The New Map of the World:
The Poetic Philosophy of Giambattista Vico
Giuseppe Mazzotta

Cloth | 1998 | This book is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-00180-7
286 pp. | 6 x 9 | 1 halftone

| Reviews | Table of Contents

For today's readers, the great Italian philosopher of history Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) can be startlingly relevant to the social and educational divisiveness we confront at century's end: here Giuseppe Mazzotta, one of the leading Italianists in the United States, shows how much Vico, properly read, can bring to an understanding of contemporary social problems. To explore Vico's body of thought in all its monumental complexity, Mazzotta highlights the place of poetry, or "writerliness," in Vico's educational project, which links literature, history, religion, philosophy, and politics. The New Map of the World is the first book since Benedetto Croce's The Philosophy of G. B. Vico (1911) to interpret the immense range of Vico's creativity.

Beginning with Vico's autobiography, Mazzotta explains that Vico's heroic attempt to unite the arts and sciences was meant to offer a desperately needed political unity to modern society. In contrast to past thematic studies of Vico that focus on a single one of his ideas, The New Map of the World explores the vital interaction of the issues that fascinated him: his educational and political project, his sense of the necessity for a new way of conceiving authority, and his belief in the power of poetry. Mazzotta ends by examining Vico's awareness of the tragic limits of politics itself.

Review:

"Mazzotta has presented us with a fascinating portrait of a complex philosopher. . . . Mazzotta's sure understanding of the texts at issue, coupled with a forceful prose style, makes this book required reading for anyone trying to understand Vico's encyclopedic thought."--James B. South, International Philosophical Quarterly

Endorsements:

"Written with disarming clarity and simplicity. It is a model of unaffected brio."--Angus Fletcher, City University of New York

"Too many Vichian studies have forced the Scienza nuovo into a philosophical straightjacket. It is time that scholars attended to the substance of Vico's philological, linguistic, and literary learning, since that is where most of its novelty is to be found. Mazzotta has performed this task with ingenuity, eloquence, and striking insights."--Donald Kelley, Rutgers University

Table of Contents

Subject Areas:

• Comparative Literature
• Philosophy
• Political Science and International Relations

File created: 4/23/2008

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