Philology pursues the certain, distinct from philosophy’s pursuit of the true

Evidence

“Philology”: Gramsci uses the word here partly in its conventional sense of the study of linguistic and historical documents (i.e. the primary sources of historiography and literary history) but partly in the sense resuscitated by Croce from the writings of Vico, which divides knowledge into philosophy as the science of the True and philology as the pursuit of the Certain. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2722

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Gramsci’s dual use of ‘philology’ — conventional source-study plus Vico’s philosophy/philology split — a vocabulary term for the theory toolkit.
• XREF: Vico’s true/certain distinction anticipates the epistemological grounding behind much critical theory; connects to Gramsci’s historicism and later postcolonial readings of knowledge production.

Related

• Gramsci’s philology means studying the Certain as distinct from the True (similarity 0.82)
• Philosophy of praxis must be understood as historical methodology. (similarity 0.80)
• Philosophical truths are historically conditioned yet avoid relativism. (similarity 0.78)