Giambattista Vico's first original work of philosophy, On the Study Methods of Our Time (1708 9) takes up the contemporary "quarrel between the ancients and the moderns" and provides a highly interesting statement of the nature of humanistic education. This edition makes available again Elio Gianturco's superb 1965 English translation of a work generally regarded as the earliest statement by Vico of the fundamentals of his position.

An important contribution to the development of the scientism-versus-humanism debate over the comparative merits of classical and modern...