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This volume offers a close analysis and textual study of Vico’s complex intellectual trajectory before the Scienze Nuove. Particular attention is devoted to the three books of Diritto Universale, as they mark a significant step in the redefinition of the relationship between metaphysics and philosophical questions of law. In Vico, we witness the connection – rather than the juxtaposition – between natural and historic law, and a new notion of the natural right of people that theorises the historic right of nations. The modernity of Vico’s thought originates from his attempt to unify human and divine knowledge. As thoroughly discussed in this volume, Vico’s conception of the ‘verum’ aims precisely at combining history with those ‘human ideas’ that constitute a human history lived ethically in the experience of religion.
The theme of suicide was of paramount importance in Italy in the long nineteenth century, from the French revolution to the outbreak of World War I. A number of writers, intellectuals, politicians, and artists wrote about suicide, and a very high number of people killed themselves, for several reasons. There were suicides for love and for homeland, suicides for despair, and suicides for ennui. In Italy, once a very traditional, Catholic country, where suicide was very uncommon and rarely treated as a subject of moral theology or literature, it suddenly became extremely widespread. This book provides the first interdisciplinary account of this phenomenon, taken from several angles, including literature, the arts, politics, society, and philosophy, as well as sociology. Its authors rank among the best international specialists on suicide, and the figures dealt with include major intellectuals and writers such as Ugo Foscolo, Emilio Salgari, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Giacomo Leopardi and Carlo Michelstaedter.
The period between the late Renaissance and the early Enlightenment has long been regarded as the zenith of the "republic of letters", a pan-European community of like-minded scholars and intellectuals who fostered critical approaches to the study of the Bible and other ancient texts, while renouncing the brutal religio-political disputes that were tearing their continent apart at the same time. Criticism and Confession offers an unprecedentedly comprehensive challenge to this account. Throughout this period, all forms of biblical scholarship were intended to contribute to theological debates, rather than defusing or transcending them, and meaningful collaboration between scholars of differe...
The open access publication of this book was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. This volume sheds new light on modern theories of natural law through the lens of the fragmented political contexts of Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the dramatic changes of the times. From the age of reforms, through revolution and the ‘Risorgimento’, the unification movement which ended with the creation of the unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861, we see a move from natural law and the law of nations to international law, whose teaching was introduced in Italian universities of the newly created Kingdom. The essays collected here show that natural law was not...
Radical and conservative Enlightenment ideologies began to break apart as the desire for a fair society clashed with questions of religion and secularization. The Enlightenment that Failed shows how ideas promoting the interest of society as a whole came to be almost defeated by ideas buttressing the interests of the privileged few.
That the Enlightenment shaped modernity is uncontested. Yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does. In Democratic Enlightenment, Israel demonstrates that the Enlightenment was an essentially revolutionary process, driven by philosophical debate. The American Revolution and its concerns certainly acted as a major factor in the intellectual ferment that shaped the wider upheaval that followed, but the radical philosophes were no less critical than enthusiastic about the American model. From 1789, the General Rev...
Giuseppe Campani, “Inventor Romae,” an Uncommon Genius offers an account of the life and creations of the most talented maker of optic lenses, silent clocks and projector clocks of the second half of the seventeenth century but also provides you with unique insights into the scientific and technological landscape of baroque Rome and its links to a broader European scene.
Readership: Readers with an interest in the European Enlightenment; intellectual and cultural historians; scholars and students of philosophy.
This book is the first translation from Latin into English of the juridical writings of one of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest figures in Italian philosophy. The complete text is fully annotated, supplied with an extensive introduction, completed by historical and biographical documents, and graced with evocative illustrations. Legal scholars, philosophers, historians, and political scientists throughout the world may now discover a classic by one of the world’s great jurists. Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) spent his entire life in Naples, where he taught at the University of Naples from 1699, the year he won the Chair of Rhetoric and Forensic Eloquence, to 1...
This volume considers Italy's history and examines how Italians became fascinated with the New World in the early modern period.