- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Preface
- Bibliographical note
- Abbreviations and Notes on Citations
- Chapter 1 Sense and Method of the <i>New Science</i>
- Chapter 2 Genesis of the <i>New Science</i>
- Chapter 3 Structure of the <i>New Science</i>
- Introduction
- Chapter 4 Genesis of the Frontispiece
- Chapter 5 Structure of the Frontispiece
- Introduction
- Chapter 6 Chronological Table
- Chapter 7 Elements
- Chapter 8 Principles
- Chapter 9 Method
- Introduction
- Chapter 10 Tree of Poetic Wisdom
- Chapter 11 Poetic Metaphysics
- Chapter 12 Poetic Logic
- Chapter 13 Poetic Morals, Economy, and Politics
- Chapter 14 Poetic Sciences
- Introduction
- Chapter 15 Search for the True Homer
- Chapter 16 Discovery of the True Homer
- Introduction
- Chapter 17 Threefold Structure of the Course of the Nations
- Chapter 18 Recourse of the Nations
- Chapter 19 On an Eternal Natural Republic
- Glossary of Italian Terms
- Key to English Equivalents
- Chronological Summary of Vico’s Life and Principal Works
- Some Works of Secondary Literature on Vico
- Index of Names
- Plates
Tree of Poetic Wisdom
Tree of Poetic Wisdom
- Chapter:
- (p.110) Chapter 10 Tree of Poetic Wisdom
- Source:
- Vico's "New Science"
- Author(s):
Donald Phillip Verene
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter offers a philosophical commentary on Giambattista Vico’s notion of poetic wisdom (sapienza poetica), which forms a section of the New Science. Poetic wisdom is a wisdom of the senses that is presupposed by philosophic wisdom (sapienza filosofica), a wisdom of the intellect. In On the Study Methods of Our Time, Vico endorsed the need for proper education to be based on a wisdom of the whole. He argues that among the ancients a single thinker was a whole university, whereas among the moderns students are taught by various specialists without what is taught being governed by a vision of the whole. This chapter examines Vico’s two schemes in which to organize the fields of knowledge in their original poetic form: as a tree of knowledge and as the nine Muses. It also considers why Vico identifies the nine Muses with the nine sciences of his poetic tree of knowledge.
Keywords: poetic wisdom, Giambattista Vico, New Science, philosophic wisdom, education, ancients, moderns, tree of knowledge, Muses, sciences
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- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Preface
- Bibliographical note
- Abbreviations and Notes on Citations
- Chapter 1 Sense and Method of the <i>New Science</i>
- Chapter 2 Genesis of the <i>New Science</i>
- Chapter 3 Structure of the <i>New Science</i>
- Introduction
- Chapter 4 Genesis of the Frontispiece
- Chapter 5 Structure of the Frontispiece
- Introduction
- Chapter 6 Chronological Table
- Chapter 7 Elements
- Chapter 8 Principles
- Chapter 9 Method
- Introduction
- Chapter 10 Tree of Poetic Wisdom
- Chapter 11 Poetic Metaphysics
- Chapter 12 Poetic Logic
- Chapter 13 Poetic Morals, Economy, and Politics
- Chapter 14 Poetic Sciences
- Introduction
- Chapter 15 Search for the True Homer
- Chapter 16 Discovery of the True Homer
- Introduction
- Chapter 17 Threefold Structure of the Course of the Nations
- Chapter 18 Recourse of the Nations
- Chapter 19 On an Eternal Natural Republic
- Glossary of Italian Terms
- Key to English Equivalents
- Chronological Summary of Vico’s Life and Principal Works
- Some Works of Secondary Literature on Vico
- Index of Names
- Plates