Una breve storia della ragione universale. Malebranche, Locke, Vico

First of all, I would like to examine the conception of Malebranche according to which man is the “animal Rationis particeps” and his arguments to demonstrate the necessity of a universal Reason: I will look at the objectivity of mathematical truths and basic principles of ethics (I will consider, in particular, the 10th Elucidation on The Search after Truth, 1678). Secondly, I will consider Locke’s text An Examination of P. Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God (1695, published posthumously, 1706), in particular the paragraphs in which the English philosopher calls into question the Malebranchean theory of universal Reason by affirming the necessity to distinguish our understanding from God’s understanding and stating that man does not apprehend anything through God’s understanding, neither can he share His Knowledge. But I will also examine the fourth book of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), in which Locke affirms that reason is a natural revelation by means of which God communicates to man that portion of truth which is appropriate to his faculties. Finally, I will concentrate on Giambattista Vico’s On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language (1710), in which the Italian philosopher thematizes the conception according to which man is a being that participates in reason but is not the master thereof; moreover I will also consider the Vichian criticism of, and debt towards, Malebranche and the role of universal Reason in the Universal Right (1720-1722) and New Science (third edition, 1744). In this way, I would like to stress three different perspectives – which are not in total contrast with each other – on the old question of the existence of a universal Reason constituting the rational skeleton or texture of the world, a principle of a universal order.