Nature and Civilization in the Scienza Nuova: No

Abstract

In investigating Vico’s masterpiece and comparing it with modern and contemporary thought, starting from the connotations of the term “human nature,” we find ourselves, together with Vico, within a very broad horizon that exposes the weaknesses and limitations of some of the most esteemed philosophies. Vico avoids both the superficiality of relativism and the metaphysical (and ideological) substantialisms implied by the philosophical use of the term “human nature.” For this reason, human nature must be understood, in a processual way, as civilization, according to the genetic modalities proper to the Neapolitan thinker, which endow emerging humanity with universal and common features, without, however, constituting a more stable or “eternal” guarantee or foundation for its own constitutive process.