Horst Steinke, Vico’s Ring. Notes on the“Scienza nuova”, its Structure, and the Hermeneutics of Homer’s Works

106 / 298

Horst Steinke
106
It is in this intended sense of anachronism that both in section, as well as
in subsequent material, certain more recently articulated interpretive “tools”
will be brought to bear on the questions raised. Successfully carried out or
not, «[the] underlying fact is that conceptual and other topical assumptions are
needed by a historian for the very first purpose of understanding what earlier
thinkers said in the sense of what their views actually amounted to» (Hintikka,
p. 134).
On the inevitable comparison and contrast with Gadamer’s hermeneutical
outlook (in his Wahrheit und Methode), see S. Knuuttila, pp. 96-98, and J. Hin-
tikka, p. 108; for a more general assessment of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, see
also V. Hösle, God as Reason: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Notre Dame, Indi-
ana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013, pp. 179-182.
167 This is the term coined by E. Kleinert (in German «Mathematik der Re-
lationen»), Studien zur Mathematik und Philosophie, Leipzig, Leipziger Universi-
tätsverlag, 2012, p. 23.
168 With respect to the literature on category theory, we would like to high-
light particularly E. Kleinert’s work since it places the mathematics of category
theory within a broader, non-mathematical, philosophical framework which
we find congenial to our own approach: ibid., pp. 23-24; Id., Mathematik für
Philosophen, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2004, pp. 65-83; Id., Categories
in Philosophy and Mathematics, in Gibt es sicheres Wissen? Aktuelle Beiträge zur Er-
kenntnistheorie, ed. by M. Rahnfeld, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2006,
pp. 242-262, also in Hamburger Beiträge zur Mathematik, 199, 2004, online at
>.
Also to be recommended is D. I. Spivak, Category Theory for the Sciences, Cam-
bridge-London, MIT Press, 2014, for its expository use of accessible examples
to illustrate category-theoretic concepts; see also What is Category Theory?, ed.
by G. Sica, Monza, Polimetrica, 2006. With respect to the history of the idea
of category theory, see R. Krömer, Tool and Object: A History and Philosophy of
Category Theory, Basel-Boston-Berlin, Birkhäuser, 2007, pp. 61-75. For all in-
tents and purposes, it saw the light of day in 1945 with a seminal paper by
mathematicians S. Eilenberg and S. Mac Lane.
169 It has been shown «that categorical structures are already inherent in
the basic elements of our language and thinking» («dass kategoriale Strukturen
bereits den Elementen unseres Sprechens und Denkens innewohnen»): E.
Kleinert, Mathematik für Philosophen, cit., p. 82. For examples from various are-
as such as cognitive development in small children, human cognition in gen-
eral, language, basic intellectual abilities, music, see also my essay Vico’s Three
Realms. From “Liber metaphysicus” to Category Theory, in «Laboratorio dell’ISPF»,
IX, 2012, 1/2, pp. 51-88, p. 72, footnote 129; online at .