Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico /ˈviːkoʊ/; Italian: [ˈviko]; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationalism, was an apologist for classical antiquity and the Renaissance humanities, finding Cartesian analysis and other types of reductionism impractical to human life, and was the first expositor of the fundamentals of social science and of semiotics. He is recognised as one of the first Counter-Enlightenment figures in history.