Giambattista Vico

Giambattista Vico was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationalism, finding Cartesian analysis and other types of reductionism impractical to human life, and he was an apologist for classical antiquity and the Renaissance humanities, in addition to being the first expositor of the fundamentals of social science and of semiotics. He is recognised as one of the first Counter-Enlightenment figures in history.

23 June 1668

Born on the same birth day (23 June): Caesarion • Charles II, Duke of Savoy • Gunnar Uusi • Huda Sha'arawi • Jean Cione • John Habgood • Kjell Albin Abrahamson • Klaus von Dohnanyi • Peter Corr • Savvas Poursaitidis • Sheila Noakes, Baroness Noakes