Abstract

[Vico and the Problem of Method between Rhetoric and Experimentalism]. This paper analyses some of the major issues discussed by Vico in his De nostri temporis studiorum ratione. Focusing especially on books VII and X, the author examines Vico’s comparison between the method of the “ancients” – or “topica”– and the one of the “moderns” – or critica. In this perspective, the study retraces the question of method exposed by Vico, starting from the discussions within the Accademia of Investiganti and from the heritage of humanistic rhetoric. The solution proposed by Vico to the problem of education and learning showshow it ispossible to conciliate the “ratio critica” and the “ratiotopica”. The study underlines how Vico can recovery the rhetorical method of “topica” in the context of the Cartesian debate in Naples.