Abstract

Giambattista Vico is slowly emerging from too often convenient dismissal as an unsystematic and obscure philosopher to command more considered and serious attention from scholars whose interests range from sociology to literary criticism. This dissertation attempts to interpret Vico's major ideas through the insights of the sociology of knowledge and psychoanalysis. This study focuses especially on Vico's idea of Providence as a mechanism of social ordering and social preservation. ;After introductory remarks on Vico's thought, the First Chapter deals with Vico's biographical data. The Second Chapter attempts to explicate Vico's idea on Religion and Providence as they function in the genesis of human self-consciousness and human social order. The Third Chapter elaborates, specifically, Vico's ideas of Providence as a binding force that moves man toward preservation and social order. In the Fourth Chapter the notion of Providence is applied to human institutions. The idea of Providence is subsequently applied to history . A Conclusion attempts to re-evaluate Vichian studies in the light of the proposed sociological and psychological insights