Giambattista Vico (Vico Giambattista)

(1668-1744)
Born in Naples, June 23, 1668 in the family bookseller. He studied at several schools, including Jesuit Collegium. At a very early age became interested in philosophical questions, a new philosophy of Descartes, he studied metaphysics and civil law, read Plato, Tacitus, Machiavelli. In 1699-1708 he was a professor of rhetoric University of Naples. Vico sought a position as professor of civil law, when he was denied, immersed in the study of the origin of natural law, is the philosophy of 17 and 18 centuries. The studies Vico broadened the scope of tasks and the work of founding a new science of the general nature of nations (Principi di una scienza nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazione .., . or simply Scienza nuova), . reprinted several times (in particular, . 1725, . 1730 and posthumously in 1744) and many bug fixes, . attempted not only to describe the history of natural law, . but finding the ideal scheme of universal history,
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Vico advanced cyclic theory of society. According to his conception, development cycles, for which Providence has step by step, leading mankind from barbarism to civilization, the story took place from ancient times to the era of decline of Rome, and again from the 'new barbarism' Dark Ages to the Enlightenment. The idea of the hand of Providence has a religious character - Vico was a faithful son of the Church - but at the same time, it influenced the idea of Pico della Mirandola, Hobbes, Francis Bacon, Hugo Grotius, and even Descartes. His own thought had an impact on Cousin, Michelet, Herder, Hegel, Comte, Croce, Gentile, Spengler. Another area of influence - the tradition of 'understanding' in the person of W. Dilthey and R.Dzh.Kollingvuda. Some ideas of Vico, for example, the mutual hostility of the social classes, were similar to Marxism. Other of his works - Life of Giambattista Vico, written by himself (1725, with additions in 1728 and 1731) and in Latin De antiquissima Italorum sapientia (On the ancient wisdom of the Italians, 1710). Vico died in Naples on Jan. 23, 1744.