Abstract

Vico was a philosopher in the Italian Enlightenment era of the 18th century of Enlightenment, also a key figure of the Counter-Enlightenment at that time. His prominent contribution was to found the philosophy of culture through making a research on human history. The thesis of his philosophy of culture was expressed by “metaphysics of human”, in which he constructed the historical reason to be against Descartes’ scientific reason. This thought has a major influence on the Chinese thought world. In the beginning of the 20th century, Li Dazhao used Vico’s thought to elucidate the ideas of the historical materialism, which had influence on the study of the Chinese modern history. In the latter half of the 20th century, Zhu Guangqian translated Vico’s New Science into Chinese, which promoted the study of Vico in China. In 1980s, Chinese academia had developed the multi-disciplinary study in philosophy of history, aesthetics and philosophy of culture by study of Vico. Since the 21st century, Chinese scholars have integrated the study of Vico with the critique of modernity to transform the Chinese philosophical tradition from the scientific reason to the historical reason, which shows the tendency of the Chinese philosophy in the present age.