Abstract

Even though Giambattista Vico says in his autobiography that Plato is the first of his four "authors", the nature of Vico's kinship to Plato has not been explored in detail. Many scholars acknowledge Vico's references to Plato and the Platonists in passing or even in some detail, but this is the first book-length study devoted to the complexity of the relationship between the two thinkers. Other routes to understanding Vico, either through important themes or other authors, reveal significant dimensions of Vico's thought as well, and have been more well-travelled by scholars. But the crucial question of his integrity as a metaphysician and moral philosopher in the Platonic tradition has remained for the most part unasked. My inquiry begins to remedy the neglect of Vico's kinship to Plato which has distorted his philosophical significance. ;Ascertaining who Plato is for Vico involves descending through the layers of Platonism, from Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, to Augustine, to Plato's dialogues, and finally to the hero of Plato's philosophical poetry, Socrates. Each of the circles of the family of Plato recalls to memory an aspect of Vico's Platonism: from Pico he learned the dignity of the human mind, from Augustine, the corrective piety in the face of providence, and from Plato's dialogues, the idea of the philosophical heroism. Vico's debts to the Platonic tradition are not blind appropriation. In fact, the errors as well as insights of the Platonists about the relationship of philosophy and poetry are essential for understanding Vico's discovery of poetic wisdom. ;This historical and philosophical study of Vico's Platonic roots shows how Vico's New Science is "a metaphysics compatible with human frailty" rather than an historicist epistemology. The philosophical level of the three principles of Vico's New Science, religion, marriage, and burial, are Platonic commonplaces: divine providence, moderation of the passions, and immortality of the human soul. Vico presents a metaphysical and moral philosophy which provides a way between the extremes of dogmatism and skepticism as well as Stoicism and Epicureanism. Vico's New Science balances the dignity and piety the philosopher must have to embody heroic mind and educate humanity