On the Study Methods of Our Time

by Giambattista Vico, Elio Gianturco (Translator), Donald Phillip Verene (Translator)

On the Study Methods of Our Tim e remains a key text for anyone interested in the development's of Vico's thought and serves as a concise introduction to his work. Scholars and students in such disciplines as the history of philosophy, intellectual history, literary theory, rhetoric, and the history and philosophy of education will find this volume helpful and fascinating. Giambattista Vico's first original work of philosophy, On the Study Methods of Our Time (1708–9) takes up the contemporary "quarrel between the ancients and the moderns" and provides a highly interesting statement of the nature of humanistic education. This edition makes available again Elio Gianturco's superb 1965 English translation of a work generally regarded as the earliest statement by Vico of the fundamentals of his position. An important contribution to the development of the scientism-versus-humanism debate over the comparative merits of classical and modern culture, this book lays out Vico's powerful arguments against the compartmentalization of knowledge which results from the Cartesian world view. In opposition to the arid logic of Cartesianism, Vico here celebrates the humanistic tradition and posits the need for a comprehensive science of humanity which recognizes the value of memory and imagination.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Education, Italian Literature, Classics

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1709

About the author

Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist. A critic of modern rationalism and apologist of classical antiquity, Vico's magnum opus is titled "Principles/Origins of [re]New[ed] Science about the Common Nature of Nations" (Principi di Scienza Nuova d'intorno alla Comune Natura delle Nazioni). The work is explicitly presented as a "Science of reasoning" (Scienza di ragionare), and includes a dialectic between axioms (authoritative maxims) and "reasonings" (ragionamenti) linking and clarifying the axioms. Vico is often claimed to have inaugurated modern philosophy of history, although the expression is alien from Vico's text (Vico speaks of a "history of philosophy narrated philosophically"). He is otherwise well-known for noting that verum esse ipsum factum ("true itself is fact" or "the true itself is made"), a proposition that has been read as an early instance of constructivist epistemology. Overall, the contemporary interest in Vico has been driven by peculiarly historicist interests as expressed most notably by Isaiah Berlin, Tagliacozzo, Verene, and Hayden White.

Reviews

[feifei]

basically an aims of education address that answers the question, "why don't we have 'renaissance men' anymore?"

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a reading that makes sense and is readable. He bases his argument on the ancients and references Descartes. I thought his explanation on why discussion are better than lectures to be very relevant to today. I love his comment that teaching too much philosophical critisism will "render young people unfit for the pratice of eloquence" and "young minds are too immature, too unsure, to derive benefit" (13) from such teachings. I agree. Do I still qualify as being too young for such exercise? I wish.

[Judy]

"Vico attaches signal importance 'to effort' to personal participation, to individual initiative, in the assimilation......There could be no more explicit rejection of the adjustment theory of behaviorism; no more outspoken support, with two centuries of anticipation, of John Dewey's conception of the dynamic process of learning." p (intro.)
"As for the aim of all kinds of intellectual pursuits, one only is kept in view, one is pursued, one is honored by all: Truth." p. 9
"...in the art of oratory .... it is in tune with the opinions of the audience that we have to arrange our speech." p. 15
"It is quite unfair to blame Cicero for having insisted on many a point of little weight. It was exactly by those points of little weight that he was able to dominate the law courts, the Senate, and (most important of all) the Assemblies of the people. It was by that method that he became the speaker most worthy of being considered a representative of Rome's imperial greatness. It is not significant that it is precisely the orator whose only concern is the bare truth who gets stranded in extricating himself, by paying attention of credibility as well as the facts? " p. 16
"The answer is that eloquence does not address itself to the rational part of our nature, but almost entirely to our passions. The rational part in us may be taken captive by a net woven of purely intellectual reasoning, but the passionate side of our nature can never be swayed and overcome unless this is done by more sensuous and materialistic means. The role of eloquence is to persuade; an orator is persuasive when he calls forth in his hearers the mood which he desires. " p. 38
Vico believed that when academic studies became separated and departmentalized that something was lost.
He also argued that during the Roman times "the aura of secrecy surrounding justice, moreover, aroused in the people the greatest reverence for the law." p. 51
The second read was well worth it - especially since I had begun the New Science. He doesn't really want to overthrow the Cartesian system, but rather to put it in a different educational perspective. His emphasis in the study of eloquence and the importance of law is quite interesting.

[Ethan Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this address, Vico compares the curriculums and techniques of the modern universities against those of the ancients. Vico thinks that we have a lot to learn from the past. I was fascinated by his view of the relationship between rhetoric and science. For Vico, rhetoric is not a disreputable manufacturer of false appearances. It is an essential aid to and preparation for scientific thought. Vico thinks that rhetoric is able to shape the passions and unify them with reason. He is distressed that modern science, following the lead of Descartes' geometric method, has no concern for such things and is thus unable to unify reason with passion and imagination. Whatever the truth of this, it does not seem that the style of academic writing and oratory has improved since Vico's day.

[Brent Pinkall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just brilliant. I come back to this regularly. The problems Vico points out with "modern" education in his day are, for the most part, the same problems with modern education today, and his proposed solutions just as applicable. I especially appreciate his section on recovering "topics" in rhetorical education as a means of cultivating imagination, something I have been laboring stridently to do in my own course as a rhetoric teacher.

[Brayden Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vico is not a fan of Descartes and neither am I so you can understand why I might give this 5 stars.

[Huzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A summary of the book can be found here: https://prismatically.blog/2021/07/29...

[ολτζι · Rating 4 out of 5]

good to start with if one wants to start readin Vico and contemporaries.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vico compares the learning of the “Ancients” and the “Moderns” and devots a couple of long sections to law and legal education. He pleaded, in the face of the newly-predominant Cartesian “method,” for a so-called return to eloquence and for greater attention to the work of memory and imagination in education, foreshadowing what in his later work would become his “new science” of humanity: a combination of philology, philosophy, and history.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly organized and at times obtuse, this text (and others by its author) nevertheless exerts a great influence on historicist literary criticism. If you are not interested in such criticism, don't waste your time.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still as relevant today as it was three centuries ago! On education... what university should be like.