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Hermeneutics in the Philosophy of Giambattista Vico: Vico's Paradox : Revolutionary Humanistic Vision for the New Age

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On December third, 1968, an inscribed copy of the English translation of Vico's "New Science" was donated to me by Tom Bergin and Max Fish. The occassion was Vico's tri-centennial anniversary of his birth and the setting was Timothy Dwight College at Yale University. Professor Bergin penned the saint's day-San Leucio re--after the date, as it was his custom. In retrospect, that addition seems to take on a unique significance in relation to the central themes discussed in Dr. Paparella's book, particularly the role of the concept of providence, with its complementary and paradoxical poles of transcendence/immanence, in Vico's thought. That centennial, which featured lectures by Elio Gianturco and Robert Caponigri, was taking place just about twenty years after the publication by Cornell University Press of the Bergin translation of Vico's "Autobiography" in 1944 and of "The New Science" by Bergin-Fish in 1948. For some two hundred years Vico's ponderous and seminal work had not been known to the English-speaking world, except in the original Italian, itself no easy reading. Bergin and Fish navigated masterfully the complexities of Vico and added an undeniable authority to Vichian studies and fortunes both in the United States and abroad. Accordingly, it is not surprising that, beginning with those years of the post-centennial, the field of Vichian cultivators in our country has been vast and productive. To be sure we could begin with Auerbach and Wellek, on to Tagliacozzo and Verene, Nelson, Costa, Mazzotta, just to mention a few, and let the reader find many others in Paparella's book. What has been lacking, however, is an easy reader, a well articulated, introductory vademecum for the educated layman not familiar with Vico's vast speculation. In this sense, Paparella's book is extremely important. It surveys the various interrelated holistic aspects of Vico's thought and concerns vis a vis modernity while remaining aware of the desirability of presenting abstract ideas in concrete terms, a la Vico. Dr. Paparella remains constantly aware of the importance of bringing forth the central issues of Vico's "science of humanity" in accordance with a practical vision of contemporary life, such as the exemplum of his family's immigrant saga, as a heuristic device in his search for self-knowledge. As an enthusiastic pilot, he takes us, the readers, to the green fields of Vico's imaginative speculation, engages us in a dialectical interaction with it to let us discover and experience with him its compelling wisdom, and ultimately allow us to make the choices vital to our humanity at the crossroad. In this book we have the distillation of years of interdisciplinary research and reflection at the edge of bounderies where life and knowledge meet most fruitfully. In it Dr. Paparella demonstrates how to live Vico's thought.

This book made me aware that the historical consciousness begins with the Jewish experience of a relatonship to a transcendent God who is also immanent and very involved in human events and reaches its speculative culmination with Giambattista Vico's New Science (1725), the first modern poetical philosophy of history after Augustine's City of God. A book not to be missed.

An eye opener of a book. I learned so much on the philosophy of history and myth and the development of civilizations, and the predicament of the West. I highly reccommend it.