H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE: I VERBALI: SIMONI

 G.: Let us begin with the title, because it is already behaving badly: De principiis rerum naturalium. S.: You mean badly in the philosophical sense. G.: The only sense worth keeping. Principiis in the plural—how come? If there is a principle, surely it ought to be one. S.: That depends on whether “principle” means source, explanatory ground, element, or first account. G.: Exactly. And that dependence already annoys me. “Principles” in the plural sounds like using “one” in the plural. If you have more than one, you no longer have one. S.: True enough arithmetically. But not every principium behaves like the numeral one. G.: That is what they all say just before multiplying beyond necessity. Let us do the grammar first. De principiis: on principles, concerning principles, about starting-points or sources. Then rerum: of things, not of one thing. And naturalium: natural things. So he has already pluralised the principles and the things. S.: Which may simply mean that he is writing in the Aristotelian air, where one asks about the principles of natural things generally, not the one principle of one object. G.: Yes, yes, I know the doctrine. Matter, form, privation, and the rest. Still, the title deserves resistance. Why should many things require many principles? And why should one thing not? S.: Because one thing may be constituted by more than one explanatory aspect. G.: Very well. Then let us play your game and my irritation against one another. Case one: one principle for one thing. S.: That sounds tidy. G.: Too tidy, perhaps. Let us say: one principle for one natural thing. A seed for this oak, a law for this fall, an essence for this triangle—except the triangle is not natural. S.: So one principle for one natural thing is at least imaginable. G.: Yes. Though even there one asks whether the one principle is formal, efficient, material, or final. The moment one specifies the mode, one invites companions. S.: That is because “principle” is not univocal. G.: Precisely. Which is why pluralisation begins. Not because thinkers are greedy, but because the word itself is promiscuous. S.: Then one principle for one non-natural thing? G.: A theorem for this proof, a convention for this sign, a rule for this game, perhaps. One principle for one artefact or institution. But again, one soon discovers that the thing depends on more than one condition if one insists on explanation rather than slogan. S.: So the singular principle is often the philosopher’s dream of economy. G.: And occasionally his vice. Now case two: more than one principle for one thing. S.: That is the classical natural-philosophical case, surely. G.: Yes. This plant has matter and form; this motion has a moving cause and an end; this body has potentiality and act under some description. S.: Which is exactly why Simoni writes principiis rather than principio. G.: Perhaps. But let us resist still. If one thing needs more than one principle, is the thing really one or only a polite bundle? S.: That depends on what sort of unity one grants to composites. G.: Very good. The moment one allows composite unity, plural principles become tolerable. One oak, several principles. One man, several explanatory sources. One utterance, several conditions of meaning. S.: You always smuggle conversation back in. G.: Because it behaves so well under pressure. Now, more than one principle for one non-natural thing? S.: A legal institution, for example. A contract may depend on consent, form, recognition, enforceability, and public practice. G.: Excellent. So even in artificial things plurality of principle need not destroy unity of object. S.: It may even be required by it. G.: Irritating, but true. Now case three: one principle for more than one thing. S.: That sounds like the philosopher’s monism. G.: Exactly. One principle for many natural things. Water for all, or apeiron, or form, or motion, or God, or matter under some favourite reduction. S.: The pre-Socratics would feel at home. G.: They would, and so would every metaphysician tempted by elegance. One principle, many things: an intoxicating shape. S.: But not always absurd. G.: No, not always. A single law may govern many events. A single form of motion may cover many trajectories. A single causal pattern may explain many cases. S.: So one principle for more than one natural thing is often scientifically attractive. G.: Yes, though one must ask whether the principle is common, universal, abstract, or merely repeated. “One principle” can mean one rule-type rather than one token source. S.: And for more than one non-natural thing? G.: One convention across many utterances, one legal principle across many cases, one inferential norm across many arguments. Perfectly intelligible. S.: So your irritation about plural principles begins to lose ground. G.: Never say that aloud. I can still be annoyed grammatically even when the ontology excuses itself. Now case four: more than one principle for more than one thing. S.: Which is, I suppose, the actual title. G.: Exactly. A philosopher’s bazaar. Many principles for many natural things. It sounds like explanatory overpopulation. S.: Or like sobriety. Natural things differ, and even what they share may be explicable under several heads. G.: Very well. Let us try to save the title systematically. Why plural rerum? S.: Because nature does not present only one thing. The title announces a field, not a specimen. It is not De principio rei naturalis, but De principiis rerum naturalium. G.: So rerum is not rhetorical excess but domain pluralisation. He is treating nature in the distributed mode. S.: Exactly. “Things” in the plural means species of natural being, not just one chosen body. G.: Then perhaps principiis follows because once the domain is plural, explanatory plurality becomes harder to avoid. S.: Yes. If there are many natural things, and if they are variously generated, moved, formed, corrupted, and ordered, a single principium may be too poor. G.: Unless one is Parmenides with a bad temper. S.: Or a modern reductionist. G.: Quite. So Simoni is already less tempted by pure reduction than some of his predecessors. S.: Or at least he is writing in a scholastic-Aristotelian framework that allows principia in the plural without immediate embarrassment. G.: Yes. Matter, form, privation, perhaps causes under fourfold description. The plural is less scandalous there than to an English ear still haunted by “first principle.” S.: Which is singular in tone if not always in practice. G.: Precisely. “First principles” in English often still sound like a class of singular dignities multiplied reluctantly. S.: Whereas principia in late scholastic Latin behaves more like a functional set. G.: Very good. A set of explanatory roles rather than one sovereign source copied several times. S.: Then your jibe that plural principle is like plural one has to be qualified. G.: I know. I only keep the jibe because it forces the distinction. If a principium were strictly indivisible like the numeral one, plurality would destroy it. But a principle is not a numeral. It is a beginning, source, condition, explanatory element, rule, or ground under some description. S.: Which descriptions multiply faster than numerals. G.: Unfortunately, yes. Now, why naturalium? Why not simply rerum? S.: Because the title wants to restrict the field to natural things as opposed to artificial, mathematical, moral, political, or theological objects. G.: Good. And once one says naturalium, one already invites the old question whether natural things differ from non-natural things in requiring a distinctive plurality of principles. S.: They might, because natural things involve change, generation, corruption, motion, and internal principles of development. G.: Exactly. A natural thing is not merely an item but something with becoming. And becoming breeds plurality. S.: That is nearly Heraclitean. G.: Or simply Aristotelian. A statue may have a single artisan and matter enough for explanation; a seed becoming an oak tempts one toward richer principle-talk. S.: So one principle for one natural thing may be less plausible than one principle for one non-natural thing. G.: Very nice. A geometric proof may proceed from one axiom under a description; a growing animal almost certainly will not. S.: Which means your original suspicion that if there is one principle it ought to be of one thing, and perhaps natural, needs inversion. Natural things may be the least likely to submit to singleness. G.: Irritating but excellent. Nature is prodigal in explanatory demands. Artificial things, being designed, often flatter the wish for a single principle more readily. S.: Because a builder or legislator can simplify the account. G.: Yes. Human making often compresses principle because purpose dominates. Nature, having no single craftsman visible within the field, invites formal and material and teleological and efficient plurality. S.: Then perhaps Simoni’s title is not loose at all but exact. G.: It may be exact in a scholastic way, yes. Still, let us continue the play. Suppose one principle for one thing, natural, and only one. What would that even look like? S.: A monadic substance whose whole explanation lies in one irreducible source. G.: Like? S.: Perhaps God, though not natural. Or a purely simple being, which again is not natural in the Aristotelian field. G.: Exactly. The more one seeks strict singleness of principle, the less natural the object becomes. S.: So natural things, being composite, temporally involved, and mutable, almost force plural principles. G.: Very good. Now one principle for many natural things? S.: A universal law, say, gravitation. G.: Ah, but then the principle is lawlike, not ontological in the old material-formal sense. That is a modern economy. S.: Which means the title De principiis rerum naturalium belongs to a world before law absorbs principle. G.: Splendid. Keep that. In modern science, one may hope for one law over many things. In Simoni’s world, principia are more varied, more ontological, more causal, more constitutive. S.: So the plural reflects not untidiness but a different explanatory ontology. G.: Precisely. Principle there is nearer to archē than to mere theorem. S.: And rerum in the plural then indicates the field of beings subject to generation and change, not just items under a single law. G.: Very good. Now, can there be two principles for one non-natural thing? S.: Yes. A legal judgment may require both statute and interpretation. A promise may require both words and intention. A work of art may require matter and design. G.: Which means plurality of principle is not reserved for the natural after all. S.: No. But the natural makes plurality feel less optional. G.: Agreed. Now, what do we do with the phrase principiis rerum? Is the genitive objective, descriptive, possessive? S.: “The principles of things” means the principles belonging to, explaining, grounding, or relevant to things. It is not possessive in the childish sense. G.: Good. But one can hear two shades. Either the principles that things have, or the principles by reference to which things are understood. S.: Which may diverge. G.: Exactly. A thing may have one internal source yet require several principles of understanding, or vice versa. S.: So grammatical simplicity conceals explanatory multiplicity. G.: As titles often do. Now, you mentioned matter, form, and privation. Why privation? S.: Because in Aristotelian natural philosophy becoming is not intelligible merely through matter and form. One must also account for the absence from which the form emerges under change. G.: Excellent. So already one natural thing in generation may require three principles. S.: Which is enough to offend your numerical conscience. G.: Entirely. One thing, three principles. But the conscience must yield if the explanatory role is distinct. S.: Then perhaps your analogy with “one” was always a useful provocation rather than a thesis. G.: Naturally. I provoke in order to classify. S.: Soldati would call that rhetoric. G.: And I should call it the beginning of analysis. Now, let us make the game more explicit. One principle for one natural thing: perhaps impossible except under abstraction. One principle for one non-natural thing: more plausible. One principle for many natural things: attractive to reducers, moderns, and metaphysicians of elegance. One principle for many non-natural things: common in conventions, legal systems, and inferential rules. S.: Two or more principles for one natural thing: classical and almost unavoidable. Two or more principles for one non-natural thing: also common once artefacts, norms, and institutions are properly described. G.: Excellent. Then the title De principiis rerum naturalium turns out to name the quadrant in which plurality is least surprising. S.: Exactly. Many principles, many natural things. G.: Still, one might ask why not De principio rerum naturalium if one were sufficiently monistic. S.: Because Simoni is not trying to identify the one stuff or the one law of all natural things. He is discussing the set of first explanatory factors relevant to natural beings as such. G.: Very good. And because the plural rerum blocks the naïve expectation that the title ought to concern one thing. S.: It says from the start that the field is distributed. G.: Yes. There is no single res here. There are naturalia, and they come in crowds. S.: Which may also suit a thinker living under pressure and moving among universities, heresy charges, Lucca, Padua, Geneva, and all the rest. One principle would be doctrinally and politically too easy. G.: Ah, now you are reading biography back into ontology. S.: Only lightly. G.: Still, not wholly absurd. Men used to negotiated and dangerous speech often distrust singular foundations. Plural principles are safer than single authorities. S.: Especially if direct speech is dangerous and one must move between doctrinal regimes. G.: Very good. A title with principia in the plural may be metaphysically Aristotelian and politically prudent. S.: Which Speranza would enjoy. G.: As he enjoys all nouns that survive under pressure. Now, could “principiis” also suggest schools rather than realities? That is, principles according to various doctrines rather than principles inherent in things? S.: It could, depending on the work’s rhetoric. On the principles of natural things might mean on the competing accounts of what the principles are. G.: Excellent. Then the plural may be partly dialectical. Not merely many principles in the world, but many candidate principles in the schools. S.: So one principle for all things, two principles for one thing, three for generation, and so on, all in dispute. G.: Precisely. A disputational title can carry ontological plurality and doctrinal plurality at once. S.: Then your complaint that plural principle is like plural one has now become fully pedagogical rather than substantive. G.: Yes. I keep the complaint because it teaches the student to ask what sort of plural he is facing. Numerical? Categorical? Explanatory? Doctrinal? Lexical? S.: Very useful. Then we may say that principium in plural is not like one in plural, because principle is a role-term, not a mere numeral. G.: Splendid. A role-term, yes. One may have many principles because one may have many explanatory roles, many layers, many candidate grounds, many types of beginning. S.: And rerum in plural likewise marks not confusion but the field of multiplicity to which such explanatory roles apply. G.: Exactly. Things, in nature, are many; and because they are many, and natural, and changing, their principles are unlikely to remain singular except under philosophical coercion. S.: Which would be a wonderful subtitle: against philosophical coercion. G.: Simoni might have liked it, though Valgrisi perhaps less. Now, should we also ask whether “naturalium” modifies rerum alone or colours principia too? S.: Grammatically it modifies rerum, but conceptually it colours the whole phrase. These are the principles of natural things, not principles that are themselves necessarily natural. G.: Good. So one must not infer that the principles themselves are all natural items. S.: Exactly. Form, privation, matter, cause, end—these are principles of natural things without themselves being little natural things in the same sense. G.: Very important. Otherwise the title becomes zoological. Now, your final defense of the plural? S.: Because one natural thing can require more than one principle; many natural things may require distinct and shared principles; and the title may also register a plurality of doctrinal accounts. Therefore principia is philosophically sober, not numerically confused. G.: And rerum? S.: Because the field is not one thing but the whole order of natural beings, considered in their plurality and mutability. G.: Excellent. And my final complaint? S.: That philosophers ought never to pluralise a noun without being prepared to say what kind of multiplicity they mean. G.: Perfect. That is exactly the sort of dry rule titles deserve. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Lucchese, with one plural horse already saddled for Geneva.