A “differential of history”. Vico, Tolstoy, Deleuze

Abstract

This article examines some historical-theoretical topics that link the philosophy of history of Giambattista Vico with postmodern thought, particularly that of Gilles Deleuze. The supporting concept of our work is that of differential as developed by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace to build, from its mathematical meaning, an original theory of history as an integration of the multiplicity of human drives. However, Vico, unlike Deleuze, does not directly use this concept, which is theoretically and historically relevant either to understand how Vico, based on the physical-metaphysical considerations implemented in the De antiquissima around the concepts moment and effort and his confrontation with Stoic and Epicurean physics, he develops his original idea of a providential circularity of history, that is, for the construction, in Deleuze, of a philosophy of difference opposed in the foundations to that of Vico, but surprisingly close to it with regard to the authorial and conceptual palimpsest that the philosopher uses.