On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians - by Giambattista Vico (Paperback)

About the Book

A treatise of vital importance for an understanding of Vico's epistemology, psychology, and philosophy of mathematics.

Book Synopsis

On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians, originally published in 1710, is widely regarded as Vico's most significant work after the New Science and the Autobiography. Subtitled "The Book of Metaphysics," it was one of three planned volumes of a larger work that was never published, and it marks Vico's transition from rhetorician to philosopher of historical knowledge.

This edition incorporates translations from the Italian of a contemporary review and Vico's responses, published in 1711 and 1712. L. M. Palmer's translation helps make more accessible a treatise of vital importance for an understanding of Vico's epistemology, psychology, and philosophy of mathematics.

Review Quotes

This work gives significant insight into the early thoughts of one of the first truly modern thinkers in Western intellectual tradition. Palmer's excellent introduction illustrates its historical significance by placing it in a wider context.

Until now, the Latin treatise in which Vico first set forth his theory of knowledge and of metaphysics, On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians, has never had a complete rendering into English. Lucia Palmer in this volume has provided a welcome translation not only of the treatise, but also of a series of exchanges concerning it (1711-12) between Vico and the Giornale de' letterati d'Italia. It contains the fullest statement of Vico's principle that the true and the made are interchangeable.

About the Author

The late L. M. Palmer was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware.