Defining Providence
In his Discorso Valletta... defined ilfato as the variable that considers the needs and abilities of which the mind is not yet aware, as the element that orders and complements the causes established by providence understood as human needs, interests and passions in a particular moment.
For Valletta ilfato was a law by means of which providence orders everything in human actions?2 According to the lessons of their mentors Valletta and Caloprese, Doria and Vico concentrated primarily on individuals and their passions: the motor of human action. While Doria developed his sophisticated theory of human pasÂsions in his Vita Civile, Vico's major work Diritto Universale followed Valletta's demand to deal with the questions posed by the discussions of Roman Law. Diritto Universale together with Scienza Nuova were not only the principles of a new science to transcend the limits of the Cartesian method, but they were principally a history of humanity, whose main itinerary could be traced back because nations are fashioned by humans entrenched in history. As the giuris- dizionalisti did, Vico distinguished profane from sacred history and declared his incompetence in matters of faith, such as original sin and revelation. The historical process that Vico was interested in was the history of humanity, of civilta, understood as the process of civilization of nations as the foundation of civil laws.For Vico, as for Caloprese, the historical process was the history of human beings, and it was by no means stable or static. Vico argued that men in their effort to understand the world in which they live transform both their world and themselves on an ongoing basis. Thus, if there is something that human beings can understand it is precisely their own history, because it constitutes the intelligible world for them, where they can observe, describe, classify and where they can note and historicize regularities in time and space.73
Vico affirmed in his Scienza Nuova that human beings were able to know their history for they were its authors.
This was the former definition of his principle of verum-factum. For Vico, the historical process was the history of individual efforts, purposes, hopes, but also human fears and attitudes. The way to access this historical evolution of mankind, was the merger of the variÂety of perspectives and experiences through imagination?4Expanding Valletta's aim of reconstructing the history of human needs, i.e., self-preservation, Vico's history was a model that aimed at incorporating all the activities of human production, represented in a succession of stages of a nation. For him, there was a relation between one stage and the other that was not casual, but that rather depended on the level of consciousness that human beings had of their own activities. The historical evolution of human consciousness is the element that connects the different stages.
In the first book of the Scienza Nuova Vico stated that providence is the eleÂment through which all the historical events come together to an order, where they come to make sense together with the elements that preserve human society?5 In this manner, providence is thus one of the main elements of Vico's historical process and indeed his whole political philosophy.
Moreover, providence in the Scienza Nuova resembled a collection of laws that attempt to deal with the needs, interests and passions of human beings. Human needs, however, would always take precedence and tame the desire for luxury goods also crucial for the development of the civil economy. This is Vico's formula against the eccesso di civiltd. Providence was a collection of laws that aim at preserving humankind, that is, to overcome human unsociability. Providence was Vico's solution to the problem of appetitus societatis. In this Neapolitan context, the main aim of which was to overcome both Scholastic philosophy and (following Grotius framework of natural law) barbarian times, Vico's conception of providence allowed him to grasp the spirit of human conÂsciousness over time to form the core of his universal laws.
In Vico's understanding, despite the fact that this set of laws come from different places of the world and the most diverse epochs, and are therefore unknown to each other, they follow a common motivation that he occasionally calls common sense. The common sense of humankind that Vico referred to was the principle taught to nations by providence: the consciousness of human needs warrants the laws of nations.[989] All the nations could understand these laws of nations, for everybody had contributed to the creation of this common sense one way or the other as authors. Vico's laws of nations manifest themÂselves as the common background to all humans every time they enter a war, establish alliances or engage in commerce. Defined in this manner the laws of nations are universal and eternal^ The Scienza Nuova was thus the history of the spirit of those laws that structure Vico's civil theology of providence.
Finally, providence in Vico's philosophy of history was a force that eventuÂally would transform human's natural vices to make them sociable in civil life. Providence was the force that would solve the problem of appetitus societaÂtis, avoiding the destruction of humankind by transforming the remnants of a barbarian civilisation into a well-ordered civil society. Providence might act through the development of simple cultural customs or through the economy of civil life. Moreover, providence would be the driving force to sociability and human happiness. Vico's laws of nations were thus from the very beginning civil laws, grounded on a secular understanding of providence, the historical life?8
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