Conclusion

Abstract

There is at present a great deal of interest in the work of Giambattista Vico. Historians and philosophers, however, have tended to focus their attention on Vico’s speculative philosophy — an ideal, eternal pattern which dictated both the development and decline of nations, to the relative neglect of his, admittedly sometimes flawed, efforts to apply his ideas regarding historical knowledge. Vico’s contribution to Western thought does not depend solely upon the historical cycles or on any other rather simplistic means of reading the past backwards.¹