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Return to topMore than 23 years in the making, Sandra Luft's labor of love will finally see the light of day. Vico's Uncanny Humanism: Reading the New Science Between Modern and Postmodern, her tome on the revered Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, will be published by Cornell University Press next fall.
Luft, professor of humanities at SFSU since 1962, devoted much of her professional and intellectual life to writing, reading and researching for the book -- even taking voluntary unpaid leaves from teaching a full load of four classes.
"Writing this book has been a learning experience for me," she says. "I stuck with my original insight from 45 years ago. It took 20 years to flesh out and develop that insight."
While she has written countless articles and given many presentations on Vico and other philosophers, this is her first book.
Vico, who lived from 1668 to 1744, is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy of history. His major work, the New Science, presents principles common to the development of all human societies and shows how all human thoughts and actions emerge from the imaginative language of the prehuman founders of the human world.
"Vico himself claimed it took him 20 years to grasp what he called his 'master key': that the first peoples of the human race were poets," Luft says.
Noting that the Greek word "poet" means creator, he understood his "master key" to mean that humans create their own world, their very human existence, through language, "a language which, because creative, he considered 'divine,'" Luft says.
Luft's book aims to break new ground in studies of Vico, disproving the many previous scholarly interpretations of New Science. Her interpretation is, in effect, a critique of the dominant Western humanist conception, which identifies it with a rational subjectivity.
For example, she rejects the dominant interpretation of Vico as the father of the social sciences, particularly of history, anthropology and sociology. That interpretation assumes Vico believed at the mature stage of historical development, humans become rational thinkers capable of discovering the rational principles of the human world.
But he himself criticized what he called the "conceit of scholars," Luft says, their belief that all human beings are as rational as them. For Luft, Vico's insight into the poetic nature of the first peoples and the creative nature of the language -- coupled with his belief that all later stages of human development emerge genetically from the first stage -- means that humans remain creators throughout their history.
Thus all abstract reasoning, including mathematics, and all systems of knowledge that emerge at late stages of human development, are created by a human language which remains metaphoric rather than literal. This characterization moves the social sciences closer to literary studies and further from natural sciences -- "indeed, it makes the natural sciences themselves 'linguistic constructs,'" Luft says.
By studying German philosophers Friedrich Nietzshe and Martin Heidegger, she was able to better understand the "strangeness" of Vico's conceptions of language and human nature, thus extending the scope of her book to include a critique of the dominant Western humanist perspective.
The "conceit of scholars," she believes, has led modern thinkers to a narrow and culturally insensitive worldview.
"We impose on the entire human world a universal, rationalistic conception of life and values," Luft says, "and never admit to ourselves that beliefs and values are culturally and linguistically constructed."
She believes that the average person -- even one who struggles with philosophy and academic texts -- can gain valuable insight from Vico.
"He challenges his readers to focus on how language is used to create what are, in effect, stories and mythic histories," she says. "We end up taking as knowledge or truth what we have fabricated with the creative power of language."
When Luft talks about modern and postmodern thought, there is passion and excitement in her voice. She enjoys imparting her passion and knowledge to her students, particularly when there is disagreement and debate.
Humanities graduate student Greg Porter says he has enjoyed "butting heads constantly" with Luft in several classes.
"I've come out with great respect for her grasp of the subject and her honesty. She's an honest teacher, which is a great thing," says Porter, who is working with Luft on his thesis.
"All of our relationship has had tints of combat, and I'm sure it will continue in the thesis process," he adds with a smile.
Luft first became enthralled with Vico as a graduate student at Brandeis University. She noticed affinities between Vico and Nietzsche and loved the metaphoric, poetic language in which New Science is written.
After earning her doctorate from Brandeis in the history of ideas, the Los Angeles native accepted a one-year appointment in SFSU's Humanities Department. The one-year appointment turned into a tenure-track position, and she hasn't left the University since.
Luft, who has two children, Rachel and Joshua, by a previous marriage, lives in Berkeley with her husband, political science Professor Rufus Browning.
Luft has no plans for retirement. She is already thinking about her next book, possibly an exploration of the German Jewish intellectual world of the 1920s. But she hopes her second book doesn't require the 23 years that went into her first.
--Matt Itelson
Photo: Peter Marcus
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