Giambattista Vico, "The New Science" | A Philosophy of the History of Human Ideas and Institutions

In this lecture, I discuss some of the key points and passages of Giambattista Vico's "The New Science" (1725). This text is crucial in the development of the philosophy of history as a formal philosophical pursuit. Challenging philosophy to wed itself to philology, historicizing its otherwise abstract judgements and seeing them as embodied in the changing nature of human actions and institutions, Vico attempts to draw a systematic account of the development of human civilization. Ordered into a threefold cycle of gods-heroes-men and grounded in the institutions of religion, marriage, and burial of the dead, Vico draws an essentialist picture of the common conceptual vocabulary necessary for the development of human language and society. Enjoy! Music is Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Part III. Lever du jour by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic https://youtu.be/Y12GB1aRSk0 Join the channel for $5/month to gain access to, among other things, a monthly philosophy Zoom tailored to your educational needs! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnIzanS142TtfFfCPSEkd0A/join