Vico’s Cosmopolitanism
Vico’s Cosmopolitanism
Global Citizenship and Natural Law in Vico’s Pedagogical Thought
This chapter examines Vico's advocacy of global citizenship, or cosmopolitanism, as it was expressed in the inaugural addresses he delivered to the student body of the University of Naples between 1699 and 1708. In particular, this chapter traces Vico's abandonment of an emotive notion of cosmopolitanism for a commercial one, and explains his idealization of commercial sociability with reference to the conclusions he had drawn about the metropolitan community in his history of the revolt of 1701. Vico arrived at the idea that all human relations are transactional in nature, and therefore forms of commerce, and that both the mutual obligations and actionable rights of humans most appropriately can be conceived in terms of international commercial law. Finally, the chapter contextualizes these seemingly moral philosophical claims about the obligations and rights of humans within the contemporary legal battles of the Kingdom.
Keywords: global citizenship, cosmopolitanism, commercial sociability, metropolitan community, commerce, international commercial law, Sacro Regio Consiglio, Roman law, University of Naples
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