This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything (...) about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry. (shrink)

Professor Pompa's study of Vico has done a great deal to stimulate and inform the growing interest in the English-speaking world in this remarkable figure. It remains the only work devoted almost exclusively to an interpretation of the New Science and offers a comprehensive guide to the main theoretical problems to which the text gives rise. For this second edition Professor Pompa has responded to the reactions of reviewers and critics and added a new chapter which analyses Vico's conception of (...) the principles which govern the development of law. (shrink)

The claim that Descartes could have derived the certainty of his existence from the infallibility of the self?referential use of T is rejected because it fails to take account of the hyperbolical hypothesis. Recognizing the constraints which the latter involved, Descartes tried to secure Sum by an argument in modus ponens, which requires an incorrigible statement about experience as a minor premiss. Because he had an incorrect conception of the nature of statements, Descartes failed to realize that the circumstances described (...) in the hypothesis exclude the conditions necessary for any statements or thoughts whatsoever. This, in turn, led to a systematic conflation of statements with sentences. The incoherence of the argument follows from the fact that Cogito could at best be a sentence and not a statement and, as such, could not provide the required minor premiss. It is a further consequence of Descartes's conflation of statements with sentences that the subject of the hypothesis cannot be identical with the subject responsible for the hypothesis and that Descartes's hypothesis cannot therefore be about himself. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Knowledge of Historical Fact Explanation and Understanding Objectivity and Value Narrative and Realism Conclusion.

Parte de la dificultad presentada a la hora de establecer la relación entre filosofia y filología en la teoría hermenéutica viquiana surge del hecho de que Vico vaciló entre dos formas de entender esa relación, las cuales dieron lugar a dos diferentes concepciones de la relación entre hermenéutica y metafísica: entre una hermenéutica metafísica (predominante en SNP) y una metafísica hermenéutica (predominante en SNS). La primera, conforme al deseo viquiano de elaborar un "arte diagnóstica", hace dependiente a la interpretación de (...) la metafísica y hoy es inviable. La segunda comporta una relación mucho más compleja entre interpretación y metafísica y ofrece un método de investigación hermenéutica de considerable relevancia para la filosofía actual. (shrink)

El autor ofrece un análisis filosófico de la teoría viquiana de las instituciones jurídicas en el que –considerando las tesis de Vico sobre el desanrollo de la sociedad y abordando la relación entre las instituciones propias de un determinado momento histórico y las formas juridicas– hace emerger la figura del legislador como personificación del ideal de equidad y de la idea común de justicia, que opera a través del uso de la tópica y de la retórica en la búsqueda de (...) la verdad.The author offers an account of the Vichian theory about legal institutions in which –on the basis of Vico’s claims about the development of society and the relationship between institutions framed within a particular historical period and legal forms– aims to present the legislator as the embodiment of the ideal of equity as well as the common idea related with that of justice, which is shaped up by the topics and rethoric in the pursue of truth. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to outline and discuss Vico's conception of the nature and importance of hermeneutics. Vico never used the word ‘hermeneutics’ but since we would now recognize one aspect of what he was offering in his New Science as a theory for the interpretation and understanding of past cultures, I shall occasionally talk in terms of a theory of hermeneutics. My procedure will be to indicate first the context which led Vico to think that it was (...) important to have a theory of hermeneutics and why he thought that such a theory ought to have a certain form. I shall then try to show that there are two forms of the theory. The first, in which hermeneutics is dependent upon metaphysics, involves certain unacceptable features which arise from the context in which he originally formulated it. The second, in which metaphysics is dependent upon hermeneutics, requires that the theory be freed from an important aspect of this context. Finally, I shall ask whether, in this second form, the theory has something to commend it to contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

Recensión crítica de tres obras recientes que tocan ciertos problemas políticos, morales y científicos de gran importancia en relación con Vico.Critical review of three recent books , which touch some political, moral and scientific points of great consequence with regard to Vico.

According to Vico, philosophy and history had been too narrowly conceived. Philosophy had ignored the historical and empirical conditions which affect human nature, while history had ignored the metaphysical conditions. Vico therefore developed a science which would wed the two disciplines. Philosophy would provide a theory of human nature and an empirical theory about the determinate historico-sociological laws which govern human history. An "ideal external history" would be deduced from these and confirmed by its capacity to provide the systematic assumptions (...) required for the conversion of historical evidence into historical fact. Since neither knowledge of laws nor knowledge of facts could be established independently, historico-sociological theory and historical investigation would be revealed as necessary aspects of a single epistemological enterprise. (shrink)