by Donald Phillip Verene (Author)
This work is a full interpretation of Giambattista Vico's thought, based primarily on his major work, the New Science, and on his earlier Latin writings. It takes its beginning point from Vico's own claim that his conception of 'imaginative universals' is the 'master key' of his New Science. . . .Verene traces the notion of fantasia in Vico's writings, devoting a chapter each to Vico's interpretation of truth, imaginative universals, memory, science, rhetoric, and wisdom and barbarism. -New Vico Studies
Format: Paperback
Pages: 112
Edition: Revised ed.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 05 Sep 2000
ISBN 10: 0801499720
ISBN 13: 9780801499722
No mere short notice can do justice to this indispensable guide to Vico's thought. It rescues him from his comparative neglect in histories of modern Western philosophy and emphasizes his seminal if muffled contribution to our understanding of the human mind and the history of culture. Departing from the conventional relegation of Vico to cyclical philosophy of history, the author highlights Vico's role as rhetorician in a philosophy for which rhetoric is no mere embellishment or reflection of truths previously produced by the rational intellect, but is the very source of human knowledge. -Religious Studies Review
Verene's sympathetic study is a useful contribution to the understanding of this often misconceived and still very provocative thinker. -Review of Metaphysics
The first book-length study in English to allow the genius that is Vico to come forth. -Philosophy and Rhetoric