Critical Philosophy or Topical Philosophy? Meditations on «De nostri temporis studiorum ratione»

Abstract

This article highlights an aspect of Vico’s thought that has been obscured by idealistic interpretations by philosophers like Croce and Gentile. Grassi presents Vico’s philosophy as a “topical philosophy”, which –in continuity with the Latin humanistic tradition (Cicero, Quintilian, and Boethius) and its Aristotelian origins–, confronts “critical philosophy,” i.e., the modern mathematical rationalism initiated by Descartes that culminates in idealistic rationalism.