Vico's earliest extant scholarly works, the six first statement of ideas that Vico would continue to refine throughout his life. Delivered between 1699 and 1707 to usher in the new academic year at the University of Naples, the orations are brought together here for the first time in English in an authoritative translation based on Gian Galeazzo Visconti's 1982 Latin/Italian edition. In the lectures,Vico draws liberally on the classical philosophical and legal traditions as he explores the relationship between the Greek (...) dictum "Know thyself' and liberal education. As he sets forth the values and goals of a humanist curriculum, Vico reveals the beginnings of the anti-Cartesian position he will pursue in On the Study Methods of Our Time. Also found in the orations are glimpses ofVico's later views on the theory of interpretation and on the nature of language, imagination, and human creativity, along with many themes that were to be fully developed in his magnum opus, The New Science. On Humanistic Education will be welcomed by Vichians and their students, intellectual historians, and others in the fields of philosophy, literary theory, history and methods of education, classics, and rhetoric. (shrink)

Debates about the EU show that the holy trinity of absolute, indivisible sovereignty, nationality/citizenship and national identity/loyalty should be replaced by multilayered, pluralist concepts for descriptive, explanatory and normative purposes. Democratic pluralism criticizes replacement‐strategies (of the nation‐state by a European state, citizenship‐rights by human rights, national obligations by European or global ones). It opts for productive complementarity guided by two principles: “proximity and accountability” and “correspondence of powers and democratic say” and for progressive transdomestic shifts. The inclusion of the articles (...) on citizenship in the EC Treaty has, unintendedly, contributed to such a shift though it missed historical chances to develop a more democratic and social EU living up to minimal global obligations. (shrink)