- 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
On an Eternal Natural Republic
On an Eternal Natural Republic
- Chapter:
- (p.221) Chapter 19 On an Eternal Natural Republic
- Source:
- Vico's "New Science"
- Author(s):
Donald Phillip Verene
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter comments on Giambattista Vico’s conception of a fourth kind of republic that is natural and eternal (the first three forms of government correspond to those of the three ages of ideal eternal history) in his conclusion to the New Science. Vico first summarizes the essential points of the new science before moving the reader’s emotions with the picture of a people who, through malgovernance, “are rotting in that ultimate civil disease.” This is a state of the “barbarism of reflection” that infects Vico’s time as well as our own, because his time and ours is the same period of history. This chapter examines Plato’s connection to the first principle of Vico’s new science, providence, and to the first requirement for attaining wisdom, piety. In particular, it considers Vico’s interpretation of Plato’s Republic as well as his discussion of poetic wisdom. It also analyzes what Vico means by “an eternal natural republic, the best of its kind, ordained by divine providence.”
Keywords: eternal natural republic, Giambattista Vico, New Science, ideal eternal history, reflection, Plato, piety, Republic, poetic wisdom, divine providence
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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