The Principles of New Science of

G. B. Vi co and The Theory of

Historical Interpretation *
EMILIO BETTI
Translated by Giorgio A. Pinton and Susan Noakes
Dedicated to my unforgettable friend Lorenzo Mossa, my comrade from the
beginning of my teaching career (at Camerino, November 1917), this
lecture was gi\Tn in Perugia at the University for Foreigners on September 4,
1957.
-E.B.
T
he theme of this lecture ties it to the cycle of lectures on the
Italian Eighteenth Century to be held during the month of
September at this noble University of Perugia, which fulfills such an
important function in contemporary European cultural life; as a
native of the region, I feel honored to be this University's guest. The
very title of this lecture presents a characterization of that "new
Science concerning the common nature of the nations," one of the
intellectual high points of our Settecento, which departs from the
traditional cliched one. The traditional cliche, with which many even
now believe they can characterize G. B. Vico's "new science" within
the general history of European thought, is that of a "philosophy of
history," understood to mean what this expression came to imply
much later, and specifically thirty years after the last edition of the
New Science. ** In 1774, Johann Gottfried Herder dedicated a study to
a cherished "Philosophie der Gcschichte zur Bildung der Mensch-
heit," which he later developed into some memorable "Ideen zur
Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit." The conception of a
philosophy of history, which Herder constructed during the most
mature phase, fused into a genial synthesis both the dynamic view of
*Originally published in Nuoua Rivista di Diritto Commerciale (1957):W-59.
31
32 EMILIO BETTI
his earlier historical thinking and a spiritualized vision of nature as an
organism. It was thus an organic conception of historical develop-
ment, which Herder understood as subject to absolute (a priori) laws
of context and to which he also assigned a subsidiary pedagogical
meaning, probably under the influence of Lessing's doctrine of an
"education of humankind" (1780).1
Herder's conception became the paradigm for later romantic doc-
trines of the philosophy of history, devised by Fichte, Hegel, and
others, all dominated by preconceived schemata which later critical
positivism could easily show to be aprioristic. Such a defect thus
surrounded this speculative movement with an atmosphere of suspi-
cion because of its equivocal arbitrariness, which remained as a
"macula indelebilis." On the other hand, Herder's conception, be-
cause it also worked as a universal history of humanity, served as
leavening for another movement, which in a later generation of
historical studies culminated in Ranke's "Weltgeschichte" and gradu-
ally helped bring to maturity other attempts at a unitary vision of
world history, by sociologists and historians as well; for example, such
recent works as Alfred Weber's "Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziolo-
gie," Arnold Toynbee's "History," and Hans Freyer's "Weltge-
schichte Europas." Now, the ultimate roots and the most distant
spiritual paternity of both this arbitrary "philosophy" and such
universalistic constructions, some more and others less successful, is
to be sought in Herder, and cannot, without conspicuously stretching
matters, be found in the New Science.
2
Vico's book, on the contrary,
offers many and diverse historical interpretations to support its own
methodological principles and rules, but in itself it aims to be some-
thing very different from a "philosophy of history" in Herder's sense;
specifically it aims to be a system of "hermeneutica historiae," a
problematic and a general theory of historical interpretation.
Let us, first of all identify, beforehand, in their proper framework,
the members which give shape to Vico's scientific argument: the
axioms, principles, and method-all appearing in the first book. The
author himself, in setting out the thesis of his work [41], explains that
the "axioms" are "the definitions and postulates which this Science
takes as its 'elements,' on the basis of which it can work out (that is,
demonstrate) the 'principles' which establish it and the 'method by
which it proceeds'." Now, the "elements" provide the New Science
with elementary notions and assumptions about the knowable [330],
without which it could not be built; the "principles," in their turn,
Vico conceives as the basic hinges, for (as he explains [1093]) "this is
the nature of principles, that things (objects of science) both begin
and end in them."
Principles of New Science of C. B. Vico
33
Thus alerted by the author himself to the fundamental importance
of these principles, let us see, in Section III of Book One, dedicated to
their "establishment," in what they consist. First of all, Vico at this
point clears the deck of two kinds of prejudices given credence by the
arrogance of both nations and scholars [330]. Then he continues
[331]: "But in the night, thick with shadows, enveloping the earliest
antiquity, so remote from ourselves, there shines the eternal and never
failing light of a truth beyond all question: that the world of civil
society has certainly been made by men, and that its principles (and
its guise: [349]) are therefore to he found within the modifications of
our own human mind." Here "modifications" means (according to
Axiom XV lJ48]) the modes of being and the dispositions with which
this mind is born. Now, the axiomatic principle thus formulated is
today recognized as a fundamental hinge of all theory of interpreta-
tion: that is, the principle of inversion of the process of genesis into the
process of hermeneutics: inversion of the formative process into the
interpretive one.
3
The phenomenal datum on which this principle is
based is derived from the process which creates various forms of
civilization which compose this "civil world, certainly made by men."
From the process of origin of these forms one can note the natural
spontaneity of the formative energy, which is the human mind in its
various dispositions and modes of being. From such creative sponta-
neity one may infer, not indeed, the possibility of a history a priori (as
is claimed by some who unwittingly minimize Vico's originality), but
the epistemological legitimacy and fecundity of a hermeneutic pro-
cess, which, by inverting the genetic one, manages to reach back to
the formative energy, seeking it in the dispositions and modes of being
of our human mind itself. Here Vico discovers an identity, or more
properly a correspondence, between the originary demiurgic making
and the later hermeneutic recognition. This correspondence leads him
to comment further [349] that "history cannot be more certain than
when he who creates the things also narrates them" (certain, that is
authentic and valid by epistemological standards); at the same time,
it suggests to him a comparison between human and divine function:
"since in God knowledge and creation are one and the same thing."
This comparison, however, should not be misinterpreted in a panthe-
istic key (see, on the contrary, l376]), but must rather be traced back
to Christian sources, especially the teaching of Saint Paul in the
Epistle to the Romans (8, 16) that "it is the Spirit Himself bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God."4
The principle just now set forth reveals the deep scientific aspira-
tion of the New Science, in stark contrast to what will become the
"philosophy of history." Vico's interest and concern is not only and
31 EMILIO BETTI
not so much to propose concrete explanations of individual historical
and sociological phenomena (and much less to trace an universal
history), but rather to open a path, to point out a methodological
direction suited to the thorough investigation of this "civil world."
This is a direction for knowledge which, because the civil world has
been made by men, has an evident condition of gnosiologic possibility
(in a Kantian sense): that is, the possibility, which is at the same time
a need ("it is possible because necessary") to find the principles of
that civil world within the modes of being and the attitudes of that
very human mind. This, indeed, is the problematic which defines
Vico's New Science: a problematic which, having been oriented to the
understanding of the "civil world" and particularly destined to the
understanding of the historical world, must be qualified as hermeneu-
tic: "hermeneutica historiae," that is, a theory of historical interpreta-
tion. Continuing our analysis of Vico's work, we find in it a part
(including also Sections II and IV of Book One) which inquires into
the highest laws of historical understanding and the goals of truth to
which this understanding should aspire: a part which might be
described as a "hermeneutic epistemology." Alongside it, another
part investigates the methods to be adopted and the rules to be
followed in the process of historical understanding: this other part
could be referred to as "hermeneutic methodology." It must, at the
same time, be kept firmly in mind that Vico has no interest in
narrating historical facts in their unrepeatable individuality; rather, he
seeks to derive examples and confirmation from their interpreta-
tion.
5
\Ve would not say, however, that, by postulating a metaphysics of
the human mind [347] with the principle just referred to, Vico had
intended to construct nothing less than a "new philosophy." In
particular, we do not think that there is any foundation for Croce's
interpretation,6 which would characterize the New Science as a
" ... philosophy of the spirit" before the fact, and make Vico a
precursor of Hegel and of Croce himself. The clear intent of the author
of The New Science is to offer only a methodology for the historical
sciences (and one could generalize to say of the sciences of the spirit)
and, properly speaking, an epistemology and a methodology destined
to disclose to the scholar the understanding of the historical world: an
historical hermeneutics in this sense. Without being arbitrary, there is
nothing more to seek in it than this. Indeed, this alone is certainly a
very great achievement, and it gi\Oes Vico a place of first rank within
the general history of European thought.
But one must add more. The principle of the inversion of the
Principles oj New Science oj C. B. Vico
genetic into the hermeneutic process, mentioned earlier, is not the
only one on which the New Science concerning the common nature of
nations is based. Another principle no less fundamental is derived
from this common nature, and it is presented as one of the highest
laws of historical knowledge: a law derived from the phenomenon
closely observed, of uniform developments, parallel to each other, but
still independent the one from the other. Set forth in The Neu) Science as
axioms XIII [144-] and XLIII [198], this law is again restated among
the principles [333] immediately after the principle of inversion.
"Uniform ideas, born among peoples unknown to each other, must
have a common ground of truth." Thus Vico writes in axiom XIII.
Moreover, analyzing the import of the phenomenologic datum, Vico
affirms that [145]: "this axiom [XIII] is a great principle which
establishes the common sense of the human race as the criterion
taught to the nations by divine providence to define what is certain in
the natural law of gentes." This principle "had separate origins
among the several peoples, each in ignorance of the others" (that is,
independently). How this precise statement, on which Vico re-
peatedly insisted, could be misunderstood by his critics, who take him
to deny the communicability and reciprocal interpenetration of civili-
zations, is explicable only by a hasty and barbarous reading that did
not care to place that statement within the context of Vi co's discourse
as a whole: as if for Vico the discovery of parallel and independent
developments could exclude the other phenomenon, which he cer-
tainly did not miss (e.g. [287]), of reciprocal influences of one people
on another, which are found in the transmission, reception, and
assimilation of the respective cultural forms and of their patrimony of
thought in a process of historical continuity.7
After confirming his discovery in axiom XLIII, Vico proceeds to
explain it in the following manner [333 J: "we observe that all nations,
barbarous as well as civilized, though separately founded because
remote from each other in time and space, keep these three human
customs: all have some religion, all contract solemn marriages, all
bury their dead." Therefore, he argues, "a common ground of truth
must have been dictated to all nations." In this logical relation,
concerning these three universal and eternal customs, Vi co again
envisages the idea of a mission which is entrusted to the human race
by divine providence. "Thus" (he concludes in the section "on
Method" [342J) "our new Science must be a demonstration, so to
speak, of what providence has wrought in history, for it must be a
history of the institutions by which, without human discernment or
counsel, and often against the designs of men, providence has ordered
36 EMILIO BETTI
this great city of the human race. For though this world has been
created in time and particular, the institutions establishe'd therein by
providence are universal and eternal." Here one must emphasize, in
the history of ideas, the antithetical relation between this superiority
of providential plans over "the designs of men" and the later Hegelian
view of an anthropomorphic "cunning of reason." For Vico [343] the
immeasurable goodness of Providence means that "whatever it insti-
tutes must be directed to a good always superior to that which men
have proposed to themselves." Naturally the notion of divine Provi-
dence which Vico assumes corresponds to the transcendent concept
that the followers of the Catholic religion espouse; and therefore
efforts which idealist philosophers have made to hack away at that
notion in order to bend Vica's thought to an immanentistic interpre-
tation must be considered failures. With that transcendent connota:..
tion Vica affirms [342J that "in one of its principal aspects, this
Science must therefore be a rational civil theology of divine provi-
dence": a theology (he says) "which seems hitherto to have been
lacking, for the philosophers have either been altogether ignorant of it,
or they have considered it solely in the order of natural things, giving
the name of ' natural theology' to metaphysics." On the contrary (says
Vico a little later [347]), "in search of these natures of human
institutions our Science proceeds by a severe analysis of human
thoughts about the' human necessities or utilities of social life;" hence
"for its second principal aspect, our Science is a history of human
ideas, on which it seems the metaphysics of the human mind must
proceed" [368]. But here, at the' basis of a history thus conceived,
Vico discovers l348] as a factor in all the beauty of this civil world,
that "common sense of the human race" (common to all nations)
which (to those who reflect) seems "determined by the necessary
harmony of human institutions": by the harmony, that is, by the
coherence and necessity of development of these human institutions.
Thus Vico concludes at this point [348] that "the decisive sort of
proof in our Science is" that "the course of the institutions of the
nations had to be, must now be, and will have to be such as our
Science demonstrates." This sort of proof he will later on call philo-
sophical (i.e., gnosiological [351])8 to distinguish it from the philologi-
cal, that is, the properly hermeneutical ones. This science, Vica
affirms in concluding this argument [349], comes "to describe at the
same time an ideal eternal history traversed in time by the history of
every nation in its rise, development, maturity, decline, and fall."
The cycle that opened with the principle of inversion of the genetic
into the interpretive process is thus coherently closed with its confir-
Principles of New Science of C. B. Vico 37
mation by the phenomenon of uniform developments, parallel but
independent, in which the uniformity (which is a correspondence, not
a static identity) is to be subsumed both under the unitary dictate of
Providence as well as under the common sense of the human race.
These principles imply both the concept of gradual developments
within the course of an ideal eternal history, and the doctrine of "corsi
and ricorsi," of which we will speak in a little while.
Vico then proceeds [351 J to present the "philological proofs," that
is, the ones which are more properly hermeneutic, which have for
their object the mode ofrepresenting reality, the manner of expressing
and behaving proper to human societies. He formulates a series of
directive criteria concerning this object, and establishes methodologi-
cal standards to serve as guidelines for the historian who wishes to
study it. The criteria are the following:
(1). [352] "our mythologies agree with (that is, they correspond to and
mirror) the institutions [things] of this civil world, not by force and
distortion, but directly, easily, and naturally, when related to the poetic
'forma mentis' of the first peoples";
(2). [353] "the heroic phrases, in the full truth of the sentiments and the
full propriety of the expressions, also agree with" (that is, are suited to)
[the things of the civil world];
(3). [354] "the etymologies of the native languages also agree (that is,
correlate) with them, for they tell us the histories of the things (events)
which these words signify, beginning with their original and proper
meanings and pursuing the natural development of their metaphors
according to the order of ideas," that is, pursuing the heterogenesis of
meaning which happens over time (here are recalled axioms XVII and
XVIII);
(4). [355] "the mental vocabulary of human social institutions, experi-
enced as the same in substance by all nations, is exhibited [in the things of
the civil world]" (and here reference is made explicitly to axiom XXII
[161], which posits the existence of "a mental language common to all
nations, which uniformly grasps the substance of things feasible in human
social life and expresses it with as many diverse modifications as these
same things may have diverse aspects"; and again reference is made
explicitly to [144, 198,333]);
(6). [357] following the standard of totality and coherence proper to
hermeneutic evaluation,IO "those great fragments of antiquity, begrimed,
broken, scattered," and therefore useless to science, must "be cleaned,
pieced together, and put back in their proper places: thus having light shed
upon them, they will bring "great light" to the interpreter; finally,
(7). [358] "all the effects narrated by that history which is known with
certainty stand upon all these things (of the civil world), as upon their
necessary causes"; within this framework, these effects are found to be
reciprocally coherent and necessary.
38 EMILIO BETTI
Concluding his reflections on the establishment of the above
criteria, Vico [359] makes clear that there is a circle of reciprocal
illumination which links philosophical and philological, that is, prop-
erly hermeneutic, proofs. The philological proofs have their author-
ity confirmed by the reason of the philosophical ones and at the same
time confirm their reason by their own authority. The two become an
integrated whole.
But there is another side which at this point must be stressed: that
is, Vico's interest in the typical rather than the individual. The "New
Science concerning the common nature of the nations" was intended
by its author to be an historical hermeneutics aiming at the discovery
of the goals of historical knowledge (as an epistemology) and at the
identification of a series of standards to keep in mind during historical
interpretation (as a methodology); it certainly was not a universal
history aiming to reach down to the root meaning of events in their
un repeatable development (a history that in the successive attempts
of Herder, Hegel, and others came to be described as "a philosophy of
history"). That Vico's goal was an historical hermeneutics and not a
"philosophy of history" can be demonstrated both by the explicit
statements Vico makes when he reflects on his own work and espe-
cially by the direction of his inquiry towards the typical structure
rather than the particular event. This direction is manifested in
several ways, including, in particular, his interest in the heterogenesis
of meanings, from which "ideal truths" are deduced, or in the
doctrine of courses and recourses. Thus, Vico admits!! that in the New
Science history is "fully unfolded before us, not as particular history, in
the time of the lavvs and deeds of the Romans or the Greeks (an object
which was of special interest to him), but [as a history builtJ upon the
identity of understanding as to substance and the diversity of their
modes of expression" [1096]. Moreover, speaking in general, in other
passages, he says: "we will give some individual facts by way of
examples, in order that they may be understood because of the
principles" for the reader, from others of the author's works already
known or imminent, should expect, "to see the principles confirmed
within the innumerable multiplicity of their consequences." vVhen he
treats laws, customs, poems, fables, and, in general, social and
cultural formations in different times and nations, he is concerned not
with throwing light upon their individual peculiarity, but rather with
their typical, common aspects. He even reacts against the inevitable
misunderstandings caused by myopic and atomistic historical narratives.
If we then analyze Vico's work in its individual parts, we find, on
Principles of New Science of C. B. Vico 39
the one hand, a general hermeneutic theory, set forth in several places
and with special clarity in Book One, dedicated to the "Establishment
of Principles," and including (as mentioned above) both an episte-
mology and a methodology; on the other hand, in support of this
hermeneutic the'ory, a whole series of well-developed hermeneutic
example's, comprising historical interpretations which reveal, together
with a systematic coherence, the brilliance of an unusually penetrat-
ing insight, even when marred by a lack of critical scrupulosity in
matters of detail. Let us leave to one side this latter deficiency, which
is too easy to find for anyone who has the gift of hindsight, being
furnished with very different tools from those available to Vico (one
need only compare, from this viewpoint, Vico's "Historik" with that
formulated by Droysen a little more than a century later). When
critics observe that Vi co reads into his authors more than they say
and attributes to them the processes of thought which come to him
while reading, projecting them into their writings, we may ask if there
is anyone who does not re-elaborate inwardly the meaning of what is
read and pondered. By the same token, when the critics point out that
Vico was so very certain a priori of what the facts would say to him
that he did not allow them to speak and instead suggested to them his
own answer to the historical query proposed,12 we should perhaps ask,
in turn, whether this habit is not yet another congenial symptom of
that hermeneutic enthusiasm which naturally impels the discoverer to
exalt his discovery. But this is not the important thing to emphasize
about the historical interpretations Vico provides to support and
confirm his theory of interpretation; the central feature is, rather,
that his interest focuses not on the individuality of the event, but on
the typical structure of historical formations. Therefore, for Vico,
"Homer" does not represent the historically determined poet Homer.
He is, instead, an example and paradigm of primitive poetry which, in
different times and places, meets other fraternal minds. Similarly, the
Romans, for Vico, do not represent Romans in their peculiar physiog-
nomy, rather in relation to what they have in common with the
Greeks; and so on. Axiom XLVII, not mentioned explicitly among
the "philological proofs," is especially eloquent on this score [204,
205]. It says that "the human mind is naturally drawn to delight in
uniformity," and finds confirmation in the custom which common
people have of taking up "men famous for this or that, place'd in this
or that circumstance, and making fables to fit their character and
condition. These fables (Vico affirms) are ideal truths suited to the
merit of those of whom the common people tell them; and such
40 EMILIO BETTI
falseness to fact as they contain consists simply in failure to give their
subjects their due. So that (Vico concludes), if we consider the matter
well, poetic truth is metaphysical truth, and physical truth which is
not in conformity with it should be considered false. Thence (Vico
infers) springs this important consideration in poetic theory: the true
war chief, for example, is the Godfrey that Torquato Tasso imagines;
and all the chiefs who do not conform throughout to Godfrey are not
true chiefs of war. " Here Vico points out the need to deepen historical
understanding, either by interpreting fables and legends as "ideal
truths" suited to the merit of the personalities which are made into
heroes, or by constructing ideal types reflecting a "metaphysical
truth" rather than a physical one, that is, by constructing a synthesis
of various characteristic traits in a type capable of realizing the
representational efficacy of those historical formations which may be
traced to it. In locating a cognitive value in the construction of such
ideal types, Vico's new science submits to a poetic urge similar to the
one which will later be obeyed, without any awareness of such a
famous predecessor, by the sociology of Max W'eber, in the construc-
tion of his "Idealtypus."13 Now, this need of Vico's for synthesis,
obtained by grouping individual cases into classes, could not fail to
elicit criticism from the modern historicism with its positivistic and
atomistic tendencies. Even a well-disposed critic like Croce
14
observes
that Vico "rather than narrating and representing, classifies." Well
then, we reply: yes, Vico certainly classifies, that is, he reduces to
ideal types the scattered evidence; but, we ask: are representation and
such classification really so antithetical and incompatible as Croce's
historicism (in general, like any atomistic historicism) assumes? The
answer is definitely negative. Moreover, does not Croce himself also
admit a "classification made in the service of profound thought," that
is, in view of a profound understanding, and does he not recognize
elsewhere
15
that "in order to characterize a poem it is necessary to
determine its content or fundamental motive, comparing it to a class
or psychological type, that class and type nearest to it"?
But among modern historians of the "civil world" discovered by G.
B. Vico, perhaps those best qualified to understand the cognitive need
which compels his interest in typical structures and the construction
of ideal types which he postulates, are the historians of jurisprudence
and of religion. The historical jurist needs the representational system
that is juridical dogmatics in order to penetrate to the heart of
problems of social living resolved by the juridical regulation under
consideration, and thence into the thought and historical develop-
ment of jurisprudence, into the interior logic of the solutions adopted.
Principles of New Science of C. B. Vico 41
In the same way, the historical theologian needs that other represen-
tational system which is theological dogmatics in order to com-
prehend the phenomenon of religion, to understand its message and
semanteme, to investigate its sources and texts with the questions
most likely to elicit univocal and conclusive answers. It is not my task
here to discuss to what measure and in what sense it is legitimate and
indispensable to use one dogmatics or the other for a recognitive
function and for the purpose of historical reconstruction.
16
But it is, in
any case, undeniable that the historical question cannot be correctly
formulated by the jurist or the theologian without the assistance of the
correlative dogmatics. Now, to acknowledge the legitimacy of the use
of such dogmatics for an historical function means to acknowledge
hermeneutic, qualifying and diagnostic value, in conceptual catego-
ries which are indeed not oriented toward the individual event, but
toward the typicality of the forms studied. Increasingly, historians are
recognizing the need to orient historical investigation and interpreta-
tion toward typical structures by way of representational systems
(such as a poetic, artistic, economic, sociological dogmatics, etc.),
destined to shed light upon the structural or morphological problems
in a broad sense, of which the forms under consideration constitute a
solution.
17
This is happening not only in the history of juridical and
religious forms, but also in other historical sciences, in the history of
literature, of the arts, of the sciences, of economic theory, of social
structures. I believe this is the preeminent aspect of Vico's historical
hermeneutics and one reason his work is important today.
This aspect likewise explains why Vico's hermeneutics gives such
an eminent place to the doctrine of courses and recurrences. The
meaning of such a doctrine becomes much clearer when one keeps in
mind that Vico's scientific interest does not, indeed, focus on the
individual and the unrepeatable peculiarity of the phenomenon, but
rather on the typical aspect of the phases of civilization and of
historical forms, which are considered as the particular cases of a
recurrent typical structure. Vico points out the presence within
historical phenomenology of certain norms of development, such as
that "which proceeds with the greatest equality and constancy
through the three ages which the Egyptians handed down to us as the
three periods through which the world had passed up to their time,"
that is, the age of the gods, the age of heroes, "the age of men, in which
all men recognized themselves as equal in human nature" [31]. To these
three ages correspond in order "the same three languages that the
Egyptians claimed had been spoken before in their world": (a) the
hieroglyphic or sacred or secret language, suited to the uses of
42
EMILIO BETTI
religion; (b) the symbolic, by means of similitude; and finally (c) the
epistolary or vulgar, which served the common uses of life [32]. Now,
such norms of development inherent in the structure of the forms
examined in their "rise, development, maturity, decline and fall"
(LXVIII; [245, 37, 349, 1096]) recall, on the one hand, the notion of
the "nature of institutions" understood as "their coming into being
(nascimento) at certain times and in certain guises," which, "whenever
the time and guise are thus and so," determines necessarily their
mode of being (XIV, [147]), forbidding them to "settle or endure out
of their natural state" (VIII, [134]). Considered as a group, these
norms remind us that "the order of ideas must follow the order of
institutions" (LXIV, [238]). On the other hand, however, such
norms of development reveal essential differences whenever compared
with the laws of the development of phenomena proper to the physical
world. In these laws, indeed, Vico points out the presence of a kind of
filter, through which the reaction corresponding to the successive
factual situations must pass, almost like an answer (decision or
choice) to the question they have proposed. This filter is "the nature
of peoples, first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally
dissolute" (according to axiom LXVII). It is at the same time
memory, reason, instincts, necessity, preference, prejudice, and habit
formed by previous choices and resolutions. IS Consequently, Vico's
meditations opposed different laws to the laws of phenomenal events
that physico-mathematical science after Descartes had gradually
discovered in that greatest book of the universe which, according to
Galileo, 19 "is written in mathematical language with triangles, circles,
and other geometric figures for its characters, without which means it
is humanly impossible to understand any of its words." Vico's laws
were structural: they established correlations and constants among
typical psychological and social structures and corresponding possi-
bilities of life and development for forms of culture and civilization
which were congruent and coherent with these laws. These were laws of
autonomy and intrinsic coherence having none of the abstract and
general character of natural laws. Rather, they were teleological
principles of internal development, inherent in the creative sponta-
neity of what for Vico is "the nature of nations". Therefore, they were
suitable guides for understanding the development of this "nature of
nations" because of the meaning discovered through them. The
phenomenon of recurrence in the dimension of temporal succession
corresponds perfectly to what, in the dimension of coexistence in
diverse historical settings, is the phenomenon of uniform develop-
ments, parallel to, independent of, and unknown to each other. Thus,
Principles oj New Science oj G. B. Vico 43
in both kinds of phenomena, the uniformity Vico discovered is cer-
tainly not an inert mathematical identity, but rather is essentially a
correspondence, a consonance and analogy, between two spiritual
totalities that are and remain different. In fact, if the creative sponta-
neity that obt'ys its own law of autonomy is an inseparable privilege of
spirituality, it is evidmt that such spontaneity is not compatible with
identity of development, but only with correspondence and analogy.20
Only the criterion of correspondence explains why Vico, in correlat-
ing the character of peoples and climates with the forms and vicissi-
tudes of states, could not stop to examine all the happenings and
circumstances that accelerate the natural, that is typical, course of the
nations, but instead had to choose, by selecting some and skipping
others. For his assumption of a recurrent typicality concerned not the
differences but the uniformities, and certain symptomatic uniformities
rather than others which by contrast seemed irrelevant.
21
In the
system of Vico's hermeneutic theory, the doctrine of recurrences had
to lead above all to the identification and clarification of the dialecti-
cal link of continuity and antinomy between epochs 'when fantasy
prevailed and thost' when intellect prevaikd, betwt'en periods of
spontaneous formation and those of reflexive formation: a dialectic
link, indeed, which permits the reflexive periods to derive from the
spontant'ous ones through a process of increasing complexity, and to
return to the earlier state through a process of degeneration and
decomposition.
22
If this, then, was Vico's assumption, it is immediately evident how
irrelevant Vincenzo Cuoco's criticism of him was.
23
Cuoco claimed
that "nature never resembles itself: man is the one who, in order to
make his observations, invents classes and names." This is a nomina-
listic criticism which fails to recognize the regulating function and
cognitive value of the formulation of types in the field of the moral
sciences. Moreover, Vico is very well aware of dealing with processes
of a spirituality that obeys its own law of autonomy and coherence;
through these processt's of autoktisis this spirituality grows upon itself
and continuously enriches itself with all prior developments. The
doctrine of courses and recurrences is connected by a strong link with
the idea of developments in typical successive steps. It is this link that
clarifies its difference from other ideas: both its antithetical rclation to
the idea of an t'ternal return of the identical, and its lack of connection
to the notion of "indefinite progress," a notion that was to be
elaborated after Vi co during the Enlightenment. Several of Vico's
examples will help us analyse the nature of such a link. Axiom LXV
reads: "This was the order of human institutions: first the forest, after
44 EMILIO BETTI
that the huts, then the villages, next the cItIes, and finally the
academies." And he adds in axiom LXVIII: "In the human race first
appear the huge and grotesque, then the proud and the magnani-
mous, then the valorous and just; nearer to us, imposing figures with
great semblances of virtue accompanied by great vices; still later, the
melancholy and reflective; finally, the dissolute and shameless mad-
men." In each case, Vico presents as examples such types as Polyphe-
mus, Achilles, Scipio, Caesar, Tiberius, and Nero. In axioms XCV
and XCVI, he reconstructs the successive typical attitudes of the
plebs and characterizes them: (a) in the aristocratic commonwealths,
with the desire for equality; (b) in the popular commonwealths,
corrupted into commonwealths of the powerful, by the effort to surpass
their equals; (c) in the dissolute popular commonwealths, with the
tendency to treat laws as party instruments; until, finally (d) "the
plebs, warned by the ills they suffer, and casting about for a remedy,
seek shelter under monarchies" [292]. Vico with analogous criteria
also reconstructs the successive attitudes of the nobles [293]: (a) in the
aristocratic commonwealths; [b] in the popular ones; (c) under the
monarchies. Vico offers as well a subtle essay in sociology in axioms
XCII and CIV. First, he char,!-cterizes the different attitudes of
political groups with respect to the positivism of laws in certain
historical periods (saying that "The weak want laws; the powerful
withhold them; the ambitious, to win a following, advocate them;
princes, to equalize the strong with the weak, protect them"). Then
he goes on to posit that the natural law of the gentes [309J was
instituted by custom in a regime of autonomy. Having been consti-
tuted by custom and not imposed by law (which Dio Cassius says
commands us by force like a tyrant, being formed during a regime of
authority), it "preserves human society," understood as the regula-
tion of life in common "for it was born with these human habits
springing from the common nature of nations." From this Vico infers
[135, 309] that "human nature, in which such customs have their
origin, is sociable by essence (secondo la sua essenza)." This intuition
makes Vico a precursor of the organic conception of the law as
institution and regulation of the life in common ofa social body, to be
developed later by Hauriou and Romano.24 Concluding axiom
LXVIII, Vico shows a clear awareness of the strong link that, in his
elevated vision of historical process, ties the doctrine ofrecurrences to
the idea of continuous development by typical steps. "This, with the
preceding axioms, gives a part of the principles of the ideal eternal
history traversed in time by every nation in its rise, development,
maturity, decline, and fall"[245].
Principles oj New Science oj G. B. Vico 45
Now, if we grant the existence of the strong link just described, it
should also be evident that a phenomenon of recurrence tending to
pick up again on a spiral path an already exhausted development is
entirely different from a monotonous return of the identical. More-
over, the significance of the eternal return as it appears in certain
ancient myths, and as it was later set forth again in the tormented
meditations of Nietzsche, is set in a framework of cosmological and
ethical conceptions that have nothing in common with Vico's elevated
vision of historical process. In particular, within Nietzsche's ethics, in
conformity with its pessimistic tendencies, the idea of an eternal
return intends solely to express a mental and moral attitude that, by
restoring in the most ephemeral things and situations the profile of
eternity, encourages human beings to consider suffering as immanent
to life, and such as to render illusory every hope of escaping it, in
order to induce them to a courageous acceptance of existence in its
perennial antinomy of joy and pain.
25
In the doctrine of the circularity of courses and recurrences, how-
ever, it is useful, rather, to emphasize another aspect that clarifies its
character and position as an integral part of a general theory of
historical interpretation: its difference and independence from a no-
tion which was to be formulated, after Vico, during the Enlighten-
ment and which itself has a wholly illuministic character. I have in
mind the notion of an "indefinite progress," to be found within the
evolution of the human race. Vi co does not ignore the phenomenon of
progress: he mentions it both when speaking of the conditions of his
own epoch and when opposing "developments," as phases in motion,
to the antithetical concept designated by him as "states," [245,349],
that is, modes of being considered in their own permanent aspect. But
the concept of development in itself has no more interest for him than
the concept of state and he gives it no particular emphasis.
26
The
reason for this is a profound one. One need only reflect on the process
of selection by which, from the totality of aspects of a given historical
phenomenon, one derives both the notion of "development" and that
of the "essence" of the phenomenon itself (think of the attempt of
some Protestant historians to identify a kind of "essence" of Chris-
tianity). Both these notions presuppose an individual consideration of
men and events. Within the totality of these men and events, however,
they introduce, through a judgment of value that is more or less
preconceived and arbitrary, a rationalizing distinction of value that
quite often is inspired by a paradigmatic ideological, pedagogical,
propagandistic goal, sometimes more conscious than others.
27
The
notion of "progress" expresses a value judgment about each later fact
46 EMILIO BETTI
in comparison with earlier ones, characterizing its function as irre-
placeable, stimulative, and, in a sense, privileged. The notion of
"essence," in its turn, with an analogous judgment, aims to separate
from those explanations that claim to be the only genuine ones of an
originating kernel, those which are simply a spurious derivation from
it, or a degeneration, or its negation.
28
Now, as we already know,
Vico's scientific interest is indeed focused not on the single event or
the individual figure of the historical formations, but on the typical
structure they present to anyone who contemplates them "sub specie
aeternitatis," in the character of an eternal ideal history of the human
race dictated by Providence. As to the legitimacy of value judgments
in historical matters, we may say that Vi co neither ignores nor
repudiates them; yet he distrusts them insofar as they are subject to
the influence of specific ideologies, and he uses them purely with
contemplative intentions, as a means to historical reconstruction.
How could he otherwise separate the typical from the individual and
identify its level of development? Moreover, Vico's suspicion of the
abuse of value judgments is easily explained. Vico's deep under-
standing of hermeneutics necessarily tells him that "ignorant men
attribute their own nature to things" and make themselves "the rule
of the universe" (axiom XXXII, [120]) and that "whatever pertains
to men but is doubtful or obscure, they naturally interpret according
to their own natures and the passions and customs springing from
them" (axiom LIV, [220]). This is the autocritical attitude towards
value judgment which will be adopted by modern sociology.29 One
need only mention the position taken by one of its greatest repre-
sentatives, Max \\"eber, who, quitt' unaware of such an illustrious
predecessor, though pursuing an interpretation oriented to criteria of
value (wertbedehende Interpretation), consistently attributes to the
"Wertfreiheit" a plausible meaning in the sociological and economic
SCIences.
f ~ in concluding this rapid and rather dry analysis, we consider
Vico's position within the general history of European thought, we
cannot fail to be moved when thinking, reverently, of this giant of
thought who remained solitary in his own (opaque and hostile) time,
a man whose stature, responsiveness to profound spiritual needs, and
increasing modernity would be revealed only in the course of time. In
his period, the dry intellectualism inherent to the Cartesian method,
together with the predominance of the French language, invades all
fields of knowledge and makes the creative spirit sterile; it causes a
preference for physics and mathematics instead of civil and political
Principles of New Science of G. B. Vico
47
doctrine; it diminishes the exercise of experience and therefore makes
education suffer from a lack of concreteness. The scholastic logic of
Port-Royal, as well as analytical, and especially algebraic methods,
seem to Vico to blind the imagination, exhaust the memory, make the
intellect lazy, slow the understanding, dry up the inventive capacity
and "freeze what is generous in the best poetry.":lll
In vain Vico recommends that the study of history be accompanied
by the study of the topics, which in his opinion stimulate the inventive
faculty, since goodjudgment depends on knowledge of the whole and
the topics help to find all that lies within each object: his remains a
"vox clamantis in deserto." His detachment from his time appears all
the greater if we adamantly refuse to interpret his doctrine as in any
way illuministic and immanentistic. Yet how profoundly resonate
Vico's doctrines, even though unconsciously, with the spiritualist
movements of the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries! What a
breath of life they bring to the most significant currents of thought!
His criticism of the mathematical and naturalistic conception derived
from Cartesianism; the legitimacy of historical interpretation in the
unity of philosophy and philology, which he vindicates against intel-
lectualistic and skeptical doubts; the reaffirmed inventive function of
imagination and the intimate link between poetry and history, no
longer disjoined and opposed: these are the many trends which
Romanticism, especially in Germany but also in other countries, will
make its mvn. His conception of language as spontaneous spiritual
energy, rather than an artificial system of signs, will be picked up by
W. V. Humboldt and developed by modern linguistics up to the time
of F. De Saussure. His conception of myth as "sermo symbolicus" to
be traced to the interiority of the soul will find affirmation itself in I C.
Gottlieb J Heyne, Otfried Muller, Andre J olles. His criticism of Pla-
tonic and Grotian construction of a natural law outside of and above
history will be taken up and continued by Savigny and the historical
school of jurisprudence in opposition to legislative revolutionarism
and abstract positivism.
3
! But above all his brilliant hermeneutic
theory, de\'ised for the understanding of "this civil world made by
men," will find unconscious heirs in Schleiermacher and Droysen, in
Dilthey and Simmei, as well as among those modern sociologists who
have drawn their nourishment especially from the historical sense,
from M. 'Neber to H. Freyer. There is no other modern thinker who
can more properly be claimed as the ancestor and teacher of a theory
of interpretation which seeks to draw together all the lines of Euro-
pean hermeneutic thought.
48 EMILIO BETTI
NOTES
**Betti's quotations and references to Vi co in the original are from La Srienza nuova
( I 744). The translation of the passages from Vico is from The New Science of Giambat-
tista Vico, trans. Bergin and Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1968). Paragraph
numbers are given by Betti in the original, and we have followed the tradition of
giving them in square brackets. The few references to Croce, Lafilosofia di Giambattista
Vico (Bari, 1911) can be checked in their English translation by R. G. Collingwood,
The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico (London: Russell & Russell, 1913). We have made a
few slight modifications in citations from Collingwood.-Trans.
I. Cf. Willy Koch, J. G. Herder, Mensch u. Geschichte: sein Werk im Grundriss (Kroner
edition, 1935), 115-20, esp. 119, where the development of Herder's thought is
outlined from his first program for a philosophy of history, traced in the Journal
meiner Reise imJahre 1769, to his piece of 1774, Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur
Bildung der Menscheit, to the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menscheit. This
theme is picked up and developed by Meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus
(1936); he analyzes the process of development of German historical culture
through Moser, Herder, and Goethe and proposes a revision of historicism, in
response to the crisis brought on by the atomistic and relativistic movement (Cf.
my Teoria generale della interpretazione, 28).
2. Croce, in La filosofia di G. B. Vico (1911), 146, acknowledges that the New Science
lacks that particular development of universal history that characterizes Herder's
efforts and that may properly be qualified as "philosophy of history." The novelty
of this development consists in Herder's reflection on the facts of historical
phenomenology themselves. Koch, in the above-mentioned anthology (116),
locates the reason for such conversion (Wendung), from the enunciation of abstract
principles and criteria to the observation of concrete historical material, in
Herder's new personal "elementares Lebensgeftihl" (hierbei setzt er an die Stelle
von Aufgaben Kraefte, von Zwecken Beduerfnisse, von Ordnungen Kaempfe).
3. On such a principle, see my Teoria generale della interpretazione, II. The fundamen-
tal importance of Vi co's discovery for all hermeneutic theory, and in particular for
technical (or morphological) interpretation with a historical function, was pointed
out in our introduction to "Le categorie civilistiche dell'intcrpretazione" (1948),
nn. 109-10, in Ril'. it. sc. giur. (J948): 73ff; cf. "Hermeneutisches l\1anifest," in
Festschrift] Rabel, II, 147.
1. In support of this anti-immanentistic interpretation it is possible to bring up a
passage from Dante's De Monarchia 1,8 (10): "quum totum tum universum nihil
aliud sit quam vestigium quoddam divinae bonitatis: ergo humanum genus bene
se habet et optime, quando secundum quod potest Deo adsimilatur. Sed genus
humanum maxi me Deo adsimilatur quando maxime est unum: vera enim ratio
unius in solo ilIo est."
5. Croce concurs on this point, Lafilosofia di G. B. Vico, 151.
6. Thus Croce, Lajilosofia di G. B. Vico, cf. 1 4 3 f f ~ 232, who is inclined to see in the New
Science "a double aspect, as a philosophy of mind and a rudimentary metaphysic of
thought." But the first of these two aspects is nothing but a corollary of immanent-
istic interpretation, toward which Croce strains to bend Vico's thought. Once this
effort is proved useless, and this interpretation without foundation, then this
characterization also collapses ....
7. On the variolls problems of historical continuity that the cited phenomena
suggest, cf. my lecture "Das Problem der Kontinuitat im Lichte der rechtshistori-
schen Auslegung" (1956), in Vortrage des Instituts fur europeische [sic] Geschichte
(Mainz): 18.
Principles oj New Science oj C. B. Vico 49
8. That in the system of the New Science those that Vi co called "philosophic proofs':
[351] have essentially a gnosiologic value with respect to historical understanding
may be deduced from their character a priori and from their necessity (they had
to, they have to, and they will have to), that is not derived from experience, but
finds secure confirmation within historical experience as rules for knowledge.
9. Cf. Droysen's later position, in Historik, 32; 122-31.
10. About this hermeneutic principle, cf. my Teoria generale della interpreta;::ione, 16a,
307.
11. See Croce, La filosofia di C. B. Vieo, lSI.
12. Croce, Lafilosofia di C. B. Vieo, 153; cf. Droysen, Historik, 19, p. 33.
13. M. Weber, "Die Objektivitiit sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erk-
enntnis" (1901). in flrchiv. j So;::ialwiss. u. So;::ialpolitik, reedited in Cesammelte
AuJsaet;::e ;::ur rrissenschaftslehre, 2d ed., 190ff.
11. Lafilosofia di C. B. Vico, 152.
15. Croce, La Poesia, 2d ed. (1936), 125; 5th ed. (1953), 130. Cf. my Teoria generale
della interpreta::;ione, 532, n. 9. Stadelmann, "Vico," in Crosse Ceschichtsdenker
(1949), 139-40, acknowledges in Vico's "ideal history" an "idealtypische
Grundstruktur aller Voelkergeschichten."
16. See my Teoria genemle della interprelaz)one, 156,469,558, 578-85, 598-600, 634,
813-15, 872ff.; Rothacker, "Die dogmatische Denkform in den Geisteswissen-
schaften," in Ahhandl. der Akademie del' IVissenseh. (1954): 2,13, 259ff; my lecture,
"Di una teoria generale dell'interpretazione," in A.nnali della jacolta di giuris-
pruden;::a della universita di Bari 14 (1957).
17. See my Teoria generale della interpreta::;ione, 30-31: 435-48.
18. Cf. my Teoria generale della interpreta::;ione, 37-b: 592.
19. Galilei, Il Saggiatore, in Opere (national ed.) VI,
20. On the principle of correspondence, see my Teoria genemle della interpreta;::ione,
17-b: 323.
21. In agreement is Croce, La .filosofia di C. B. Vieo, 131; cf. Sirnmel, Probleme del'
Geschiehtsphilosophie, 4t h ed. (1922), 81 ff; Droysen, 65.
22. Croce, Lafilosofia di C. B. Vico, 130; Marcuse, "Das Dreistadien-gesetz bei G. B.
Vim," ill Sehmollers Jahrbucher j Cesetzgeb. Verwaltung u. Volkswirtsch. (1935): 49.
Stadclmann, in Grosse Geschichtsdenker, 140, with some imprecision, seems to find
contradictory the attempt at synthesis attributed to Vi co "wie er die universal-
gcschichtliche Konstruktion einerseits und die typengeschichliche Beobachtung
andererseits miteinancler verknucpfen kOllnte."
2:). According to Croce. !"afilosofia di G. B. Vico, 131.
24. See Romano, L 'Ordinamento giuridiw (1918: 2c1 ed., 1946). C. Schmitt, Drei Arlen
der reehtswiss. Denkens \ 1936), 24f[
25. Cf. my essay, "Per un'intCTpretazione idealistiea dell'etica di F. Nietzsche," in
Rendiconti lstituto Lombardo 77 (1943-44): 205.
26. This was already mentioned by Croce, La .filosofia di C. B. Vieo, 133, but with a
substantially different assessment. Cf. also Croce, La Poesia, 5th ed., 48.
27. The coneept of progress is, instead, operative in Herder, Alensch und Gescliirlile,
163. Its evolution is an integral part of the history of the Enlightenment. Cf.
Croce, Filosofia e storia: saggi (1949), 320-26.
28. Cf. for example, Harnack, Das Hesen des Christentums (1900), and especially P.
Rossi, Lo storicismo tedesco contemporaneo (1956), 457-61.
29. See above all M. Weber, Der Sinn der Wertfreiheit del' so::;iologishen und oekonomisehen
Wissensehajten (1917), reedited in Aufsiit::;e ::;ur WissensehaJtslehre, 2d ed., 475-526.
On the obstacle that every ideology poses to the search for truth, cf. Th. Geiger,
ldeologie und rl'ahrheit (1952), and in the collection fcVeltanschauung, Phil, u. Religion
(1911), B. Grocthuysen, "Das Leben und die Weltanschauung" (ibid., 55) and
50 El\IILIO BETTI
K. Joel, "Weltanschauung und Zeitanschauung" (ibid., 141).
30. On Vico's attitudes towards his times, sec Croce, Lafi[osofia di G. B. Vim, 234-37,
and Gaetano Righi's studies on Vico.
31. On Vico's position as the precursor of the subsequent development of European
thought, see Croce, [,a filosofia di C. B. Vieo, 243-45; 283-96, with a legitimate
vindication in the face of contemporary histories of philosophical thought that
show a prejudiced ignorance of Vico.