro il Settecento”) comprende alcuni capitoli cardinali del presente lavoro, con riferimento ad alcuni momenti-chiave della ricezione vichiana – e in senso generale del Sette- e Ottocento – di Dante.
Nella parte IV („La concezione vichiana della storia, ispirata da Dante e Hobbes, da un approccio linguistico-, politico- e scientifico-filosofico”) si prendono in esame alcuni aspetti peculiari della filosofia della storia di Vico, identificando in essa pure alcuni intertesti hobbesiani e danteschi rilevanti.
Nella Postfazione („L’attualità di Dante e di Vico”) l’autore intende chiarire in cosa può consistere la rilevanza dell’Alighieri e di Vico per il lettore contemporaneo.

Ringrazio a parte il Prof. Massimo Seriacopi per aver inserito il volume -- in qualitá di Direttore della Collana -- nella serie "Minima Dantesca" di Aracne Editirice, e anche per la revisione del testo.

Il libro puó essere ordinato sia direttamente da Aracne...:

http://www.aracneeditrice.it/index.php/contatti.html

...che tramite il seguente sito:

https://www.amazon.it/teologia-politica-Capitoli-ricezione-dantesca/dp/B09BGLZ29H/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=nagy%2C+dante+e+vico&qid=1627998360&sr=8-1

Informazioni generali sul libro:

https://www.aracneeditrice.eu/it/pubblicazioni/dante-e-vico-jozsef-nagy-9791259941473.html?fbclid=IwAR2qS1fTkM8dLEwPVYkIkeKIzGoZiVRkUA1zsZEIdGinKF8iemEWTpW0T4U

Library of Congress: https://lccn.loc.gov/2021380606; OPAC SBN Identification Code: IT\ICCU\RML\0493318.

En el presente artículo exponemos la función del concepto de conatus a partir del De Antiquissima. En primer lugar, revisamos la relación que tiene con el movimiento y, a su vez, con los puntos metafísicos. Luego, exhibimos la posibilidad de pensar la conexión entre Dios y los humanos a través del ánimo y la mente. Por último, se esclarece el papel del Sumo Hacedor con la correspondiente Fortuna en la red conceptual de G. Vico para proponer una lectura de la obra a partir de la intermediación que realiza el conatus, produciendo el vínculo entre lo divino y lo humano en el De Antiquissima.

The intermediary function of the conatus in De Antiquissima of G. Vico

In this article we expose the function about the concept of conatus as of De Antiquissima. In the first place, we check the relationship it has with the movement and, at the same time, with the metaphysical points. Then, we exhibit the possibility of thinking the connection between God and the humans through the soul and the mind. Ultimately, it becomes clear the role of the Supreme Creator with the corresponding Fortune in G. Vico’s conceptual network to propose a review of his work from the intermediation performed by the conatus, which produces a link between the divine and the human in De Antiquissima.

Nachdem wir einen schnellen Blick auf den Gesamtrahmen geworfen haben werden, innerhalb dessen Vicos Überlegungen über den Staat sich entwickeln, ein Rahmen, der durch das große philosophische und erkenntnistheoretische Projekt des Autors gekennzeichnet ist (§ 1), werden wir eine genauere Analyse der Wissenschaft anstellen, die er begründen wollte (§ 2). Daran anschließend werden wir uns bei der architektonischen Funktion der Sprache in dieser Wissenschaft aufhalten (§ 3). Diese drei Teile werden uns den Zugang zu einem besseren Verständnis von Vicos Behandlung der Frage nach dem Staat ermöglichen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei sowohl die genetische Rekonstruktion, die er vom Staat gibt, als auch die wesentliche anthropogenetische Funktion, die er ihm anerkennt (§ 4).

Dante è considerato il padre della letteratura italiana. In che modo hanno guardato a lui i friulani, così fieri della propria cultura e della propria lingua? Questo volume prova a rispondere alla domanda esaminando gli episodi più significativi della fortuna del poeta in Friuli a partire dall’Ottocento risorgimentale. Ne deriva un percorso ricco di stimoli, che spazia dalla leggenda del soggiorno di Dante in Friuli a un discorso che lo addita a modello di morale e di lingua per la gioventù, passando poi dalle celebrazioni del 1865 e del 1921 alle traduzioni in friulano della Commedia, per giungere sino alla fantasmagorica rivisitazione del poema ad opera del pittore Anzil, in dialogo con lo scrittore Carlo Sgorlon.

The rediscovery of the thought of Giambattista Vico (1668-1774) – especially his New science – is a post-Revolutionary phenomenon. Stressing the elements that keep society together by promoting a sense of belonging, Vico’s philosophy helped shape a new Italian identity and intellectual class. Poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) responded perceptively to the spreading and manipulation of Vico’s ideas, but to what extent can he be considered Vico’s heir?

Through examining the reasons behind the success of the New science in early nineteenth-century Italy, Martina Piperno uncovers the cultural trends, debates, and obsessions fostered by Vico’s work. She reconstructs the penetration of Vico-related discourses in circles and environments frequented by Leopardi, and establishes and analyses a latent Vico-Leopardi relationship. Her highly original reading sees Leopardi reacting to the tensions of his time, receiving Vico’s message indirectly without a need to draw directly from the source. By exploring the oblique influence of Vico’s thought on Leopardi, Martina Piperno highlights the unique character of Italian modernity and its tendency to renegotiate tradition and innovation, past and future. http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/book/rebuilding-post-revolutionary-italy

The 20th century rise to fame of Giambattista Vico as anticipator of historical relativism obscures essential elements of the 18th century philosopher’s message.  Vico’s stringent argumentation points well beyond contemporary expectations, offering a classical alternative to both a political depreciation of metaphysics and a metaphysical depreciation of politics.  Carrying on a Renaissance tradition inaugurated most notably by Dante Alighieri, Vico invites us to rediscover or return to the poetic language of pagan antiquity as political-theological key to philosophical reflection upon the nature of the human mind.  What Vico intends to defend is not old myths as such, but the essential independence of the human mind from any and all myths, be they ancient, medieval, or modern. 
              With the understanding that the human mind can discover its essence only through its fictions, Vico sets out to foster awareness of the original function of language as carrier of “things” into the mind (as ideas) and out of the mind (as sensory objects).  The natural end of language would be neither the reduction of the physical to the metaphysical, nor the reduction of the latter to the former, nor again a reduction of reality to language, but the sustaining of both the physical and the metaphysical in a “cycle” reflecting the ultimate irreducibility or “indefinite nature” of the human mind.
                It is an indefinite nature on account of which the human mind fails to see itself in and through itself alone, that provides the basis for Vico’s interpretation of Christianity as a blessing in disguise.

Around 1700, Naples was in certain respects characteristic of the ambiguities of Pre-Enlightenment. This paper argues for a fresh view on two protagonists of early Eighteenth-century Neapolitan thought, focusing on common interests and affinities between Paolo Mattia Doria (La vita civile, 1710) and Giambattista Vico. They both anticipated Enlightenment as well as Counter-Enlightenment, heading (either explicitly like Doria or implicitly like Vico) toward a strong theory of civilization. Civilizations, according to both of them, were destined to decline, ruined by an excess of civilization. Doria was a critical reader and an early champion of Machiavelli, a fact not often acknowledged in Machiavelli scholarship. His critical writings, mostly  forgotten today outside Italy, seem to have influenced Montesquieu as well as Rousseau.

The behavior/structure methodological dichotomy as locus of scientific inquiry is closely related to the issue of modeling and theory change in scientific explanation. Given that the traditional tension between structure and behavior in scientific modeling is likely here to stay, considering the relevant precedents in the history of ideas could help us better understand this theoretical struggle. This better understanding might open up unforeseen possibilities and new instantiations, particularly in what concerns the proposed technological modification of the human condition. The sequential structure of this paper is twofold. The contribution of three philosophers better known in the humanities than in the study of science proper are laid out. The key theoretical notions interweaving the whole narrative are those of mechanization, constructability and simulation. They shall provide the conceptual bridge between these classical thinkers and the following section. Here, a panoramic view of three significant experimental approaches in contemporary scientific research is displayed, suggesting that their undisclosed ontological premises have deep roots in the Western tradition of the humanities. This ontological lock between core humanist ideals and late research in biology and nanoscience is ultimately suggested as responsible for pervasively altering what is canonically understood as " human " .

El trabajo comienza con una rápida revisión de las tesis escépticas de Francisco Sánchez con el fin de reformular la definición de su principio epistemológico. A continuación se examina el alcance del principio de Vico verum ipsum factum en conexión con los problemas planteados por Sánchez. Finalmente se propone una nueva definición de verdad a la luz del examen del principio de Vico para acabar considerando las teorías sobre la acción humana de G. H. von Wright y Donald Davidson.

Mit seiner 'Scienza Nuova' hat Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) nicht nur einen umfassenden Entwurf einer Kulturphilosophie vorgelegt, sondern zugleich ein Exempel spätbarocker Bildphilosophie. Den Zugang zu diesem Hauptwerk Vicos stellt ein Bild dar, die sogenannte 'Dipintura', welches gemäß der Intention des Autors die "Idee des Werkes" verkörpern soll. Die Studie zu "Vicos Denkbild" geht anhand einer detaillierten Betrachtung der Originaldrucke der spekulativen Bedeutung dieser Buchillustration nach, in deren Zentrum die Figur der Metaphysik steht. Mit Bezugnahme auf die in der Scienza Nuova entwickelte "poetische Logik" erweist sich dabei die Lehre vom Ingenium als epistemologische Grundlage solchen Bilddenkens.

Per il filosofo Giambattista Vico le favole degli antichi furono il primo modello comunicativo adottato dall'umanità nei tempi remoti per la trasmissione delle regole giuridiche. In questo senso, i miti non furono mere forme narrative fantastiche, bensì autentiche storie dei costumi dei popoli arcaici. Partendo dalle radici antropologiche dei racconti mitici, il presente libro studia le relazioni intercorrenti tra la dimensione normativa e le narrazioni letterarie, con specifico riferimento alle forme simboliche dell'indagine filosofica vichiana. In particolare, il volume analizza cinque distinti temi: la simbologia giuridica della dipintura vichiana, il concetto di universale fantastico come narrazione normativa, le strutture giuridiche nella società dei ciclopi, il diritto eroico nei poemi omerici e la prospettiva vichiana sui miti di fondazione delle prime città umane. Il libro è arricchito da una raccolta bibliografica sui rapporti tra diritto e narrazioni in Vico.

Autobiography of a Masterpiece: Giambattista Vico’s Vita as a Model Humanistic Autobiography

This article aims to investigate Giambattista Vico’s autobiography as the biography of Vico’s main work rather than the mere narrative of the author’s life. In his autobiography, Vico seems to be interested in a meticulous report of the origins of the Scienza Nuova. While narrating his life, he also portrays the thought which determines the birth of his philosophical essay within a creative process. In Vico’s Vita the major work is always foreseen as the pillar of the narrative, but repeatedly postponed as the goal of his life of study and research. From this perspective, it is likely to say that Vico is indentifying his biological life with his intellectual life, by superimposing himself to his work and assimilating it to his own physical and intellectual development, as a concrete testimony of his philosophical education. In this way, Vico’s life seems to materialize in the book itself within a mechanism that intertwines the life of the mind with the life of the body

This is the PDF-Powerpoint of the paper I prepared for the Webinar HISTORY OF LEGAL SCIENCE: TRANSFORMATION OF IDEAS AND IMAGES, III International Scientific-Methodological Seminar, which was held on Friday 16th April 2021 and was organised by the Department of History of State and Law of the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL). The title of the Webinar was: MYTHOLOGEMS OF LAW: IRRATIONAL IN LAW.