Giambattista Vico's Cyclical View of History
Discussion
From the Wikipedia:
Corsi e ricorsi:
"Vico is often seen as espousing a cyclical philosophy of history where human history is created by man, although Vico never speaks of "history without attributes" (Paolo Cristofolini, Vice Pagano e Barbaro), but of a "world of nations". Which is more, in the 1744 Scienza Nuova (esp. the "Conclusion of the Work") Vico stresses that "the world of nations" is made by men merely with respect to their sense of certainty (certamente), though not fundamentally, insofar as the world is guided by the human mind "metaphysically" independent of its makings (compare opening paragraph of the Scienza Nuova). Furthermore, although Vico is often attributed the expression "corsi e ricorsi" (cycles and counter cycles of growth and decay[13]) of "history", he never speaks in the plural of "the cycle" or of "the counter-cycle" (ricorso) of "human things", suggesting that political life and order, or human creations, are oriented "backward," as it were, or called back to their constitutive "metaphysical" principle.
On present day "constructivist" readings, Vico is supposed to have promoted a vision of man and society as moving in parallel from barbarism to civilization.
As societies become more developed socially, human nature also develops, and both manifest their development in changes in language, myth, folklore, economy, etc.; in short, social change produces cultural change.[14]
Vico would therefore be using an original organic idea that culture is a system of socially produced and structured elements. Hence, knowledge of any society would come from the social structure of that society, explicable, therefore, only in terms of its own language. As such, one may find a dialectical relationship between language, knowledge and social structure.
Relying on a complex etymology, Vico argues in the Scienza Nuova that civilization develops in a recurring cycle (ricorso) of three ages: the divine, the heroic, and the human. Each age exhibits distinct political and social features and can be characterized by master tropes or figures of language. The giganti of the divine age rely on metaphor to compare, and thus comprehend, human and natural phenomena. In the heroic age, metonymy and synecdoche support the development of feudal or monarchic institutions embodied by idealized figures. The final age is characterized by popular democracy and reflection via irony; in this epoch, the rise of rationality leads to barbarie della reflessione or barbarism of reflection, and civilization descends once more into the poetic era. Taken together, the recurring cycle of three ages – common to every nation – constitutes for Vico a storia ideale eterna or ideal eternal history. Therefore, it can be said that all history is the history of the rise and fall of civilizations, for which Vico provides evidence (up until, and including the Graeco-Roman historians)."