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9
Introduction
This book is conceived as “notes” on
Scienza nuova
for a varie-
ty of reasons. First of all, it is in recognition of a century of mod-
ern Vico scholarship that has investigated in depth the vast range
of topics contained in his
magnus opus
1
.
Against the background
of this rich heritage, the objective here is limited to developing
certain nuances and accents on a few selected aspects of Vico’s
body of thought represented in
Scienza nuova
. A further reason
for keeping this book at the level of “notes” is the chosen focus
on certain specific subject matters to the neglect of other Vichian
topics in
Scienza nuova
of greater philosophical significance. Fur-
thermore, these subjects are dealt with from a particular point of
view or perspective which consequently casts light on some fac-
ets to the exclusion of others. The principal motive for following
this approach is to throw aspects of Vico’s thought into sharper
relief, and to give them a more clearly delineated profile.
The following three subjects will be the main focus:
1.
Vico’s employment of the axiomatic method on Book I
. Vico’s
emulation of the language of Euclid’s
Elements of Geometry
with its
axioms, postulates, proofs, corollaries, and so forth, has elicited a
variety of explanatory attempts. On the one hand, we are faced
with Vico’s high regard for Euclidean geometry, but on the other
hand, Vico was adamant that «things that are not lines or num-
bers will not support the method at all», as he said in his
Second
Response
in the debate with the reviewer(s) of
Liber metaphysicus
(
Metaphysics
)
,
the first volume of the projected, but not produced,
three-volume
De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia
(
On the Most An-
cient Wisdom of the Italians
)
2
. The subject matter of
Scienza nuova
certainly falls into the category of «things that are not lines or
numbers». So why would Vico violate his own maxim that plays
a key role in his repudiation of Cartesianism? There is the well-
known early modern tradition of framing arguments in Euclide-