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Vico’s Ring

29

Notes to Chapter 2

24

Flint described this initial reaction: «The “Scienza Nuova” […] is a work

which is exceedingly difficult to analyse; for its main argument is complicated

with innumerable details, and it is not always easy to trace the guiding thread

which leads through the windings of its accessory ideas» (Id.,

Vico

, cit., p.

189).

25

Vico

:

The First New Science

, ed. and trans. by L. Pompa, Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press, 2002.

26

Ibid.

, ch. V-X of Book V, pp. 238-270.

27

The Tables are identical in both works, see G. Vico,

La Scienza nuova. Le

tre edizioni,

cit

.

, pp. 400-407, 816-823.

28

The opposite view is taken by Hösle who ascribed circular structure

(“Kreisstruktur”) to Vico’s earlier work

Diritto universale

(

Universal Law

), but

denied it to

Scienza nuova

of 1730 (Id.,

Einleitung

, cit., p. LXXIX, footnote 102).

By extension this assessment would apply also to the 1744 edition which

Hösle observes is equivalent to the 1730 edition in terms of structure (

ibid.

, p.

LXXXV). Hösle also commented: «Erstens ist darauf hinzuweisen, dass für

Vico als objectiven Idealisten die Kreisstruktur begründungstheoretisch aus-

gezeichnet ist (First of all it needs to be pointed out that for Vico as objective

idealist, circularity is crucial to his epistemology)» (

ibid.

, p. CCXXIV).

29

The literature is vast, and no attempt will be made here to supply even a

selective cross-section of scholarship, beyond the commentaries referred to

already in footnote 20.

30

G. Mazzotta,

The New Map of the World

, cit., p. 210.

31

This summary statement, in this condensed form for the sake of the ar-

gument developed here, should be understand in the light of the more fine-

grained commentary in Hösle,

Einleitung

, cit., pp. CCLIII-CCLVII, where

“feudalism” is portrayed as a certain type of social, economic, political organi-

zation, not just or primarily as a legal system, although the legal system incor-

porated the societal structure, and thus serves as its proxy. See also D. R. Kel-

ley,

Vico’s Road: From Philology to Jurisprudence and Back

, in

Giambattista Vico’s

Sci-

ence of Humanity

, cit., pp. 15-29, p. 25.

32

With respect to the importance of Roman history, Hösle attributed it to

Vico’s conviction that the “storia ideale eterna” had been realized in it para-

digmatically (Id.,

Einleitung

, cit., p. CCXXXIX). Similarly also J. D. Schaeffer,

Introduction

, in

A Translation from Latin into English of Giambattista Vico’s Il Diritto

Universale/Universal Law

, trans. by J. D. Schaeffer, with Introduction and

Notes by J. D. Schaeffer, Foreward and Translation of Vico’s

Synopsis

by D.

Ph. Verene, 2 volumes, New York, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, 2011,

Book 1, p. XII: «Vico believed the Roman experience was paradigmatic be-