Dialog on the Translation of Giambattista Vico’s New Science (1725) by Jürgen Trabant with Sabine Marienberg

Giambattista Vico is the first thinker who, in his so-called »First New Science« of 1725, consistently considered the corporeality of the human relation to the world as well as the notion of animate, active matter.

It would be too narrow to see this book only as a first edition of the later »New Science« of 1744, for it is a work in its own right and a major work of the emblematic philosopher of Italy. MoA Member Jürgen Trabant, renowned linguist and recognized Vico specialist, has now translated it into German for the first time.
The »New Science« outlined here aims to make the manmade historical and political world philosophically intelligible. Unlike Descartes, who gains certainty from pure thought alone, Vico finds certain knowledge in a comprehensive consideration of fantastic and bodily human creations. The diversity of cultural signs, the development of language, and the history of political institutions thus become scientifically approachable. Vico's philosophy is philosophy of history, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science all in one. His radical turn of meta-physics into body-based meta-politics lays the foundations of modern cultural science.

In the video record, you can follow the book presentation with Jürgen Trabant in conversation with Sabine Marienberg as well as an introduction by Sara Fortuna, which took place at the Italian Cultural Institute of Berlin.

Please note that the introduction is in Italian, from about minute 18 the discussion takes place in German.