*** Pasted from pp. 90-92 of M. A. Andreacchio, “AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS HISTORY OF IDEAS: AN INTIMATE READING OF VICO’S VITA (FROM ‘LORD VICO’ TO ‘THE NAMES OF LAW’), Historia Philosophica 11 (2013): 59-94.
Postscript: Vico unmasked in his ‘afterlife’
Vico’s 1731 addition to his Vita1 ends by citing an ancient vow to die the death (i.e., to live the life) of Socrates, «from whose death I do not withdraw, if it is followed by fame; and I would accept the sentence of envy, provided I were absolved when I turned to ashes».2 The vow, cited in Latin, is originally proffered, not by a character from Plato’s Phaedrus, but by the Roman poet, Phaedrus, in his minute fable, Socrates to friends (Socrates ad amicos), which reads as follows:
Commonly used is the name of friend, but rare is loyalty. Socrates (from whose death I do not withdraw, if it is followed by fame; and I would accept the sentence of envy, provided I were absolved when I turned to ashes) had set by himself the foundations to a tiny dwelling. Thereupon, from the People, somebody, though I know not who, as it often happens, asked: «How come such a great man sets up such a small home?» So he said, «If only I could fill this with true friends!»3
Vico proclaims the ancient poet’s Socratic «magnanimous vow» («magnanimo voto») right after having testified to his own true abode.4 In the face of envy, Vico returns to his small desk (his «tavolino») – at once, an academic Chair to direct ingenuities and make them universal («...la sua cattedra esser quella che doveva indirizzare gl’ingegni e fargli universali») – «as to his own invincible rock/mount» («come a sua alta inespugnabil rocca»), to meditate works leading him to «find anew» («ritruovare») theScienza Nuova, or Vico’s rightful place within Neapolis, Vico’s ‘new Athens’.5 The «Science» in question is ‘found’ or invented (reading Vico’s ritrovare in the ‘troubadouric’ valence of the «mi ritrovai» of Dante’s Inferno, i.2)6 through an exercise in withdrawing from conventional arenas, into a «wilderness» or «selva» of a mind (one might even say, a tabula mentis) that is at once poetic and metaphysical. The science that Vico calls «new» coincides with the work of a veritable poet-theologian (poeta theologus) who is quite ancient, not to say very-ancient (antiquissimus), but who is at once always new insofar as he is timeless. The Scienza Nuova would then be «new» strictly in the respect that it must be founded «anew», originally, or directly by an Olympian mind unfettered by the envy of those for whom theologia poetica is fit, not as guide for practical or political life, but as «extravagant» spinner «of unique and obscure ideas».7 Those who envy Vico do not admit the presence of a «true philosopher» within the polis. They fail to see that, as true philosopher, Vico must «engage in dissimulation» («dissimulare»), and that his dissimulation is entirely compatible with «Christian charity» («cristiana carità»). Having identified himself with a universal Plato («...un Platone, per cagion di chiarissimo essemplo») reasoning in an ideal world («Talché ogni giorno ragionava con tal splendore e profondità di varia erudizione e dottrina, come se si fussero portati
1 Aggiunta fatta dal Vico alla sua Autobiografia [hereafter cited from Cristofolini (a cura di) 1971.
2 Ibidem, p. 54.
3 «Vulgare amici nomen sed rara est fides. Cum paruas aedes sibi fundasset Socrates (cuius non fugio
mortem si famam adsequar, et cedo inuidiae dummodo absoluar cinis), ex populo sic nescioquis, ut fieri solet: “Quaeso, tam angustam talis uir ponis domum?” “Vtinam” inquit “ueris hanc amicis impleam!”» Original text consulted at http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/phaedr3.html.
4 Cristofolini (a cura di) 1971, op. cit., ibidem.
5 Ibidem, 53.
6 On Dante’s «ritrovare» see Andreacchio 2012 and 2013.
7 Vico has just dismissed those contemporaries and implicitly all those future generations that have de facto
ostricized him by regarding him as «extravagant and of unique and obscure ideas» («stravagante e di idee singolari od oscuro»). 4 Cristofolini (a cura di) 1971, p. 53.
autobiography as history of ideas 91
nella sua scuola chiari letterati stranieri ad udirlo»), Vico surfaces between the lines as a rational agent hidden beneath a poetic or common ‘veil’ – an agent that educates by transposing itself and its audience into ‘a city in words,’ a poetic selva in which the philosopher is king.1 Vico’s self-identification would then seem to be with a Socrates ‘metaphysically’ trans-posed, and thus with the Plato (or one of the «Platoni») of the Cinquecento humanist tradition:2 a poetic mask through which the philosopher carries out his humanizing mission. Yet, beyond the mask, we discern ‘another Plato.’
Throughout the Vita, Plato appears in various guises according to Vico’s provisional understanding of the ancient philosopher. On Vico’s first, preliminary reading based solely upon the Greek’s fame or name, Plato is cherished as a purely metaphysical, exemplary authority or poetic idea. Yet, through direct confrontation with anti-Platonists of various sorts (from Lucretius to Descartes),3 Vico comes to intend (or rather, he helps his reader intend) Plato as a whole universe of understanding that includes both theoretical and practical/moral things. Accordingly, Vico invites «a whole present- day university that would be, for example, one Plato alone» («un’intiera università di oggidì fosse, per essemplo, un solo Platone»).4 Vico’s appeal to «Four Authors» (in fact, poetically authoritative personae) would have to be understood strictly Platonically or in the context of a Platonic correction of three of the authors, or at least of the two moderns, namely Bacon and the «heretic» Grotius. Vico’ «Authors» are the following: 1. the «Greek» Plato standing stereotypically for a «concealed» doctrinal metaphysics concerned with the purely heavenly origins of the human world; 2. the «Roman» Tacitus personifying «vulgar» political-practical life; 3. Francis Bacon as model for bringing the literary/scientific world into a just order by applying his ‘canonical vision’ of metaphysical necessity to bear upon every discipline of knowledge that is thereby integrated into a universal system; 4. Hugo Grotius calling to mind the need to understand any universal system juridically, or as a legal construct.5 Whereas Bacon’s ‘scientific’ account of human and divine things is ostensibly nominal or ‘canonical’ (not unlike its scholastic dogmatic precursors), Grotius concerns himself also with the history of things, yet by still relying on a doctrinal or dogmatic understanding of words mediated by Christianity. As a ‘modern’, Grotius considers things still from the standpoint of words applied to things from without, failing to discern the immanence of providence in physical things (as of human minds in human bodies) without need to appeal to a deus ex machina (and thus too, «senza distinguervi con un qualche Privilegio un Popolo eletto da Dio per lo suo vero culto»).6 Grotius fails to understand the properly- poetic, pre-dogmatic nature or telos of jurisprudence. He sets out to uncover the physical domain of human life merely in the context of an attempt to establish a purely secular- scientific jurisprudence, or to replace Christianity’s dogma with a secular counterpart. Accordingly, the modern jurist emerges volens nolens as a «heretical» poet whose work Vico refuses to «adorn».7
Earlier, Vico had referred to pious Plato as a philosopher who «adorns, instead of fixing his concealed wisdom with the vulgar one of Homer»).8 The Plato in question adopts poetry as adornment for philosophy, so as to present philosophy in a universal, even divine light, albeit without «fixing» philosophy in the guise of dogma. Grotius’s philosophy does not lend itself to any such adornment. Is this because Grotius has
2 See Vita (original 1728 edn.), pp. 162-164, 183-187, 192-193.
3 See, e.g., ibidem, p. 181. 7 Ibidem, p. 207.
5 Ibidem, pp. 221-222. 2 Ibidem, p. 250.8 «adorna più tosto, che ferma la sua sapienza riposta con la volgare di Omero» (ibidem, p. 221).
3 Ibidem, p. 222.
92 marco andreacchio
already ‘fixed’ his philosophy over and against Platonism, yet not by adopting Homeric poetry, but by appropriating the authority of Christian dogmatics? In general, does modern political philosophy ‘fix’ itself beyond the poetic adornments of its ancient counterpart? Does Homer lend himself to ‘adorning’ as Christian doctrine lends itself to ‘fixing’ philosophy? Does reliance on Christianity ultimately free or stifle philosophy ?
Perhaps Vico wouldr ather invite us to ask how Christianity can be of help to philosophy. The final paragraph of the 1728 Vitapresents Christianity as propitious cradle or womb for the rediscovery of human virtues, or of «the principles of the entire human and divine erudition of the Gentiles» («i princìpi di tutta l’umana e divina erudizione gentilesca»).1 Are we to understand that Vico is not willing to adorn Grotius for the very reason that he is quite willing (even all too willing) to adorn his Catholic Church? Yet, Scholastic sacra doctrina is hardly an instance of pura philosophia. Is Vico’s poetic exercise to be understood merely in theological terms, or is his pious «dissembling» that of a philosopher setting the stage for the philosophical life? Does Vico defend the Catholic Church as stage, or even as prelude for a defense of philosophy, or more specifically, of a poetic philosophy akin to the philosophical poetry of Renaissance Platonists? Could we then speak of ‘Vico’s revival of Platonism’, and even of his Vita as model for a new Renaissance (echoing the humanism of the Cinquecento, as well as Dante and Petrarca), entailing providential guidance of language out of physical uncertainty by way of illuminating the proper, civil nature of man, and thus the properlyhuman ends of man, independently of any divine ends, however much these may be professed by «the true Church»? Does the Scienza Nuova’s articulation of the distinction between verum and certum prepare us to conclude that what makes a Church genuinely true, to the extent that is can be true, is the inherence in its womb of a genuinely providential agency, or of the virtue that Vico sets out to ultimately vindicate (hence his «generose vendette»), or to bring back to life («...che in questa nostra età nel grembo della vera Chiesa si scuoprissero i princìpi di tutta l’umana e divina erudizione gentilesca»)?
Considering the departure from ecstatic contemplation proposed in the opening paragraphs of sn44, it seems likely that Vico regards it ultimately more advantageous to the philosopher not to transpose himself-sive-conatus in the God of nature (cf. Dante, Paradiso, xxxiii.142-145), but in a ‘divine Plato’ in the penumbra of a Limbo-like Elysian Field (cf. Inferno, iv).2 The Vita’s 1731 finale weighs heavily in favor of the latter alternative.3 Are we then to read the former, religious alternative as mere prelude to the latter, poetic alternative? Is a positive answer implied in Vico’s adoption of «the true Church» as womb for a rebirth of theologia poetica, and thus for a return to a classical political- poetic rationalism capable of illuminating the dark cavern of religious authority from within, if only by helping us discern the true, civil nature of poetic transpositions?
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