Study On The Humanistic Ideas Of Vico's "Poetic"

Exploring the past of mankind itself stems from the desire of human recognizing their own. Each humanist believes that human mind has the capacity of studying the human mental. A non-controversial issues is the fact that mankind has created this world in accordance with the model of himself, so his exploration of his own will not isolate himself from the world, on the contrary, it helps the human to form an overall understanding of himself. This paper starts from the analysis of the "poetic" idea to examine Vico's humanistic thought, which necessarily involves Vico's philosophical, theological, ethical and political ideas. Vico's exposition on "Homer's epic" will serve as an example of his thought."Poetic" as a way of thinking and the presence of human ancestors, the experience that it's keeping decides the position of the ancestors and the later in the world order. In a narrow sense, "poetic" is expression of various ethnic groups that they have not yet reached rational level of mind, which means ancient and rough, lively, with true creativity, because the original is the human beings who couldn't think rationally, they are of only fantasies, which result in the fact that they apply their own vivid imagination to everyday experience and to record their customs and social system with the mythical and fabulous expression. Bruhl believed that it is impossible for the primitive to observe the object image with the independence on their own feelings, emotions and passion, which is because the primitive lack the abstract thinking ability. The "representation" thing regarded by us is what, for primitive people, "is also blended with and have been painted and the infiltrated by their emotions or physical factors. In short, the primitive people observe the world with the same eyes with ours, but to percept with a totally different consciousness from ours. Purely physical phenomenon does not exist for the primitive people. Any myth has its basis in the ancients' practical experiences that are generally experienced, which expressed their wish:to try to impose on these experience in a satisfactory, an understandable and the personalized form. It can be said that the primitive are trying to understand the world around them, which is also in the creation of the world with their only "Poetic" thinking. Thus, in a broad sense, the "poetic" can be also referred to a kind of state of existence of the primitive.Man's first political system or the structure of relations between people reflects the collective wisdom of the human ancestors, which is called by Vico "poetic wisdom". Rather, the myth is the poetic wisdom. The founders of civilization are the poetic, and they are practice. They wake up the myth from his mind, and by virtue of this myth, they and their followers understand the nature of the social life in an intuitive way. In this sense, the myth provides a premise for the creation of the social system. In other words, the formation of society is the creative process of myth. "By creating a myth, mankind has gradually come to understand the social needs of his own in the fantasy form of myth, and to laid down their life behaviors according to these systems that the myth has established." Depending on the wisdom, original giants has gained a "person" status and thus become the founder of various national. The reason why Vico traced the origin of the human is in order to make their successors to establish and recognize their own identity through the "poetic wisdom" of human ancestors.Exploring humanistic ideas inhering in the "poetic" idea and the "poetic wisdom" what has the practical significance on the past and contemporary society is the core of the paper. Actually, the ides of "Poetic" is the result of Vico's thinking about rationalization and liberalization process in the human development. After awakening from the state of barbarism, mankind has developed from Theocracy to Republican, and during the process of the development, he has never been loss of common sense such as religion, marriage and burial, which sustains the persistence of various nationalities. However, when the human mind developed to the mature stage, in other words, when people gradually moved from fear and cruelty toward rationality, they seem to begin to discard what have firmly maintained the social stability. As people gradually become rational, the law gradually moderate and society increasingly democratic, civilization, but increasingly vulnerable. Skepticism is a result of the development of human reason itself, but it has destroyed the basis on which the reason depends, and then started to threaten the human civilization. Thus, mankind develops towards its own paradox. In Vico's view, mankind not only needs reason and freedom, he also needs beliefs, traditions, customs and order. Modern thinkers believe that "if the world had philosophers, human beings do not need religion, because they can have a fair life only relying on reason rather than the law." In them, the historical development does not require the power of religion. If there is no the wisdom of religion put the society together and lead it through different stages of the history, philosophy itself would have been unthinkable; all religions are rooted in Fear and ignorance; while the root of philosophy itself is a religion. Vico believe, on the one hand, philosophy can not afford to differentiate from the results of metaphysics and mathematics; the other hand, it can not distinguish the probabilistic rules on which city-states regulate. In essence, the philosophical reflection is to exert the rule on the less irrational human activities, therefore it is always trying to free everything from the tradition, and to directly apply reason to the political affairs. Philosophers have always been opposed to the philosophy and poetry and regard poetry irrational, and insisted that the reason itself is in opposition to the authority and that it points to something more lofty and noble. Myth is a set of narrative discourse system for the primitive, which serve God as the center of narrative, at the same time it shows the primitive religious beliefs with an emotional and intuitive expression. Vico consider that the ancient poetry or myth is to a certain extent the philosophy of law and political philosophy, that is, the so-called "Law". Because the ancient poetry has political intentions from the outset, they are concerned in the national life and order. Vico said that the ancient Roman law is a serious poem and the ancient law is the serious poetry writing. Homer's epic has laid the basic political order of the Greeks. In essence, the third volume of the "new science", that is, "Finding the true Homer" is to find that "poetry" and "myth" is the source and basis of philosophy.Subjective consciousness of human beings that gradually grow is the main carrier of the development of the human civilization, and such progress in nature is to wash away the human savage. In a certain sense, the civilization can be regarded as a kind of "secularization" that means mankind gradually free from the shackles of Providence, but "secularization" in no way be understood as "non-religious". In terms of Vico, there is no question for mankind to free from the ignorance through reason and philosophy, nevertheless, the liberation of reason does not mean that the true liberation of the mankind. The "poetic" idea Vico has brought forward is with the dialectical nature, which reconciles the opposition between humanism and theology; it not only publicizes the dignity and the spirit of exploration of human nature, but also make the pursuit of the human spirit to pursue the theological realm that cannot achieve for the general humanism, thus, avoiding some tendency of the human spread since the Renaissance to achieve the harmonious progress of the human spirit. This is the value of the "Poetic" idea.Finally the paper turns to look at education. Education is one of the dominant concepts of humanism. Such as exploring the "poetic" idea, Vico's understanding of the educational nature also begins from the origins of mankind. The formation of the society is the process of the self-education of mankind, religion, marriage and burial, as the three principles of establishment of the human society, which determines the sign of man as man.. From the very beginning, the education has cultivated the virtue of piety in the human mind by virtue of awe of the gods, and the virtue of the socialization is the common sense, which is manifested in a force of justice. With the development of the human mind, the way of justice is constantly changing, but its essence is eternal, that is, "with the long-lasting and effective concern about the benefit of public." From the perspective of human origins, education, its initial, of course, the most essential content is to cultivate mankind's virtue of prudence and moderation in order to maintain the most basic bottom line of human society-a common sense of mankind.In short, the "poetic" idea implies a profound meaning of exploring the human spirit, which shows as follows:mankind in the confusion how to overcome fears and difficulties, as well as the human spirit how to purse the truth and perfection. Therefore, the unique nature of humanism of the "poetic" idea shows a kind of the human eternal quest for the spiritual values. In this sense, Vico not only belongs to the era of his life, but belongs to all times.