意大利哲学家詹巴蒂斯塔·维科(Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744)在他的著作中表达了对人类思想、语言和文化进步的历史观，这种历史观预见了黑格尔的进化论观点，马克思等等。他的主要作品是《新科学》(新的科学)，首次出版于1725年，其后分别于1730年和1744年再版。和他更著名的继任者一样，他认为人性不是永恒不变的，而是由特定的社会、宗教和经济环境产生的。

维科出生于那不勒斯，接受过修辞学和中世纪哲学的教育，兴趣广泛，从语言学、诗歌到社会学、神学和法律。在他的早期生活中，他隶属于一群激进的知识分子，他们反对中世纪哲学的中心原则，他们的愿景表达了启蒙运动的理性主义者和经验主义者的价值观，其基础是伽利略·伽利莱(1564-1642)，弗朗西斯·培根和笛卡尔。维科成为那不勒斯大学(University of Naples)的修辞学教授后，加入了另一群思想家——帕拉廷学院(Palatine Academy)，该学院也致力于启蒙运动，致力于将哲学和科学从神学中解放出来。维科做了许多关于人文主义教育的演讲。他的历史诗学影响了爱德华·赛义德和哈罗德·布鲁姆等思想家。

维科解释说，他的《新科学》的目的是研究“神圣天意下各国的共同本质”。1他指出，“公民社会的世界”——包括人类的社会、政治和法律机构——“肯定是由人创造的，因此，它的原则是在我们自己的人类思想的修正中找到的”(NS，第4段)。331,第96页)。他的观点是，哲学家们致力于研究由上帝创造的、只有上帝才能知道的自然。在这样做的过程中，他们忽略了对文明世界的研究，而文明世界是我们自创造以来就可以了解的。然而，和黑格尔一样，他反对斯多葛派和伊壁鸠鲁派提出的观点，即人类历史是随机或盲目的一系列事件。相反，这是上帝的旨意。因此，“新科学”必定是“神意的理性民间神学”，通过对人类制度的分析来证明“神意在历史上的成就”。的确，真正的“智慧”……应该传授关于神圣制度的知识，以便引导人类制度达到最高的善”(NS, para。 364, p. 110). This science, therefore, describes “an ideal eternal history traversed in time by the history of every nation” (NS, para. 349, p. 104). Equally, however, Vico’s “science” will be “a history of the ideas, the customs, and the deeds of mankind,” from which he will attempt to derive “the principles of the history of human nature” (NS, para. 368, p. 112). Like Hegel’s historical scheme, then, and perhaps equally reflective of the Enlightenment ideals imbibed by both writers, Vico’s vision of historical progress allows for a mutual accommodation or equivalence of divine and human agency. Those Enlightenment ideals – pertaining to the primacy of reason, science, and human free will – had begun to undermine notions of history as simply the unilateral unfolding of divine providence. Vico’s thought reflects his affiliation with the early stages of Enlightenment thinking: providence and human agency are brought into an uneasy equivalence; human agency is now admitted into the scheme, making for a precarious balance between human and divine operations. After Hegel, this balance will become permanently upset in favor of human directiveness and natural causality (as divested of its divine expressiveness).

以一种惊人的新方式，维科对诗歌的洞察力构成了他试图解释人类社会起源和发展的一个不可分割的部分。他把埃及人的历史分为三部分:神的时代、英雄的时代和人类的时代。他说，每个时期都有自己的语言、公民社会和政府形式。神的时代代表着人们直接生活在“神的政府”之下，遵循由预言和神谕给出的诫命。这个社区使用的语言是“一种无声的符号和实物语言”，与他们表达的思想有“自然”的联系。维科称之为“象形文字”或“神圣”语言。英雄时代指的是“贵族共同体”，在这个共同体中，“英雄”或那些具有优越性质的人统治平民。这里所使用的“英雄语言”是一种由“比喻、比较、意象、隐喻和自然描述”组成的“象征性”语言。这种制度反过来又给人类时代让路，在这个时代，“所有人都承认自己在人性上是平等的”，并建立了两种形式的“人类政府”，首先是人民联邦，然后是君主政体。这里使用的语言是“书信式的”或“庸俗的”，服务于日常生活的需要。 It was agreed upon by convention, a language of which the common people were “absolute lords”; hence the common people had wrested control of the language and the laws from the nobles (NS, para. 31–32, p. 20).

Vico对诗意语言的看法之一是他的断言，因为对着以前的照相专家，那些信件和语言都在一起，通过三个历史时期共同发展。事实上，在第一期，第一个外邦人（Vico意味着前基本人民）“是诗歌人物谈话的诗人。”与我们的诗歌概念相反，要求提高语言的指挥，Vico在“语言贫困”中看到诗歌的起源，需要“解释和理解”。他说，第一个人说，“有蓬勃的想象力”和“伟大的激情”，但“最虚弱的推理能力”。因此，他们使用了“诗意的人物”，如动画物质，众神和英雄的图像。vico称这些诗意的人物“富有想象力的属，”有效地是寓言或用于解释世界的寓言或神话（NS，第34段，第21页）。因此，Vico说，第一个学习的科学应该是神话或对寓言的解释（NS，第51段，第33页）。下一个英雄，期间使用的“英雄”言论，这是象征性的。在第三个时期，英雄博士对IAMBICS的进展，之后的语言“终于安顿下来”（NS，第34段，第22页）。Vico说这些语言提供了一个“心理文字典”，我们需要才能理解所有其他语言：“这样的词典是学习所有国家历史时代遍历的理想永恒历史所说的语言所必需的”（NS，第35页，第23页）。

维科说，随着历史的发展，智慧本身改变了它的形状。在第一批民族中，智慧“始于缪斯”，而第一批圣人则是实践“占卜科学”的“神学诗人”(NS, para)。361 - 364年,页109 - 110)。这就是“所有民族的粗俗智慧”，包括“在上帝的眷顾下凝视上帝”(NS，第4段)。365,第111页)。人类的制度是由“被认为是神的旨意的明智的符号”来管理的。智慧后来被扩展为包括“给人类的有益建议”和有效的共同体秩序。因此，这种诗意的神学也是一种“民间神学”。366,第111页)。这一“诗意神学”时期之后，就进入了形而上学或“自然神学”时代。 In this second period, wisdom consisted of a “knowledge of man’s mind in God” and the recognition of God as “the source of all truth” and as “the regulator of all good” (NS, para. 365, p. 111). The metaphysics of this period moved beyond the senses and demonstrated providence by the use of reason (NS, para. 366, pp. 111–112). The final period was that of Christian theology, which comprehended the wisdom of the earlier periods and added “the science of eternal things revealed by God,” a science which furnished knowledge “of the true good and true evil” (NS, para. 365, p. 111). Hence Christian theology was “a mixture of civil and natural with the loftiest revealed theology; all three united in the contemplation of divine providence” (NS, para. 366, p. 111). Vico also sees this progression of wisdom or knowledge as moving from the senses (the province of poetry) through reason (the sphere of philosophy) to revelation. Vico here is effectively historicizing Aristotle’s dictum that what is in the human intellect is first received through the senses (NS, para. 363, p. 110; De Anima, 432a7f ). As with Hegel, each stage of Vico’s historical scheme does not simply leave earlier stages behind but incorporates their crucial elements even as it transcends them. Hence the Christian era incorporates both sense and reason even as it moves on to the higher plane of revelation. What is obviously different about Hegel’s scheme, perhaps reflecting the historical points at which these two thinkers intersect with Enlightenment thought (Vico situated in the earlier stages and Hegel positioned subsequent to Enlightenment), is that human thought progresses through religion to its ultimate goal in philosophy.

Vico的系统有趣的是，诗歌是一种通过感官来了解世界的模式，是一种形而上学的形式，并且这种诗歌形而上学的形式在后期保留了一些，理性和揭示的形而上学。vico说，第一个时期的形而上学是“现在没有学到的男人的理性和抽象，而是感到毛毡和想象。。。这种形而上学是他们的诗歌“（NS，第375段，第116页）。这一时期的诗人创造了“根据自己的想法”。。。凭借全部肉体想象力，“换句话说，根据Vico的说法，一种想象力完全基于意义而不是理性的想象力，因此，据vico占据了崇高。这时，诗歌的工作是三倍：“发明崇高的寓言适合受欢迎的理解”; to possess the poet; and “to teach the vulgar to act virtuously” (NS, para. 376, p. 117). In this way, says Vico, the first theological poets “created the first divine fable, . . . that of Jove, king and father of men and gods” (NS, para. 379, p. 118). They believed that Jove commanded by sensible signs, that “such signs were real words, and that nature was the language of Jove.” The science of this language was divination, the science of the language of the gods (NS, para. 379, p. 119). It was fear or terror of the present, says Vico, which made people create gods and the science of divination (NS, para. 382, p. 120). It was in this very fear that poetry had its origins, the fear that gave rise to both religion and the divinatory language of religion. The “proper material” of poetry is “the credible impossibility,” which expresses the impossibility of attributing animation and agency to inanimate objects such as the sun and sky. Hence it was the poets, according to Vico, who founded religions among the earliest people (NS, para. 383, p. 120). Vico stresses that, in attributing the origins of poetry to a deficiency of reasoning power, he is upsetting all previous theories of the genesis of poetry given by Plato, Aristotle, and Italian Renaissance thinkers.

事实上，维科说，最早的诗人所讲的语言，与事物的实际本质相距甚远，“是一种奇妙的语言，利用了被赋予生命的物质，他们中的大多数人都认为是神圣的。”401页127 - 128)。他们用神来解释一切与“天、地、海”有关的事物。维科认为，我们的现代社会使用拟人化来理解精神实体:我们把它们塑造成人类的形象。但最初的诗人，没有我们的抽象能力，把感觉和激情归于无生命的物体(NS, para。402,第128页)。所有的修辞，维科说，可简化为四种基本的修辞:隐喻，转喻，提喻和反讽(NS, para。409,第131页)。这些基本的隐喻是第一个民族的“诗意逻辑”所采取的形式，它们仍然是我们对世界的基本理解的基础。最“必要和频繁”的比喻是隐喻，它“给麻木的事物以感觉和激情”。 Hence metaphor was a means of attributing human capacities to inanimate entities, of commensurating elements of the outside world with our own human capacities, and thereby making narratives or fables of those elements. Hence “every metaphor . . . is a fable in brief.” Significantly, and anticipating some modern theories, Vico attributes to metaphor a seminal function in the creation of philosophy. The metaphors expressing analogies between the external world and the operation of our minds “must date from times when philosophies were taking shape.” Hence these tropes lie at the foundation of human thinking in both arts and sciences (NS, para. 404–405, p. 129). Vico notes the numerous expressions in all languages that attempt to humanize elements of the outside world: we speak of the “brow or shoulder of a hill,” of “a beard of wheat”; we say that the “sea smiles” or that the “wind whistles.” Vico takes such endeavors, embodied in all languages, as an index of the ignorance of the first peoples: “man in his ignorance makes himself the rule of the universe . . . he has made of himself an entire world.” Vico suggests that as our reasoning powers progress, we venture beyond our human constitution into the nature of things themselves, rather than imposing our own human image on the world around us. Vico raises some extremely complex issues here: the role of subjectivity in creating the external world; the nature of human understanding and the temptation to reduce everything outside of us to the mold of our own mental operations; and the poetic, metaphorical basis of our engagement with the world. His scheme here is very different from that of Hegel who, influenced by Kant, saw human knowledge progressing in the degree to which it recognized its own operations in the construction of the external world. Vico seems to suggest that intellectual progress is made as we remove subjective elements from our account of the world.

因为他们没有能力从一个特定的实体中提取品质，维科说，第一批诗人也使用转喻和提喻，两者都帮助他们命名事物的基础上“最特别和最明智的想法”(NS, para。406,第130页)。然而，讽刺——它是“由谎言塑造的……戴着真理的面具的"——不可能在"反思时期"之前开始。第一批诗人拥有“孩童般的纯朴”，“天性真诚”;因此，第一个寓言必须是“真实的叙述”(NS, para。408,第131页)。维科的言论中隐含着这样一个观点:只有在更加优雅的文明中，人们才能远离自己的思想和语言，讽刺才会产生。这四个比喻，维科说，是“所有最早的诗歌国家的必要表达方式。”随着人类思想的进一步发展，这些比喻变成了“比喻性的”，因为可以表示“抽象形式或属”的词语被发明出来了。 409, p. 131). What Vico appears to mean here is that, in their initial use among primitive peoples, the four basic tropes represented the only engagement with the world: this engagement had no underlying literal basis. As the human mind developed, a more rational, scientific, and literal expression of our relationship with the world was established and the tropes were reduced to a figurative status, articulated in relation to this literal level. They remained, however, as integrally related to the literal and endured as its foundation. Thus, Vico attributes two important historical functions to poetry, or what he calls “poetic wisdom”: on it was founded the religious and civil institutions of the first peoples; and it provided the embryonic basis for all further learning.

笔记
1.《Giambattista Vico的新科学》，第三版修订本，Thomas Goddard Bergin和Max Harold Fisch (Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1968)， para。31日,20页。以下引为NS。

类别：文学批评,俄罗斯乌克兰比分直播

标签:启蒙运动,Giambattista维科,象形文字,新的科学,Scienza四星