Vico nello storicismo tedesco

The paper deals with the reception of Vico's thought in the German Historicism, moving from Friedrich Meinecke's distinction between the two phases of Historicism. The first and nascent phase, in the XIX century, regards authors like Hamann, Herder, Goethe and Friedrich August Wolf, who are characterized by a sporadic knowledge of Vico's works, that leads them to vague and unsystematic insights about their consonance with some aspects of his philosophy. The second phase, in the XX century, is that of the "critical" Historism, whose tenet is the conjunction of development and individuality. While agreeing on the immanentistic interpretation of Vico's Providence, the systematic readings of Vichian philosophy by Meinecke, Troeltsch, Auerbach and Löwith differ in ascribing to Vico either the developmental or the individualizing aspect of the historicist conceptual framework. Thus, Vico's interpretation becomes the litmus test for the difficulty met by Historicism in balancing the continuity of history with the appearance of novelty. On the other side, an analysis of Vico's own understanding of historical continuity reveals a deeper divergence, that can unify the different historicist receptions of his thought, bringing to the fore the original topos of the divide between the Catholic and the Protestant mindsets.

L'articolo analizza criticamente la lettura di Vico in varie fasi dello storicismo tedesco, e le differenze tra la filosofia della storia di Vico e l'approccio storicistico