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

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Vico’s Ring
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views on science overall «the method of interpreting Nature» –
that need to be considered as moments of the deep structure of
his philosophy, but also the heuristic structure of the proposed
investigatory process, which he summarized as follows (italics
and labels added):
For the method of interpreting Nature consists essentially in compos-
ing a detailed study of Nature from which, as being the source of [1st
kind of knowledge:] our assured data (certis datis), we can [2nd kind:] deduce
the definitions (definitiones concludimus). Now in exactly the same way the
task of Scriptural interpretation requires us to make a straightforward
study of Scripture, and from this, as the source of [1st kind:] our fixed
data (certis datis) and principles, to [2nd kind:] deduce by logical inference (legit-
imis consequentiis concludere) the meaning of the authors (mentem autorum ) of
Scripture [TTP, p. 87].
The inserted labeling serves to highlight the fact that his
method reflects and, in fact, embodies his fundamental theory of
knowledge, as it could not do otherwise, including the seemingly
most basic or transparent level of heuristics, such as the term
«definition(s)». To cite just one relevant place in Ethics, in Part I,
Proposition XIX, Proof, a «definition» of a thing has for Spinoza
the deep sense of its essence and very nature, the epitome of
which is «God» himself, or «substance, which necessarily exists,
[…] or follows from its definition»420. This then constitutes the
inherently Spinozan421 sense of «definition» in which his further
statement in the first section is to be read: «Therefore, just as
definitions of the things of nature must the inferred from the
various operations of Nature, in the same way definitions must
be elicited from the various Biblical narratives as they touch on a
particular subject» (TTP, p. 88).
The partitioning of knowledge-acquisition into the first and
second kinds of knowledge, both for the physical sciences and
the study of Scripture422, at this incipient stage, sets up the matrix
or structural pattern for the more specific, fine-grained, analysis