Vico

This article examines E. Sergio’s studies on the concept of sensus communis as developed by Giambattista Vico, highlighting its historical and philosophical significance. The analysis positions Vico as a pivotal figure bridging medieval and modern thought: he inherits the intellectual legacy of the past while reinterpreting its core elements through a distinctly modern sensibility. Within this framework, sensus communis emerges as a key concept for understanding human social action—a perspective that, drawing from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas (whose approaches modernity often rejects), finds its fullest expression in Vico’s system. By privileging language as a primary mode of communication, Vico is shown to transcend the Hobbesian conception of human nature specifically through the lens of sensus communis.

What is the ultimate end of higher education? Giambattista Vico, echoing Socrates’s Delphic oracle, claimed that the ultimate end of all education is self-knowledge. I fully agree with Vico’s claim, but also radically extend his idea about education, in accordance with contemporary and futuristic Kantianism, and then apply it specifically to contemporary and near-future higher education. In 1784, Kant published an essay called “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in which he argued that the fundamental thesis of “enlightenment” or Aufklärung is that all rational human animals are strictly obligated to think for themselves and to act freely, with resolution and courage, in accordance with sufficient respect for their own and everyone else’s human dignity. Taking together Vico’s Socratic idea about self-knowledge, with Kant’s idea about enlightenment, and then creatively revising-&-updating them both to fit the contemporary 21st century existential, moral, and sociopolitical predicament of humankind, then in my view, the ultimate end of higher education is not only (i) self-knowledge, but also (ii) rational autonomy in thinking, caring, and acting, (iii) authentic human creativity, and (iv) sufficient respect for everyone’s human dignity. In turn, the four-part conjunction of these ultimate ends is what I call radical enlightenment. Therefore, I’m saying that the ultimate end of higher education is radical enlightenment.