Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is often regarded as the beleaguered,
neglected genius of pre-Enlightenment Naples. His work-though known
to Herder, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, and Michelet-widely and
deeply appreciated only during the twentieth century. Although Vico
may be best known for the use James Joyce made of his theories in
Finnegans Wake, Croce's insightful analysis of Vico's ideas played
a large role in alerting readers to his unique voice. Croce's
volume preceded Joyce's creation of "Mr. John Baptister Vickar" by
a quarter century. During the last 25 years Vico's ideas about
history, language, anti-Cartesian epistemology, and rhetoric have
begun to receive the recognition their admirers have long claimed
they deserve. Increasing numbers of publications appear annually
which bear the stamp of Vico's thinking. Even if he is not yet so
renowned as some of his contemporaries, such as Locke, Voltaire, or
Montesquieu, there are good reasons to believe that in the future
he will be equally honored as a cultural theorist. As a theorist of
historical process and its language, there is no more innovative
voice than his until the twentieth century-which explains in part
why such figures as Joyce and R.G. Collingwood freely drew on
Vico's work, particularly his New Science, while creating their
own. If Vico was Naples' most brilliant, if uncelebrated, citizen
prior to the Enlightenment taking hold in Southern Italy, then
Croce (1866-1952) is surely the city's most important thinker of
modern times, and the single indispensable Italian philosopher
since Vico's death. When a genius of Croce's interpretative
prowess, evaluates the work of another, it is inevitable that an
explosive mixture will result. A great virtue of this book is its
fusion of Croce's unique brand of idealism and aesthetic philosophy
with Vico's epistemological, ethical, and historical theories. If
Vico's theory of cyclical changes in history, the corsi e ricorsi,
remains fruitful, it might be argued that Croce's evaluation of his
countryman' ideas represented the next turn of the philosophical
wheel toward enlightenment.
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