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On Vico - part i 16 Dec / 3 Dec O.S., 2023
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A Neapolitan professor of law wrote a book on his kitchen table while
constantly being distracted by his wife and children. He revised it
twice, added twenty pages of spite against the book's original patron,
and then replaced the screed with a proper introduction. It was
mis-interpreted by Marx and then its author was for the most part
forgotten. Unlike the principles of historical knowledge which were in
vogue at the time--and remain so now--the principles in this work
opened poetic history to coherent interpretation. In one grand
attempt, the work unified the study of linguistics, jurisprudence,
history of religion, government, and economics. It is nearly empty of
value judgements on the various stages of history and strangely
justifies itself on the Baconian method.
The book is Giambattista Vico's New Science, and the principles are
(1) Divine providence;
(2) Sacred marriage;
(3) Burial and the immortality of the soul.
Not only did Vico believe in these principles, but they were attested
from the first times by the pagan peoples. He was a relativist without
relativism, willing to acknowledge changes in language and
understanding but searching for truth that may be visible to all.
In his focus on the history of the pagan nations, he proves that the
natural law of the nations was founded by God's providence: ``ius
naturale gentium divina providentia constitutum''; and that the first
gold was grain. He takes the position that no esoteric wisdom was
hidden in Homer and other poets, and a practical poetic wisdom was
present instead. He states man began to fear God by watching the sky
and seeing the lightning bolt, explaining why every nation was
understood to have worshipped a Jove. He unashamedly ignores the
suggestions of certain cultures of their extreme antiquity, providing
instead a simple razor in which the explanation least in need of extra
years and centuries is the correct one.
From a linguistic perspective, perhaps readers will get the most
mileage out of his view on what he calls the poetic character: the
language we now call figurative is not "flower" added to the text for
effect but a real, necessary expression borne out of the poverty of
language. In the most ancient laws preserved in Latin, there was not
even a word for "man", and the idea had to be expressed by synecdoche:
"head". This idea of synecdoche may be extended further to historical
knowledge, taking Hercules as an example; in the poverty of language,
generations of unknown names would not have been understood, and
instead all the achievements are expressed in the poetic character of
Hercules.
Though his name is forgotten by many, you can still find linguists in
particular reading Vico. Be warned, it's an unsystematic work.
