Thesis ID: CBB262339207

The Occasions of Community: Giambattista Vico and the Concept of Society (2015)

unapi

This dissertation provides a systematic account of the development of Giambattista Vico’s conception of society as it is presented primarily in his Inaugural Orations, Universal Law, and New Science. Three claims remain constant between these three works: (1) Humans are essentially social, (2) Humans do not cause society, but rather occasion it, and (3) the task of the philosopher is to promote humanity’s social nature in the face of the otherwise destructive and anti-social impulses brought about as a result of original sin. Many additional features of Vico’s conception of society anticipate the modern conception of society that made the social sciences possible. As with modern conceptions of society, Vico’s is as a thing separable both from the state and from the individuals that make it up. But Vico’s theological commitments prevent him from being interested in society for its own sake. A defining feature of the modern concept of society is a secularism that finds explanations for social phenomena in society itself. Vico is unwavering in his theological commitments. For Vico, society is not an active agent that produces social effects, but is rather a passive aggregate of individuals that is acted upon by a force that is outside of itself: Divine Providence. For this reason, it is argued that Vico’s conception of society is not yet modern.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB262339207/

Similar Citations

Chapter Carlos Fraenkel; (2010)
Spinoza on Philosophy and Religion: The Averroistic Sources (/isis/citation/CBB006389757/)

Chapter Enrico Giannetto; (2009)
La Fisica di Spinoza fra Descartes e Newton e la sua influenza su Einstein (/isis/citation/CBB550074250/)

Book John D. Schaeffer; (2019)
Giambattista Vico on natural law : religion, rhetoric, and sensus communis (/isis/citation/CBB215320931/)

Book Jolley, Nicholas; (2013)
Causality and Mind: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001553076/)

Article Nolan, Lawrence; (2012)
Malebranche on Sensory Cognition and “Seeing As” (/isis/citation/CBB001210527/)

Book Pyle, Andrew; (2003)
Malebranche (/isis/citation/CBB000301900/)

Book Donato, Maria Pia; Kraye, Jill; (2009)
Conflicting duties: Science, medicine, and religion in Rome, 1550--1750 (/isis/citation/CBB001181464/)

Article Daniel Canaris; (2019)
China in Giambattista Vico and Jesuit Accommodationism (/isis/citation/CBB119214908/)

Book Roger Wagner; Andrew Briggs; (2016)
The Penultimate Curiosity: How the Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions (/isis/citation/CBB567986895/)

Book Granada, Miguel A.; (2001)
Cosmología, teología y religión en la obra y en el proceso de Giordano Bruno (/isis/citation/CBB000101281/)

Book Paolo Zellini; (1999)
Gnomon. Una indagine sul numero (/isis/citation/CBB253354203/)

Book Paolo Zellini; (2010)
Numero e logos (/isis/citation/CBB843348217/)

Book Leonardo Ambasciano; D. Jason Slone; Donald Wiebe; Luther H. Martin; Radek Kundt; William W. McCorkle Jr; (2018)
An Unnatural History of Religions: Academia, Post-truth and the Quest for Scientific Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB840908594/)

Book William Gibson; Dan O'Brien; Marius Turda; (2019)
Teleology and Modernity (/isis/citation/CBB989510245/)

Authors & Contributors
Generali, Dario
Zellini, Paolo
Collis, Robert
Donato, Maria Pia
Fraenkel, Carlos
Giannetto, Enrico
Journals
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Intellectual History Review
Journal of the History of Philosophy
Publishers
Routledge
Adelphi
Mimesis
Oxford University Press
University of Toronto
Bloomsbury Academic
Concepts
Philosophy
Science and religion
Religion
Philosophy of science
Natural philosophy
Theology
People
Malebranche, Nicolas de
Descartes, René
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von
Newton, Isaac
Spinoza, Baruch
Vico, Giambattista
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
19th century
20th century
16th century
21st century
Places
Europe
Italy
Mesopotamia
Rome (Italy)
China
North America
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
School of Milan
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment