QuestionsDoes history have a direction?All nations follow the same course, then return: corsi e ricorsi
Does history have a direction?Cycles

All nations follow the same course, then return: corsi e ricorsi

The ideal eternal history

Giambattista Vico 1668 · 1744Neapolitan philosopher: nations follow a course, from divine to human ages, then a return.
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What it claims

The history of nations is an ideal eternal history that recurs each time: a course of three ages, a corruption, a return (corsi e ricorsi).

Why

All nations pass through the same ages, gods, heroes, men; once corrupt, they fall back into barbarism and the course restarts.

The same idea through history
Polybe150 BCVico cites book VI of Polybius (New Science, § 285) and repeatedly blames him for saying that, if there were philosophers, religions would not be needed (§ 179, 1110): for Vico, religion founds nations. But for Vico the cycle is not only that of regimes: it is that of a nation's whole life, and it has a providential direction.
In short

"All nations follow the same course, then return: corsi e ricorsi" is an argument by Giambattista Vico (Principles of New Science (1744), books I, IV and V, Conclusion) on the question "Does history have a direction?" (answer: cycles). Its claim: The history of nations is an ideal eternal history that recurs each time: a course of three ages, a corruption, a return (corsi e ricorsi). According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Principles of New Science (1744), books I, IV and V, Conclusion
Valid with an implicit premise

Vico, professor of rhetoric in Naples, published the last version of his New Science in 1744. His idea: nations do not have a random fate. All pass, in the same order, through three ages (of gods, heroes, men) with customs, laws, languages and governments proper to each. When peoples corrupt, they fall into a second barbarism, more refined and more cruel than the first, and the cycle begins again: this is the "ricorso". This order is, he says, the work of Providence using the passions of men. Note: the texts cited are in Italian, from the Nicolini edition (1928); the numbers are those of his paragraphs.

P1All nations, despite the variety of their customs, follow with constant uniformity the same course, according to three ages: of gods, heroes and men.
P2The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.
P3When peoples corrupt to the point of being unable to govern themselves, they fall into a barbarism of reflection, crueller than the first barbarism, that of the senses; piety, faith and truth then return among them.
P4This order is neither fate nor chance: men made this world, but it came from an intelligence superior to their particular ends, and the same things recur because men always act this way.
P5 · implicit premiseIf all nations follow the same course, it ends with a corruption that brings them back to a barbarism, and this order is stable, then the history of nations is made of cycles that recur.
Therefore the history of nations is an ideal eternal history that recurs each time: a course of three ages, a corruption, a return (corsi e ricorsi).

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world where each nation goes through three ages in order, but corruption leads to disappearance or to a new form rather than to a return: a regular course, not a cycle.
Valid with P5. P5 is the implicit premise that moves from the uniformity of the course (P1-P3) to repetition (P4 and the conclusion). Without it, one can grant that each nation goes through the same ages without concluding that the whole starts over. Note: Vico ties the cycle to Providence, which does not follow from the premises alone.
Analogy. The seasons of a year: a crude spring, a strong summer, a mild autumn, a dissolving winter, then a new spring. But for Vico the return is not a flat circle: the second barbarians have behind them the refinements of civilisation, which leads some readers to say the cycle is rather a spiral.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Karl Popper 1957 · attacks premise 1

The ancient doctrine that applies to a society the life cycle of an animal or plant was used by Plato, then by Machiavelli, Vico, Spengler and Toynbee. It makes history a repetition whose laws can be studied. But the cases of repetition involve very different circumstances, which may weigh on what follows: a resemblance does not prove a law.

a defender replies
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1957, after the author's death (1744).
B
Benedetto Croce defender of the argument · 1911
Summary: Croce reads Vico's ideal eternal history not as an observed law of the succession of nations, but as the ideal scheme of the forms of spirit, distinct from real histories. He faults Vico for sometimes confusing the two, giving this scheme the value of an empirical sequence.
The debate goes on (our summary) Popper names Vico among the supporters of this doctrine, but he grants that history may sometimes repeat itself in certain respects, and that the parallel between events of the same type can be useful to the sociologist. Vico bases his "ideal eternal history" on axioms (the "degnità") he holds universal, not on observation alone, and he distinguishes ideal history from real histories. The disagreement is about the value of this scheme: law or reading grid. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: does a scheme of succession drawn from history have the value of a law, or does it remain a reading grid? Croce (1911) reads Vico as an ideal grid, not an empirical law; it remains to be seen whether this grid lights up real histories without being testable. Open point, taken up again about Spengler and Toynbee.
Kant 1798 · attacks the conclusion

If one supposes that humanity remains always at the same moral level, with ups and downs that cancel out, history has no goal: it is only a game that repeats itself. Kant ranks this hypothesis, which he calls "Abderitism", among three possible ones (decline, progress, standing still). In his view it would make the human race a farce worth no more than other animal species. He therefore looks in his own time for a sign showing a moral tendency toward progress.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1798, after the author's death (1744).
The debate goes on (our summary) Kant does not target Vico, who died in 1744 and cannot reply. His position differs from the one Kant rejects: for Vico the return is not mere standing still, it brings peoples back to piety and simplicity, and Providence leads the whole. Kant, for his part, admits that experience alone cannot decide between the three hypotheses. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: should the direction of history be judged by what experience shows or by what morality asks us to hope? Open question, which separates progress and cycles.
Hegel 1837 · attacks premise 3

Changes in nature show only a cycle that repeats, with nothing new under the sun. Only spirit brings forth something new: human history is therefore not a cycle like that of nature.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1837, after the author's death (1744).
The debate goes on (our summary) Hegel does not name Vico in this passage (lectures of 1822-1831 published after his death). Vico speaks of a return that is not identical: the "second barbarians" have civilisation behind them, which Vico calls the barbarism of reflection. His scheme may therefore already be a cycle with novelty in it. Both authors see Providence or reason at work in history. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: is a return that keeps the memory of the past still a cycle, or already a progress? The question divides Vico's readers, spiral or circle. Open point.