Abstract

The proposed reading shows that Giambattista Vico seeks a sapientia Christiana which combines an ideal ethics with historical consciousness and a realistic anthropology . The result is a "genealogy of morals" that takes history seriously and does not fail to attend to the realities of power, while affirming an ethics with roots in Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. ;The reading is divided into three long chapters, which correspond to the major phases of Vico's thought. The first chapter focuses on the conception of prudentia that Vico defends against the Cartesians of the day, presenting it as the initial model of the synthesis of Plato and Tacitus. Here the primary texts are the De nostri temporis studiorum ratione and the De antiquissima Italorum sapientia . ;The second chapter turns to the rarely studied Diritto universale . It examines the relations between the Platonic, Aristotelian and Augustinian components of Vico's theory of virtue and proceeds to show how Vico deploys the theory in his account of the emergence of the ideal aequum bonum from a realist, history-laden notion of justice and the ius naturale. ;The third chapter focuses on the 1725 and 1744 versions of the Scienza nuova, tracing the complex journey from primitive culture to rational ethics, with emphasis on Vico's account of the role of language in determining the limits of humanity. The reading concludes that Vico presents a genealogy of morals that acknowledges the best of pagan moral thought, while exposing its insufficiency to avert decline. ;An appendix considers Vico and the turn to history in recent moral philosophy, as exemplified by Bernard Williams and Alasdair MacIntyre. Williams' criticism of a "rationalistic conception of reason" and his suggestion that "reflection can destroy knowledge" have significant parallels in Vico. Unlike Williams, however, Vico denies that attention to history requires an anti-metaphysical naturalism. MacIntyre's historical approach to morality also bears interesting analogies to Vico. The crucial difference, it is argued, is the attitude taken by each toward the tradition of rhetoric