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Horst Steinke
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guments relating to Homer and his works that have much in
common with the final 1744 edition (the so-called
Third New Sci-
ence
)
395
. Thus, from a standpoint of substance, most of the salient
later arguments are already present, and so, again, the radical
change in the form of presentation and rhetoric is nothing less
than startling
396
. While our focus is on the final 1744 edition, the
change, or rather transformation, in the treatment of the Homer-
ic material, actually took place already with the 1730 edition, re-
ferred to sometimes as the
Second New Science.
But Book III in the
final version, like the rest of this edition, is essentially identical to
the 1730 version
397
.
How then can justice be done to the unique character of
Book III? Perhaps by recognition that it was the culmination of
two decades of reflection by the time he wrote the 1730 ver-
sion
398
; this takes us back to the publication of
De antiquissima
of
1710
399
. Vico’s preoccupation with Homer bore its first fruits a
decade later in
Diritto universale
and the subsequent
Notae in duos
libros
, and his assessment(s) became integral parts of
Scienza nuova
(1725)
400
. Taking the 1725 work as representative, we encounter
a Vico who has mastered the subject matter (being largely of his
own creation), and is in command of the erudition. This now set
the stage for him to shift his attention to the next level of reflec-
tion that is no longer focused on the subject itself and the wealth
of material, but is instead reflexive, that is, able to step back, so
to speak, and reflect on the premises and presuppositions them-
selves underlying the results of his long-term studies. This reflex-
ivity, therefore, necessitated an explicit study and articulation of
methodology, a methodology that was always implicit in, and
woven into, the fabric of his researches and writings heretofore,
but never enunciated
sui generis
. Since results in any discipline or
science are governed by methodology, Vico’s placement of his
methodological reflections on their own at the center of his
greatest work becomes intelligible
401
. In order to give full due to
this special valuation, the inclination to relegate methodology in