On Humanistic Education

Author: (Italian) Vico, translated by Wang Nan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: We live in a world of science and technology, where the pursuit of certainty and method has replaced the search for truth. Clear ideas and unambiguous statements are the ideals of modern thinkers and modern education. The ancient and humanistic ideals are rooted in the power of metaphor and memory, the rhetorical concept of speech, and its connection to self-awareness. Unless we bring them back, no matter how much we read essential theories, text meaning theories, structural theories, postmodern theories, or hermeneutic analyses, we cannot successfully provide a foundation for the humanities and liberal arts. For readers, the danger of engaging with these six lectures lies in the risk of missing the implications of the ideas they generate by skimming through them. These lectures must be read together with the footnotes, which provide references and often quote passages from relevant Greek, Latin, and humanistic texts that Vico directly or indirectly cites or uses as premises. They are selected by the translator from the footnotes and comments of Visconti.