Editing Giambattista Vico (section)

==The principle of ''Verum factum''==
Vico is best known for his ''verum factum'' principle, first formulated in 1710 as part of his ''De antiquissima Italorum sapientia, ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda'' (1710) ("Of the most ancient wisdom of the Italians, unearthed from the origins of the Latin language").<ref>His wording was "Verum et factum reciprocantur seu convertuntur" ("The true and the made are convertible into each other"), an idea which can be found also in [[occasionalism]] and [[Scotism|Scotist]] [[scholasticism]]</ref> The principle states that truth is verified through creation or invention and not, as per [[René Descartes|Descartes]], through observation: "The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself." This criterion for truth would later shape the history of [[civilization]] in Vico's opus, the ''[[Scienza Nuova]]'' (''The New Science'', 1725), because he would argue that civil life—like [[mathematics]]—is wholly constructed.