Abstract

[Vico and the German Historism]. The paper investigates the reception of Vico’s thinking in German Historicism, starting from a historical survey of the early diffusion of his work in 19th Century Germany. In his German 20th Century historicist-minded and much more accurate readers, such as Troeltsch, Auerbach, Meinecke and Löwith, the assessment of Vico’s Historicism revolves around the two pivotal notions of individuality and development, held as distinctive of a historicist approach. The paper further proposes a renewed assessment of the major convergences and divergencies between Vico’s and the historicist approach to history.