The Italian Job:: Giambattista Vico at the Origin of Edward Said’s Humanism

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it will try to clarify the importance of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) in shaping Edward Said’s categories. Second, it will shed light on the theoretical importance of such genealogy. From the philological point of view, it is important to show how profound Said’s knowledge of Vico’s work is. Therefore, this paper will follow references to Vico within the whole of Said’s work, from late the sixties ones to the posthumous Humanism and Democratic Criticism. As far as theory is concerned, understanding Said’s use of Vico’s concepts explains why Said refers to his own work with the controversial term “humanism.” Vico, critiquing modernity from the onset, is the basis on which Said built a new critical humanism. In particular, Said uses the very essential elements of the philosophy of Vico: the importance of the body as the source of humanity, the critique of modern abstractions, the idea that man knows what he makes, and the idea of the historicity of every human invention and construction

Edward Said y Palestina: archivo, narración, filología

El pensamiento de Said se debe entender en la relación entre la parte más teórica, la parte crítica de obras como Orientalismo, y la parte práctica, su actividad como militante de la causa palestina. La contribución de Said a la constitución de un archivo palestino es parte del intento de Said de cerrar la distancia entre la dos vertientes de su pensamiento. La narración de la lucha palestina no es un intento de hablar "en lugar de otro" sino parte de la formación de una subjetividad palestina que se manifiesta en su autonarración. La filología es la ciencia que Said imagina capaz de investigar ese tipo de producción de subjetividad. La filología, en Said, es un estudio de la palabra que tenga en cuenta no solo la naturaleza racional de la palabra, sino su corporeidad y sus facultades imaginativas e inventivas.Fil: Scalercio, Mauro. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Filosofía "Dr. Alejandro Korn"; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Il futuro come problema politico. Francis Bacon e Giambattista Vico come matrici del moderno

[Future as a political problem. Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico as matrix of modernity]. This essay shows the importance of the theme of the future as a political problem in Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico. Bacon theorizes the possibility to control the future through experiments and the resulting natural laws. The whole construction of society has to be planned in order to achieve this end. In Vico the future appears to be a purely political problem, since the control of the future deals with the possibility to establish the rules that control the actions of the social group. Considering the control of the future as the core of political modernity allows to appreciate the crucial differences between Bacon and Vico, on one side, and Hobbes, who represents the “canonical” political modernity, on the other side. Hobbes’ Leviathan presents the social contract as the closure of political temporality. The theme of the future as a political problem allows then to understand the plurality of modernity, as it emerges from the different proposed solutions: a technical-scientific one in Bacon, a contractualistic one in Hobbes and a mythopoetic one in Vico

Las estructuras de la temporalidad histórica de Francis Bacon : Futuro, esperanza, progreso

En este texto se definen las estructuras de la temporalidad histórica en el pensamiento de Francis Bacon, en particular analizando su concepción del futuro. La tesis que se plantea es que esa estructura temporal es consecuencia directa de la relación entre poder y saber que, a su vez, conlleva la cuestión de la controlabilidad del futuro. Analizar estos temas puede iluminar cuestiones claves de la filosofía de Bacon, en particular por lo que concierne la relación entre la dimensión científico-epistemológica y la dimensión política del pensamiento de Bacon y su relevancia en el desarrollo de la primera modernidad.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Relativismo y alteridad en Vico. Reflexiones al margen de Isaiah Berlin

En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la interpretación que Isaiah Berlin presenta de la obra de Vico. En particular se analizará la epistemología viquiana, a la luz de la teoría berliniana de un Vico pluralista cultural. A partir de las intuiciones de Berlin, se abordará el tema de cómo Vico dibuja su método para la comprensión de las otras culturas, mostrando también algunas imprecisiones de la interpretación berliniana de Vico.The aim of this paper is to critically analyze Berlin’s interpreta- tion of Vico’s work. More specifically, it examines Viconian epistemology under the Berlinean assumption of Vico as a cultural pluralist. Starting from Berlin’s intuitions this article shed light the way Vico sketches his method in order to understand other cultures, trying also to clarify some misunderstanding of Berlin’s interpretation

Una prospettiva vichiana sul pensiero postcoloniale. Umanesimo e storia da Said a Vico

In his critique of Western of ethno-centrism and representations of the East, Edward Said elaborates an idea of humanism, based largely on the philosophy of Giambattista Vico. This humanism is an alternative to those based on the subject of European modernity and on philosophy of history. According to Said, the alleged rationale nature of “man” hides the "will to power" that Europe is is deployed with the rest of the world. According to Said,re-read Vico permits to think of a subject and a story that should be determined historically and materially, through social struggles for recognition and the development of language and communication mode, and even poetic symbolic. In this work we will try to return to Vico to radicalize Said's thought, but above all we will try to draw from the Vico directions for a critical theory adequate to the contemporary.Nella sua critica all'etnocentrismo delle rappresentazioni Occidentali dell'Oriente Edward Said elabora una idea di umanesimo basata in larga parte sulla filosofia di Giambattista Vico. Tale umanesimo vuole essere una alternativa a quello fondato sul soggetto della modernità europea, in particolare della filosofia della storia. Secondo Said la pretesa natura razionale di tale soggetto nasconde la “volontà di potenza” che dall'Europa si è dispiegata nei confronti del resto del mondo. Secondo Said il richiamo a Vico permette di pensare un soggetto e una storia che siano determinati storicamente e materialmente, attraverso lotte sociali per il riconoscimento e l'elaborazione di linguaggi e modalità di comunicazione anche poetiche e simboliche. In questo lavoro cercheremo di ritornare a Vico per radicalizzare il pensiero di Said, ma soprattutto cercheremo di trarre da Vico le indicazioni per una teoria critica adeguata alla contemporaneità

Dominating nature and colonialism: Francis Bacon’s view of Europe and the new world

Francis Bacon’s works are pervaded by the firm belief that he was living in a new epoch. He thought of this epoch as based on knowledge and mechanical arts, which would permit dominion over nature. This dominion arises from mankind’s taking concrete action to improve the living conditions of humanity. Defining the nature of this action leads to individuate a plural historical subjectivity in Bacon’s thought. The different kinds of agency, and different kinds of technologies, define peoples in ethnological and spatial terms. Imperiality, that is human dominion over nature, implies the necessity of improving the conditions of the whole mankind, in a manner that opens the way of thinking in which ‘backward’ peoples are subject to this action of improvement. Colonialism is strictly related to imperiality. The idea of colonialism, in the New World in particular, rests on the assumption that human race can improve its living conditions, exercising power over nature. Therefore, imperiality and colonialism are not simply a tool of a British dominion, but elements of the new epoch that Bacon is theorising. In this sense, imperiality and colonialism are part of the philosophical structure of Bacon’s modernity.Fil: Scalercio, Mauro. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Future as a political problem: Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico as matrix of modernity

In questo saggio si illustra l’importanza del tema del futuro come problema politico nel pensiero di Francis Bacon e Giambattista Vico. Bacon teorizza la possibilità di controllare il futuro attraverso l’esperimento, e la conseguente scoperta delle leggi naturali. La costruzione della società deve dipendere da questi fini. In Vico il futuro appare come problema prettamente politico, perché il suo controllo si presenta come possibilità di dire le regole che controllano l’agire sociale dei membri del gruppo sociale. Il tema del controllo del futuro permette di considerare le differenze cruciali rispetto ad un’altra via, quella “canonica” della modernità, ossia la via hobbesiana, che presenta il Leviatano come chiusura dell’ordine temporale basata sul contratto sociale. Il tema del futuro come problema politico è allora una delle possibilità per comprendere la pluralità della modernità in base alla soluzione proposta: tecnico-scientifica nel caso di Bacon, contrattualistica nel caso di Hobbes e mitopoietica quella di Vico.This essay shows the importance of the theme of the future as a political problem in Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico. Bacon theorizes the possibility to control the future through experiments and the resulting natural laws. The whole construction of society has to be planned in order to achieve this end. In Vico the future appears to be a purely political problem, since the control of the future deals with the possibility to establish the rules that control the actions of the social group. Considering the control of the future as the core of political modernity allows to appreciate the crucial differences between Bacon and Vico, on one side, and Hobbes, who represents the “canonical” political modernity, on the other side. Hobbes’ Leviathan presents the social contract as the closure of political temporality. The theme of the future as a political problem allows then to understand the plurality of modernity, as it emerges from the different proposed solutions: a technical-scientific one in Bacon, a contractualistic one in Hobbes and a mythopoetic one in Vico.Fil: Scalercio, Mauro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Acerca del humanismo en Edward Said

The presence of the idea of humanism in Edward Said’s work is one of the most important problem of his thinking. In fact, the presence of both the reference to “humanist” legacy and a style of thinking rooted in French Post-structuralism  appears as an unsolvable conundrum.In order to fully understand Saidian humanism it is important, first, to situate it in the postcolonial background. In particular, it must be grasped the relation between humanism and anti-colonial struggles. From a theoretical point of view, the best way to study the meaning of humanism is to start from Humanism and Democratic Criticism, that allows to analyse retrospectively the whole of Said’s works, showing the hidden coherence of his thought. Said’s theoretical elaboration, always very concise and sometimes unsatisfactory, is grounded mainly on two assumptionas inspired by the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico.  First, the idea that human beings make their own history, and since they make it they can know it. Second, is that the “human nature” is constitutively undetermined. These assumptions permit to understand Saidian humanism, from a philosophical point of view, as a “humanism without man”, i.e a humanism that renounce to elaborate any onological-anthropological idea of “Man”. This idea cannot be “fixed” making it more inclusive, but the idea of “humanity” may be the basis of a non-binary and non-discriminative postcolonial thinking, if we accept the idea that humanity cannot be defined by any type of apriori rationality. La presencia de la idea de humanismo en la obra de Edward Said es uno de los problemas más grandes del pensamiento del intelectual palestino-estadounitense. De hecho, parece una aporía irresoluble la presencia en el pensamiento de Said de un estilo de pensamiento que tiene sus raíces en el post-estructuralismo francés y de una reivindicación de la herencia “humanista”. Para entender el humanismo saidiana es importante, en primer lugar situar el humanismo saidiano en el ámbito poscolonial. En particular, es importante comprenderla relación entre el humanismo y las luchas anticoloniales. Desde un punto de vista teórico, la mejor manera de enfrentar el problema de humanismo es a partir del libro Humanismo y crítica democrática, que permite de analizar retrospectivamente toda la producción cultural de Said, desvelando la coherencia oculta de su pensamiento. La elaboración teórica de Said, que siempre es muy conciso y a veces insatisfactoria, se funda esencialmente sobre dos supuesto derivado del filósofo napolitano Giambattista Vico. El primer presupuesto se basa sobre sobre el principio clave de Vico, o sea la idea que los seres humanos hagan su propia historia y, por hacerla, la puedan conocer. El segundo supuesto teórico saidiano, igualmente derivado de Vico, es la constitutiva indefinición de la “naturaleza humana”. A través de estos presupuestos, el humanismo saidiano se puede entender, por su construcción filosófica,como “humanismo sin hombre” en el sentido que renuncia a establecer cualquier definición ontológico-antropológica del “Hombre”. La idea de hombre no se puede rescatar simplemente haciéndola más inclusiva, pero la idea de humanidad sí se puede tomar como base de un pensamiento poscolonial, no binario y no excluyente, si se acepta que la humanidadno se puede definir a través de ningún tipo de racionalidad a priori. 

Povera e oppressa plebe: Corpo, conflitto e immaginazione nella teoria politica vichiana

In questo articolo, prendendo le mosse dal legame strettissimotra la dimensione della sofferenza fisica inflitta ai famoli e la loro azione politica, e tra l?immaginazione e il modo in cui la sofferenza diventa legame sociale, attraverso il mito, e conseguentemente possibilità di pensare l?azione di un gruppo, si sostiene ilcarattere cruciale della figura del povero ne La Scienza Nuova, perché il povero è la sede di quel plesso costituito da corpo-immaginazione-mito-politica che è ciò che permette a Vico di contestare alla modernità politica, in particolare ai suoi avversari giusnaturalisti e contrattualisti, l?origine razionalistica della politica ma anche la concezione astratta della razionalità, della giustizia, dell?uguaglianza.Fil: Scalercio, Mauro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentin