The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico (Cornell Paperbacks) - Softcover

Vico, Giambattista

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080149088X ISBN 13: 9780801490880

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1963

Synopsis

The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico is significant both as a source of insight into the influences on the eighteenth-century philosopher's intellectual development and as one of the earliest and most sophisticated examples of philosophical autobiography. Referring to himself in the third person, Vico records the course of his life and the influence that various thinkers had on the development of concepts central to his mature work. Beyond its relevance to the development of the New Science, the Autobiography is also of interest for the light it sheds on Italian culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Still regarded by many as the best English-language translation of this classic work, the Cornell edition was widely lauded when first published in 1944. Wrote the Saturday Review of Literature: "Here was something new in the art of self-revelation. Vico wrote of his childhood, the psychological influences to which he was subjected, the social conditions under which he grew up and received an education and evolved his own way of thinking. It was so outstanding a piece of work that it was held up as a model, which it still is."

About this title

About the Author:

Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was a leading Italian intellectual of the Enlightenment.

Max Harold Fisch (1901-1995) was an internationally renowned scholar and recognized especially for his work on Charles S. Peirce and Giambattista Vico. Fisch received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1928.

Thomas Goddard Bergin (1904-1987) was the Sterling Professor of Romance Languages at Yale University.

Review:

"Giambattista Vico, the greatest philosopher of the eighteenth century, is generally considered the founder of the modern philosophy of history.... This autobiography contains not only an account of the basic facts of Vico's personal and professional life, but also a good deal of interesting information concerning his intellectual background and the genesis of his thought. It is hence a good introduction to his major philosophical work, the New Science."

(Philosophical Review)

"The Autobiography... as a general survey of Vico's ideas and of the divergences between his theory of society and those of his contemporaries. Especially interesting are Vico's comments on mathematical reasoning and on the difference between the mathematical and historical sciences.... The translators are to be congratulated upon an excellent performance of a task that was eminently worth doing."

(Journal of Philosophy)

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1963
• ISBN 10: 080149088X
• ISBN 13: 9780801490880
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248