It is true that men themselves made this world of nations... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.
Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote contrasts the abstract nature of metaphysics with the sensory immersion of poetry.
Giambattista Vico highlights the dichotomy between metaphysics and poetry. While metaphysics seeks to understand universal truths by abstracting from sensory experiences, poetry requires a deep, sensory engagement with the world, emphasizing the importance of particular details and lived experiences. This contrast suggests that both approaches are essential to grasping human understanding—one grounded in abstract reasoning and the other in tangible experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the philosophy of art, you might use this quote to illustrate the relationship between abstract thought and sensory experience.
More from Giambattista Vico
All quotes →The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.
The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself.
People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind.
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