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Democracy and the Vernacular Imagination in Vico’s Plebian Philology
- Author(s):
- Rebecca Ruth Gould (see profile)
- Date:
- 2018
- Group(s):
- Classical Tradition, Historiography, History of Linguistics and Language Study, Legal history, Political Philosophy & Theory
- Subject(s):
- Political science, Law, Rhetoric, Philosophy, Philology, Politics and government
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- imagination, democracy, Vico, class struggle, Political theory, Politics
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6FN10R99
- Abstract:
- This essay examines Giambattista Vico’s philology as a contribution to democratic legitimacy. I outline three steps in Vico’s account of the historical and political development of philological knowledge: first, his merger of philosophy and philology, and the effects of that merger on the relative claims of reason and authority; second, his use of antiquarian knowledge to supersede historicist accounts of change in time and to position the plebian social class as the true arbiters of language; third, his understanding of philological knowledge as an instrument of political change, and a foundational element in the establishment of democracy. In its treatment of the philological imagination as a tool for bringing about political change, Vico’s plebian philology is radically democratic and a crucial instrument in the struggle against the elite from antiquity to the present.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 5 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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