Hanna Taraldsrud Dormagen, an MA candidate in European Intellectual History and Culture at the University of Oslo, presents her thesis on the role and function of etymologies in Giambattista Vico’s seminal work La scienza nuova (1725). Often met with skepticism by modern scholars, Vico’s etymological methods have been dismissed as rhetorical flourishes to support his theory of the cyclical nature of nations. Dormagen, however, argues for a closer examination of these etymologies as integral components of Vico’s broader hermeneutical framework.

Through her analysis, Dormagen explores whether these etymologies are ornamental or essential to understanding Vico’s intellectual contributions during the Italian Enlightenment.

Hanna Taraldsrud Dormagen is an MA student at the University of Oslo, currently based in Rome to conduct her research on Vico. Her academic interests include the intersection of philosophy, history, and the humanities during the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment periods.

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744), an Italian philosopher and historian, is celebrated as a pioneer of the Counter-Enlightenment. He critiqued rationalism and reductionism, championing classical antiquity and Renaissance humanism. Born to a bookseller in Naples, Vico was trained in law and later became a professor of rhetoric at the University of Naples. He served as royal historiographer under the King of Naples and Spain in 1734.

https://www.hf.uio.no/dnir/english/research/news-and-events/events/2025/dormagen.html