The concept of «true» between philosophy and poetry in modern thought: the considerations of Gian Vincenzo Gravina and Giambattista Vico

Abstract

The concept of «true» accepted by modern philosophy conforms to Descartes’s idea, whose approach affirms the importance of mathematical and scientific subjects, following a quantitative point of view. Gian Vincenzo Gravina and Giambattista Vico criticize such  a concept and propose an idea of «true» which is closer to the pragmatism of reality, the former by formulating the theory of «verisimilar», the culmination of which is reached in Tragedie cinque; the latter by elaborating the concept of «fantastic universal», which in his Scienza nuova, represents the thought, the language and the fundamental phases of the first men of history.