Giambattista Vico Quotes

A collection of quotes by Giambattista Vico.

Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, and historian. He is best known for his major work, "New Science," which explores the philosophy of history and human civilization. Vico made significant contributions to the areas of epistemology, philosophy of language, and social theory. He proposed the concept of "verum-factum" to emphasize the notion that humans can only truly understand what they create themselves. Vico's ideas challenged the prevailing Cartesian rationalism and had a profound influence on subsequent philosophers, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to ea

Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.

Giambattista Vico

Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poet

Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.

Giambattista Vico

The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then beni

The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.

Giambattista Vico

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.

Giambattista Vico

Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an en

Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race.

Giambattista Vico

It is true that men themselves made this world of nations...

It is true that men themselves made this world of nations... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.

Giambattista Vico

Nationalism Nation Nationality

The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words

The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.

Giambattista Vico