From these grounds, namely, from sensus communis, any opinion derives and returns there, creating a common field of comprehension. In order to explain his ideas, Vico had to introduce a distinction between two modes of truth. He separated certum from veritas. The first concerns the human life (the empirical experience of human life: language, morals, etc.); meanwhile the second concerns the universal knowledge. Philology (history) occupies with the first mode, but philosophy – with the second. Vico thought that a thing can be considered as real only when one can create it. Therefore people have access to mathematical truths. However, if it concerns the natural world, then here the only authority of truth is God, because humans are not capable of creating the world – therefore also of knowing the truth about it. The distinction between certum and veritas lies in that veritas is outside the confines of human cognition. The truth that is available to human – the created truth, should be searched in the field of conviction and credibility – certum. In this way, the new science as a combination of two different approaches, according to Vico, could ensure complete knowledge that would include both the “daily” certum and the general veritas. As a result, the history of humanity should be viewed from the perspective of certum. In order to accomplish it, Vico focused on the non-traditional fields of his period like language, myths, and traditions, which are historically changing. Vico believed that language can reveal and allow comprehending the opinions and ideas of ancient people. Those were not stupid or false, but consistent with their period’s main opinions that were part of sensus communis, namely, the shared sense, the common creation of sense that includes the beliefs about what is considered good or bad, true or false. Therefore in order to understand what society is, we have to look at its sensus communis. This field shows us the truths of each period and what creates the society. The answer to the question “how we can exist together?”, from the Vico’s point of view, lies in that the daily certum reigns in historical world of people and it is supplemented with the general veritas obtained from universal knowledge.
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International Scientific Conference. How can we be Together?