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

Vico’s Ring

This brings us to the question of where and how Vico ob-

tained his axioms, particularly since Vico did not address this

question directly

124

. The next section will revolve around this

question in connection with Vico’s reflection on “philosophy” and

“philology” in an indirect approach to answering the question.

Notes to Chapter 3

As indicated above (as shown in Fig. 1), neither segment

B’

falls

neatly within the confines of an entire Book but is comprised of certain por-

tions only, more specifically, the second halves of Book I and IV, resp. The

rationale or justification for our subdivision can be stated in uncomplicated

terms: both segments differ sharply in content from the rest of their respec-

tive chapters. The Axioms, Principles, and Method sections follow the

Chronological Table/Notes, and obviously represent a change of subject.

Segment

B’

also marks a caesura in Book IV. It concentrates on the historical

development of Roman law and governance whereas the preceding material

of Book IV, famously, delves into «the course [all] the nations run» (§ 915),

covering a wide range of social/cultural indications, and in terms of the tripar-

tite historical scheme of predominantly “divine”, “heroic”, and “human”

characteristics. By folding this material into Books I and IV, rather than turn-

ing it into separate Books, Vico is able to maintain a five-part subdivision of

the work.

Our emphasis on discontinuities in, or isolation of, successive segments,

be it in the form of separate Books or parts of Books, is not incompatible

with the presence of certain connections between them, as illustrated by the

horizontal arrows in Fig. 1; both types of interrelationships contribute to the

complexity of

Scienza nuova.

See, for example, Vitiello’s comment on how the

“Elements” relate to the Chronological Table/Notes: «La sezione successiva è

infatti dedicata alle

degnità

, ovvero ai principi che debbono “dar forma” al ma-

teriale esposto nella Tavola cronologica e delle successive Annotazioni (The

next section is in fact dedicated to the

axioms,

that is, the principles that

should “give form” to the material laid out in the Chronological Table and the

Notes that follow)» (Id.,

Saggio introduttivo

, cit., pp. CXXI-CXXII). Vico him-

self at times, toward the ending of one section, points forward to the follow-

ing section, as he did at the close of our segment

C’

, in preparation of seg-

ment

B’

, saying in § 973: «All that we have so far set forth, and all that we

shall have to say later, springs from the definition of the

true

and the

certain