 Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was among the first to try to articulate how exactly understanding human beings differs from understanding the natural world (see especially Vico 1725 [2002].) According to Vico, just as we have a special scienza (knowledge or understanding) of things we have made or produced ourselves, so too we can have special insight into things that other human beings have made or produced—where the things made or produced included not just physical artifacts but also human actions. Vico further postulated a special ability—fantasia, or reconstructive imagination—by which we can enter into the minds of others and see the world through their eyes and in terms of their categories of thought (Miller 1993: ch. 5).