Argues that Vico envisioned a non-Cartesian version of modernity, where praxis, rather than reason, drives human history.
Explores the possibility that Vico envisioned a non-Cartesian version of modernity, where praxis, rather than reason, drives human history. This alternative modernity has directly or indirectly influenced some of the most significant philosophical traditions of the past two centuries and is still relevant today.
31st July 2025
Hardcover
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Summary
Argues that Vico envisioned a non-Cartesian version of modernity, where praxis, rather than reason, drives human history.
Explores the possibility that Vico envisioned a non-Cartesian version of modernity, where praxis, rather than reason, drives human history. This alternative modernity has directly or indirectly influenced some of the most significant philosophical traditions of the past two centuries and is still relevant today.
Description
Published in 1710, Giambattista Vico's groundbreaking On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians argued, against Descartes, that knowledge is more about making and producing than speculating and theorising. Historicised activities precede any kind of ethereal abstraction. Maurizio Esposito situates Vico's epistemology of praxis within the longstanding tradition of the maker's knowledge perspective and shows how Vico transformed the ancient idea that knowledge is a form of making into a humanist and existential principle. Humans do not merely fabricate tools and transform nature; they also create symbolic spaces in which different forms of thinking and understanding evolve. Esposito explores the possibility that Vico envisioned a non-Cartesian version of modernity, where praxis, rather than reason, drives human history. This alternative modernity has directly or indirectly influenced some of the most significant philosophical traditions of the past two centuries and is more relevant today than ever.
About the Author
Maurizio Esposito teaches History of Science in the Department of Philosophy 'Piero Martinetti' at the University of Milan. He has published widely on the history and philosophy of natural and human sciences.
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31st July 2025
