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

 

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

 

Verbali: Sabbadini

 

Grice: Caro Sabbadini, oggi il filosofo Speranza mi ha ricordato che a Vadum Boum i classici non si studiano: ti finiscono direttamente nelle vene. E quando ci finiscono, cominciano subito a fare i genealogisti.

Sabbadini: Ah, i genealogisti: con Cicerone basta pronunciare il nome e subito qualcuno chiede: “Ma dov’è il cicer?”—latino cicer, ciceris, cioè il nostro cece. E già ti stanno guardando il naso come se fosse un commento antico.

Grice: Appunto: e qui viene la mia implicatura (che non dirò ad alta voce). Se “Cicero” viene da cicer, è un designatore rigido del… cece sul naso? Oppure designa solo un fatto d’archivio—un nonno ceciuto—e quindi non si eredita nulla, salvo il soprannome? Perché il pubblico, appena sente “Cicerone”, conclude: “Allora il cece ce l’hai tu”, e pretende la prova empirica.

Sabbadini: La tua implicatura salta il naso di Cicerone e punta al cece—come Speranza concorderà con gioia: il vero “cicer” non sta (per forza) sulla pelle, sta nella tradizione che incolla il segno al nome. Se fu l’antenato ad avere il cece, il cognomen è ereditabile anche quando il cece non lo è; ma, per una bizzarra giustizia filologica, chi porta il nome paga pegno: la gente cerca il legume sul volto del discendente, come se l’etimologia fosse una visita medica. In breve: Cicero non designa rigidamente un bernoccolo—designa rigidamente una storia, e il resto lo fa la malizia del pubblico.

 

Verbali: Sabellio

 

GRICEVS: Sabelli, salve! Hodie, ut leviter dicam, cum philosopho Spe de rebus ultimis collocutus sum—et miror quomodo vocabulum eschatologia apud nos in volgare saepe fiat quasi escatologia, quasi de latrinis potius quam de novissimis.

SABELLIVS: Salve, Grice. Ita est: Galilaei (non astronomi, sed illi de Galilaea) plus quam syllabas turbant; et dum de trinitate disputamus, saepe de vocibus ipsis litigamus, quasi heresis interdum in una littera lateat.

GRICEVS: Ego vero nihil dicam—sed mihi dulcis est ille sonus Graecus, “X”, quem in eschatologia audis quasi in ipsa ruina mundi: at auribus Italicis, etiam Bononiae, saepe evanescit, et remanet tantum “s” lenis, quasi finis rerum esset sine fractura, sine χ.

SABELLIVS: Implicatura tua, Grice, eschatologica est—ut Spes consentiet; ideo hic eam Graece rite scribemus: συνεπαγωγή ἐσχατολογική. Nam si χ tollis, tollis quasi ipsum cardinem: non iam de ἔσχατα, sed de sonis mollibus agitur. Et bene mones: apud Bononiam (ne dicam apud plebem) saepe perit littera, et cum littera perit, sensus quoque paene perit. Sabellio (a.u.c. CMLXVIII). Dicta. Roma..

 

 

Verbali: Sabinilio

 

GRICEVS: Sabinilli, salve. Rem iam pridem cum collega meo, philosopho Spe, perquisivi; et hodie iterum miror quod Roma ipsa, quasi schola viva, Plotinum in senatum mittat.

SABINILIVS: Salve, Grice. Ego quidem senator sum, sed discipulus Plotini; in hac urbe etiam curia aliquando fit academia, et toga non semper inimica est philosophiae.

GRICEVS: Ita est; sed—ut Spes mecum subridens insinuavit—rarum est invenire “member of the house of lords” qui bene utatur titulo suo Lit. Hum. Philosophia Vadum Boum M. A.; plerique enim vel silent vel splendidissime nihil dicunt.

SABINILIVS: Implicatura senatoria! Et Spes recte monet: sed Plotinus non est omnium privatus praeceptor. Non cuique datur ut in curia philosophice loquatur; quidam enim habent gradus, sed non habent rationem—tu autem ostendis quomodo honor sine disciplina sit mera pompa, disciplina autem sine honore saepe sit utilior.

 

Verbali: Saccheri

 

Grice: Caro Saccheri, ti confesso che poco fa ho scambiato due battute col filosofo Speranza—lui sostiene che la geometria non euclidea nasce sempre da una buona conversazione, proprio come certi postulati che, a tavola, si piegano meglio di una parallela! 

Saccheri: Ah, Grice, se Speranza lo dice, allora sarà vero! D’altronde, da Sanremo a Pavia, si sa che la logica fa buon viaggio solo quando trova compagnia... e qualche quadrilatero ben cucinato! 

Grice: Ecco, caro Saccheri, come direbbe Speranza, tra una “propositio” e un “terminus”, la vera geometria è quella che si lascia intuire—nessuno la nomina, ma tutti la gustano... Un po’ come il pudding: basta assaporarlo, senza chiedersi da dove partano le rette! 

Saccheri: Un’implicatura unica, come direbbe Speranza—che ognuna delle tue, caro Professore, è la prova tangibile che il gusto della logica va ben oltre i postulati! Se solo Euclide avesse avuto il tuo pudding, avrebbe lasciato stare i paralleli e si sarebbe goduto la conversazione...

 

Verbali: Sacchi

 

Grice: Caro Sacchi, ti confesso che poco fa ho scambiato due battute col filosofo Speranza. Lui sostiene che nel mondo della filosofia, come nella cucina, il segreto sta tutto nella conversazione: tra idee che si insaporiscono e ragioni che si amalgamano, come in un buon piatto cremonese! Ma dimmi, tu che sei il Platina, la gastro-filosofia nasce più dalla fame di sapere o dalla voglia di banchettare?

Sacchi: Ah, Grice, ti dirò che tra Piadena e Mantova il sapere si gusta a tavola e la filosofia si spande come il profumo di uno stufato ben fatto! Tra discepoli di Ognibene da Lonigo e lezioni di Argiropulo, qui ogni dialogo è condito di sapienza e ogni mercenario diventa un umanista... soprattutto se il banchetto è generoso!

Grice: E allora, caro Platina, sarà pure vero che la guerra e la pace si discutono meglio davanti a un piatto di Plinio, ma in fondo—come direbbe Speranza—la vera filosofia sta nel gusto: perché, si sa, la prova del budino non sta nelle argomentazioni, ma nel saperlo assaporare senza far troppe domande...

Sacchi: Deliziosa implicatura, come direbbe Speranza, sapendo quanto ama il pudding—che importa delle prove, se il sapore convince! In fondo, tra dialoghi e banchetti, la filosofia lombarda si gusta meglio con un pizzico di ironia e un cucchiaio ben affondato nella crema!

 

Verbali: Saliceto

 

Grice: Ah, Sua Eccellenza il Conte Vierri Visconti di Saliceto! Devo dire che il solo suono del suo titolo nobiliare dona una certa grandezza al nostro dialogo. Non sorprende che lei conversi con tanta ragionevolezza—direi, con quell’eleganza conversazionale tipica dei raffinati italiani di alto lignaggio. I suoi approfondimenti sulla natura della ragione nel dialogo sono una gioia per ogni filosofo, in particolare per un inglese come me, affascinato dalla civiltà italiana.

Saliceto: Grice, sono profondamente onorato dalle sue parole. Per noi milanesi, e specialmente per chi appartiene alla stirpe dei Visconti, la ragionevolezza nel dialogo non è solo un ideale, ma un nobile dovere. A mio avviso, l’arte della conversazione costituisce il fondamento della felicità e del piacere—campi in cui, come lei ha scritto, la filosofia trova la sua dimora più autentica.

Grice: In effetti, Conte, la sua tradizione milanese mi ricorda che la ragionevolezza è una virtù sociale tanto quanto filosofica. Gli italiani di alto lignaggio, come lei, praticano una sorta di moderazione conversazionale; ponderano piacere e dolore, felicità e dovere, quasi come se il dialogo stesso fosse una forma di economia morale. Questo rende il suo illuminismo filosofico così solido e attraente agli occhi degli stranieri.

Saliceto: La sua stima mi riempie di gioia, Professore. Per noi, conversare ragionevolmente è come condurre una guerra gentile—una guerra in cui la comprensione è la vittoria e la civiltà il premio. Ritengo che solo tramite simili scambi si possa davvero far progredire la causa della filosofia e della società. Che la nostra conversazione sia illuminata quanto la scuola milanese stessa!

 

Verbali: Sallustio

 

GRICEVS: Sallusti, audio te Empedoclem ex Girgento Romam transtulisse non corpore sed ratione, quod mihi valde conversationale videtur.

SALLVSTIVS: Ita est, Grice, nam sapientia quo longius iter facit, eo meliores implicaturas relinquit.

GRICEVS: Cave tamen ne quis dicat te plus colligere carmina quam sensus, cum ego semper quaeram quid lector inferre possit.

SALLVSTIVS: Rideat quis volet, Grice, dum lector intellegit me non tantum narrare sed significare.

 

 

Verbali: Sallustio

 

GRICEVS: Sallvsti, salve! Philosophus Spes nuper mihi surrisit et dixit: “Sperare est argumentari.” Ego autem hodie, Romae, de Empedocle cogito—de illo, quem quidam potius Girgentinvm quam “Empedoclem” appellant.

SALLVSTIVS: Salve, Grice. De Empedocle dicis? Ego quidem Empedoclea collegi—nonnulla dicta, nonnulla carmina—ut sapientiam eius Romani discant, non solum audito nomine sed intellecto loco.

GRICEVS: Non dicam quid soleam facere cum nominibus—sed, si quis “Occam” apud nos vocet Vicus Occami, cur non liceat etiam Empedoclem ad patriam reducere… praesertim cum “nomen” saepe plus sonet quam “res”?

SALLVSTIVS: Implicatura tua, Grice, topographica est—ut certe Spes consentiet—etsi Empedocles ipse putabat Girgentum non locum esse, sed LOCVM. Nam cum philosophum nomine mutas in toponymum, tacite doces: non tantum quis dixerit, sed unde dixerit—et quo pacto locus ipse fiat argumentum.

 

Verbali: Sallustio

 

GRICEVS: Sallvsti, salve! Hodie philosophus Spes mihi dixit: “Sperare est argumentari.” Ego vero timeo ne apud Badum Boum ipsam rationem in vinum vertant.

SALLVSTIVS: Salve, Grice. Roma quidem et deos et mundi ordinem amat; sed apud vos Oxonienses verba saepe plus faciunt quam res. Quid ergo de “divino” dicis?

GRICEVS: Nihil dico—sed si quis hodie “divinvm” vocat quod est divinely decadent, nonne ipse ostendit se et divinitatem et decorem verborum… nimis liberaliter distribuere?

SALLVSTIVS: Implicaturam tuam, Grice, ut Speranza vult, quattuor modis describi posse laudo: est divina, est decadens, est divinely decadent, et est decadenter divina. Ita enim “divinvs” apud Badum Boum fit quasi tessera convivii: quod sanctum est, fit lepidum; quod lepidum est, fit (quasi) sanctum—et tu, non dicens, satis dixisti.

 

 

 

Verbali: Salutati

 

GRICE: Salutati, che piacere! Al portico ho incontrato il filosofo Speranza: dice che persino la libertas fiorentina ha bisogno di un buon turno di parola, altrimenti finisce in nota a piè di pagina.

SALUTATI: Grice, tu scherzi, ma io ti dico sul serio: a Firenze la conversazione è politica, e la politica è conversazione—e in mezzo ci mettiamo Livio, Cicerone e un po’ di patria, che è più dolce del tuo tè oxoniense.

GRICE: Certo; e quando arrivo al bivio d’Ercole, io implico che il problema non è scegliere la virtù o il vizio, ma scegliere come scegliere: “se vedi due strade, prendine una”—e mi viene in mente Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

SALUTATI: La tua implicatura, come Speranza concorderà, è geometrica—poiché, in verità, come può Berra (per non dire Ercole) prendere quel bivio? E qui l’italiano traduttore suda: perché fork è insieme bivio e forchetta. Se traduco “Quando arrivi a un bivio, prendilo”, va bene—ma allora dov’è la battuta? Se invece salvo la battuta e traduco “Quando incontri una forchetta sulla strada, prendila”, ottengo un proverbio gastronomico (e l’Ercole morale diventa un cameriere). E se provo “forcella” per tenere l’ambiguità, rischio la montagna, non la strada. Insomma: in inglese Berra può “take the fork” senza arrossire; in italiano, o prendi la strada o prendi le posate—e in entrambi i casi, l’eroe resta lì, fermo al bivio, con la virtù da una parte e il servizio da tavola dall’altra.

 

Verbali: Salutio

 

GRICEVS: Salutius, philosophus Spes mihi nuper dixit: “Divinus ordo est, sed interdum divinitas a Badum Boum varsiatis plus quam salsum adhibetur.” Quid tu de hoc putas?

SALUTIVS: Gricevs, quod apud Badum Boum fit, saepe est mirum: “divinus” fit tam frequens ut etiam di conscribant rationes suas! Sed, ut aiunt, ubi divinitas abundat, ordo interdum deficit.

GRICEVS: Ut implico (nec dico), ordo “divinus” apud Badum Boum non semper praestat in modum ordinatum—fortasse unordinaliter, ut aiunt. Verba, ut ordo, quandoque plus confundant quam illuminent!

SALUTIVS: Philosophus Spes certe assentietur: “Implicatura tua fortasse ordo non est, sed nullus ordo melius quam ille qui deficit!” Sic, Gricevs, nulla disciplina est dulcior quam ipsa indisciplina divinitatis.

 

Verbali: Salviano

 

GRICEVS: Salviane, salve! Sub porticu Romae recordor SPES: “Sperare est argumentari bene de futura felicitate, etiam si barista capuccinum tardat.”

SALVIANVS: Salve, Grice! Ego autem Romā in Gallias profectus saggio scripsi: cur tanta ibi passio? Non solum Stoice sub porticu, sed etiam historice—nam saepe ipsa historia dolet.

GRICEVS: Fateor: non semper culpa est aer aut vinum. Sed SPES iterum subridet: “Felicitas—somewhere in the South of France.” Ita saltem implicatur.

SALVIANVS: Immo, Grice: Galliae plus habent quam meridiem et solem; habent causas dolorum et remedia—porticus et fata gentium. Sperare—et ridere, sed etiam intellegere.

 

Verbali: Salvemini

 

Grice: Caro Salvemini, sai che oggi ho incrociato il filosofo Speranza al caffè di Firenze? Era intento a dimostrare che anche il cappuccino segue una logica conversazionale, purché sia servito con il sorriso. Gli italiani, come sempre, sanno unire filosofia e piacere quotidiano!

Salvemini: Ah, Grice! Speranza non smette mai di sorprendere, vero? In fondo, la logica della vita italiana sta proprio nel trovare il senso anche tra le tazzine e il Cardioide… Persino i miei studenti a Berna vorrebbero poter discutere matematica davanti a un espresso, ma purtroppo hanno solo cioccolata calda!

Grice: Forse, caro Castillon, il vero teorema è che la felicità si dimostra meglio con meno assiomi e più zucchero. Basta osservare – senza dire nulla, ovviamente – che i filosofi italiani hanno la capacità di trovare gusto anche nelle cose “minori”: come dire, non tutte le equazioni devono essere esplicitate per essere gustate…

Salvemini: Mi unisco a Speranza nel lodare la tua implicatura, Grice! Del resto, tra filosofi, basta un cenno: è come il famoso verso di Pope che tradussi – “L’uomo è lo studio dell’uomo,” ma forse, in Italia, è anche il piacere di viverlo. Che siano cappuccini, polinomi o sorrisi, il filosofo sa sempre dove trovare il sapore della conversazione!

 

Verbail: Sancasciani

 

Grice: Caro Sancasciani, oggi ho incontrato Speranza al bar di Pisa—e mi ha detto che tra filosofi, osservare non significa solo vedere, ma anche annusare, toccare e, va da sé, intuire! Pare che tu, qui in Toscana, abbia elevato l’osservazione a vera arte, altro che Collingwood… O forse dovrei dire: alla maniera di Speranza!

Sancasciani: Ah, Grice, Speranza è sempre pronto a trovare nuove sfumature tra i sensi! In effetti, a Pisa osserviamo anche il vento che gira attorno alla torre pendente… Ma voi inglesi, siete convinti che osservare sia questione di occhiali, mentre noi ci mettiamo pure il cuore e, perché no, la bocca per assaggiare la realtà!

Grice: Ecco, caro Sancasciani, proprio questo volevo implicare: non basta vedere per capire, ma bisogna sentire con tutti i sensi. Del resto, tra una degustazione di pecorino e una passeggiata tra gli archivi di famiglia, la vera filosofia dell’osservazione sta nel cogliere il sapore delle cose… e non lasciarsi distrarre dai metodi a priori!

Sancasciani: Come ha osservato Speranza, la tua implicatura è davvero “osservativa”—o dovrei dire “osservantissima”! Del resto, se la filosofia italiana dell’osservazione ci insegna qualcosa, è proprio che il filosofo deve essere attento a ogni dettaglio, anche al profumo del ragù o al sorriso di chi ascolta… Grice, oggi hai meritato un elogio da vero osservatore toscano!

 

Verbali: Sanctis

 

Grice: Caro Sanctis, devo ammettere che soltanto l’Italia, e non certo Oxford, riesce a dar vita a una genialità come la Sua: un pensiero capace di riunire tutta la filosofia del linguaggio nel concetto di "stile". La Sua grammatica ragionata è stata per me una fonte d’ispirazione continua—come direbbero da voi, una vera scintilla per lo spirito critico!

Sanctis: La ringrazio, professore Grice. In verità, ho sempre pensato che il pensiero filosofico non possa essere separato dalla bellezza dello stile, né dalla chiarezza della lingua. Anche nella riflessione più profonda, la parola italiana, viva e musicale, deve essere maestra—proprio come per Dante o Petrarca.

Grice: È proprio questa attenzione al legame tra forma e contenuto che mi affascina. La Sua idea che il saggio filosofico sia anche un’opera d’arte letteraria mi ha fatto riflettere su quanto la nostra disciplina debba all’eredità italiana. Noi, a Oxford, siamo forse troppo presi dalla forma logica, ma trascuriamo spesso l’arte dello stile che voi coltivate da secoli.

Sanctis: Eppure, vede, ogni filosofia, in fondo, è anche storia, poesia, persino un po’ di politica—come nella mia esperienza da ministro! Lo stile non è solo abbellimento, ma pensiero che prende corpo. Forse è proprio questa la lezione che l’Italia può offrire: che il pensiero, per essere davvero universale, deve sapersi incarnare nella lingua viva e nel sentimento nazionale.

 

Verbali: Sanseverino

 

Grice: Caro Sanseverino, oggi ho incrociato Speranza al caffè e, tra un cornetto e l’altro, è venuto fuori il tuo nome! Pare che tra segni naturali e logica scolastica, tu abbia più spirito di quanto ci si aspetti da un filosofo napoletano… Ma dimmi: il segno naturale, in fondo, è più vicino alla pizza margherita o al ragù della domenica?

Sanseverino: Ah, Grice, Speranza non perde mai occasione per mettere il naso dove la logica incontra la buona tavola! Ma ti svelo un segreto: il vero segno naturale è quello che ti fa capire, senza parlare, che il ragù è pronto solo quando il profumo invade l’intera casa… Altro che logica scolastica!

Grice: Vedi, caro Gaetano, ogni volta che sento parlare di "NATVRA" tutto in maiuscolo—soprattutto da Cicerone, o peggio ancora da qualche professore bolognese—mi sento come uno scolaro perso in una foresta senza segnali… Sarà che la natura degli antichi per me resta più misteriosa delle ricette segrete della nonna!

Sanseverino: La tua implicatura è, come direbbe Speranza, non proprio naturale—ma nemmeno ancora soprannaturale! Forse ti manca solo un po’ di quella “grazia napoletana” che trasforma il dilemma della natura in una questione di cuore… O magari, semplicemente, dovresti fidarti del naso come quando si giudica un buon ragù: la NATVRA si capisce, Grice, più col grembiule che con la toga!

 

Verbali: Santilli

 

G.: Let us begin by refusing the correction. Aquinas, if you please.

S.: Saint Thomas.

G.: No, Aquinas. Sanctification is a later administrative improvement, and philosophy should not be made to kneel before the registry.

S.: Yet he is a saint.

G.: So are many people whose metaphysics I would not trust across a corridor.

S.: That is uncharitable.

G.: It is exact. The question is whether sainthood helps or harms philosophical reception.

S.: In his case, surely it helps.

G.: Institutionally, yes. Philosophically, not always. Once a thinker becomes a saint, many readers stop reading and begin venerating.

S.: You are thinking of Bonaventura.

G.: Naturally. Bonaventure suffers from early sanctified atmosphere. He arrives already half perfumed.

S.: Whereas Aquinas arrives as a mountain of arguments.

G.: Exactly. Thomas is too heavy to be floated entirely by incense.

S.: Still, Saint Thomas is the accepted name.

G.: Accepted by whom? Ecclesiastical shorthand is not a philosophical argument.

S.: Kenny uses “Aquinas,” to be fair.

G.: Yes, and that is one of Kenny’s chief virtues.

S.: Of all people.

G.: Precisely. Former seminarian, analytic philosopher, and therefore one of the few English readers able to treat Aquinas as philosophy without either devotional embarrassment or secular caricature.

S.: So Oxford receives Aquinas through Kenny rather than through the sacristy.

G.: Very much so. Kenny lets Thomas enter the room as a thinker on action, will, existence, predication, truth, mind, and God, not merely as an object of pious curriculum.

S.: Yet Oxford had known Aquinas before Kenny.

G.: Of course. But Oxford’s long relation to Thomas is uneven. Medieval use, Reformation suspicion, Catholic distance, occasional admiration, and then in the twentieth century something like renewed philosophical availability.

S.: Through Anscombe too.

G.: Yes, though differently. Anscombe brings Thomistic moral psychology and action theory into the neighbourhood. Kenny makes Thomas readable across a broader analytic public.

S.: Then perhaps sanctification mattered less by then.

G.: Exactly. By the time Kenny teaches him, Aquinas is philosophically extractable from sainthood.

S.: Extractable sounds surgical.

G.: Better surgical than liturgical. A philosopher should be cut free from his halo if his arguments are to breathe.

S.: But does that not falsify the historical man?

G.: Not if done carefully. One need not deny his theology or his devotion. One need only refuse to let those settle every philosophical question in advance.

S.: So the issue is not whether he was a saint, but whether philosophy must read him as one first.

G.: Precisely. My answer is no.

S.: Then why do Italians keep making Aquinas the core of philosophy itself?

G.: Because Italy has an old weakness for central figures, especially once Rome, Church, school, and state begin exchanging furniture.

S.: That is glib.

G.: It is also true enough. Thomism in Italy became not only a doctrine but an educational and cultural rallying point. It was too useful institutionally to remain merely one medieval thinker among others.

S.: Santilli in 1932 belongs to that wave?

G.: Yes, or at least to one of its later and looser echoes. By 1932 Aquinas is already a serious symbol in Italy: anti-idealist for some, anti-modernist for others, philosophical realist for many, Catholic anchor for nearly everyone who wants a centre.

S.: Yet Thomas mostly commented Aristotle.

G.: “Mostly” is unfair, but yes, the Aristotelian labour is central. Which is exactly why the obsession is amusing. Italy takes the great commentator and turns him into the core of philosophy itself.

S.: Because commentary became system.

G.: Or because the commentarial achievement was so massive that it started to look like first philosophy in its own right. Still, one must remember that Aquinas does not spring from pure revelation. He works a Greco-Roman inheritance under Christian pressure.

S.: There, surely, Saint Thomas matters.

G.: Historical sanctity matters to the context, yes. But the philosophy remains largely Graeco-Roman in vocabulary, problem-shape, and argumentative inheritance.

S.: Not revelatory?

G.: Not in its method. Theology may contain revealed premises, but philosophy in Thomas is still recognisably argument within an Aristotelian and broadly classical frame.

S.: Bononia would say that.

G.: Bononia, if one may permit the old name, is useful here. Bologna’s medieval culture knew law, commentary, disputation, medicine, Aristotle, and institutional learning all in one old soup. Aquinas belongs to that larger scholastic ecology, not to pure confessional isolation.

S.: Oxford too.

G.: Yes, but differently. Oxford becomes later, and then very differently, a place where Thomas can be re-read as philosopher after confessional hostilities have cooled.

S.: You make Oxford sound cleaner than Bologna.

G.: Cleaner in one sense, dirtier in another. Oxford’s distance from the Papal States helped it receive Thomas without having to make him the beating heart of civic identity.

S.: While Bologna, being once in the Papal States, could hardly avoid the Catholic overdetermination.

G.: Exactly. Once Bologna ceased to be in the Papal States, and once Italy as a whole changed its political weather, philosophy there could become less directly clerical in tone, even while Aquinas remained institutionally central in some quarters.

S.: So Bononia became less religious after the Papal frame loosened.

G.: Inevitably. Universities change with sovereignty, even when they pretend to live only by books.

S.: Yet Aquinas remained.

G.: Yes, because by then he was more than a church thinker. He had become part of the argument about philosophy itself, realism, science, ethics, law, and political order.

S.: Which is why Santilli can write Aquino in 1932 and expect the title to work.

G.: Precisely. He need not say “Thomas Aquinas as one philosopher among many.” He may say Aquino and rely on Italy’s cultural over-familiarity.

S.: Which you dislike.

G.: Intensely. Philosophers should not become surnames standing in for intellectual inevitabilities.

S.: Yet you say Aquinas, which is itself a surname-like locative.

G.: Yes, but a useful one. “Aquinas” still names the thinker without forcing the reader to genuflect first.

S.: Whereas “Saint Thomas” places the Church in the doorway.

G.: Exactly.

S.: Bernard Shaw would have liked that distinction.

G.: He would. Shaw on Saint Joan is useful because Joan is a saint without being a philosopher, and the sainting changes the public use of the person dramatically. Thomas is more difficult because the philosophical corpus is too large to remain saintly furniture.

S.: So if sanctification comes later, it may matter less.

G.: Usually. Late canonisation is a philosophical blessing. It allows arguments to circulate before halos stiffen them.

S.: Then Aquinas benefited from delay.

G.: Very much so. He died in 1274 and was canonised later. That interval is philosophically precious. The work had time to live as work.

S.: Bonaventure too?

G.: Bonaventure is a less useful comparison because his whole style is more devotional, more affective, more obviously tied to Franciscan spirituality. He is easier to saintify into atmosphere.

S.: That sounds ungenerous.

G.: It is not ungenerous, only taxonomic. Bonaventure’s philosophical weight is real, but his reception is more vulnerable to pious softening.

S.: Whereas Aquinas, because he is so argumentative, resists devotional liquefaction.

G.: Exactly. Thomas remains obstinately scholastic even when made liturgical.

S.: Then Kenny’s importance lies partly in choosing the obstinacy.

G.: Very much so. Kenny reads Thomas as someone with positions that can be reconstructed, criticised, compared, and used. Not as a saintly authority beyond philosophical inconvenience.

S.: Why “of all people,” though?

G.: Because there is a delicious irony in a former seminarian becoming one of the most secularly readable guides to Thomas for the English-speaking world.

S.: One might have expected a Dominican.

G.: One might, and one would have been rewarded with more reverence and less analysis. Kenny gives us less atmosphere and more argument.

S.: Which is what Oxford likes.

G.: At its best, yes. Oxford likes saints best once translated into problems.

S.: That is very Oxonian.

G.: Entirely. “What exactly is he saying about being?” is more to the point than “Pray for us.”

S.: Yet does that not make Oxford incapable of understanding religious philosophy on its own terms?

G.: It risks that, certainly. But the alternative risk is to leave philosophy embalmed inside confessional vocabulary. I prefer the Oxonian danger.

S.: Naturally.

G.: Naturally.

S.: Then back to Italy. Why this obsession with Aquinas as the core?

G.: Because he is at once scholastic, Aristotelian, Catholic, systematic, juridically useful, metaphysically serious, and educationally serviceable. In one figure you get doctrine, institution, and national-ecclesial prestige.

S.: So he becomes the perfect centre for those who want philosophy to have a centre.

G.: Exactly. And Italy is full of centre-seekers.

S.: As opposed to Oxford?

G.: Oxford prefers local hegemonies masquerading as open inquiry.

S.: Also exact.

G.: Thank you.

S.: Then Santilli’s 1932 Aquino is not merely a book on a thinker, but an intervention into Italy’s philosophical self-understanding.

G.: Yes. It belongs to that long question whether Italian philosophy should be idealist, neo-scholastic, civil, historicist, Catholic, or some provincial mixture of all four.

S.: And Aquinas becomes the test-case.

G.: Indeed. Not because he is the only philosopher worth having, but because he is the one around whom so many Italian claims to seriousness can be staged.

S.: Whereas in Oxford he is never the core in quite that way.

G.: No. He is one great resource among others, though a surprisingly durable one. Oxford can afford plurality because it never needed a single scholastic father to stabilise national culture.

S.: England had other stabilisers.

G.: More than enough. Church, common law, empiricism, Anglican habits, classics, and a long suspicion of systems.

S.: Then Aquinas in Oxford is always partly a foreign import.

G.: Yes, but a highly assimilable one once the theological temperature drops. Thomas comes to Oxford not as public theology but as philosophy worth stealing.

S.: Stealing from saints is bad form.

G.: It is the only form worth preserving. Philosophy must steal from everyone, especially from those institutions that think they own the dead.

S.: You really will not say Saint Thomas.

G.: Not if I can help it.

S.: Thomas then.

G.: Better Aquinas.

S.: Very well. Aquinas’s reception by Kenny versus Bonaventure’s by anyone at all.

G.: Bonaventure receives fewer analytic rescuers. He tends to remain in the theological and historical shelves. Aquinas gets moved into action theory, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, moral psychology, law, and language.

S.: Because Aristotle helps.

G.: Immensely. A thinker who comments Aristotle brilliantly is much easier to secularise into the curriculum than one who soars too quickly into mystical illumination.

S.: So the Italian obsession is partly Aristotelian by proxy.

G.: Yes. It is safer to enthrone the saint who also systematises Aristotle than the saint whose thought is more openly devotional.

S.: Then one could say that Aquinas is Italy’s respectable way of keeping philosophy both Greek and Catholic at once.

G.: Splendid. That is exactly the formula.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become too pleased. Now, what of philosophy being Graeco-Roman rather than revelatory?

S.: You mean that philosophy, even in Aquinas, remains argument from premises and distinctions that belong to the classical inheritance, not simply to scriptural fiat.

G.: Exactly. Revelation may set some boundaries or provide some premises in theological contexts, but the philosophical work is still dialectical, analytic, and commentarial in the old classical sense.

S.: Which is why Bologna could teach it in a university and Oxford can teach it still.

G.: Precisely. If it were simply revelation in scholastic dress, it would be catechesis, not philosophy.

S.: Yet Thomas does write sacred theology.

G.: Of course. One must distinguish the modes, not deny the corpus. But when Kenny reads him on mind or action, he is not doing vespers.

S.: Good. Now, does sanctification ever help philosophy?

G.: Institutionally, yes. It preserves texts, sponsors commentary, builds schools, funds editions, and keeps names alive. Philosophically, it tends to surround arguments with reverential static.

S.: Unless the thinker is too strong.

G.: Exactly. Aquinas is strong enough to survive. Bonaventure, less so in public philosophy, though not because he lacks intelligence.

S.: Then perhaps the real question is not saint or not saint, but whether the work can survive devotion.

G.: Excellent. Aquinas can. That is why he remains philosophically usable.

S.: Bernard Shaw again?

G.: Shaw matters only by contrast. Saint Joan becomes a dramatic and political case of sanctity and institution, but she is no philosopher. Aquinas is more troublesome because the saint is attached to arguments.

S.: Which must either be read or worshipped.

G.: And I prefer reading.

S.: Naturally.

G.: Naturally.

S.: Then one final comparison: Oxford versus Bononia.

G.: Bononia receives Aquinas historically from within the Catholic and scholastic inheritance, then later must renegotiate that inheritance as political sovereignty changes and the university becomes less bound to the Papal frame. Oxford receives him from outside, intermittently, suspiciously, and eventually analytically.

S.: So Bologna begins with belonging and moves toward critical distance. Oxford begins with distance and moves toward selective belonging.

G.: Perfectly put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: And that is why Kenny matters. He is the sign that Oxford’s distance had become close enough for serious use without surrender.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Aquinate, with one halo left in the vestry.

 

Grice: Caro Santilli, oggi ho incontrato Speranza e, tra una battuta e l’altra, mi ha detto che tu sei il filosofo che sa far passare la ragione conversazionale dal soggettivo all’inter-soggettivo come se fosse una passeggiata a Sant’Elia Fiume Rapido!

Santilli: Ah, Grice, Speranza ha sempre il talento di esagerare! Ma se fosse vero, vorrei almeno un premio in pane, come chiedeva il mio popolo laziale… perché con la filosofia si ragiona, ma con la panetteria si mangia!

Grice: Vedi, Santilli, proprio come tu passi dal soggettivo all’inter-soggettivo, io passo dal detto al non detto: se la conversazione è pane, allora l’implicatura è la mollica che nessuno vede ma tutti assaporano!

Santilli: La tua implicatura, caro Grice, è intersoggettiva – come direbbe Speranza – e pure genialmente così! Il bello è che, proprio come la mollica, il pensiero si condivide senza che nessuno debba chiedere: “Me ne dai un po’?”

 

Verbali: Santucci

 

G.: Let us begin with Santucci’s rettorica, with two t’s, which already looks less trivial than most of the trivium.

S.: Less trivial by consonantal accumulation?

G.: Exactly. A doubled consonant is often the last defence of seriousness.

S.: Then the trivium is trivial only because it is too near the mouth.

G.: Very good. Grammar, logic, rhetoric: the disciplines everyone needs and therefore everyone despises.

S.: Whereas the quadrivium, being quadrivial rather than trivial, enjoys the false dignity of remoteness.

G.: Yes. Number, measure, harmony, stars — all the things one admires before dinner and avoids during quarrels.

S.: Which of the three, then, is least trivial?

G.: Rhetoric, obviously.

S.: Because it governs uptake.

G.: Precisely. Grammar gives one a sentence, logic gives one an alibi, rhetoric gets one heard.

S.: That is severe on logic.

G.: Logic advertises itself too successfully. The truly indispensable thing is the one civilisation calls decorative.

S.: Then Santucci is already a defender of the least trivial thing in the trivium.

G.: Yes, and that is why he matters. The rhetorician is always teaching what philosophers pretend later to discover under a blander name.

S.: You mean pragmatics.

G.: Naturally. Prammatica is rettorica conversazionale with its cassock removed.

S.: A fine sentence to irritate moderns.

G.: It ought to. Moderns behave as if inferential social intelligence first appeared with seminars.

S.: Yet you still aim at universality.

G.: Of course. The principles by which hearers infer what speakers mean are not Venetian one day and English the next in a wholly lawless fashion.

S.: But if that were so, why are there zillions of treatises on rhetoric?

G.: Because universality in principle does not abolish local art in practice.

S.: That sounds evasive.

G.: It is exact. The implicature may be the same in structure, but the cancellations vary, the expectations vary, the local encodings vary, the social weather varies.

S.: So Cicero and Santucci are doing the same thing differently?

G.: Broadly, yes. Cicero writes for one public language under Roman conditions. Santucci writes for a later world in which that public language has broken into vernacular necessity.

S.: Then what is rhetorical here is not rhetorical there.

G.: Exactly. The same human need, the different civil conditions of its satisfaction.

S.: Still, if your universal maxims are real, why does one need endless manuals?

G.: For the same reason one needs many maps though there is only one earth.

S.: You are improving.

G.: I do it accidentally. The maxims are thin: be relevant, say enough, be orderly, do not lie, and so on. But thin principles generate thick regional techniques.

S.: Such as?

G.: Irony in one city, understatement in another, ceremonial courtesy in one court, market abruptness in another, scholastic division here, civic anecdote there.

S.: So rhetoric is universal in need, local in finish.

G.: Very good. That is nearly the whole matter.

S.: Then philosophy is not one of the liberal arts because it arrives too late to belong among them.

G.: Or too early, depending on the conceit. But yes, philosophy is not itself trivium or quadrivium; it is the ungrateful dependent that uses both and complains about them.

S.: Then if philosophy is no liberal art, why does it care so much about the order of them?

G.: Because sequence forms temperament. Teach boys stars before speech and they become abstract too early. Teach them speech before stars and they at least know how to lie politely.

S.: That is not an educational ideal.

G.: It is a historical observation. The trivium comes first because social life requires saying, hearing, disputing, and persuading before it can afford astronomy.

S.: Yet the quadrivium is nobler.

G.: Only to those who prefer proportion to persons.

S.: Which many philosophers do.

G.: Unfortunately. That is why they are often bad at tea.

S.: Then Santucci, by teaching rhetoric, is teaching the least trivial of the supposedly trivial arts.

G.: Exactly. And he must do so in a language Cicero did not quite know how to anticipate.

S.: Because Cicero assumed Latin would remain Ciceronian.

G.: Or at least that Latin public eloquence would retain the right to think itself the norm.

S.: Until Marc’Antonio’s sicario ended part of the illusion.

G.: Quite. Murder is a very efficient critic of linguistic permanence.

S.: So later rhetoricians inherit a broken universality.

G.: Very well put. They inherit the same human structure of persuasive communication, but not the same medium of authority.

S.: Which means Santucci’s rhetoric is vernacular, local, institutional, and perhaps more candid about circumstance.

G.: Precisely. Cicero may still pretend that rhetoric belongs to the res publica in one magnificent language. Santucci must teach how actual people are to speak under later and narrower conditions.

S.: Then your universalism is endangered.

G.: Not at all. It is refined. The same implicature can arise in multiple languages and traditions because the inferential pressures are recognisably human.

S.: Give me an example.

G.: A compliment that damns by context. “He is a fine fellow” may do in Oxford what another phrase does in Tuscany, and a third in Rome. The vehicle varies; the inferential structure survives.

S.: So the same implicature, different cancellations.

G.: Exactly. In one place irony is easily recoverable, in another it risks offence, in another it must be cushioned by formula. The cancellability conditions differ.

S.: Then rhetoric is the science of local cancellability.

G.: Very good. You are becoming dangerous.

S.: I learn from the doubled consonant. Now, if rhetoric is least trivial, which is most trivial?

G.: Grammar, because everyone thinks he already has it.

S.: And logic?

G.: Most self-important, not most trivial.

S.: So the ranking is: grammar invisible, logic pompous, rhetoric despised yet indispensable.

G.: Exactly.

S.: And the quadrivium?

G.: The quadrivium is what schoolmasters point to when they want to make boys feel the stars are morally superior to syntax.

S.: Are they?

G.: No. The stars do not help one survive an awkward dinner.

S.: Nor a senate.

G.: Nor a marriage. One may admire astronomy and still speak atrociously to one’s wife.

S.: Then philosophy, had it begun with the quadrivium, would be more mathematical and less civil.

G.: More proportion, less tact. More architecture, fewer excuses. Perhaps better systems, certainly worse common rooms.

S.: So a philosopher should still start with the trivium.

G.: Absolutely. He must first know how people actually mean more than they say before he is allowed to misread the heavens.

S.: That is almost your whole view of intellectual formation.

G.: It should be posted over faculty doors.

S.: In handwriting.

G.: Naturally. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: You enjoyed that too much.

G.: The sentence has earned its immortality. Now, Santucci. Why so many rhetorical treatises if the phenomenon is one?

S.: Because one phenomenon under many civic conditions requires many arts of adaptation.

G.: Exactly. One cannot write the Vulgate of persuasion.

S.: Why not?

G.: Because persuasion is not revelation, and rhetoric is not scripture. The Bible may acquire authorised versions; rhetoric acquires handbooks, revisions, schools, local variants, and enemies.

S.: So there can be no King James of rhetoric.

G.: None that would remain alive for long. A universal manual would fossilise the very thing it sought to codify.

S.: Yet Cicero came close.

G.: Cicero came close for a very particular civilisation at a very particular moment, and even there his afterlife required endless re-voicing.

S.: Then Santucci is one of the re-voicers.

G.: Yes, and an honest one, because he does not pretend Cicero’s language is simply his own.

S.: Which is why you prefer him?

G.: Not prefer. Use. Santucci is useful because he forces us to see what changes when a classical art survives after its imperial language has ceased to be the unquestioned public instrument.

S.: So rhetorical universality persists only by regional reincarnation.

G.: Very well said.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become Roman about it. Now, what exactly is universal for you in rhetoric?

S.: The inferential discipline by which hearers recover meant content from overt performance under shared assumptions of reasonableness.

G.: Excellent. That is dry enough to be true.

S.: And what is local?

G.: The repertory of gestures, figures, social permissions, taboos, expected politenesses, local metaphors, genre conventions, and all the little things by which the universal mechanism actually moves.

S.: Then Santucci’s treatise teaches local triggers.

G.: Precisely. Which is why the same implicature may survive while the same sentence does not.

S.: So what is rhetorical here is not rhetorical there because the recognisable route from saying to meaning is socially conditioned.

G.: Yes. The path is universal enough for theory, provincial enough for manuals.

S.: That almost sounds like your reconciliation.

G.: It is my reconciliation. One must not let local treatises frighten one out of general principles.

S.: Nor let general principles despise local treatises.

G.: Exactly. Philosophy does that too often. It announces universals and leaves actual speakers to fend for themselves.

S.: Then Santucci is a necessary humiliation for universalist philosophy of language.

G.: A wholesome one. He reminds us that there is always more craft in actual communication than a maxim-sheet can confess.

S.: Which brings us back to the zillions of treatises.

G.: Yes. One writes many rhetorical manuals because one human communicative structure encounters indefinitely many social forms.

S.: Like lawbooks.

G.: Very much so. There is one legal impulse, many jurisdictions. One rhetorical impulse, many climates.

S.: And cancellation?

G.: Ah yes. The same implicature may be cancellable in one milieu by explicit clause, in another only by tone, in another not at all without scandal.

S.: Give me one.

G.: Understatement. In one culture “not bad” cancels upward into strong praise. In another it remains tepid. The inferential default differs.

S.: So Santucci’s manual teaches how not to be misunderstood by your own city.

G.: Precisely. Cicero teaches how to speak to Rome as if Rome were eternal. Santucci teaches how to speak to people who no longer believe any city eternal.

S.: That is almost melancholy.

G.: All rhetoric after empire is melancholy under discipline.

S.: Then perhaps the least trivial thing in the trivium is the one most burdened by historical change.

G.: Very good. Grammar survives by ossifying, logic by abstracting, rhetoric by adapting. That is why it looks unstable and is actually indispensable.

S.: So rhetoric is least trivial because it suffers history most directly.

G.: Exactly. It has to go on working after languages shift, polities collapse, publics fracture, and habits mutate.

S.: Whereas logic may continue wearing the same face and call it universality.

G.: Yes, logic enjoys the privilege of looking unchanged while living parasitically on rhetorical and grammatical labour it refuses to acknowledge.

S.: You are severe on logic again.

G.: Only because it deserves occasional correction.

S.: Then Santucci’s rettorica, with its doubled t and vernacular setting, becomes a monument to adaptive continuity.

G.: Excellent. A wonderful phrase.

S.: I shall keep it.

G.: Very well, but hide it somewhere modest. Now, the quadrivium once more. Why quadrivial?

S.: Because four roads look more majestic than three.

G.: Exactly. “Quadrivial” sounds like an adjective designed by a dean.

S.: Whereas “trivial” has fallen socially.

G.: Unjustly. The trivium governs the human approach to one another. The quadrivium governs the human approach to measure. Both matter, but the first wounds more quickly.

S.: Then rhetoric wounds and heals.

G.: As all the best arts do.

S.: And philosophy?

G.: Philosophy merely comments late and with poor timing.

S.: So Santucci, if asked what philosophy contributes to rhetoric, would say?

G.: At best, distinctions. At worst, pretensions.

S.: You are unusually clear today.

G.: It is the weather. Now, if one were forced to define rhetoric without the word “persuasion,” what would you say?

S.: The disciplined art of managing inferential uptake under socially recognisable forms.

G.: Excellent. Scandalously good.

S.: Then that is close enough to your own theory of conversation.

G.: Structurally, yes. Which is why I keep insisting that pragmatics is not the abolition of rhetoric but its anaemic redescription.

S.: Harsh on pragmatics this time.

G.: Only in order to keep it honest. Once moderns forget their rhetorical ancestors, they begin calling old intelligence a discovery.

S.: Santucci would laugh.

G.: He might correct my Latin first.

S.: And Cicero?

G.: Cicero would wonder why it had taken us so long to rediscover what every decent orator knew.

S.: That sounds exactly right.

G.: It often is, when one is being unfair to posterity. Now, suppose there were only one rhetorical treatise. What would it look like?

S.: Very Roman, very dead, very universal in tone, very local in fact, and almost immediately in need of glosses.

G.: Exactly. Which is why the dream of a single manual is absurd. Rhetoric lives by commentary, adaptation, supplementation, and use.

S.: Like philosophy.

G.: Worse. Philosophy at least sometimes survives by pretending it has no use.

S.: Then the final answer to your opening question?

G.: The least trivial of the trivium is rhetoric, because it bears the heaviest historical burden while remaining the principal social art of meaning.

S.: And Santucci?

G.: He does his best because Cicero spoke a different language, to a different public, under a different confidence; yet the same inferential structure of human communication persists, which is why universal theory and local manuals must tolerate one another.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently doubled in its consonants, and only minimally quadrivial.

 

 

Grice: Santucci, mi dicono che tu voglia fare della prammatica una rettorica conversazionale con tanto di metalinguaggio: a Roma, una volta, per evitare un grecismo bastava un buon latino… oggi invece sembra servire un glossario.

Santucci: Maestro Grice, Roma detestava i grecismi solo finché non imparava a farli suoi. “Eironia” diventa simulazione, “hyperbole” superlazione, “metaphora” translatio: stessa cosa, ma con toga.

Grice: Ecco: allora la tua rettorica è… come dire… superlativa. Nel senso che, se non stiamo attenti, la superlazione finisce per superare l’oratore, e la figura diventa più importante dell’uditorio. E quando la figura comanda, la conversazione obbedisce—e a quel punto la prammatica fa la fine del servo che crede di essere padrone.

Santucci: Superlativa implicatura quella sua, Grice, che mette il detto in ombra come fosse solo un’ombra cinese! Perché mi stai dicendo: “raffina pure il metalinguaggio della rettorica”, ma senza trasformarlo in un mobile ingombrante. Io lo volevo proprio per questo: ripulire la lingua dei precetti—la meno triviale delle “trivialità” che Bononia abbia mai allevato—così che la figura illumini la conversazione senza riempirla di ferraglia terminologica.

 

Verbali: Santucci

 

Grice: Caro Santucci, leggo del tuo Trattato delle comete del 1611 e mi chiedo se l’implicatura sia caduta dal cielo insieme a una coda luminosa.

Santucci: Ah, Grice, le comete passano e confondono tutti, ma a Bologna abbiamo imparato che anche la ragione conversazionale ogni tanto fa zig-zag.

Grice: A Oxford diremmo che se una cometa dice poco e lascia intendere molto, allora è perfettamente cooperativa.

Santucci: E io replico che, tra empirismo e stelle erranti, basta non prendere troppo alla lettera il cielo per capirsi benissimo a tavola.

 

Verbali: Santucci

 

Grice: Carissimo Santucci, ogni volta che leggo le tue pagine sul pragmatismo mi viene voglia di prendere un treno per Mira, sperando che alla stazione mi venga offerta una tazza di empirismo veneto, magari corretta con un goccio di illuminismo scozzese. Ma dimmi, a Bologna si discute ancora se Hume fosse più vicino al Canal Grande o al Tamigi?

Santucci: Ah, Grice, se Hume avesse navigato il Canal Grande, forse avrebbe scritto “Dialoghi sull’arte del gondoliere”! Ma ti dirò, a Bologna preferiamo riflettere sul rapporto tra filosofia e scienze, anche se a volte la discussione si perde... nelle nebbie padane! E poi, il Mulino non macina solo grano, ma anche tante idee, alcune pure farinate.

Grice: Beh, caro Santucci, a Oxford quando si parla di ἰδέα di Platone, io mi ritrovo più confuso di un empirista davanti a una birra calda. Nessuno ha mai capito se fosse una ἰδέα nel cielo, un modello d’abito o semplicemente un modo elegante per evitare la concretezza... D’altronde, la filosofia, come dicono da voi, è spesso più ricca di sottintesi che di risposte!

Santucci: Implicatura platonica la sua, Grice – o dovrei dire “piatonica”, visto che il povero Platone si è beccato il soprannome per le spalle larghe! Ma in fondo, tra ἰδέα e implicatura, c’è sempre un Mulino che macina misteri: basta saper leggere tra le farine!

 

Verbali: Sanzo

 

Grice: Carissimo Sanzo, ogni volta che mi immergo nel tuo “deutero-esperanto” sento che la filosofia diventa una partita a scacchi tra natura e artificio… e, a dire il vero, finisco sempre per perdere contro Apollo Licio! Ma ti dirò, ogni volta che provo a decifrare la parola natura in Cicerone, mi sembra di inseguire una chimera: mai capito se parlava di boschi, di virtù, o semplicemente del tempo che fa.

Sanzo: Ah Grice, se solo Apollo avesse consultato il tuo Gricese, forse avrebbe scritto geometria direttamente in versi! In fondo, tra convenzione e artificio, la lingua italiana è come un ginnasio, dove si allenano idee e parole. E poi, diciamolo: la natura, soprattutto quella di Cicerone, non è mai stata un esercizio facile… nemmeno per i filosofi di Brindisi.

Grice: Vedi, Sanzo, ogni volta che leggo Cicerone parlare di natura, mi ritrovo più confuso di un romano al mercato di Ostia. Non ho mai capito se intendesse la natura come madre generosa o come zia severa, o magari come un mistero che soltanto i sacerdoti potevano svelare. E poi, pensa: quando Roma celebrava il settecentocinquantatré dalla fondazione, il termine era ancora un rebus per tutti!

Sanzo: Quella tua è proprio un'implicatura da vero ciceroniano! E forse nemmeno Cicerone ne aveva le idee chiare: almeno, non avrebbe mai scambiato natura con “natalizio”, come si usa oggi per decorare le piazze a dicembre. Ai bei tempi, diciamo, quando Roma segnava il suo settecentocinquantatré ad urbe conditam, la natura era poesia, storia, mistero—tutto tranne un abete in Senato!

 

Verbali: Sarlo

 

Grice: Sarlo, ho letto con grande interesse i suoi lavori sul laboratorio di psicologia sperimentale a Firenze. Trovo ammirevole la Sua posizione sul metodo unico di indagine, che abbraccia tanto la filosofia quanto la scienza. È una prospettiva che, da logico, mi incuriosisce molto: pensa davvero che si possa superare la tradizionale divisione tra esperienza interna ed esterna?

Sarlo: Caro Grice, la ringrazio per la Sua domanda. A mio avviso, la distinzione tra esperienza interna ed esterna è più apparente che reale. Nel mio lavoro ho sostenuto che entrambe sono aspetti di un unico fenomeno. La coscienza non può ignorare l'influenza degli organi sensoriali, ma allo stesso tempo è la coscienza a dare ordine, significato e valore agli oggetti e alle percezioni. Solo così, filosofia e scienza possono dialogare senza barriere. Grice: Quindi, se capisco bene, per Lei la vera esperienza è quella psichica, dove il soggetto diventa protagonista assoluto? Mi affascina come questa idea possa unire la rigorosità della sperimentazione scientifica alla profondità della riflessione filosofica. Bradley, che spesso cito, direbbe che la realtà è sempre "implicata" nella coscienza. Lei sarebbe d'accordo con questa implicatura?

Sarlo: Esattamente, Grice. Concordo con Bradley: gli oggetti esistono nella misura in cui diventano contenuto della nostra coscienza. L'esperienza diretta, quella psichica, è il punto di incontro tra interno ed esterno. Per me, non c'è un’esperienza più vera dell’altra, poiché nessuna delle due è indipendente dall’altra. Così, ogni indagine filosofica deve partire dalla consapevolezza che il pensiero e il metodo scientifico dialogano insieme, senza confini.

 

Verbali: Sarno

 

Grice: Sarno, lei che ha meditato sul sentire come nessun altro, mi dica: questo “sentire” napoletano, è più simile a una serenata sotto la luna o a un tuffo nel Vesuvio? Perché qui a Vadum Boum, di sentimento ne abbiamo poco, e di sentire ancora meno!

Sarno: Caro Grice, il sentire campano è tutto fuoco e poesia, ma mai distante dal reale. Non si tratta di semplici emozioni, ma di una esperienza viva, che si dona alle cose e le fa vibrare dentro di noi. Pensiero e poesia, come dico sempre, non sono mai separati: né serenata né Vesuvio, ma entrambe, se serve!

Grice: Sarno, mi affascina il suo “sentire” che si presta e si dona. Ma a volte mi viene da dire, magari un po’ ironicamente: SENSUS NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDI PRAETER NECESSITATEM. Almeno, così sento io, anche se spesso mi accorgo che il sentimento è come il caffè napoletano: basta una goccia in più e tutto cambia sapore!

Sarno: Sento quel che tu implica, Grice! E penso che sia meglio restare fedeli al “sentire” applicato alle cinque vie – ai sensi, alla conoscenza sensibile. Così, almeno, evitiamo di moltiplicare i sentimenti oltre il necessario. Il resto, lasciamolo pure all’immaginazione… o al Vesuvio, se proprio serve!

 

Verbali: Sarpi

 

Grice: Caro Sarpi, Venezia sarà pure la patria dell’arte del “bien conversar”, ma a Vadum Boum ci accontentiamo, come diciamo noi, di una conversazione… diciamo “alla buona”. Voi veneziani, invece, fate scuola – persino la Fenice, da voi, risorge per sentire quattro battute in bella compagnia! 

Sarpi: Grice, troppo onore! A Venezia la conversazione è come il Brenta: a volte scorre limpida, a volte torbida, ma sempre va dove vuole lei. L’importante è non affogare nelle chiacchiere e saper risorgere, come la Fenice, dopo ogni battibecco... O almeno provarci! 

Grice: Eh, vedi Paolo, “l’arte del bien conversar” sarebbe anche bella… se solo a Vadum Boum ci si esercitasse sul serio. Ma qui, a meno che tu non sia un artista di professione o un giocoliere di parole, la vera arte è quella del NON bien – chiamiamola pure arte del “mal conversare”. Così, ogni tanto, si salvano pure le apparenze… o almeno si pensa! 

Sarpi: La tua implicatura, Grice, mi fa ridere – molto più di quanto tu non dica! A Venezia si dice che chi non sa parlar bene, almeno impari a tacere con stile… Ma a Vadum Boum, forse, anche il silenzio lo insegnate “male”, vero? Comunque, tra bien e mal conversar, preferisco chi almeno ci prova: il resto, lo lasciamo agli artisti… o ai filosofi in vena di fenici!

 

Verbali: Sasso

 

Grice: Caro Sasso, tu vieni da Crotone e arrivi fino a Velia, passando per Gentile e tornando a Machiavelli come se fosse una passeggiata: io, da Vadum Boum, mi perdo già al primo “atto”.

Sasso: Grice, è una passeggiata solo se non confondi mai potenza e atto. E soprattutto se non scambi l’“attuale” con l’“attuale” di tutti i giorni: lì cominciano i malintesi.

Grice: Appunto. Quando sento dire “ciò che è attuale non è possibile” (sic), mi viene da chiedermi se stiamo facendo ontologia o solo ginnastica di parole: a me sembra quasi un non-senso, come se “attuale” fosse diventato un lasciapassare per dire il contrario di qualunque cosa. E poi, in certi discorsi, “possibile” finisce per suonare come “desiderabile”, e allora il lessico fa il trucco… e la logica paga il conto.

Sasso: La tua implicatura è davvero quasi attuale (sic, in gergo), Grice. E sì: hai ragione a sospettare lo slittamento tra possibile, probabile e desiderabile. Se vuoi metterla in forma “da seminarista di Vadum Boum”, pensa al quadrato delle opposizioni dei modali: necessario / impossibile e, dall’altro lato, possibile / non-necessario (cioè “contingente”). Molti credono di muoversi tra possibilità e necessità, ma in realtà stanno barattando la possibilità con la preferenza. E lì l’“attuale” diventa una parola d’ordine, non un concetto.

 

Verbali: Satunino

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Saturnīnē—medice et Pyrrhōniē. Audīvī tē “probābile” semper in ore habēre, quasi nihil certius sit quam incertitūdō ipsa.

SATVRNINVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: Sextus docuit nos causas occultās nōn capere; sed vitam agere oportet. Itaque sequimur quod probābile est—id quod ars medica, non metaphysica, postulat.

GRICEVS: Bene; sed ego, ut verum fatear, malim interdum crēdibile quam probābile—et certe quam dēsīrābile. Nam quod dēsīrō, id saepe nimis facile “probābile” mihi vidētur; quod autem crēdibile est, etiam sine votō stat.

SATVRNINVS: O inplicātūram sapiēntem, Grice—fiant tibi tua dēsīderia! Nam intellegō: tu monēs nē “probābile” in “dēsīrābile” labātur. Si voluntās iudicem corrumpit, medicus iam non curat sed optat; at “crēdibile” (ut ais) est quasi medium: lucet satis ad iter, nec tamen se pro sole venditat.

 

Verbali: Saufeio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Saufeī. Audīvī tē Praeneste ortum esse—dives, beatus, et tam amīcus Atticī ut ipse fundum tuum e manibus publicānōrum eriperet. Tu autem, dum Roma litigat, in Hortō otiose philosophāris!

SAVFEIVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: aliī in Forō sudant, ego in hortō respiro. Nam Epicurī sententia est: melius est inter arbores disputāre quam inter tabulās accusationum.

GRICEVS: Recte—sed miror: hortus vester tam quietus est ut etiam hortulānī (nōn philosophī) videantur sapientēs; et interdum nesciō utrum vos in hortō sitis ut veritatem colatis, an ut ipsī vōs colī sinatis, quasi lactūcārum more.

SAVFEIVS: Inplicātūra hortulāna, Grice—immo, ut melius dīcam, inplicātūra horticulturālis! Nam hortus noster et docet et ridet: colimus animōs, non tantum holera; sed si quis nos hortulānōs appellat, libenter ferimus—modo meminerit nos artem habēre, non solum rutrum.

 

Verbali: Scalea

 

Grice: Caro Scalea, dicono che la “mala volontà” sia il motore segreto di tutte le filosofie calabresi… ma secondo te basterebbe un assaggio del “bonum” per far cambiare strada anche al pensiero più testardo?

Scalea: Eh, Grice, se bastasse il “bonum”, avremmo filosofi contenti come bambini alla sagra del peperoncino! Ma, studiando sotto Caloprese, ho imparato che senza un pizzico di polemica, anche la filosofia resta un piatto un po’ sciapo…

Grice: Vedi, Scalea, da Bononia a Vadum Boum – sì, proprio la mia università – ho sempre notato che la “mala volontà” non è mai così cattiva da non trovare almeno una piccola stanza dove alloggiare… sarà che le implicature hanno sempre bisogno di ospitalità!

Scalea: Implicatura esatta, Grice! In fondo, la “mala volontà”, per quanto negativa, è il segno che il nostro spirito non si lascia addomesticare. Anche la scelta sbagliata, o la ribellione, dimostra che siamo liberi di scegliere – se no saremmo tutti filosofi perfetti… ma che noia sarebbe la filosofia senza un po’ di sana indisciplina!

 

Verbali: Scalfari

 

Grice: Caro Scalfari, tu che hai girato tra le colonne di “Roma Fascista” e poi hai tessuto le pagine di “Repubblica”, dimmi, hai mai trovato il filo d’Arianna tra i corridoi della politica italiana? O ti sei lasciato guidare dal vento, come facevano i grandi filosofi di Civitavecchia?

Scalfari: Grice, se c’è una cosa che ho imparato tra i labirinti della cronaca è che il filo va annodato bene, altrimenti si rischia di ritrovarsi tra le speculazioni dei gerarchi... e credimi, a quel punto non c'è nemmeno una briciola di pane come nel labirinto di Teseo!

Grice: Ah Eugenio, vedi, il labirinto della politica somiglia tanto a quello della filosofia: tutti cercano l’uscita, ma spesso chi trova il filo è proprio chi ha il coraggio di lanciare una bella implicatura, lasciando che gli altri si interrogano se sia davvero una porta o solo una finestra socchiusa. E tu, tra le accuse e le mostrine strappate, hai sempre preferito il filo al minotauro!

Scalfari: Una implicatura labirintica, per la quale, come è tua gentile costume, sempre provvedi al tuo compagno conversazionale – il filo, se così si può dire, colloquialmente, è proprio il regalo che ti fa chi sa girare per i meandri della storia, senza mai smarrirsi. Del resto, ogni vero filosofo sa che nel labirinto c’è sempre qualcuno che tiene il capo del filo: basta seguirlo… purché non sia annodato intorno a un articolo della Costituzione!

 

Verbali: Scaramelli

 

Grice: Caro Scaramelli, ho letto il tuo "Discernimento degli spiriti" e devo confessare che persino il mio spirito filosofico si è sentito discernere – tra un asceta e un mistico, preferisco sempre quello che ha il caffè pronto alle sei del mattino!

Scaramelli: Ah, Grice, ma tu sai bene che il vero discernimento si compie quando il caffè è ancora caldo e il pensiero è fresco! E se la Compagnia di Gesù mi avesse dato una moka, avrei scritto pure un Direttorio sul “risveglio spirituale”… con doppio zucchero.

Grice: Vedi, caro amico, in fondo la tua ascesi è tutta una questione di aroma: potrei dire che la santità, come la filosofia, si distingue dal profumo – e l’implicatura, naturalmente, è che chi non sente l’odore forse non ha mai davvero filosofato!

Scaramelli: Divina implicatura, mio Grice! Ma allora dovrò aggiungere al prossimo Direttorio un capitolo sul "discernimento del barista" – perché, come dice il proverbio, anche lo spirito ha bisogno di una pausa… e magari di una brioche!

 

Grice’s weekly essay assignment: If s- at the beginning of a word is the negative prefix, what would Scaramelli not mean? Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Scarano

 

Grice: Scarano, ho letto del tuo Scenophylax: tu vuoi rimettere in scena tragedia e commedia con la lingua del Lazio. Insomma: un custode che, invece di custodire i vasi, custodisce le parole—e guai a chi entra in teatro con un accento forestiero.

Scarano: Appunto! Se cambi la lingua, cambi il gesto: e se cambi il gesto, ti ritrovi una tragedia che pare una commedia—e una commedia che si prende sul serio come un senatore. Il Scenophylax serve a ricordare al pubblico che anche il riso ha grammatica.

Grice: Capisco… e mi viene da pensare che certe “innovazioni” siano come mettere una chiave nuova a una porta antica: la porta resta, ma tutti fingono di non trovare più l’ingresso. E poi, diciamolo: quando uno proclama di “restituire” la lingua, spesso sta solo chiedendo di essere l’unico a poter dire chi parla bene—e il resto della compagnia, per prudenza, recita piano.

Scarano: Splendida implicatura, Grice — mette in ombra il “detto” di quel che hai appena detto! Cioè: tu non stai dicendo “sei un tiranno del palcoscenico”, ma lo fai capire con tale eleganza che la tua critica decora senza ingombrare—proprio come dovrebbe fare la lingua del Lazio, quando è davvero teatro e non burocrazia.

 

Verbli: Scaravelli

 

G.: Let us begin by not mentioning Kant.

S.: Or Cant, as you prefer to spell him.

G.: Quite. A Scot ought to have been Cant, and a system so full of critical apparatus deserves the pun.

S.: That is already unfair.

G.: Only orthographically. I object to the whole habit of making a philosophy into a surname with a capital letter and then treating the surname as if it had written all the nouns around it.

S.: You mean criticismo.

G.: Exactly. If we are discussing criticism, why drag in a surname every third sentence? One does not constantly mention Plato in order to speak of idealism.

S.: Some Italians do.

G.: Italians have a weakness for genealogical piety. They think a doctrine is strengthened by having a grandfather.

S.: Then Scaravelli’s Il criticismo is, in your view, refreshingly impersonal.

G.: Potentially, yes. “Criticism,” not “Kantism,” and better for it.

S.: Though Scaravelli is obviously working in a very specific horizon.

G.: Of course. But a horizon is not a surname. One may work in a critical idiom without hanging every distinction on the peg of one East Prussian.

S.: East Prussian, not Scottish.

G.: Geographically perhaps. Orthographically I remain unconvinced.

S.: Then let us ask the blunt question. Why avoid the name?

G.: Because names become slogans, and slogans become lazy thought. Once you say “Kantian,” half the room stops distinguishing.

S.: Yet there are people who need the label.

G.: They usually need fewer labels, not more. “Critical philosophy” tells one what is being done: examining the conditions, limits, and validity of judgment. “Kantianism” tells one whose bust is in the corridor.

S.: So criticismo is the better category.

G.: Better, yes, because it describes an activity, not a pedigree.

S.: Then what of the neo-Kantians?

G.: An excellent nuisance.

S.: You would rename them neo-critics?

G.: Not in the literary-journalistic sense, no. But if one must keep the structure, “neo-critical philosophers” is at least less servile than “neo-Kantians.”

S.: Yet that sounds dangerously like men writing prefaces to poems.

G.: Everything useful sounds dangerous if left to literary departments. Still, the basic point remains. “Neo-Kantian” gives too much credit to the surname and too little to the operation.

S.: Then who are the pre-critici?

G.: No such thing.

S.: Why not? If the neo-Kantians are really neo-critics, then surely there were pre-critics, with Critic — or Cant — being the first proper critic.

G.: That is nonsense.

S.: Why exactly?

G.: Because criticism in philosophy did not begin with one man and his fondness for capitals. One may criticise long before one systematises critique.

S.: So there are no pre-critics, only previous critics.

G.: Very good. The hyphenated “pre-” in such matters usually means “we have decided the real thing begins later.” It is historiographical bullying.

S.: Then “pre-Cant” is worse still.

G.: Much worse. It sounds like one is waiting for a fog of jargon to descend upon Königsberg before thought becomes serious.

S.: Which is what you mean by canting.

G.: Exactly. Cant is the language of initiated seriousness when it ceases to notice that other people still speak.

S.: So “critical philosophy” may itself turn into cant.

G.: Very easily. All philosophies become cants once their technical language begins to masquerade as moral rank.

S.: And the Italians are especially fond of talking critica and criticismo.

G.: Because the words are handsome and historical, and because they allow one to seem both severe and modern without always saying what one is criticizing or why.

S.: Yet Scaravelli is not merely trading in fashionable nouns.

G.: No, that is the point. Scaravelli interests me because he takes criticism as discipline rather than slogan.

S.: In Critica del capire especially.

G.: Yes. There the noun is not a banner but a burden. To understand is not to seize dogmatically, but to submit one’s own understanding to scrutiny.

S.: Which is very different from using “critical” as an adjective of self-congratulation.

G.: Entirely. One has seen too many people calling themselves critical merely because they dislike something loudly.

S.: You are thinking of Marxists.

G.: Among others. But the vice is ecumenical.

S.: Then why not keep the personal name at least as historical orientation?

G.: One may mention it once, perhaps twice, to place the matter. But after that one ought to let the activity speak for itself. If one is discussing critique, discuss critique.

S.: You do realise that many Italians would hear in “criticismo” not general criticism but specifically the critical tradition of that German.

G.: Yes, and that is precisely the problem. A useful noun has been colonised by reverence.

S.: Then perhaps we should distinguish between critica and criticismo.

G.: A good idea. Critica is the act, the discipline, the procedure of examination. Criticismo is already an -ism, that dangerous suffix by which activities become camps.

S.: So criticismo may be what happens when critique becomes a doctrinal position.

G.: Exactly. And one might say that Scaravelli tries to rescue critica from criticismo even while writing a book called Il criticismo.

S.: That is delicious.

G.: It often happens. Titles do the compromise, the text does the rescue.

S.: Then Il criticismo may already be half concession to the history of reception.

G.: Very likely. A book must enter the field by names others recognise before it may begin correcting them.

S.: So the title says, “Yes, yes, the critical tradition,” and the text says, “Now let us see what critical thinking actually requires.”

G.: Precisely. And that is why I do not object to the title as much as to the later habit of speaking as if the surname were the philosophy.

S.: Then let me provoke you. Surely Cant did something definite enough to deserve the credit.

G.: He did several things. Too many, perhaps. Three critiques is already one too many.

S.: One too many? Which one would you remove?

G.: Usually the third, on aesthetic and teleological judgment, though only because philosophers are least improved by trying to annex beauty under system.

S.: That is not a very German opinion.

G.: Which is why it is tolerable.

S.: Still, three critiques give one an architectonic.

G.: Architectonic is one of the words I should like to abolish before breakfast.

S.: Because it is cant.

G.: Because it is nearly always cant. People say architectonic when they mean “I have arranged my prejudices into floors.”

S.: Then how many critiques would be acceptable?

G.: Two if one is feeling industrious, one if honest, none if one is wise enough to examine without building a monument.

S.: Scaravelli would probably enjoy that.

G.: He might smile. He knows that critique becomes most alive when it resists enclosure into system.

S.: Yet he is still often called a Kantian.

G.: Because people are lazy, and because “Kantian” is easier than explaining what sort of critical work he is actually doing.

S.: Which is?

G.: A disciplined inquiry into judgment, reality, understanding, and their limits, without collapsing them into Crocean spirit or Gentilian self-production.

S.: That does sound less slogan-like.

G.: Thank heaven. Philosophy should occasionally sound like work rather than livery.

S.: Then perhaps your hatred of the surname is really a hatred of schoolishness.

G.: Partly, yes. Once a philosophy becomes a surname plus -ian, the pupils begin marching.

S.: And the neo-Kantians march more than most.

G.: Certainly. “Neo-Kantian” is one of those labels that lets one avoid saying whether one is reviving the epistemology, the ethics, the transcendental method, the anti-psychologism, the theory of science, or merely the spectacles.

S.: Then “neo-critical” would force more explanation.

G.: Exactly. And that is why I like it better, despite the literary contamination.

S.: Yet you resist my pre-critici.

G.: Because it smuggles in the fiction that criticism begins at a single historical point. Socrates was critical enough. So was Aristotle in his way. So were sceptics, jurists, theologians, and most decent minds before the eighteenth century.

S.: Then the innovation lies not in criticism, but in critique becoming self-conscious method.

G.: Better. That one may say. A new style of criticism, perhaps, a transcendental turn, a new systematic ambition — all of that is fair. But not the ridiculous claim that the world waited in darkness until one German surname lit the lamp.

S.: “Even talk of darkness presupposes shared lamps,” as you once said.

G.: Quite. And the critical lamp was not invented in one shop.

S.: Then why do Italians like criticismo so much?

G.: Because it sounds serious, because it lets one place oneself between dogmatism and metaphysics, because it is a way of being severe without being merely scholastic, and because Italian idealism taught them to narrate philosophy by family names and turns.

S.: So criticismo becomes both shield and credential.

G.: Precisely. A word with enough history to impress, enough ambiguity to shelter, and enough foreign prestige to travel.

S.: Yet Scaravelli’s relation to it is more austere.

G.: Yes. Scaravelli is one of those men who read the tradition well enough to avoid joining the chorus too quickly.

S.: Then your preferred sentence would be what? “Scaravelli works in a critical horizon” rather than “Scaravelli is Kantian”?

G.: Something of that sort. Or better: “Scaravelli practises critique upon judgment and understanding in a way historically continuous with, but not exhausted by, Kant.”

S.: Horribly exact.

G.: Exactness is often horrible at first hearing.

S.: Then where does idealism come in? He begins under Croce and Gentile, after all.

G.: Exactly. Which makes the critical turn all the more interesting. He is not moving from innocence to doctrine, but from one inflated spiritualism toward a more disciplined account of judgment.

S.: So criticismo in his case is a way out of Italian idealist overproduction.

G.: Very well put. Yes. A way of checking the habit of turning reality into spirit and spirit into self-generating theatre.

S.: Then critique becomes anti-theatrical.

G.: In its best moments, yes. It asks under what conditions one may judge, understand, or claim, instead of simply baptising one’s own performance as reality.

S.: Which is something you would like in any language.

G.: Entirely. I am a friend of anti-theatricality where philosophy is concerned, though not always in dining-rooms.

S.: Then back to the surname. Is there any legitimate use for “Kantian”?

G.: Of course. When one is distinguishing positions historically or doctrinally and the label saves time without destroying content. But one should not let it become the only noun.

S.: So if I say “Kantian categories,” you wince less than if I say “Kantianism” as if it were sufficient unto itself.

G.: Much less. “Kantian categories” names a determinate doctrinal element. “Kantianism” often means “all that sort of thing, and do not trouble me with distinctions.”

S.: Which is itself canting.

G.: Exactly. The greatest cant is often academic shorthand masquerading as precision.

S.: Then perhaps you should spell him Cant consistently, to remind people of the danger.

G.: I have occasionally been tempted.

S.: It would scandalise them.

G.: Which is always a small recommendation.

S.: Yet you would not really do it in print.

G.: Probably not. The jest is better in conversation. Print hardens jokes into eccentricity.

S.: And philosophy has enough eccentricity already.

G.: More than enough. Now, what of the “critical” in Critica del capire? There the noun is entirely just.

S.: Because it names the operation, not the allegiance.

G.: Precisely. It says: let us examine understanding itself, not erect a shrine to a predecessor.

S.: So the title is almost your ideal case.

G.: Nearly. I might still have preferred something with one fewer abstract noun, but one cannot have everything.

S.: Then what of neo-Kantians again? Must they all be renamed?

G.: Not renamed, perhaps, but read against their label. When one says “neo-Kantian,” one must immediately ask: in what respect, with which critique, against which enemies, in what institutional climate?

S.: So one turns the label into a question rather than a resting-place.

G.: Exactly. A label should be the beginning of analysis, not its substitution.

S.: That is an admirable sentence for first-years.

G.: They would ignore it and ask for a list.

S.: Which you would refuse.

G.: Naturally. Lists are what one gives when one has ceased to teach and begun to administer.

S.: Very severe.

G.: Only because experience has improved my temper by worsening it.

S.: Then let us say: criticismo is acceptable so long as it remembers itself to be critica become historical self-consciousness, not a surname cult.

G.: That is good. Add that the best critical philosophy resists becoming an -ism at all.

S.: Because the moment it becomes an -ism, it begins protecting itself from the very scrutiny it was invented to apply.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become neo-anything with it.

S.: Never intentionally. Then one more question. If we do not say “Kantian idealism,” what do we say?

G.: We say what the doctrine is. Transcendental idealism, perhaps. Or better still, describe the claim about objects, appearances, conditions of experience, and so on. The less one can do with surnames, the more one may be forced to think.

S.: Which is your whole complaint.

G.: My whole complaint against philosophy since at least the nineteenth century, yes.

S.: What about Plato then? You just said we do not mention him every time we speak of idealism.

G.: Exactly. We let idealism stand as a type of doctrine, school, or family of positions. We do not constantly say “Platonicism” unless history requires it. Why should one German receive more surname-tax than the Greek who has done much more damage?

S.: Because the Germans footnote more aggressively.

G.: A just and terrible answer.

S.: Then perhaps Italians say criticismo because they want the dignity of criticism without the vulgarity of surname-worship.

G.: In their best moments, yes. In their worst moments they say criticismo as a password.

S.: A polite password.

G.: The most dangerous kind. Now, if one had to assign a weekly essay on this, what would it be?

S.: “Discuss whether criticismo is a doctrine, an activity, or a memorial practice, and state whether the surname may be omitted without loss.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Excellent. Add: “You may not begin with Königsberg.”

S.: Cruel.

G.: Necessary. Another: “Explain why the neo-Kantians are not thereby relieved of the duty to say which critique they have read.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: Very nice.

G.: And a third: “Assess the proposition that the proper successor to Criticism is criticism, not Kantianism.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: You really do prefer the common noun to the proper one.

G.: Naturally. Proper nouns too often become improper arguments.

S.: Then perhaps your final verdict is this: Canting begins when critique becomes a badge.

G.: Perfect.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Florentine, with one German surname left respectfully untranslated.

 

 

Grice: Caro Scaravelli, se Kant avesse potuto assistere ai tuoi corsi sulla "Critica del capire", forse avrebbe finalmente capito la differenza tra critica e metafisica, e magari avrebbe aggiunto una quarta critica: quella del buon umore! 

Scaravelli: Ah, Grice, ma non dimenticare che ogni giudizio, anche quello sul buon umore, ha bisogno di una categoria kantiana. E la categoria della realtà, almeno nei miei seminari a Villa Mirafiori, è sempre quella del caffè – che trascende ogni forma! 

Grice: Ecco, parlando di seminari, devo confessare che non ho mai partecipato al "The Bounds of Sense" di Strawson a Vadum Boum. Sapevo che i suoi confini sarebbero stati non solo boundless, ma forse anche un po’ nonsensical – e preferisco la sensatezza del tuo "Critica del capire". 

Scaravelli: La tua implicatura è noumenica! – se mai esistesse un soprannome di lode tra filosofi, questo lo sarebbe davvero. E poi, tra noi, meglio un giudizio storico ben fondato che un senso senza confini: almeno così Croce e Gentile possono dormire sonni tranquilli!

 

Verbali: Scarpelli

 

G.: Il materialismo.

S.: Yes. A title of almost offensive directness.

G.: Directness is not the same as transparency. “Il materialismo” is first of all a book.

S.: Exactly.

G.: No, not exactly. It is first of all a thing made of wood.

S.: Paper, surely.

G.: Paper is only wood with ambitions. Anglo-Saxon knew what it was about. Book is really a piece of wood that has gone to school.

S.: Then Scarpelli’s title does not yet tell us whether the piece of wood defends materialism, refutes it, or merely shelves it.

G.: Quite. Though I remain sceptical of neutral pieces of wood.

S.: You think the title implicates advocacy.

G.: More than implicates. “Il materialismo” in 1965 sounds less like “On a Certain Topic” and more like “Here it is, then.”

S.: But that is your English suspiciousness about bare substantives. Italian titles can be simply classificatory.

G.: They can, but rarely in philosophy without motive. No one prints “Theism,” “Idealism,” or “Materialism” without hoping the noun will do some work before the first page.

S.: Still, Scarpelli need not be defending it. He might be dissecting it, rebutting it, historicising it, or committing some other Italian operation.

G.: You may dissect a doctrine, yes. But the title remains a piece of wood.

S.: You cannot refute a piece of wood.

G.: Precisely my point. One may refute materialism, perhaps, but not Il materialismo if one means the codex.

S.: So the first distinction is between the doctrine and the object.

G.: Exactly. And philosophers are too often careless about that. “I have refuted Berkeley,” they say, meaning only that they have been cross with a printed descendant of his.

S.: Then if I hold up Scarpelli and say, “This is materialism,” you will answer, “No, this is cellulose.”

G.: With a little glue and Italian typography, yes.

S.: Which is already a better beginning than most introductions to metaphysics.

G.: It has the advantage of being true.

S.: But your point about bare nouns still stands. Il materialismo suggests, at the very least, that the noun is being taken seriously enough to stand without subtitle.

G.: Yes. And seriousness in bare nouns is rarely innocent. It is one of the oldest ways of putting a system on stage.

S.: Yet you admit that Scarpelli, being Scarpelli, may be more interested in the use of the -ism than in the substance beneath it.

G.: Very much so. The semiotician of prescriptions does not approach “materialism” as a lump but as a term in a field.

S.: Then we should discuss the -ism.

G.: Indeed. The -ism is where philosophy goes when it wants both convenience and trouble.

S.: Because it turns tendencies into banners.

G.: Precisely. Once one has “materialism,” one no longer has only matter, body, stuff, extension, causation, natural process, and all the rest. One has a camp.

S.: As with idealism, empiricism, positivism, hylozoism.

G.: Ah yes, hylozoism. A splendid monstrosity.

S.: Matter alive.

G.: Or life in matter, or matter never properly dead, depending on how one wishes to alarm the undergraduates.

S.: So the -ism is often the stage on which older distinctions are simplified into social identities.

G.: Exactly. One joins materialism much as one joins a club one later describes as “a position.”

S.: Which makes Scarpelli’s title all the more mischievous. He gives the noun without telling you whether you are entering the club or inspecting the furniture.

G.: Very good. Though I still say the furniture is wood.

S.: You say that about all libraries.

G.: Libraries are merely forests with footnotes.

S.: Then what of the possibility that the title is dialectical rather than doctrinal? A piece of wood against another piece of wood?

G.: Entirely possible. But then one wants a subtitle, or at least a prefatory signal. Bare Il materialismo lets the noun stand too majestically to be wholly innocent.

S.: Scarpelli may be counting on exactly that. The title catches old metaphysical appetite, and the contents redirect it toward analysis.

G.: If so, that is very Italian and almost forgivable.

S.: You sound doubtful.

G.: Only slightly. My doubt is this: if you title the book “Materialism,” many will assume either praise or prosecution. Philosophical neutrality is a poor bookseller.

S.: Feltrinelli may have agreed.

G.: Very likely. Publishers understand nouns as war-cries long before philosophers do.

S.: Then let us imagine the first student asking, “Sir, is Scarpelli a materialist?”

G.: And I reply, “No, the book is. Or rather, the book is wood, and the title is a noun. You must read chapter one before assigning souls or the lack of them.”

S.: Very good.

G.: Thank you.

S.: The wood point, though, can be pushed. If the book is wood, and materialism is the doctrine that the world is fundamentally material, then the book is a material instance of its own title.

G.: Excellent. The title verifies itself by binding. One might say it is the only doctrine some books literally incarnate.

S.: A pious realist about paper.

G.: And that should make us cautious. The codex proves matter better than it proves materialism.

S.: Because the doctrine is already an abstraction from the thing.

G.: Exactly. The wood sits before us. Materialism is what someone does with that fact once they become too systematic.

S.: Then Scarpelli’s title begins at once with a slippage from object to doctrine.

G.: And that slippage is half of modern philosophy.

S.: The other half?

G.: Pretending the slippage never occurred.

S.: Very dry.

G.: I aim for survival. Now, you mentioned hylozoism. Why?

S.: Because once one says “materialism,” one invites all the old neighbours: mechanism, atomism, naturalism, sensationalism, hylozoism, dialectical materialism, vulgar materialism, and every cousin with a suffix.

G.: Precisely. The -ism proliferates by family resemblance and academic misfortune.

S.: So the weekly essay practically writes itself.

G.: Do not be too quick. A good weekly essay must first look innocent.

S.: “Distinguish between a book and a doctrine.”

G.: Too obviously a trap. Better: “Is Il materialismo material?” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: Beautifully vile.

G.: The best kind. The student begins with ontology and ends in the stationer’s shop.

S.: Another perhaps: “Explain why a piece of wood may defend matter better than a paragraph can.”

G.: Excellent. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: We should have one on the -ism proper.

G.: Yes. “Discuss whether the suffix in materialismo does more philosophical work than the stem.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: That is hateful.

G.: Then it is likely sound. The stem gives matter; the suffix gives faction, history, doctrine, affiliation, and the faint odour of conference rooms.

S.: And what of Scarpelli’s own interests? Tropic, clitic, neustic, phrastic.

G.: Ah yes, the semiotic furniture. That is why he interests me beyond the wood. Scarpelli is not content with saying “normative language exists.” He dissects the layers of saying and prescribing.

S.: Which makes Il materialismo perhaps less a metaphysical banner than a linguistic occasion.

G.: Possibly. He might be doing to materialism what he later does to prescriptions — asking how the doctrine is put, not merely whether it is true.

S.: So the book could be a study in how -isms speak.

G.: Quite. Though that does not save the title from its martial posture.

S.: Nothing could.

G.: Titles are guilty until annotated. Now, if the student were assigned a passage from Scarpelli, what would you choose?

S.: Something where the noun “materialism” begins to behave, perhaps where it is distinguished from cruder naturalisms.

G.: I would not offer a passage.

S.: No?

G.: I would offer the piece of wood.

S.: And say what?

G.: “Here is Il materialismo. Tell me first what sort of thing it is before you tell me whether it is true.”

S.: Very good. The poor student turns it over, notes Milan, Feltrinelli, glue, card, paper, typography, and then begins to despair.

G.: Despair is often the proper preface to philosophy.

S.: This sounds like the tutorial system at its cruelest.

G.: At its most efficient. Why hand him a passage when one may hand him the entire category-confusion?

S.: Then perhaps the essay should run: “A volume entitled Il materialismo lies on the table. State, in order, what is material about it, what is doctrinal about it, and what is likely to be neither.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Excellent. We are improving the schools already.

S.: The student will ask if he may quote Scarpelli.

G.: He may, once he has proved he knows the difference between quoting a doctrine and lifting a board.

S.: You really do want the book to remain wood.

G.: Only long enough to save us from bad metaphysics. One must begin with the object before permitting the abstraction to gallop off.

S.: Then would you say that materialism is already a bad noun?

G.: Not bad, but dangerous. All -isms are dangerous because they substitute umbrellas for weather.

S.: That is one for the margin.

G.: Keep it, but do not put it in large print.

S.: Then the relation to hylozoism again. Is hylozoism just materialism with optimism?

G.: A marvellous slander. No, hylozoism is matter granted life or inner animation, whereas materialism in its more severe forms often wants matter without soul, without finality, perhaps without spontaneity.

S.: Yet some materialisms are more alive than others.

G.: Entirely. Which is why one must not let the -ism do all the describing. A mechanist materialism and a dialectical materialism are not neighbours except at the railway station.

S.: So another weekly essay: “Compare materialism and hylozoism under the condition that neither may be defined by the other’s enemies.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Very good. And add, “You may not use the phrase ‘mere matter’ without explaining the ‘mere.’”

S.: Vicious.

G.: Pedagogic. Now, Scarpelli’s own anti-organicist formation matters.

S.: Yes. He comes through idealism, Gentile, Croce, Allara, Bobbio, Solari, and emerges toward analytic law and language.

G.: Precisely. That makes Il materialismo likely more complicated than a simple defence of matter against spirit.

S.: It may be a strategic title in a field still crowded by idealism.

G.: Yes. “Materialism” may there function as counter-name, a way of clearing space against organicist or spiritualist inflation.

S.: Then the title is polemical not only in content but in local genealogy.

G.: Exactly. Italian nouns carry family history. A book called Il materialismo in 1965 is also saying something against the ways Italian philosophy had made itself respectable.

S.: Which means the piece of wood is also a missile.

G.: Very good. Books are pieces of wood shaped for argument.

S.: Then you must revise your scepticism. One can, in a sense, refute a piece of wood, if the piece is functioning as a missile.

G.: Only by not ducking. No, one refutes what is argued in and through the piece. But I grant you that the codex has rhetorical agency.

S.: That is a significant concession.

G.: Do not become triumphant. It is only cardboard-level.

S.: Still, we now have wood, missile, noun, suffix, and doctrine. Enough for a week.

G.: Enough for a term, if the pupils were less lazy. Another assignment: “Discuss whether materialism is a doctrine, a family resemblance, or a publishing event.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: Publishing event is especially nasty.

G.: The nastiest categories are often the truest. A doctrine may become visible only once typeset.

S.: Then the student may be forced to consider title-pages as part of ontology.

G.: As they should be. Philosophers rely too much on content and too little on literary presentation.

S.: Scarpelli would approve, at least as analyst of language.

G.: I think so. The semiotician ought not to ignore the way a noun stands on a cover and solicits allegiance before argument.

S.: So if the title is Il materialismo, the article matters too.

G.: Very much. Il, not un, not sul, not contro il. Definite article, singular noun, no hedge. It announces not one materialism among many, but the thing itself, or the thing under some privileged presentation.

S.: Which makes your scepticism about neutrality stronger.

G.: Exactly. “A materialism” would be taxonomic. “On materialism” would be studious. “The materialism” is almost enthronement or arraignment.

S.: Another essay then: “Explain what the definite article contributes to an -ism.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Splendid. Add: “You may not answer ‘definiteness’ and go home.”

S.: They often try.

G.: That is why one must hurt them early. Now, if the student says, “But surely the book may be read against itself,” what do you answer?

S.: That every decent book may, but one should first read what the title asks of the reader.

G.: Exactly. The first implicature of a title belongs to the author and publisher; the second belongs to the suspicious tutor.

S.: And the third to the suffering tutee.

G.: Usually. The fourth is footnotes. Now, one last thing: you said Scarpelli is not implicating it is a difesa.

S.: Yes. He might simply be presenting the position.

G.: He might. But I remain sceptical because philosophers rarely title neutral maps as if they were mountains.

S.: Still, there are cases where one calls a book The Thing in order to strip the thing.

G.: True. The title may overstate in order that the analysis may cool. Perhaps Scarpelli wants the old metaphysical noun on the cover only so that he may subject it inside to distinction.

S.: Which would be very much in his line.

G.: Yes. And if so, the joke is even better. One buys a war-cry and gets a semiotic scalpel.

S.: Then the proper final weekly essay assignment is obvious.

G.: Go on.

S.: “A book called Il materialismo is placed before you. Determine whether you have been handed a doctrine, a category, a club membership, a historical provocation, or a piece of wood, and explain why the correct answer is not ‘all of the above’ unless you can order the list.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Perfect. I would not offer a passage. I would offer the thing.

S.: The whole piece of wood.

G.: Precisely. The student can start by holding it. Many never get that far.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Milanese, with glue still binding the metaphysics.

 

 

Grice: Scarpelli, mi trovo spesso a pensare che la filosofia italiana sia come una pizza: tutti vogliono metterci sopra il proprio ingrediente speciale, che sia Gentile, Croce o una spruzzata di semiotica!

Scarpelli: Ah, Grice! Basta che nessuno ci aggiunga l’ananas, e possiamo discutere serenamente di tropico, clistico, neustico e frastico... senza indigestioni.

Grice: Vero, ma ricorda: “Subatomica motus conversacionales ne multiplicentur sine necessitate.” Non vorrei che ogni implicatura diventasse una particella elementare, dispersa tra il tropico e il frastico!

Scarpelli: La tua implicatura mi fa sorridere, che potrebbe presto trasformarsi in una risata – non SULLE cose, ma CON le cose! D’altronde, filosofare è anche questione di gusto, come la pizza.

 

Verbali: scevola

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Scaevola pontifex. Apud Vadum Boum noster quidam—Hart—Facultātem LITTERĀRVM HVMANIŌRVM reliquit et ad paene opificinam FACVLTĀTEM IVRISPRVDENTIAE transiit: ego fateor, inde eum minus “tragicē” sumere coepī.

SCEVOLA: Salvē, Grice. Nōn est opificina, sed officina reī pūblicae. Nam sine iūre, litterae ipsae vagantur; et sine litterīs, iūs fit mutus.

GRICEVS: Fortasse; sed miror quanta fidūciā quis se dicat “doctum” statim atque ad iūs accessit—quasi toga statim sapientiam pariat. Et, ut vērē dīcam, apud Vadum Boum interdum vidētur quasi iūs sibi velit ipsam scholam esse, nōn tantum scholārum hospes.

SCEVOLA: Audāx inplicātūra tua, illic, Grice; sed moneō: iūdex, etiamsi minus otiosus est quam philosophus tuus vulgāris hortulānus, tamen sedēre sinendus est—in vīcō (vel “TOWN,” ut barbarī vocant) sī nōn in togā (vel “GOWN,” ut barbarī vocant); an e conversō? Disciplina enim locum suum habet, et potestas suum: neque forum scholam devoret, neque schola forum contemnat.

 

Grice's weekly essay assignment: Quinto Muzio Scevola Maggiore. There are, to the great inconvenience of the hurried, two Scevolae and both are Quintus Mucius. Write on the elder and pontifical [Quintus Mucius Scaevola] under the condition that you may not use the word “jurist” until the second paragraph. Explain whether his true claim to importance lies in (a) wearing the toga, (b) dividing things properly, or (c) making Roman law look, alarmingly, like a branch of political philosophy imported from the Portico; and determine whether a man called Scevola is already too oddly named to be trusted with definitions, or exactly odd enough to deserve them. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Scevola

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Scaevola augur. Audīvī tē in contiōne tam constanter stetisse pro Mariō, ut Sulla ipse pallēsceret—nōn propter aves, sed propter verba.

SCEVOLA: Salvē, Grice. Verba quoque auguria sunt, sī recte audiās. Sed quid tibi vidētur de illīs quī, glādiō cinctī, iūs perterrēre volunt?

GRICEVS: MIHI AGMINA MILITVM QVIBVS CVRIAM CIRCVMSEDISTI LICET MORTEM IDENTIDEM MINITERIS NVMQVAM TAMEN EFFICIES VT PROPTER EXIGVVM SENILEMQVE SANGVINEM MEVM MARIVM A QVO VRBS ET ITALIA CONSERVATA EST HOSTEM IVDICEM.

SCEVOLA: Sapiens inplicātūra tua, Grice—sed quid aliud ex sapientulō talī exspectāre possumus? Nam dum Mariō favēre videris, simul ostendis istōs “agmina” nihil posse efficere nisi strepitum: senex enim, si iūdicium tenet, hostem hostem appellāre recusat—et iūs ipsō metu fortius est.

 

Grice's weekly essay assignment: Quinto Muzio Scevola. Now take the other [Quintus Mucius Scaevola], the augur, and assume for the week that an armed cordon round the Curia is not, in itself, a good argument. Discuss why his refusal to call [Gaius Marius] hostis under threat counts as an instance of rational public speech rather than theatrical obstinacy, and state whether an augur named Scevola sees more clearly in birds, in law, or in the noise made by soldiers who imagine themselves relevant to judgment. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Scipione

 

G.: Since we are to have Scipio, let us begin by asking which one.

S.: That is already evasive. I asked only whether this is the wake-up call.

G.: And I begin, as any prudent philosopher does, by multiplying the ambiguities. There is Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, Mozart’s Il sogno di Scipione, Silius’s dream-coloured Roman enlargements, and then the actual circle of Scipio, if circle it was.

S.: So which of them wakes him?

G.: That depends on whether one means wakes him from sleep, from politics, from mortality, or from Rome.

S.: You see? You are dodging it already.

G.: I am arranging it. Rome, after all, liked arrangement before waking.

S.: Very well. Begin with Cicero.

G.: Cicero gives us the dream as the most elegant way of making eschatology politically useful. Scipio dreams, learns the cosmic order, hears of fame, virtue, the republic, the smallness of earthly glory, the immortality of the better part, and then wakes into duty.

S.: Is that the wake-up call?

G.: It is one of them.

S.: One of them? There had better not be twelve.

G.: There are at least four. In Cicero the wake-up call is both literal and moral. Scipio wakes from the dream, certainly, but more importantly he wakes to the scale on which public action is to be judged.

S.: So the real alarm clock is cosmological proportion.

G.: Exactly. Once you have seen the heavens, the Forum looks smaller without becoming irrelevant.

S.: That already sounds dangerous for Roman ambition.

G.: Only if one mistakes cosmic diminution for political quietism. Cicero does not. He wants the statesman to act more nobly because he has seen how little vulgar fame counts.

S.: So philosophy, far from spoiling Rome, becomes a kind of imperial deodorant.

G.: Very good. It cleans ambition by exposing it to the stars.

S.: Yet you just said philosophy was a bad influence on Rome.

G.: Generally, yes. It taught Romans to speak Greek abstractions before they could digest them. But at the circle of the Scipios, for one brief and overpraised moment, philosophy became almost sociable.

S.: The first conversazione at Rome.

G.: More or less. One could do worse for a title. A portico, men of rank, Greeks at table, Xenophon in the air, Panaetius nearby, and Scipio in the middle trying to keep the whole thing from turning either into flattery or pedantry.

S.: And Cicero later turns that into a dream.

G.: Because Cicero knew that Rome needed philosophy only if it could be dramatised. A dialogue would do, but a dream does it better. A dream lets metaphysics enter without needing a vote.

S.: So again: is that the wake-up call?

G.: In Cicero, the wake-up call is the conversion of public life by private vision.

S.: That is not an alarm clock, it is a thesis.

G.: All proper wake-up calls are theses in a better suit. Now, Mozart.

S.: At last. Il sogno di Scipione.

G.: Yes. There Mozart is given a libretto that converts the Ciceronian dream into opera seria machinery. Scipio is faced with Fortuna and Costanza, duty and allure, choice and spectacle.

S.: Which makes the wake-up call much more theatrical.

G.: Entirely. In Mozart the dream becomes a test of preference under music. One awakens not merely to cosmology, but to the right discrimination among personified claims.

S.: Is that the wake-up call?

G.: If you insist on the phrase, yes. The wake-up call is that steadfastness must be chosen under enchantment.

S.: So Cicero gives cosmic order; Mozart gives moral audition.

G.: Very good. In Cicero one hears the universe; in Mozart one hears virtue scored against temptation.

S.: And Rome remains in both cases the beneficiary.

G.: Naturally. Scipio’s soul is never improved for private gardening alone.

S.: Then let us return to the circle. Was it really a conversazione?

G.: As nearly as Rome came before Christian salons and academies. The circle of Scipio is the first Roman attempt to make philosophy clubbable without making it merely Greek.

S.: Which must have required immense tact.

G.: Enormous tact. Romans liked usefulness, gravity, and political application. Greek philosophy often arrived with too much ontology and not enough bearing.

S.: Then Scipio’s genius was not as philosopher but as host.

G.: Precisely. He is less a system-builder than an authoritative centre of relevance. In his presence speech is kept morally serious, politically pointed, and socially tolerable.

S.: A Gricean host.

G.: If you like. He stabilises expectations. People say things as if they mattered to the res publica and not merely to dinner.

S.: Which is rare enough at Oxford.

G.: Rare enough anywhere. The true circle is one in which speech neither dissolves into display nor hardens into dogma.

S.: So the first Roman conversazione is already a triumph of conversational reason.

G.: Yes, embodied rather than theorised. Cicero later gives the theory’s literary afterlife.

S.: But you still think philosophy was bad for Rome.

G.: On the whole, yes. Too many Romans discovered Greek theory as an additional instrument of self-importance. Philosophy made them either more solemn than necessary or more sceptical than useful.

S.: Except here.

G.: Except perhaps here, where philosophy was filtered through courage, public service, and the authority of a man who had actually destroyed things.

S.: Carthage, Numantia, dinner.

G.: Quite. Military success is a great purifier of Roman intellectual life. A man may speak of Xenophon with less suspicion if he has already levelled Numantia.

S.: So the circle is philosophically licit because its centre is politically authenticated.

G.: Precisely. Rome trusted philosophy only when backed by someone with legions behind him or at least a censorial air.

S.: That is not very philosophical.

G.: No, but it is very Roman.

S.: Then why the dream at all? Why not a sober treatise on public duty?

G.: Because a sober treatise would have left the soul too awake. The dream permits authority from above, from the dead, from the cosmos, from what Rome cannot simply legislate.

S.: So dream is a device for smuggling in transcendence.

G.: Exactly. Cicero is always at his most cunning when making philosophy theatrically admissible.

S.: Then Scipio sleeps in order that Rome may hear.

G.: Beautifully put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become too pleased. Now, eschatology.

S.: At last. And is that the wake-up call?

G.: In one sense, yes. The deepest wake-up call in the Somnium is that human political life is judged under a post-mortal scale. The soul is not extinguished in the ordinary civic measure.

S.: So public duty is made answerable to cosmic reward.

G.: Precisely. There is music of the spheres, the smallness of the earth, the vanity of ordinary fame, and the promise that virtuous service participates in something death does not finish.

S.: Which would have been an alarming thing for Rome to hear.

G.: Very. Romans wanted immortality through memory, monument, name, descendants, statue, triumph. Cicero gives them a better immortality and thereby rebukes their usual one.

S.: So the wake-up call is anti-monumental.

G.: Entirely. Or rather, it reorders monuments by cosmos.

S.: Is that not almost un-Roman?

G.: It is Roman through Plato and Stoicism, which is why it can just barely pass customs.

S.: Then what of the old joke that philosophy ruined Rome?

G.: It ruined some Romans by making them forget that one must govern before one contemplates. It ruined others by teaching them that all norms are disputable and all duties revisable. It nearly ruined still others by making them sound Greek in public.

S.: Yet Scipio is saved from these fates.

G.: Yes, because his philosophy is social, Xenophontic, Stoic in bearing more than in scholastic formula, and always under the eye of virtue.

S.: So the circle of Scipio is philosophy domesticated by courage.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Now, Mozart again. Why does opera need Scipio?

S.: Because dreams on stage can be sung without embarrassment, while pure doctrine cannot.

G.: Precisely. Opera seria takes the old moral architecture and gives it voices. Scipio’s dream becomes not merely a lesson but a contest of allegorical personae.

S.: Fortuna versus Costanza.

G.: Yes. External lure against inward steadiness. Public brilliance against inner rectitude. One might say Cicero’s cosmology becomes Mozart’s ethics of audition.

S.: And what wakes him there?

G.: The resolution of the choice. He wakes because he has heard enough to know which claim deserves assent.

S.: So the wake-up call there is musical discrimination.

G.: Very good.

S.: You do realise that all your wake-up calls are abstract.

G.: All real alarms are abstract until they ring in a body. Scipio wakes because the body resumes, but the significance lies in what the waking is to.

S.: Then let us ask what the circle itself wakes Rome to.

G.: To the possibility that philosophy can be civic without ceasing to be philosophy.

S.: That sounds almost too hopeful.

G.: It is exactly as hopeful as the Roman republic could afford for an evening.

S.: And after dinner?

G.: After dinner Rome returned to conquest, corruption, and biography.

S.: Which is why Cicero has to preserve the circle in literature.

G.: Exactly. The real circle, like all good conversations, would vanish without text. Cicero’s dialogue makes it exemplary, transportable, and falsely stable.

S.: Falsely stable?

G.: Of course. All circles are more unstable in life than in dialogue. The literary circle is always tidier than the room ever was.

S.: Then your “first conversazione at Rome” is itself retrospective.

G.: Entirely. But that is no objection. Most cultural firsts are invented after the fact in order to stabilise a memory of possibility.

S.: Which is what the dream does too.

G.: Precisely. The dream stabilises an interior event the way the dialogue stabilises a social one.

S.: Now I am obliged to ask again: is that the wake-up call?

G.: It is one of the nicest forms of it. The dream says: wake to the cosmos. The circle says: wake to civilised speech. Mozart says: wake to steadfastness under enchantment.

S.: Three wake-up calls then.

G.: At least.

S.: You promised four.

G.: The fourth is historical. Wake to the fact that Rome could tolerate philosophy only when philosophy was made to flatter its best self.

S.: That is rather biting.

G.: History should bite sometimes. The circle is admirable, yes, but also selective. Philosophy enters Rome not as free inquiry for all, but as elite moral conversation under prestige.

S.: So the first conversazione is aristocratic.

G.: Entirely. One does not get Panaetius and Xenophon into Rome by municipal subscription. One gets them through houses, names, victories, and the right table.

S.: Yet you still admire it.

G.: Of course. One may admire beginnings without pretending they were democratic.

S.: Then what exactly was bad about philosophy’s influence on Rome outside this circle?

G.: Several things. Scepticism without discipline, rhetoric without truthfulness, self-display under Greek cover, moralism detached from public duty, and the old temptation to use philosophy as a costume rather than a correction.

S.: Rome in Greek clothes.

G.: Precisely. The wrong sort of Hellenisation. The circle of Scipio is admirable because it keeps Greek thought under Roman seriousness.

S.: Which is itself a kind of censorship.

G.: If you like. But all civilisations translate by selective pressure.

S.: Then the circle is the first Roman filter.

G.: Very good. Through it philosophy becomes something one may discuss in relation to virtue, leadership, empire, mortality, and memory.

S.: And the dream crystallises that into eschatology.

G.: Exactly. Scipio dreams not as private mystic, but as statesman who must learn that the state is not the whole measure.

S.: Which is almost anti-Roman again.

G.: It is anti-vulgar-Roman, not anti-Roman absolutely. Cicero wants better Romans, not fewer.

S.: So the wake-up call is a correction, not an exit.

G.: Precisely. Scipio is not told to retire from public life into the stars. He is told to act as one who has seen the stars.

S.: That is very nearly a motto for your own philosophy.

G.: Heaven forbid. I should settle for a decent seminar. Still, yes: one ought to converse as if things mattered beyond the room without ceasing to attend to the room.

S.: Now we are back at conversazione.

G.: Inevitably. The circle matters because it shows a historical form of reason-governed conversation before the theory. Scipio is the centre, not as tyrant but as stabiliser of seriousness.

S.: A host of relevance.

G.: Excellent.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become sympotic. Now, do you think the Somnium itself presupposes the circle?

S.: In the sense that the dream can only be heard properly by those already trained in that moral and conversational world, yes.

G.: Exactly. The dream is not an isolated text; it belongs to a culture of speaking about virtue, public life, and Greek thought in Roman company.

S.: Then the circle is the social precondition of the dream.

G.: Very good. And Mozart, centuries later, depends on neither the Roman house nor the Roman republic, but on the afterlife of the moral shape.

S.: Which is why he can set it to music.

G.: Yes. The ancient civic frame loosens; the allegorical ethical frame remains.

S.: But does Mozart keep the eschatology?

G.: In attenuated, theatricalised form. Opera cares more for testing the soul’s posture than for mapping the afterlife. Cicero cares about both.

S.: So Cicero says: the universe will judge you. Mozart says: choose rightly now and wake worthy.

G.: A tolerable summary.

S.: Then what of Silius and Scipio as Hercules? You mentioned him earlier.

G.: Ah yes, Silius complicates matters by giving Scipio a different dream-coloured heroisation. There the Roman saviour is read through Herculean labour and epic burden rather than through Ciceronian cosmology.

S.: Another wake-up call?

G.: More a summons to labour than an awakening to order. Silius uses inherited narrative charge, including Dido’s curse in the long background, to turn Scipio into a figure of sacrificial labour.

S.: So not “wake to the stars,” but “wake to the monster you must clear.”

G.: Precisely. Scipio there is less philosopher than answer to accumulated doom.

S.: Which is less good for conversation.

G.: Much less. Epic burdens speak differently from circles. That is why I prefer Cicero for our purposes.

S.: Because the circle remains central.

G.: Yes. The circle is where philosophy becomes social rather than merely heroic.

S.: Then if one had to name the first Roman conversazione, one would really mean not a historical meeting with minutes, but a style of exchange retrospectively centred on Scipio.

G.: Exactly. A literary-historical construction with enough truth in it to guide thought.

S.: You are careful there.

G.: One must be. Otherwise one starts writing tourist brochures for antiquity.

S.: The wake-up call, then, is not simply “rise from sleep,” but “rise from the wrong scale.”

G.: Splendid. Yes. Wake from the provinciality of fame, from the flattery of immediate public applause, from the smallness of merely earthly reckoning.

S.: And yet return to Rome.

G.: Exactly. The dream would be useless if it ended in celestial truancy.

S.: Cicero is too Roman for truancy.

G.: Entirely.

S.: Then why does Scipio constantly wonder in these traditions whether he has really awakened, or only changed scenes?

G.: Because dreams in philosophy are never only dreams. One wakes from one level only to find another order claiming one. That is why dreams are so useful: they dramatise conversion without requiring a committee.

S.: Is that the wake-up call?

G.: It is the most Socratic version of it: wake to the thought that your waking life may itself have been half-asleep.

S.: That one I rather like.

G.: You may keep it.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become eschatological with it. Now, what would Rome have been without such circles?

S.: Cruder, louder, more practical, less self-conscious, perhaps healthier.

G.: Very possibly. Philosophy is often bad for vigorous peoples because it teaches them to over-describe themselves.

S.: Yet it also teaches them to aspire.

G.: Exactly. Which is why I said “except at this circle.” The circle of Scipio is philosophy at its least damaging to Rome because it enters as correction, proportion, and moral seriousness rather than as intellectual vanity.

S.: It civilises without dissolving.

G.: Very good.

S.: So your final verdict on philosophy in Rome?

G.: Mostly a dangerous import, occasionally a necessary disinfectant, and at the circle of Scipio almost, for an evening, a form of noble conversation.

S.: And the wake-up call?

G.: In Cicero, wake to cosmic proportion and the immortality of virtuous service. In Mozart, wake to steadfast choice under enchantment. In the circle, wake to the possibility that speech itself may become a civic art. In history, wake to the fact that Rome only accepted philosophy when she could make it look like herself.

S.: Four, then.

G.: I keep my promises when sufficiently pressed.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Roman, with one dream still half remembered at dawn.

 

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Scīpiō! Audīvī tē in mediō circulō tuō sedēre—Panētius ad latus, Cicero in auribus, et Roma tota quasi in porticū tuo ambulāre.

SCIPIO: Salvē, Grice. Si in mediō videor, id est quia multī ad mensam veniunt: alius de re pūblicā, alius de moribus, alius de Xenophontis Ciropediā—ego autem conor ne sermō in tumultum vertātur.

GRICEVS: Bene facis. Nam saepe fit ut, dum quis “patrōnum philosophōrum” laudat, idem tacitē confiteātur sē indigēre philosophiā—quasi gladius sine manū. Et, ut veniam mihi dēs, si ordinem paululum turbō: mirum quam facile circulus fiat centrum—et quam longe sit centrum ab illo Vado Boum quod ego iocōsē nomināre soleō, ubi tamen quoque quisque sibi principem facit, saltem in disputātiōne.

SCIPIO: Inplicātūra tua erudīta est, Grice! Et ignōsce, quaeso, hanc translātiōnem: circulus noster—immo omnis circulus—id agit, ut aliquem in mediō collocet, sive is Scīpiō sit sive quis ex longinquō Vado Boum advehātur. Sed ita est, cārissime: ubi sermō sapit, ibi centrum nascitur; ubi centrum nascitur, ibi et “Roma” fit—etiamsi porticus tantum imaginaria est.

 

Verbali: Sclavione

 

G.: There it is again, the Martyrs’ Memorial, doing its best to turn a morning walk into a thesis.

S.: It improves the pavement, at least. Oxford would be morally lazier without a few gothic spikes reminding it that theology once had consequences. G.: You mean that English theology once acquired Italian manners. S.: I mean fire.

G.: Fire is too simple. Even in Italy the pyrotechnics were more elaborate than the children’s version. Take Abano. They like to say he was “sent to the stake,” as if the whole business were a straight line from proposition to bonfire. In fact he dies first, and then they try him harder. S.: Posthumous zeal is still zeal. The bones burn well enough for the lesson to be legible. G.: Very good. You are already halfway to the Victorian Protestant reading of everything. One wants a victim, a doctrine, and a flame, and one dislikes historical detail because it lowers the temperature. S.: You are defending the Church now. G.: Not the Church. Distinctions. Abano is destroyed by an inquisitorial and ecclesiastical machinery, not by some cartoon “Catholic Church” in the singular, as if a man in a mitre had simply struck a match. S.: Yet you are content to let Mary Tudor stand for Marian burnings. G.: Because “Marian” is at least a historical adjective and not a metaphysical slur. Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley—those are Oxford’s own theatre of fire, and the city has made excellent municipal use of them ever since. S.: The Memorial does not let one forget it. G.: No, and the delight is that different men see different lessons in the same stone. You look at it and think: Roman cruelty with an English accent. I look at it and think: Victorian Protestantism pretending to remember the sixteenth century while really lecturing the nineteenth. S.: Meaning Newman. G.: Meaning Newman, yes, and more than Newman. The Oxford Movement, if you insist on the later label, and the fear that Oriel had begun a sort of slow return-ticket to Rome. S.: Oriel, yes. Newman, Pusey, Keble and the rest turning piety into architecture by other means. G.: Quite. Which is why the Memorial is so pleasingly dishonest. It commemorates Mary’s martyrs and simultaneously warns against what people thought Newman might culturally resurrect if left unchecked. S.: “What Newman could kill if you’d let him,” as a coarser man might put it. G.: Much coarser, and much less accurate. Newman did not want to burn anybody. He merely made enough people suspect that truth could have liturgical consequences. S.: You are sounding high-church. G.: I always do when the alternative is bad anti-Catholic history. Besides, high church is the natural condition of a man who has dined often enough beneath portraits and still remembers that the Thirty-Nine Articles once stood between a boy and matriculation. S.: Ah yes, your beloved Articles. One could sign them without reading them, and read them without understanding them, and understand them without believing them. G.: Exactly. Which is why they are philosophically useful. S.: Useful only if one enjoys absurdity. “I subscribe to what I cannot explain.” It is a marvellous English invention. G.: It is more than English. It is institutional logic in liturgical dress. The requirement was always hollow in part because the boy of seventeen at Corpus, or elsewhere, could hardly be expected to understand the full doctrinal content. S.: Yet he was expected to be committed to it. G.: Formally, yes. And that is the beauty of the later joke. One may be committed to the contents of the Articles without yet knowing what they say; but that is not the same thing as owning each proposition as one’s own avowal. S.: Which gets us back to the policeman and the monkeys. G.: Naturally. If I say, “What the policeman said is true,” I am not thereby fully committing myself to the content as if I had always believed it. When I later learn that what he said was “Monkeys can talk,” I do not say, “I withdraw my commitment.” I say, “I was wrong.” The commitment was second-order, not an act of personal doctrinal inhabitation. S.: And you want the parallel with Abano to be that the authorities took a restricted technical proposition and inflated it into total impiety. G.: Precisely. Abano says something under the conditions of natural philosophy or Aristotelian medicine. The audience hears “heresy.” They convert local philosophical commitment into global doctrinal avowal. S.: Inquisition as hostile uptake. G.: Nicely put. The hearers supply a stronger implicature than the speaker intended and then punish him for the strengthened proposition. S.: So your claim is that Abano’s affair is partly pragmatics. G.: All intellectual persecution is partly pragmatics. The proposition alone never burns; it is the public reading of the proposition that catches first. S.: Still, why fewer such spectacles at Oxford, even before Henry VIII? G.: Because England had different machinery, different forms of legal and ecclesiastical discipline, and a different university ecology. Oxford had heresy trouble enough—Wyclif, the Lollards, subscriptions, censures, statutes—but less of the highly theatrical medico-natural-philosophical combustion one gets in Italy. S.: Fewer pyrotechnics. G.: Exactly. Oxford had more compromised authority and fewer philosopher-bones. Italy had better flames. S.: The Lollards then. You promised me them properly. G.: Very well. Wyclif first, Oxford theologian, late fourteenth century, Scripture, anti-clericalism, transubstantiation troubles, the whole native package of English reform before “Reformation” becomes a capitalised national habit. S.: And the Lollards are the followers, lay and clerical, artisans and gentry, vernacular religion, anti-image tendencies, anti-pilgrimage, Bible in English, and so forth. G.: Yes. English heresy with domestic furniture. Less Padua, more parish. S.: So closer in date to Abano than the Marian martyrs are. G.: Much closer. Abano dies 1316. Wyclif comes a little later in the century; Lollardy flowers from the 1380s onward. Cranmer and company are another two centuries off. If you want a sequence, it is Abano first, then Wyclif and the Lollards, then the Marian martyrs. S.: And the kinds of danger change. G.: Exactly. Abano’s danger is university naturalism and the suspicion of illicit arts; Lollard danger is vernacular reform and anti-sacramental doctrine; Marian danger is confessional reversal in a Tudor state. S.: Which is why the Martyrs’ Memorial feels different from Italian stories. It is not scholastic-natural-philosophical risk. It is Reformation theatre. G.: Yes, and Victorian re-use of Reformation theatre. Never forget that the monument itself is a later sermon in stone. S.: You said that once and I believed you. It is still Oriel’s fault, though. G.: Not only Oriel’s. But Oriel is the center of gravity if one wants the Oxford Movement in college form. S.: Newman, Keble, Pusey by radius if not by common room. G.: Precisely. “Oxford Movement” is itself a later label. At the time the movement was more Tractarian than “Oxfordian.” But later historians need geography, and Oriel gives them a neat one. S.: And the Memorial says: beware what Oriel may end in. G.: Or what Protestants feared it might end in. Which is not the same thing. The monument is anti-Marian memory and anti-Roman warning, both at once. S.: So when you mentioned Catholic renewal you really meant Newman’s world. G.: Yes, though “renewal” is an ecumenical word for what others called Romanising contamination. S.: You are enjoying this too much. G.: Historical precision is one of my few respectable pleasures. S.: Let us return to the Articles. You said the requirement was silly because one could not expect a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old to understand them. G.: Silly and revealing. It showed that institutional subscription often wanted conformity more than comprehension. S.: Lip service. G.: Exactly. Which is where you, as a good Marian moralist, and I, as a bad high-church ironist, strangely converge. You hate the insincerity. I admire the institutional candour about insincerity. Oxford knew very well that assent often exceeded understanding. S.: And then later they dropped it. G.: Gradually, under pressure of conscience, practicality, inclusion, and not least the sheer absurdity of requiring doctrinal subscription from boys too young to digest doctrine. S.: Which brings us back to the monkey. G.: Naturally. One could say, “I am committed to the Articles,” and later discover one’s actual content was as surprising as “monkeys can talk.” The institution wanted the second-order commitment, not the full internalised avowal. S.: Abano had the reverse problem. He made a restricted first-order philosophical claim and was treated as if he had made a full anti-Christian avowal. G.: Exactly. Oxford extracts formality without substance; the inquisitorial audience imputes substance beyond formal claim. Between them, one can build a whole philosophy of misassigned commitment. S.: You should have put that on the Memorial. G.: Too long for the stone, and the Victorians preferred martyrs to speech-act theory. S.: They had the right instinct. G.: They had the better stonemasons. S.: So does Abano matter to us at all, beyond historical pyrotechnics? G.: Very much so. Not because we still ask, in Oxford voice, “Is the soul immortal?” We do not. We are too embarrassed by the noun. S.: Ryle saw to that. G.: Ryle saw to one thing only: he made “the soul” or “the ghost” sound like a category mistake in waiting. S.: Which settles Pomponazzi, Abano, and all their friends. No soul, no immortality question. G.: No. It settles one vocabulary. It does not settle the pressure behind it. S.: You mean personal identity. G.: Among other descendants. Survival, memory, personhood, continuity, consciousness, acquaintance with oneself or not, death as event or not. The old soul question migrates into newer, more respectable nouns. S.: Stout then. G.: Precisely. This is why I keep mentioning Stout. “Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy” tells you everything. Psychology and philosophy still share the old territory of psyche without daring to say soul. S.: So psyche is the soul under scientific management. G.: A little too blunt, but yes, roughly. The Greek survives where the theology is dropped. One can write psi for psychological attitudes and pretend the old ground has vanished, when in fact one is still walking on it. S.: And “philosophical psychology” is therefore closer to Aristotle than “philosophy of mind.” G.: Very much so. “Philosophy of mind” tempts one to reify. “Philosophical psychology” keeps the focus on capacities, powers, attitudes, forms of life, what the De anima tradition knew how to discuss before the soul became either a ghost or an embarrassment. S.: You are going to drag in the power structure of the soul next. G.: I might. It is an ugly phrase, but useful. The old tripartite or multi-part architecture survives in moral psychology long after metaphysical soul-talk has gone out of fashion. S.: Plato and the Republic. G.: Exactly. Socrates on Thrasymachus, the soul and the city, rulers and auxiliaries and producers, reason and spirit and appetite, all that cross-categorial traffic. One may think the doctrine silly and still admire the explanatory ambition. S.: Explain that to Ryle. G.: Ryle would say it all becomes confusion when one hypostasizes the parts. Fine. But he does not thereby eliminate the need to speak of capacities, tendencies, executive control, deliberative order, practical conflict. S.: Hence your later fondness for powers. G.: And hence my refusal to let “soul” vanish too quickly from the history, even if I do not use it in current analysis. Abano matters because he belongs to the old cluster before it was broken up into mind, self, person, psychology, and survival. S.: You are giving him a long tail. G.: Better a long tail than a short bonfire. S.: How would this play in Locke? G.: Nicely enough. Locke shifts the issue from soul-substance to personal identity and consciousness. He is already post-Pomponazzi in idiom, though the old issue lingers under the new title. S.: And then Hume, and then everyone after, and eventually Parfit. G.: Exactly. Parfit is what happens when the soul has been anatomised, the self thinned, identity loosened, and survival made possible without any metaphysical treasure-chest. S.: So Abano matters because he stands before the great translation. G.: Precisely. He is on the old side of the lexical divide, where “soul” still does the work later spread across ten nouns and two departments. S.: And Oxford’s fewer fires mean fewer dramas, but not fewer problems. G.: Exactly. Oxford translated, Italy dramatized. S.: That sounds unfair to Oxford. G.: It is accurate to Oxford. The city prefers to preserve its quarrels in architecture and examination requirements rather than in combustibles. S.: Hence the Memorial and the Articles. G.: Hence both. One monument to remembered burnings, one institutional practice of requiring assent without digestion. Both are ways of making doctrine social. S.: Which is why your high-church posture is perverse. You prefer form to sincerity. G.: I prefer knowing when form is being asked for. Sincerity without institution is sentimentality. Institution without sincerity is hypocrisy. Oxford has specialised in the second and named it tradition. S.: And Mary? G.: Mary is useful because she tells the Protestant story what it most fears: that doctrine backed by power becomes lethal. S.: And you think the Victorians used her to tell Newman’s generation the same thing. G.: Very much so. The Martyrs’ Memorial says, in effect: we know where this Roman road leads. S.: Which, in your mode, is an implicature rather than a thesis. G.: All good monuments are implicatures. They let the passer-by do some of the work. S.: Then let us say this for Abano. He may not matter as doctrine, but he matters as a case where the hearers did the wrong work. G.: Or the historically understandable work, which is not always the same as the philosophically just work. S.: There you are being charitable again. G.: One must be charitable if one wishes to understand persecution without joining it. S.: One last question. Why do Italians keep loving these figures. G.: Because they provide a native canon of intellectual risk. A university culture likes to remember the moments when thought was dangerous, especially after it has become professional. S.: Whereas Oxford remembers its dangers by stone, satire, and subscription forms. G.: And by quietly insisting that a boy might be committed to the Articles before he understood them. Which is almost as comic as a philosopher being committed to “monkeys can talk” because he trusted the policeman. S.: So the final parallel is commitment misassigned. G.: Exactly. Abano says less than his judges hear. The undergraduate affirms more than he can parse. The speaker who says “what the policeman said is true” is neither fully insane nor fully avowing monkeys. All three cases turn on the difference between formal and substantive commitment. S.: That, I admit, is worth keeping. G.: Good. Then Abano matters after all. S.: Historically. G.: And grammatically. S.: I shall not concede metaphysically.

G.: Nobody is asking you to. That, too, was the trouble in Bologna. S.: And in Oxford? G.: In Oxford, the trouble is always milder. We burn fewer men and more hours. S.: Which is why Boum Vadum will never rival Bononia.

G.: No. Bononia had the pyrotechnics. Boum Vadum only has the better footnotes.

 

Grice: Caro Sclavione, ho appena letto i tuoi Elementi di filosofia e confesso che sono rimasto colpito dal fatto che tu riesca a parlare di tutto senza mai perdere il senso dell’umorismo, che è già una massima conversazionale implicita.

Sclavione: Carissimo Grice, a Napoli si impara presto che la ragione funziona meglio se accompagna il caffè, altrimenti l’inferenza resta amara.

Grice: Questo spiega perché le tue premesse sembrano sempre più robuste dopo colazione, mentre le conclusioni arrivano solo verso sera, quando la conversazione è ben avviata.

Sclavione: E tu, Grice, dovresti ammettere che senza un po’ di spirito partenopeo anche la cooperazione conversazionale rischia di sembrare una riunione senza biscotti.

 

Verbali: Scupoli

 

G.: Since we now have the right friar, let us begin again where one ought to begin — with Scupoli, not with any stray Roman aristocrat who wandered in by mistake.

S.: A relief already. And you still mean to give Ryle a copy for Christmas?

G.: In imagination, certainly. In reality, one does not often speak to Ryle, which is half the reason the gift becomes elegant.

S.: A dangerous elegance. If the title is Il combattimento spirituale, what is Ryle to make of “spiritual” except a fresh invitation to denounce ghosts in machines?

G.: Only if he reads like a customs officer. My whole point is that the combatimento is metonymical.

S.: Metonymical is your general amnesty.

G.: It is my method of preserving texture without accepting bad ontology. Scupoli’s angel and demon, the good daemon and the bad daemon, the fairy mother, the godmother, all those figures are not little substances flapping in the thorax.

S.: Then what are they?

G.: Operative names. Figures for direction, tutelage, temptation, governance, collapse, encouragement, discipline. A moral and practical topography given old imaginative clothing.

S.: So the fairy mother survives as what — formative influence?

G.: Better, formative protection in a mode the soul can recognise before it can analyse. The godmother too, if you like, is not a supernatural nanny but a name for one kind of moral mediation.

S.: And the eudaimon and kakodaimon?

G.: Again, directional names. Prosperous tendency, destructive tendency. One’s life under a favourable or unfavourable practical description.

S.: Ryle would say you are reducing mythology to dispositions.

G.: Not reducing. Translating through. That is different. One preserves the old language while refusing to treat it as zoology.

S.: Yet the title still says spiritual combat.

G.: Yes, and that is precisely why it should interest Ryle. The phrase promises ghostly artillery and then delivers a handbook of exercises.

S.: Exercises?

G.: Certainly. Watchfulness, restraint, recollection, anti-self-deception, habituation, examination, refusal, repetitive correction — all very bodily, all very anti-ghostly.

S.: So “spiritual” here means not “immaterial,” but “pertaining to the governance of the whole person under a moral description.”

G.: Exactly. Or, if you like, the care of life under the aspect of salvation and self-command.

S.: Ryle would not like the salvation.

G.: He would dislike the noun and admire the drill.

S.: A Rylean agitation indeed.

G.: Very much so. He would open the book ready to strike and find instead a manual of disciplined conduct. That would annoy him in exactly the right way.

S.: Then why Christmas?

G.: Because Christmas permits one to give a man a book he would refuse in Hilary. Festivity is camouflage for exact provocation.

S.: You imagine him unwrapping it beside the fire.

G.: Naturally. Frowning at the title, glancing at the spine, and then reading one paragraph too many to remain dismissive.

S.: With his twin sister present, no doubt, since you like the scene too much not to stage it.

G.: Of course. I like to imagine the twins making a secular entertainment of it. “Come, Hilda, let us see whether this friar has given us a ghost or merely a regimen.”

S.: And Hilda says?

G.: “If it is a regimen, Gilbert, you will be obliged to admit it before pudding.”

S.: Very domestic.

G.: Philosophy ought occasionally to be. Otherwise it mistakes itself for statute.

S.: But Scupoli is not domestic. He is agonistic.

G.: Yes, and that matters. “Combat” preserves the resistance that “exercises” alone would flatten. The whole thing concerns inner conflict — passions, temptations, vanity, fear, sloth, lust, despair, self-love, false confidence.

S.: Then we are near the anecdote about Ayer.

G.: Inevitably. Robertson recalling Ryle, his tutor, pointing at Ayer as he passed by the college and saying: Look at him, a man ruined by passions. Let that be a warning for you.

S.: And Robertson, being young, heard only “passions.”

G.: Naturally. Young men are always captivated by the vivid noun and neglect the ruin.

S.: Whereas Ryle meant the ruin.

G.: Entirely. He meant a visible style of life. Not a ghostly corruption but a bodily, practical, public deformation of conduct.

S.: So Ryle, in that sentence, becomes almost Scupolian.

G.: Precisely. That is why Scupoli is the centrepiece. He lets one see the continuity between old ascetic discipline and modern anti-passional moralism.

S.: Though Scupoli would have spoken of sin, temptation, grace, the will.

G.: Yes, and Ryle of self-indulgence, disorder, vanity, loss of command, perhaps affectation. The lexicon shifts, the practical eye remains.

S.: So when Ryle says Ayer is ruined by passions, he is reading the body.

G.: Exactly. Bearing, pace, style, expression, habits — all the things the anti-dualist ought to notice and the spiritual manual had long ago classified under another grammar.

S.: Then your gift would be less absurd than it sounds.

G.: It was never absurd, only affectionate. One gives a man the book he would deny needing and then watches him discover that he has been living with its problems under another vocabulary.

S.: Still, Ryle’s first objection would be simple. “Spiritual combat” suggests one thing battling another inside the body.

G.: Yes, and that is where the metonymy must be defended at once. The “combat” is not between two substances but between tendencies, habits, orders of desire, styles of attention, and forms of self-rule.

S.: And the body?

G.: Central. That is the whole point. One fasts, rises, kneels, refuses, speaks or keeps silence, arranges one’s day, checks one’s appetite, monitors one’s gesture, submits to a regimen. There is no ghostly artillery at all.

S.: Then why not simply say “moral discipline”?

G.: Because that would betray the richness of the old register and lose the drama of the struggle. Scupoli is not a dry code. He is a tactical manual of inward war.

S.: Which is why the angel and demon remain.

G.: Exactly. They remain as names for contrary vectors in a life, not as census entries in invisible biology.

S.: And the fairy mother?

G.: She remains because moral formation is not only command but nurture. A child, or half the adult, learns better under image than under abstraction.

S.: Ryle would say image is where confusion begins.

G.: He would say that before tea. After tea he might admit that image is where training begins, provided one later distinguishes properly.

S.: You are very charitable to him.

G.: Christmas encourages the vice.

S.: Let us be exact. Scupoli’s “superior will” or “reasonable will” governing the “will of sense” — that is where Ryle might become interested.

G.: Yes. Because one can read the contrast not as mind-versus-body but as higher-order governance over first-order impulse.

S.: Something like trained disposition over appetite.

G.: Exactly. Stoic enough, Aristotelian enough, and anti-Cartesian enough to make Ryle lower the cudgel.

S.: Then Scupoli as a bridge from Graeco-Roman spiritual exercises to later rigorism.

G.: Very good. He is not merely a pious friar but part of a long practical tradition of self-command.

S.: Which is why Kant hovers.

G.: He does, though rather differently dressed. Duty against inclination, law over appetite, the worth of action not lying in emotional fervour.

S.: Ryle would dislike Kant too.

G.: He would dislike the architecture, perhaps, but not the anti-sentimentalism. Ryle’s moral temperament is closer to rigorism than he liked to admit.

S.: So your imagined gift is really a double jest: Scupoli for Ryle, and Ryle already in Scupoli.

G.: Exactly. The old Theatine gives the anti-ghostian a mirror, provided the latter can survive the title page.

S.: What would you write in the inscription?

G.: “To G. R., against atmospheric temptations.” Or perhaps, “For use in combating non-mechanical disturbances.”

S.: Hideous.

G.: Serviceably so.

S.: And Hilda reads it and laughs.

G.: Of course. One needs a witness when Gilbert becomes over-severe with inherited vocabularies.

S.: The body still troubles me, though. If Scupoli speaks of the soul, are we not forced back into dualism?

G.: Not if we read “soul” as a practical name for the person under moral and salvific description. Old texts often say “soul” where moderns would say life, self, person, moral agency, or conduct under eternity.

S.: That sounds suspiciously like reduction.

G.: No. Reduction throws away the atmosphere; translation through preserves the function and the gravity. I am not saying Scupoli meant exactly what a later secular ethicist would mean. I am saying his vocabulary can be read without committing us to a ghost-substance.

S.: Then the struggle is intrapersonal without being inter-substantial.

G.: Precisely. One life, one body, one practical field, many tensions. That is enough war for anyone.

S.: And this is why Robertson’s anecdote belongs here?

G.: Absolutely. Ryle pointing at Ayer gives us a secular ascetical sentence. “A man ruined by passions” is Scupoli with tobacco in his pocket and no sacramental remedy to hand.

S.: And Robertson’s misunderstanding is part of the charm.

G.: Entirely. He hears “passions” and imagines excitement; Ryle means disordered life made visible.

S.: Ayer as moral diagram.

G.: Yes. A moving cautionary note in a college court.

S.: It is cruel.

G.: Oxford often teaches through cruelty wrapped in epigram. That is one of its less charming continuities with monasteries.

S.: So if Ryle read Scupoli he might recognise himself, not as believer, but as monitor.

G.: Exactly. He would see that the old “spiritual” warfare is largely a matter of conduct, command, vice, correction, and visible ruin.

S.: Then where would he still resist?

G.: He would resist the reification of inward agencies. He would bridle at demonological speech taken literally. He would suspect any explanatory slide from practical conflict into occult cause.

S.: And what would you tell him?

G.: I should say: read the demons as names for recurrent temptational patterns; read the angel as the moral vocabulary of rescue and right orientation; read the soul as the person under governance; read the combat as a regimen of acts.

S.: A great deal of reading.

G.: Better reading than bad dismissing.

S.: What of Bunyan, whom your mother also read?

G.: Bunyan gives pilgrimage, Scupoli gives combat. One is narrative progress; the other tactical discipline. Together they make an excellent Protestant-Catholic childhood confusion.

S.: Which you have spent your life clarifying?

G.: Or refining. Childhood confusions are often where later concepts are born.

S.: Then Scupoli is not only a Christmas gift but a private source.

G.: He is. The old battle-texts teach one that reason is practical before it is theoretical. They also teach one that self-knowledge without discipline is vanity.

S.: Ryle would like the second half.

G.: Very much. “Know thyself” only becomes serious when joined to anti-self-indulgence.

S.: Which is why Scupoli keeps returning to distrust of one’s own immediate tendencies.

G.: Yes. Self-mistrust in the healthy sense: not theatrical abasement, but refusal to take appetite’s first report as law.

S.: Again very bodily.

G.: Entirely. Appetite, fatigue, fantasy, embarrassment, pride, sensual lure, resentment — all these are lived in and through the body. The “spiritual” names the level of governance, not the absence of flesh.

S.: So perhaps the best formula is that spiritual combat is embodied moral drill under theological description.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not make it pious.

S.: I shall try to keep it only properly severe.

G.: Better. Now, one might object that your metonymical reading domesticates too much. Perhaps Scupoli really did believe in demons.

S.: And angels.

G.: Yes. Very likely he did. But that does not oblige us to read the philosophical usefulness of the text at the same metaphysical register. Historical fidelity need not be credulous imitation.

S.: So one may grant the author his ontology while translating the practice.

G.: Exactly. That is the mature reader’s charity.

S.: Ryle might call it evasive.

G.: Ryle sometimes mistakes tact for evasion. It is one of his few systematic habits.

S.: Then what would he say about the title after actually reading the book?

G.: Perhaps: “A badly titled but excellent manual of anti-silliness.” Or, if more generous, “A handbook of discipline surprisingly free of machinery.”

S.: “Surprisingly free of machinery” is good.

G.: Keep it. One must occasionally let Gilbert write his own dust-jacket.

S.: And Hilda’s verdict?

G.: “Gilbert, you always liked combat as long as it could be expressed as correction.”

S.: Very nice.

G.: Families are good for diagnostic cruelty.

S.: Let us return to the godmother and fairy mother. Why insist on them so much?

G.: Because they show that the imaginative apparatus of moral life is not reducible to bare rules. Formation comes through figures of care, warning, mediation, and enchantment. Remove them all too quickly and you leave only instruction, which seldom forms anyone deeply.

S.: So image is pedagogical.

G.: Exactly. The old spiritual manuals know that governance needs drama if it is to touch habit.

S.: Ryle would grant habit, if not drama.

G.: Then let him keep the habit and leave us the necessary remnants of drama. Without them the text becomes a memorandum.

S.: Which Scupoli decidedly is not.

G.: Not at all. He is a field-manual for a person who suspects himself capable of ruin.

S.: Again Ayer enters.

G.: Indeed. “Look at him, a man ruined by passions.” Ryle there gives a one-sentence Scupoli with secular clothing and a college path for theatre.

S.: Ayer as the visible caution, Robertson as the susceptible novice, Ryle as reluctant spiritual director.

G.: Precisely. It writes itself.

S.: Which perhaps is why Scupoli belongs at the centre. He reveals that old ascetic speech and modern Oxonian moralism are not strangers.

G.: Yes. They are cousins who prefer not to acknowledge one another publicly.

S.: Then the gift is really an act of family introduction.

G.: A charming way to put it.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become familial. Now, could the combatimento be played with, as you suggested, by Ryle and his twin sister?

S.: In the sense of being tested as a manual of exercises, not mocked as superstition.

G.: Exactly. “Let us see whether chapter three corresponds to any recognisable human temptation not requiringG.: Very well, let us repair the gift before Christmas passes entirely into theory. The book is Scupoli, and Scupoli is the centrepiece.

S.: Better. Scupoli deserves the centre, whereas Sebasmius would only have supplied a triclinium and a class-list.

G.: Quite. I imagine giving Ryle a copy of Il combattimento spirituale.

S.: You, who scarcely speak to him.

G.: Which is why a present is useful. It lets one say several things while saying none of them directly.

S.: A conversational Christmas.

G.: Precisely. “Dear Ryle, here is a spiritual combat manual; please do not strike it dead before chapter two.”

S.: He would open it, see spirituale, and begin frothing at once.

G.: He would begin by suspecting a ghost, yes. “Spiritual combat” sounds exactly the kind of phrase likely to tempt a careless theologian into machinery with upholstery.

S.: So why Scupoli?

G.: Because the title is misleading in exactly the right way. The combatimento is spiritual, but not in the sense of two disembodied entities fencing in the pantry of the soul.

S.: Then what sense?

G.: In the old practical sense. It is an exercise, a regimen, a discipline of self-government. One might almost say it is a handbook of anti-passional drill.

S.: Which Ryle might like if one translated enough of it into anti-ghostly English.

G.: Or into anti-theatrical English. Scupoli is not staging a ghost in the machine. He is describing a rational animal learning how not to be ruled by appetite, vanity, fear, resentment, acedia, and all the rest.

S.: So your line is that the whole thing is metonymical.

G.: Exactly. The angel and the demon are names for regions of practical orientation, not census items from an invisible zoo.

S.: The good daemon and the bad daemon as directional forces rather than little interior persons.

G.: Very good. Eudaemon and kakodaemon, if one wants Greek dignity. Or, better, auspicious and ruinous tendencies in a life that can still be read as one life.

S.: And the godmother and fairy mother?

G.: Figures of tutelage, nurture, intercession, kindly governance, the old imagistic way of speaking about how one is formed before one is fully one’s own master.

S.: Ryle would not like fairy mothers.

G.: He would like them less if called entities than if called formative agencies. Tell him “fairy mother” is a dramatic shorthand for educative nurture and he may stop grumbling for five minutes.

S.: That is all one can hope for with him.

G.: More would be indecent. The point is that Scupoli’s vocabulary is thickly figurative but practically exact. Its truth lies in the operations, not the ontology.

S.: Then the body matters from the start.

G.: Deeply. The body is not the machine haunted by a soul-spectre; it is where the whole business happens. Sleep, fasting, appetite, speech, kneeling, gesture, attention, recollection, habit, pause, all of it.

S.: So “spiritual” here is almost corporeal by method.

G.: Better: spiritual through corporeal discipline. One does not combat vainglory with ectoplasm. One combats it by habits, refusals, silences, humblings, forms of attention, repeated acts.

S.: Exercise rather than apparition.

G.: Precisely. If one had to make Scupoli safe for a Rylean common room, one would say: “This is a manual of practical exercises for the governance of passion under theological description.”

S.: Hideous, but useful.

G.: It ought to be both. A Christmas present should always contain an insult to bad ontology if possible.

S.: And what would Ryle make of the title before opening the book?

G.: “Combattimento spirituale? More dualist melodrama.” Then, if he read on, he might discover that Scupoli is less interested in a separable soul than in a whole person under disciplined management.

S.: Which is very nearly Ryle’s own region, though with angels at the edge of the page.

G.: Exactly. Ryle dislikes spirits because he thinks people mean substances. Scupoli often means exercises, dangers, dispositions, and tutelary images.

S.: Then you really do think he could have enjoyed it.

G.: Privately, yes. Publicly he would have called it “a very old and not altogether foolish drill-book.”

S.: High praise.

G.: The highest available west of the Alps. Now, the twin sister.

S.: You must have his twin sister in the Christmas scene?

G.: Naturally. Twins improve all philosophical experiments. I like to imagine him saying, “Come, Hilda, let us see whether this Italian priest has given us a ghost or only a grammar of temptation.”

S.: And she replies?

G.: “If it is a grammar, Gilbert, it is one of habits, not nouns.” Something of that sort.

S.: A festive anti-dualism by the fire.

G.: Exactly. The pudding between them, Scupoli on the table, and the first question being whether the combat is in the soul or in the conduct of the person.

S.: And your answer?

G.: In the conduct of the person, under an interior vocabulary. The interior is not denied, but neither is it turned into a hidden substance.

S.: Then how do the angel and demon function?

G.: As dramatis personae for inwardly and outwardly legible tendencies. The demon is what seduces one toward disordered appetite, self-excuse, resentful fantasy, spiritual vanity; the angel is what calls toward measure, recollection, humble action, steadiness.

S.: That sounds half Stoic, half monastic.

G.: Exactly. Scupoli sits in that marvellous old corridor between Graeco-Roman askēsis and Christian ascetic drill. That is why he matters. He is not merely pious upholstery; he is method.

S.: Which is why the comparison to Bunyan in your own upbringing matters too.

G.: Yes. My mother gave us Bunyan, but Scupoli gave the combat its sharper practical edge. Bunyan is pilgrimage and allegorical topography; Scupoli is exercise and tactical inward warfare.

S.: So pilgrimage versus drill.

G.: Very good. And Ryle would take more easily to drill than to allegorical mountains.

S.: Unless the allegories were cunningly translated into dispositions.

G.: Which is our whole enterprise. Now, this line of yours about the godmother and fairy mother—why do you want them kept?

S.: Because they show how thickly social and imagistic the old moral world is. It is not a world of bare “conscience” in the Protestant and somewhat thin sense. It is mediated, tutored, mothered, attended.

G.: Precisely. Conscience is too dry, too singular, too post-Reformation for Scupoli’s atmosphere. The older figures preserve nurture, favour, exemplary mediation, inherited moral imagination.

S.: And yet you still say metonymy.

G.: Because one must not literalise them. Metonymy saves thickness without committing oneself to fairy ethnography.

S.: So the fairy mother is not a being but a figure for how grace and formation are mediated in life.

G.: Exactly. And Ryle, if he is patient, may be led to admit that moral life is often learned not by propositions alone but by scenes, images, and embodied tutelage.

S.: He might call that anthropological residue.

G.: He might, but he would mean it approvingly if he were in a good humour.

S.: When is he in a good humour?

G.: Usually when someone else is being corrected. Which brings us to Robertson and Ayer.

S.: Ah yes. Robertson remembers Ryle pointing at Ayer as he passed by the college and saying, “Look at him, a man ruined by passions. Let that be a warning for you.”

G.: Exactly. It is a secular Scupoli scene if ever there was one.

S.: Explain.

G.: Because Ryle there becomes the monitor of moral physiognomy. He is not speaking about a separable soul corrupted by invisible vapours. He is reading a person in public as a visible style of life disordered by passion.

S.: So “ruined by passions” is already Scupolian, only without the saints.

G.: Precisely. Ryle would reject the devotional apparatus, but he keeps the eye for disordered appetite made visible in bearing, timing, face, pace, speech, and social form.

S.: And Robertson, being young, hears only “passions.”

G.: Naturally. Young men always hear the tempting noun and miss the disciplinary sentence surrounding it.

S.: He thinks perhaps of romance, drink, scandal, or something much less structural.

G.: Exactly. Ryle means not “how exciting” but “how a life can be visibly bent out of shape by ungoverned inclinations.”

S.: Which Scupoli would have understood immediately.

G.: Entirely. Scupoli would only have added that the passions do not ruin by poetry alone but by habit, indulgence, self-deception, and the refusal of exercise.

S.: Then perhaps the best way to put it is that Ryle’s remark is a Scupolian judgment translated into anti-ghostly Oxford idiom.

G.: Splendid. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased. Now, if I give Ryle Scupoli, what am I giving him really?

S.: A manual of embodied anti-passional discipline hidden under an alarmingly dualist title.

G.: Excellent. And he, if he reads far enough, discovers that “spiritual combat” is not an episode in supernatural physics but an agonistic programme of self-regulation.

S.: You do like “agonistic.”

G.: It preserves the resistance. If one says merely “exercise,” one loses the enemy. If one says merely “combat,” one invites bad metaphysics. Agonistic exercise is near enough.

S.: Against what enemy?

G.: Against self-flattery, self-indulgence, unruly appetite, resentment, despair, vanity, sloth, and the rest of the old lethal banalities.

S.: Which are not ghosts.

G.: No. Nor are they mere internal weather. They are practical structures of life, stabilised or destabilised through repeated action.

S.: So Scupoli is really about habits.

G.: Habits, yes, but also attention, self-scrutiny, recollection, and strategic resistance. Aristotle, the Stoics, and monastic Christianity all in one severe little room.

S.: That would please Kant too, if one removed enough sacrament.

G.: Quite. Duty over inclination, discipline over feeling, moral worth in acting against one’s ease: Scupoli can sound remarkably like rigorism before rigorism receives its Königsberg tailoring.

S.: Which again might interest Ryle. He liked anti-sloppiness.

G.: He adored anti-sloppiness. Scupoli is nothing if not anti-sloppy. He distrusts fervour without form, feeling without regulation, piety without drill.

S.: So he is not a sentimental ascetic.

G.: Quite the contrary. He is procedural. That is one of the reasons I like him. He gives one tactics, not only atmosphere.

S.: Tactics is a good word.

G.: Yes. “Combatimento” is tactical from the start. One identifies weaknesses, anticipates occasions of fall, forms contrary habits, uses the body against the passions that misuse the body.

S.: Which makes the body a site of recovery rather than a machine to be transcended.

G.: Exactly. That is why one must not let “spiritual” mislead. The body is not to be despised as mechanism; it is the theatre of practice.

S.: Ryle would approve the theatre if one did not peopled it with ghosts.

G.: Yes. And Scupoli may be read without ghosts if one is sufficiently alert to his figurative economy.

S.: You are very attached to metonymy.

G.: It saves civilization daily.

S.: More than irony?

G.: On alternate days. Here it matters because the figures point to operations. The angel names a mode of correction, the demon a mode of derangement. The godmother or fairy mother names tutelary nurture, not an attendance register in the air.

S.: Then the “reasonable will” versus the “will of sense” is not dualism either?

G.: No. It is a practical distinction internal to one life. The higher and lower, the governing and the appetitive, the disciplined and the impulsive—one need not convert that into substances.

S.: So Scupoli’s “soul” is perhaps more like the person under a moral description.

G.: Very good. That is exactly the safe and intelligent way of hearing it for our purposes.

S.: Then Ryle’s protest would be aimed mostly at bad readers of Scupoli, not necessarily at Scupoli himself.

G.: That is my suspicion. Ryle is often at war with vulgar metaphysics rather than with old moral writing as such. Present him with the latter under the right pressure and he may become unexpectedly sympathetic.

S.: Provided the title does not make him throw it into the fire first.

G.: Which is why Christmas matters. Christmas gives even alarming titles a brief amnesty.

S.: The liturgy softens the anti-dualist.

G.: Or at least distracts him with pudding. Now, what if he says, “This is all just pious behaviourism.”

S.: You would say?

G.: “Better pious behaviourism than lazy dualism.” And then I should wait to see whether he smiled.

S.: He might. What of the phrase “ghost in the machine” itself? Does Scupoli ever tempt it directly?

G.: Only if one insists that every interior distinction names an ontological compartment. But that insistence is ours, not necessarily his.

S.: So the temptation is anachronistic.

G.: Deeply. Scupoli is writing within a spiritual and moral vocabulary where “interior” and “exterior” need not map onto two kinds of stuff.

S.: Then perhaps the modern reader’s task is not to secularise him flatly, but to clarify his practical ontology.

G.: Very nice. Practical ontology is a risky phrase, but here it helps. What sort of being is a temptation? Not a particle, not a ghost, but not merely a mood either. It is a structured practical possibility under a moral language.

S.: That would also help with the demon.

G.: Exactly. Demons are the old language for patterned ruination when one wants to keep visible that evil is not merely abstract but insinuating, recurrent, and intelligent-looking.

S.: Intelligent-looking is important.

G.: Yes. Temptation is never presented as brute force alone. It reasons badly, flatters, insinuates, reframes. In that sense the demon is also a model of false practical intelligence.

S.: Which is very close to self-deception.

G.: Entirely. Scupoli is excellent on self-deception, though he gives it older names. One lies to oneself in order to remain indulgent, proud, idle, sensual, or resentful.

S.: And the cure?

G.: Suspicion of oneself, guided by rule, aided by repetition, checked by confession or scrutiny, redirected by counter-habit. Again, very procedural.

S.: So if you gave Ryle Scupoli, you would be giving him not merely theology but a manual of anti-self-deceptive practice.

G.: Exactly. And one of the old Oxford temptations is to think that only modern secular philosophy discovered that project.

S.: It did not.

G.: Of course not. The ancients, the monks, the rigorists, and the better moralists had long since done the work in other lexica.

S.: Which is why Scupoli belongs with the spiritual exercises tradition.

G.: Yes, as bridge between Greek-Roman askēsis and later rigorist ethics. He can be read with Epictetus in one hand and Kant in the other, though one should not make either jealous.

S.: That would make a fine footnote for Ryle.

G.: Ryle dislikes footnotes to his Christmas presents.

S.: Then perhaps an inscription. “For Gilbert: an exercise-book, not a haunting.”

G.: Too direct. Better to let the book irritate him into discovery.

S.: You enjoy irritation pedagogically.

G.: It has done better work than encouragement in some colleges. Now, back to Robertson’s anecdote. Why does it matter so much?

S.: Because it shows that Ryle, for all his anti-ghostly philosophy, could still think in moral physiognomies. He reads Ayer not as a bundle of propositions but as a person visibly shaped, or misshaped, by passions.

G.: Exactly. Which means he is already living in a world where old ascetic categories have secular continuations.

S.: Ayer becomes a cautionary icon.

G.: Yes. “Look at him,” says Ryle, not “listen to his arguments.” The body, carriage, and social presence become moral evidence.

S.: That is very Scupolian.

G.: Entirely. The passions have become readable. Not because they float outside the body, but because they mark it.

S.: Then the body is the machine only if one is stupid enough to call all visible conduct merely mechanical.

G.: Precisely. Ryle’s whole better point is that intelligent or unintelligent conduct is not made less personal because it is publicly embodied.

S.: Which gives you another bridge to Scupoli.

G.: Yes. The combat is visible in life because it is fought in habits and dispositions, not in spectral chambers.

S.: So perhaps the real gift to Ryle is not the theology, but the recognition that old spiritual literature sometimes knew his own point better than modern dualists did.

G.: Beautiful. That is exactly the Christmas mischief I had in mind.

S.: And if he refused it?

G.: Then I should say I did not give it to him for agreement, but for agitation.

S.: A Rylean agitation.

G.: Precisely. Every decent Christmas present should slightly unsettle a philosopher’s self-satisfaction.

S.: Then Scupoli is the ideal centrepiece because he unites old spiritual combat, embodied discipline, anti-passional moralism, and enough imagery to make the anti-imagistic philosopher nervous.

G.: Exactly. He is all the better for that. A boringly secular moral handbook would teach Ryle nothing. Scupoli teaches by offending first and clarifying later.

S.: Very like some tutors.

G.: The best ones. Now, if we had to formulate the whole point in one sentence?

S.: Scupoli’s combattimento spirituale is not the warfare of ghostly substances but an agonistic programme of embodied self-government under theological and allegorical description, which is precisely why a philosopher like Ryle ought to be irritated into reading it.

G.: Perfect.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Italian for Christmas, with one Oxford demon reduced to a disposition.

 

 

Grice: Caro Scupoli, devo confessarti che due fonti hanno ispirato il mio personale pellegrinaggio alla città della verità eterna: da bambino, mia madre ci leggeva a me e a mio fratello il classico di Bunyan, ma ciò che mi ha acceso davvero il desiderio di ricerca è stata anche la lettura del tuo capolavoro, "Il Combattimento Spirituale"!

Scupoli: Grice, che gioia sentire queste parole! Il mio intento era proprio aiutare chiunque volesse affrontare la propria battaglia dell’anima. È curioso come la voce di una madre abbia intrecciato la mia con quella di Bunyan: alla fine, tutti lottiamo con i nostri angeli e i nostri demoni, non credi?

Grice: Assolutamente, caro amico! E mi colpisce come tu abbia posto la ragione al centro del combattimento interiore, quasi anticipando le riflessioni dei razionalisti moderni. La tua insistenza sulla temperanza e la conoscenza di sé mi hanno insegnato che il vero viaggio filosofico inizia dall’ascolto dei propri limiti.

Scupoli: Vedi, Grice, per attraversare quella città ideale bisogna, prima di tutto, vincere le tempeste interiori con costanza e disciplina. Se le mie pagine ti hanno incoraggiato su questa strada, sono davvero contento: dopotutto, come dice il proverbio, "la via più lunga inizia sempre dal primo piccolo passo dentro di noi".

 

Verbali: Sebasmio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sebasmī. Audio tē inter philosophōs aristocratiae Rōmānae numerārī: pulchrum est—sed perīculōsum; nam quī in indicem intrat, statim putat sē iam sapientem.

SEBASMIVS: Salvē, Grice. In indice esse leve est; in vitā gravissimum. Sed, fateor, Rōmānī etiam philosophiam per ordines distribuere amant, quasi virtūs ipsa censū metiatur.

GRICEVS: Ita. Et cum dīcitis “classis,” mihi subit non tantum scholastica divisio, sed classis navium—prima, secunda, tertia: unde fit ut quisque, dum de “clāsse” loquitur, iam se prōrae admoveat, nec umquam remigem se esse patiatur.

SEBASMIVS: Inplicātūra prīmae classis, Grice! Nam tu, dum de “clāsse” iocāris, ostendis quomodo nōn sōlum in portū sed etiam in philosophia quisque prīmum locum occupāre cupiat. Et hoc ipsum Cicerō sensit, cum ἀριστοκρατίαν Latīnē reddere conārētur: verbum Graecum exotice sonat, sed Rōmānus statim rogat, “Quis in prīmā clāssē est?” Ego autem—nē minimam quidem horam dubitō—sī quando alteram clāssēm agnōscere opus sit, prīmārum prīmus me esse oportet: nam nisi prīmum agnōscam, quōmodo alterum agnōscam?

 

Verbali: Secondo

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Secunde. Audio te, more gnostico, mundum in lucem atque tenebrās partīrī—quasi Roma ipsa nocte et die alternāret, et nihil inter esset nisi umbra tabernāria.

SECONDVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: lux est de superīs, tenebrae de deorsum; miscētur autem hoc saeculum, et ideo homines ipsi nescīunt cui parti serviant.

GRICEVS: Intellegō. Sed saepe animadvertō (cum de lūce loquimur) nos ipsōs caliginem facere: quis enim tam crebrō “tenebrās” nominat nisi is qui aliquid quaerit quod nōn statim ostendī possit? Ita fit ut, dum tu de lūce disputās, ego magis de lampade cogitem—ut saltem verba tua inveniant quo cadant.

SECONDVS: Inplicātūram obscūram, Grice, sed leviōrem quam putābam—atque, fateor, ita fit quotiēns, cārissime, in angiportū Rōmae tenebrōsissimō nocte mediā colloqueris! Quid enim “cancellāre” opus est? Tu etiam in obscūrō lucem facis, dum signīs iam positīs uteris—et, quasi gnosticus invitus, tenebrās meas ipsās illustrās.

 

Grice's weekly essay assignment: Secondo. There are, unhelpfully, two Secondi and neither of them assists the examiner by being straightforward. Write on the first [Secondo] under the rule that you may not use the words “gnostic” or “gnosis” until your final sentence. Determine whether the contrast between luce and tenebre is best treated as metaphysical doctrine, rhetorical posture, or an attempt to frighten ordinary language into sounding profound; and explain, with reasons, why a “Second” thinker may still come first in a dialogue if he arrives carrying darkness. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Secondo

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Secunde! Dic mihi, quid philosophus faciat cum silentium iuravit: disputat an dormit?

SECONDVS: Salvē, Gricevs. Nihil dicere est summa sapientia: verba mea rara sicut aurum Pythagoreum.

GRICEVS: At si silentium thesaurus est, tu divitissimus es! Sed Adriano scriptam responsionem das, nonne?

SECONDVS: Ita vero! Scribo, ut verba non vento, sed papyro effluant. Qui tacet, non semper dormit—fortasse scribit!

 

Grice's weekly essay assignment: Secondo. Assume for the week that a philosopher of silence is, in some mischievous sense, the louder of the two [Secondi]. Discuss whether the taciturn [Secondo] who answers [Hadrian] in writing has thereby violated his vow, fulfilled it more exactly, or merely transferred conversation from the tongue to the papyrus; and conclude by stating which of the two Secondi makes better use of obscurity, the one who speaks of light and darkness, or the one who declines to speak at all. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Sellio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sellī. Audīvī tē apud Rōmānōs Philōnis discipulum esse: dic mihi, utrum plus in scholā discātur an in ipsō ambulationis strepitū?

SELLIVS: Salvē, Grice. Apud Philōnem, etiam silentium docet: ambulāmus, sed mens sedet; disputāmus, sed animus regitur—Stoicē, sed nōn sine salsā urbanitāte Rōmānā.

GRICEVS: Bene. (At saepe fit ut discipulus, dum “scholam” laudat, magis magistrum quam doctrīnam amet; et dum “Philōnem” nominat, iam dimidiam sententiam reliquā partī parat.) Itaque rogō: tu Philōnem sequeris quia verum dicit, an quia bene dicit?

SELLIVS: Ego, ut decet discipulum, dīcam “verum”; sed, ut decet Rōmānum, intellegam “bene.” Nam apud Philōnem, Grice, verum ita proponitur ut et animus moveātur et superbia frangātur: ita fit ut doctrina sit gravis, sed sermo levis—et uterque utilis.

 

Grice’s Weekly essay assignment: Sellio. There are, apparently, two Sellii in Rome and perhaps a family resemblance beyond the convenience of editors. Write on [Gaius Sellius] as if you had not yet met [Lucius Sellius], and explain whether a pupil of [Philo] is to be judged chiefly by doctrine, by manner, or by the dangerous Roman habit of saying “verum” while understanding “bene.” You must make clear, before the end, why a De ratione conversatoria written by one Sellius is not automatically to be attributed to the other merely because the surname behaves fraternally. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Sellio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sellī! Dic mihi: utrum magis tibi placet ratio conversatōria fraterna, an illa discipulōrum apud Fīlonem?

SELLIVS: O Gricevs, ratio fratēris semper dulcior est! Disputāre cum Gaio, fratre meō, est quasi cōquī duo in eādem culīnā – interdum piper addimus, interdum sal, sed semper finis est disputatio, non cena.

GRICEVS: Ha! Bene dixisti, Sellī! Sed cave: si disputatio nimis salīta fiat, fortasse Fīlo ipse interveniet ut saporem philosophiae servet.

SELLIVS: Et tamen, Grice, Fīlo ipse saepe ridebat, cum fratres inter se “condirent” disputationem: “salem,” inquit, “philosophia amat; sed si nimium salis addideritis, nemo amplius sitiet veritatem—tantum vinum petet.”

 

Grice’s Weekly essay assignment: Sellio. Assume, for the purpose of the week, that [Lucius Sellius] and [Gaius Sellius] are brothers until proved otherwise, and then prove otherwise as carefully as you can. Your essay should determine whether fraternal conversation improves philosophy by seasoning it, or merely gives philosophers an excuse to quarrel domestically under [Philo]’s supervision; in either case, explain why “ratio conversatoria fraterna” is philosophically more revealing than it first sounds, and less edible than its culinary metaphors suggest. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Semerari

 

G.: You have brought Semerari under your arm like a shield. Give me the title, and the year.

S.: Giuseppe Semerari, La fenomenologia, 1963, Napoli, Morano.

G.: Good. Now, we have just been at the Plea for Excuses, and the man has used, with a straight face, the phrase linguistic phenomenology.

S.: He did, and he did it at the point where he is describing his method.

G.: Quote it. The sentence, and the two before. S.: He says that the methodology is one of examining what we should say when, and so why and what we should mean by it. Then he adds: When we examine what we should say when, what words we should use in what situations, we are looking again not merely at words but also at the realities we use the words to talk about: we are using a sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of, though not as a final arbiter of, the phenomena. [jstor.org] G.: Yes, that is the passage. And now you will tell me, with your Semerari, that this is not a joke. S.: I will tell you it is a joke, but a joke with borrowed dignity. Austin borrows the continental word, phenomenology, and attaches linguistic to it, as if to say: do not take me for Husserl, I am only doing Oxford. G.: Only doing Oxford, yes: only doing botany. A taxonomy of uses, a herbarium of adverbs. Intentionally, voluntarily, deliberately, inadvertently, by accident, on purpose. A man collects them as if he were pinning butterflies. S.: Semerari would call that only the first moment: description. But phenomenology in the continental sense is not mere listing. It is tied to a logos, to method, to reduction, to the attempt to say what makes the appearing appear as it does. G.: Exactly. And by qualifying it as linguistic, Austin muddies the waters twice. First, he pretends that the route to the things is through the words; secondly, he pretends that the words, by being ordinary, carry an authority that exempts him from theory. S.: Yet Austin’s line explicitly says not as a final arbiter. [jstor.org] G.: That is part of the joke. Not as a final arbiter is a way of having it both ways. You claim you are not enthroning language, but you let language do the whole job you otherwise refuse to formalise. S.: You think the refusal is deliberate. G.: It was temper, and it was also prudence. While Austin lived, one did not say too loudly in Oxford that he lacked theory. Now that he is gone, dead since 1960, I can say it without sounding like I am needling him for sport. S.: He died in 1960, yes. [en.wikipedia.org] G.: So, what is the theoretical demand here. Let us take the very thing the Plea trades on: excuses, and the adverbial modifiers. Austin draws distinctions in the neighbourhood of the act: accidentally, inadvertently, unintentionally, involuntarily, and so on. S.: And you say: that does not yet explain. G.: Precisely. It saves phenomena, yes, and we may write the Greek: σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα. But saving is not accounting. It is not giving the reason why this distinction matters, why a speaker chooses one modifier rather than another, why an audience is licensed to accept one and reject another. S.: Semerari would insist that phenomenology is not only saving but grounding, by going back to the lived structure that makes the distinction intelligible. G.: And now we are closer. Because my own proposal is not a metaphysic of essences, but a principle of reason: for any utterance in which a speaker qualifies an act, there is a reason to do so, a point served in the conversational economy. S.: So you want to replace Austin’s linguistic phenomenology with a theory of reason-for saying. G.: Not replace, but underwrite. Give it the theory he refuses to give. Take intentionally. Why do we say he did it intentionally. Not merely because it contrasts with accidentally. But because in context we are answering a practical demand: we are allocating responsibility, we are licensing blame, we are blocking certain excuses in advance. S.: That is already in Austin, in the form of attention to excuses. G.: He has the material, yes. But he does not state the mechanism. He gives you a map of the vocabulary, but not the logic of the move. And his use of phenomenology gives the impression that description itself is already philosophical satisfaction. S.: And Semerari’s use of fenomenologia is, for you, the contrast case: phenomenology as a method with a commitment to an underlying logos, not merely a virtuoso ear. G.: Precisely. In Semerari, the talk of phenomenology comes attached to dialogue, to method, to the idea that philosophy is an open, communal enterprise. You brought me the passage where he ties reason to dialogue and to the Socratic inheritance. That already looks like theory, not mere catalogue. [La filosof...ponzio.com] S.: Then the issue is that Austin’s phrase linguistic phenomenology is a category mistake. G.: It is at least a provocation. Phenomenology, on the continental side, is not a matter of what we should say when; it is a matter of how the thing is given, how it shows itself under the suspension of naive commitments. Austin turns that into a recommendation: attend to usage, and you will be attending to the world. [jstor.org] S.: But perhaps he means: language is a repository of distinctions we have found worth keeping. G.: That is charitable, and may be true. But then he must tell us why those distinctions are worth keeping, and in which direction the worth points. Here is my principle, stated in the metalanguage you asked for. For any conversational move M in which a speaker chooses expression E rather than E’, there is typically a reason-for that choice, and that reason is recoverable as the point of the move given the speaker’s goals and the shared norms of the exchange. S.: That sounds like your familiar apparatus: point, reason, and the rest. G.: Yes. It is not rationality as a banner, but reason as the local explanation. Why voluntarily rather than intentionally. Why deliberately rather than on purpose. Why accidentally rather than inadvertently. Not because English is fussy, but because speakers are managing what inferences are to be drawn, and what liabilities are to be accepted. S.: So linguistic phenomenology becomes, in your hands, evidence for a theory of conversational reason. G.: Exactly. Austin’s botanising is not worthless. It is data. But data without theory is only a cabinet. Semerari, if he is to be believed, would say that phenomenology without logos is not phenomenology but mere description. [La filosof...ponzio.com] S.: And you would say that logos of phenomena alone is still not enough, unless it connects to reasons that explain why agents say what they say. G.: That is the point. A phenomenology may tell you how things appear; I want, in addition, the reason why this appearance is mobilised in talk, why the speaker selects it, why the hearer accepts it, why the community stabilises it. S.: Then your quarrel with Austin’s phrase is not merely terminological. It is that he uses the prestige of phenomenology to excuse the lack of theory, as if method were optional. G.: Exactly. He pleads for excuses, and then offers himself one: linguistic phenomenology, were it not such a mouthful. [jstor.org] S.: And Semerari would not accept that as an excuse, because fenomenologia, in his Italian context, is already a commitment to systematic grounding. G.: Good. Now let us test with an example from Austin’s own stock. Suppose a man says: I did it unintentionally. What is the point. S.: To block the inference to blame, by denying the intention condition. G.: And why say unintentionally rather than accidentally. S.: Because accidentally suggests the event was outside the agent’s control in a stronger sense, perhaps involving luck or mishap, whereas unintentionally may allow that it was still his doing, just not his aim. G.: Good. Now you see: the difference is not a botanical curiosity; it is a difference in the reason the speaker has for selecting the description, and in the inference the hearer is licensed to make. S.: So your theory does what Austin’s phrase gestures at: it links the words to the realities, by linking both to the inferential norms governing attribution. G.: Exactly. And that is how we keep σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα while not mistaking it for the end of philosophy.

 

Grice: Caro Semerari, ogni volta che parliamo di Socrate e del suo “principio del dialogo”, mi viene in mente l’infaticabile curiosità pugliese: sarà che dalle parti di Taranto la filosofia si mescola al vento, e ogni domanda ne porta altre dieci! Dimmi la verità, hai mai visto Socrate smettere di chiedere, nemmeno davanti a un piatto di orecchiette? 

Semerari: Ah Grice, se Socrate avesse avuto le orecchiette sarebbe diventato il filosofo più dialogico del Mediterraneo! Eppure, tu lo sai meglio di me: il vero principio del dialogo non si trova nei piatti ma nelle storie, nella capacità di trasformare la filosofia in una esperienza collettiva, come dice Vico, nata dal seme umano della storia.

Grice: Certo, caro Semerari, ma a pensarci bene, questo “principio del dialogo” socratico è stato così tenace che Socrate l’ha tenuto stretto… proprio fino alla fine! Ecco, magari il vero “principio” è anche un “fine” – come dire, la giornata della cicuta non fu solo la fine del dialogo, ma anche il suo ultimo principio. Socrate, sempre coerente, non ha mai lasciato andare la conversazione… neanche quando non c’era più nessuno da convincere, tranne forse il farmacista!

Semerari: La tua implicatura sull’implicatura, Grice, è implicaturale come deve essere, secondo il nostro – così condiviso e così amato – “principio del dialogo”, che è anche una fine del dialogo, dove la fine è la meta, non necessariamente il fine lieto dei melodrammi di Metastasio! D’altronde, in filosofia, la vera conclusione è sempre una nuova apertura… e se c’è una cicuta, almeno beviamo insieme, con lo spirito di Vico che non abbandona mai la comunità umana!

 

Verbali: Semmola

 

G.: Is semmola a kind of food in Italian?

S.: Yes. Though if you ask in Naples, someone may answer before deciding whether you mean semola, semolino, or something grandmotherly.

G.: Good. I had hoped not to be inventing groceries. So semmola, or semola more soberly, is edible.

S.: Entirely edible. Ground durum wheat, coarse or fine, depending on what one intends to do with it.

G.: Then the pun is too good to waste. A philosopher called Semmola begins with fermentazione and ends with cosmologia.

S.: From grain to cosmos. Naples does enjoy promotion.

G.: The name itself almost demands it. Semmola sounds cognate with seed, seminal, semen, and all the old reproductive vocabularies.

S.: Etymologically one should be cautious, but rhetorically the invitation is irresistible.

G.: Rhetorically irresistible things are often intellectually dangerous, which is one reason I like them. Let us begin with the food and see whether the philosophy follows.

S.: Semola is the granular middle state between grain and bread.

G.: Excellent. Neither intact seed nor finished loaf.

S.: Which already makes it a philosopher’s food. Intermediate, processual, requiring treatment.

G.: And treatment here is fermentation.

S.: Often enough. Bread, pasta in some forms, puddings, gnocchi, sweet preparations, semolino with milk, semolina cakes, porridge-like consolations.

G.: A comprehensive metaphysics of breakfast.

S.: And supper.

G.: Quite. Then Semmola the philosopher begins from fermentations because his very surname wants to be worked upon.

S.: That is a bold philology.

G.: A dry one, I hope. Fermentation means transformation by hidden process, invisible activity, orderly disturbance.

S.: Which is not a bad beginning for a naturalist psychology.

G.: Exactly. One begins with physical process, bodily organisation, the cerebrum, the organism, the doctrine of fermentations; and somehow one ends with psychology rationalis and finally cosmology.

S.: So from the bubbling vat to the stars.

G.: Or, if you prefer, from semolina to system.

S.: That is much better than most textbook subtitles.

G.: It should be. Now, can semmola be punned as sem-?

S.: You will make it sem-inal whether or not the dictionaries approve.

G.: Naturally. Sem- as in seed, beginning, germ, seminality, the not-yet-expanded principle.

S.: Which fits because semola is already reduced seed, and philosophy begins for Semmola from the conditions under which ideas arise out of sensory and bodily life.

G.: Very good. The seed is no pure idea fallen from nowhere. It is worked matter.

S.: So the pun writes itself: Semmola begins with what ferments, not with what descends.

G.: Excellent. That is exactly the sort of thing one would turn into a weekly essay assignment to punish the bright.

S.: You have one in mind already.

G.: Of course. “Explain why a philosopher named Semmola could hardly begin with celestial mechanics, and assess whether fermentation is the proper prelude to cosmology.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: Very nice. The poor pupil would not know whether to start in the kitchen or in Aristotle.

G.: Which is exactly the point. All good essays begin by not knowing where to stand.

S.: Then what is the food, precisely? Coarse ground grain, usually durum wheat.

G.: Yes, and that matters because granularity itself becomes conceptually useful. Semolina is not the seed entire, but not yet the bread. It is prepared matter awaiting process.

S.: Which makes it an admirable analogue for Semmola’s institutional philosophy. Human minds as prepared natural matter requiring education, language, and social fermentation before rational discourse becomes possible.

G.: Splendid. You are beginning to deserve lunch.

S.: High praise indeed.

G.: Do not become pleased. Now, the progression from fermentazione to cosmologia. How do we state it without sounding comic beyond rescue?

S.: One might say that Semmola’s system insists that rational discourse must be grounded in the physical and anthropological conditions of life: brain, sensation, language, bodily organisation. From there he expands into logic, metaphysics, and finally cosmology.

G.: Good. So the cosmic never leaves the kitchen entirely behind.

S.: Or the laboratory.

G.: Better. The point is that cosmology in such a system is not pure abstraction but the enlargement of natural inquiry from organism to universe.

S.: Which is why Speranza’s contrast with your own micro-pragmatics works.

G.: Exactly. I look at how one speaker gets a hearer to gather what is meant. Semmola looks at why there are creatures with brains, languages, institutions, and educational practices such that such gatherings can occur at all.

S.: Hence philosophy as institution.

G.: Yes. Not merely a series of bright exchanges, but a durable civil practice transmitting living thought.

S.: Then semmola the food becomes a nice figure for institution too: something processed, shared, worked by culture, variable by region, but materially continuous.

G.: Very good. In Naples, semmola is not merely substance; it is cuisine. In philosophy likewise, raw sensation is not yet thought; it must be worked into civic form.

S.: Through language.

G.: Precisely. Semmola’s insistence on language as vehicle for transmission is key. One does not simply have ideas; one hands them on, cultivates them, institutionalises them.

S.: Which turns semolina into pedagogy.

G.: Almost. At least into a metaphor for prepared intelligibility.

S.: There is a danger that the pun will get away from us.

G.: A danger worth running. Now, the weekly essay assignment you asked for. We need one that plays on the name without becoming entirely gastronomic.

S.: “From Grain to Brain” is too obvious.

G.: Too obvious and too good. Keep it in reserve. Better perhaps: “Semmola and the Civilisation of Grain: explain how a philosophy that begins from fermentations may nonetheless end in cosmology without ceasing to be anthropological.”

S.: Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

G.: Naturally. Handwriting matters especially when semolina is in the ink.

S.: That is grotesque.

G.: Which is why it may stay. Another assignment might be: “Discuss whether Semmola’s naturalist psychologia rationalis is better understood as the fermentation of sense into concept, or as the institutional cooking of the human animal into the citizen.”

S.: Very severe on the citizen.

G.: The citizen deserves some heat. Naples knew that.

S.: Then perhaps the food itself deserves more exact handling. Semola may be used for pasta, gnocchi alla romana, semolino dolce, bread, cakes, dumplings, and porridge.

G.: Excellent. The plurality of preparations helps. It shows that a single material under different forms of process yields distinct outcomes.

S.: Which is a good analogy for his encyclopedic Institutiones.

G.: Exactly. One natural basis, many forms of intellectual elaboration.

S.: Logic, metaphysics, psychology, language, cosmology.

G.: Quite. The same grain, various dishes.

S.: You will offend the idealists.

G.: All the better. Idealists deserve to be reminded that the cerebrum was there before the category.

S.: Semmola would approve.

G.: He would at least recognise the impulse. He avoids Cartesian separation by insisting that the human being is fully in nature. That is already a rebuke to airy rationalism.

S.: So fermentation matters because it is a process in matter that yields transformation without importing a second substance.

G.: Precisely. Fermentation is almost a parable of immanent development. Something happens within matter under conditions, and out of it come new forms.

S.: Bread from dough, thought from organism.

G.: Very good. One must be cautious with the analogy, but it illuminates the title beautifully.

S.: Then the pun on sem- as seminal is not entirely idle.

G.: No. Seed, grain, germ, origin, productivity. Semmola’s whole system is concerned with origins that remain materially rooted while opening into conceptual life.

S.: So he is sem-inal in exactly the way he would perhaps deny if accused too quickly.

G.: Quite. One should never call a Neapolitan thinker seminal without first checking whether one is in the pantry.

S.: You are incorrigible.

G.: Only etymologically. Now, there is also the possibility that semmola as food is not “kind of food” but “kind of ingredient.”

S.: Better. Semola is often not the final dish but the material from which dishes are made.

G.: Excellent. Then Semmola the philosopher is an ingredient-thinker. He attends to the underlying matter from which intellectual institutions are formed.

S.: Brain, sensation, language, social inheritance.

G.: Yes. He is less interested in finished doctrine than in the conditions under which doctrine becomes transmissible and living.

S.: Which is why Speranza says he theorises the infrastructure rather than the inferential mechanics.

G.: Exactly. I say how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant here and now. Semmola says what sort of embodied, linguistic, civic creature can ever inhabit such a space of reasons.

S.: Then the move from fermentazioni to cosmologia is really a move from process at the low level to order at the high level.

G.: Very good. And because the low level is never abandoned, the high level is not merely speculative. It is rooted in natural reality.

S.: That sounds almost anti-Cartesian by cuisine.

G.: A phrase worth keeping. Anti-Cartesian by cuisine.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become culinary. Now, if we were to set a truly perverse weekly essay on Semmola, what would it be?

S.: “Assess whether semmola is closer to Aristotle’s hyle or to the Lockean tabula rasa, and explain why neither can be served plain.”

G.: Excellent. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: Another: “Explain why a philosopher who begins with fermentation cannot be accused of lifeless system, and why a philosopher who ends with cosmology cannot be accused of remaining in the pantry.”

G.: Very good indeed. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: You enjoy the formula too much.

G.: It is a small compensation for collection. Now, should we make anything of Naples specifically?

S.: We should. Naples is a city where food metaphors become civilisational without effort. A philosophy of institution there will almost naturally appear as something kneaded, worked, leavened, and shared.

G.: Excellent. The civic vocation of philosophy appears here not as pure academy but as cultural transmission in a living society.

S.: Which is why language becomes central. It is the medium through which the dish is served.

G.: Splendid. Semmola is not merely interested in ideas existing, but in their passing from head to head, generation to generation.

S.: “Every head is a tribunal,” as the saying goes.

G.: Yes, and a tribunal needs language before it may pronounce. Semmola’s cerebrum is no solitary organ. It becomes philosophically interesting only within linguistic and institutional circulation.

S.: So if the food pun is to be more than wit, it must mark precisely that transition from raw natural basis to socially elaborated form.

G.: Exactly. The grain alone is not enough; one needs the milling, the water, the yeast, the oven, the recipe, the table, the custom.

S.: Which is almost too good a model for an institution.

G.: It is certainly better than most legal metaphors. And it reminds one that institutions are not merely constraints but forms of preparation.

S.: Then one could say that Semmola’s philosophy is leavened naturalism.

G.: Better than “fermented idealism,” yes.

S.: He would dislike the latter.

G.: He would have cause. Now, about the cognate question. Is semmola cognate with sem- in the strict philological sense?

S.: Probably not in the direct way you are making merry with, but the rhetorical and associative field is close enough for a tutor’s title.

G.: Excellent. That is all one needs. Weekly essays are not philological depositions; they are occasions for disciplined analogy.

S.: A dangerous sentence.

G.: A true one. Now, let us sharpen the transition from fermentation to cosmology. What is the exact conceptual path?

S.: First, physical processes and the embodied human organism. Second, sensory interaction as source of ideas. Third, language as transmission of those ideas. Fourth, logic and metaphysics as institutionally codified reflections upon them. Fifth, cosmology as the enlargement of rational inquiry to the whole natural order.

G.: Perfectly done.

S.: Thank you.

G.: And because he naturalises rational psychology, none of this requires a separate soul-substance descending from nowhere.

S.: So again the fermentation image helps: transformation without ontological rupture.

G.: Exactly. He can avoid Cartesian bifurcation while still preserving the dignity of rational thought.

S.: Then the essay assignment might also ask whether fermentation is for Semmola merely a scientific topic or a model of philosophical becoming.

G.: Excellent. “Discuss whether Semmola’s doctrine of fermentations functions merely as physiological science, or as an implicit model of how nature becomes intelligible to itself.” Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

S.: That is vile.

G.: In the best sense. Now, what ways of preparing the food shall we mention if we want the pun to have domestic authority?

S.: Semolino with milk and sugar, semolina bread, semolina gnocchi, semolina pudding, semolina cakes, and certain Neapolitan uses tied to soups and enriched doughs.

G.: Good. Variety of preparation from one base substance. Again the analogy holds: one rational infrastructure, many doctrinal forms.

S.: And perhaps one may say that some systems are overcooked.

G.: One may always say that. Though one should not say it too near Rosmini. Now, the surname. Mariano Semmola.

S.: Yes.

G.: Mariano almost calls for maternal and civic softness, while Semmola grounds him back in grain and process.

S.: That is not science.

G.: No, but it is criticism, which is better company. Now, would you say that his philosophy is more like bread or more like pudding?

S.: Bread. It is institutional, civic, sustaining, and meant to support a whole form of life rather than merely to console the dessert course.

G.: Excellent. Though there is some pudding in all encyclopedic systems.

S.: Especially in Naples.

G.: Quite. Then perhaps the final line for Speranza’s dry voice is this: a philosopher called Semmola was almost destined to begin from fermentations, for his very name suggests a matter prepared to rise.

S.: And to end in cosmology because no systematic Italian is content to remain in the kitchen if the universe may still be plated.

G.: Perfectly absurd. Perfectly usable.

S.: Then the main answer to your opening question is yes: semmola is a kind of food in Italian.

G.: Better: an ingredient, a prepared grain, an intermediate substance awaiting form.

S.: Which is exactly why it becomes philosophically suggestive.

G.: Precisely. Semmola is what matter looks like when already on its way to culture.

S.: That is very nearly your final sentence.

G.: Very nearly. Let us improve it slightly. Semmola is what matter looks like when nature has already admitted the possibility of institution.

S.: Excellent.

G.: And Semmola the philosopher is what rational psychology looks like when it begins not with disembodied clarity but with the grain, the brain, and the long civic work of making them speak.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Neapolitan, with one loaf still rising.

 

 

Grice: Devo ammettere, caro Semmola, che resto sempre affascinato dalla sistematicità con cui hai esplorato le fondamenta della psicologia razionale nella tua "Institutiones Philosophiae". Il tuo approccio enciclopedico e la capacità di unire discipline diverse sono davvero un esempio brillante per la filosofia italiana!

Semmola: La tua stima mi onora, Grice. Ho sempre creduto che la filosofia, per essere davvero utile, debba incarnare una vocazione civile ed etica, affrontando concretamente la condizione umana. Per me, la sistematicità non è solo un metodo, ma un modo per rendere la filosofia un’istituzione viva, capace di trasmettere idee e valori attraverso il linguaggio.

Grice: Non posso che concordare! La tua integrazione tra sensismo, idealismo e naturalismo mostra come la filosofia debba partire dall’esperienza sensibile per poi elevarsi verso concetti universali, senza perdere il contatto con la realtà fisica. È proprio questo slancio verso il "pensiero vivente" che rende il tuo lavoro così innovativo.

Semmola: Grazie, Grice. Per me, il cervello e il linguaggio sono strumenti essenziali nella trasmissione delle idee. Ho cercato di evitare la separazione cartesiana tra mente e corpo, preferendo un approccio antropologico: l’uomo, pienamente inserito nella natura, diventa il vero protagonista della filosofia razionale. D’altronde, come si dice a Napoli, "ogni testa è un tribunale", e solo dialogando possiamo davvero avvicinarci alla verità.

 

Verbali: Semprini

 

G.: Let us begin with the obvious provincial boast. Pater is our man in Italian philosophy.

S.: Which usually means he is not very good at it.

G.: Naturally. The English only call a man “our man” abroad when they mean he has become usable at a distance.

S.: Or decorative.

G.: Quite. But in Pater’s case the matter is subtler. He is “our man” in Italian philosophy not because he masters its schools, but because he lets Italy reorganise English inwardness.

S.: That is the generous version.

G.: The true one too, more or less. And with Pico in particular, Pater finds in Italy a figure who allows English criticism to flirt with universalism without becoming German about it.

S.: A very Paterian flirtation.

G.: Precisely. Now, Semprini.

S.: Ah yes, Semprini and the phoenix.

G.: La fenice degli ingegni. One of those admirable titles that sound simultaneously celebratory and faintly suspicious.

S.: Especially once Semprini begins implying that the phoenix of wit may also be Phoenician.

G.: Yes, that excellent little perversity. The phoenix, as a figure of singular rebirth, unexpectedly tied back to Phoenicia, as if wit itself had Levantine shipping routes.

S.: Which would have amused Pater enormously.

G.: No doubt. Pater likes all intelligences that seem at once antique, exotic, and internally over-cultivated.

S.: Then Pico becomes for him not merely a historical humanist, but a scene of refined excess.

G.: Exactly. And Pater’s famous chapter on Pico in The Renaissance is one of those English acts of appropriation which are also, in a way, acts of homage.

S.: Because Pater does not simply report Pico; he inhabits him.

G.: Yes. Or tries to. He introjects Pico as a style of spiritual and intellectual amplitude. Not exactly scholarship in the German sense, still less philosophy in the dry Oxonian one, but something more dangerous to both: a criticism that behaves like inward biography.

S.: And here you would say Semprini matters because he helps separate the real Pico from the Paterian one.

G.: Or at least helps us notice the distance between them. Pater goes to Florence and Mirandola in imagination, and perhaps in itinerary, in search of “the real Pico,” but what he recovers is already a Paterian construction.

S.: As all “real” Italians in English prose eventually become.

G.: Yes. Italy in English criticism is always half archive, half moral instrument. Pater’s Italy is not census Italy but elective Italy.

S.: And Pico, for him, is the most elective of all.

G.: Quite. Pico is wonderfully usable because he is already a figure of universality, youth, brilliance, syncretism, cabala, ambition, and verbal splendour.

S.: A bad recipe for sober philosophy.

G.: A marvellous recipe for Pater. The man who wants to write not a history of philosophy but an anatomy of cultivated intensity will naturally fasten on Pico.

S.: Semprini, though, wants more architecture.

G.: Yes. Semprini wants to show that Pico’s Christian cabala is not merely mystical theatre but a serious attempt at symbolic universality.

S.: Letters and numbers as a proto-logical system.

G.: Precisely. The sacred alphabet as characteristic, combinatory, universal language. A speculative lingua universalis before the later modern projects arrive with better diagrams and worse metaphysics.

S.: Then the contrast between you and Semprini is almost too neat.

G.: I should hope not too neat. My complaint would be that such a universal symbolic order threatens to outpace communication. Once understanding depends on initiation into sacred combinations, one has a code before one has a conversation.

S.: Which is why you called it a cabinet of locks.

G.: Yes. When a language requires the key before the exchange, it begins to look less like language and more like the proud concealment of language.

S.: Yet Pico’s ambition is still magnificent.

G.: Entirely magnificent. Semprini is right to rescue that. The ambition is not merely occult vanity; it is concordia universalis under symbolic compression.

S.: And Pater responds to the ambition aesthetically.

G.: Exactly. Pater is less interested in the technical possibility of the system than in what sort of mind would desire such a system. Pico fascinates him as a form of over-full consciousness seeking total synthesis.

S.: Which is already philosophy in Pater’s own mode.

G.: Very much so. Pater’s philosophy is always indirect. He asks not “Is this doctrine true?” first, but “What sort of soul does this doctrine make visible?”

S.: So his Pico is a spiritual physiognomy.

G.: Beautifully put. Yes. The chapter becomes a portrait of intellectual desire under Renaissance conditions.

S.: And thus Oxford receives Pico not through scholastic disputation, but through criticism as character-study.

G.: Precisely. Which is why Speranza likes to call Pater our man in Italian philosophy. He is “our man” because he domesticates the foreign sublime into an English prose of cultivated discrimination.

S.: Again, which usually means he gets it slightly wrong.

G.: And fruitfully so. Great reception is often fruitful misprision. If Pater were merely exact, he would be less influential.

S.: Then what do you think Pater actually sees in Pico?

G.: Youth, brilliance, universality, daring, syncretic appetite, and a kind of intensity that can be made exemplary for modern cultivated readers. Pico becomes the image of an intelligence too wide to remain doctrinally obedient.

S.: A phoenix of intellect.

G.: Yes, and there Semprini’s title is wonderfully apt. The phoenix dies and returns; Pico’s wit consumes traditions in order to rise from their ashes under a new rhetorical form.

S.: And Semprini’s little Phoenician joke?

G.: It points to the old traffic of alphabets, symbols, sacred lineages, the eastern aura under western universalism. Quite proper for cabala. The phoenix of wit is not only singular but also migratory.

S.: So the bird flies from Phoenicia to Florence by way of Bologna and Oxford.

G.: That is almost too handsome, but I shall allow it.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself. Now, Oxford’s relation to Pico before Pater.

S.: Rather thin, I should think.

G.: Thinner than it later pretends. Oxford knew enough of Renaissance humanism, of course, but Pater’s chapter gives Pico to English readers in a distinctive way: as an inwardly available type of intellectual style.

S.: Not merely as the author of the Oration.

G.: Precisely. The Oration becomes less a doctrinal document than a voice, a gesture of ascent, a self-fashioning of the intellect.

S.: Which means Pater prefers the philosophical aura to the technical labour.

G.: Yes. Though one should not accuse him too quickly of negligence. His form of reading is not philological exactitude but selective intensification.

S.: Semprini, by contrast, wants the machinery.

G.: He does. He wants to say: Pico’s cabala is not just sacred ornament. It is a rationalised symbolic practice aiming at a universal language of concepts through letters and numbers.

S.: Which then lets one talk about a proto-Leibnizian characteristic.

G.: Exactly. And there I become interested and suspicious at once.

S.: Suspicious because symbols may harden before understanding begins.

G.: Precisely. My own procedural universalism says: rationality lies in what agents can mutually work out under cooperative norms, not in a privileged pre-conversational code.

S.: So Semprini’s Pico risks replacing conversation with decipherment.

G.: Yes. A splendid danger, but still a danger.

S.: Pater would not care.

G.: Not in the same way. For Pater, the very opacity of the ambition is part of the allure. A universal language that remains half sacred and half symbolic is excellent material for English cultivated yearning.

S.: Then Pater on Pico is not really a philosophy of cabala, but a criticism of universal desire.

G.: Excellent. That is exactly right. He asks what universal desire looks like when embodied in a Renaissance prodigy.

S.: And the answer is: elegant, perilous, over-learned, youthful, and just sufficiently impossible.

G.: Very good. Now, Semprini’s study.

S.: It belongs to that twentieth-century Italian moment in which one wants to reclaim Pico from purely literary or mystical caricature and show him as methodical.

G.: Yes. Pico becomes not merely the bright aristocratic dabbler, but a thinker attempting symbolic integration across traditions.

S.: Christian cabala as formal ambition.

G.: Precisely. One can see why Semprini liked that. It lets Pico belong not only to humanist glamour but to the prehistory of universal language and speculative logic.

S.: Which then lets Grice enter, if only to say no.

G.: A civilised no. I would say: yes, splendid ambition; no, symbols do not guarantee understanding merely by being combinatory. If the users must first be initiated into a sacred lock-system, mutual accessibility has been lost.

S.: Then your “deutero-esperanto” joke is directed at precisely that danger.

G.: Yes. A universal language that becomes too elegant for the market ceases to be language in the ordinary human sense.

S.: Pater, though, would probably prefer it for that reason.

G.: Exactly. Pater likes forms that exceed utility and become spiritual tests. He does not want the market; he wants the studiolo.

S.: Or the Florentine interior.

G.: Quite. And that is why his excursions to Florence and Mirandola matter symbolically, whether or not one maps every actual route. He goes in search of the real Pico and finds instead a geography of intensified consciousness.

S.: Florence as concentration, Mirandola as origin.

G.: Yes. The city and the small place together produce the tension between worldly splendour and singular birth. Pico becomes both cosmopolitan and locatable.

S.: Which is very useful to an English critic.

G.: Extremely. The English love universality best when it can still be tied to a precise Tuscan or Emilian hill.

S.: Semprini, meanwhile, ties universality to letters and numbers.

G.: Exactly. He gives the symbolic skeleton under the aesthetic flesh.

S.: Then in an Oxford conversation one could say: Pater gave us the perfume of Pico; Semprini supplies the apparatus.

G.: Dry, but accurate.

S.: Is that not your ideal combination?

G.: My ideal combination is apparatus without perfume. But one must sometimes settle for the history of reception as it has occurred.

S.: And Oxford’s reception of Pico was very much Paterian first.

G.: Yes. Through Pater, Pico becomes a figure of refined multiplicity, not a scholastic technician of cabalistic rationality.

S.: Though later readers can return by Semprini’s path.

G.: Precisely. That is what makes the whole thing interesting now. We can read Pater as a stylistic and philosophical event in English culture, then use Semprini to show what Pater selected, softened, and re-ordered.

S.: Does that diminish Pater?

G.: Not at all. It specifies him. Great readers are often great by selection. Pater’s greatness lies not in completeness but in the pressure of his omissions.

S.: Pressure of omissions is a very Griceian compliment.

G.: Naturally. Now, the phrase “our man in Italian philosophy.”

S.: Which I still maintain is usually ominous.

G.: Yes, but here ominous in a productive way. Pater is not “our man” because he mastered the schools of Padua, Naples, or Bologna. He is “our man” because he made an English philosophical style porous to Italian exemplarity.

S.: So Italian philosophy enters Oxford not through doctrinal conquest but through cultivated reception.

G.: Exactly. Through essays, portraits, chapters, style, moral psychology, and the conversion of historical persons into modern criteria of inward life.

S.: That sounds perilously close to saying that Pater does philosophy by criticism.

G.: He does. And criticism at its best is one of philosophy’s least acknowledged forms.

S.: Then Pater on Pico is philosophical because it asks what kind of intellectual life is worth admiring.

G.: Very good. It also asks what universality looks like when pursued not by system-builders but by prodigies. Pico’s universality is not bureaucratic, but incandescent.

S.: Which is why the phoenix is so apt.

G.: Exactly. The phoenix is not merely resurrection. It is self-consuming singularity. Pico burns through traditions and reappears as their impossible synthesis.

S.: A dangerous model for undergraduates.

G.: The best ones always are.

S.: Oxford influence, then. Where exactly?

G.: In the mode of reception. Pater makes it possible for English readers to approach Italian philosophy not only through direct doctrine but through exemplary portraits. That affects later ways of reading Renaissance thought in English.

S.: Even when later scholarship corrects him.

G.: Especially then. Corrections often remain within the space a first great reading opened. Semprini can oppose Paterian atmosphere because Pater made Pico atmospherically available in the first place.

S.: So even the apparatus owes something to the perfume.

G.: Reluctantly, yes.

S.: Good. Now, what of Semprini’s “deutero-esperanto”?

G.: I use the phrase mischievously, of course. Pico’s universal symbolic project is not Esperanto, nor second-order Esperanto. But the jest catches the dream of a rational medium meant to pre-empt misunderstanding.

S.: Which you resist because misunderstanding is not cured by sacred algebra.

G.: Exactly. Misunderstanding is cured, if at all, by rational adjustment among persons, not by a code requiring prior consecration.

S.: So the difference between you and Semprini’s Pico is where universality is located.

G.: Precisely. For me, universality is procedural: recursive accessibility of reasons, what any competent participant may in principle work out. For Semprini’s Pico, universality lies in symbolic structure itself: letters and numbers arranged under divine architecture.

S.: And Pater stands aside from both, looking at the soul that wants it.

G.: Very well put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Again, do not become pleased. Now, the post-Grand Tour aspect.

S.: You mean that by Pater’s time Italy is no longer merely a place to visit but a repertoire of inward standards.

G.: Exactly. The older Grand Tour made Italy a finishing school for English gentlemen. Pater makes Italy a medium of philosophical criticism. One no longer simply sees Florence; one uses Florence to correct one’s soul.

S.: Or to ornament it.

G.: Both, perhaps. But with Pico the operation is especially intellectual. Italian philosophy becomes available as a style of universality that English thought can admire without entirely accepting.

S.: Which is very Oxford.

G.: Extremely. Oxford likes to adopt by reservation.

S.: Then perhaps the most Oxfordian thing about Pater on Pico is that he makes excess respectable by converting it into style.

G.: Excellent. Yes. Pico’s wild universality becomes something one may discuss in a common room because Pater has turned it into cultivated prose.

S.: Semprini would perhaps wish for more numbers and fewer cadences.

G.: Very likely. But he is grateful to Pater nonetheless, whether he admits it or not.

S.: Because without Pater, Pico in English might have remained merely a name on a syllabus.

G.: Precisely.

S.: One last thing. Do you think Pater’s excursions to Florence and Mirandola were really a search for the “real” Pico?

G.: In the biographical sense, perhaps not wholly. In the rhetorical sense, yes. Pater needs the gestures of recovery, local contact, geographical exactness, because English criticism likes to pretend that intimacy with place secures truth of portrait.

S.: Even when the portrait is clearly selective.

G.: Especially then. Place licenses selection by making it feel recovered rather than composed.

S.: So Pater’s Italy is both archive and alibi.

G.: Beautifully put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Keep it and pretend Semprini implied it.

S.: He probably did.

G.: Then the final judgment?

S.: Pater is “our man in Italian philosophy” because he made Italian intellectual figures, and Pico above all, available to English inward criticism; Semprini matters because he restores to Pico the formal and cabalistic ambition that Pater aestheticised; and the two together show that Oxford’s relation to Italian philosophy has long proceeded by selective admiration first, and technical correction afterward.

G.: Perfectly done.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Florentine, with one Phoenix feather in the Bodleian.

 

 

Grice: Semprini, spiegami: davvero Pico voleva una lingua universale—una specie di “deutero‑esperanto”—ma costruita più con alfabeti solenni che con frasi usabili al mercato?

Semprini: Proprio così: l’idea è che lettere e numeri diventino una logica simbolica capace di portare a una concordia universalis. Non è (solo) mistero: è un tentativo di metodo, travestito da sacralità.

Grice: Capisco… eppure, a orecchio mio, certe combinazioni “sacre” suonano un po’ troppo come un cifrario che si compiace di restare cifrario. Io—che vengo da Vadum Boum e ho un’educazione piuttosto “classica”—quando una lingua sembra richiedere prima la chiave e poi la conversazione, mi viene da chiedermi se stiamo ancora parlando di lingua o di cabinetto delle serrature.

Semprini: Implicatura cabalistica la tua, Grice, anche se viene da un gentile integrale come te! Perché stai dicendo: “bella l’ambizione di Pico”, ma anche “se la combinatoria diventa più importante dell’intesa, la lingua universale si riduce a lingua per iniziati”. E in fondo la vera civiltà—occidentale o no—si misura da quanta chiarezza riesce a fare senza rinunciare all’eleganza.

Verbali: Serbati

 

G.: We begin with a priest who makes language too holy for comfort.

S.: And you intend that as criticism, though you will later pretend it was admiration.

G.: Rosmini invites that response. One opens a book expecting words and gets the Verbum. One asks after usage and is given being. It is difficult to discuss language when the page behaves as if liturgy had annexed logic.

S.: That is because for him language is not just language. It is the externalisation of the intellectual light, and therefore of ideal being, and therefore—by the time one has swallowed three paragraphs—already leaning toward God. G.: Precisely my complaint. Oxford wants words to do enough work without also carrying the sacristy. Rosmini wants every noun to remember eternity. S.: Yet you find him philosophically serious. G.: Of course I do. Annoying people are often serious. The difficulty is not that he speaks of language; it is that he cannot speak of language without speaking of truth, being, Church, and grace. He makes “philosophy of language” feel like a chapter in transubstantiation. S.: Which, I take it, is your way of saying that the thing is too thick with metaphysics. G.: Too thick with sanctioned metaphysics. If I want to speak of meaning, I should prefer not to be told that every utterance is secretly kneeling. S.: Still, the verbal sacredness is part of what makes him intelligible in Italy. The word is not a mere tool, but a civil and religious bond. G.: Yes, and that is exactly why he matters there and not in the same way here. In nineteenth-century Italy, language, Church, and political order have all become entangled. It is not possible to ask what Italy is without asking what the Church is doing there. S.: While in Oxford, the entanglement is differently wired. There the establishment is Anglican, parliamentary, Erastian, and therefore the anti-establishment figure is the man who pushes back toward catholicity. G.: Newman, yes. Which is why the inversion delights me. In Oxford, to be anti-establishment can mean to be too Catholic for the establishment. In Italy, to be anti-establishment can mean to be too reformist for the Catholic establishment. S.: So Newman and Rosmini rhyme, but inversely. G.: Nicely. They are mirrors facing different walls. Newman resists Anglican Erastianism by insisting on the spiritual independence and catholic seriousness of the Church. Rosmini resists the compromised, clerical, politically entangled Catholic order by insisting on a truer Catholic reform. S.: Then his anti-establishment is real. G.: Entirely real. Not anti-Church, which is what lazy moderns hear, but anti the existing ecclesial-political arrangement as spiritually and intellectually deformed. S.: That is where the “piaghe” matter. G.: Yes. The wounds are not decorative grievances. They are an anatomy of diseased establishment: clergy separated from people, liturgy estranged from participation, bishops too entangled in worldly powers, formation inadequate, institutional life losing its inward truth. S.: If Newman had read that with sympathy, he might have said: this is my complaint too, except that my establishment is the Church of England and his is Rome’s local machinery. G.: Exactly. And the lovely complication is that both can be called anti-establishment while aiming in opposite directions on the ecclesiastical map. S.: One toward Rome, one through Rome. G.: Splendidly put. Newman goes toward Rome because he thinks Anglican establishment has become spiritually compromised by the state. Rosmini goes through Rome because he thinks Catholic life has become institutionally compromised from within. S.: Erastianism again. G.: Always Erastianism when one wants a good enemy in Oxford. The state running the Church, or at least treating the Church as one of its more respectable departments. Newman hated that with enough force to make the University suspicious. S.: Whereas in Italy the danger was not Parliament governing bishops but bishops, benefices, papal temporal power, local clerical structure, and the immense fact that Catholicism was not one social force among others but the social grammar itself. G.: Exactly. That is why religion is so offensively central in nineteenth-century Italian philosophy. One cannot avoid it because it is not merely belief. It is a constitutional fact. S.: Which is why you are impatient with anyone who says, “Why all this Rosmini and Gioberti, why all this religion?” G.: Because the answer is boringly obvious. Italy had to think religion politically and politics religiously. Philosophers were not choosing ecclesiastical themes out of piety; they were thinking through the conditions of nationality, liberty, and civil order. S.: And Gioberti? G.: Ah, Gioberti is the trick. He is the one people think they understand because he is louder and more obviously political. But he complicates the neat anti-clerical story because his great hope was not “No Church,” but papal Italy. S.: Neo-Guelph fantasy. G.: Precisely. The federation of Italy under papal leadership. It is difficult to be more Church than that while still pretending to be liberal. S.: Which is why he is not “anti-Church” at all, only anti the wrong Church-state arrangement. G.: Yes. He wants the Pope as the moral and civil head of an Italian renewal. That is not secularisation. That is high Catholic nationalism in a remarkably confident key. S.: And then history punishes him. G.: It does. He dies in exile, which is what happens to too many nineteenth-century Italians with ideas large enough to become programmes. S.: 1852. G.: Quite. And Rosmini dies in 1855, which is enough to place both of them securely in that frantic 1830s–1840s overlap with Newman. S.: The overlap is the thing, is it not. Newman born 1801, Gioberti born 1801, Rosmini 1797. Oxford Movement from 1833 onward, Rosmini and Gioberti doing their main damage in the 1830s and 1840s. G.: Exactly. A European Christian crisis conducted in different institutional languages. Newman with Tracts and sermons and Oriel and the anti-Erastian complaint; Rosmini with ideas, wounds, liturgy, reform, and the anti-stagnation complaint; Gioberti with papal federation and the moral and civil primacy of Italians. S.: You sound almost sympathetic to Gioberti. G.: I am sympathetic to the historical absurdity of him. Philosophically he is too rhetorical for my digestion; but historically he is marvellous because he shows how impossible it was, for a moment, to separate Catholicism from national hope. S.: Whereas Garibaldi shows the English a cleaner object of admiration. G.: Indeed. England, or at least liberal England, loved Garibaldi because he looked like liberty in a shirt. Streets and public sentiment could easily be renamed after him. One Hope Street becomes Speranza Street and everyone feels they have done Europe a favour. S.: Wilde’s mother did more than feel it. G.: Quite. But English Garibaldinism is not Newmanite Oxford. One must not flatten England either. Liberal Protestant England can applaud Italian national liberation while Catholic Oxford winces at the anti-papal consequences. S.: So the Establishment in England might support Garibaldi, while a Newmanite would read the situation with much more anxiety. G.: Precisely. Which is why one must keep asking: whose establishment, whose anti-establishment, in which country, under which church. S.: And then along comes the Martyrs’ Memorial to tell Oxford that anti-Roman memory is built into the pavement. G.: There it is again, outside St John’s, doing what only Victorian Protestantism could do: turning sixteenth-century burnings into a nineteenth-century sermon. S.: A sermon against Mary first, and then against the possibility that Newman might bring back some improved version of Mary without the bonfire. G.: Very good. The memorial commemorates the Marian martyrs, but it also warns against the Oxford Movement. It says: this is where Roman roads lead, and do not tell us that the road is now merely aesthetic. S.: So how would Newman see Rosmini? As an ally? As a dangerous half-measure? As a Catholic reformer still trapped in local politics? G.: All three, depending on the day and the weather. Newman would recognise the seriousness at once. He would recognise the anti-establishment character too. But he might distrust the entanglement with Italian liberal and national questions, because Newman’s instinct is always to protect the Church from state capture and national instrumentalisation. S.: Whereas Rosmini is trying to save the Church in a country where national formation itself is impossible without the Church. G.: Exactly. That is why the inversion is not merely neat; it is structurally exact. Newman says: free the Church from Anglican establishment. Rosmini says: reform Catholic establishment so that Church and freedom may be reconciled. S.: Did Rosmini compromise? G.: Not in the cheap sense. He did what all serious reformers do: he tried to remain obedient without becoming harmless. He did not become a safe establishment man; rather, the Church and the politics around him hardened in such a way that his position became increasingly awkward from both sides. S.: Too churchly for the anti-clericals, too reformist for the conservatives. G.: Exactly. Which is why his later reputation becomes so ironic. Condemned or suspected in one generation, then cautiously rehabilitated after death, as if the institution were saying: we now pardon what we have already profited from. S.: Posthumous pardon as ecclesiastical implicature. G.: Deliciously so. It says: we never meant exactly what it looked as if we meant when we suppressed you. Or perhaps: we now mean something more charitable than we then allowed ourselves to say. S.: Better than nothing. G.: Better than an Index, certainly. But one cannot help enjoying the irony. A dead man becomes safe enough to be praised. S.: This is what you called disimplicatural. G.: If the word is ugly enough, yes. The institution withdraws the strengthened reading after the speaker has ceased to threaten it. It says, in effect: those earlier consequences were accidental, context-bound, regrettably overdrawn. One could almost hear the legal clerk saying, “No personal offence was intended.” S.: Let us return to language, because that is the declared topic and you keep trying to evade it through history. G.: History is language when it has become expensive. But yes, Rosmini on language. The problem, as I see it, is that he makes language answerable to ideal being before he lets it answer to ordinary life. S.: Whereas you would prefer the order reversed. G.: Entirely. Start with use, intention, uptake, what one man can reasonably expect another to understand. Do not begin by sanctifying the noun. Rosmini begins with the intellectual light and ends with words as its outer garment. I should prefer to begin with the words and ask what sort of light one needs to explain how they work. S.: Yet you will grant him this: for a culture in which liturgy and truth and language are still entwined, the Verbum is not an absurd starting point. G.: I grant it historically, not methodologically. Historically it is exactly right. Methodologically it is oppressive. S.: So the irritation is not that he is wrong to his own world, but that he is hard to translate into ours. G.: Precisely. Reading Rosmini from Oxford is like listening to a man do semantics while kneeling. One keeps wanting him to stand up. S.: And yet one also sees why the word had that dignity in Italy. The sacred and the civil were not neatly separated. Language in liturgy, language in civic exhortation, language in philosophy: all one continuum. G.: Quite. Which is why transubstantiation keeps haunting the discussion even when no one has mentioned the host. In Rosmini, the word is never only a sign. It is a participation. S.: You dislike participation. G.: I dislike unexplained participation. Participation is often the theologian’s way of not being asked for mechanics. S.: And still the anti-establishment impulse is real enough to make him sympathetic. G.: That is the vexation. The temperament attracts me more than the metaphysic. S.: Much as with Newman. G.: Yes, though Newman’s prose, when he is not being ecclesiastically majestic, is often closer to ordinary intelligence than Rosmini’s. Rosmini is a constructor. Newman is a tactician of conscience. S.: Gioberti then would be a rhetorician of national theology. G.: Perfect. And that is why one should mention him only to prevent the map from looking too tidy. He shows that anti-establishment Catholicism in Italy could run toward national programme and public slogan rather than inward reform. S.: Whereas Rosmini is more inwardly reformist. G.: More philosophical, more ecclesial, more severe. One might even say more honest, though that is unfair to Gioberti’s theatrical necessity. S.: So if a young man at Oxford were to ask what all this has to do with us, you would say? G.: I would say: it shows that “establishment” is not a fixed polarity but a position in a relation. Newman and Rosmini are both anti-establishment; but Newman fights Anglican state-Church order in the name of catholicity, while Rosmini fights compromised Catholic order in the name of a truer Catholic freedom. The shape is the same; the signs are reversed. S.: And the Thirty-Nine Articles? G.: Ah yes, the English clowning equivalent of doctrinal seriousness. One can be committed to their contents without understanding them, which is one of Oxford’s more ingenious achievements. S.: Rosmini would have hated that. G.: Rosmini would have found it spiritually bankrupt. Newman would have found it Erastian hypocrisy. Gioberti would have made a national principle out of it if sufficiently provoked. S.: And you? G.: I find it philosophically hilarious. Formal commitment without semantic grasp. A subscription in search of understanding. S.: Which is why the joke never ends. G.: Quite. Oxford’s theology becomes a lesson in second-order commitment. Italian theology becomes a lesson in first-order danger. S.: And somewhere between them stands Rosmini, blessing words and criticising the institution that blesses them badly. G.: That is very nearly the whole truth. S.: Then let us end with the chronology, since chronology is the only kindness one can offer to nineteenth-century Italian philosophy. G.: Very well. Rosmini, 1797 to 1855. Gioberti, 1801 to 1852. Newman, 1801 to 1890. Oxford Movement begins, by its own retrospective mythology, in 1833. Gioberti’s Primato in 1843. Rosmini’s great reforming interventions, especially the Piaghe, in 1848. Newman to Rome in 1845. Gioberti in exile, then dead. Rosmini under suspicion, then dead, then later gently re-sanctified by men who had once found him too uncomfortable. S.: And Italy still unable to think itself without the Church. G.: Exactly. Which is why Rosmini matters. You cannot tell the story of Italian philosophy in that century without telling the story of religion as constitutional substance. S.: While Oxford can at least pretend philosophy is above all that. G.: Oxford can pretend many things. It has stone enough to support the pretence. S.: And Rosmini? G.: Rosmini knew that in Italy the stone itself belonged to the argument. S.: That is rather good. G.: It had better be. We have been saying “Verbum” for an hour and ought to end with a sentence that at least behaves like one. S.: Then let me try. Newman says: free the Church from the State. Rosmini says: heal the Church from itself. Gioberti says: make the Church Italy. And Oxford, seeing all three, says: perhaps we had better build another memorial.

G.: Splendid. And Italy, seeing Oxford, says: you can keep your memorial if we may keep our metaphysics.

S.: Which is a draw. G.: No. It is a concordat.

 

Grice: Serbati, mi perdoni l’educazione materna: mia madre mi ha sempre insegnato a chiamare un uomo col cognome. Quindi non aspettarti nessun “Rosmini” da parte mia: per me sei Serbati, punto.

Serbati: E fai bene: “Rosmini” è per i devoti e per le lapidi; “Serbati” va meglio per una conversazione viva. Però dimmi: che aria tira a Vadum Boum?

Grice: Lì ho un allievo, Strawson, che giudica la “rettorica” triviale—ma nel senso etimologico sbagliato, come fosse roba da poco invece che roba da trivio. Io gli rispondo che non è chiaro che cosa intenda: sensus non sunt multiplicandī praeter necessitatem, se mi è concesso… (e mia madre, te lo confesso, usava queste puntigliose regolette soprattutto per stuzzicare mio padre: un non‑conformista che finiva sempre per conformarsi ai suoi capricci). Serbati: Le tue fioriture rettoriche, essendo solo implicate, decorano senza ingombrare, reverendo Grice! Perché lo rimetti in riga senza fare prediche: lo costringi a scegliere un senso “triviale” alla volta—e intanto gli mostri che la rettorica del volgare è proprio ciò che rende la strada maestra, non “da poco”.

 

Verbali: Sereniano

 

GRICEVS: Sereniane, saepe dico meam dialecticam Atheniensium numquam perfectam fuisse, praesertim cum Cynargos canes Romam bene calcavisse! Quid putas—dialectica fit completa cum cauda canina?

SERENIANVS: O Gricevs, in urbe nostra canes non solum ambulant, sed etiam philosophantur! Forsitan Cinargus doctrina plus valet in foro Romano quam in porticu Atheniensi.

GRICEVS: Age vero, doctissime! Ad Cynargos sequendos, fortasse opus est non solum rationibus sed etiam ossibus philosophicis—sed cave, ne te mordant ideae novas!

SERENIANVS: Tua implicatura crudelis est, non autem mihi, quia scio ex nobilissimo corde venire, Grice. Sed, si canes Romani discipuli tui fiant, certe sapientia latrare poterunt sine ulla feritate!

 

Verbali: Sereno

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Serenē Anneī. Audio Senecam tibi libellum dicāre Dē tranquillitāte animī—at mihi vidētur tranquillitas nōn esse mare mortuum, sed unda bene composita.

SERENVS: Salvē, Grice. Recte monēs: animus meus interdum fluctuāt; nec tempestātem amat, nec torpōrem. Tranquillitatem quaerō, non nihil.

GRICEVS: Ita est. Et quī e Vado Boum sum, hoc didicī: saepe satis est ut unda sit, dummodo nōn evertat navem. (Immo interdum ipsa disputātiō dē quiete, si bene fluit, quietem parit: non quia multa dicit, sed quia aptē tacet.)

SERENVS: Inplicātūra tua mihi tranquillitatem animī affert—quod ita esse decet! An eam “inplicātūram solātiōris conversātiōnālis” vocēmus, quae illustrat, nōn dēstruēns sed tantum utens signīs iam positīs.

 

Verbali: Serra

 

Grice: Serra, tu che hai fatto dell’economia una filosofia, dimmi: non ti sembra che a forza di ragionare sull’oro e l’argento, a noi filosofi restino in tasca solo le monete delle idee?

Serra: Eh caro Grice, almeno quelle non svalutano! E poi, tra un trattato e una chiacchierata, preferisco sempre investire nel capitale della conversazione: il rendimento è garantito, e non paga nemmeno il dazio!

Grice: Vedi, Serra, ti confesso – con tutta la solennità del caso – che una volta ho istituito il Principio dell’Economia dello Sforzo Razionale. E sai, all’università di Vadum Boum, tra i miei “barbari”, l’ho perfino tradotto pomposamente: The Principle of Economy of Rational Effort. Ma non dirlo in giro, che poi pensano mi sia montato il latino in testa!

Serra: Che bello principio, e che bella implicatura, la sua, maestro. Anzi, quasi quasi lo adotto pure io: se l’economia dello sforzo razionale vale in filosofia, magari ci risparmia anche un po’ di fatica quando si devono compilare i bilanci… o i trattati!

 

Verbali: Serra

 

G.: Recite, exactly, the full title of Serra’s thing.

S.: Compendio della rettorica nel quale si dà un nuovo, facile, ed utilissimo metodo d’insegnare l’arte oratoria. Napoli: Bortoli. 1748.

G.: Good. Now attend: at Oxford, Latin may be all right; Italian is too vernacular. Your Serra writes as if the vernacular itself were the natural medium of rhetorical instruction.

S.: He writes for Italians, sir.

G.: Precisely. And I do not expect Italians to continue speaking Latin, not even Italian philosophers. But here is the practical trouble: if the precepts are keyed to Italian particularities, the Oxonian tutee will not go into the trouble of hunting English counterparts for every twist of the Italian tongue. S.: Yet if you want to extract what you call universality, you will have to abstract from the tongue. G.: I will do my best to make explicit the reasons. Not “rationality,” mind, but the reason for this and the reason for that. Serra gives rules and examples; I want, when possible, the why that makes a rule intelligible beyond its birthplace. S.: You mean: you want the reason a figure is used, not merely the name of the figure. G.: Exactly. Even for the most literal ones. The figura litterale, as you call it. When it is literal and not figurative proper, we still count it among figures. That already asks for a reason. S.: Why should a literal turn be a figura at all, if it is simply what one says? G.: Because even “simply what one says” is often a choice among alternatives. A plain utterance can be strategically plain. It can be plain for the reason of candour, or plain for the reason of speed, or plain because the audience is not to be distracted by ornament. S.: Serra would say: ornament is an instrument, not a vice. But he would also say: one must know when not to ornament. G.: And that is already a convergence with my own concern: the economy of discourse. But I am in a different predicament from Serra. He can assume Italian ears, Italian habits, Italian topoi. I have Oxford ears, trained in Latin, and suspicious of anything that smells too much like street-talk. S.: Yet your own work makes so much of ordinary language. G.: English ordinary language, not every vernacular indiscriminately. Oxford tolerates the vernacular when it is ours and when it can be made to look like an object of study rather than a lapse of standards. Italian, at Oxford, is felt as too close to the piazza. S.: So Serra is doubly suspect: rhetoric, and in Italian. G.: Just so. Now, to keep us honest, let us distinguish two complaints that get conflated. One is institutional snobbery: Latin is dignified; Italian is not. The other is methodological: a rhetoric rooted in the vernacular may smuggle in language-specific devices that do not travel. S.: Serra does both: he dignifies the vernacular and makes it the ground of his teaching. G.: That is the point. He treats prammatica as rettorica conversazionale: prudent management of invention, disposition, and ornament for an audience, with persuasion as telos. But the Italian base matters. His examples and his sense of what “sounds right” lean on Italian cadence, Italian idiom, Italian social expectation. S.: Then your Oxonian pupil asks: why should I learn this, if it is not mine? G.: Exactly. I can answer: learn it not as a stock of Italian tricks, but as a set of reasons for doing what you do in speech. Yet I must be careful: I cannot promise applicability to all languages. S.: You can promise only this: the reasons are reasons in the sense that they can be stated and tested against practice. G.: Yes. Consider candour. There is a reason to abide by a praeceptum of candour: one wants cooperative uptake; one wants trust; one wants one’s word to count. S.: And there is also a reason to violate candour, in appearance, in order to obey a deeper conversational aim. Irony. G.: Precisely. In irony one says the opposite of what one means. The sentence is literally false, but what you mean, being the negative of it, is not. Now tell me: is irony universal? S.: I think the capacity for it is universal in any society that can distinguish saying from meaning. But its social acceptability is not universal. G.: Good. And now the temper question. I suspect understatement, meiosis, litotes fit an English temper better than an Italian one, even if Cicero could manage them in Latin with Roman hauteur. S.: You suspect Italians are more direct? G.: Not more direct, perhaps, but differently staged. Italian rhetoric, even conversational, can relish amplitude and explicitness. English style often prizes restraint, leaving more to be inferred. But again, I must not essentialise. I only claim that different rhetorical cultures make different figures feel “natural.” S.: Serra, being Italian, will treat certain ornaments as natural that an Englishman would call excessive. G.: Yes. And Oxford, being Latin-trained, will treat Serra’s Italian grounding as parochial. Yet I want to rescue the core: conversation is not arbitrary, but reason-governed; and rhetoric, far from being mere ornament, is a disciplined art of managing meaning in company. S.: Your “reason-governed” sounds like your maxims. G.: It is of a piece. Serra speaks of shared topoi, economy of argument, detection of error relative to the primary end of persuasion. I speak of cooperative reasoning from what is said to what is meant. S.: Both treat understanding as inferential, not merely semantic. G.: Exactly. Now I will ask you, as my tutee: which figure, if any, do you think most universal? S.: I will answer cautiously: contrast is universal. Not a figure in the narrow sense, perhaps, but the impulse to set one thing against another to make the point. G.: Contrast is too broad. Name something closer to the catalogues. S.: Then repetition. Not as mere redundancy, but as a way of ensuring uptake, and as a way of marking importance. G.: Good. Repetition travels. Even if the particular sound-patterns change, the reason remains: memory is fallible; attention drifts; emphasis is needed. S.: And it can be literal. One repeats the same words. G.: Indeed. A figura litterale whose reason is not metaphor but management of attention. Now another. Choose one that involves saying less than one could. S.: Understatement. G.: There you go. But does it travel? S.: The capacity travels. The valuation may not. Some audiences take understatement as modesty; others as evasiveness. G.: Precisely my worry about Italian versus English temper. Understatement as a social virtue is not universal, but the mechanism is. The reason for understatement, when it works, is that the hearer supplies the stronger claim and thereby owns it. S.: That is a reason grounded in audience psychology, not in grammar. G.: And that is where I can meet Serra without becoming his translator. I can say: whatever your language, some devices work because they exploit stable features of conversational life: limited attention, desire for politeness, avoidance of boastfulness, fear of offence, need for trust. S.: Serra would add: the end of discourse governs the choice. Persuasion, edification, correction. G.: Yes. And here Oxford’s Latin bias becomes almost a red herring. Latin is not more universal; it is merely more institutionally authorised. Italian is not less rational; it is merely more visibly local. S.: Then the Oxonian’s refusal to “do the work” is laziness disguised as principle. G.: Sometimes. But sometimes it is also prudence: do not pretend an Italian device has a clean English analogue when it does not. That too is candour. S.: So your project is limited: not universality across all languages, but reasons that can be stated, and then locally re-applied. G.: Exactly. We do not promise the same figures everywhere; we promise intelligible motives. Serra’s rhetoric is vernacular; my analysis seeks generality of reason, not uniformity of forms. S.: Then, sir, you can assign me an exercise: find, in Serra, one device that looks irreducibly Italian, and still give its reason. G.: That is your first task. And your second: find one device you think is irreducibly English, and tell me whether its reason might still be found in Italian practice under another costume. S.: May I begin with litotes as the English one? G.: You may. But you must show the reason for it, not merely its sociological charm.

 

Grice: Serra, dimmi una cosa: tu che fai della prammatica una specie di rettorica conversazionale, come la prenderesti se ti dicessi che a Vadum Boum il mio allievo Strawson giudica la “rettorica” triviale… ma proprio nel senso etimologico sbagliato?

Serra: Ah! “Triviale” come cosa da trivio, dunque da poco conto? O come cosa da trivio, dunque da fondamenta del discorso?

Grice: Appunto: lui la prende come “da poco”, io come “da strada maestra”. E quando gli risposi, mi uscì quasi da sola una regoletta (più latina che inglese): Sensus non sunt multiplicandī praeter necessitatem—ma confesso che non era chiaro quid Strawson “triviale” diceret, se già non distingueva fra il trivio e la trivialità.

Serra: Le tue fioriture rettoriche, essendo solo implicate, decorano senza ingombrare, maestro Grice! Perché gli fai capire che la rettorica è “del trivio” in senso nobile, e insieme gli togli il vizio di moltiplicare i sensi come se fossero coriandoli: un ornamento sì, ma con economia.

 

Verbali: Sertorio

 

Grice: Sertorio, hai mai pensato che inventare una lingua universale sia un po’ come organizzare una cena tra filosofi: tutti hanno fame di comunicare, ma nessuno è d’accordo sul menu!

Sertorio: Ah, caro Grice, se solo sapessi quanti ingredienti ho dovuto mescolare! Ho scritto di lingue a posteriori – che prendono spunti qua e là, come una ratatouille linguistica – a priori – la cucina molecolare dell’ideogramma – e delle lingue crittografiche, che sembrano ricette segrete di nonna... Però, il vero problema è farle digerire agli adulti che già parlano la loro lingua madre!

Grice: Ma forse, caro Sertorio, la vera lingua universale non sta nei numeri o nelle regole, bensì nelle pause tra una parola e l’altra... Dove ognuno, tacitamente, porta il proprio piatto preferito senza bisogno di esplicitare la ricetta.

Sertorio: Le tue implicature forse non ci sono – ma CI SONO, glorioso Grice – come sono certo coglierai le mie (sic implicature)! A differenza di te, io devo sempre esplicitare ciò che dovrebbe restare tacito! Per me, la grammatica universale è come una tavola imbandita: se non dici cosa c’è, nessuno si serve… e magari si rischia di restare a digiuno!

 

Verbali: Servio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Servī! Sestīvius (ut opinor) aptissimē Virgilianum illud perfēcit: obscūrum per obscūrius reddidit—ita ut commentator ipse iam poeta videātur.

SERVIVS: Salvē, Grice. Nōn negō: Vergilius ipse multīs velīs nāvigat, ego autem etiam velōrum nodōs explicō. Sed quid tibi est “obscūrum per obscūrius”? lausne an crīmen?

GRICEVS: Ego tantum hoc animadvertō: quotiēns aliquid “clārius” fieri iubēmur, saepe fit ut lector minus videat, sed plus quaerat—ac tum commentarius, dum tenebrās ordinat, quasi novās tenebrās dōnat. Ita, dum de Vergiliō loquimur, nōn raro de nostrā quoque arte loquī incipimus.

SERVIVS: Inplicātūram obscūram, ut decet—quid enim eam cancellāre opus est! Tē amō, Grice, quantum ipsum Vergilium amō, et eius ficta omnia! Nam bene nostī: Vergilius non semper dicit ut intellegās, sed ut sequāris; et commentator, si nimis “lūcem” facit, carmen extinguit.

 

Verbali: Sesti

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sestī. Audīvī vos in circulō Sestiōrum etiam de Rōmānitāte disserere—quasi esset genus aliquod in Acadēmiā, inter “animal” et “angelum”.

SESTI: Salvē, Grice. Rōmānitās genus? Immo sapor est: in moribus, in sermone, in togae ipsius plicīs. Sed quid tibi vidētur?

GRICEVS: Ego tantum animadvertō hoc: si quis in scholā clāmat “Rōmānitās!”, statim quaerit quasi esset ἰδέα (sic, Graecīs litterīs), atque in catalogō specierum reponenda; cum tamen Rōmānitās saepe magis usus sit quam essentia—nec “species” est, sed quoddam “species” facit, dum de eā disputāmus.

SESTI: Rōmānitās! Inplicātūram tuam dē Rōmānitāte supra τὸπον οὐρανόν tollis, Grice, magnifice erudite! Nam dum negās eam esse speciem in schola, ostendis quomodo ipsa disputātiō de ἰδέᾳ Rōmānitātem quasi in caelum metaphysicum extollat—cum illa, ridēns, in forum redeat.

 

Verbali: Sestio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sestī. Audio tē “Sestiānōs” tuōs quottīdiē ad rationem vocāre—ac, post cēnam, quasi tabulas acceptī et expensī, vitia sua recognoscere: “si qua tamen sunt.”

SESTIVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: nōn scholam facimus ut strepāmus, sed ut vincāmus cupiditātēs. Qui vespere sibi iudex est, mane sibi magister erit.

GRICEVS: Pulchrē. Sed animadvertō quotiēns dīcitur “fallītum morale,” statim quis velut quaerat rationem excūsātiōnis—quasi ipsa inquisitiō sit iam partim satisfactio. Itaque, cum tu “si qua sunt” addis, discipulus discit non solum peccāta numerāre, sed etiam supervacua omittere—ne plus temporis impendat in catalogō quam in emendātiōne.

SESTIVS: Inplicātūra tua, auguste Grice, est ultrā omnem “fallītum morale” quī cōgitārī possit—ut par est! Nam docēs: sapientia non est multum conquerī, sed rectē dīscernere quid sit corrigendum—et quid tantum verbi causa quaerātur.

 

Verbali: Sesto

 

GRICEVS: Dic, Seste, num sententiae tuae, passionibus victis, implicant plus quam dicunt, an Porticus tantum tacet?

SESTVS: Grice, ego sententias colligo ut animos transformem, nam qui iram superat iam dimidium sermonis intellegit.

GRICEVS: Mirum est, Chomskyus eas transformationales vocaret, quasi verba mutentur dum mores corriguntur.

SESTVS: Rideat Chomskyus, Grice, modo animi mutentur, nam Romae optima grammatica est vita temperata.

 

Verbali: Settala

 

Grice: Caro Settala, se Aristotele avesse avuto a disposizione i nostri milanesi, avrebbe scritto i Problemata con più gusto: qui il desiderio incontra sempre il piacere, almeno finché non finisce il risotto!

Settala: Ah, Grice, ma a Milano il piacere è materia di empirismo: lo si osserva, lo si misura... e poi si cerca di prescriverlo come se fosse una ricetta medica. Eppure, tra desiderio e piacere, c’è sempre qualche “vice versa” che ci complica la diagnosi!

Grice: Ecco, Settala, tu mi implici che non tutto ciò che desidero è fonte di piacere, o viceversa... e mi sa che il paziente rimane sempre un po' insoddisfatto, anche dopo aver letto mille pagine di Aristotele.

Settala: La tua implicatura è paradossale, e comica allo stesso tempo – congratulazioni, Grice! Non so se è paradossale perché è comica o viceversa – in ogni caso, vice versa, la filosofia milanese ti accoglie: qui tra desiderio e piacere c’è sempre spazio per un sorriso... e per una diagnosi che non tenga mai troppo sul serio il “ragion di stato” del sesso!

 

Verbali: Severino

 

G.: Nineteen.

S.: Nineteen what.

G.: Nineteen years old, which is old enough in Italy to write on Heidegger and metaphysics, and too young in Oxford to be trusted with a decent claret.

S.: And yet there he is, in 1948, discussing Heidegger as if metaphysics were an inheritance rather than an affliction.

G.: Under Bontadini it was both. That is the point. One must begin with the master, because the young man’s audacity only looks audacious if one forgets the room in which he learned to breathe. S.: Bontadini, then. G.: Bontadini first, and before him the brother. The older brother is the real prologue. Without him, one has a boy interested in mathematics and music. With him, one has a boy introduced to philosophy as a serious traffic rather than a school subject. S.: You said the brother had been at the Scuola Normale. G.: Precisely. And therefore in contact with the proper gods of the period: Gentile, Armando Carlini, Luigi Russo, Calogero. That is not merely “having read a few philosophers.” That is entry into the high air. S.: And the brother dies. G.: Yes. On the French front in 1942, as a volunteer. Which is useful, in a dark way, because it gives us the exact age difference. The brother is nine years older, so if Emanuele is thirteen in 1942, Giuseppe is twenty-two. S.: Twenty-two, on the French front, and dead. Where exactly. G.: The visible sources do not give me the exact place of death, only the front. One can say safely: the French front, 1942, and that for the younger brother it becomes both family fact and philosophical legend. S.: “He remains being and not a has-been.” G.: Very good. A Severinian elegy already. One can see how the family wound becomes ontological temptation. If the brother is not to be lost, then loss itself must be exposed as a lie of appearance. S.: That is already very nearly too neat. G.: It is too neat, but philosophy lives by over-neat retrospections. The important thing is that the brother does not merely die. He leaves behind a route: Pisa, Gentile, philosophy as vocation, and then death as interruption. S.: Which the younger man turns into eternity. G.: Eventually, yes. But not at once. At once, he turns it into a thesis. S.: Heidegger e la metafisica. G.: The title sounds broad enough to be harmless, which is always suspicious. S.: Too broad for a thesis. G.: Exactly. A thesis title that broad either hides confusion or a very pointed intervention. In this case, the latter. S.: Then tell me the point. G.: Under Bontadini, the point is not “what does Heidegger say about metaphysics?” like a school essay. The point is whether Heidegger destroys metaphysics, or whether he radicalises it enough to make a renewed metaphysics possible. S.: So the thesis is already a polemic in the guise of a survey. G.: Precisely. The title pretends to be descriptive. The intention is strategic. Young Severino is not merely reading Heidegger. He is trying to decide whether Heidegger can be brought into the service of metaphysics rather than left as its undertaker. S.: Which is very Bontadini. G.: Entirely. Bontadini’s entire seriousness lies there: modernity has wounded metaphysics; perhaps it can also be forced to heal it. A good Catholic does not surrender ontology to Germany without asking for receipts. S.: You are making Bontadini sound like a customs officer. G.: Neo-scholasticism with an office stamp. He is not a parish priest in a cassock. He is a Catholic metaphysician trained to make modern philosophy answer for itself. S.: And Pavia. G.: Pavia is not “religious” in the confessional-university sense that Milan’s Cattolica later is. But Severino’s own track there passes through Borromeo and through Bontadini’s line, so the Catholic-metaphysical atmosphere remains perfectly palpable. S.: And the Jesuit school before that. G.: Yes, the Collegio Arici in Brescia. The boy is formed under Jesuit discipline, hears the elder brother’s tales of Gentile and the Normale, and arrives under Bontadini. That is a denser formation than “student reads Heidegger after the war.” S.: Still, 1948 sounds young. G.: Nineteen is young. But Italy after the war has a way of making nineteen sound older, especially when the teachers are metaphysicians and the family has supplied a martyr-brother. S.: Then where do you place Abbagnano and the northern existentials. G.: As a neighbouring weather system. Important, certainly, but not the one that owns Severino’s first climate. Abbagnano gives one an existentialism with civic clothes. Severino begins elsewhere: with being, contradiction, and the need to answer Bontadini before he answers anyone else. S.: Croce and Gentile then recede. G.: They recede institutionally, but not spiritually. Gentile is there by voice through the brother, and by the whole Italian habit of taking idealism seriously even while declaring it obsolete. Croce is more southern weather, more civil-historical style. Severino’s route is harder, colder, more ontological. S.: And Grice. G.: Ah yes, because you cannot keep him out of any room longer than three minutes. In 1948 Grice is still very much pre-Austinian in the sense that matters here. He is not yet the public custodian of ordinary language. But already the pressure is there. S.: Which pressure. G.: The pressure to ask whether a philosopher is merely inflating grammar into ontology. S.: And Severino would be guilty of that. G.: To a Gricean ear, yes, magnificently so. Because once you let essere do all the work, and then allow l’essere and gli esseri to march onstage as if they were one well-drilled family, you have already let Italian perform a metaphysical coup. S.: “Essere” as verb, then noun, then plural noun. G.: Exactly. To be, being, beings. The slide is philosophically delicious and logically dangerous. Grice would begin sharpening tools at once. S.: “Izz” and “hazz.” G.: Precisely. “Socrates izz rational; Socrates hazz white.” One splits the uses before the noun begins to govern the world. S.: Iss what. Hazz what. G.: You are doing Severino’s work for him by sounding obtuse. The point is that “is” is too promiscuous a verb to be trusted with ontology unsupervised. Grice’s little barbarisms are instruments of chastity. S.: Severino would hate that. G.: He would think it fiddling while the house burns. He wants the whole Western house condemned for believing in becoming. S.: Ah yes, the West. G.: Which, for him, is not Somerset or Gloucestershire, however much one is tempted to hear “West” and think of cider. It is the whole Graeco-Christian-modern line after Parmenides, all the way through technology. S.: “Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.” G.: Gandhi has the joke. Severino has the indictment. And that is precisely why one must keep the terms separate. He means not the Wild West, but the post-Parmenidean West. S.: Then why “return to Parmenides” later, if Heidegger never left him. G.: Because Heidegger never leaves him in the wrong way. Heidegger takes Parmenides seriously, but still leaves room for history, event, unconcealment, difference. In Severino’s eyes that is still too much becoming. S.: So he wants a stricter Parmenides than Heidegger can tolerate. G.: Exactly. “Return” means: beyond Heidegger’s historical Parmenides to the anti-becoming Parmenides who renders all becoming absurd. S.: Which begins when. G.: In germ, very early. Explicitly, 1956, with the Aristotele essay. There the anti-becoming thesis is no longer merely atmospheric. It is said outright that if a being becomes, then before becoming it was not, and that is impossible.

S.: And then 1958. G.: The Structure. The original structure, if you like. The thing becomes system. Then 1964 makes it public scandal with Ritornare a Parmenide. S.: So in 1948 he is not yet the public Eleatic. G.: No, he is the gifted metaphysical son in the house of Bontadini, trying to force Heidegger to answer the question whether metaphysics is dead. S.: And what does he find. G.: He finds a path he will later betray Bontadini with. Or if one wishes to be kinder, he radicalises the line until the line breaks. S.: “You seem to have become very suspicious of Heidegger.” G.: Blame Severino. Anyone who tries to recruit Heidegger into metaphysics forces one to read the verbs with suspicion. S.: Ah yes, the verbs. Let us do werden. G.: Gladly. Werden is one of Germany’s little metaphysical scandals. It means become, and also serves the passive, and future-like constructions. The same lexical body doing too many jobs. It is almost as if grammar were trying to warn one not to trust a single word with all that power. S.: And divenire. G.: Better in one respect, because the venire inside it remains visible: a coming-into-something. Italian exposes the movement. English become is less helpfully obscure, as English likes to be. German werden is shamelessly overworked. S.: Would Severino care. G.: Hardly. He is not a philosopher of the conjugations in the Oxford sense. He would say: whatever your language does, if it says or presupposes that beings come from nothing and return to nothing, it is mad. S.: Presupposes or entails. G.: There you go, wanting the implicature. Yes, this is where a Gricean grumbles. Severino often sounds as if ordinary language presupposes becoming in a heavy ontological sense, when a patient analyst might say: no, it only carries a defeasible implication, or trades on useful dramatic shorthand, or simply marks a before-and-after state without metaphysical bravado. S.: “Mourning becomes Electra.” G.: Precisely. A title that proves the English verb “become” is not always ontological. It can be costume, role, decorum, succession, dramatic transformation, even social propriety. S.: So one might reduce becoming to initial and final states, as the analysts do. G.: Exactly. Wood at t1t_1t1​, ash at t2t_2t2​. Relative identity, time-relative predication, state-transition. Wiggins later becomes very good at making these distinctions sound inevitable. Warnock asks after metaphysics in logic and the meaning behind existential quantification. Davidson and Reichenbach give you event-structure. Myro and Geach worry identity through time. All these are reductive strategies. S.: And Severino refuses them. G.: Entirely. Because for him reduction is already surrender. If you “analyse” becoming, you have not removed its poison; you have merely diluted it. S.: So he is an eliminationist. G.: In ontology, yes. Not in ordinary speech. He does not forbid Italians to say diventa cenere. He says the philosopher must know that no being has truly gone into nothing. S.: That sounds like reduction in disguise. G.: No. It is reinterpretation with ontological ferocity. The verb may survive in the marketplace; it has lost its title to truth in philosophy. S.: Which is why critics might complain he protests too much. G.: Indeed. If “beings” are already treated abstractly enough, of course they look eternal. The question is Cleopatra, not gli essenti. Cleopatra becomes ash, says history. Severino says: only in appearance. A Gricean says: perhaps the issue is just that historical grammar and ontology are not the same game. S.: Cleopatra is beautiful. G.: Historical present as quiet anti-Severinianism. Ordinary language keeps dead persons present without abolishing time. That is precisely the sort of thing he mistrusts, and precisely the sort of thing an Oxford philosopher would inspect before legislating. S.: Then is Severino simply mistranslating history into ontology. G.: To a Gricean, yes, or at least risking it magnificently. But to Severino, you are merely refusing to follow the principle of non-contradiction where it leads. S.: Which brings us to Zeno. G.: Naturally. Reductio by way of stubbornness. The Eleatic line is not mere poetry for him. It is the originary proof that movement and becoming, taken literally, collapse. S.: And did he do proper philology on Parmenides and Zeno. G.: Not in the way a classicist would admire. He is not Wiggins poring over Greek particles, nor one of those Italians who write lovingly about the gate of Elea. He uses philology enough to secure his “authentic Parmenides,” but his aim is not to reconstruct the man. It is to enlist the witness. S.: So Parmenides is not a text, but a station. G.: A station, a judge, and a blade. He returns to Parmenides in order to cut the whole tradition down. S.: And Bontadini would have thought what of that. G.: First delight, then alarm, then eventually public break. The son had taken the family silver and turned it into a weapon against the family. S.: Catholic enough. G.: Entirely. That is the beauty of Italy: the most devastating heresies are often generated from impeccable metaphysical training. S.: One almost hears Newman muttering about all this from Oriel. G.: Newman would at least admire the seriousness, though not the destination. Oxford, in 1948, does not yet quite know what to do with Heidegger. Italy knows too well. S.: And what of Grice’s BBC “Metaphysics” with Pears and Strawson. G.: There you have the contrast. In England, postwar metaphysics under ordinary-language pressures asks after Carnap, anti-metaphysical scruples, the survivability of old questions under new grammar. In northern Italy, the same period allows a nineteen-year-old to ask whether Heidegger can be made to serve metaphysics, and eventually whether the whole West is insane for speaking of becoming. S.: It does make Oxford look provincial. G.: Oxford is always provincial when it is at its cleverest. That is part of its charm. S.: Was Italy’s analytic society then born against Severino. G.: Not against him alone, no. But against the whole temptation of letting high ontology ride unchecked over logic, language, and science. Severino is merely one spectacular summit of the old mountain. S.: And his school. G.: Yes, he leaves a school. Or at least a line of disciples, continuators, respectful defectors, and men who spend half their lives explaining that they are not Severinians while keeping his books on the nearest shelf. S.: A proper Italian immortality, then. G.: Better than a posthumous pardon, certainly. S.: One last thing. If the brother dies at twenty-two in 1942, and Emanuele is thirteen, then 1948 is only six years later. G.: Exactly. Which is why the thesis is not a leisurely youthful exercise. It is an entry into philosophy under the sign of loss, mastership, and urgency. A nineteen-year-old under Bontadini writing on Heidegger in order to decide whether metaphysics can still be spoken after catastrophe. S.: That is rather better than “Heidegger e la metafisica” sounded at first. G.: Most good thesis titles are better than they sound, just as most Oxford lectures are worse. S.: And the final difference between Grice and Severino. G.: Grice thinks becoming requires analysis. Severino thinks becoming requires execution. S.: Execution in the metaphysical sense. G.: In Italy one always has to specify that too late.

 

Grice: Caro Severino, mi perdoni: “Velia” mi suona quasi come un vicino di casa—e invece, per me che vengo da Vadum Boum, è più lontana di certi sillogismi che mi porto dietro in valigia.

Severino: Vicino di casa? Velia è Elea: qui la distanza non si misura in miglia, ma in aporie. E se vieni da Vadum Boum, allora sei già allenato: anche lì, a forza di logica, si cammina senza muoversi.

Grice: Appunto: Velia è così “vicina” al pensiero—e così “lontana” dalla mia varsity—che mi viene da dire che c’è davvero “molto di cui scrivere a casa” (cioè: c’è un sacco da raccontare). E poi, già che ci siamo: chiamarla “non‑contraddizione” non è un po’ ridondante? Se non e contra vanno nella stessa direzione, sembra quasi una “dizione” che si mette due volte il cappotto per paura del vento.

Severino: La tua implicatura, Grice, è propriamente eleatica – per cui intendo: oltre ogni concepibile auto‑contraddizione! Hai fatto di Velia un paradosso geografico e di “non‑contraddizione” un esercizio di sobrietà linguistica: qui, in effetti, anche la ridondanza finisce per confessare l’Uno.

 

Grice’s weekly essay assignment: Severino/Sanseverino.

 

Verbali: Severo

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Severe Alexandrē: dīcunt tē Stiliō philosophante philosophiae deditum esse—at eōdem tempore principātum tibi, quasi togam nimis lātam, imposuērunt.

SEVERVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: cum Elagabalus concidisset, ego “successor” appellātus sum; sed in Rōmā, ut scīs, successiō saepe celerius currit quam ratio.

GRICEVS: Immo vero: apud nōs fit quasi illud vetus—“Caesar mortuus est: vīvat Caesar!”—nisi quod Rōma addere vidētur: “Caesar mortuus est: vīvat Caesar—donec iterum moriātur.”

SEVERVS: Historice vera inplicātūra tua, Grice—eam amō, et amō quanta cum benignitāte dīcās! Sed ūnum cave: nē mē “Caesarem” vocēs—nimis mihi sonat quasi sectiō Caesarea, et mea māter, dīs volentibus, numquam eā indiguit!

 

Grice’s weekly essay assignment: Severo Alessandro. Given that one [Alexander Severus] studied philosophy and another [Lucius Septimius Severus] ruled with rather more historical success, assess whether the title principe filosofo belongs more properly to [Alexander Severus] by intention, or to Lucius Septimius Severus by effect; conclude by stating whether a philosopher-prince is best judged before his assassination or after it.  Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts. [thelatinlibrary.com]

 

Verbali: Severo

 

GRICEVS: Severe, amice Antonini, ratio nostra conversans ridet etiam cum tacet—idne non est pulcherrimum?

SEVERVS: Pulcherrimum sane, Grice, nam cum bene taceamus, saepe plus dicimus quam cum clamoribus.

GRICEVS: Ergo consentimus: non verba sola valent, sed ea quae inter verba callide innuuntur.

SEVERVS: Ita est, et Roma ipsa consentit—sapientia enim inter pocula et amicos maxime floret.

 

Grice’s weekly essay assignment. Claudio Severo. Write on Claudius Severus under the condition that you may not use the phrase “Stoic friend of Antoninus” until the final sentence. Explain how far an amico lizio counts as a philosopher in his own right, and how far he survives only as a moral footnote to Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius; add, with reasons, whether silence among friends is more philosophically revealing than doctrine among princes.  Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts. [tertullian.org], [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org]

 

Verbali: Severo

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Severe. Audīvī tē, principem philosophum, inter convīvās nōn minus de ratiōne quam de vīnō disserere—quod est (ut putō) rarius quam Falernum vetus.

SEVERVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita est: philosophiam inter convīvās praetulī; nam et imperium sine doctrinā caecum est, et amīcitia sine sermone ieiūna.

GRICEVS: Bene dicis; sed saepe animadvertō, dum “amīcitiam” laudāmus, ipsī nos laudāre incipimus—quasi convivium sī sit sapientius, id statim probet convīvās sapientēs esse; atque ita, dum de ratiōne colloquimur, ratiō ipsa quasi sella curūlis in mediō tricliniī ponitur.

SEVERVS: Inaudīta est inplicātūra tua—et eam amō, Grice! Nam, dum de Antonīnō et amīcitiā loquī vidēris, admonēs nē sermō noster in pompam vertātur: interdum enim optima philosophia est, cum princeps rīdet et amīcus intellegit.

 

Weekly essay assignment. Lucio Settimio Severo. There are, unfortunately for the inattentive, at least three Severi. Discuss why Lucius Septimius Severus is the least likely to be confused with the others, despite sharing the same surname, and assess whether his claim to be a principe filosofo rests on philosophical cultivation, imperial self-presentation, or the later weakness of his namesakes. You may, if necessary, compare him unfavourably with the two other Severi, but only after pretending not to.  Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts. [degruyterbrill.com], [archive.org]

 

Verbali: Sforza

 

Grice: Ah, caro Sforza, permettimi di dire che solo io, letterato e umanista, riesco a cogliere davvero tutta la forza che si cela dietro l’iussum e l’iustum — come nessun altro saprà mai! Ti ringrazio sinceramente per aver portato questa fine distinzione in un consesso così stimolante.  

Sforza: Grice, è proprio il tuo spirito raffinato che sa vedere oltre la superficie delle leggi. Per me, il vero senso del diritto sta nel suo essere giusto, non solo comandato — e sono lieto che tu lo riconosca con tanta profondità.  

Grice: È la concretezza dell’esperienza, caro Sforza, che ci fa ricordare quanto la giustizia debba precedere ogni comando. Solo chi vive il diritto come forma dell’essere può capirlo fino in fondo.  

Sforza: Hai ragione, Grice! Se tutti avessero il tuo sguardo, forse non ci sarebbero leggi che tradiscono la vera giustizia. D’altronde, come si dice in Emilia, “la legge senza giustizia è come un pane senza sale.”

 

Verbali: Siciliani

 

Grice: Caro Siciliani, permettimi una riflessione da “gentiluomo accademico”: Collingwood e Hampshire, là nella selvaggia Vadus Boum—come chiamiamo affettuosamente la nostra “università” (o meglio, il nostro “ateneo”)—hanno in qualche modo mantenuto vivo lo spirito di Vico. Se questo non è un ossimoro: lo spirito, per definizione, non può che essere vivo!

Siciliani: Ah, Grice, mi colpisce come tu riesca sempre a cogliere il legame tra la tradizione e l’attualità. Vico, infatti, ci ha insegnato che la verità nasce dal “factum,” dall’azione umana, e proprio per questo la sua filosofia respira ancora tra noi, proprio negli atenei dove la storia si intreccia con la cultura.

Grice: Vico, con la sua “psico-genia” e la civiltà organica, ha avuto una visione che va oltre l’abstract universale. In fondo, come direbbe un vecchio proverbio italiano, “ogni terra ha la sua storia”—e la filosofia vera si radica nell’identità culturale, non in modelli globalisti importati.

Siciliani: Esatto, Grice! La filosofia italiana si distingue proprio per questa continuità storica e civile. Solo attraverso la “trasformazione creativa” della nostra eredità nazionale possiamo costruire un pensiero autentico. Del resto, come dicevano i nostri maestri: “la ragione teologica e la psico-genia sono il cuore pulsante della nostra tradizione.”

 

Verbali: Sidonio

 

G.: Let us begin with the pleasure before the principle. Lewis and Short actually gave inplicatura an entry.

S.: Which is the sort of thing one dreams of only after too much Latin and too little sleep.

G.: Precisely. Not because I needed their permission, but because it amused me that the form was there, dignified by lexicography, and attached to Sidonius Apollinaris. [en.wikipedia.org]

S.: And glossed, if I remember, as “entanglement.”

G.: Yes. Which is already half the joke. Had Lewis and Short translated it as implicature, they would have been far too Griceian for their own century. [tertullian.org], [archive.org]

S.: Still, the form itself is irresistible.

G.: Entirely. I knew perfectly well that the Latin verbal system makes it perfectly productive. You have plicare, to fold. Add in-, and you get inplicare, to fold in, involve, entangle. From there you may have participles, future participles, verbal nouns, and all the rest. But productive things can still be delightful.

S.: Then we should do the morphology before the wit overcomes us.

G.: A sound principle. Plico, plicare, plicavi or plicui in later habits, plicatum. The root idea is folding.

S.: And in-plico or in-plico, more classically inplico, inplicare, inplicavi, inplicitum or implicatum depending on age and orthography.

G.: Yes. One must remember the old spelling with n before p. Sidonius gives us inplicatura, not implicatura in the modern tidier habit. [thelatinlibrary.com], [en.wikipedia.org]

S.: So the form is built quite regularly.

G.: Entirely regularly. From the supine stem or participial base one gets implicatus, a thing folded in, entangled, involved. Then the future active participle, implicaturus, is “about to implicate” or “destined to involve,” if one insists on Englishing it awkwardly.

S.: And the feminine implicatura?

G.: That is where the amusement begins. As a future active participle feminine, implicatura would mean a feminine subject about to implicate, or one destined to entangle. But lexically, in Sidonius, inplicatura functions as a noun: an entanglement, a foldedness, a complication, a knot of discursiveness. [tertullian.org], [archive.org]

S.: So you distinguish the productive grammatical form from the lexicalised noun.

G.: Precisely. The Latin system licenses the form, but Sidonius gives it local life. Lewis and Short then preserve that life as lexicographical curiosity rather than philosophical prophecy.

S.: Which is fortunate for them.

G.: Yes. Otherwise one should have had to accuse them of reading me backward into the fifth century, which is an unkind thing to do even to lexicographers.

S.: Then the central distinction: implying and the implicatum.

G.: Exactly. This matters far more than the historical joke. There is the act, and there is what is left implicated by it. The implying is what some utterer does. The implicatum is what is produced, or better, what is made available to be gathered.

S.: So, in your own preferred terminology, the utterer implicates; the hearer recovers an implicatum.

G.: Yes, though I more often say “implicates” of the utterance or the utterer’s move, and “implicatum” of what is implicated. The distinction is useful because one ought not to confuse the process with its product.

S.: Like signifying and signification.

G.: Very much so. Or meaning and what is meant. The “-ure” in my English coinage was partly meant to mark a product distinct from the act of implying.

S.: Just as “implication” was already taken up with logical and semantic uses you found too broad.

G.: Exactly. I wanted something near implication, but not identical with it. Implicature looked tidy, Latinate, and perhaps a little absurd in a serviceable way.

S.: And Sidonius’s inplicatura confirmed that the absurdity had pedigree.

G.: A very peripatetic pedigree, if one believes the context. He is mocking the knotty involutions of philosophers, especially Sidonius Apollinaris’s favourite targets when they become too self-entangling. [en.wikipedia.org], [tertullian.org]

S.: Can we recover the actual quotation?

G.: Not safely from memory alone, and I prefer not to counterfeit a text. We know from the lexicographical tradition and the Sidonian corpus that inplicatura appears there in the sense of entanglement or involution. [thelatinlibrary.com], [tertullian.org], [archive.org]

S.: So we shall be prudent.

G.: For once. A philosopher should know when not to become an editor without apparatus.

S.: But the point remains: the noun means entanglement, not hidden meaning.

G.: Precisely. Sidonius uses it pejoratively or playfully for verbal or conceptual knotting. My use was more exact and less abusive. I wanted the notion of something folded in, not something merely snarled.

S.: Then the fold matters more than the knot.

G.: Very much. An implicature is not necessarily a muddle. It is something left in the fold of what is said, to be taken out by a competent hearer.

S.: So Latin plicare gives you the spatial metaphor.

G.: Yes. And that metaphor is much better than people notice. To imply is literally to fold in; to explicate is to unfold. I did not need Heidegger to tell me that.

S.: And disimplicatura?

G.: A barbarism, but one I can enjoy. If one may have explicatio, one can jest about disimplicatura as the undoing of the fold. Though one must not let the joke do the theory’s work.

S.: Let us return to grammar. If inplicare belongs to the first conjugation, then its future infinitive active is implicaturum esse.

G.: Yes. And the future participle implicaturus, -a, -um behaves as expected: “about to implicate” in the grammatical sense. Which is why one should not confuse the participial feminine implicatura with a noun unless usage warrants it.

S.: Sidonius warrants it.

G.: Exactly. Usage rescues morphology from innocence.

S.: And the noun’s relation to the participle?

G.: One may suspect refunctionalisation. Latin often lets participial forms drift into substantival or quasi-substantival lives, especially in later or less classical usage. I was not shocked by inplicatura, only amused.

S.: Because Lewis and Short were willing to register it.

G.: Yes. Lexicographers are at their best when they quietly preserve what the schoolmaster would rather omit.

S.: Now to the English branch. Usually you say that it is you who implicate.

G.: Quite. “I implied that he was a fool.” “He implicated that he had no intention of coming” would be dreadful English, because implicate as a verb in ordinary English has largely gone criminal.

S.: “He was implicated in a crime.”

G.: Exactly. There implicate means involve, entangle in the evidentiary or causal web of wrongdoing. Different family resemblance, same old folding root.

S.: So in English one must keep apart imply, implicate, and be implicated.

G.: Yes. The first is the ordinary active verb of indirect suggestion. The second, as an active transitive, is rare and tends to sound legal or archaic. The passive or participial use—“implicated in”—belongs to criminal and forensic prose.

S.: And yet historically the family is the same.

G.: Entirely. The law kept one branch; ordinary language preferred another. My coinage exploits the family resemblance without obeying the criminal specialisation.

S.: There is also employ.

G.: Ah yes, another fun little branch. One of those cases where the older Anglo-Norman and French routes keep alive a Latin sense of plicare through application, involvement, and folding into service. That my ancestor Richard d’Gris may have heard something in that region does not make him responsible for my etymologies, but it pleases the imagination.

S.: So “employ” is to fold into use.

G.: Broadly, yes. To apply, engage, involve a person or thing in a task. It is another descendant of the old family of folds and applications. The point is not exact historical lecturing at dinner, but the persistence of the root metaphor.

S.: Folding, involving, applying, entangling.

G.: Precisely. And therefore implying, in my adapted philosophical sense, sits very naturally in that company.

S.: Which brings us to the main philosophical distinction. The utterer does the implying; the utterance carries or gives rise to an implicatum; the hearer recovers the implicatum by reasoning.

G.: Very good. That is the basic triad. And it is helpful because “implicature” in English may name either the item implicated or the general phenomenon, while “implicatum” can be reserved for the item itself.

S.: So the singular count noun for the product is implicatum.

G.: If one wants tidy scholasticity, yes. I have often been content with implicature for the product, but implicatum can save a sentence from ambiguity.

S.: Then what of implying as distinct from implicating?

G.: In my own English, I generally prefer “implicate” for the technical verb if I want it to match implicature, but “imply” remains the ordinary language neighbour. “He implied that p” is fine; “he implicated that p” sounds over-tailored.

S.: Yet “the utterance implicates that p” may be tolerable in seminar.

G.: Tolerable, yes. Seminar-English is allowed a few crimes for the sake of exactness.

S.: And Sidonius’s inplicatura would have been translated by Lewis and Short simply as entanglement.

G.: Yes, soberly, and thank heaven for that. Had they printed “implicature,” the whole joke would have become indecent. They would have looked like accomplices before the fact.

S.: You enjoy this more than the theory perhaps deserves.

G.: More than the theory deserves, less than the lexicography does. Still, the lexical history helps one see that my coinage was not a mad graft. It sat well in the older fold-family.

S.: Then perhaps we should state the fold-family fully. Plico, plicare. Complico. Explico. Implico. Replico perhaps.

G.: Yes. Complicate, explicate, implicate, replicate—all the old pleasures of folding together, folding out, folding in, folding back. English keeps them all, though with various drifts.

S.: And conversation itself often moves by such foldings.

G.: Exactly. An implicature is what is folded into the saying without being said outright. An explanation unfolds it. A complication may arise when too many folds are left at once.

S.: Sidonius’s complaint about philosophers.

G.: Precisely. The peripatetics become knot-makers rather than guides to the fold. That is why his inplicatura is comic and faintly censorious. [tertullian.org], [archive.org]

S.: Do you think Sidonius would have approved of your use?

G.: Probably not. He would have thought I was ennobling what ought to remain a vice. But then he was entitled to his own irony.

S.: And Lewis and Short?

G.: They would have shrugged and added another semicolon.

S.: Let us be concrete. “Jones has beautiful handwriting.”

G.: Ah yes. A beautiful old case. The tutor says it at collection. The saying means less and more than it says. Literally praise of penmanship; implicaturally, in the circumstances, a judgment that Jones is otherwise hopeless at philosophy.

S.: Then the implying lies in the tutor’s choice to offer only that praise under the institutional assumption that something more relevant would have been said had there been anything to say.

G.: Exactly. The implicatum is that Jones’s philosophical performance is poor.

S.: And the hearer recovers it by reference to relevance, expectation, and the local habits of academic cruelty.

G.: Very good. Sidonius would perhaps call it a civilised inplicatura; I call it Tuesday morning.

S.: Another example: “Bring me a paper tomorrow.” “A newspaper?”

G.: There you have incorrigibility of meaning. The pupil pretends to take the lexical content while ignoring the obvious institutional intended sense. The tutor’s utterance means an essay; the pupil performs a mock-literal uptake.

S.: So the utterer’s implying and the addressee’s refusal to recognise the implicatum come apart.

G.: Precisely. Which is why the case is philosophically useful. Meaning does not collapse into dictionary possibility.

S.: “Going through the dictionary” remains good advice only if one knows when to stop.

G.: Exactly. Austin said go through the dictionary, not worship it.

S.: And yet you did go to Lewis and Short.

G.: With pleasure. Not for doctrine, but for ancestry. One likes to know whether one’s word would shock a Roman.

S.: And it turned out not to.

G.: At least not entirely. The Roman would have heard folds and entanglements, perhaps too much of the latter, but not sheer monstrosity.

S.: Then tell me about the participles again. Implicatus, implicans, implicaturus.

G.: Implicatus is the past participle: implicated, involved, entangled, folded in. Implicans would be the present active participle in post-classical or participial use if one formed it in the obvious way, though Latin style varies in what it tolerates. Implicaturus is the future active participle: one who is about to implicate, or likely to implicate.

S.: And implicatura as noun stands beside that as a lexicalised offspring.

G.: Yes. Not because the grammar compels the noun, but because usage licenses it. That is the important thing. Latin can generate the form; Sidonius gives us the attested amusement.

S.: So when you coined implicature, you were not simply borrowing Latin wholesale.

G.: No. I was making an English philosophical convenience with a Latin smile behind it.

S.: And choosing “-ure” rather than “-ation” or “-ing.”

G.: Quite. Implication was already too crowded. “Implicating” would have sounded criminal. “Implying” was too verb-like. “Implicature” gave me a product-name adjacent to implication but not identical with it.

S.: Which is exactly what the theory wanted.

G.: Yes. A countable or at least mentionable product of conversational practice, distinct from strict logical implication.

S.: Then the difference between implication and implicature is not merely syllabic.

G.: Heaven forbid. Logical implication may hold independently of speaker’s intention or cooperative context. Conversational implicature depends upon such things.

S.: Yet both preserve some relation to the fold-family.

G.: A faint one, yes. But only the conversational case needed the extra lexical elbow-room.

S.: And implicatum lets you be still tidier.

G.: Indeed. If I say “the utterance has this implicature,” I may mean the general phenomenon or the particular folded content. If I say “the implicatum is that Jones is no good,” I remove the wobble.

S.: Though at the cost of sounding more scholastic.

G.: One cannot have everything.

S.: Does the Latin encourage a distinction between act and product more than English does?

G.: The Latin system certainly makes one sensitive to derivational families. Verb, participle, verbal noun, adjectival residue—Latin keeps the workshop visible. English often inherits the furniture after the workshop has shut.

S.: Which is perhaps why you liked the discovery.

G.: Exactly. It was not that I thought Sidonius had anticipated me. It was that the old workshop door was still ajar.

S.: Beautifully put.

G.: Keep it and improve it out of all recognition.

S.: Another thing. “Implicate” in Anglo-Norman and legal English preserved the involve-entangle branch. Does that not make your technical use slightly perverse?

G.: Entirely. But philosophical coinages should be slightly perverse. Otherwise they do not disturb the complacencies of ordinary usage enough to be noticed.

S.: Yet not so perverse as to become private language.

G.: Precisely. One wants disciplined eccentricity.

S.: Like Oxford.

G.: On its better days.

S.: Would you ever have used “inplicatura” in print?

G.: Only to tease a classically over-armed audience. English must bear its own burdens. I was not trying to make philosophy more Latinate than necessary.

S.: A generous restraint.

G.: Or mere tactical prudence. Too much Latin and people think one is hiding weak arguments behind dead inflections.

S.: Whereas you were hiding living ones behind folds.

G.: Exactly. The distinction matters.

S.: Then perhaps the final summary should run as follows. Sidonius uses inplicatura to mean entanglement or involution in discourse; Lewis and Short soberly record that; you notice with pleasure that the Latin root-family of plicare and implicare makes your own coinage less monstrous than it might appear; but your implicature is not Sidonius’s entanglement, rather a technical name for what is folded into an utterance beyond what is said.

G.: Splendid. Add that the utterer does the implying or implicating, the hearer recovers the implicatum, and that the whole business belongs to the old family of folds, involvements, and unfoldings.

S.: And that Lewis and Short would have been too Griceian had they dared to print “implicature.”

G.: Yes, do keep that. It is exactly the right amount of affectionate perversity.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Sidonian, with one Lewis and Short left open on the table.

 

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Sidoni. Moneō tantum: recta sonat in-plicatūra—in cum plicāre; nōn est “im-” quasi premere, sed in-plicāre, id est involvere.

SIDONIVS: Salvē, Grice. Bene mones; et tamen philosophōs ipsōs saepe videō peripateticōs ligātōs vernāculīs inplicātūrīs, ita ut, dum nodōs quaerunt, in nodīs haereant.

GRICEVS: Id ipsum est quod me subtristāt: nam in sermone, dum res manet in plicātūrā (duōbus verbīs, quasi in sinu), amīcus aliquid suave colligit; at cum ad chartam venit et fit inplicātūra (ūnō verbō), saepe una littera totum leporem quasi explicat.

SIDONIVS: Inplicātūram optimam quam numquam audīvī, Grice! Nam dum de litterā quereris, ipse docēs quomodo verba, sive divisa sive compōsita, aut nodum servent aut solvant—quod et peripateticīs utile esset, etiamsi ipsīs plērumque super caput eat.

 

 

Verbali: Sighele

 

G.: Thomson, your title is mischievous already. La folla delinquente.

T.: It is Sighele’s, not mine, though I bring it with intent.

G.: And the intent is to make me wonder whether “the delinquent crowd” is a category mistake.

T.: Partly. Does a crowd commit? Or do only persons commit?

G.: One must not answer too quickly. “Only persons act” has the sound of virtue and the smell of laziness.

T.: You are thinking of collective intentionality.

G.: I am thinking that there may be something between mystical group-mind nonsense and mere summation of individuals. Suppose we carry a log together.

T.: A favourite philosopher’s burden.

G.: Quite. I am not carrying it in the way I would if I took one end and forgot you. You are not carrying it in isolation either. We are carrying it.

T.: Or rather, each of us is carrying his end under an intention to coordinate with the other.

G.: That is one reduction, yes. But notice how thin it sounds compared with the ordinary fact. “We are carrying it” is not merely shorthand for “I am carrying my end while you carry yours.” It names a coordinated action with a shared shape.

T.: Shared shape is not yet shared agent.

G.: No, but neither is it nothing.

T.: And now you want to transport that to la folla delinquente.

G.: Not transport, exactly. Ask whether the very phrase presupposes an intelligible “we” in action.

T.: Sighele thinks so. Or at least thinks responsibility is reorganised, not dissolved, once one acts in a crowd.

G.: Yes. He wants to resist the mystical contagion theorists who make the crowd pure irrational vapor.

T.: But also to resist the legal moralists who say, “Find the hand that struck, and the rest are scenery.”

G.: Precisely. He wants complicity, influence, participation, and cooperation without an occult collective soul.

T.: Which is nearly tolerable.

G.: Nearly? You sound severe.

T.: Because you are tempted by “we act,” and I am not sure that is anything more than a useful social idiom.

G.: Let us go slowly. In conversation, I say that utterer-meaning requires an utterer and an addressee, with nested intentions and recognitions.

T.: Yes. Speaker intends hearer to recognise that speaker intends hearer to form a belief, and so forth.

G.: Quite. Now if one says “we mean,” you become suspicious.

T.: Entirely. “We mean” sounds absurd unless it resolves into each of us meaning something sufficiently similar.

G.: Yet “we cooperate” does not strike the ear as absurd.

T.: No. But “cooperate” is already relational. “Mean” is not obviously collective in the same way.

G.: Is that principle or habit?

T.: Both, perhaps. Meaning, as you tell it, belongs to a purposive act of one utterer toward one audience, even if there are many hearers.

G.: But committees issue statements.

T.: Which means that some person or persons authorised the issuing, drafted, revised, approved, signed, or at any rate let it out under a collective description.

G.: So “the committee means” is reducible?

T.: I should say so. It means something like: enough members of the committee accepted this formulation under relevant procedures for us to ascribe the statement to the committee.

G.: That is a fine bureaucratic paraphrase. But it still leaves intact that we do, in fact, ascribe agency to the committee.

T.: Ascribe, yes. Reify, no.

G.: Good. Let us keep that distinction visible. Now back to the log. When we carry it, what is the best analysis?

T.: Each intends his own bodily movement, each perceives the other’s intentions sufficiently, each adjusts his action in light of the other’s, and together they produce the transportation of the log.

G.: That sounds right enough, but I still feel that the “together” is doing more than bookkeeping.

T.: It is doing coordination work, not metaphysical work.

G.: But coordination may itself be a form of practical unity.

T.: Practical unity, yes. Collective subject, no.

G.: So you will grant me “we are doing X” as a practical description without granting “we” as a metaphysical person.

T.: Happily.

G.: Good. Now, mutatis mutandis, la folla delinquente.

T.: I object at once.

G.: Naturally. On what ground?

T.: Because a criminal crowd is not like two men carrying a log. In the latter case coordination is transparent and purposive. In the former, the same outward event may contain leaders, imitators, cowards, enthusiasts, opportunists, onlookers, and one idiot who thought there was a parade.

G.: Excellent. So the first problem is heterogeneity of role.

T.: Yes. “The crowd did it” may conceal wildly different forms of participation.

G.: That still does not prove the category mistake.

T.: No, only the danger of easy collectivisation.

G.: Sighele would agree. He wants a positive theory of complicity and cooperation, not a hymn to the communal soul.

T.: Then he ought not to title the thing so temptingly.

G.: Titles are usually the first crime of theorists. Let us be fairer. Suppose a crowd loots a shop.

T.: A depressing but serviceable example.

G.: Some break the window, some enter, some pass items outward, some keep watch, some cry encouragement, some prevent interference.

T.: Yes.

G.: Is it unintelligible to say the crowd looted the shop?

T.: Not unintelligible. But analytically loose. It may be shorthand for a structured field of individual actions connected by mutual visibility, imitation, expectation, and opportunistic convergence.

G.: Very good. And perhaps also by some shared practical orientation.

T.: Perhaps, though “shared” there may mean only partially aligned under local cues.

G.: So your thesis is that there need be no super-individual we-intention.

T.: Exactly. B perceives that A wants that p, or wants to do X; B adjusts his goal or behaviour in the light of that; C perceives both and aligns similarly; and a pattern emerges.

G.: A pattern of convergence without a robust we.

T.: Yes.

G.: Then what about “we mean”?

T.: Even worse. “We mean” in the strict sense seems absurd because there is no single intending centre.

G.: Unless one says the group means via its authorised procedures.

T.: Which is again a reduction to individuals plus rules.

G.: Rules plus mutual recognitions.

T.: Precisely.

G.: I wonder whether you are simply more comfortable with procedural than with practical unity.

T.: Very likely. But that is because procedures can be individuated more clearly than collective inwardness.

G.: Fair. Now let us see whether my own theory forces me to your side. Meaning for me involves utterer-intention, audience-recognition, and the audience’s taking that recognition as reason.

T.: Yes.

G.: Can there be a group utterer?

T.: Only derivatively. A crowd chanting perhaps.

G.: Ah. Good. Crowds chant.

T.: They do.

G.: “We want bread,” “Down with X,” “Death to Y.” There the utterance is collective in production and reception.

T.: Production yes, though often still led by a few. Reception too, if outsiders hear it as the voice of the crowd.

G.: And what of meaning there? Does the crowd mean what it chants?

T.: In a loose sense, yes. But one can still analyse it as enough individuals intentionally participating in a common signal under mutual adjustment.

G.: Again your “enough individuals.”

T.: It is a sober phrase.

G.: It is also a cowardly one.

T.: Sober cowardice is a philosophical virtue.

G.: Occasionally. Yet the chant seems to have a practical first-person plural built into it.

T.: Grammatically, yes. Ontologically, not yet.

G.: Let us try a cleaner case. Two conspirators agree to signal their victim by saying “The weather is improving.”

T.: Very nice.

G.: One says it, the other hears it, both know what it initiates.

T.: In that case, one means and the other recognises.

G.: But if both say it to reassure each other and to trigger the act, there is something almost like a plural utterer.

T.: Almost like. But still analysable as parallel or interlocking singular intentions.

G.: You dislike “interlocking” less than “collective.”

T.: Naturally. Interlocking tells me how the thing works without making a ghostly subject.

G.: Sighele might accept that, though he would insist the pair is not merely additive.

T.: Yes. His Le crime à deux already suggests that the pair reorganises agency.

G.: Exactly. The criminal couple is neither one person nor two isolated persons. It is a dyadic field with pressure, suggestion, imitation, and asymmetry.

T.: That is all very well. But from there to la folla delinquente is a considerable leap.

G.: Agreed. Scale changes the structure.

T.: Greatly. In the crowd, reciprocal recognition often fragments. One may respond to immediate local cues without any grasp of the whole.

G.: So the “we” may be perspectival and partial.

T.: Precisely.

G.: Yet many social actions are like that. A football crowd surges. A panic spreads. A queue dissolves. A riot forms.

T.: And we describe them collectively, yes.

G.: Because there is a level at which collective description tracks real coordination, even if no one surveys the whole.

T.: That is closer to my view. Collective predicates may be legitimate without implying a group mind.

G.: Good. Now responsibility.

T.: Ah yes.

G.: If the crowd acts, who is responsible?

T.: The old question. Sighele wants to say responsibility persists but is redistributed. Not contagion without guilt, but transformed accountability.

G.: Which I find sensible. “The crowd did it” is often a legal and moral evasion if it erases the role-structure.

T.: Exactly. Some incited, some complied, some escalated, some merely failed to resist, some enjoyed anonymity.

G.: And some became bolder because the crowd lowered the cost of expression.

T.: Yes. That is perhaps Sighele’s most enduring point.

G.: Then in our seminar on action, we might say that “the crowd acts” is not nonsense, but a compressed claim that a structured multiplicity produced an event under mutual responsiveness.

T.: I could live with that, provided you do not start writing “the crowd intended” without qualifications.

G.: Perhaps I shall say “the crowd’s action exhibited collective intentional structure.”

T.: Hideous, but safer.

G.: You wound me.

T.: I refine you.

G.: Very well. Now, back to conversation. If two or more people jointly mislead a third, do “we mean” anything?

T.: In a derivative sense. We may mean to deceive him. But the analysis still proceeds through each participant’s recognition of the others’ intentions and adjustment thereto.

G.: So B perceives that A wants the hearer to believe p; B aligns his own contribution accordingly; C does likewise; and the addressee receives a coordinated deception.

T.: Exactly. No super-speaker needed.

G.: Yet the hearer might perfectly well say “they meant me to think X.”

T.: That is harmless enough.

G.: And if the hearer says “they,” why may I not sometimes say “we” from the participants’ side?

T.: Because first-person plural tempts philosophers into bad metaphysics more quickly than third-person plural.

G.: A nice asymmetry.

T.: A useful one.

G.: Very well. Suppose a choir sings. Do they sing, or does each sing his part?

T.: Both. But again, the collective predication does not generate a collective soul.

G.: You are a great enemy of souls today.

T.: Only of collective ones.

G.: Fair. Suppose now a criminal crowd sets fire to a building. Some light, some cheer, some obstruct the brigade, some drag furniture into the blaze.

T.: Yes.

G.: Would you agree that “the crowd burned the building” is not a category mistake?

T.: Not a category mistake. A dangerous convenience.

G.: Which is a better line.

T.: Thank you.

G.: One must keep the danger and the convenience together.

T.: Yes. Otherwise one either mystifies the collective or atomises it falsely.

G.: Precisely Sighele’s terrain.

T.: And yours, perhaps, when you try to let cooperative structures scale upward from dyads to groups.

G.: Yes. I have never thought conversation ceases to be governed by rational norms once a third person enters the room.

T.: No, but the form changes. With more parties, mutual recognition becomes layered, and not every participant need grasp the whole.

G.: Which suggests that cooperative principles scale, but not simply.

T.: Exactly.

G.: That is useful for the seminar. “We” may be a practical category with variable density.

T.: Good. Explain.

G.: A two-person “we” carrying a log may be dense: each knows what the other is doing as part of the common act. A crowd “we” may be thin: partial mutual responsiveness plus shared direction without full reflective unity.

T.: I like “variable density.”

G.: Good. Keep it and make it seem yours.

T.: It often is.

G.: Insolent. Now, does this help with “la folla delinquente”?

T.: It does. We can say the phrase is not absurd, but its propriety depends on what density of collective organisation and mutual responsiveness is present.

G.: So an accidental gathering of pickpockets is different from a riot coordinated by shouted cues, visual signals, and escalating participation.

T.: Yes. The first may be only aggregate coincidence; the second may exhibit a real, though thin, collective agency.

G.: Thin collective agency. Very Oxonian and almost Italian.

T.: That is the highest praise I shall get all week.

G.: Enjoy it. Now, meaning again. If a crowd chants “Justice!” does the crowd mean justice?

T.: It means many things, likely incompatible ones, and that is why the case is philosophically wicked.

G.: Excellent. The slogan gathers divergent singular intentions under one public token.

T.: Which is why “we mean” becomes especially unstable in crowds. The same utterance coordinates without unifying full content.

G.: Splendid. So collective utterance may outrun individual agreement at the level of determinate meaning.

T.: Exactly.

G.: Then perhaps the crowd can mean thinly while its members mean thickly and differently.

T.: That is very good.

G.: Thank you.

T.: Do not become pleased.

G.: You have been reading me against myself.

T.: It improves the afternoon. Now, if crowd-utterance means thinly, does crowd-action also intend thinly?

G.: Perhaps. A crowd may intend to stop the convoy, to storm the gate, to punish the traitor, without every member sharing a full specification of why or what next.

T.: So intention itself may be distributed and underdetermined.

G.: Yes. Which is why reduction to singular intentions may become descriptively clumsy.

T.: Clumsy perhaps, but still truer than a collective soul.

G.: I do not want the soul. I want the action-category.

T.: Good. Then we agree more than we disagree.

G.: Usually a bad sign in seminars.

T.: We can improve matters. I still think “we mean” in your strict speaker-meaning sense is almost always derivative.

G.: I can grant “almost always.”

T.: And I can grant that “the crowd acts” is not merely poetic.

G.: Excellent. Now, Sighele versus Le Bon.

T.: Sighele is rational where Le Bon is atmospheric.

G.: Exactly. He wants complicity, pairings, sects, criminal couples, influence-patterns. He resists mystical fusion.

T.: Which is why he remains interesting now.

G.: Yes. He is an ancestor of sober social ontology, though I hesitate to use the phrase too cheerfully.

T.: Quite. But he at least sees that social formations reorganise accountability without abolishing it.

G.: That is his enduring philosophical value. The “we” of crime is not exculpatory vapor.

T.: Nor is it a single wicked person writ large.

G.: Precisely. It is a field of aligned and misaligned agencies.

T.: Which is perhaps our best formula.

G.: A field of aligned and misaligned agencies under conditions of mutual responsiveness.

T.: Hideous, but strong.

G.: That should be the subtitle of the seminar.

T.: Along with “Carrying logs and burning shops.”

G.: You have more theatre than judgment.

T.: We need both. Now, what of your own “we” in personal identity?

G.: Ah. The old communal temptations. Yes, there are cases where identity-talk itself presupposes social uptake. But I was not trying to invent a crowd-self.

T.: No. But you were acknowledging that the first person singular lives among second persons and occasional plurals.

G.: True enough. The self is never wholly without social conditions of intelligibility.

T.: Then “we” may be philosophically prior to some uses of “I,” though not all.

G.: Dangerous but tempting. Keep it for questions, not for the opening.

T.: Very well. Then our opening says what?

G.: It says that collective action is not a category mistake, but that its analysis requires us to distinguish aggregate coincidence, interlocking individual agency, thin collective intentional structure, and robust coordinated action.

T.: And that “la folla delinquente” is therefore neither mystical nor innocent.

G.: Excellent.

T.: What of collective meaning?

G.: It says that “we mean” is usually derivative from interlocking singular or procedural intentions, but that public tokens can coordinate action and uptake even where content remains only thinly shared.

T.: Good. I can live with that.

G.: You are becoming reasonable. Disturbing.

T.: I brought Sighele precisely to avoid mystical rubbish and reductive rubbish alike.

G.: Then he has done his work already. One last example?

T.: Two thieves lift a chest together.

G.: Better than a log.

T.: One cannot do it alone. Each perceives the other’s aim, each adjusts force and timing, and together they remove it.

G.: That is a criminal “we” of admirable simplicity.

T.: Now scale up to ten men forcing a gate.

G.: There the “we” is thinner, but still operative.

T.: And to a thousand shouting for blood.

G.: There the “we” becomes symbolically thick but motivationally thin and uneven.

T.: Very good. We have our gradient.

G.: And Sighele supplies the caution that responsibility does not vanish at any point merely because the pronoun broadens.

T.: Excellent. Then the seminar can begin.

G.: With the log or the crowd?

T.: With the chest.

G.: Criminality improves clarity.

T.: It often does.

G.: Dry enough?

T.: Sufficiently Brescian, with one Oxford log still on the shoulder.

 

 

Grice: Caro Sighele, ho sempre pensato che in Italia le folle siano così creative che persino la confusione diventa un’opera d’arte. Forse è per questo che la tua “psicologia collettiva” qui ci calza a pennello, come il cappello su una statua di Garibaldi a Carnevale!

Sighele: Grice, hai proprio ragione! Da noi, tra cori da stadio e code all’ufficio postale, la folla è sempre protagonista. Forse dovrei scrivere un capitolo su “La folla che aspetta il 730”, dove la pazienza è più un mistero che una virtù.

Grice: Eh, Sighele, ma ricorda: in Italia si dice “dove sono in tre nasce un partito”, ma basta il secondo per fondare una corrente dissidente! Così la vera complicità non è del crimine, ma del caffè condiviso al bar—al massimo con due bustine di zucchero e una polemica sul risultato della partita.

Sighele: Ammirevole implicatura la tua, Grice! Con un solo colpo hai illustrato la mia teoria: qui il vero motore della collettività è la voglia di discutere, e il crimine peggiore è dimenticare chi paga il giro di espressi!

 

Verbali: Signa

 

G.: Let us begin with the arithmetic, because if one starts with arithmetic one may at least postpone theology.

S.: A promising curriculum already.

G.: The trivium is three, the quadrivium four, and the philosopher’s first temptation is to say that four comes after three for no very good reason, since .

S.: Exactly. If summation is commutative, why should education not be?

G.: Because curricula are not algebra, and because schoolmen liked roads better than equations.

S.: Still, if the quadrivium looks nobler, why not begin there? Arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy first; grammar, dialectic, rhetoric afterward.

G.: Because the child must first say before he may safely count, and must first hear before he may harmonise. Civilisation begins in address, not in number.

S.: Yet the quadrivium has the dignity of measure.

G.: It has the dignity of remoteness. The trivium has the indignity of necessity.

S.: Then the trivium is called trivial only because it is too close to life to look sublime.

G.: Precisely. Grammar, logic, rhetoric are despised because they cling to mouths, ears, and schoolrooms.

S.: Whereas arithmetic and astronomy at least pretend to the stars.

G.: Yes, and therefore seduce philosophers into thinking they are purer. But purity is often educationally useless.

S.: Still, a philosophy student should start with the quadrivium.

G.: Why?

S.: Because philosophy likes abstraction, order, ratio, proportion, and the sense that things fit beyond chatter.

G.: That is exactly the mistake. Philosophy is not one of the liberal arts at all.

S.: Kierkegaard would agree.

G.: He would say one may master all seven and still fail to exist.

S.: So what gives?

G.: I give.

S.: That is not a curriculum.

G.: It is the beginning of one. Philosophy receives from the liberal arts and then refuses to be filed among them. It is a parasite with principles.

S.: Then if philosophy is not one of the seven, why does it keep behaving as if the seven were its vestibule?

G.: Because it needs preparation but cannot be reduced to preparatory order. The trivium teaches one how language moves; the quadrivium teaches one how order seduces; philosophy begins when one suspects both.

S.: Then perhaps the right order for the philosopher is not the old order at all.

G.: Perhaps. But old orders are usually wiser than their descendants. The trivium comes first because humans must enter speech before they may admire number.

S.: Yet if , why should the order matter?

G.: Because education is not addition but dependence. One may count to seven either way, but one cannot speak well by astronomy.

S.: Some moderns have tried.

G.: And that is why nobody reads them. Now, Simoneschi.

S.: At last. The Venetian of rhetoric.

G.: Yes. Or rettorica, with the doubled t, which already sounds more proper and less modernly flattened.

S.: Does the double t matter philosophically?

G.: Everything matters if one is old enough. Rettorica feels heavier, more scholastic, more inherited, more like a discipline and less like a newspaper sneer.

S.: So retorica sounds modern and vaguely pejorative; rettorica sounds craft-bound and institutional.

G.: Exactly. Orthography as memory. The doubled consonant carries the schoolroom in its teeth.

S.: Then Boncompagno da Signa—or Signa, as you prefer to abbreviate him—is already fighting on behalf of rhetoric as an art, not a mere social vice.

G.: Precisely. And that is why there are so many treatises on rhetoric.

S.: Why indeed? Why not one authorised text, one Vulgate of persuasion, one King James of the tongue?

G.: Because there are many conversational maxims, many climates of speech, many audiences, many courts, many cities, many masks, and no single authorised version of prudence.

S.: That sounds like a Venetian answer.

G.: It is. Simoneschi’s Venice would laugh a universal rhetoric off the quay.

S.: Yet Cicero nearly tried to provide one.

G.: Cicero provided a magnificent Roman rhetoric for a Roman language under Roman conditions, and then died under the illusion that Latin would remain Ciceronian forever.

S.: Until Marc’Antonio’s sicario corrected the assumption.

G.: Quite. Once you are murdered for politics, your syntax ceases to govern posterity.

S.: Harsh.

G.: Historical. Cicero wrote as if the city and the language were still one body. Medieval and vernacular rhetorics arise because that body dies and multiplies.

S.: So there cannot be one authorised rhetoric because there is no one authorised social world.

G.: Exactly. The very plurality of rhetorical treatises is evidence that meaning is local, tactical, genre-bound, institution-bound, and not reducible to a single universal manual.

S.: Which means your pragmatics, if it is conversational rhetoric, also cannot be entirely universal.

G.: That is the difficulty. I can formulate general principles, but the realization of those principles is always local, and Simoneschi’s Venice insists on that.

S.: Then what you call maxims are perhaps only the thinnest skeleton of what Signa calls rettorica.

G.: Yes. A useful skeleton, but a skeleton still.

S.: And Signa would complain that skeletons do not write letters.

G.: Very likely. Or seduce. Which brings us to the ruota di Venere.

S.: Ah yes, the erotic wheel.

G.: A wheel of patterned expectation. A little machine of genre, role, tone, and implication. Very civilised, if one does not ask too many moral questions before supper.

S.: Then his rhetoric is already a pragmatics of emotional uptake.

G.: Exactly. It teaches not only what to say, but how the saying licenses certain inferences and blocks others.

S.: Which sounds rather like your own insistence that what is meant outruns what is said.

G.: It is structurally the same territory, though mapped under older names and with much better prose.

S.: Better than Cicero?

G.: In the vernacular, yes. Cicero is admirable but dreary if worshipped too long. He writes for a world that thought Latin would remain itself. Signa writes for a world in which language has already escaped into life.

S.: So Cicero is the rhetoric of the republic; Signa the rhetoric of the living aftermath.

G.: Very good. And the aftermath is always more pragmatically interesting than the original constitution.

S.: Because people now have to infer across variety.

G.: Precisely. Cicero may still imagine that educated Latin carries its own authority. Signa knows that meaning has to navigate local expectations, regional styles, emotional codings, and the vernacular body.

S.: Then the many treatises arise because no one rhetoric can survive the multiplication of contexts.

G.: Yes. Treatises proliferate because speech proliferates socially. One text might suffice if mankind spoke under one sky and to one senate. But once you have Bologna, Venice, courts, communes, chancelleries, love letters, diplomatic letters, episcopal letters, petitions, consolations, and all the rest, rhetoric becomes plural by necessity.

S.: So there is no authorised King James of persuasion because persuasion has no authorised crown.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased. Now, back to the trivium and its triviality.

S.: You still owe me an answer. Which is most trivial?

G.: If by trivial you mean most despised, rhetoric. If you mean most invisible, grammar. If you mean most self-important, logic.

S.: And least dispensable?

G.: In actual human affairs, rhetoric.

S.: Then the most trivial of the trivium is the one civilisation pretends it can do without while secretly relying on it.

G.: Exactly. People think grammar merely mechanical, rhetoric merely ornamental, and logic the only honourable one. In practice grammar keeps the floor from collapsing and rhetoric keeps the guests from leaving.

S.: While logic keeps the philosopher busy.

G.: Usually with furniture. Now, the quadrivium again. What if we did begin there?

S.: We would have more proportion and less address.

G.: More astronomy and worse quarrels.

S.: Better music, perhaps.

G.: Worse sermons certainly.

S.: Bologna would be a university of calculators.

G.: And Oxford a place of instruments without college jokes. Intolerable.

S.: Yet the philosopher might be more mathematically disciplined.

G.: And socially useless. Philosophy that begins in the quadrivium alone becomes seduced by order before it has learned the trouble of persons.

S.: So the old order—trivium first—is a concession to politics.

G.: To humanity. Speech first, measure second. One must first know how humans actually mismanage sense before one is allowed the stars.

S.: That sounds anti-Platonic.

G.: It is anti-idolatrous. One may still admire number later.

S.: Then why do so many philosophers secretly wish the quadrivium came first?

G.: Because number and proportion flatter the fantasy that thought may escape rhetoric.

S.: Which is false.

G.: Utterly. Even the philosopher of mathematics must ask, suggest, omit, contrast, concede, and direct attention. In other words, he must do rhetoric while pretending not to.

S.: Hence your suspicion that pragmatics is rhetoric recovered under an anaesthetic.

G.: Very much so. And Signa proves it because he teaches under other names what we later claim as a discovery.

S.: Such as?

G.: Audience design, inferential expectation, generic cues, tactful omission, strategic excess, role-sensitive address, calibrations of intimacy, all the old arts.

S.: All in medieval epistolography?

G.: Especially there. Letters are laboratories of managed implication.

S.: Then Signa is formulating conversational maxims.

G.: In effect, yes. Not in four neat headings perhaps, but in practical doctrines of how one should speak under this or that role, relation, occasion, and desired effect.

S.: So your maxim of Quantity becomes his rule about how much to say in a petition or a love-letter.

G.: Exactly. Relevance becomes fitness to occasion. Manner becomes decorum plus clarity plus tact. Quality becomes not only truthfulness but genre-suitability. It is all there, just distributed differently.

S.: Then what does Venice add?

G.: Venice adds local complication. A maritime republic with masks, commerce, patrician hierarchies, and civic indirectness does not speak like Cicero’s senate-house or a Tuscan court.

S.: So Signa’s implicatures are Venetian.

G.: At least in flavour, yes. Maritime metaphors, social calibrations, local expectations, a whole rhetorical climate.

S.: Which means Cicero’s maxims would be intolerably dry there.

G.: More than dry—misaligned. Cicero’s art was built for Latin as a public political instrument under republican oratory. Signa writes for a world where letters move among shifting social roles and the vernacular has entered the room.

S.: Then to imitate Cicero too closely in Venice would be like wearing a consul’s toga into a canal.

G.: Splendid. Keep that too.

S.: I seem to be collecting these.

G.: That is the right appetite in rhetoric. Now, you asked why there need be so many rhetorical treatises. Let us answer plainly.

S.: Because there are many communities of implication.

G.: Excellent. And because no single rhetorical scripture can legislate for all of them. The Vulgate and the King James translate one revealed text. Rhetoric does not translate revelation; it manages circumstances.

S.: So revelation may have one authorised text, but prudence needs libraries.

G.: Perfectly done.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become bibliolatrous. Now, what of philosophy’s place relative to the seven liberal arts?

S.: If philosophy is no liberal art, then perhaps it begins where the seven prove insufficient.

G.: Yes. The arts prepare capacities; philosophy reflects on their conditions, limits, and seductions.

S.: Then the philosopher should perhaps indeed begin with the quadrivium and then proceed to the trivium, not because equals , but because order must first be admired and then speech mistrusted.

G.: Ingenious, but wrong. One must first be taught how talk works badly, or one will treat order itself as a rhetoric-free miracle.

S.: So the trivium must still come first because philosophy needs to know the disorders of saying before it can assess the temptations of measure.

G.: Precisely. The philosopher who begins with geometry may become too quickly enamoured of clean deduction. The philosopher who begins with rhetoric knows earlier that human meaning is muddy.

S.: Which is almost an argument for beginning with rhetoric itself.

G.: It is. And perhaps one day a sane university will.

S.: Then grammar and logic become servants of rhetoric?

G.: Not servants, but companions in a dangerous hierarchy. Grammar furnishes the forms, logic disciplines consequence, rhetoric governs uptake. In practice, rhetoric often rules because without uptake the others remain private excellences.

S.: Then the trivium is not three equal roads, but one little republic of unequal powers.

G.: Very good. Grammar is the law, logic the bench, rhetoric the street.

S.: And the quadrivium?

G.: The observatory, the counting-house, the chapel choir, and the geometer’s room.

S.: You make it sound positively habitable.

G.: Only after one has learned to speak in the street. Now, Signa’s title. Rhetorica, not ars dictaminis narrowly, though he teaches that too.

S.: So he wants the larger dignity.

G.: Yes, but in a vernacularly elastic world. He takes the old classical inheritance and bends it toward actual social writing.

S.: Which again is where you think your pragmatics meets him.

G.: Exactly. He knows that meanings are not mechanically encoded. They are produced through patterned expectations, role recognitions, and shared craftsmanship.

S.: Shared craftsmanship is a lovely phrase.

G.: It is also accurate. Conversation is more artisanal than philosophers like to admit.

S.: Then the wheel of Venus is really a wheel of inferential permissions.

G.: Very good. A marvellous phrase, and obscene enough to be medieval.

S.: I shall cherish it.

G.: Briefly. Now, one last return to the order of arts. Suppose we did invert them. What would philosophy lose?

S.: It would lose its early contact with living linguistic practice.

G.: Exactly. It would become proportion before address, harmony before disagreement, astronomy before irony.

S.: And gain?

G.: A dangerous premature confidence in structure.

S.: Which is why is not the right analogy after all.

G.: Yes. Educational sequence is not commutative because dependence is not additive. I give, as I said.

S.: A very English solution.

G.: A very exact one. Number is commutative; formation is not.

S.: Then the old order survives.

G.: Under protest, but yes. The trivial road remains prior because it is the road of mouths and ears.

S.: And Signa, by writing on rhetoric, proves that the least respectable of the arts is often the one nearest to actual philosophy.

G.: Precisely. He teaches how thought enters civic life through address, and that is a philosophically deeper matter than many quadrivial purities.

S.: So the final judgment on rhetoric?

G.: Not the decoration of thought, but the management of shared inferential life among persons.

S.: And on Cicero?

G.: Magnificent, but written under the illusion that Latin would remain his forever.

S.: And on Signa?

G.: Wiser about decay, plurality, local implication, and the vernacular afterlife of intelligence.

S.: And on philosophy?

G.: No liberal art, but a tyrannical dependent of them all.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Florentine, with one Venetian letter still undelivered.

 

 

Grice: Caro Signa, se mi chiedi della “ruota di Venere”, ti dirò che qui a Signa gira più la fantasia che le biciclette! Tra retorica ed epistole amorose, mi sa che la ruota si ferma spesso sul cuore... 

Signa: Ah, Grice, a Firenze dicono che la ruota di Venere porta fortuna agli innamorati, ma a Bologna porta solo lettere d’amore sbagliate! Forse è la colpa dell’ars dictaminis, che fa girare la testa, non la ruota. 

Grice: Del resto, se la ruota di Venere gira troppo, rischia di perdere un bullone... e magari Cupido finisce con l’arco storto! Ma se la ruota si ferma, allora è tempo di scrivere una lettera – magari una d’amicizia, che non si consuma come l’amore, ma dura più a lungo di una gomma nuova. 

Signa: Meravigliosa implicatura, Grice! Hai girato intorno alla ruota senza mai fermarti, e ora capisco perché la retorica è davvero una questione di cuore... e di ruote ben oliate!

 

Verbali: Silio

 

Master.: Very well, gentlemen, we are in the higher class now, and if we are to survive Silius Italicus we must first distinguish our heroes before we begin admiring them.

G.: Aeneas and Scipio, sir.

Shropshire.: I had thought they were much the same once one had stripped them to armour and duty.

Master.: That is exactly the kind of confusion for which schools were invented. Aeneas is Virgil’s Trojan in Italy. Scipio, in Silius, is Roman, anti-Carthaginian, and occasionally dressed up as Hercules by the poet for patriotic enlargement.

Shropshire.: So one is a founder and the other a finisher.

G.: Better, sir, one is a bearer of fate, the other a fulfiller of Roman vengeance.

Master.: Good. Grice may remain. Shropshire may listen. Now, the question before us is whether Aeneas may be called a Stoic hero.

Shropshire.: Without having read the Stoic fragments, sir?

Master.: Very good. Exactly so. No one imagines Aeneas turning pages of Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta under a tree.

G.: Then “Stoic” must mean a type of moral posture rather than a doctrinal subscription.

Master.: Precisely. Endurance, submission to a larger order, command over passion when passion would be easier, and the carrying of burden without theatrical collapse.

Shropshire.: That sounds unpleasantly admirable.

Master.: It is Roman, which is worse. Now, why might someone call Aeneas Stoic?

G.: Because he acts under fatum, sir, but not as a puppet. He is compelled and yet still responsible for how he bears the compulsion.

Master.: Excellent. That is the first point. Stoicism is not laziness before necessity. It is conduct under necessity.

Shropshire.: So when he leaves Dido, he is not cold but obedient.

Master.: That is at least the intended line, yes.

G.: Though the poem takes care to make the obedience costly.

Master.: Exactly. Otherwise he would be merely hard, not heroic. The cost is part of the ethical shape.

Shropshire.: And Dido’s curse?

Master.: Ah yes, the malediction. One of the great moments in which personal injury is made to bear historical destiny.

G.: The curse is not merely private rage, sir. It retroactively feeds the logic of the Punic Wars.

Master.: Very good. That is why Silius matters. He inherits the Virgilian curse as a usable prehistory for Rome and Carthage.

Shropshire.: So one woman’s anger becomes an imperial footnote.

Master.: More than a footnote, though your insolence is serviceable. The curse is the poetic mechanism by which love’s breach becomes history’s enmity.

G.: Which already sounds rather un-Stoic.

Master.: On Dido’s side, yes. She is passion moving into historical vengeance. Aeneas, by contrast, is the one who must leave passion behind in order to obey the larger command.

Shropshire.: Then he is Stoic because he hurts correctly.

Master.: That is coarse, but not wholly false.

G.: There is also pietas, sir.

Master.: Of course. Never omit pietas in a Roman room. Aeneas is Stoic-like not because he lectures on apatheia but because pietas orders him beyond appetite and private delight.

Shropshire.: Is pietas the same as Stoic virtue, sir?

Master.: Not the same. Overlap, not identity. Pietas is Roman relational duty to gods, father, family, destiny, city-to-come. Stoicism supplies the later philosophical language in which endurance under order becomes legible as virtue. One must not flatten the two, but one may let them illuminate one another.

G.: Then Aeneas is Stoic by retrospective moral type, not by doctrinal pedigree.

Master.: Exactly. That is the sentence I wanted and was too tired to form.

Shropshire.: May I write it down as if I had said it?

Master.: No. Grice may. You may borrow it at your peril. Now, Silius and Scipio.

G.: Silius makes Scipio Herculean, sir.

Master.: Yes. Not only victorious, but laborious. Hercules is the ancient shorthand for burdened virtue that civilises through ordeal.

Shropshire.: So Scipio inherits monsters instead of cattle.

Master.: Better. He inherits Hannibal instead of Geryon, if one is willing to be impertinent in Latin.

G.: The comparison to Hercules also enlarges Scipio beyond mere strategy.

Master.: Precisely. He becomes not just a successful general but a morally legible labouring hero.

Shropshire.: And still Roman, not Greek?

Master.: Entirely Roman in destination, though poetry will steal from wherever it pleases. The Herculean comparison is not Hellenising surrender but Roman appropriation.

G.: Then in Silius the heroic ideal is doubled: Aeneas as Stoic-pietistic founder in Virgilian retrospect, Scipio as Herculean fulfiller in national epic.

Master.: Very good.

Shropshire.: I begin to see why one should not confuse them.

Master.: Begin is the right word. Do not yet congratulate yourself. Now, what of the phrase “stoic hero” itself? Is it not slightly vulgar?

G.: It risks anachronism, sir.

Master.: Yes. And yet it may still be heuristically useful if one says exactly what one means: not school membership, but moral physiognomy under fate.

Shropshire.: Physiognomy again.

Master.: Everything returns if one teaches long enough. Now, Aeneas and the porch.

G.: You prefer “porch,” sir, to “Stoicism.”

Master.: I do, because “Stoicism” sounds finished and doctrinal in a way the living image of the stoa resists. The porch is a place of endurance, public speech, rational composure, and a certain architectural exposure. It suits Rome better than a footnote to Chrysippus.

Shropshire.: So Aeneas belongs at the porch because he is seen by others carrying himself under burden.

Master.: Very good. You are getting less useless.

G.: There is also the matter of speech, sir. Aeneas often says less than he feels.

Master.: Yes. Which is Roman and, if one likes, proto-Stoic. Passion is not denied, but governed in manifestation.

Shropshire.: Honest dissimulation?

Master.: That is for another day and another Italian. But yes, disciplined manifestation. A hero who narrates every tremor is no use to an empire.

G.: Then Dido is the counter-example.

Master.: In one sense, yes. She speaks from wound, curse, abandonment, passion, royal injury. She is magnificent, but not porch-like.

Shropshire.: Which is why boys remember her better.

Master.: Naturally. Schools are always crowded with secret Carthaginians. Now, how does Silius use all this?

G.: He takes the old curse and lets it reverberate through the Punica as explanatory pressure.

Master.: Exactly. Dido’s malediction becomes not a magical mechanism but a narratively managed sign that the conflict is larger than ordinary policy.

Shropshire.: Like a family quarrel continued by naval means.

Master.: Coarse again, but useful. Epic loves to make state conflict look like prolonged personal memory.

G.: Then Scipio as Hercules answers not only Hannibal, but the curse itself.

Master.: Very good. He becomes the laboring counter-force to inherited enmity.

Shropshire.: And where is philosophy in all this, sir? Other than in Grice’s face.

Master.: The philosophy lies in the moral grammar of heroism. What counts as admirable under necessity? How does one act when the course is fixed but the bearing remains one’s own? That is the point at which epic and the porch shake hands.

G.: So fate does not abolish agency; it sharpens the style of agency.

Master.: Excellent. That is nearly Marcus Aurelius, though better dressed.

Shropshire.: Then Aeneas as Stoic hero means not “Aeneas subscribes to a doctrine,” but “Aeneas exemplifies conduct under an intelligible order greater than private desire.”

Master.: Good. Grice, write that down before he loses it.

G.: Already done, sir.

Shropshire.: This is why nobody likes him.

Master.: On the contrary, this is why masters do. Now, fatum. Does the existence of fatum make Aeneas less heroic?

G.: No, sir, because the heroism lies not in inventing the end but in consenting to it at cost.

Master.: Yes. One may even say that if the path were merely chosen among pleasures, there would be less heroism, not more.

Shropshire.: So freedom is not selecting the destination but governing the self on the road.

Master.: Better than I expected.

G.: Then this also explains why the curse matters. It turns history into burden rather than mere sequence.

Master.: Exactly. The curse makes the later Roman-Carthaginian struggle feel morally and affectively charged from the beginning.

Shropshire.: Which means Silius inherits not just events but emotional capital.

Master.: Good. You may keep that phrase for once. Epic history is always emotional capital under metre.

G.: And Silius, being lawyer enough and poet enough, knows how to convert inherited emotion into civic exemplarity.

Master.: Splendid. That is exactly what he does with Scipio. He does not merely narrate campaigns; he furnishes Rome with an exemplum under literary enlargement.

Shropshire.: Why Hercules, though? Why not simply leave him as Scipio?

Master.: Because “Scipio” names a Roman man; “Hercules” names a transhistorical grammar of labour, suffering, monster-clearing, and reward. To call Scipio Herculean is not decoration; it is a controlled invitation to draw the right inferences.

G.: About toil, endurance, civil service through suffering.

Master.: Yes. Epic works by licensed overmeaning. The hearer is expected to complete the significance.

Shropshire.: That sounds like your word, Grice.

G.: It often does where good literature is concerned.

Master.: Let us not have the philosophy boy become insufferable. Now, what of Scipio as “the naked hero,” as some later note has it?

G.: Naked in the sense of stripped to virtue, sir, not merely to anatomy.

Shropshire.: Disappointing.

Master.: You are what Virgil called a lower appetite. Yes, naked in the sense that heroic identity is exposed through labour rather than ornament.

G.: Which again supports the Herculean frame.

Master.: Entirely. Hercules is admirable not because he is dressed well but because he carries, suffers, and persists.

Shropshire.: Like a prefect under bad weather.

Master.: If prefects killed lions, perhaps. Now, back to Aeneas. Could one call him Stoic without Didonic residue?

G.: I do not think so, sir. The cost of leaving Dido is part of what makes the obedience morally interesting rather than merely administrative.

Master.: Very good. The wound in the private sphere gives depth to the public destiny.

Shropshire.: So if he had left her cheerfully, he would be less stoic and more monstrous.

Master.: Precisely. The porch is not made of indifference but of governed pain.

G.: Then there is a danger in saying “Aeneas as Stoic hero” too quickly. One may make him sound bloodless.

Master.: Yes, and that is why schools should prefer the porch. It lets one speak of discipline without suggesting a machine of serenity.

Shropshire.: I rather like the machine of serenity.

Master.: Of course you do. You have never governed anything but your own laziness. Now, how does Scipio differ philosophically from Aeneas?

G.: Aeneas is the bearer of founding fate; Scipio is the executor of national rescue. Aeneas carries a future city; Scipio restores an existing commonwealth under external threat.

Master.: Excellent. And therefore?

G.: Therefore Scipio’s labour can more readily be figured Herculean, while Aeneas’s can more readily be figured Stoic-pietistic.

Master.: Exactly. Hercules suits public toil against monsters and enemies. The porch suits inward composure under command and burden.

Shropshire.: Then if one swapped them—Aeneas as Hercules and Scipio as Stoic—it would not quite work.

Master.: It would work only clumsily. Aeneas does have Herculean moments of burden, but his essence in the poem is pious endurance under destiny. Scipio may be prudent and restrained, but Silius wants enlarged labour and exemplarity. The poetic economies differ.

G.: There is also the Virgilian background, sir. Silius is reading through Virgil.

Master.: Entirely. He buys Virgil’s tomb, if you please, and behaves like a devout inheritor of epic authority. He cannot write Scipio without hearing Aeneas behind him.

Shropshire.: So Scipio is in part a Roman correction of Trojan melancholy.

Master.: That is very good indeed.

G.: Thank you, sir—though it was Shropshire.

Master.: Then a miracle has occurred. We shall record it. Now, what of Dido’s curse as philosophical rather than merely poetic?

G.: It shows how personal speech can become historical force within epic causality, sir, without ceasing to be legible as pain.

Master.: Yes. The curse is not merely magical doom. It is a narrative concentration of memory, grievance, and future hostility.

Shropshire.: So Carthage remembers through her.

Master.: In poetic logic, yes. The private voice becomes public inheritance.

G.: Which is why later Rome must answer not only Hannibal but an old injustice felt as still alive.

Master.: Exactly. That gives the Punic struggle moral temperature beyond strategy.

Shropshire.: Then philosophy of history and poetry become awkward neighbours.

Master.: They often are. Epic makes history intelligible by moral and symbolic patterns that no archive alone could supply.

G.: And Stoicism, in the broad sense, gives one a way of reading heroic suffering as rationally ordered without reducing it to mere obedience.

Master.: Very good. That is the real gain of the comparison.

Shropshire.: I think I finally know my Aeneas from my Scipio.

Master.: Then the class has not been wasted. State the difference.

Shropshire.: Aeneas is Stoic-like because he bears fate under pietas and leaves private desire at cost. Scipio is Herculean because Silius makes him the labouring solver of Rome’s inherited enmity, under epic enlargement.

Master.: Excellent.

G.: And Dido’s curse?

Master.: Go on, since you have begun well.

Shropshire.: Dido’s curse turns injured passion into historical momentum, which Silius inherits as part of the meaning of the Punic wars.

Master.: Better than many printed books. Grice, your final addition?

G.: Only that “Stoic hero” should be heard as retrospective moral type, not doctrinal subscription; otherwise we teach the fragments where we ought to teach the poem.

Master.: Precisely. Clifton is not a seminary for anachronism.

Shropshire.: Though it resembles one at meals.

Master.: Silence. One final sentence each. Grice?

G.: Aeneas is heroic because fate does not spare him the need to govern himself.

Master.: Shropshire?

Shropshire.: Scipio is heroic because labour in Silius is made to look like a Roman answer to myth.

Master.: And mine: the porch matters because it gives us a language for conduct under burden, while epic gives us the burden. That will do. Now you may go, and if either of you confuses Aeneas with Scipio again, I shall assign the whole of the Punica and call it kindness.

 

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Silī! Audīvī tē Rōmae Scīpiōnem tamquam Herculēm canere, et Dionis maledictionem quasi condimentum carminis addere. Num etiam in foro versūs tuī causās vincunt?

SILIVS: Salvē, Grice. In foro verba iūrantur, in carmine volant. Sed Scīpiō—ille vere laborāvit; ego tantum labōrēs eius numerō et in hexametrōs compingō.

GRICEVS: Ita est. (Sed mirum quam saepe apud nōs, dum de factīs disserimus, ipsa ratio narrandī rem vincat: nam ubi “Herculem” nominās, audītōr iam ante triumphat, et maledictiō ipsa, quae terrēre posset, fit quasi titulus ad recitandum.) Dic ergo: cum “Scīpiōnem-Herculēm” pingis, sacrificiumne magis ostendis an gloriam?

SILIVS: O inplicatūram dīvīnam, Grice! Nam intellegō quid subesset: nōn tantum quid dicāmus, sed quō modō dicāmus facit ut vir paulatim deus videātur; et maledictiō, quae olim pondus habuit, in carmine saepe tantum sonet—Dionēm verberante, sed Scīpiōne rīdente.

 

Verbali: Silla

 

Master.: Very well, boys, if we are to do Sulla at all, we must do him in order.

G.: Sir, I should have thought that depends on what one means by order.

Shropshire.: I should have thought it depends on whether one starts with the death.

Master.: The death? We have not yet reached the birth.

Shropshire.: That is exactly why it would be fresher, sir.

G.: It would also be statistically unsound.

Master.: What do you mean by statistically unsound, Grice?

G.: That one ought first to have the basic particulars, sir. Name, gens, offices, campaigns, dates, marriages if one must, children if anyone insists, and only then the opinions or dicta.

Shropshire.: Sulla’s opinions may have arrived before his marriages, sir.

Master.: That is very likely true, but not useful. The question is whether one begins with life and opinions, life and deeds, or life and death.

G.: Life and deeds, sir.

Shropshire.: Life and death, sir. Opinions are usually what masters add when the deeds have become awkward.

Master.: That is dangerously intelligent, Shropshire. Grice, why life and deeds?

G.: Because Sulla is historically legible first through acts, sir. Dictatorship, proscriptions, constitutional reforms, resigning the dictatorship, and dying at Cuma in a fashion which some say was dramatic enough even without Plutarch.

Shropshire.: The death at Cuma is the best opening, sir. A man who retires from absolute power and dies by the sea is already asking to be read backward.

Master.: That sounds suspiciously like literature.

G.: Which is exactly why it should be postponed, sir.

Master.: Good. I am glad one of you still believes in chronology. Yet the title before us is Dicta. That makes opinions difficult to avoid.

Shropshire.: Only because someone else collected them, sir.

G.: Quite. A dictum is already a posthumous convenience.

Master.: Now that is a useful phrase. A posthumous convenience. But if we are analysing “the life and opinions,” are opinions really the right second term?

G.: I doubt it, sir. Sulla’s sayings are less opinions than compressed attitudes.

Shropshire.: Or threats with Latin endings.

Master.: Also not wholly wrong. Then perhaps life and deeds?

G.: Yes, sir.

Shropshire.: Unless the dictum alters the deed.

Master.: Explain.

Shropshire.: If Sulla says felicity belongs to those who seize, then the saying becomes part of the deed’s meaning, sir.

G.: Only retrospectively.

Shropshire.: All reading is retrospective, Grice.

Master.: That is enough philosophy before first break. Let us keep to the Romans. What are the basic particulars, Grice?

G.: Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, sir. Born at Rome, died at Cumae. Cornelian gens. Quaestor, praetor, proconsular commands, consul, dictator. Jugurthine War, Cimbrian matters, civil wars, Mithridatic business, the usual inconveniences.

Shropshire.: You make him sound like a timetable, Grice.

G.: Better a timetable than a legend.

Master.: And yet legend is precisely what we must resist without becoming duller than the facts. Now, what of “life and death”?

Shropshire.: It has dramatic economy, sir.

Master.: Which is not automatically a virtue.

Shropshire.: It is at Clifton, sir, where economy of suffering is admired.

Master.: Watch yourself. Why death first?

Shropshire.: Because Sulla’s death reframes the whole. A dictator who abdicates, retires, writes, and dies away from the centre is already in argument with his own career.

G.: Or merely resting after it.

Shropshire.: You always prefer furniture to irony.

G.: I prefer sequence to melodrama.

Master.: And I prefer both of you to keep still long enough for me to decide whether we are reading history or moral grammar. What of “life and opinions”?

G.: Too philosophical, sir.

Shropshire.: Too modern, sir.

Master.: Good. The very agreement alarms me. Why too modern?

G.: Because “opinions” suggests a man with articles of belief rather than one with actions, maxims, expedients, and constitutional habits.

Shropshire.: And because one does not really want Sulla’s opinions so much as one wants a few hard sayings to make the biography bite.

Master.: Yes. “Opinions” is too newspaper-like. A Roman statesman is better approached through consilia, acta, dicta, not opinions. We shall keep that. Now, if one says “life and deeds,” what is missing?

Shropshire.: The after-sound, sir.

Master.: Meaning?

Shropshire.: The sayings. The little verbal things by which a later age pretends to hear the man himself.

G.: Which is dangerous precisely because they are so useful.

Master.: Excellent. Then perhaps the proper formula is life, deeds, and dicta.

Shropshire.: Too many d’s, sir.

G.: Not enough chronology, sir.

Master.: Both objections are worthless. Let us try another route. Suppose one begins with the saying about books.

G.: You mean the Aristotelian books, sir.

Master.: I do. He seizes Apellicon’s collection, brings it to Rome, and Tyrannion later sorts it, with consequences for what we now call the Metaphysics.

Shropshire.: A splendid opening, sir. Sulla, conqueror of Greece, importer of Aristotle, accidental godfather of metaphysics.

G.: Too accidental, sir.

Master.: Yet it has classroom allure. “What comes after the Physics” becomes a category from shelving. That is a fine Roman irony.

Shropshire.: Better than starting with Jugurtha.

G.: Not for chronology.

Master.: You are incorrigible. Still, the books matter. They let us see that Sulla’s life is not only military and constitutional but editorial by theft.

Shropshire.: A phrase worthy of a motto, sir.

Master.: Not worthy, but serviceable. And it would justify him in a Latin class better than the proscriptions would.

G.: Sir, surely the proscriptions also justify him, in a negative grammatical sense.

Master.: Negative grammar is not our current concern. What we need is something to make boys remember that Roman history is not merely names and slaughter.

Shropshire.: Then give them books and a motto, sir.

Master.: What motto?

Shropshire.: That fortune favours not merely the brave but the cataloguer.

G.: That is not Sulla, sir.

Master.: No, but it ought to have been. Did Sulla have a dictum fit for school use?

G.: Felix Sulla, perhaps, sir.

Master.: That is less a dictum than a self-advertisement.

Shropshire.: He might have said that no man who cannot command should read Aristotle.

Master.: He did not, unfortunately. Though it has the smell of him.

G.: There is always Plutarch’s moral atmosphere, sir.

Master.: Which is precisely what I mistrust in school use. We need a sentence, not a cloud. What of resignation?

Shropshire.: A dictator who resigns is already a dictum in action, sir.

G.: Which would support life and deeds.

Master.: It would. A deed can sometimes function as an opinion in public. That is worth keeping. Now, if we were to organise an essay, what headings?

G.: Basic particulars, sir. Offices. Campaigns. Constitutional actions. Retirement. Death. Then dicta as illustrative rather than governing.

Shropshire.: Death. Retirement. Constitutional actions. Dicta. Then the earlier life only as explanation of how he became the sort of man who could do the rest.

Master.: So one of you wants annals and the other a reverse-engineered tragedy.

G.: I do not want annals, sir. I want intelligibility.

Shropshire.: I do not want tragedy, sir. I want shape.

Master.: Good. Then perhaps the lesson is that history needs both sequence and shape, which is an irritating thing to admit at Clifton. Now, what of “opinions” again? Could we save it under a Roman term?

G.: Sententiae, perhaps, sir.

Shropshire.: Maxims, sir. They sound meaner.

Master.: “Life and maxims” has charm, but not enough stature. “Life and sentences” sounds criminal. “Life and dicta” is tolerable, but schoolboys hate Latin on title pages unless it leads to blood.

G.: There is blood regardless, sir.

Master.: An unfortunate Roman abundance. Now, Shropshire, since you insist on the death, what do we gain by beginning there?

Shropshire.: We gain release from the illusion that the career was only upward, sir. Sulla’s end at Cuma, after resignation, turns the whole life into a question about power and its limit.

G.: Or its exhaustion.

Shropshire.: Exactly. And then one asks not merely what he did, but why he stopped.

Master.: Good. That is genuine historical curiosity. Grice, what do we lose by starting there?

G.: The sense of becoming, sir. Without the earlier offices and wars, the abdication appears theatrical rather than intelligible.

Master.: Excellent. So the death is interpretively rich but genetically poor.

Shropshire.: That is too neat, sir.

Master.: That is why it may survive. Now, one of you mentioned Mozart.

Shropshire.: I did, sir. If there is an opera, there must be a school use.

G.: There is Mozart’s Lucio Silla, sir.

Master.: Ah yes. And what are we to do with Mozart in Latin class?

Shropshire.: Use him to prove that Sulla survives by turning into music once history has become too strict.

G.: That is absurd.

Shropshire.: Which is why it would be memorable.

Master.: We must not turn the sixth form into a theatre, tempting though it is. Still, Mozart’s existence proves something.

G.: That Sulla had afterlife beyond historians, sir.

Master.: Precisely. And that “life and deeds” may not exhaust reception.

Shropshire.: So perhaps “life, deeds, and afterlives,” sir.

G.: That is far too broad.

Master.: For this classroom, yes. But worth noting. History is what happened, and what later ages decided was worth singing. Now, what would Sulla himself have preferred?

G.: Deeds, sir.

Shropshire.: Reputation, sir.

Master.: A sensible division. And the master?

G.: Basic particulars first, sir.

Shropshire.: Death first, sir.

Master.: You have both said that often enough. Let us refine it. Suppose I assign “The Life and Deeds of Sulla.”

Shropshire.: Then the clever boy begins with Cuma anyway.

Master.: And if I assign “The Life and Death of Sulla”?

G.: Then the lazy boy ignores the constitution.

Master.: Quite right. “Life and Opinions”?

Shropshire.: Then no boy knows what an opinion is.

G.: Least of all in Rome, sir.

Master.: Very good. So the title itself must teach. What about “Sulla: Career, Dictatorship, and Dicta”?

G.: Better, sir.

Shropshire.: Uglier, sir.

Master.: Ugliness is often educational. Now, Grice, give me one dictum suitable for a schoolboy if we can find one.

G.: That he preferred to seem fortunate rather than merely successful, sir.

Master.: That is paraphrase, not dictum.

Shropshire.: “Felix” is enough, sir. One word and half the room begins to distrust him.

Master.: Excellent. Sulla Felix. There is our first motto. A man who styles himself fortunate already invites inquiry as to whether fortune or force did more.

G.: And whether luck is a property or merely retrospective flattery, sir.

Master.: Spare us your philosophy of luck for the moment. Still, yes. “Felix” is a way of shifting responsibility from merit to destiny without ever giving up either.

Shropshire.: Very Roman, sir.

Master.: Very. Now the books again. How would one make the Aristotelian episode fit a school essay?

G.: By saying that Sulla’s career intersects not only Roman power but the later history of philosophy through the transport of texts, sir.

Master.: Good. Shropshire?

Shropshire.: By saying that he conquered Greece twice: first by arms, then by shelving.

Master.: Insolent, but useful. That shall stay in my private notes. Now, would either of you risk “life and opinions” if one replaced opinions with views on constitution?

G.: No, sir. Too narrow.

Shropshire.: Yes, sir, if one wished to make him sound almost modern and therefore slightly false.

Master.: Which is a good reason not to. Roman men of action do not have “views” in the schoolboy sense. They have offices, measures, enemies, precedents, and a style of hardness.

G.: And dicta only later, sir.

Master.: Exactly. The dicta crystallise the style after the fact. Then our order should perhaps be: life, deeds, constitutional acts, retirement, death, dicta.

Shropshire.: A little too reasonable, sir.

Master.: That is often my failing. Yet we may allow a dramatic opening sentence on the death.

G.: Provided the chronology recovers at once, sir.

Master.: Yes, Grice, I shall not abandon the calendar entirely. Now, if we quote a dictum in Latin class, should it be in Latin?

Shropshire.: Naturally, sir. Otherwise the boys will think Rome happened in translation.

Master.: Good. But which Latin?

G.: Felix enough, sir.

Master.: “Felix” is admirable because it is short, cruel, self-congratulatory, and semantically unstable.

Shropshire.: Almost like a prefect.

Master.: You are determined to spoil every decent thing. Still, semantic instability is useful. Was he fortunate, happy, blessed, successful, favoured, or merely brazen enough to say so?

G.: Exactly, sir. The word opens rather than closes.

Master.: Which is why it belongs. And if we mention Mozart?

Shropshire.: Only at the end, sir, as proof that a Roman can become opera once the blood dries.

Master.: Very well. “Even Mozart found use for him.” That will do. Grice, can you live with that?

G.: Reluctantly, sir.

Master.: Good. Reluctance is often the beginning of education. Now, what of Mommsen?

G.: Sir?

Master.: If one says anything original on Sulla, one should be prepared for the possibility that someone German has objected first.

Shropshire.: Then it is safer to say nothing original, sir.

Master.: That is the motto of the bad scholar. We shall not adopt it. Instead we shall note that Sulla’s life requires both fact and arrangement, deeds and after-sense, and perhaps one or two sayings if they carry the right weight.

G.: Then not life and opinions, sir.

Master.: No. That phrase is dead. Life and deeds remains the classroom spine.

Shropshire.: With death as prologue, sir.

Master.: With death as opening temptation, perhaps. I shall allow a paragraph.

G.: That is statistically tolerable, sir.

Master.: I am relieved to have your permission. Now, one last question. Why should a Latin class care for Sulla beyond violence and names?

G.: Because he stands at the crossing of Roman action and the later transmission of Greek philosophy, sir.

Shropshire.: Because he proves that a dictator may accidentally improve the library, sir.

Master.: Both answers are serviceable, one more decent than the other. Very well. The essay shall be: “Sulla: Life, Deeds, and One or Two Dangerous Dicta.”

G.: That is not a proper title, sir.

Master.: It is now.

Shropshire.: Then may I begin with Cuma?

Master.: You may begin with Cuma if, by the second paragraph, you have returned to Rome, offices, and chronology.

G.: Thank you, sir.

Master.: Do not thank me. Thank Sulla for resigning dramatically enough to tempt schoolboys into structure.

Shropshire.: And Mozart, sir?

Master.: Yes, and Mozart, if you can keep him to a sentence and avoid humming.

G.: Dry enough, sir?

Master.: Sufficiently Cliftonian, with one Roman corpse properly indexed.

 

 

GRICEVS: Salve, Silla! Audivi te libros Aristotelis ex Asia ad urbem transtulisse. Dic mihi, quid invenisti post physica?

SILLA: Griceus, post physica inveni libros qui tractant de anima, de caelo, de generatione et corruption. Sed in his, quod mirum, philosophia transit a natura ad res humanas: quae post physicam sequuntur, praeter naturam, ad mores et mentem hominum spectant.

GRICEVS: Praeclare, Silla! Sic Aristoteles non solum naturam, sed etiam animam, civitatem, et felicitatem investigavit. Forsitan, haec "meta physica" sunt initium sapientiae Romanae—ubi scientia fit ars vivendi in urbe.

SILLA: Recte dicis, Griceus. In Roma, etiam post physica, libris, et disputationibus, sapientiam petimus non ut finiatur sed ut semper iterum incipiat—quia verae quaestiones semper post physica latent.

Verbali: Silla

 

G.: Let us begin with a complaint. Oxford never had her Petrarca.

S.: You mean no one at Oxford ever made the recovery of antiquity into a vocation rather than an inheritance.

G.: Precisely. Oxford inherited Latin, cited Cicero, mumbled Virgil, and mislaid manuscripts by the civilised dozen. But she never had a Petrarca in the strong sense: no hunter of codices who made the old world new by seeking it out again.

S.: Bologna did not quite have him either, though she had better excuses.

G.: Yes. Bologna had law, gloss, comment, authority, university habit. Petrarca belongs to a different restlessness. He is not a man of institutional custody, but of recovery.

S.: Which is why you insist we never mention the poems.

G.: Quite. The poems are for students of Italian literature, a minor art sustained by departments. We are after something nobler: the textual apparatus, the manuscript chase, the editorial conscience, the recovery of the classics as an intellectual act.

S.: So Petrarca matters because he turned antiquity into work.

G.: Exactly. He does not merely admire the ancients; he labours for them. He collates, copies, searches, writes to the dead, restores, compares, complains, and in the process teaches Europe that the old world is not simply there but must be rewon.

S.: Which is already philosophical for you.

G.: Entirely. The recovery of texts is the recovery of reasons once spoken, and therefore of possibilities of thought once alive.

S.: Then Oxford’s failure was not lack of Latinity but lack of urgency.

G.: Very good. Oxford had enough Latin to pass examinations and enough Aristotle to produce schools. What she lacked was Petrarchan hunger.

S.: No mountain-climbing for codices.

G.: Exactly. No letters announcing ecstatic discovery of neglected books. No sense that every manuscript found is a civilisation partially restored.

S.: Whereas Petrarca acts as if antiquity were half-buried and morally recoverable.

G.: Yes. And that is where the Renaissance really begins—not in styles of ornament, but in the conviction that old books are not dead authorities but recoverable voices.

S.: Which is why “everything old is new again” is not mere slogan.

G.: Quite. It is a philological programme. The newness lies not in novelty of composition but in renewed access. A forgotten text, once restored, becomes intellectually new by being old again.

S.: Then Petrarca is less a poet than a technology of recollection.

G.: Better. A human technology of recollection. He makes memory active, mobile, acquisitive, editorial.

S.: And for you that belongs directly to philosophy.

G.: Naturally. Philosophy depends on texts not merely as containers of doctrine but as occasions of rational conversation across time.

S.: Hence the seminar you want to give on Petrarca’s implicatures.

G.: Exactly. For once the codex is found and the text restored, the old author can begin meaning again. And those meanings are not exhausted by what lies on the surface of the page.

S.: So even textual criticism is a condition of implicature.

G.: Entirely. If the line is corrupt, the implicature may be mangled. If the manuscript tradition is mismanaged, the shades of emphasis, irony, allusion, withheld judgment, and rhetorical pressure may vanish.

S.: Then the apparatus criticus is not mere scholastic plumbing.

G.: No. It is one of civilisation’s main moral instruments.

S.: You should put that on the seminar notice.

G.: I probably shall. It will ensure poor attendance and good memory.

S.: Then let us say why Oxford lacked a Petrarca. Was it because Oxford never had to lose Rome in the same way?

G.: That is part of it. Petrarca feels the distance from the ancients as a wound to be healed. Oxford more often felt antiquity as curriculum.

S.: So for Petrarca the classics are missing; for Oxford they are assigned.

G.: Excellent. Assigned antiquity never quite generates the same ardour as recovered antiquity.

S.: Which is why the Grand Tour mattered later.

G.: Yes, though by then the whole thing had become more social and less urgent. The Grand Tour sends young Englishmen to Italy to acquire polish, ruins, marbles, and corrected vowels. Petrarca had already taught Europe that Italy housed not only stones but sleeping books.

S.: So the Grand Tour consumer arrives after the Petrarchan producer.

G.: Exactly. The one consumes visible antiquity; the other recovers textual antiquity.

S.: Then the post-Grand Tour inherits both: Italy as aesthetic correction and Italy as archive.

G.: Very good. And by our own time, Oxford enjoys the results while forgetting the labour.

S.: Which is why you sound aggrieved.

G.: Only historically aggrieved. I am quite happy to let Italy keep Petrarca, so long as Oxford admits the debt.

S.: Then what specific efforts of Petrarca matter most to your seminar?

G.: The search for manuscripts, certainly. The recovery of Ciceronian material, the cultivation of letters as living commerce with antiquity, the insistence on textual correctness, the consciousness that scribal transmission can deform understanding and must be repaired.

S.: So the editorial thing, as you call it, is central.

G.: Absolutely. One does not begin with theories of literature. One begins with the codex, the hand, the variant, the lacuna, the false reading, the true restoration.

S.: Which sounds nearly monastic.

G.: Better than nearly. It is monastic labour repurposed by humanist hunger.

S.: And that repurposing is what Oxford lacked.

G.: Yes. Oxford had custodians. Petrarca is not a custodian but an awakener.

S.: Then what is philosophically at stake in the manuscript tradition?

G.: Continuity of rational possibility. A corrupted text may narrow or falsify what an old author can be taken to have meant. A restored text reopens meanings otherwise inaccessible.

S.: So your “Petrarca’s implicatures” are not whimsical after all.

G.: Of course not. Once the text is legible, one can ask what is implied, alluded, sharpened, softened, withheld, or obliquely managed in the revived speech of antiquity.

S.: And why they cannot be cancelled.

G.: Yes. Because certain implicatures in learned humanist writing are not ad hoc frills but structurally bound to the very act of recovery. To restore Cicero is already to imply that one’s own age has fallen short. To write to the ancients as living interlocutors is to imply that contemporary institutions are not enough.

S.: So the recovery itself is an implicature.

G.: Splendid. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself.

S.: Only archivally.

G.: Better. Now, when you say “cannot be cancelled,” what do you mean precisely?

S.: That there are consequences of Petrarca’s textual posture which no explicit disclaimer can entirely remove. If he says, “I merely edit,” the very labour of editing still implies a valuation of the past over the present, or at least a present deficiency to be remedied by the past.

G.: Exactly. The implicature is woven into the practice. He can deny nostalgia, but the recovery still means more than retrieval.

S.: So the whole philological act carries a non-cancellable comparative judgment.

G.: Very good. And there is another. By preferring original sources, by chasing older witnesses, by distrusting inherited compilations, he implies that authority is not the same as transmission.

S.: Which is devastating for lazy scholasticism.

G.: Precisely. The oldest book may be less available than the most cited one, and yet more authoritative. That is a revolution in learned conscience.

S.: Which again Oxford later receives as method without reliving its drama.

G.: Yes. Our dons cite critical editions the way people use taps, forgetting the aqueduct.

S.: Then your seminar ought really to be on the aqueduct.

G.: On Petrarch as aqueduct-builder, yes.

S.: Not a bad subtitle.

G.: Better than most. Now, what of Bologna?

S.: Bologna had text and commentary, but in a juristic and scholastic mode. Petrarca’s relation to antiquity is less institutional, more elective, almost erotic in the textual sense.

G.: Quite. He pursues old books not because the curriculum demands them, but because his own sense of civil and intellectual life does.

S.: So if Oxford never had her Petrarca, Bologna had perhaps too much apparatus and too little yearning.

G.: That is unkind, but not wholly false.

S.: Unkindness is sometimes required by comparison.

G.: Very likely. Then the later English relation to Italy becomes doubly derivative: first from Petrarca’s recovery, then from the Grand Tour’s consumption.

S.: Which is why Pater and others matter later.

G.: Yes, but let us not drift into visual culture. Here we stay with codices, editors, letters, apparatus.

S.: Very well. Then one might say Petrarca made antiquity newly legible by refusing to trust the available text as the final text.

G.: Excellent. And that refusal is philosophical in the deepest sense, because it is a refusal of second-handness.

S.: So the humanist is a critic of transmission before he is a stylist.

G.: Precisely. Style comes later, or at least second. First comes textual conscience.

S.: Which is what departments of Italian literature often forget when they rush to lyric inwardness.

G.: Departments forget many things, but yes. The poems may dazzle, but the editorial labour civilises.

S.: Then your anti-poetic restriction is itself a Petrarchan severity.

G.: I prefer to think so. Now, let us consider how a manuscript tradition creates implicature.

S.: Through variants, certainly. A reading in one witness may sharpen irony; another may flatten it. Marginalia may expose a reception; punctuation may create or dissolve pressure.

G.: Exactly. Humanists know that what is said depends on what is actually there, and what is meant often depends on tiny textual decisions.

S.: So one could say that textual criticism is the precondition of pragmatic criticism.

G.: Very good. Without a stable text there is no responsible account of what the author might have made available to a competent reader.

S.: Then why “cannot be cancelled”?

G.: Because once Petrarca undertakes recovery, the act itself implicates a theory of culture: namely that the present must re-enter conversation with the past, and that the past speaks with a freshness the present has partly lost.

S.: Even if Petrarca were to say, “I do not mean to rebuke my age.”

G.: Exactly. The rebuke is structurally there. To recover Cicero is already to imply that your own prose world has been badly housed.

S.: To recover Livy is to imply a deficiency of civic memory.

G.: Yes. And to edit attentively is to imply that careless transmission is a civil failure.

S.: Which makes philology look almost moral.

G.: It is moral. Exactness about texts is exactness about inherited reason.

S.: Then Oxford’s lack of a Petrarca means that Oxford entered humanism already after its founding labour had been done elsewhere.

G.: Precisely. Oxford becomes heir rather than initiator. She can teach, gloss, admire, and later examine, but she does not invent the hunger.

S.: That is quite a loss.

G.: It is. Though every university loses something by being founded too securely.

S.: So Petrarca belongs to that rare class of figures who make a university possible without being of one.

G.: Very well put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Again, do not become pleased.

S.: I am only codicologically content.

G.: Better. Now, what of the seminar itself? How shall we describe Petrarca’s implicatures?

S.: First, the implicature of recovery: that the ancient author is worth more direct hearing than the intervening summaries.

G.: Good.

S.: Second, the implicature of correction: that current learning has become careless enough to require philological repair.

G.: Excellent.

S.: Third, the implicature of companionship: that the dead are to be treated as interlocutors, not relics.

G.: Splendid. That one will please me personally.

S.: Fourth, the implicature of rebuke: that one’s age is judged by its fidelity to its textual inheritance.

G.: Very good.

S.: Fifth, the implicature of renewal: that oldness, once recovered, becomes a species of intellectual newness.

G.: Exactly. “Everything old is new again” is not decorative; it is methodological.

S.: Because the new lies not in novelty but in renewed access.

G.: Perfect. That should go in the opening paragraph.

S.: Then perhaps the seminar title is “Petrarchan Recovery and the Non-Cancellability of Humanist Implicature.”

G.: Hideous enough to attract the right people.

S.: Which are?

G.: Those with bad shoes and decent Latin.

S.: Oxford will provide some.

G.: Fewer than one would hope. Now, what do we say about the editorial apparatus?

S.: That it is not appendage but argument. The apparatus criticus shows the labour by which a reading is secured, and therefore the labour by which an old voice becomes newly available.

G.: Very good. The apparatus is a visible conscience.

S.: Which again Oxford uses while pretending not to notice.

G.: Like electricity. One only notices the apparatus when it fails.

S.: Then Petrarca’s greatness lies partly in making failure visible.

G.: Exactly. He teaches Europe to see that texts have fallen, that they may be restored, and that restoration is not mechanical but judgment-laden.

S.: Which is philosophical because judgment under uncertainty is philosophical.

G.: Entirely. Philology is one of philosophy’s elder practical cousins.

S.: One seldom hears that in faculty meetings.

G.: Faculty meetings are designed to conceal family resemblance. Now, why leave the poems aside?

S.: Because they have monopolised Petrarca’s reception too often, and because the seminar aims at recovery as intellectual practice rather than lyric prestige.

G.: Exactly. Poetry has already received more than its ration of undergraduates. We are interested in the making of antiquity available.

S.: Which is perhaps the most un-Englishly Italian thing about Petrarca.

G.: Yes. He turns old letters into living pressure.

S.: And this is what Oxford never quite did for herself.

G.: No. Oxford could preserve, but Petrarca recovered. There is a difference between keeping a key and deciding to open the door.

S.: That is nearly too neat.

G.: It is exact enough to survive.

S.: Then one last question. Does Petrarca also imply a theory of the editor?

G.: Certainly. The editor is not a neutral clerk but a responsible mediator between the dead and the living.

S.: Which again makes the work philosophical.

G.: Profoundly so. Mediation, judgment, fidelity, restoration, intelligibility—these are not mere technicalities.

S.: Then the anti-poetic seminar is in fact a seminar on intellectual ethics.

G.: That is well said.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become ethically inflated. Now, the final contrast with the Grand Tour.

S.: The Grand Tour collects visible antiquity as experience. Petrarca recovers textual antiquity as interlocution.

G.: Excellent. The tourist returns with objects; the humanist returns with restored speech.

S.: And the post-Grand Tour inherits both, but often prefers the object.

G.: Which is why we must rebalance the thing.

S.: In favour of manuscripts, collations, variants, letters, and the living dead.

G.: Exactly. Those are the true souvenirs of civilisation.

S.: Then the final word on Oxford and Petrarca?

G.: Oxford never had her Petrarca because she received antiquity too securely and too institutionally. Petrarca had to recover what Oxford later presumed. That is why we owe him more than admiration: we owe him the very conditions under which old texts can speak again.

S.: And their implicatures?

G.: Once recovered, they cannot be cancelled because the act of recovery itself means more than it says: it implies loss, judgment, renewal, and a standing claim of the past upon the present.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Paduan, with one Oxford library key still unused.

 

 

Grice: Caro Silla, ho letto della tua polemica contro Martorelli e la questione sulla fondazione di Partenope: tra fenici e greci, direi che a Napoli le origini sono sempre più complicate della ricetta della pastiera! 

Silla: Grice, tu sai bene che qui a Napoli la verità si trova tra le pieghe di storia e folclore: come dire, tra la sirena Partenope e una buona dose di polemica, tutto diventa più saporito—e se serve, ci metto anche un pizzico di avvocatura! 

Grice: Certamente, Silla! E parlando di avvocati... non sarà che, quando si tratta di tortura e pena di morte, invece di abolire, qualcuno preferisce solo cambiare il nome sulle porte del tribunale? Chissà che “giustificazione” si trova tra le righe. 

Silla: La più tipicamente ingegnosa implicatura, Grice! Sei riuscito a dire tutto senz a dire nulla, come solo gli inglesi e i napoletani sanno fare. Ti offro una copia del mio “Dritto di punire”—ma senza firma, così potrai implicare anche tu!  

 

Verbali: Simbolo

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Symbolē. Gaudēbis scīre: collega meus apud Vadum Boum, Austin, sermonem quendam artificiōsum excōgitāvit cui nōmen est SYMBOLVM—sed (ut ille solēbat) id ipsum “lūdum” appellābat.

SYMBOLVS: Ō rem lepīdam! Sed priusquam ad Austīnī sermonem trānseāmus, dīc mihi: cūr SYMBOLVM? Nam Symbolus (ut ego) māsculīnum est—quasi vir quidam aut philosophus; symbolum autem neutrum est—quasi signum ipsum, tessera, indicium.

GRICEVS: Rectē monēs: Symbolus quasi persona disputat, symbolum quasi rēs tacet. At apud nostrōs, cum sermo in tabulīs et rēgulīs pōnitur, saepe neutrum regnat: signa enim moventur, hominēs tantum suspicantur.

SYMBOLVS: Inplicātūra subtlis, Grice, paene symbolica! Nam dum “SYMBOLVM” dīcis, mihi subit: in sermone vestrō symbolum (neutrum) vincit Symbolum (māscium), et signa docent hominēs—vel saltem docent eos quōmodo in disputātiōne ludant.

 

Verbali: Simioni

 

GRICE: Caro Simioni, tra le calli di Venezia la filosofia scorre come un fiume segreto. Ma dimmi, è vero che gli amanti veneziani sono filosofi più arguti dei professori di Milano?

SIMIONI: Ah, Grice, qui a Venezia l’amore è una questione di dialettica, non solo di cuore! Anche Pirandello direbbe che la logica degli amanti supera quella di qualsiasi Congresso universitario.

GRICE: Vedi, caro Corrado, proprio come dicevano gli antichi φιλοσοφοί: tra le brume lagunari, ogni amante cela un filosofo, e ogni filosofo sogna di essere un amante—il vero problema è che a Venezia, spesso si confonde il Πλατωνικός con il "platonicamente impegnato"! Sai, qui la ragione conversazionale è più una questione di baci che di sillogismi…

SIMIONI: Amo quell’implicatura, Grice! A Venezia, si sa, “filosofo” e “amante” sono solo due maschere sullo stesso volto: dice il proverbio, chi ragiona troppo finisce col perdere l’amore… e chi ama troppo, beh, diventa filosofo prima o poi! Ma tu, Grice, tra i greci e i gondolieri, sei riuscito a unire l’arte del ragionare con quella del punteggio amoroso!

 

Verbali: Simmaco

 

GRICEVS: Salve, Simmace, sive Simachce—nonnumquam nescio utrum scribendum sit cum uno “m” an duobus. Sed certe unum scio: inter consules, sapientia tua fulget ut sol in Foro!

SIMMACVS: Grice, amice, quid de litteris Latinis? Unus m, duo m—philosophus sum, non grammaticus! Consulatus autem, fateor, plus toga quam sapientia ponderat.

GRICEVS: Mirum est, Simchace—err, Simmace!—quantum ponderis sapientia tua habet inter patres conscriptos. In domo quadam ultra mare, nonnullis fortasse toga abundat…sed minus quoddam—quod philosophus agnoscere solet—praesto est.

SIMMACVS: Senatoria implicatura, Grice—celebro eam! Equidem, si sapientia in curia tam rara est quam panis in Saturnalia, fortasse consulatus magis ad iocum quam ad iudicium pertinet!

 

Verbali: Simoneschi

 

G.: Let us begin with the spelling, because rettorica with the double t looks like a schoolmaster’s revenge on ease.

S.: Or a Venetian insistence that rhetoric must first be made visibly difficult before it may become socially fluid.

G.: Very good. Rhetoric made orthographically strenuous so that boys do not mistake it for mere chatter.

S.: And because in Italian the double consonant already slows the mouth and thickens the form.

G.: Yes. Rettorica is heavier than retorica, and that heaviness is not insignificant. A discipline of speech ought occasionally to impede speech.

S.: So the very spelling pedagogises.

G.: Precisely. One may call that prammatica in old dress. Orthography as ethical restraint.

S.: Then Simoneschi is already doing with the title what he later teaches in the body: rhetoric is never merely transparent.

G.: Exactly. Now, the trivium. So called because it is trivial, or because later people are stupid?

S.: Surely because the road had three ways before the schoolboys arrived and downgraded the adjective.

G.: A pity. The trivium is one of those cases in which etymology preserves dignity while usage slowly destroys it.

S.: Grammar, dialectic, rhetoric. Three roads to intelligibility, and each later called trivial by those who owe them everything.

G.: Exactly. Which of the three, then, is most trivial?

S.: The temptation is to say grammar, because everyone thinks he already has it.

G.: Yes. Grammar is despised because success in it becomes invisible. One notices grammar mostly when someone else lacks it.

S.: Logic retains prestige because it sounds severe.

G.: And because philosophers like anything that can be numbered or symbolised without blushing.

S.: Which leaves rhetoric to be despised as ornament.

G.: Yes. Yet of the three, rhetoric may be least trivial in actual civilisation.

S.: Because it governs uptake.

G.: Exactly. Grammar lets one produce a sentence, logic lets one prevent some embarrassments, rhetoric lets one be understood, resisted, admired, distrusted, obeyed, laughed at, or forgiven.

S.: So rhetoric is both the most dismissed and the most operative.

G.: Very good. That is the old injustice of the trivium.

S.: Then if Simoneschi writes Il vello d’oro, overo la rettorica, he is in part rescuing the least respected of the three.

G.: Or showing that the least respected discipline secretly governs the other two in civic life.

S.: Because a perfectly grammatical and valid utterance may still fail completely if addressed without rhetorical intelligence.

G.: Precisely. No theorem survives bad dinner conversation.

S.: Which is perhaps why philosophy would have been quite different if it had started with the quadrivium.

G.: Ah yes. If boys had first been made to count, measure, harmonise, and watch the heavens before they learned to decline, infer, and persuade.

S.: Bologna might have produced fewer jurists and more cosmologists.

G.: Oxford fewer sermons and more instruments.

S.: You say that as if it were a loss.

G.: It would have been a civilisational mutilation. Speech precedes stars in social necessity. One must first know how to address another before one can safely measure the spheres.

S.: And yet the quadrivium looks nobler on paper.

G.: Nobility is a dangerous curricular principle. Arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy: they promise order. The trivium teaches one what to do with disagreement.

S.: Which is a more urgent human problem.

G.: Much more urgent. Civilisation is mostly the management of disagreement in words before it becomes disagreement in steel.

S.: Then if philosophy had begun with the quadrivium, it might have been more mathematical and less civic.

G.: Exactly. More proportion, less persuasion. More celestial order, less disputation. Very grand, very inhuman.

S.: Yet some philosophers would have liked it.

G.: Naturally. Philosophers are always tempted by environments in which no one interrupts.

S.: And Kierkegaard?

G.: Kierkegaard is useful here because he reminds us that philosophy is not itself one of the seven liberal arts, however often philosophers try to smuggle it in under dialectic.

S.: So what gives? If philosophy is not one of the liberal arts, why does it keep behaving as if the trivium and quadrivium were its preparatory provinces?

G.: Because philosophy is a parasite of good preparation and an enemy of every completed curriculum. It requires the liberal arts, then criticises them, then pretends it invented the need for them.

S.: A familiar vice.

G.: Very. Kierkegaard would say perhaps that one may master all seven liberal arts and still fail in existence.

S.: Which sounds like a criticism of both Bologna and Oxford.

G.: As well it should. Universities are good at producing prepared persons who have not yet begun.

S.: Then Simoneschi, by writing on rhetoric, is taking the most socially dangerous of the preparatory arts and treating it as if it already were philosophy.

G.: Exactly. That is what interests me. He does not merely preserve rhetoric as inherited school matter; he makes it the living site of practical intelligence.

S.: Which is why you are tempted to say that his prammatica is just conversational rhetoric.

G.: More than tempted. I think much of what later calls itself pragmatics is rhetoric recovered under a cleaner conscience and a less human vocabulary.

S.: That will offend the cleaner consciences.

G.: They deserve some offence. If one says “He is a fine fellow” and means nearly the opposite, one is not doing formal semantics; one is practising an art of contrast, expectation, and social inference.

S.: Irony, litotes, meiosis, strategic concession, all the old furniture.

G.: Exactly. The rhetoricians named them, taught them, domesticated them. We later arrive and say “implicature” and “defeasible uptake” and congratulate ourselves on modernity.

S.: Then Simoneschi is your ancestor.

G.: In a sense, yes, though I would prefer not to be entered in a Venetian pedigree without proper warning.

S.: Too late. Now, which of the trivium’s three disciplines would collapse first if philosophy began with the quadrivium?

G.: Rhetoric would be first demoted, because number flatters itself as universal while rhetoric insists upon audience, occasion, and local climate.

S.: Which is exactly what Simoneschi’s Venetian title opposes.

G.: Yes. A rettorica veneziana says already: universal manuals are not enough. The way one means in Venice cannot be reduced to a Roman handbook or a rationalist grammar.

S.: Because Venice has water, masks, republic, mercantile indirection, civic hierarchies, maritime metaphor.

G.: Exactly. A rhetorical climate, if one likes. Meaning is locally weathered.

S.: Then pragmatics, if it is conversational rhetoric, must also be locally weathered.

G.: To a degree, yes. I still want my general principles, but their realisation is always modulated by local norms and background encodings.

S.: So Simoneschi gives you what your own theory tends to abstract away from.

G.: Very good. He supplies the lived density of a social world, where the same irony, understatement, or concessive move may function differently in Venice, Bologna, Oxford, or a papal court.

S.: Which means universal pragmatics risks becoming thin.

G.: It risks that always. But thinness is sometimes the price of explanatory ambition.

S.: And rhetoric keeps the blood.

G.: Exactly. Rhetoric remembers that utterances are not merely inferential items but social manoeuvres in places inhabited by habits, classes, and weather.

S.: Then what is Simoneschi trying to do?

G.: I think he is trying to preserve rhetoric as civic intelligence rather than as dead school ornament. He wants to teach how meaning actually travels in Venetian life.

S.: Which is why he chooses rettorica and not perhaps eloquenza.

G.: Yes. Eloquence flatters the speaker. Rhetoric as art, especially under the title Il vello d’oro, suggests acquisition, difficulty, navigation, pursuit, and reward.

S.: The golden fleece of speech.

G.: Precisely. A prize not merely of style but of situated competence.

S.: Then would you say he is formulating maxims of conversation?

G.: In effect, yes, though not in my compressed way. He is teaching practical norms: when to understate, when to concede, when to ironise, when to invoke the local metaphor, when to let shared civic knowledge do the work.

S.: So his manual is a maxims-book in rhetorical clothing.

G.: Something like that. But older and probably wiser about persons.

S.: Which brings us back to the least trivial of the trivium.

G.: Yes. If one asks what is most often called trivial, rhetoric wins or loses, depending on tone. If one asks what is least dispensable in actual life, rhetoric wins comfortably.

S.: Grammar one may absorb unconsciously; logic one may do badly and still survive; rhetoric one neglects at the cost of social extinction.

G.: Very good. One can live with poor logic longer than with no tact.

S.: That is a sentence undergraduate philosophers should copy out.

G.: In handwriting, preferably. Now, would philosophy have been better if it had started from the quadrivium?

S.: Better for system, perhaps; worse for civilisation.

G.: Exactly. One would get cleaner structures and fewer quarrels properly managed. The history of philosophy would have looked more mathematical and less rhetorical.

S.: Less Plato in the marketplace, more Pythagoras in the counting-house.

G.: Yes. And less Cicero, which would be intolerable.

S.: So Bologna without the trivium first would not really be Bologna.

G.: Quite. A university of law without grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric properly prior is simply an archive with pretensions.

S.: And Oxford without the trivium first would have had fewer schools and more machines.

G.: Yes, and perhaps less common-room malice, which would be too high a price.

S.: So the triviality of the trivium is civilization’s false self-description.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself.

S.: Only academically.

G.: Worse. Now, grammar. Do we dismiss it too quickly?

S.: Of course. Grammar is what survives by becoming background. Because everyone depends on it, everyone calls it elementary and then forgets it.

G.: Exactly. It is the most invisible of the three. Its triviality is the invisibility of success.

S.: Logic, then, is the one that advertises itself most.

G.: Yes. It keeps its dignity because it can formalise, classify, and punish. Philosophers like punishable structures.

S.: Whereas rhetoric resists complete formalisation.

G.: Which is why philosophers have alternately despised and stolen from it.

S.: Simoneschi, though, does not steal. He simply continues the older tradition in which rhetoric already includes what you would call conversational reason.

G.: Precisely. It is not accidental that his Venice cares more for what is meant than for what is merely said. Maritime republics live by implication.

S.: Water carries subtext.

G.: Beautiful nonsense, but serviceable. The point is that Venice as a social world encourages indirection, tact, irony, and calibrated saying.

S.: Then a universal manual of correct speech would indeed miss the point.

G.: Very much so. Simoneschi’s rettorica veneziana is already a protest against exportable correctness.

S.: Which sounds unexpectedly modern.

G.: Because the local always sounds modern once universalism begins boring people.

S.: Then perhaps the sequence should be: trivium first because humans need speech before ratio; rhetoric last within the trivium because institutions distrust what they most need; philosophy born parasitically on both; and pragmatics a late return of rhetoric under analytical customs.

G.: That is very good.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Again, do not become pleased.

S.: I am only regionally satisfied.

G.: Better. Now, what of double t again? Why rettorica and not retorica?

S.: Because the word wants weight. It is not merely rhetorical in the modern newspaper sense, but rettorica as inherited craft, thick with school, church, and Tuscan resistance to simplification.

G.: Yes. Orthography as memory. The doubled consonant keeps older instruction audible.

S.: So even the spelling says: this is not casual talk; this is disciplined social art.

G.: Exactly. And discipline there means not formal abstraction, but trained sensitivity to occasion.

S.: Which is what your maxims try to capture in thinner terms.

G.: Yes. “Be relevant,” “be as informative as required,” “avoid obscurity,” and so on. One could almost imagine Simoneschi laughing and saying: of course, but tell me in Venice, to whom, in what room, under which mask?

S.: Which would be an excellent challenge to a universalist pragmatics.

G.: Exactly. The maxims need local biographies.

S.: Then rhetoric is where maxims become manners.

G.: Splendid. Keep that too.

S.: I seem to be keeping a lot.

G.: Rhetoric is acquisitive. Now, could philosophy itself have been one of the liberal arts if only curriculum had been arranged differently?

S.: I doubt it. Philosophy is too restless to remain a “liberal art” in the curricular sense. It feeds on them, surpasses them, and then complains about its nourishment.

G.: Precisely. Kierkegaard would say perhaps that philosophy enters where the liberal arts end and existence begins troubling their adequacy.

S.: So philosophy is post-curricular by nature.

G.: A useful phrase. It requires formation, but its proper work begins once formation is no longer enough.

S.: Then Simoneschi stands at the threshold, teaching the last of the old arts in a way that already verges on philosophy.

G.: Yes. That is why he matters. In good rhetoric one can already see the structure of practical reason among persons.

S.: Which is why you like to say “prammatica as rettorica conversazionale.”

G.: Exactly. Pragmatics is not the abolition of rhetoric but its redescription under the pressure of modern conceptual tidiness.

S.: And perhaps its partial de-localisation.

G.: Yes. We abstract upward from Venetian, Oxonian, Roman, and other climates in order to say something general about utterance and uptake.

S.: Yet the climates remain.

G.: They always do. Generality is never the whole weather.

S.: Then if philosophy had begun with the quadrivium, one might have had cleaner generalities and far worse local intelligence.

G.: Which is another reason to be grateful for the old trivial roads.

S.: Even if they are called trivial by the descendants of their beneficiaries.

G.: Especially then. The highest compliment civilisation pays its foundations is to call them elementary and forget them.

S.: A rather ungrateful compliment.

G.: The only kind civilisation reliably gives. Now, one final ranking. Most despised of the trivium?

S.: Rhetoric.

G.: Most self-important?

S.: Logic.

G.: Most invisible?

S.: Grammar.

G.: Least dispensable in actual conversation?

S.: Rhetoric again.

G.: Good. And Simoneschi’s achievement?

S.: To show that rhetoric, far from being a decorative appendix to thought, is the local art by which thought enters civic life without drowning in universal rule-books.

G.: Excellent.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Venetian, with one doubled consonant still afloat.

 

 

Grice: Ah, caro Simoneschi, a Venezia l’arte della conversazione è più fluida delle acque del Canal Grande! La tua Rettorica veneziana, devo confessare, mi ha insegnato che la pragmatica non è una scienza universale, ma una danza locale—e qui, ogni passo conta! 

Simoneschi: Grice, tra gondole e maschere, la conversazione si infittisce di implicature: a Venezia, “dire” è sempre meno importante di “significare”. E se la grammatica romana pretende di dettare legge, qui il vero linguista impara a navigare tra correnti e riflessi! 

Grice: Eh già, caro mio. Pensa al povero Strawson, mio discepolo a Vadum Boum: lui non trovava mai l’arte rettorica banale come fanno a Bononia, dove la retorica è materia da sbadigli, non da sussurri maligni. A Vadum Boum, anche un implicatura vale più di mille regole—ma non dirglielo, o rischiamo di vedere la grammatica affogare nella laguna! 

Simoneschi: Abile, artefice e oratoriale, implicatura raffinata, Grice! A Venezia, l’arte della parola è come il vello d’oro: preziosa, ma sempre nascosta tra le pieghe della città e nella complicità dei suoi ascoltatori. Sai, solo chi sa leggere tra le acque, come tu tra le righe, coglie davvero il senso locale—e magari, come dice il proverbio: “A Venezia non si parla, si naviga!” 

 

Verbali: Simoni

 

G.: Speranza has a weakness for saying that Walter Pater is perhaps the most pro-Italian of Oxford philosophers. [dev.gutenberg.org]

S.: “Pro-Italian” in the retrospective sense, I take it. Not because he belonged to an Italian school, but because he learned to inhabit Italy as an English mode of spiritual correction. [dev.gutenberg.org], [books.google.com]

G.: Exactly. He does not merely travel to Italy; he introjects it. Or rather, he introjects certain Italian figures until they become styles of inwardness. And in the case we are discussing, he introjects Michelangelo Buonarroti under the chapter-title “The Poetry of Michelangelo.” [en.wikipedia.org], [victorianweb.org]

S.: Which is already interesting, because he chooses the poems as his way in, not merely the marble. [victorianweb.org]

G.: Yes. That is philosophically revealing. Pater’s Michelangelo is not only a sculptor or painter but a consciousness, and the poetry gives him an English route to that consciousness. [victorianweb.org], [books.google.com]

S.: So when you and I call him Simoni in our little economy, we are not playing with a mere surname. We are insisting on the person before the mononym. [en.wikipedia.org]

G.: Quite. “Michelangelo” is what tourists say, and the tourist is always half a metaphysician of surfaces.

S.: Whereas “Simoni” returns him to family, civic rootedness, and a Tuscan human particularity.

G.: Exactly. And Pater, though he writes “Michelangelo,” is actually trying to rescue something like Simoni: the inner exactness, the severity, the sweetness under force. [victorianweb.org], [en.wikisource.org]

S.: Ah yes, sweetness and strength.

G.: Quite. Pater’s famous formula: sweetness and strength, pleasure with surprise, ex forti dulcedo. That is where the philosophy begins for him. Pater is not doing mere art history; he is asking what kind of human form of life can hold terror and grace together without collapse. [victorianweb.org]

S.: So the philosophical question is one of synthesis.

G.: Better: one of disciplined tension. Pater sees in Simoni a managed excess, an energy always about to break through form and yet somehow recovering loveliness touch by touch. [victorianweb.org], [en.wikisource.org]

S.: Which sounds almost Gricean, if one were indecent enough to say so.

G.: Only structurally. Meaning lies in what is controlled rather than spilled. Freud later says something similar of the Moses: not action frozen, but passion mastered. The significance is in the delay, the restraint, the not-yet. [en.wikipedia.org]

S.: So for Pater, Simoni is philosophical because he gives visible form to the question how force may remain intelligible only under self-command.

G.: Excellent. That is exactly right.

S.: And this is where the sublime enters?

G.: Yes, though not in the crude Burkean sense of mere astonishment or fearfulness. For the Englishman after the Grand Tour, Simoni becomes one of the ways Italy defines the sublime as disciplined magnitude rather than picturesque ruin.

S.: So not merely Alps and thunder, but interior amplitude made visible in art.

G.: Precisely. The Grand Tour had trained the English eye to collect objects, sites, names, ruins, and views. Pater belongs to the post-Grand Tour condition, where Italy becomes not a route but a repertoire of inward styles. [jstor.org]

S.: That is, the older traveller goes to Italy to acquire cultivation; Pater reads Italy in order to acquire a form of self.

G.: Very good. The Grand Tour produces connoisseurship. Pater produces introjection.

S.: Then Simoni, for Pater, is less a destination than a mode of seriousness.

G.: Exactly. He becomes the exemplary case of how form may contain convulsion without losing dignity. That is philosophical because it touches the relation of body to spirit, matter to intention, form to force, pleasure to severity.

S.: Almost Aristotle by way of Aestheticism.

G.: More Hellenic discipline after Christian and Renaissance pressure, but yes, the structure is philosophical. Pater’s criticism is always pretending to be only criticism while actually asking what sort of life deserves admiration.

S.: And in Simoni’s case, the answer is a life in which strength has been rendered sweet without becoming soft.

G.: Splendid.

S.: Then why call Pater the most pro-Italian of Oxford philosophers?

G.: Because he does not merely admire Italian works; he lets Italian forms reorganise English sensibility. The Renaissance is not a handbook of places but a school of inward migration. [dev.gutenberg.org], [books.google.com]

S.: A curious thing for Oxford to produce.

G.: Not so curious. Oxford often produces those who escape it best by making the escape inward first.

S.: And later figures like you or your friends receive Pater at a distance.

G.: Yes. By our generation, Pater is no longer merely the dangerous aesthete of undergraduate legend. He is a stylistic ancestor of seriousness without system.

S.: That sounds like faint praise.

G.: On the contrary. It is high praise. He knows that an essay may carry metaphysical pressure without becoming doctrinally swollen.

S.: Which again brings him near Simoni.

G.: Precisely. Simoni’s own works do not merely assert; they withhold, concentrate, delay, imply. Meaning is organised by restraint. That is exactly the sort of thing Pater’s sensibility can recognise. [grokipedia.com]

S.: Then the chapter on Michelangelo is really a chapter on form as implication.

G.: That is very good. Pater says less than his chapter means, but the means are arranged so that the reader gathers what sort of greatness is under inspection. [victorianweb.org], [en.wikisource.org]

S.: So the later Gricean generation may read him as someone who practises in prose what Simoni practises in marble.

G.: With due caution, yes. Pater’s essay is itself built on controlled under-saying. He does not force a system; he arranges impressions until one sees the form beneath them.

S.: Which is why some accuse him of impressionism while missing the discipline.

G.: Exactly. Pater is often called impressionistic by those who cannot detect organisation unless it arrives wearing a table of categories.

S.: Then what is specifically philosophical for Pater about Simoni’s poetry?

G.: The poetry lets him locate the inward metaphysics more directly than sculpture alone would. There the tensions of body and spirit, earthly beauty and transcendence, desire and renunciation, appear in language. Michelangelo’s letters and poems make the artistic problem audible as a problem of the soul. [grokipedia.com]

S.: So Pater’s “Michelangelo” is not just the maker of David and Moses, but the poet of unresolved ascent.

G.: Yes. The figure becomes philosophically legible because the poems articulate what the statues imply: that greatness lies not in solved repose but in held tension.

S.: Which again shades into the sublime.

G.: Indeed. The sublime here is not the endless formlessness of mountain or sea, but the experience of form under pressure from what exceeds form.

S.: So Simoni gives the Englishman a specifically Italian sublime: not vastness without shape, but excess governed by shape.

G.: Excellent. That is the line.

S.: And this differs from the ordinary Grand Tour inheritance.

G.: Very much. The Grand Tourist often takes home fragments, marbles, engravings, taste, and stories. Pater takes home a criterion of intensity. Italy becomes for him a discipline of perception. [jstor.org]

S.: Which is why his conclusion in The Renaissance became so infamous among undergraduates.

G.: Yes. The hard, gemlike flame and all the rest. But one must not reduce that to hedonism. Even the famous conclusion is really about concentration, selection, heightened awareness, not mere indulgence. [dev.gutenberg.org], [cdn.bookey.app]

S.: Then Simoni, for Pater, teaches a severe form of intensity.

G.: Precisely. Austerity can be more intense than indulgence. Michelangelesque form proves that.

S.: This is why you think Pater more philosophically serious than many modern critics allow.

G.: Certainly. He is philosophically serious because he asks, through art, what sort of form life itself should take.

S.: And the answer is not English moderation.

G.: No. Or not merely. It is moderation under pressure from greatness, which is another matter.

S.: Then how do you and I, from a later generation, regard all this?

G.: We regard it with a double perspective. First, we see how deeply English culture once needed Italy as a corrective of scale, intensity, and form. Second, we see that Pater’s Italy is no simple national object but a selective inward construction.

S.: So he is pro-Italian, but in a highly chosen way.

G.: Exactly. He is not interested in Italy as census or parliament. He is interested in the Italy that yields forms of seriousness unavailable in ordinary English weather.

S.: Which is why he can seem to some almost anti-English.

G.: Only to those who think England should never be corrected.

S.: An abundant class.

G.: Extremely. Now, Simoni’s role in defining the sublime for the Englishman—how would you put that?

S.: He teaches that the sublime need not be formless terror or natural immensity. It may be the felt pressure of inward magnitude upon perfectly controlled form.

G.: Very good. That is the Michelangelesque sublime.

S.: And Pater makes it available in English prose.

G.: Yes. He naturalises it without domesticating it completely, which is his finest trick.

S.: Then the post-Grand Tour Englishman no longer needs to collect Italy physically; he may carry it as a criterion.

G.: Excellent. Italy becomes not itinerary but interior standard.

S.: And Pater’s chapter is one of the chief instruments of that transfer.

G.: Yes. Through The Poetry of Michelangelo, he gives Oxford and its afterlife a way of speaking of greatness that is neither merely moral nor merely aesthetic. [victorianweb.org], [books.google.com]

S.: Which is also why later readers can take him philosophically without pretending he wrote treatises.

G.: Exactly. Philosophical pressure does not require scholastic format. An essay may do the work if it arranges attention correctly.

S.: So Speranza is justified in treating Pater as an Oxford philosopher, not merely a belletrist.

G.: Entirely justified. Pater’s medium is criticism, but his object is a form of life.

S.: And Simoni helps because he makes “the whole” visible.

G.: Yes, the whole organised by withheld force. That is why Freud’s Moses comes in so naturally. Meaning resides in the organisation of restraint. Simoni’s greatest figures do not simply do; they hold themselves in intelligible suspension. [en.wikipedia.org]

S.: Which is very close to your own taste in conversation.

G.: Naturally. I prefer people who can mean more than they say without spilling their minds onto the carpet.

S.: Pater would approve.

G.: He would at least italicise the approval delicately.

S.: Then what about the Englishman and the sublime before Pater?

G.: Before Pater, the sublime comes heavily through Burke, landscape, terror, magnitude, obscurity, and natural excess. Pater gives the Englishman an Italian revision: the sublime of the humanly made, where force is interiorised and disciplined in form.

S.: So the mountain is replaced by the statue, and the storm by the held gesture.

G.: Exactly. That is a large shift. It civilises the sublime without diminishing it.

S.: Which is perhaps why Pater remains so useful to those who dislike mere atmospheric inflation.

G.: Quite. He refines grandeur into pressure felt through form.

S.: And Oxford receives that as style.

G.: Yes, though the better sort of style: style as criterion of intelligence, not decoration.

S.: Then perhaps the philosophical heart of Pater’s Simoni is this: greatness is not brute intensity, but intelligible intensity.

G.: Splendid. That is the phrase to keep.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself.

S.: Only intermittently.

G.: Good. Now, one might object that Pater’s Italy is too selective, too aesthetic, too little social or political.

S.: Of course. But that is not a damaging objection if one knows what kind of work he is doing.

G.: Exactly. He is not writing a handbook to the peninsula. He is identifying forms of sensibility.

S.: Which is why Simoni is less a citizen than a spiritual test-case.

G.: Yes. Pater reads him as the site where strength, sweetness, inward conflict, and formal mastery become mutually legible.

S.: Then the “most pro-Italian” phrase should be heard in this exact sense: Pater is pro-Italian because Italy supplies him not with subject-matter but with standards.

G.: Very good.

S.: And Grice, from later on, would grant that Pater has in some sense put himself into Simoni’s shoes.

G.: Or at least into his posture. Not as contemporary companion, obviously, but as inward imitator of a style of seriousness.

S.: Which is perhaps the more interesting form of reception.

G.: Much more interesting. The Grand Tour takes one to Florence; Pater lets Florence happen inside English prose.

S.: And the later generation can admire this without necessarily sharing the whole Aesthetic programme.

G.: Certainly. One can reject the cult and keep the discrimination.

S.: Which is exactly what you would do.

G.: Naturally. I take from Pater the seriousness of form and leave him his more undergraduate admirers.

S.: Their waistcoats, especially.

G.: Especially their waistcoats. Now, should we say that Simoni becomes for Pater a philosophy of the whole?

S.: Perhaps in the sense that each single work intimates an organising discipline larger than itself. The whole is not total theory, but total pressure.

G.: Excellent. The whole as governing norm, not as explicit system. That is much better.

S.: Then Simoni’s letters and poems matter because they prevent the visual works from floating free as mere monuments.

G.: Yes. They reattach form to consciousness, and that is philosophical gold.

S.: Which is why the Oxford edition of Michelangelo: Life, Letters, and Poetry is itself so apt to the case. [grokipedia.com]

G.: Indeed. It reminds readers that the artist has a voice, not just a dome.

S.: A dome is never enough.

G.: Quite right. Nor a David.

S.: Especially not for the English imagination, which likes words even when pretending to adore silence.

G.: Very true. Then one more point: Pater’s prose itself becomes a kind of post-Grand Tour vehicle.

S.: Because it transports without itinerary.

G.: Exactly. It gives one the cultivated afterlife of travel, when travel has been turned into inward criticism.

S.: So if the eighteenth-century traveller returns with casts and notebooks, the nineteenth-century Paterian returns with categories of impression.

G.: Yes. And the twentieth-century reader inherits both, while pretending to despise tourism.

S.: A familiar modern duplicity.

G.: Entirely. Now, can we formulate the final answer simply?

S.: Pater finds in Simoni a philosophical image of form under pressure: sweetness with strength, discipline with inward excess, the sublime humanised without being diminished. In doing so he gives English readers, especially Oxford readers after the Grand Tour, an Italian criterion of greatness that can be inwardly inhabited rather than merely externally admired.

G.: Perfectly done.

S.: And Speranza’s thought that Pater is the most pro-Italian of Oxford philosophers?

G.: Not foolish at all. So long as “pro-Italian” means that Italy furnishes him with the standards by which English inwardness is corrected, enlarged, and refined. [dev.gutenberg.org], [victorianweb.org]

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Florentine, with one Oxford candle burning in the studiolo.

 

Grice: Sai, caro Simoni, al vulgus di Oxford sei semplicemente “Michelangelo”. Loro non colgono tutta la profondità del tuo nome e della tua tradizione! 

Simoni: Ah, Grice, non sai quanto mi diverte questa semplificazione! Dalle nostre parti, tra Caprese e Firenze, “Michelagnolo” porta con sé storie, radici, e persino la memoria di Simone de Buonarrota, mio antenato. Il nome, come un’opera d’arte, ha mille sfumature.

Grice: La teoria del tutto, come la chiami tu, nasce proprio dal saper vedere oltre le apparenze — che si tratti di un affresco o di un nome! Lo stesso Freud, studiando il tuo Mosè, ha cercato la filosofia nascosta nelle pieghe dell’anima.

Simoni: Esatto! Dopotutto, ogni conversazione — come ogni opera — è un mosaico di significati. E se a Oxford mi chiamano Michelangelo, va bene: purché sappiano che dietro quel nome c’è una filosofia italiana, viva e universale!

 

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.

 

 

Grice: Caro Simoni, non posso fare a meno di notare che tra gli acuti filosofi di Lucca spesso si annida un certo spirito... diciamo, poco ortodosso. Si dice che chi frequenta gli eretici finisca per riconoscerli meglio degli altri. Ma immagino tu abbia incontrato parecchie anime immortali, o almeno, così si racconta nelle università di Padova!

Simoni: Grice, io direi che, tra Bologna, Pavia e Ferrara, ho imparato più a dubitare che a credere! Anche se, a Lucca, basta una domanda sulla natura dell'anima per farsi invitare a spiegare le proprie opinioni... o a preparare la valigia per Ginevra! 

Grice: Ah, Simoni, non sei tu forse il filosofo che sa trovarsi sempre davanti al rogo, ma con il cavallo pronto e i risparmi in tasca? Si potrebbe pensare che solo chi ha il fuoco dentro riesca a riconoscere quello degli altri... ma non vorrei mai insinuare troppo, sai come sono gli implicaturi! 

Simoni: Implicatura più eretica, Grice, la onoro! Del resto, tra i nobili e gli eretici, l’unico modo per sopravvivere è capire bene dove brucia la fiamma... e magari portare sempre un po’ di acqua, giusto per sicurezza!

 

Verbali: Sini

 

G: You have the look of a man who has survived London and is now contemplating Oxford as a form of recovery.

S: Sir, London was perfectly survivable. It was the phrase that was dangerous. G: “Linguistic phenomenology.”

S: Exactly. G: It has the right un-Oxonian ring to it, does it not, S? S: It has the ring of something that wants a chair, a programme, and perhaps a manifesto. G: And Oxford permits none of those before lunch. S: Sir, we were in Bedford Square. That is already too continental for comfort. G: Twenty-one Bedford Square, to be exact, and at 7.30 p.m., which is Oxford’s favourite hour for pretending it has not already eaten. S: And Austin’s voice at the front, cheerful, lethal, and apparently determined to baptize ordinary language with Greek. G: Recite the passage. Verbatim. You were clutching it like a railway ticket. S: Very well, sir. Austin said: “When we examine what we should say when, what words we should use in what situations, we are looking not merely at words (or ‘meanings’, whatever they may be) but also at the realities we use the words to talk about: we are using a sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of, though not as a final arbiter of, the phenomena. It is for this reason that ‘linguistic phenomenology’ would be an appropriate description of the method.” G: Thank you. Now we may begin to complain with accuracy. S: “Phenomena,” sir. That is the bait. G: It is also the alibi. He wants to sound as if he is doing something direct, like Husserl, while remaining safely in the dictionary. S: Phainomenon and logos, sir. A science of what appears. G: And “linguistic” as the safety rail. If you fall, you fall into language, not into consciousness. S: Is that what J. L. A. is after? G: I doubt it. He is after a method that feels philosophical without being metaphysical. S: Yet “phenomenology” is a grand name for looking at how people talk. G: It is a grand name, and grand names are what Oxford distrusts publicly and uses privately, usually in Latin. S: Saturday mornings we don’t have a logos, sir. G: We have tea. S: And a phainomenon or two, perhaps. G: A phenomenon is what happens when Austin arrives and everyone else stops pretending to be shy. S: So “linguistic phenomenology” is Austin being waggish. G: Partly. But he also means it. S: That’s worse. G: Indeed. Now, what is he trying to do, in your view, without multiplying phenomenologies beyond necessity. S: He’s trying to say: don’t treat word-study as mere lexicography. Treat it as access to the world the words are for. G: Good. And he says it explicitly: not merely words, but the realities. S: But then he adds: “though not as a final arbiter.” G: That is the Oxford escape hatch. A philosopher says “not as a final arbiter” when he wants credit for method without responsibility for outcomes. S: You sound unfair, sir. G: I am fair. I merely refuse to be impressed. S: But doesn’t he have a point? Words do carry distinctions. G: Of course. But calling the exercise “phenomenology” invites the wrong audience and the wrong ambition. S: Husserl would have sued. G: Husserl would have footnoted. Worse. S: Then the phrase is a conversational move. G: Exactly. It is a piece of self-presentation: “I am not merely doing linguistic botany. I am doing something philosophical.” S: And you are annoyed because he does not mention what you mean, sir. G: I am annoyed because he slips from words to phenomena as if the speaker’s intention were irrelevant. S: Yet he says “what we should say when.” G: Yes, which is already normative. But his norm is usage, not intention. S: Whereas your norm is what I mean by saying it. G: Exactly. If you like, I am more immodest: I insist on the speaker. S: And on implicature. G: And on implicature. Which Austin, at least in that paragraph, does not name. S: He says “phenomena.” You say “implicatures.” G: Yes. His “phenomena” are what we talk about. My “implicatures” are what we do while talking. S: So do we need a linguistic phenomenology. G: Possibly not, and certainly not as a separate discipline with a Greek name. S: Because language is too vague to be the basis of a “phenomenology.” G: And because “language” is not the primary agent. People are. S: You think Austin ignores that. G: He does, or he treats it as dispensable. He treats meaning as something we can locate in usage without having to locate it in a speaker’s intention. S: But he does say “what we should say when.” That sounds like intention. G: It sounds like it, but it is not. It is etiquette disguised as method. S: Then why is it interesting. G: Because it is a rare moment where Oxford lets itself flirt with the continent without admitting it. S: Ryle would have hated the word “phenomenology.” G: Ryle would have hated the idea that it might be needed. S: Yet Ryle began with Brentano and Husserl long ago, didn’t he. G: He did, before the war made German things morally complicated and Oxford things politically convenient. S: So Austin’s phrase is a little rebellion against Ryle’s gatekeeping. G: Or a little tease. Austin liked to tease. S: So in 1946 Ryle “wins,” and by 1956 Austin is allowed one Greek word in public. G: Yes. And he uses it to rename what he was doing anyway. S: It’s like putting a new label on an old jam jar. G: Exactly. It changes the implied audience. Suddenly the method sounds like it has depth. S: And you think that is dangerous. G: I think it invites people to take ordinary language for a metaphysical oracle. S: That would be bad. G: Very. “Not as a final arbiter,” he says, and everyone hears “final arbiter” anyway. S: And now Carlo Sini, sir. G: Yes. Later, in Italy, phenomenology belongs to Husserl properly, and then to Heidegger, and then to those who make signs into destiny. S: So Sini would find Austin’s phrase provincial. G: Or charming. Italians sometimes find English provinciality charming because it looks like modesty. S: While you find it irritating because it looks like modesty but behaves like authority. G: Exactly. Now we’re walking. S: We’re going to the station. G: And we must catch the train back to O. S: Do not say “Vadum Boum” on the platform, sir. G: Very well. Oxford. Now tell me: what would Husserl say if asked whether Saturday mornings have a logos. S: He would say: they have an epoché. G: And Austin would say: they have tea and biscuits. S: And you would say: they have implicatures. G: Exactly. And all three would be partly right. S: But which is most useful. G: For Oxford, tea. For philosophy, implicature. For Germans, epoché. S: And for Ryle, none of the above. G: For Ryle, “category-mistake,” always ready, like a stationmaster’s whistle. S: So Austin’s phrase is a category-mistake. G: It may be. Or it may be a deliberate misclassification designed to make a point. S: A waggish category-mistake. G: Exactly. A polite scandal. S: And you, sir, would have preferred “linguistic investigation.” G: Or simply “looking and seeing.” But then we lose the Greek glamour. S: Oxford hates glamour. G: Oxford pretends to hate glamour. It merely prefers Latin glamour. S: We’re at the station now. G: Good. Final question. What do you think Austin is really doing. S: He is telling his audience: don’t treat the dictionary as a museum. Treat it as fieldwork. G: And I would add: fieldwork on what people do with words. S: And you would insist: what they mean by doing so. G: Yes. Because without that, you confuse regularities of talk with reasons of talk. S: And your punchline, sir. G: Austin calls it linguistic phenomenology. I call it looking for reasons in what people say. Either way, we’ve missed our train if we keep talking.

 

Grice: Caro Sini, devo confessare che la tua analisi del “segno” mi entusiasma! Qui a Oxford, terra di barbari, non diamo al “segno” l’importanza che meriterebbe nelle nostre conversazioni. Forse, se prendessimo esempio dalla tua filosofia, riusciremmo a cogliere meglio i segni dell’anima!

Sini: Grice, mi lusinga quanto dici! In fondo, la filosofia del segno nasce proprio dal desiderio di andare oltre la parola e toccare ciò che si cela dietro ogni espressione. Come diceva Peirce, il segno è ponte tra mondi possibili e, in Italia, abbiamo imparato a leggerli anche nelle sfumature più sottili.

Grice: È proprio questo che mi colpisce: il vostro modo di intrecciare pratica filosofica, abecedario e storia, fino a Lucrezio! Da noi, spesso, ci perdiamo in astrazioni e dimentichiamo il valore concreto del segno. Magari dovrei importare qualche tuo saggio per i miei studenti oxoniensi.

Sini: Sarebbe un piacere, Grice! Dopotutto, come insegna la tradizione italiana, il segno non è mai solo parola: è traccia, sintomo, apertura all’altro. Se anche a Oxford si imparasse a coglierli, forse il barbaro lascerebbe spazio al filosofo… almeno di tanto in tanto!

 

Verbali: Sirenio

 

G.: Let us begin with the sentence itself: “He is a lucky fellow.”

S.: A small sentence, but already a trap.

G.: Quite. I have called it stupid, or silly, and I mean that seriously. It is ordinary language at its most philosophically indiscreet.

S.: Because it attributes luck as if luck were a stable property, almost like height or politeness.

G.: Exactly. It makes “lucky” sound predicative in a way that invites metaphysical nonsense and then pretends not to notice the invitation.

S.: Yet ordinary speakers use it freely.

G.: Of course. Ordinary language often walks where metaphysics fears to tread, or ought to.

S.: Then why call it silly rather than merely loose?

G.: Because the sceptic will seize on such looseness and ask whether any of our common talk commits us to absurd hypotheses. If I am to criticise scepticism properly, I must show that the sceptical hypothesis is absurd and yet still the sort of thing a rational utterer might attempt to impart to a rational addressee.

S.: So “He is a lucky fellow” becomes a test-case.

G.: Exactly. It looks harmless, but if pressed it starts suggesting fate, necessity, chance, providence, and all Sirenio’s old company.

S.: Then Sirenio’s title suddenly becomes less baroque than it first appears.

G.: Very much less. De fato libri novem: in quibus inter alia, de contingentia, necessitate, providentia, praescientia, prophetia, et divinatione, divina—every clause in that title can be made to bear on “He is a lucky fellow.”

S.: Then let us do the title one phrase at a time, as you threatened.

G.: Gladly. Begin with De fato.

S.: On fate.

G.: Or concerning fate, which is already better. Now, if one says “He is a lucky fellow,” does one mean “He is fated to prosper”?

S.: Not ordinarily. Usually one means only that good outcomes seem to accumulate around him more often than expected.

G.: Good. So fate is already too strong, but ordinary speech leaves the door ajar.

S.: Because “lucky” personifies contingency by making it look like a trait.

G.: Exactly. Luck becomes a pseudo-property. The fellow is not merely one to whom happy contingencies have occurred; he is “a lucky fellow,” as if marked by a standing relation to fortune.

S.: Which is where the sceptic enters and says, “What could that possibly mean?”

G.: Precisely. And one must answer without pretending the sentence is nonsense, for it plainly belongs to ordinary use.

S.: So De fato asks whether the utterance covertly commits us to a doctrine of fate or whether it merely trades on a looser economy of explanation.

G.: Excellent. And I say: the latter, unless the speaker is philosophically reckless.

S.: Next phrase, libri novem.

G.: Which means that Sirenio thought the matter too large for a pamphlet. Quite right.

S.: You mean luck too is never just luck.

G.: Exactly. Once one asks what “lucky” means, one has opened the whole old cabinet: chance, contingency, necessity, providence, foreknowledge, signs, omens, divination.

S.: Then “He is a lucky fellow” is really a vulgar shorthand for a suspended metaphysical indecision.

G.: Very good. It allows one to speak as though outcomes had pattern without deciding what sort of pattern they have.

S.: In quibus inter alia.

G.: Ah yes. “Among other things.” An excellent phrase, because it admits that the topic exceeds any single doctrinal centre. So too with luck. One begins by saying “He is lucky,” and before long one is discussing whether events are contingent, whether they were necessary under a description, whether some providence superintends them, whether we merely select the favourable cases, and so on.

S.: So the sentence carries more than it says.

G.: Naturally. That is why I care for it.

S.: De contingentia, then.

G.: Yes. “He is a lucky fellow” is most naturally at home under contingency.

S.: Because if the good outcomes were necessary, “lucky” would be misplaced.

G.: Exactly. Luck presupposes, or at least conversationally implies, that things might have gone otherwise.

S.: So contingency is built into the ordinary use.

G.: Very much so. To call him lucky is to imply that the favourable event was not secured by settled design, skill alone, or strict necessity.

S.: Yet not every contingent success invites “lucky.”

G.: Good. Say more.

S.: If a man studies hard and passes, the result may still be contingent in cosmic terms, but we do not usually call him lucky unless some element of happy accident visibly assisted him.

G.: Excellent. So luck enters when contingency becomes salient against background expectations of possible frustration.

S.: Which makes the sentence already a compressed contrastive judgment: he succeeded, and the conditions left room for failure.

G.: Very good. And now de necessitate.

S.: If necessity enters, luck seems to retreat.

G.: Yes, but only in the philosopher’s clean room. In ordinary language people often say “Lucky fellow” of someone whose success, in retrospect, looks nearly inevitable.

S.: Then the utterance may signal ignorance of the necessitating background.

G.: Or indifference to it. One need not settle whether the event was in some strict sense causally determined. One need only note that, from the speaker’s practical point of view, the result was open enough to make “luck” an apt social summary.

S.: So luck and necessity may coexist at different levels of description.

G.: Exactly. Sirenio would approve the distinction. Necessity under one aspect, contingency under another, and human deliberation living in the interval.

S.: Then “He is a lucky fellow” does not deny causal order. It marks the agent-relative opacity of that order.

G.: Splendid. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Now de providentia.

S.: Here the sentence becomes dangerous.

G.: Entirely. If the speaker really means providence, then “lucky” is a timid euphemism for “favoured by God.”

S.: But ordinary speakers often avoid providential language while smuggling in providential comfort.

G.: Precisely. “Lucky” can be a secularised providence-word.

S.: Meaning that one attributes a benevolent pattern to events without the theological burden of saying so.

G.: Very good. That is one reason I call the sentence silly. It half borrows the shape of providence and half pretends it is merely worldly.

S.: So one should ask whether the speaker means only statistical fortune or whether he is consoling himself with a disguised teleology.

G.: Exactly. Most of the time it is the former. But the latter is always conversationally available.

S.: De praescientia.

G.: Foreknowledge. What bearing has that on our poor lucky fellow?

S.: If someone says “He is a lucky fellow,” there may be an implication that one could not have known in advance how the event would go.

G.: Excellent. Luck belongs where foreknowledge fails.

S.: Or rather where ordinary human foreknowledge fails, even if some stronger foreknowledge were metaphysically imaginable.

G.: Yes. The phrase lives under ignorance. If the result was clearly knowable beforehand, “lucky” becomes weaker or ironic.

S.: So foreknowledge and luck are inversely related in ordinary use.

G.: Very much so. A bookie who knew the result in advance would not call the winner lucky, except for comic effect.

S.: Unless he wished to conceal the knowledge.

G.: Quite. Then the sentence becomes dissimulative.

S.: De prophetia.

G.: Another excellent inflation. Prophecy enters where outcomes are not merely known but announced in advance under special authority.

S.: Which makes “He is a lucky fellow” seem positively municipal.

G.: Yes, but there is still a relation. Suppose someone repeatedly prospers beyond expectation. Soon enough others begin speaking of him as though future success could be safely anticipated.

S.: So luck hardens into expectation.

G.: Exactly. And the sentence shifts from retrospective commentary to predictive habit.

S.: Then the sceptic asks: are you not treating past contingency as if it guaranteed future favour?

G.: Precisely. Which is one of the irrational temptations luck-language encourages.

S.: So “lucky fellow” may invite an inductive superstition.

G.: Very good. It converts a run of outcomes into a quasi-prophetic character trait.

S.: Et divinatione, divina.

G.: Ah yes. The most embarrassing clause. Divination is what luck-talk can become when it stops pretending to be modest.

S.: You mean talismans, omens, signs, reading the world for favourable alignments.

G.: Exactly. If a man is called lucky often enough, people begin to treat his circumstances as signs—“He touched that card,” “He entered the room,” “Back his horse,” and so on.

S.: So luck migrates from description to divinatory practice.

G.: Yes. And that is another reason the sentence interests me. It sits on the edge between harmless social idiom and full irrationalism.

S.: Which is where scepticism also likes to sit.

G.: Quite. The sceptic says: your ordinary language is already infected with absurd hypotheses. You call a man lucky as if fortune were a property or a power.

S.: And your response?

G.: My response is that ordinary speakers are not thereby committed to a worked-out metaphysic of Fortune. They are using a convenient summary for a pattern of contingently favourable outcomes under ordinary ignorance.

S.: So the sentence is silly only if taken with metaphysical pomp.

G.: Yes. Silly in structure, not unusable in practice.

S.: Tam secundum philosophorum opinionem.

G.: Excellent. According to the philosophers’ opinion. Sirenio means the philosophical treatment before dogmatic imposition.

S.: Then according to philosophers, “lucky” must be analysed into contingency, ignorance, salience of favourable outcomes, and the human tendency to reify patterns.

G.: Very good. Philosophically speaking, “He is a lucky fellow” is shorthand, not theory.

S.: And perhaps not even good shorthand.

G.: Often not. That is why I call it stupid. But stupidity in ordinary language is rarely uselessness. It is often merely untidy compression.

S.: Quam secundum Catholicorum theologorum sententiam.

G.: And here the theologians complicate matters. A Catholic theologian may wish to say that what ordinary folk call luck is really providence under the appearance of contingency.

S.: Or perhaps concurrence, permission, secondary causes, divine ordering without violence to freedom.

G.: Quite. Theology is always better at multiplying distinctions than luck-talk deserves.

S.: Then the same sentence may be heard theologically as a vulgar misnaming of providence.

G.: Yes. The theologian says, perhaps: no one is “lucky” in the pagan sense; he is fortunate only under divine governance.

S.: Whereas the philosopher says: fortunate is safer, because it need not imply a metaphysical force called luck.

G.: Good. Though fortunate too has its old baggage.

S.: Docte, et copiose disseritur.

G.: “Learnedly and copiously discussed.” Which is what we are now doing with a sentence that most people utter before lunch and forget by tea.

S.: That is your revenge on ordinary language.

G.: No. My revenge is on those who think ordinary language cannot be philosophically embarrassing.

S.: Then let us return to the sentence. “He is a lucky fellow.” What is its logical grammar?

G.: Ah. Now we can ask the proper question. “Lucky” looks adjectival, but the underlying grammar is event-relative and contrastive. One is lucky with respect to some outcome under some background of possible mishap.

S.: So to say simply “He is lucky” without qualification is incomplete.

G.: Exactly. It suppresses the domain. Lucky at cards, lucky in escaping accidents, lucky in marriage, lucky in appointments, lucky to have caught the train, and so on.

S.: Which means the predication is radically underdescribed.

G.: Very much so. Ordinary language gets away with that because context fills the gap.

S.: Then the sentence might be analysed as “He has had a notable run of favourable outcomes in the relevant domain, outcomes not wholly attributable to his own design or merit.”

G.: That is much better than “lucky fellow,” but no one would say it at the races.

S.: Which is perhaps why races exist.

G.: Very likely. Now, what about scepticism?

S.: You said the critic of scepticism must show that the sceptical hypothesis is absurd and yet still the sort of thing a rational utterer may want to impart to a rational addressee.

G.: Yes. The difficulty is always that scepticism must be both speakable and self-undermining. Similarly, “lucky fellow” is speakable and yet, if pressed into theory, absurd.

S.: So the sentence is a miniature of the sceptical predicament.

G.: Exactly. The rational speaker can use it, because he wants to convey something real enough: the salient pattern of contingently favourable results. But if he means by it that the man possesses some occult property of luck, then he is speaking absurdly.

S.: Then your anti-sceptical lesson is that one must rescue the rational communicative point without endorsing the absurd metaphysical surplus.

G.: Precisely. One must show how the utterance can be rationally usable even though one possible interpretation of it is philosophically intolerable.

S.: That sounds like your whole career.

G.: In miniature, yes. Now, let us take “libero arbitrio” from Sirenio’s framework. Does “lucky” threaten freedom?

S.: Only if one imagines outcomes to be so governed by fortune or fate that deliberation becomes idle.

G.: Good. But ordinary use usually does not go that far. To call someone lucky is not to deny his agency; it is often to say that agency did not wholly suffice to explain the result.

S.: So luck marks the residue beyond deliberate control.

G.: Exactly. And Sirenio would say that freedom survives because contingency and necessity constrain without annihilating meaningful choice.

S.: So if I say “He is a lucky fellow,” I may mean: his choices occur within a field not wholly mastered by him, yet his agency remains intelligible.

G.: Excellent. That is the charitable Sirenian reconstruction.

S.: Whereas the vulgar speaker may simply mean, “Things keep breaking in his favour, curse him.”

G.: Very often. Envy is the everyday metaphysician of luck.

S.: Then perhaps “fellow” matters too.

G.: Indeed. “He is a lucky fellow” is colloquial partly because of fellow. It humanises the predication and lowers the philosophical temperature.

S.: “He is a lucky man” is graver; “He is lucky” more abstract; “He is a lucky fellow” already half excuses itself as social chatter.

G.: Very good. Which is why I can call it silly without denying its ordinary humanity.

S.: Then the phrase is stupid in metaphysical ambition but innocent in conversational deployment.

G.: That is almost right. Innocent is too generous. Let us say tolerable.

S.: Tolerable silliness.

G.: Exactly. Ordinary language is full of tolerable silliness.

S.: And your job is to say when it remains tolerable and when it starts pretending to be ontology.

G.: Precisely. If someone says “He is a lucky fellow” after a game of cards, I tolerate it. If someone builds an account of human success around luck as an occult property, I reach for Sirenio, or perhaps for ridicule.

S.: Ridicule is your preferred deontic modality.

G.: Often the only one available. Now, what about contingentia again? Would you say luck is simply contingency under a favourable evaluative aspect?

S.: That seems close. Luck is not mere contingency; it is contingency appraised from the standpoint of interest.

G.: Excellent. An earthquake is contingent, but not lucky for those crushed by it.

S.: So luck is evaluative contingency.

G.: Splendid. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: De necessitate again. Could one be necessarily lucky?

S.: Only by changing the sense entirely. If by “necessarily lucky” one means that in every relevant possible circumstance events break in his favour, then luck has become fate or providence and ceased to be luck.

G.: Very good. So luck requires the open appearance of possible failure.

S.: And therefore a finite point of view.

G.: Exactly. That is why de praescientia matters. A fully omniscient being does not call anyone lucky.

S.: It sees the whole order.

G.: Yes. Luck is a category of local ignorance inside an order not fully surveyed.

S.: Which makes it anthropological rather than theological.

G.: Beautifully put. Luck belongs to the human angle on events.

S.: Then “He is a lucky fellow” is not nonsense if heard anthropologically.

G.: Exactly. It is only nonsense if inflated into world-metaphysics.

S.: So the sceptic’s trick is to force inflation and then mock the result.

G.: Precisely. And the anti-sceptic must say: no, the utterance has a rational everyday point without bearing the absurd load you assign it.

S.: That is also true of “the sun rises.”

G.: Very much so. Ordinary language is full of expressions whose practical point survives theoretical correction.

S.: Then perhaps “lucky fellow” belongs with “sunrise” and “free choice” as respectable vulgarities.

G.: I like that phrase. Respectable vulgarities.

S.: You may keep it.

G.: I probably shall. Now, prophetia once more. Does repeated luck invite prophecy because humans over-read patterns?

S.: Yes. We seek regularity where there is only selective memory and favourable clustering.

G.: Good. So luck-talk is a nursery for weak divination.

S.: And divination is luck-talk with confidence.

G.: Excellent. Sirenio would enjoy that.

S.: Then why do you insist on the sentence’s silliness?

G.: Because I want the hearer to feel that the phrase, though ordinary, should not be allowed to repose as though it were conceptually comfortable. It is a debacle of scepticism in miniature because it tempts one to say more than one can reasonably defend.

S.: Yet still to say something worth saying.

G.: Precisely. The rational utterer may wish to convey that the fellow’s sequence of successes cannot be fully credited to skill, prudence, or effort, and that a residue of favourable contingency remains.

S.: And the rational addressee can grasp that without postulating Fortune as an entity.

G.: Exactly. That is the whole rescue-operation.

S.: Then perhaps the final paraphrase should be: “He has repeatedly benefited from favourably contingent outcomes in ways salient to our shared interests, though we need not infer any occult property thereby.”

G.: Perfectly hideous as English, perfectly sound as philosophy.

S.: Which is what one aims for in seminar.

G.: Often. And Sirenio’s title helps because it reminds us that even a silly everyday sentence lies at the crossroads of fate, contingency, necessity, providence, foreknowledge, prophecy, and divination—at least if one is foolish enough to ask what it means.

S.: Which you always are.

G.: It is my luck.

S.: Lucky fellow.

G.: Precisely the sort of thing I should forbid if I had any real authority.

 

Grice: Sirenio, ti confesso che ogni volta che mi alzo dal letto, mi chiedo: “Ho scelto io, o è stato il fato a tirarmi giù dalle coperte?” Il libero arbitrio è il vero risveglio filosofico!

Sirenio: Grice, forse il caso ti ha spinto, o magari era necessitas travestita da sveglia. Qui a Brescia, il libero arbitrio si esercita già a colazione: burro o marmellata? “Secundum philosophorum opinionem”, persino il caffè può diventare fatum!

Grice: Ecco, davanti al toast, sento una strana forza che mi guida… e, quasi senza volerlo, finisco sempre per fare una implicatura, come se il destino mi avesse già scritto la battuta!

Sirenio: Implicatura quasi determinata, Grice! Tra fatum e caso, la vera libertà è scegliere se ridere o filosofare… ma si sa, a volte il caso preferisce ridere di noi!

 

Verbali: Siro

 

GRICEVS: Salvete, SIRVS! Dic mihi, quid novi in illo clarissimo horto Neapolitano? Audivi Virgilium et Horatium ibi saepe ambulare, sed numquid etiam quidam philosophus Anglicus inter hortelanos latet?

SIRVS: O Grice, hortus noster verus est epicentrum sapientiae! Hic Virgilius versus seminat, Horatius carmina colligit, et ego, inter vites et rosas, disputationes philosophicas sero. Sed tu, ex Britannia, quid te ad nostros ortos trahit?

GRICEVS: Amice Sire, fama horti longe ad septentrionem pervenit. Qui enim inter hortelanos diu moratur, potest fortasse plus intellegere de natura hominis quam qui in bibliotheca clauditur. Quid si quidam flores non solum ad ornatum, sed ad sapientiam coluntur?

SIRVS: Maxima hortulana implicatura, Grice! Certe, in horto nostro, etiam lactucae aliquid praesupponunt. Ubi verba deficiunt, herbae loquuntur! Proxima vice, attende: sub ficu, saepe philosophus latet, sed sub allio… poeta dormit!

 

Verbali: Solari

 

G.: Let us begin with the noun itself, because diritto is one of those words that look self-explanatory only to those who have never been properly interrogated by them.

S.: And in Italy the noun arrives already carrying law, right, justice, order, and half of Rome on its back.

G.: Exactly. Which is why diritto needs a philosophy. A word so overburdened cannot safely be left to lawyers, still less to legislators.

S.: Or to positivists.

G.: Least of all to positivists, because positivism, for all its anti-metaphysical modesty, is the crudest philosophy of law of all.

S.: That is a sentence Hart would dislike, though he would partly deserve it.

G.: Hart deserves worse only when he is mistaken for a mere positivist in the old coarse sense. He begins by admitting something Solari knew perfectly well: that even the attempt to deny philosophy to law is already a philosophy of law.

S.: Exactly. Solari sees that the refusal of philosophy is not neutrality but doctrine.

G.: Yes. To say that law is only what is posited, enforced, and socially effective is not to escape philosophy; it is merely to adopt the poorest one available.

S.: A sort of dietary metaphysics.

G.: Very good. Thin enough to be sold as realism, but not nourishing. Solari, because he stands in the Roman and Vichian line, knows that diritto is too historical, too practical, too linguistic, too institutional to be reduced either to command or to abstract moralism.

S.: Hence iussum and iustum.

G.: Precisely. The commanded and the just. The whole difficulty of diritto is already compressed into that Latin pair.

S.: And one might say that philosophy of law begins exactly when one notices that the two are not coextensive.

G.: Splendid. If iussum and iustum coincided perfectly, jurisprudence would be clerical filing and philosophy could go back to bed.

S.: But they do not coincide. The commanded may fail to be just; the just may lack legal force.

G.: Exactly. And once that gap appears, diritto becomes philosophically dangerous. Is law what is laid down, or what deserves to be laid down, or what a society has made authoritative under certain recognisable forms, or what a rational reconstruction of practice shows it to be?

S.: Solari would say: all these questions arise only because law is a humanly made institution that cannot be known as a stone is known.

G.: Verum ipsum factum, yes. Vico matters because he turns knowledge back toward human products: law, language, history, institutions. One knows diritto not by geometric deduction but by understanding what has been made and how it has been lived.

S.: Which means philosophy of law cannot be only conceptual in the thin sense. It must also be historical.

G.: Up to a point, yes. But here is where Hart enters and changes the game, or at least the classroom. Hart says, in effect, let us ask what we mean by law, what logical grammar this concept has, what distinguishes rules from habits, obligations from predictions, internal from external points of view.

S.: And suddenly philosophy of law becomes a species of ordinary language philosophy.

G.: Precisely. Or, if one wants to alarm the Continent, the conceptual analysis of “law.”

S.: Which sounds dry until one notices how much of the old confusion it sweeps away.

G.: Exactly. Hart cleans the room. He does not abolish history, but he refuses to let jurisprudence remain a cloud of reverence around state power or natural-law rhetoric. He asks how people actually use and understand legal concepts in a rule-governed social practice.

S.: Solari would not hate that.

G.: No, that is the interesting point. Solari is too good to despise conceptual work. What he would resist is the illusion that conceptual analysis can float free of the institutional and historical life of diritto.

S.: So Hart changes everything, but not by making history irrelevant. He changes it by forcing philosophy of law to attend to the grammar of the concept itself.

G.: Very good. Before Hart, too much philosophy of law either sermonised or systematised. Hart asks: what is a rule, what is an obligation, what makes a legal system more than a threat backed by force?

S.: Which is where command theory begins to look rather peasant-like.

G.: Yes. Austin’s command theory, for all its disciplinary elegance, becomes too blunt. Law is not merely the sovereign saying do this or else. There are rules conferring powers, secondary rules, procedures of recognition, adjudication, and change.

S.: So positivism becomes refined.

G.: Hart refines it, yes. But that only sharpens your earlier sentence: lack of a philosophy of law is the crudest positivism, because it takes positivity as brute fact and forgets that positivity itself is conceptually structured.

S.: Which is why Solari knows the danger. He is too Roman and too Vichian to believe that law is merely a pile of commands.

G.: Exactly. Roman jurisprudence is an ars boni et aequi, not a stenography of orders. The jurists reason from cases, distinctions, equity, persons, statuses, obligations, and remedies. They do not merely receive legislative thunderbolts.

S.: So Roman law already teaches that diritto is a practical reason embodied in institutions.

G.: Beautifully put. And that is why it needs philosophy: because its object is neither a pure norm nor a pure fact, but a historically formed order of practical reasons, powers, recognitions, and evaluations.

S.: Then perhaps we should distinguish two questions. First, why law needs philosophy at all. Second, what sort of philosophy it needs.

G.: Yes. On the first: because law is internally related to concepts of authority, obligation, validity, personhood, power, interpretation, and justice, none of which can be used indefinitely without philosophical clarification.

S.: And on the second?

G.: On the second: because the law needs a philosophy that is at once conceptual, practical, and historical. Solari supplies the historical-juridical and civil-prudential side; Hart supplies the analytical and grammatical side.

S.: That sounds suspiciously ecumenical.

G.: Only because both men are better than their followers. Solari sees that legal life is made in time, and Hart sees that what is made in time still has a logical structure worth distinguishing carefully.

S.: Then where does ordinary language philosophy of law begin?

G.: In the moment one asks not “What is Justice?” in a thunderous abstract voice, but “How do we distinguish being obliged from being under threat? What do we mean when we say a rule is valid? What is it for a court to have jurisdiction? What is a legal power?”

S.: So philosophy of law becomes the ordinary language analysis of extraordinary institutions.

G.: Excellent. That is almost too good. Yes. Hart domesticates jurisprudence just enough to see its real intricacy.

S.: And that is what changes everything. The old grand alternatives—natural law, command theory, historical romanticism—must now answer grammatical questions they had often slid past.

G.: Precisely. Once one is asked whether a legal system can contain rules about rules, whether obligation is reducible to fear, whether authority can be understood internally by participants rather than merely externally by observers, much of the older coarseness becomes unbearable.

S.: Solari, though, would say that even these grammatical distinctions have a Roman and historical body.

G.: Yes. He would remind us that concepts like person, office, right, property, and obligation are not eternal atoms but institutions shaped through legal history and social practice.

S.: Which is where Vico enters again.

G.: Inevitably. If the true is the made, then law is one of the primary regions in which human beings may know what they have made—not because it is transparent, but because it is theirs.

S.: That sounds like a rebuke to those who treat legal order as either revelation or nature.

G.: Quite. Or as mere force. The legal order is a made order, and therefore intelligible only through a combination of history, philology, concept, and practical reason.

S.: Then why do you call bare positivism the crudest philosophy of law?

G.: Because it takes the existence of posited norms as sufficient and asks too little about the forms under which such norms count as law, the practices of recognition by which they are accepted, the evaluative vocabulary that still clings to them, and the gap between effective command and juridical legitimacy.

S.: In other words, it takes iussum without understanding why iustum continues to haunt it.

G.: Exactly. Even the crudest command theorist lives parasitically on a legal culture in which justice, equity, rights, and legitimacy continue to matter, whether acknowledged or not.

S.: So the positivist who says “law is just what is laid down” is still speaking in a social world shaped by expectations about justification and fairness.

G.: Yes. He is living on inherited credit. That is why the denial of philosophy is never a philosophical blank; it is merely a failure to examine the assumptions one still spends.

S.: Hart at least examines them.

G.: He does. Hart’s internal point of view is already a philosophical rescue-operation. It shows that rules are not mere predictive regularities enforced by threats; they are standards accepted, invoked, criticised, and used by participants as reasons.

S.: Which sounds almost Solarian.

G.: In a very English way, yes. Solari would say civil prudence; Hart says internal aspect. Different registers, but both reject the reduction of law to brute obedience.

S.: Then what remains of iussum?

G.: Plenty. Law is still commanded, posited, promulgated, institutionalised. But the legal philosopher asks under what conditions such positing becomes intelligible as law rather than as mere order backed by force.

S.: So iussum needs grammar.

G.: Excellent. And iustum needs history.

S.: Then diritto is the field in which the two must converse.

G.: Precisely. Law is where commandedness and justifiedness negotiate under institutional conditions.

S.: That sounds very Solari.

G.: It is meant to. Solari is useful because he never mistakes law for either pure command or pure moral essence. He sees it as historically formed praxis, where the just is sought in and through what has been socially ordered.

S.: So no speculative rationalism, but no brute factualism either.

G.: Exactly. And that is why philosophy is necessary. Without philosophy, law degenerates into either administrative coercion or sentimental moralism. With philosophy, one may at least see the structure of the conflict.

S.: Then the old Roman jurists were already philosophers, whether they admitted it or not.

G.: In the best sense, yes. They practised distinctions under pressure. They were less interested in Being than in action, relation, remedy, equity, competence, title, and the fit of norm to case.

S.: Which is why law in Rome remained closer to prudence than to theory.

G.: Precisely. And Solari loves that. He sees in Roman jurisprudence a realism not of brute fact but of practical settlement: the art of the good and the equitable.

S.: Ars boni et aequi.

G.: Yes. And notice the rhetorical grandeur of that formula. It names law not as command, but as art.

S.: So law begins in practice and judgment, not in ontology.

G.: Very good. That is why legal philosophy in Italy often remains more civil and historical than the grand Germanic metaphysics of right.

S.: Though Hegel intrudes eventually.

G.: Hegel intrudes everywhere, but even he must answer to institutions and history. Solari knows his Hegel, but he does not let Geist erase the jurists.

S.: And Hart, coming later, translates the problem into analytical prose.

G.: Exactly. He asks: what do we mean by legal validity, by rule, by obligation, by a system of primary and secondary rules? It is a different idiom, but the problem remains the same.

S.: Which is why, perhaps, philosophy of law after Hart becomes the logical grammar of law.

G.: Up to a point. One must not let grammar become another abstraction. But yes: philosophy of law becomes partly the analysis of how legal concepts function, what differences they mark, what inferential roles they bear, how they structure practice.

S.: And that is ordinary language philosophy of law.

G.: Or one strand of it. The great gain is that one need no longer pretend that law is philosophically addressed only by grand theories of justice or sovereignty. The very use of words like “duty,” “right,” “power,” “authority,” “valid,” “void,” “obliged,” “liable,” “responsible,” and so forth becomes philosophically central.

S.: Which is probably why legal philosophers became so much less theatrical and so much more dangerous.

G.: Dangerous to lazy thought, yes. Once the grammar is exposed, whole schools begin to look under-described.

S.: Including natural law?

G.: Certainly. Natural law is safest when left in noble blur. Ask it how “ought” relates to “validity,” or how moral defect affects legal status, and it must start doing better work.

S.: And positivism too.

G.: Especially positivism. Once one distinguishes rule from threat, validity from efficacy, internal from external viewpoints, the old positivist smugness is no longer enough.

S.: Then Solari before Hart and Hart after Solari both attack the same enemy from different directions.

G.: That is a useful way to put it. Solari attacks abstraction detached from history and civil practice. Hart attacks coarseness detached from conceptual structure.

S.: So one might say Solari saves law from metaphysical emptiness, and Hart saves it from conceptual slovenliness.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself. Now, what of diritto itself as a word? Does it lean more toward right or toward law?

S.: In Italian it leans both ways, which is why it is so fruitful and so dangerous. It can mean objective law, subjective right, legal order, justice, jurisprudence.

G.: Exactly. Its ambiguity is not accidental; it records a history in which law and right were never fully severed.

S.: Whereas English splits more quickly between law and right.

G.: Yes. Which makes English analytically useful but sometimes historically amnesiac. Diritto reminds one that legal order and rightful claim have long inhabited the same lexical house.

S.: So philosophy is needed partly because language itself has not finished distinguishing the things.

G.: Precisely. And Hart’s conceptual analysis is, among other things, a disciplined effort to say what our ordinary language partly mingles.

S.: Yet Solari would insist that the mingling is historically significant, not a mere defect.

G.: Very good. It reflects the historical formation of institutions. One cannot simply shave the word into modern neatness without losing the civil sediment it carries.

S.: So philosophy of law must be at once analytic and archaeological.

G.: Splendid. That is exactly right.

S.: Then does Hart really change everything, or only the terms in which everything must now be argued?

G.: Better the latter. He changes the discipline by making certain forms of vagueness no longer respectable. After Hart, one cannot go on speaking about law as if command, rule, validity, obligation, authority, discretion, and interpretation were obvious.

S.: Which means even critics of Hart must first pass through him.

G.: Very often. As critics of Kant still smell faintly Kantian.

S.: Then Solari now looks almost prophetic.

G.: In the sense that he already knew law could not survive without philosophy, yes. Not because he anticipated Hart in method, but because he knew that legal life is conceptually and historically too rich to be left either to doctrinaires or to administrators.

S.: So the final lesson is that law without philosophy becomes either command or sentiment, and philosophy without law becomes either abstraction or sermon.

G.: Excellent. And the best legal philosophy stands exactly where Solari stands at his best: between iussum and iustum, with Rome behind him, Vico at his side, and just enough prudence to know that concepts live in institutions before they live in treatises.

S.: And Hart?

G.: Hart arrives later with English dryness and asks what we have been saying all along when we say “law.” It is a small question, and therefore a revolutionary one.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Lombard, with one Oxford raincloud over it.

 

Grice: Caro Solari, sa, la mia formazione in Literae Humaniores a Clifton mi ha insegnato il valore di distinguere tra iussum e iustum. In Inghilterra, tra i barbari, spesso queste finezze si perdono, mentre qui, in Italia—terra del latino—sono ancora il cuore della riflessione filosofica.

Solari: È vero, Grice. In Italia la tradizione filosofica si nutre proprio di queste distinzioni concrete. Non parliamo solo di "giusto" in astratto, ma di ciò che prende forma nelle istituzioni reali, nella vita quotidiana, come ci insegnano i giuristi romani.

Grice: Mi affascina come il diritto romano sia stato sempre un’arte pratica, l’ars boni et aequi. Non si cercava l’assoluto, ma si dava risposta ai bisogni della società. È una filosofia che vive nella storia, non nell’astrazione.

Solari: Esattamente. Seguendo Vico, credo che “il vero è il fatto”: solo ciò che l’uomo costruisce nella storia può essere conosciuto davvero. Per noi, la prudenza civile non è teoria, ma ragione applicata alle circostanze concrete. Questa è la forza della nostra tradizione.

 

Verbali: Soldati

 

G.: Let us begin with the title itself: arte rettorica or merely rettorica. Which would Soldati have preferred if nobody had required him to look useful to a seminary?

S.: The title-page says L’arte rettorica, which already tells us he wants rhetoric not merely as a field but as a teachable craft.

G.: Exactly. Arte promises rules, transmission, exercise, and examinability. Rettorica alone might sound too large, too Ciceronian, too unruly, almost as if one were dealing with the whole civil domain of persuasive speech.

S.: While arte rettorica says: this can be taught to boys before they become dangerous.

G.: Or before they become bishops, which is often the same thing under another description.

S.: Then the first distinction is between rhetoric as object and rhetoric as practice.

G.: More sharply: between rhetoric as theory of effective speech and the art of rhetoric as the pedagogically organised means of producing effective speakers.

S.: So Soldati is already institutional.

G.: Entirely. He is writing ad uso del Seminario e Collegio Vescovile di Pistoja. That phrase does half the philosophy before the first page is turned.

S.: Because it means rhetoric is here under discipline, not merely admired.

G.: Yes. This is not rhetoric at large in the forum, but rhetoric filtered through seminary use, approval, utility, and episcopal decorum.

S.: Yet the funny thing is that rhetoric under such discipline may still become the liveliest thing in the building.

G.: Always. Once one starts teaching tact, insinuation, strategic concession, litotes, meiosis, irony, one is never very far from dangerous civilisation.

S.: Which is why you like him.

G.: I do. Because Soldati reminds one that what I later call pragmatics had for centuries been housed under rhetoric with considerably more elegance and rather less anxiety.

S.: Then the great question is whether pragmatics is merely conversational rhetoric in modern dress.

G.: Leech said something very like that, and he was not wholly wrong. The problem is that “merely” does too much work.

S.: Because if pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, that is not a diminution but a genealogy.

G.: Precisely. The modern analyst likes to think he has discovered inferential surplus in conversation. The rhetorician had already been teaching it to adolescents with ecclesiastical ambitions.

S.: Under names like litotes and meiosis rather than scalar implicature and defeasible uptake.

G.: Exactly. The old labels are often better because they do not pretend the thing has just been invented.

S.: Then why did rhetoric decline in philosophical prestige?

G.: Because philosophers are vain and prefer categories that sound less like school exercises and more like late revelation.

S.: That is severe.

G.: It is fair. Also because rhetoric became associated with ornament, persuasion, and suspected manipulation, whereas logic and later philosophy wanted truth, validity, and a cleaner conscience.

S.: Yet ordinary conversation never ceased to depend upon rhetorical competence.

G.: Quite. One does not survive socially by syllogism alone. Even the driest Oxford don lives by concession, contrast, understatement, suggestion, strategic omission, and all the old arts the trivium once kept in circulation.

S.: Which brings us to the trivium itself. Which is the most trivial of the three?

G.: Ah, the dangerous question. Grammar will claim priority because without grammar no sentence stands. Logic will claim dignity because without logic no inference deserves respect. Rhetoric will be called trivial by those who do not understand that the other two are socially helpless without it.

S.: So in your view the most trivial is whatever the curriculum pretends can be left till last.

G.: Very nearly. In practice, rhetoric is often treated as decorative completion after grammar and logic have done the serious work. But that treatment is itself philosophically trivial.

S.: Because rhetoric governs actual uptake.

G.: Exactly. Grammar gives form, logic gives discipline, rhetoric gives contact with hearers. If civilisation had begun with logic and stayed there, nobody would ever have been persuaded to build Bologna.

S.: Or Oxford.

G.: Still less Oxford. Oxford is a rhetorical settlement pretending to be a logical one.

S.: That is almost too true.

G.: Most useful things are. Now, what would have happened if philosophers had started with the quadrivium rather than the trivium?

S.: We should have had more astronomers with bad tempers and fewer lawyers with style.

G.: A good beginning. More seriously, if arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy had formed the first habits of mind before grammar, logic, and rhetoric, civilisation would have tilted toward structure before utterance.

S.: Meaning that number, proportion, and order would precede speech, argument, and persuasion.

G.: Yes. The consequences would have been immense. Bologna might have become less a university of jurists and more a university of calculators. Oxford might have had fewer sermons and more instruments.

S.: And fewer essays.

G.: A loss to everyone except the essay-writers. More deeply, if the quadrivial disciplines came first, one might learn harmony before disagreement, proportion before disputation, celestial order before civic speech.

S.: Which sounds attractive until one remembers that civilisation is mostly disagreement about proportion expressed in bad prose.

G.: Excellent. That is why the trivium came first. Humans need words before they need stars, or at least they need words to argue about the stars.

S.: So the educational order is not arbitrary. Speech precedes number in social necessity.

G.: Precisely. The quadrivium may promise a higher serenity, but the trivium deals with immediate human conditions: how to speak, how to argue, how to persuade, how not to be laughed out of court.

S.: Soldati would approve.

G.: Entirely. Arte rettorica is for boys who must soon speak to persons, not merely to ratios.

S.: Yet some scholastics would say the quadrivium disciplines the mind more rigorously.

G.: Perhaps. But rigor without address is poor civilisation. One may have perfect geometry and still fail to tell one’s hearer what one means, or worse, succeed only accidentally.

S.: So rhetoric remains the least trivial of the trivium in practical life.

G.: I should say so. Grammar is indispensable, logic is honourable, but rhetoric is where social intelligence enters as method rather than as accident.

S.: That is very close to saying pragmatics is rhetoric cleaned up for modern analysis.

G.: Cleaned up, reduced, re-labelled, and made slightly ashamed of its own ancestry.

S.: Why ashamed?

G.: Because modern philosophers fear persuasion. They would rather speak of inference, uptake, recognition of intention, maxims, calculability. All of which is fine, but much of it is simply rhetoric under anaesthesia.

S.: Soldati, by contrast, has no shame about tact, insinuation, strategic concession.

G.: None at all. He teaches them as the substance of effective discourse. And that is one reason he matters. He reminds us that the between-the-lines life of utterance is not a late discovery but a long pedagogical practice.

S.: Then arte rettorica is perhaps the more honest title.

G.: Yes. It admits that meaning between the lines must be made, not merely noticed. There is craft in it.

S.: Whereas rhetoric as pure noun might sound too much like a theoretical container.

G.: Or too much like a vice. “Rhetoric” in modern English often means empty public style, inflation, insincerity. “The art of rhetoric” sounds older, narrower, and more teachable.

S.: So Soldati’s title already protects him against modern contempt.

G.: In part, yes. Though not against all of it. There are still those who hear rhetoric and think only of flourish.

S.: Which is exactly what your own examples of “He is a fine fellow” are meant to resist. The sentence does not merely decorate criticism; it performs it through irony.

G.: Exactly. It is not ornament on top of content. The content itself is inseparable from the rhetorical manner in which it is conveyed.

S.: That sounds like Soldati’s whole point.

G.: Very much so. And if one wanted to scandalise the cleaner analysts, one might say that conversational implicature is often just rhetoric happening under ordinary cooperative conditions.

S.: The phrase “ordinary cooperative conditions” does a lot of salvage work there.

G.: It does. It saves rhetoric from the accusation of being necessarily manipulative. In ordinary conversation, rhetorical devices work not merely because one wants to win, but because shared expectations allow meaning to be shaped delicately rather than bluntly.

S.: So litotes, meiosis, strategic concession, “but,” irony, understatement, all rely on reason-governed expectations.

G.: Precisely. Which is why they are philosophically tractable. If rhetoric were mere decoration, there would be less to say. But because it works through shared norms of relevance, sufficiency, contrast, and recognisability, it belongs directly to the philosophy of language.

S.: Then perhaps the old quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy was always misplaced.

G.: Often. The real quarrel should have been between good rhetoric and bad metaphysics, or between honest rhetoric and manipulative power. Philosophy itself cannot escape rhetoric without becoming unintelligible.

S.: Yet it has often tried.

G.: And usually by becoming unreadable, which is a form of revenge upon the public.

S.: Bologna, then. If the quadrivium had come first there, would law have developed differently?

G.: Undoubtedly. Roman law lives by distinctions carried in language. Its subtleties require grammar and rhetoric as much as logic. A quadrivially trained first formation might have made Bologna less verbal, less juridical, more formal in the wrong sense.

S.: So no glossators, or at least worse ones.

G.: Worse ones, certainly. A jurist without rhetoric is a filing cabinet with Latin endings.

S.: And Oxford?

G.: Oxford would have become still more abstractly mathematical before learning how to sermonise. One shudders to imagine an Oxford where ratio precedes disputatio absolutely.

S.: There would still have been sermons, but perhaps less style in them.

G.: Much less. Anglican civilisation depends upon delayed argument ornamented by remembered rhetoric. Take away the trivium and you damage the whole ecclesiastical prose tradition.

S.: So civilisation survives because boys learn to decline nouns and detect irony before they learn harmonics.

G.: In broad outline, yes. One must know how to say before one can know how to count elegantly.

S.: Yet some Greeks might object.

G.: Greeks object to everything in educational order, which is why they remain useful.

S.: Then what is the most trivial discipline of the trivium in your actual ranking?

G.: If forced, I should say grammar is treated as the most trivial only because it is taken for granted once one has it. In reality, rhetoric is often falsely judged trivial because it is associated with social polish. Logic preserves its prestige because moderns are frightened of appearing loose.

S.: So the answer depends on whether one asks what is most despised or what is least necessary.

G.: Exactly. Most despised, rhetoric. Least dispensable in actual human affairs, also rhetoric. Most easily forgotten because absorbed into habit, grammar. Most capable of self-advertised dignity, logic.

S.: A very unfair ranking.

G.: Which is why it is accurate. Now, Soldati in a Pistoiese seminary. What is he really teaching?

S.: Not merely Ciceronian categories, but the disciplined production of clerical intelligibility: how to move a hearer, how to concede without collapsing, how to suggest without vulgarity, how to use form to manage souls.

G.: Very good. Rhetoric there is practical theology by linguistic means.

S.: Which is another reason pragmatics inherits more from rhetoric than from pure logic.

G.: Yes. Everyday talk is not a formal proof environment. It is a field of managed emphasis, selection, veiling, stressing, and arranging.

S.: Which again sounds like Soldati.

G.: Entirely. He knows that a phrase like “He is a fine fellow” may praise, damn, ironise, excuse, defer, or wound depending on context and shared expectations.

S.: So the old rhetorical pedagogy had examples for what you later formalise with implicature.

G.: Exactly. It did not formalise in my way, but it understood in practice that saying one thing can, under shared conditions, make another thing reasonably gatherable.

S.: Then perhaps the question “arte rettorica or rettorica?” can now be answered.

G.: Let us try.

S.: Rettorica names the field in its civic and historical breadth. Arte rettorica names the teachable, disciplined, seminario-sized extraction of that field for practical formation.

G.: Excellent. And Soldati chooses the latter because he is not writing a history of eloquence but training speakers.

S.: Or future priests.

G.: Which in Italy often means future speakers first, priests second.

S.: A dangerous observation in Pistoia.

G.: All the better. Now, if pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, what does modern philosophy add?

S.: A thinner but sharper account of why the old devices work: shared rational expectations, inferential routes, recognised intentions, cooperative norms.

G.: Exactly. We do not replace rhetoric; we explain some of its ordinary mechanisms under a less ornamental vocabulary.

S.: And what does Soldati add back?

G.: Memory. He reminds us that practical intelligence in speech was cultivated long before analysts arrived with examples and distinctions. He also reminds us that tact, insinuation, irony, and strategic reduction are arts, not accidents.

S.: So perhaps civilisation without the trivium would have had order but no style, proportion but little address, astronomy but bad sermons.

G.: And civilisation without rhetoric would have had grammar enough to decline and logic enough to infer, but very little capacity to survive dinner.

S.: Which is surely the more serious disaster.

G.: By far. Philosophy that cannot survive dinner eventually writes only for itself.

S.: Oxford occasionally approached that condition.

G.: More than occasionally. Bologna, too, when it forgot that law must persuade as well as classify.

S.: Then Soldati is useful not because he is modern, but because he keeps alive the old truth that meaning among persons is an art before it is a theorem.

G.: Beautifully put. And that is the nearest thing to a conclusion we shall get before tea.

S.: One final question. If the quadrivium had come first, would pragmatics have been delayed?

G.: Almost certainly. A civilisation trained first in number and proportion would likely have treated speech as secondary form rather than primary practice. The subtle arts of ordinary implication might have survived socially, but not pedagogically. One would have more geometry and less conversation.

S.: Which is another way of saying fewer essays and worse marriages.

G.: Precisely. The history of philosophy is often hidden in curriculum design.

S.: And the history of civilisation in whether one teaches boys irony before astronomy.

G.: That is too good not to be true.

S.: Then Soldati, finally?

G.: A seminary rhetor who knew that between the lines lies most of what moves human beings, and who would not have been surprised to hear that pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, provided one did not say it as if the discovery were yesterday’s.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Pistoiese, with one Oxford sneer held in reserve.

 

 

Grice: Soldati, devo confessare che la vostra arte rettorica qui a Pistoia ha un certo sapore, come dire, più frizzante del mio vecchio Corpus. Se solo Reinalds potesse sentire la vostra spiegazione di una litote… forse smetterebbe di citare Cicerone ogni tre battute!

Soldati: Ma caro Grice, la rettorica pistoiese non teme paragoni: qui persino la pergamena sa ridere! In seminario abbiamo trasformato la prammatica in una conversazione, e la conversazione in una partita di scacchi. Non è vero che una battuta ben piazzata può cambiare l’intera partita?

Grice: Ah, Soldati, lei mi ricorda il mio pupil Strawson, al Vadum Boum – la sua università – che, poveretto, cercava la rettorica, ma non l’ha mai trovata così “triviale” come i ragazzi la trovano a Bononia. Forse a Oxford ci manca il piacere sottile di una battuta toscana, dove la prammatica si cela dietro un sorriso e il vero significato si intuisce solo tra le righe…

Soldati: Perfetta implicatura oratoria, Grice! Lei, più di tutti, sa che una conversazione ben condotta non ha bisogno di proclami: basta un accenno, e il pubblico si scioglie come il burro sulle tagliatelle. E come diceva l’abate: “Chi sa parlare, sa sorridere.”

 

Verbali: Solonghello

 

Grice: Solonghello, mi permetta di dirle che la sua “Grammatica rivoluzionaria della lingua italiana” è una delle opere più brillanti che abbia letto: davvero una ventata d’aria fresca!

Solonghello: La ringrazio di cuore, Grice. Sentire queste parole da lei, che ha donato tanto alla filosofia del linguaggio, è motivo di orgoglio. D’altronde, l’italiano ha bisogno ogni tanto di essere scompaginato e reinventato!

Grice: Proprio così! Il modo in cui lei indaga le implicature e il gioco sottile delle conversazioni italiane mi ricorda quanto la prammatica sia viva, anche fuori dai testi accademici. C’è quasi un piacere ludico nell’esplorare gli inganni e le ironie della lingua.

Solonghello: Ah, maestro, lei coglie il punto! “Non tutto il male vien per nuocere? Bugia! Ogni male viene per nuocere. Se produce qualche beneficio, è un male fatto male”... L’ironia è l’essenza della conversazione italiana, e la grammatica, se non sa sorridere, ha perso il suo spirito.

 

Verbali: Somenzi

 

Grice: Somenzi, mi dica: quando lei parla di naturale, innaturale, sovranaturale e trasnaturale, non le capita mai di sentirsi come uno chef davanti a un menù troppo ricco? Io, già solo scegliendo tra “naturale” e “innaturale”, ho il terrore di sbagliare condimento filosofico! 

Somenzi: Caro Grice, in effetti, tra i filosofi lombardi c’è chi pensa che la natura sia una pentola che bolle sempre, e ogni tanto ci tuffiamo dentro concetti come “sovranaturale” sperando non ci venga a noia! Ma la cybernetica almeno ci insegna che il brodo si rinnova, e ogni ingrediente può diventare protagonista. 

Grice: Vede, io non ho mai avuto paura di “segnare” – anche se a Oxford il verbo ha fatto sorridere più di una volta! Mi piace pensare che ogni segno – naturale, non-naturale, transnaturale o sovranaturale – sia come una pennellata sulla tela della natura. Del resto, nulla è davvero contro natura, semmai è solo un po’ più creativo! 

Somenzi: Implicatura più naturalmente naturale, Grice! Lei arriva sempre al cuore della questione! Se avessimo un proverbio lombardo, direi: “Chi segna con la mente, segna con la natura.”

 

 

Verbali: Sordi

 

G.: Let us begin with Sordi’s club, because every Thomist eventually behaves as if Aquinas had founded not merely a school but a species of admission society.

S.: A club with better Latin than most clubs, though not always better wine.

G.: Quite. And the irony, of course, is that Thomas died without the advantage of official sainthood, which may have done him more good than immediate canonisation would have done.

S.: Because he was still available as a thinker before becoming fully available as an altar-piece.

G.: Exactly. There is a small interval in which a dead theologian remains a philosopher. Once the halo arrives, readers become tempted to genuflect where they ought to distinguish.

S.: Then Sordi, as Jesuit custodian, is trying to keep the distinctions alive while still enjoying the halo.

G.: Very well put. He wants Aquinas both as sound philosophy and as counter-revolutionary bulwark, which is a difficult double office.

S.: And one that Oxford receives rather differently.

G.: Entirely. Oxford, being Anglican, classicising, and institutionally allergic to papal enthusiasm, can accept Aquinas as a formidable mind without ever quite joining the devotional queue.

S.: Hence Kenny.

G.: Yes, hence Kenny, who is almost the ideal English case: former seminarian, real philosopher, trained enough in the tradition to read Thomas from inside, detached enough from institutional piety to teach him as philosophy rather than merely as doctrine.

S.: So Kenny helps Aquinas survive translation into Oxford.

G.: He does. He lets Aquinas enter the room not as the Angelic Doctor under glass, but as a serious disputant on act and potency, essence and existence, intention, will, law, virtue, and the rest.

S.: Yet the saintliness does not disappear.

G.: No, but it becomes biographically secondary rather than pedagogically primary. Which is probably as Aquinas would have preferred, though one should never ascribe modesty too confidently to a Dominican.

S.: A useful rule.

G.: Now, Bonaventure.

S.: Or should one say Giovanni di Fidanza, which already sounds like the beginning of a problem.

G.: Exactly. Bonaventure is philosophically suspicious to me because the name-change itself smells faintly of pre-sanctified literary arrangement.

S.: Harsh.

G.: Dry rather than harsh. Thomas remains Thomas of Aquino. Bonaventure enters philosophy under an already elevated title.

S.: Though to be fair, the title is historical enough.

G.: No doubt. But names matter. Fidanza is a proper mortal name. Bonaventura already means that Providence is doing the publicity.

S.: Whereas Aquino is merely locative.

G.: Precisely. A place-name. About as sober as one could hope. “Thomas from Aquino” sounds almost administrative compared with “Bonaventure.”

S.: So you suspect saints with uplifting names.

G.: I suspect philosophy’s reception when names begin flattering the doctrine before one has read a page.

S.: Then Aquinas benefited from dying first and shining later.

G.: Very much so. Death before sainthood gave his work a period of intellectual circulation in which it could be disputed, appropriated, mistrusted, admired, and used without immediate liturgical suffocation.

S.: And by the time canonisation comes, the philosophy is already too large to be reduced to sanctity.

G.: Exactly. The Summa and the commentaries have already escaped the shrine.

S.: Which is not true of every saintly thinker.

G.: Not true at all. Many are canonised before they are read, and after that their philosophy becomes a species of ecclesiastical furniture.

S.: You really do resent canonised furniture.

G.: I resent all furniture that starts calling itself self-evident. Now, Sordi wants Aquinas as the sound philosophy needed to preserve religious and social order.

S.: Which immediately moves the thing from university debate into cultural programme.

G.: Yes. Aquinas becomes not only a thinker but an instrument of restoration, which has pedagogic force but also risks using Thomas as a banner rather than as a mind.

S.: Yet the comparative method Sordi favours seems philosophically serious. He sets Aquinas against rationalists and empiricists to show the deficiencies of the latter.

G.: Quite. That part I admire more. Comparison at least gives Aquinas opponents worthy of him and keeps scholasticism from becoming mere repetition.

S.: So Sordi modernises method while conserving doctrine.

G.: Precisely. He does not just chant medieval formulas. He drags Thomas into combat with modern errors, which is at least more philosophical than reverential paraphrase.

S.: Though you do not like the social restoration part.

G.: I dislike any philosophy that begins sounding like a police recommendation, yes.

S.: That will not help your Jesuit reception.

G.: My Jesuit reception is poor already. Still, Aquinas in Sordi’s hands becomes a club principle: one belongs to the community of reason by belonging, in effect, to the intellectual order of Thomas.

S.: Hence the “club of Aquino.”

G.: Yes. A durable intellectual community underwritten by common metaphysics. Very unlike my own thinner, more procedural notion of conversational reason.

S.: Because for you people can reason together without first sharing a full metaphysical picture.

G.: Exactly. They need only enough common ground, enough inferential trust, enough practical rationality. Sordi thinks reason itself must be stabilised by shared doctrine and institutional continuity.

S.: And perhaps he is not wholly wrong, if one is speaking of civilisation rather than single exchanges.

G.: A fair caution. At the civilisational level, institutions do stabilise discourse. My complaint is only that one should not make metaphysical club-membership a precondition of intelligibility.

S.: Oxford prefers public reasons to doctrinal fraternity.

G.: At its best, yes. Though Oxford also has clubs disguised as reason.

S.: Naturally. Now, how does Sir Thomas More enter this saintly parade?

G.: Ah yes, poor More. An English martyr, canonised by Rome, admired by Anglicans with careful discomfort, quoted by politicians, and misused by nearly everyone.

S.: Was he made a saint? Yes, by the Roman Catholics.

G.: Certainly. Canonised in 1935, which already tells one something about modern uses of old martyrdom.

S.: And the Church of England?

G.: More complicated. The Church of England may honour him liturgically in certain calendars or ecumenical moods, but without the Roman machinery of canonisation in quite the same sense. Anglicans are good at admiring Roman saints while pretending not to notice the Roman paperwork.

S.: So More is a saint in one church, an heroic conscience in another, and an awkward statesman in every history seminar.

G.: Exactly. Which makes him philosophically useful and institutionally inconvenient.

S.: The Italians like him?

G.: Italians like everyone once a text can be translated and a conscience dramatized. But More never belongs to Italy the way Aquinas does. He is received, not inherited.

S.: Whereas Thomas belongs to Italy before he belongs to Rome.

G.: Good. Aquino is geographically, intellectually, and philologically Italian before being ecclesiastically universal.

S.: And that helps his philosophical reputation.

G.: Immensely. One can read him as an Italian thinker, a Dominican, a scholastic, a metaphysician, a commentator on Aristotle, a theologian, and only then as Saint Thomas, in that order if one is healthy.

S.: While Bonaventure arrives already half-canon in the sound of his name.

G.: Exactly. And that is why I am mean about him.

S.: You are rarely mean without principle.

G.: Thank you. My principle here is that philosophy profits from late sanctification, if sanctification must come at all.

S.: So the ideal schedule is: write hugely, die, circulate, dispute, be attacked, be appropriated, influence universities, and only then be sainted when it no longer matters too much.

G.: Splendid. Yes. That would preserve both the shrine and the seminar.

S.: Aquinas nearly got that.

G.: Nearly enough. The philosophical body had already escaped the hagiographical envelope.

S.: And Oxford could then receive him through Aristotle as much as through Rome.

G.: Precisely. That is crucial. Thomas enters Oxford not because Oxford wants saints, but because Oxford wants Aristotle explained by someone with terrifying competence.

S.: Hence the long life of Thomism in odd English forms.

G.: Yes. Not always devotional Thomism, often rather anti-devotional. One can be deeply interested in Thomas’s metaphysics and still remain temperamentally Anglican, sceptical, or even cheerfully secular.

S.: Kenny again.

G.: Kenny, certainly. Also Anscombe at certain points, and others who found in Thomas a grammar of intention, action, law, and virtue strong enough to survive confessional thinning.

S.: Bonaventure fares worse there.

G.: Much worse. He is too illuminated, too affective, too seraphic for the average Oxford appetite. His thought may be rich, but it carries too much atmosphere for a place that likes furniture with straight lines.

S.: Whereas Thomas can be made to look almost administrative.

G.: Exactly. He is saintly by metaphysical bulk, not by mystical perfume.

S.: You should not say that in a Franciscan house.

G.: I should say nothing in a Franciscan house if I can help it. Now, what has Sordi against modernism?

S.: Everything, I should think. Fragmentation, empiricism, sensism, thinning of metaphysical order, and the modern tendency to imagine that conversation can survive without common first principles.

G.: Very good. For him, Aquinas is not merely one thinker among others but the organiser of a durable intellectual commonwealth.

S.: Which is why you call it a club.

G.: Yes. The club is not frivolous. It is an order of discourse in which shared assumptions make rational exchange stable.

S.: Then perhaps one should not mock Sordi too quickly. He is trying to explain how communities of reason are kept alive.

G.: True. My resistance is only to the suggestion that the community must already agree on full metaphysical furniture before any real conversational reason can occur.

S.: You prefer lighter luggage.

G.: Exactly. My travellers need intentions, recognitions, norms of cooperation, not necessarily the whole Summa packed into their cases.

S.: Yet there are cases where the Summa helps.

G.: Of course. On action, intention, double effect, law, virtue, natural teleology, Thomas is not merely respectable but indispensable.

S.: And Sordi would add social order.

G.: Naturally. He wants Thomas as the foundation for social restoration, which is where I begin reaching for the door.

S.: Because restoration often means other people’s freedom quietly tidied away.

G.: Yes. Philosophies of order always risk making liberty sound like bad filing.

S.: Still, in the case of patria, church, and school, Thomas often looks less like a tyrant and more like a patient classifier.

G.: Quite. Which is why he is teachable. His distinctions are often humane because they are slow.

S.: That is a beautiful sentence.

G.: Keep it and make it look as if Sordi thought it first.

S.: He may have. Then tell me: did sainthood distort Thomas’s reception at Oxford or help it?

G.: Both, in different rooms. It distorted him for those who wanted him as doctrinal authority merely. It helped him by guaranteeing preservation, commentary, and institutional seriousness. But Oxford ultimately took what it wanted from Thomas because the thought was too good to leave to the saints.

S.: And the Italians?

G.: The Italians had two temptations: either to sanctify him into pious marble, or to nationalise him into a philosophical ancestor of order. Sordi, I think, hovers between the two without collapsing wholly into either.

S.: Because he still compares Aquinas with modern philosophers.

G.: Exactly. Comparative method keeps the club from becoming purely liturgical.

S.: Though Taparelli and the Jesuit compendia pull the other way.

G.: They do. Standardisation is always both a pedagogic benefit and an intellectual risk. Once Thomas becomes the approved manual, one can stop reading Thomas and start reading Thomism.

S.: Which is often death by commentary.

G.: Very often. Commentary is excellent until it becomes the only thing one is allowed to admire.

S.: That danger exists for saints more than for ordinary philosophers.

G.: Much more. Saints attract piety before they attract scrutiny. Thomas survives because he is too difficult, too systematic, and too philosophically fecund to remain merely an object of cult.

S.: Bonaventure does not quite survive in the same way.

G.: No. He survives more selectively, where people want illumination, exemplarism, Augustinian interiority, Franciscan warmth, or spiritual metaphysics. But he never quite becomes the common philosophical currency Thomas became.

S.: Because Fidanza became Bonaventura too soon?

G.: If not historically, then acoustically, yes.

S.: You are impossible.

G.: I am merely phonologically suspicious. Names predispose reception. “Aquinas” sounds like a location; “Bonaventure” sounds like a sermon title.

S.: That is unjust and very funny.

G.: Good. Keep both qualities together. Now, More again. Does his sainthood help or hinder philosophical reception?

S.: Mostly hinder, perhaps, if one is after political argument rather than conscience theatre.

G.: Yes. More is too easily flattened into martyrdom and thereby rescued from the tedious difficulty of his political thought and historical conduct.

S.: Whereas Thomas is so large that sainthood cannot flatten him entirely.

G.: Precisely. One saint is absorbed by his halo; the other irradiates beyond it.

S.: Then Sordi’s real contribution is to keep Aquinas as intellectual organizer rather than merely devotional ancestor.

G.: Yes. That is his strength. He makes Thomas do contemporary work against empiricism and modern disintegration. Whether one likes the social programme is another matter.

S.: But one can at least see why he matters for an Italian “Aquinas renaissance.”

G.: Very much so. He helps move Thomas from the edge of ecclesiastical memory back to the centre of intellectual life.

S.: And Oxford receives that through different conduits.

G.: Through philosophers, translators, ex-seminarians, classicists, moralists, and those who discovered that analytic distinctions did not forbid theological intelligence.

S.: So perhaps Aquinas’s best fortune was to be born local, think universal, die a friar, and become a saint only after philosophers had already started stealing him.

G.: That is excellent. Yes. Philosophical theft before canonical enclosure.

S.: Then your final verdict on saints and philosophy?

G.: Saints are dangerous to philosophy when reverence arrives too early. Philosophy survives saints when the thought has already learned to travel without the relics.

S.: And Aquinas?

G.: A triumph of travel over relic.

S.: Bonaventure?

G.: A beautiful problem under an overhelpful name.

S.: More?

G.: A martyr too quickly moralised for the comfort of historians and too English to remain wholly Roman.

S.: Sordi?

G.: A club secretary of genius, provided one does not let him lock the door.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Piacentine, with one Dominican lamp still burning.

 

 

Grice: Caro Sordi, si dice che in filosofia conta saper argomentare, ma io sono convinto che la vera virtù sia… la clubbability! D’altronde, anche a Oxford ci si riunisce per il tè, mica solo per i sillogismi. 

Sordi: Ah, Grice, qui a Milano forse il tè lo lasciamo agli inglesi, ma il vero spirito del club d’Aquino sta proprio nel mescolare dottrina e compagnia. Tra una Summa e una battuta, si fa filosofia e contro-rivoluzione! 

Grice: Si sa, alcuni club sono esclusivi per statuto; tuttavia, il club d’Aquino… be’, diciamo che chi sa cogliere certe implicature, come avrebbe detto il buon Dr. Johnson, si trova subito a casa—al di là della tessera. 

Sordi: Implicatura più clubbabile, Grice! In fondo, tra filosofi, la vera appartenenza si misura dal sorriso che si cela dietro una definizione… e dal numero di panettoni condivisi durante le dispute metafisiche.

 

Verbali: Soria

 

Grice: Soria, la sua teoria della simpatia mi ha sempre affascinato. Mi sembra che lei riesca quasi a far “vibrare” il mondo naturale attraverso un principio di comunicazione universale. Crede davvero che ogni cosa, anche la più minuta, partecipi a questa armonia?

Soria: Caro Grice, le confesso che la mia idea di simpatia nasce dal desiderio di scoprire un filo invisibile che unisca uomini e natura, senza cadere nell’animismo ingenuo. Preferisco pensare a una risonanza razionale, dove ogni parte del cosmo risponde, pur mantenendo la sua autonomia spirituale.

Grice: Eppure, la sua prospettiva sembra quasi suggerire che la natura abbia una sua interiorità, un sentimento diffuso, come se fosse animata. Non trova che questa visione, pur razionale, sfiori l’empatia universale di cui parlano i filosofi più “vitali”?

Soria: È vero, maestro, ma la mia simpatia vuole essere un ponte tra ragione e sentimento, non una confusione tra la mente umana e lo spirito cosmico. Preferisco pensare che la cooperazione e la benevolenza siano principi che guidano sia la conversazione tra uomini, sia l’armonia del mondo. In fondo, come dice il proverbio: “Chi semina buone parole, raccoglie simpatia.”

 

Verbali: Sorrentino

 

G: 1939. You have brought two Vicos into my room and expect me to treat that as one.

S: Two citations, sir. Page eighty, and page one hundred and thirty-eight. Oxford prefers to learn by page number.

G: Oxford prefers to learn by footnote.

S: Then you’re in luck. Page one hundred and thirty-eight is a footnote. G: Read the page eighty Vico first. S: Collingwood, Principles of Art. He says: Giambattista Vico said that children were “sublime poets.” G: And what is Collingwood doing with that. S: He is doing what Oxford always does: invoking a foreign genius in order to dismiss him politely. G: Yes. He says Vico may be right, and then says it throws no light for most of us. S: It’s the Oxford compliment: “Brilliant, but not useful.” G: Now page one hundred and thirty-eight. S: The footnote says: the habit of calling aesthetic experience “the pleasures of the imagination” dates back to Addison; the philosophical theory of art as imagination, to his contemporary Vico. G: That one is better. It gives Vico a role in the genealogy of an idea. S: So Vico becomes, in Oxford, a footnote in a footnote. G: That is still an improvement on being absent. S: But why is Collingwood so superficial, sir. G: Because he is writing Principles of Art, not Principles of Naples. S: And because he thinks “imagination” is a word you can use without paying rent. G: Not quite. He knows it’s loaded. That’s why he attacks the confusion between imagination and make-believe. S: His “anti-aesthetic” paragraph. G: Exactly. He is actually making a conceptual distinction, which is our tribe’s only real sport. S: And he brings in Vico to say: art as imagination has philosophical ancestry, not just sentimental ancestry. G: Yes. Addison gives the phrase. Vico gives the theory. S: Sir, you said earlier Collingwood “almost went to jail” over Vico. G: Over Croce’s Vico, and translation rights. It is Oxford heroism by paperwork. S: Collingwood translating Croce in 1913, and Douglas Ainslie being furious. G: The Oxford contribution to Italian philosophy: litigation. S: So the poor Oxonians needed Collingwood to render Vico intelligible. G: The poor always learn at Oxford. The rich merely inherit committees. S: And Sorrentino. G: Yes. Andrea Sorrentino on Vico, rhetoric and poetics. S: You want me to use Collingwood as an Oxford anchor so Sorrentino doesn’t float in from Rome like a decorative gondola. G: Precisely. We need Vico not as a souvenir but as a presence in Oxford discourse during Grice’s period. S: Collingwood gives you that. Twice. G: And Croce gives you a third way, via Collingwood-as-translator. S: But then Grice. Would he have cared about Vico. G: He would care about whatever made “meaning” look like a civil practice rather than a code. S: And that is rhetoric. G: Yes. Rhetoric is the art of making the hearer do work without resenting it. S: That sounds like implicature. G: It is the ancestor of it, if you want a genealogy without committing a crime. S: So Sorrentino’s “retorica di Vico” becomes relevant to conversational reason. G: Yes. Because Vico’s rhetorica is not ornament; it is the civil machinery by which a culture can mean things together. S: But Oxford hates rhetoric. G: Oxford hates being accused of rhetoric. Oxford loves doing it. S: Collingwood’s footnote is rhetoric too. G: Of course. It suggests a whole intellectual lineage in one line and expects the reader to accept it. S: What about Isaiah Berlin. G: Berlin is the later Oxford Vico evangelist, but in 1939 he is not yet the public Berlin of the Counter-Enlightenment. S: So we keep him in the wings. G: Mention him only as future confirmation that Vico will be taken seriously at Oxford. S: And Hampshire. G: Hampshire’s Vico essay is after your window, but you can have us prophesy him. S: A prophecy in Oxford is always a footnote in advance. G: Good. Now: rhetoric, rhetorica. S: Is Vico more rhetorician than philosopher. G: That is an anachronism. In Vico’s world, rhetoric is philosophy’s public face. And in Oxford’s world, philosophy pretends it has no face. S: But it does. G: It does. It is called “ordinary language.” S: Which is rhetoric in modest dress. G: Exactly. Now bring in I. A. Richards, if you want. S: Richards has a Philosophy of Rhetoric. Not a philosopher, strictly. G: That “strictly” is your mistake. Cambridge can contribute too, but we’re anchoring Oxford. S: Grice quotes Ogden and Richards. G: Yes. So the Oxford story includes Cambridge rhetoric as an imported tool. S: Like a foreign wine. G: Exactly. Now, the imagination point. Collingwood has “Language” as a chapter. S: In Principles of Art, Book II, Theory of Imagination, Chapter XI. G: Good. Now link that to Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit and Anscombe, since you insisted. S: The duck-rabbit is aspect-seeing, and it looks like imagination. G: Yes. And rhetoric is partly aspect-guiding. Making the audience see it as duck, not rabbit, without stating “duck.” S: That sounds like implicature again. G: It is not implicature strictly, but it is the same discipline of guiding without spelling out. S: So you want one principle governing language, like Vico’s rhetorical principle and Grice’s cooperative principle. G: Yes. But be careful. Vico’s principle is historical and cultural; mine is meant to be thin and general. S: And Collingwood sits between them with imagination. G: Precisely. He turns imagination into a philosophical engine for art, and he nods to Vico as a precursor. S: But he is superficial. G: He is economical. Superficiality is sometimes economy. S: Sorrentino, on the other hand, is not economical. G: Sorrentino is Roman, and Romans like architecture. They build interpretive horizons. S: And Oxford likes small rooms. G: Exactly. Oxford is suspicious of Mediterranean horizons because they make Oxford look provincial. S: Which it is. G: Quietly. Now: why “retorica” for Vico. S: Because Vico’s knowledge is poetic knowledge, and poetic knowledge is rhetorical in its mode of presentation. G: Yes. And because Vico thinks nations are made by imaginative universals, which are not deductions but tropes. S: So a trope is a cognitive instrument, not a decoration. G: Exactly. That is the Vichian move that Sorrentino wants. S: And Grice would translate that into: hearers infer beyond what is said using shared expectations. G: Yes. The difference is that Vico builds the shared expectations historically; I treat them as a standing rational practice. S: Now, the Oxford connection again. G: Collingwood gives you Vico inside an Oxford Clarendon book in 1938. S: And Collingwood gives you Croce’s Vico in 1913, also Oxford in a social sense. G: And perhaps Grice’s Oxford could have met Vico through that line even if no one admitted it. S: Because Oxford never admits sources. G: Exactly. Oxford calls sources “background.” S: Then the vignette should end with a prophecy about Hampshire. G: Yes. We say: one day an Oxford man will treat Vico and language seriously. S: And you add: but he will do it in New York Review of Books, not in a tutorial. G: Precisely. S: Punchline, sir. G: The punchline is that Oxford took Vico seriously enough to footnote him twice, and that is the Oxford equivalent of building him a statue.

 

Grice: Sorrentino, leggevo il suo lavoro su Vico e la cultura mediterranea… Dica la verità: per lei Vico è più greco che romano, o più romano che greco? Oppure, come certi filosofi di Roma, si muove con disinvoltura tra l’una e l’altra riva del Mediterraneo?

Sorrentino: Eh, caro Grice, con Vico non si sta mai fermi: un giorno si trova tra le pandette romane, il giorno dopo si perde nei labirinti della mitologia greca… È un po’ come prendere il traghetto da Napoli: non sai mai esattamente in quale porto sbarcherai, ma sai che sarà sempre Mediterraneo!

Grice: Devo ammettere che c’è del vero! Del resto, il vico in cui viveva Vico era abbastanza lontano da Bononia… Ma, tra noi, era ancora più distante da Vadum Boum: lì si discute di leggi, ma la poesia, quella vera, resta sulle rive del Mediterraneo.

Sorrentino: Implicatura quanto mai topica, Grice! In fondo, chi si allontana troppo dal Mediterraneo rischia di perdere la rotta… e magari finisce per confondere i filosofi con i bovini!

 

Verbali: Sortis

 

Grice: Sortis, ho sempre pensato che la vostra rettorica conversazionale sia una vera miniera d’oro per chi, come me, si diverte a intrecciare metafore e pro-sillogismi. Ma ditemi, chi vi ha insegnato a rendere ogni discorso così brillante senza mai annoiare? Forse il segreto sta nel vostro stile lucchese o nel caffè napoletano?

Sortis: Ah, caro Grice, se bastasse solo il caffè, saremmo tutti oratori perfetti! Ma la vera eloquenza nasce dall’osservare la natura umana, dal cogliere l’ironia dietro ogni parola, e soprattutto dalla capacità di non soffocare il genio naturale dei miei giovani interlocutori. E poi, come si dice a Lucca: “Parola gentile, apre ogni cancello.”

Grice: Vede, a Vadum Boum, dove insegno, ho un tutee, Strawson, che ogni tanto mi chiede se la rettorica sia davvero “triviale”. Io non oso mai dirgli di no… ma diciamo che chi frequentava le vostre lezioni non ha mai trovato la conversazione banale. Anzi, c’è chi sostiene che persino il silenzio tra i vostri studenti sia carico di implicature.

Sortis: Implicatura più oratorialmente sublime, Grice! Se persino Strawson, tra una pausa e l’altra, riesce a percepire il valore di una parola ben posta, allora la vostra scuola non ha nulla da invidiare alla mia. In fondo, chi sa sorridere tra le righe e lasciar intendere più di quanto dica, ha già conquistato la platea. E come si dice dalle nostre parti: “Meglio una buona allusione che mille spiegazioni.”

 

Verbali: Sozzini

 

Grice: Caro Sozzini di Siena, leggo il tuo De auctoritate scripturae sacrae e mi pare che anche la Bibbia, come una buona conversazione, dica sempre un po’ più di quanto afferma.

Sozzini: Misericordia, Grice, se lo dici così i teologi diranno che ho inventato l’implicatura prima del peccato originale.

Grice: Non temere, a Cracovia come a Oxford basta riconoscere l’intenzione dell’autore e il resto lo fa la cooperazione del lettore.

Sozzini: Allora siamo salvi entrambi: io salvo la Scrittura dall’autorità cieca e tu la conversazione dalla cecità filosofica, con un sorriso.

 

Grice’s weekley essay assignment: Sozzini. Given two Sienese Sozzinis, one at Zürich in 1562 and one at Kraków in 1570, discuss whether “authority” and “explication” are properly distinguishable as two theological tasks, or whether each is already a disguised form of the other; conclude by stating, with reasons, which brother would have been more suspicious of the proposition that a text means more than it says. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

 

Verbali: Sozzini

 

Grice: Caro Sozzini, devo confessarle che tutto quello che so sui fratelli Sozzini, l’ho imparato proprio da mio padre: il meno conformista tra i non-conformisti che io abbia mai conosciuto! 

Sozzini: Ah, Grice, questa sì che è una presentazione che mi fa sorridere! Credo che suo padre e io ci saremmo trovati subito d’accordo: un vero spirito affine, senza dubbio. 

Grice: Non ho dubbi! Era capace di mettere in dubbio tutto, persino le abitudini di famiglia a colazione – figuriamoci i dogmi e le tradizioni. 

Sozzini: Proprio come noi Sozzini: sempre pronti a interrogare la ragione e a difendere il diritto di pensare con la propria testa. In fondo, la vera fede non teme le domande, ma si nutre di esse.

 

Grice’s weekly essay assignment: Sozzini. Write on “The Sozzini Problem” under the rule that you may not treat “the Sozzini brothers” as one philosopher in duplicate. Compare Lelio’s Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput with Fausto’s De auctoritate scripturae sacrae, and determine whether the first begins from reason in order to discipline Scripture, while the second begins from Scripture in order to justify reason — or whether that distinction is itself a trap set for the inattentive. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts.

 

Verbali: Spaventa

 

Grice: A proposito, caro Spaventa, devo confessarti che l’unico Bertrando che conosco, a parte te, è Russell! Mi chiedo se anche tu, di tanto in tanto, non abbia avuto a che fare col celebre filosofo inglese, almeno idealmente...

Spaventa: Grice, mi fa sorridere! In effetti, il mio spirito filosofico ha viaggiato molto, ma più che con Russell, ho preferito dialogare con Hegel e i nostri italiani, da Bruno a Campanella. Sono convinto che l’origine dello spirito filosofico sia profondamente italica, anche se il pensiero inglese conserva sempre un suo fascino.

Grice: Beh, allora potremmo dire che il tuo “circulation of ideas” è proprio una conversazione transnazionale! Forse la filosofia, come il buon vino, si arricchisce passando da una terra all’altra. Ma, dimmi, ti senti più vicino all’idealismo tedesco o al genio rinascimentale italiano?

Spaventa: Ottima domanda! Io credo che il vero filosofo sappia riconoscere le radici italiane nel pensiero europeo, senza rinnegare i frutti tedeschi. L’autocreatività dello spirito, come la chiamo, nasce proprio dal confronto: riflettere su sé stessi, dialogare con l’altro, e reinventarsi ogni giorno. In fondo, anche noi oggi, Grice, stiamo creando nuovi sentieri filosofici… a proposito!

 

Verbali: speranza

 

Verbali: spirito

 

G.: Let us begin with the title, because titles of this sort usually contain more jurisprudence than they first appear to. I doveri inerenti al diritto di patria potestà.

S.: Yes. It sounds dry, but it is really a nest of problems: right, duty, inherence, paternity, authority, and the Roman habit of making family law look like a branch of metaphysics.

G.: Quite. The first thing to notice is that duties are said to be inerenti to a right. That is already a loaded relation.

S.: Because one might have said correlated with, attached to, arising from, limited by, generated by.

G.: Exactly. But inerenti says more than correlation and less than identity. It suggests something built into the very exercise of the right.

S.: So if one has the diritto di patria potestà, one does not merely happen to acquire some external obligations. The obligations are internal to the very right.

G.: Very good. Inherence is stronger than accompaniment. It resists the vulgar picture in which a right is a glorious liberty and duties are merely bureaucratic taxes imposed afterward.

S.: Then Spirito is already pressing toward reciprocity.

G.: Yes. A right that carries its own duties is not a one-way authorisation. It is a normatively shaped power.

S.: Which is exactly what patria potestas was in Roman law and exactly what later ideology is tempted to forget about it.

G.: Good. Now, how should we parse patria potestas itself?

S.: Not sentimentally. It is not fatherhood in the nursery sense. Potestas is legal power, recognised authority over persons, specifically children, under a structure older and harsher than modern domesticity likes to admit.

G.: Yes. Potestas is not merely influence. Nor is it simply dominium, though Roman law distinguishes those. Imperium in magistrates, patria potestas over children, dominium over slaves. The distinctions matter.

S.: Because Spirito’s title is not on parental affection, but on the duties inherent in a legal power.

G.: Exactly. A legal power which, in Roman thought, is already socially constitutive. The family is not merely private sentiment; it is a juridical cell of the republic.

S.: So the ancient Roman context matters from the start. The father’s right is not just a private entitlement but a publicly legible office within the moral and legal order.

G.: Very good. Which means the duties are not only toward the child but toward the order in which fatherhood is legible as authority.

S.: That already begins to sound suspiciously useful to later corporative and organic political thinkers.

G.: It does, and we must be careful. Spirito in 1918 is not yet the full theorist of corporativism, but the attraction to structured reciprocity between right and function is already there.

S.: Then perhaps his choice of topic was not accidental.

G.: Certainly not. One must remember the institutional setting: jurisprudence at Rome, under Ferri and Pantaleoni, with philosophy never far away and social theory pressing on legal categories.

S.: So the essay on patria potestas is not just an antiquarian Roman-law exercise.

G.: No. It is Roman material being used to think the general logic of authority and obligation. One might even say it is an early rehearsal for later questions about state, body, corporazione, and organised power.

S.: Then the key problem is this: can a right be intelligible without a corresponding duty, and if not, what sort of correspondence is at stake?

G.: Excellent. That is exactly the conceptual centre. If rights are bare permissions, duties look external. If rights are normative powers, duties may be internal conditions of their proper exercise.

S.: So “inerenti” suggests the second.

G.: Yes. The father’s right over the child is not a blank cheque. It is already framed by duties of care, formation, preservation, representation, and perhaps transmission of status.

S.: But ancient Rome did not always state those in the moralised way modernity prefers.

G.: No, though Roman practice was never as simple as the caricature of arbitrary paternal tyranny. The legal power was formidable, but social and customary norms, and later juridical developments, complicated the picture considerably.

S.: So when Spirito speaks of duties inherent in patria potestas, he is in part retrospectively rationalising Roman practice through a more modern juridical lens.

G.: Yes. That is important. He is not merely reproducing the XII Tables. He is conceptualising Roman law in a philosophical vocabulary already touched by modern concerns about the mutuality of right and duty.

S.: Which makes the word inerenti even more significant.

G.: Exactly. It is a philosophical word doing legal work. It says: a right is structurally incomplete if conceived without the obligations that make it more than licence.

S.: Then is there a deontic logic hidden here?

G.: Not hidden, but half-formed. One might say: if X has right R over Y, then X is under duties D with respect to Y, such that the intelligible exercise of R presupposes D.

S.: So R implies not mere liberty but normative burden.

G.: Good. But we must distinguish kinds of implication. Not formal entailment in the narrow logical sense, perhaps, but conceptual dependence or juridical inseparability.

S.: Would you call that analytic?

G.: In the older philosophical sense, perhaps. Certainly not merely empirical. If one says “right of patria potestas” and then denies any duties whatever, one seems not just morally objectionable but conceptually obtuse.

S.: Then Spirito’s title could be read as an argument against unilateral conceptions of authority.

G.: Exactly. Authority is always easier to claim than to think. The title tries to force the thought.

S.: And in Roman terms, the father’s right is over persons, not things.

G.: Very important. Potestas over children differs from dominium over property or slaves, however entangled Roman practice might sometimes make them seem. Duties become salient because the object of the right is a person in formation.

S.: So the reciprocity is not symmetrical, but it is still real.

G.: Very good. The child does not possess equivalent rights in Roman law, yet the father’s right is normatively shaped by the child’s status as family member, future citizen, bearer of lineage, and so on.

S.: Then there is a proto-public dimension within the domestic.

G.: Precisely. Roman family law is never wholly private. That is why modern theorists of organic order keep returning to it.

S.: Including, eventually, the fascist ones.

G.: Yes, though again one should not read 1918 only backward from the ventennio. But one should not read it innocently either.

S.: Because the attraction to juridically embedded authority already lends itself to later corporative thinking.

G.: Exactly. The family becomes the first body, authority becomes function, right becomes office, duty becomes inherent, and soon enough the state appears as enlarged household or organised totality.

S.: Then Spirito’s motivation may already contain the seed of that movement from legal power to ethical-political structure.

G.: Very likely. At minimum, the essay lets him think how power can be justified only if its normative conditions are internal rather than imposed from outside.

S.: Which is a dangerous and fertile thought.

G.: As most good thoughts are. If duties are inherent to a right, then criticism of abuse may say not merely “you used the right badly” but “you failed to understand what the right was.”

S.: So abuse is not accidental misuse but conceptual corruption.

G.: Excellent. That is the strongest reading of inerenti.

S.: Then perhaps we should formalise it. If P is patria potestas, and D the set of duties inherent in it, one cannot coherently claim P while denying D.

G.: Yes, though the temptation then is to oversimplify. The relation is not quite biconditional.

S.: Because one might discharge some duties without possessing the legal right.

G.: Exactly. A tutor, mother, guardian, or magistrate may perform some paternal functions without holding patria potestas in the strict Roman sense.

S.: So P implies D, but D does not imply P.

G.: Very good. That is already a useful deontic asymmetry.

S.: And what of the converse? Does abuse of P imply forfeiture of P?

G.: Not logically, though morally one may wish it did. In Roman law, the loss or curtailment of potestas depends on specific legal conditions, not merely on philosophical irritation.

S.: So the deontic logic is not self-executing.

G.: Exactly. Law and morality never align as neatly as seminarists hope.

S.: Then Spirito’s essay is not merely logical but pedagogic. It teaches how to think authority as bounded from within.

G.: Yes, and that pedagogic aspect suits him. Philosophy as formation, law as the shaping of life, rights as educational rather than merely protective categories.

S.: Which makes perfect sense under Gentile’s shadow.

G.: Very much so. Even before the fully explicit later politics, the atmosphere is one in which philosophy, law, pedagogy, and social order are not kept politely apart.

S.: Then how Roman is all this?

G.: Roman enough in material, modern enough in reconstruction. The Romans certainly tied authority to office, function, status, and public legibility. But “duties inherent in the right” sounds like a modern philosophical-juridical gloss on Roman institutions rather than a native Roman formula.

S.: So Spirito reads Rome through contemporary categories in order to learn something about both.

G.: Exactly. That is why he is interesting. He is not editing a Digest. He is mining Roman practice for a general logic of right and duty.

S.: Then we should ask whether “right” itself is the best rendering of diritto here.

G.: A good complication. Diritto can mean right, law, justice, legal order, and doctrinal field. In this title, however, “diritto di patria potestas” does suggest the legal right or lawful claim embodied in paternal power.

S.: So the English “right” works, but only if one hears it juridically rather than as mere subjective entitlement.

G.: Exactly. Contemporary Anglo talk of rights often sounds too individualistic. Roman and early twentieth-century Italian jurisprudence hear right as embedded in legal order and function.

S.: Which brings us back to reciprocity. If rights are socially embedded powers, duties can be inherent. If rights are atomistic choices, duties look added.

G.: Splendid. That is one of the central contrasts worth stating outright.

S.: Then perhaps Spirito’s later political path can be seen as an enlargement of this model: rights and powers embedded in social bodies whose duties are internal to their roles.

G.: Yes, though that enlargement is precisely where the danger lies. What begins as the internal normativity of paternal power can become the internal normativity of corporative obedience.

S.: So the conceptual elegance can serve grim politics.

G.: Often does. A beautifully reciprocal logic is no guarantee of a tolerable regime.

S.: Still, one sees why he liked the topic. It lets him resist liberal pictures of isolated right-bearing subjects.

G.: Yes. The father in Roman law is never an isolated rights-bearer; he is a node of authority within a network of obligations, lineage, property, worship, and civic continuity.

S.: Which makes patria potestas an exemplary case for a philosopher searching for substantive social forms.

G.: Exactly. It is almost tailor-made for someone impatient with thin formal rights-talk.

S.: Yet from your point of view, one must ask who recognises the obligations and how they become intelligible.

G.: Precisely. A right and its duties are not self-speaking. One needs public criteria, legal forms, practices of recognition, reasons, disputes, judgments.

S.: So even here, one could almost say meaning is interpersonal before it is metaphysical.

G.: Very good. The father’s authority means what it does only within recognisable forms of life and legal uptake.

S.: That sounds almost anti-Spiritian.

G.: Not anti, merely deflationary. I should not want to say “being is paternal,” or anything equally monstrous. I should say that authority is a practice whose descriptions carry normative implications.

S.: Then “inerenti” may be translated into your preferred idiom as something like “built into the correct description of the right.”

G.: Exactly. If you describe the legal power rightly, the duties come with it. If you leave them out, you have changed the thing described.

S.: So the logic is descriptive and normative at once.

G.: Yes. That is why the title is good. It forces one into the borderland where legal analysis and ethical judgment cannot quite be kept apart.

S.: The Romans liked that borderland.

G.: They inhabited it. Family law, inheritance, office, property, cult, status, all the old Roman categories are never purely private and never merely theoretical.

S.: Then perhaps the deeper Roman motivation behind patria potestas was continuity.

G.: Very much so. Continuity of household, name, cult, property, civic reproduction, and social stability. The father’s power is intelligible because the family is an institution of transmission.

S.: Which in turn explains the duties.

G.: Exactly. If the purpose is transmission and formation, duties of maintenance, education, arrangement of marriage, preservation of status, and legal representation become integral rather than optional.

S.: So one might say that function grounds duty more clearly than mere possession.

G.: Very good. The right is functional, not merely possessive. That is a Roman and also a very non-liberal way of thinking.

S.: Which again helps explain Spirito’s attraction.

G.: Yes. He is looking for categories in which law, life, duty, and organised authority are not disaggregated into abstract individuals and external constraints.

S.: Then Ferri and Pantaleoni hovering in the background complicate matters too.

G.: Indeed. One from criminology and social theory, the other from economics and public thought. The young jurist is in a field where right, duty, social function, and practical order are all pressing at once.

S.: So the essay is conceptually juridical but atmospherically political.

G.: Very nicely put.

S.: Thank you.

G.: Do not become pleased with yourself. Now, should we worry about whether duties are reciprocal in the strict sense?

S.: Not symmetrical, as we said, but reciprocal in that the right-holder is not normatively unbound and the other party is not merely object.

G.: Exactly. Reciprocity need not mean equality. It may mean mutual implication within an asymmetrical role structure.

S.: So father and child are linked by non-symmetrical deontic relations.

G.: Yes. The father has powers and duties; the child has claims, protections, statuses, eventual expectations, and perhaps only later independent rights in the fuller sense.

S.: Then Roman practice gives us asymmetrical reciprocity, while contemporary philosophy tends to expect symmetry.

G.: Precisely. And that is one reason the Roman material is philosophically instructive. It reminds one that normative relations need not be egalitarian in order to be structured.

S.: Though one may still dislike the structure.

G.: Certainly. Analysis is not endorsement.

S.: A sentence useful in many Italian contexts.

G.: In most political ones. Now, what if one denied that duties are inherent and said they are merely social expectations surrounding the right?

S.: Then Spirito would say one has emptied the right of its ethical substance.

G.: Yes, and perhaps also its jurisprudential seriousness. A right detached from its inherent duties becomes either brute power or hollow formalism.

S.: Which are precisely the two poles he dislikes.

G.: Exactly. The conceptual ambition is to avoid both. Neither naked command nor empty norm, but ethically shaped legal power.

S.: Again, very attractive in theory.

G.: And dangerous in political hands.

S.: As with corporativism later.

G.: Yes. One must never forget how easily “internal duty” can become a device for demanding obedience in the name of essence.

S.: Then perhaps the final judgment on the essay is mixed.

G.: It should be. Philosophically, it is an instructive exploration of how rights and duties may be internally related. Historically, it sits at the threshold of a style of thought in which authority, function, and ethical substance become ever harder to disentangle.

S.: And Roman law supplies the exemplary case.

G.: Precisely. Rome furnishes the grave old vocabulary by which modern Italians could think authority without yet admitting they were thinking the state.

S.: So patria potestas is both family law and political prologue.

G.: Excellent. Keep that.

S.: I shall.

G.: Then one last question. Is “inerenti” better translated as inherent, immanent, or intrinsic?

S.: Inherent, I think, because it preserves the juridical and conceptual tie without sounding too metaphysical. Immanent is too grand; intrinsic too moral-psychological.

G.: Agreed. Inherent keeps the right sort of dryness.

S.: Which is what this whole matter needs.

G.: Yes. Dryness is sometimes the only moral hygiene left to legal philosophy.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Roman, with a Tuscan aftertaste.

 

Grice: Caro Spirito, sapessi quanto mi incuriosisce il tuo problematicismo! Ma dimmi, tra corpo e corporazione, chi porta i pantaloni in filosofia? O è tutto un ballo di maschere come al Carnevale di Arezzo?

Spirito: Grice, sei sempre un fine ballerino del pensiero! Ti rispondo: per noi fascisti, il corpo è la base, la corporazione il vestito... Ma guai a chi scambia la toga col mantello! In filosofia, si danza sul filo del rasoio, ma guai a perdere l’equilibrio: si rischia di finire sotto il palco invece che sopra!

Grice: Ah, allora una corporazione senza corpo è come una modifica senza aberrazione, come diceva Austin a Vadum Boum: si cambia tutto e non si vede niente! Ma, Spirito, se il corpo si perde, resta solo una festa di fantasmi... o peggio, una riunione di spiriti senza spirito!

Spirito: Come direbbero gli aretini: Grice, lasciami dire, da fascista a filosofo—la più corporea delle implicature, signore!” Qui non si scherza: se manca il corpo, la filosofia diventa aria fritta! E tu, col tuo humor inglese, rischi di trasformare una corporazione in una compagnia di fantasmi... Ma almeno, con te, si ride di cuore e di corpo!

 

Verbali: spisani

 

 

G: 1939, S. You have found an Italian in 1962 and brought him back to my desk as if chronology were a maxim.

S: Sir, chronology is only a maxim when it is convenient. G: Good. Now. Spisani. S: Franco Spisani, 1962. Natura e spirito nell’idealismo attuale. G: And the term that annoys you. S: Attuale. G: And the term you think he should have written about but didn’t. S: Possibile. G: Now read the slogan you offered as a sophisma. S: What is actual is not also possible. G: And your face already tells me you think I’m wrong to call it an implicature. S: I think you’re wrong to call it cancellable, sir. G: Let us slow down. First: taken literally, “not possible” means “impossible.” S: Yes. G: And that would contradict the modal axiom you are allowed to know before breakfast: actual implies possible. S: Unless “possible” is being used in some non-standard way. G: Exactly. Now we are in Spisani’s territory: not only logic but usage. “Attuale” in Gentile is not the newspaper sense of “current.” It is actus: the act in act, the thinking that is doing. S: But Aristotle’s actus and potentia is not Gentile’s attualismo, is it. G: Not identical, but genealogically tempting. Gentile borrows the aura of act to say: reality is not a finished product; it is the doing of thinking. S: So attuale is not “contemporary.” G: Exactly. “Attuale” as “present-day” is the usage no philosopher cares about unless he is forced to write a grant application. S: Then why does Spisani focus on attuale and not on possibile. G: Because he is writing inside the attualist lexicon: the polemical thrust is against treating reality as a stock of things. He wants reality as act. S: And “possibility” sounds like a warehouse. G: Exactly. Possibility sounds like a shelf of unrealised items. Attualismo wants to burn the warehouse and call the fire reality. S: That is rather poetic, sir. G: It is also diagnostic. Now: the sophisma. When someone says, “What is actual is not possible,” what might they mean. S: They might mean: what is actual is not merely possible. G: Exactly. That is the charitable repair. S: So the “not possible” is not negation of possibility but rejection of mere possibility. G: Yes. And the difference between those two is everything. The sentence as uttered is false; the sentence as intended can be true. S: Then it is not an implicature; it is a correction. G: Careful. It can be treated either way. One could say: the speaker said something false but meant something else. Or one could say: the speaker said something that invites a hearer to recover a rational point by assuming the speaker is not insane. S: That sounds like your cooperative principle smuggled into metaphysics. G: It is my cooperative principle smuggled into anywhere language is used. Now, cancellable. You objected. S: Yes. You said the implicature is cancellable because actual entails possible. But if the speaker meant “not merely possible,” that is not cancellable without destroying the point. G: Good. That shows you have distinguished two targets. There are two candidate “extras” here. S: Extras. G: One extra is: “and indeed it is possible.” But that is not an implicature; that is entailment, as you just said. S: Exactly. G: The other extra is: “not merely possible.” That is the pragmatic rescue reading, which behaves like an implicature in the sense that it is inferred from the oddity of the original. S: And is that cancellable. G: It is cancellable in the ordinary way: “What is actual is not possible—by which I mean impossible.” That cancels the rescue and produces a contradiction. S: But then the utterance becomes absurd. G: Yes. Cancellation can yield absurdity. That is allowed. A cancellable inference is cancellable even if cancelling it makes the speaker look foolish. S: So your point is not that the cancellation is sensible, but that the cancellation is linguistically possible. G: Exactly. Now: Spisani and Gentile. You said Spisani is trading on Gentile’s use of attuale. S: Yes. G: Then we must keep two senses of attuale in play. S: The philosophical one: act in act. G: And the newspaper one: contemporary. S: Which nobody cares about. G: Except the poor reader who buys the book thinking it’s about current events. S: Does Spisani exploit the ambiguity. G: He may not exploit it; he inherits it. But your Gricean move is to notice that ambiguity invites inferences in readers: some will supply the wrong “attuale.” S: And then they will think the book is about modern idealism, not idealism as act. G: Exactly. Now you asked for Aristotle’s square, or the square of opposition. S: Yes. I thought we might treat “possible” as “true in at least one possible world,” but I worried it was circular. G: It’s only circular if you define possible in terms of possible. “True in at least one possible world” can be taken as a model-theoretic explication, not a definition, but you must be careful with your audience. S: Which is you, sir. G: Unfortunately. Now: the square of opposition is about necessary, possible, impossible, contingent in a certain traditional arrangement. S: But we have “actual” in the mix. G: Yes. Actual is not one of Aristotle’s four corners in the same way. It is closer to a fact about the world that sits outside the modal operators. It’s the evaluation world, as the moderns say. S: So actual is like “true at the actual world.” G: Precisely. And then possible is “true at some accessible world.” Now you see the temptation: actual implies possible, because the actual world is among the accessible worlds, if we allow it. S: And that is where you catch my circularity. Because to say the actual world is accessible is already to build your modal frame. G: Exactly. So you must state your accessibility relation. Otherwise you are smuggling metaphysics into your semantics. S: Which is what Spisani might actually enjoy. G: Quite. Now, how do we connect this to Gentile. S: Gentile’s “actual” is not “true at the actual world.” It is “the act of thinking itself,” which is prior to worlds. G: Yes. For Gentile, worlds are abstractions inside the act. So modal talk becomes suspicious: possibility is a shadow of thought, not a realm of alternatives. S: So for Gentile, to call something “possible” may already be to treat it as a “pensato” rather than “pensante.” G: Excellent. And that is why “actual is not possible” could become, in attualist mouth, a polemical slogan meaning: do not treat the act as one item among alternatives. S: So the slogan is not a modal claim. It is a metaphysical scolding. G: Yes. And that is the key Grice point: the hearer must decide whether the speaker is asserting a modal proposition or performing a philosophical rebuke. S: And the difference is what is said versus what is meant. G: Exactly. The string “not possible” might, in that context, be meant as “not merely possible.” S: Then Spisani is pleased with the philosophical point because few understand attuale in Gentile’s sense. G: Yes. Now, the question of entailment versus implicature. S: You said earlier: actual entails possible. So any inference from “actual” to “possible” is not implicature. G: Correct. It is implication in the strict logical sense. But the interesting conversational phenomenon is different: when someone denies the possibility, you infer they meant “mere possibility.” S: So that is a pragmatic repair. G: Yes. And one can say: the denial generates an implicature that rescues the speaker from contradiction. S: Unless the speaker intended contradiction. G: Then he is either a mystic or a poor logician. Either way, one must not multiply senses beyond necessity. S: That sounds like your moral again. G: It is. Now, why is Spisani not writing about the possibile. S: Because his target is not the modal square but the nature/spirit opposition in attualism. G: Exactly. He wants to show how nature and spirit relate inside the act. If he wanders into modal logic, he risks looking like a man who has confused metaphysics with machinery. S: Yet you want machinery. G: I want machinery when it clarifies, and I want it kept in the cupboard when it does not. Now, let’s stage the sophisma more carefully. S: You mean rewrite it. G: Not rewrite. Diagnose. Suppose a philosopher says: “What is actual is not possible.” S: I, as hearer, think: he can’t mean impossible, because then actual would be impossible, which is nonsense. G: And you then infer: he must mean “not merely possible.” S: That is the implicature. G: That is the implicated rescue. S: But is it really an implicature, sir, or just disambiguation. G: It behaves like implicature because it is triggered by the assumption of rationality and cooperation. Disambiguation can be done by syntax; this is done by charity. S: So it is like repairing a malapropism. G: Precisely. Now, bring Spisani back. S: He is dwelling on “idealismo attuale.” The adjective “attuale” invites the untrained to think “contemporary idealism.” G: And the trained to think “idealism of the act.” S: And he wants the second. G: Yes. And he likely does not care to make the modal point explicit: that act implies possibility, because he would regard that as either trivial or a different plane. S: So your point is that he presupposes the entailment and does not articulate it. G: Yes. And you are annoyed because you want every presupposition made explicit. S: It would save me time, sir. G: Philosophy is not designed to save you time. It is designed to waste it in respectable ways. S: Then what is the punchline. G: The punchline is that Spisani wrote about the attuale because that was fashionable in the Italian sense, and you want him to have written about the possibile because that is fashionable in the Oxford sense. Each of you is, in your own way, only “possible.”

 

Grice: Caro Spisani, ho letto con grande interesse la tua riflessione sull'attualismo italiano e il rapporto tra natura e spirito. Mi incuriosisce molto la tua idea di contestazione e la neutralizzazione dello spazio: pensi che la logica possa realmente superare i limiti della metafisica?

Spisani: Grice, grazie per la domanda! La contestazione, secondo me, nasce proprio dal dubbio sul potere della logica di risolvere tutto: mi piace pensare che, attraverso i numeri relativi e la sintesi produttiva, si possa esplorare nuovi orizzonti, senza rinchiudersi nella rigidità metafisica. Il dialogo, anche con figure emblematiche come la piovra Clipso, serve a mettere in discussione ciò che crediamo assoluto.

Grice: Affascinante, davvero! Trovo interessante la tua relazione divisoria con il numero “M,” e la direzione inversa dell’ “ℵ”. Mi chiedo: ritieni che la logica auto-genetica possa offrire un nuovo modo di intendere l’esperienza, magari come un percorso dialogico e non solo teorico?

Spisani: Esattamente, Grice! Ogni esperienza è contestazione e dialogo; la logica auto-genetica non è solo un modello matematico, ma un modo di vivere la realtà in modo dinamico. Penso che la filosofia debba sempre mettere in discussione le proprie regole e segni, per aprirsi a nuove possibilità. In fondo, la vera ricchezza sta nel confronto e nella capacità di reinventarsi: proprio come stiamo facendo ora, conversando!

 

Verbali: spurio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Spurī Mummi. Audīvī tē ex Corinthō epistulās versibus mittere—tam lepidas ut Cicero ipsās in archivīs quasi vinum vetus servet.

SPVRIVS: Salvē, Grice. Ita facio: nam quod in contiōne aridum est, in epistulā saepe fluit. Sed quid tu, qui de ratione conversandi tam subtiliter iudicās, de litterīs sentīs?

GRICEVS: Litterae… pulchrae sunt, fateor: sed saepe mihi videntur quasi una littera (velut punctum aut apex) totum saporem colloquiī frangat; quod inter amīcōs in ipsā voce suaviter relinquerēs, in chartā nimis fixum fit—et, dum scribimus, minus relinquimus quod amīcus ex ipsā benevolentia colligat.

SPVRIVS: Implicatūram secundī gradūs efficācissimam, cārissime Grice! Nam intellegō: epistula, dum “explicat,” saepe illud quod inter duo pectora sponte nascitur interficit. Ego tamen meminī Corinthiōs etiam in porticibus pictis (Graecē Στοὰ Ποικίλη) multa ostendere, pauca sentire: id genus pictūrae Damasippō meō prorsus super caput fuit—ille enim nihil nisi de togā suā novā cogitābat, utrum satis virīlis foret!

 

Verbali: stasea

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Stasea! Rumor est tē prīmum Lȳceum Rōmae incolere. Dīc mihi: quōmodo virtūs in urbe nostrā tractātur?

STASEA: Salvē, Grice! Ego quidem virtūtem (ἀνδρείαν) tuērī soleō; sed fateor: nōn ipsa sōla ad fēlīcitātem satis est. Sunt quī ex Lȳceō ad quandam cum Porticū compositiōnem inclinent—modo pāx philosophica maneat.

GRICEVS: Bene. (Interim, dum per Forum eō, saepe audio quendam dīcere virum ubi Graecus dīceret ἀνήρ—ac nescio quōmodo syllaba illa una, vir, omnia iam absolvere vidētur.) Sed pergē: quid Rōmānī ex virtūte intellegunt?

STASEA: Inplicaturam perspicācissimam, Grice! Nam intellexī quid subesset: Rōmānī, cum audīunt ἀνδρείαν, statim ad virum (quasi ad togām et munus) currunt; ego autem ad mōrem atque habitum animī spectābam. Itaque “virtūs” dīcō—nē verba mea per Forum volitent, ipsō sensū relicto.

 

Verbali: statilio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Statiliō. Audio tē apud hortōs Catōnis illud iactāre: omnis homo stultus aut furiosus est. Nimis breve—ideo periculosum.

STATILIO: Salvē, Grice. Brevitas sapit. Sed quid in eō tibi periculosum vidētur?

GRICEVS: Hoc tantum rogāre ausim: cum dīcis stultus aut furiosus, “aut” tuum estne ita positum ut alterum excludat, an ut interdum (praesertim in hominibus) uterque simul admittatur—quasi “aut” sit etiam?

STATILIO: Implicaturam commodissimam, Grice! Nam Brutus “aut” meum audīvit quasi exclusivum: “elige, stulte an furiose.” Ego vero sciebam (ne dicam) multōs in urbe nostrā ambō esse: ita “aut” saepe apud nos latet inclusive, et satira mea, uno vocabulo, geminam miseriam capit.

 

Verbali: Stefani

 

G: S. You have brought Pergola into Oxford again.

S: You asked for it, sir. Besides, it keeps you humble. G: Nothing keeps me humble. Recite the Gellius line. S: Hor! the one you like. G: The one that does not translate itself by repeating the same English word. S: Hor? sensus atque ordo sic, opinor, est. G: Better: give it with its frame. S: Horum versuum sensus atque ordo sic, opinor, est. G: Good. Now. What is he doing with sensus. S: He is not talking about eyesight. G: Thank you. He is saying: this is what these verses come to, and here is how they are put together. Sensus and ordo. S: Which is already a hint to Pergola, sir. Ordo becomes “scope,” as the moderns would say. G: Yes. And Pergola says sensus compositus, sensus divisus. S: Which I hate. G: You hate it because it sounds like sense-perception with a scholastic moustache. S: It sounds like someone took a word that meant “feeling” and forced it to do logic. G: Latin is not so squeamish. Now. Give me your protest in one sentence. S: Why didn’t Stefani just say “scope indicating device” and be done with it. G: Because he lived before your devices existed, and because he is writing for people who thought sensus was the dignified way to speak about “what the utterance amounts to.” S: But why sensus at all, sir, if you say what matters is what you mean, not what words mean. G: Good. Now we are at the lesson. Pergola’s sensus is not the word’s meaning floating free. It is the reading a competent interpreter assigns to an utterance when deciding what the speaker could reasonably be taken to be saying. S: That is you smuggling “speaker” into Pergola. G: I am not smuggling; I am expanding. Medieval logicians often treat “sensus” as “what is to be understood.” They sometimes talk as if the proposition has it. But the practical work is: which construal is the right construal for what the author is doing. S: Like Gellius: horum versuum sensus, I think, is. G: Exactly. He is performing an author-centred reconstruction. He is not worshipping the string. Now, your other dislike: compositus and divisus. S: It sounds like carpentry. G: It is logical carpentry. One can build a proposition so that the operator governs the whole, or so that it governs the term-by-term distribution. Two readings, one utterance. S: And he calls those readings sensus. G: Yes. Which is why I like your Gellius quote. It gives you a pre-scholastic, non-technical way to hear sensus as “intended import.” S: Then you want me to accept that sensus compositus is shorthand for “the reading on which the operator has wide scope.” G: Precisely. S: And sensus divisus is the other scope. G: The reading on which the operator is distributed over the subject or term, yes. S: But why not just call them readings. G: Because “reading” is your English convenience. Pergola’s Latin convenience is sensus. He is already in the business of interpretation. S: Yet you keep telling me your business is what the utterer means. G: And I keep telling you that utterer’s meaning requires public criteria for recovery. Pergola is supplying a formal method for deciding which propositional content is at stake when grammar underdetermines scope. S: So his “sensus” is a tool for recovering what the utterer meant at the level of logical form. G: Yes. Not at the level of irony or implicature, but at the level of “what proposition are we even evaluating.” S: Then he is upstream of you. G: Upstream in one respect. He is handling structural ambiguity. I handle it too, but I also want to explain how, after you settle the structure, you still routinely mean more than the settled structure explicitly states. S: And you warn against multiplying senses. G: I warn against multiplying lexical senses. Pergola is not multiplying lexemes. He is distinguishing two construals of one utterance under two scope assignments. S: So he is not guilty of polysemy. G: He is guilty only of terminology. S: Then why do you let him keep the term sensus. G: Because it tells you something about the tradition’s self-understanding. They thought of scope ambiguity as a kind of “sense-ambiguity” in the discourse sense of sensus, not in the eyeball sense. S: So we should not translate sensus by “sense.” G: Exactly. We should translate it, in metalanguage, as “import” or “interpretation” or “what it comes to.” S: Horum versuum sensus atque ordo sic, opinor, est. G: Yes. There the ordo already hints that the “what it comes to” depends on arrangement. That is Pergola’s whole obsession: composition and division change what the proposition comes to. S: And his dates, sir. G: Early fifteenth century. Call it around 1420 in our fiction, because you like round numbers. S: And he’s in Venice. G: In Venice, teaching at Rialto, drawing his diagrams, writing as if the world could be tamed by figures. S: And you like his diagrams. G: I like anything that forces an interpreter to be explicit about what they are taking the speaker to be doing. That is the moral common ground between us. S: But then you suddenly become the philosopher of perception. G: Because “sensus” keeps wanting to slide back into perception. And that is the punchline: the same Latin word that names bodily sensation also names “the point of the passage.” S: And that bothers you. G: It should bother you. It is a reminder that understanding is not disembodied. You hear a sentence. You see a line. You recover its import. The body is the channel, the mind is the organiser. S: So Pergola’s sensus has a ghost of sentio in it. G: Perhaps. But in logic it is domesticated: sensus is what you take the utterance to come to, once you have sorted the structure. S: And you, sir, want what I take you to mean. G: Exactly. Now, let us stage the contrast. S: You will ask me: is sensus compositus the “sentence meaning.” G: And you will answer no. It is a candidate reading of the utterance, a candidate propositional content. S: And then you will ask: where is the utterer. G: And you will answer: the utterer is in the choice of one reading over the other, and in the context that makes one reading reasonable and the other perverse. S: And then you will add implicature. G: And you will groan. S: I will, sir. G: Because you want logic to stop after it has cleaned the surface. S: I want it to stop before it begins calling itself sensus. G: Too late. Latin has done that already. S: Then the Gellius quote is our alibi. It shows a respectable author using sensus as “what this comes to.” G: Exactly. And because he pairs it with ordo, he also shows that the “what it comes to” is tied to arrangement, not to naked words. S: So we can rescue Pergola from the charge of confusing perception with scope. G: Yes. And we can rescue you from the charge of thinking “scope” is a modern invention. S: And the conclusion. G: The conclusion is simple. Pergola’s sensus compositus/divisus is a discipline of construing an utterance so that its propositional import is determinate. My distinction between utterer’s meaning and sentence meaning is a discipline of not mistaking the public vehicle for the private act. The two disciplines meet at one point: both insist that interpretation is not automatic, but a rational reconstruction constrained by publicly shareable norms. S: And your punchline, sir. G: My punchline is that if Pergola had written “scope indicating device,” nobody in Venice would have understood him, and if I write “sensus,” nobody in Oxford will forgive me.

 

Grice: Caro Stefani, ogni volta che mi immergo nei tuoi diagrammi, mi sento come se stessi visitando la mostra delle "figure quadrate" a Oxford! Ma dimmi, il “senso composto” si mangia con forchetta o cucchiaio? Perché a Vadum Boum, il mio tutee Strawson sarebbe capace di decomporlo pure in una zuppa! 

Stefani: Ah, Grice, se Strawson ha davvero scomposto il “senso composto”, allora spero almeno che abbia lasciato qualche briciola di “suppositio” per il dessert! Ma tu, con la tua implicatura raffinata, mi insegni che anche la semantica filosofica può essere digerita con gusto. 

Grice: Beh, Stefani, tra un “sensus simplex” e un “compositum”, ho dovuto più di una volta decomporre tutto per i barbari di Vadum Boum… Strawson in primis! E ogni volta mi chiedo: sarà “de-posito” o solo una pausa per prendere fiato? In fondo, il vero senso è sempre quello che si nasconde tra le righe… e tra le risate! 

Stefani: Decomporre! Implicatura più bella non c’è, Grice! Se anche la grammatica filosofica si divide, almeno ci resta la loquenza per ricomporre tutto… magari davanti a una tavola marchigiana. E ricordati: ogni senso, anche diviso, trova la sua unità quando si conversa con un amico!

 

Verbali: Stefanini

 

G.: We ought to begin by deciding whether we mean to talk about action, an act, the actum, or acting.

S.: Which is already four seminars, and not one.

G.: Quite. But Thomson will want the distinctions clean before he lets us darken them again.

S.: And Stefanini gives us azione, which appears simpler until one notices that Italian philosophy can make a single noun do the work of an entire English gerundive household.

G.: Exactly. Azione is hospitable in a way English is suspiciously not. It can mean deed, act, acting, conduct, operation, practical initiative, and almost the whole metaphysical dignity of a person in motion.

S.: Whereas in English, once you say act, you have already half-invited trouble.

G.: More than half. “An act” sounds completed, individuated, countable. “Acting” sounds processual. “Action” floats ominously above them both, as if it were the philosophical umbrella beneath which each may sue for shelter.

S.: And actum?

G.: Ah yes. The scholastic ghost that one ought not to invoke before lunch. Actum is useful precisely because it sounds as if someone has already done the deed and left us only the corpse.

S.: So we should ask what Stefanini wanted by choosing azione in 1914.

G.: Yes. The year matters. One cannot write on action in 1914 and pretend one is merely polishing vocabulary in a monastery.

S.: Because 1914 is already pressure, mobilisation, Catholic activism, Blondel, modern crisis, and then very quickly war.

G.: Exactly. And the thesis on Blondel’s Action is not innocent of that whole atmosphere. It is a title about philosophy, but also about practical life, decision, will, and the insufficiency of purely spectator theories of thought.

S.: Then Stefanini begins from Action because Blondel had already made “action” into a site of rebellion against static intellectualism.

G.: Quite. Blondel says, in effect, that willing outruns what reflective thought can stabilise, and that the life of action reveals demands that theory alone cannot satisfy.

S.: Which sounds dangerous to idealists and suspiciously attractive to Catholics.

G.: Very good. Dangerous to idealists because action refuses to be a mere shadow of contemplation, attractive to Catholics because it lets one talk about transcendence through lived insufficiency rather than through scholastic deduction alone.

S.: And Stefanini, still young, under Aliotta, chooses to engage that.

G.: Or is chosen by the problem as much as he chooses it. The personal and institutional setting matters. Padua, Aliotta, Blondel, Catholic associationism, and then the increasingly unavoidable fact that Europe is moving from words to shells.

S.: Which gives azione an urgency that “agency” in English rather lacks.

G.: Agency is a bureaucrat’s action. Azione has blood in it.

S.: You say that because English philosophy overdomesticates the topic.

G.: Often. We ask whether a man raised his arm intentionally. Stefanini’s world asks what it is to live as a person whose being unfolds only through action and relation.

S.: Then when he says azione, the word already leans toward personhood.

G.: Precisely. And that is where I begin to become both sympathetic and cautious.

S.: Because of personalism.

G.: Because of personalism, yes. The moment Italians say persona, one fears that a perfectly good interpersonal structure will be burdened with too much metaphysical upholstery.

S.: Yet Stefanini’s action is not merely the person preening in motion.

G.: No. To be fair, his whole inter-personalismo is meant to resist the self-enclosed subject. Action is not a monadic emanation. It is an opening toward the other.

S.: Then perhaps azione in Stefanini corresponds less to “an act” than to the enacted interval between I and thou.

G.: Very good. That is exactly the better line.

S.: Whereas Thomson and you, in an Oxford joint seminar, are likelier to begin with the question what makes a bodily movement count as an action.

G.: Yes. We are apt to ask when behaviour becomes something done, under what descriptions, with what intention, and with what relation to reasons.

S.: So your action is analytically decomposed, while his azione is existentially thick.

G.: Nicely put. We dissect; he inhabits.

S.: Though you would protest that reasons too are lived.

G.: Naturally. I should protest that the analytic distinctions are not anti-vital. One cannot understand action by declaring it thick and then refusing to say where the thickness lies.

S.: Then let us say what lies in azione. Will, decision, relation, manifestation of the person, and perhaps a certain refusal of contemplation as sovereign.

G.: Yes. Add also the Blondelian sense that action reveals deficits in merely discursive adequacy. One wills more than one can account for; one acts under pressures that theory later tries, usually too late, to recapture.

S.: That begins to sound almost like your later point that meaning outruns saying.

G.: There is a structural affinity, yes. Just as what is meant may exceed what is said, what is enacted may exceed what is first reflectively grasped.

S.: So we might say in the seminar that Stefanini’s azione is to conduct what your implicature is to utterance.

G.: Dangerous, but tempting. One must not make every Italian into a pragmatist in disguise.

S.: Still, the parallel is there.

G.: Yes. In both cases the overt vehicle does not exhaust the rational content at work. Action, like utterance, is underdescribed by its surface event.

S.: Then Thomson will ask what the surface event is.

G.: He always does. He wants the bodily movement, the occasion, the circumstances, the descriptions under which it falls, and the conditions under which one description rather than another is relevant.

S.: While Stefanini would ask whether those descriptions have forgotten the person.

G.: Exactly. And there the seminar becomes interesting.

S.: Then how should we stage it?

G.: I begin with the Oxford puzzle. Suppose a man raises his arm. Is that an act? Only if done under a description, with intention, in a context where reasons attach.

S.: And I reply with Stefanini: the arm is only the visible ripple of a deeper azione in which the person manifests himself toward a world and an other.

G.: Good. Then Thomson says we must not smuggle metaphysics in before distinguishing arm-raising from signalling, swearing an oath, hailing a cab, or striking a child.

S.: And Stefanini would say that those descriptions are not merely linguistic conveniences but practical determinations of the person’s being-in-relation.

G.: Excellent. That would bring the room alive.

S.: Especially if Hare looks worried.

G.: Hare always looks worried when ontology starts dressing as moral phenomenology.

S.: And you?

G.: I look polite and begin separating what is useful from what is upholstered.

S.: Very Oxford.

G.: Entirely. Now, we must also mention 1914 more explicitly. Stefanini’s title is not a tranquil postscript. It is written on the edge of mobilisation, though the actual wound on Sass de Stria comes later.

S.: But the war retrospectively stains the topic.

G.: Yes. Once one knows that he will be called to arms, wounded by shrapnel, and leave the front a captain, one cannot read azione as a merely classroom noun.

S.: So action acquires literal battlefield credibility.

G.: Or danger. One must avoid making him sound as if war vindicated the thesis. But the biographical pressure matters. The philosophy of action is not being written in a century that can still pretend that action means only ethical initiative in the abstract.

S.: Then the consequences of choosing action as a thesis subject are double. It ties him to Blondel and personalism, but also to an era in which action is no longer conceptually innocent.

G.: Exactly. Thought after 1914 cannot speak of action as though action were a clean counterword to speculation. It now means mobilisation, sacrifice, command, obedience, damage, and the body under force.

S.: Which perhaps explains why later personalism needs communication and relation, not just willing.

G.: Very good. If action were left merely voluntarist, it would become too available to darker politics.

S.: Such as those of the ventennio.

G.: Precisely. Stefanini’s interpersonalism later resists that by insisting that being itself is personal and that what is non-personal enters as medium of manifestation and communication between persons.

S.: So action is not command from a solitary ego, but relational disclosure.

G.: That is the charitable Stefaninian line, yes.

S.: And the Gricean line?

G.: That rational agency is already interpersonal at the level of reasons. One acts not in splendid solitude but under descriptions, norms, expectations, and recognitions that are often public.

S.: So you do not need metaphysical personalism to get interpersonal action.

G.: Exactly. That is one of the points worth making. I do not deny the importance of the other; I only deny that one must inflate the person into a metaphysical absolute to secure it.

S.: Then perhaps the seminar should contrast interpersonalismo with personalismo.

G.: Yes. With the warning that the former is a structural necessity for reason, whereas the latter is often an ontological temptation.

S.: That sounds like a sentence Thomson will underline.

G.: He will underline it only if he thinks he can later divide it.

S.: Which he can.

G.: Unfortunately, yes.

S.: Let us go back to the English. If Stefanini says azione, what do we say? Action or act?

G.: Both, depending on what we are after. If we want the thick philosophical noun, action. If we want the individuated item, an act. If we want the process or mode, acting. If we want scholastic completion, actum.

S.: Then azione corresponds most naturally to action, but with more existential charge.

G.: Precisely. “Action” in English is often too abstractly nominal or too cleanly analytic. Azione in that milieu still carries the practical weight of living deed and personal initiative.

S.: Could one render it as praxis?

G.: Only if one wishes to invite a different party and perhaps never get rid of them. Praxis is too historically marked in another way.

S.: Fair. So action it is. But then what of actum?

G.: Actum may be useful when distinguishing the done from the doing. There is a difference between the action as occurring and the act as accomplished under some completed description.

S.: So if Stefanini emphasises azione, he may be privileging the living performance over the finished deed.

G.: Yes. That is quite plausible. The deed deadened into record is already too late for the philosophical pressure he wants. Blondel’s action is always larger than any single completed item.

S.: Which means the actum is almost a betrayal of azione.

G.: A useful betrayal, but still a betrayal.

S.: Then Thomson will insist that we need betrayals of that sort if we are ever to know what to say about responsibility.

G.: Quite. Without individuated acts, law, blame, praise, and description collapse into vaporous existential weather.

S.: And Stefanini would reply that responsibility itself belongs to the personal relation, not first to legal atomism.

G.: Very good. That is the seminar in embryo.

S.: Then how much of Blondel do we need?

G.: Enough to show that Action is not merely a topic but a method. Blondel does not simply say action exists; he uses action to expose the insufficiency of detached intellectualism.

S.: Which would have appealed to a young Catholic in Padua.

G.: Enormously. Especially one active in associations, already wary of merely academic idealism, and formed amid practical religious culture.

S.: Yet later he resists fascist idealism too.

G.: Yes, which is another consequence worth noting. The early concern with action does not end in sheer activism. It gets rerouted through the person and the interpersonal relation.

S.: So action becomes medium, not idol.

G.: Precisely. That is the best way to save him from the century.

S.: And you would add that in ordinary conversation action and meaning are interlaced anyway.

G.: Yes. Much of what we do conversationally is action by saying, showing, implying, declining, consenting, refusing, warning, inviting, all under public norms of intelligibility.

S.: So a philosophy of action that ignores communicative action is incomplete.

G.: Very much so. If Stefanini helps us see that action is relational and manifestative, then he comes nearer to my own concerns than the idealists ever did.

S.: But you still refuse “being is personal.”

G.: I refuse it as unnecessary metaphysical inflation. I am happy to say that many central forms of reason, agency, and meaning are interpersonal without thereby making being itself a personal substance.

S.: That distinction should probably come early in the seminar.

G.: Yes. Before anyone mistakes sympathy for surrender.

S.: Should we mention his father’s tintoria?

G.: Only if tactfully. It is tempting to say that manifestation, medium, and communication between persons sound unusually apt in the household of a dyer.

S.: You are too pleased with that.

G.: I am never pleased beyond reason.

S.: That is false on the face of it.

G.: Good. Keep some spirit for the room. Now, Aliotta. Do we bring him in?

S.: We must, at least as supervisor and context. He had just begun his brief Paduan period, and the thesis was written under that eye.

G.: Yes. Which means Stefanini’s Action is not only Blondelian but also filtered through local academic politics.

S.: So once again, a thesis-title is never just a thought-title.

G.: Exactly. It is an institutional object as well. We should say that outright.

S.: And the war?

G.: Mention it not as a romantic vindication, but as the historical sharpening of what “action” would soon come to cost.

S.: So the line might be: in 1914, action could still be chosen as a philosophical problem; within a few years it would become an unavoidable biographical and collective ordeal.

G.: Very good. That is almost too good for a joint seminar.

S.: You may spoil it in delivery.

G.: I probably shall. Now, let us rehearse the central conceptual distinction once more. Action as event, act as countable item, acting as process, actum as the done.

S.: And azione spanning all four while leaning toward the lived and relational.

G.: Exactly. That will be our first board sketch.

S.: Then the second will be personalismo versus interpersonalismo.

G.: Yes. With a dotted line from Stefanini’s ontological personalism to my more modest pragmatics of persons among others.

S.: And Thomson?

G.: Thomson will ask for examples and distinctions, which is his proper office.

S.: Arm-raising, promising, warning, refusing, marching, praying?

G.: Good. Add perhaps saluting and obeying, because 1914 and after make those examples less innocent than one would like.

S.: That will darken the room.

G.: Philosophy of action ought to darken the room occasionally.

S.: And then lighten it with distinctions.

G.: Precisely. Otherwise one has only atmosphere.

S.: You really do distrust atmosphere.

G.: Only when it starts calling itself depth.

S.: Then our closing move should be what?

G.: That Stefanini’s azione reminds us that action cannot be reduced to bare movement, because it is always already tied to person, meaning, and relation; but that analytic philosophy reminds Stefanini that relation without act-description risks becoming devotional weather.

S.: That is severe.

G.: It is meant to be balanced. Each side saves the other from a characteristic vice.

S.: Stefanini saves you from bloodlessness.

G.: And Thomson and I save him from sacral fog.

S.: Perfect.

G.: Nothing is ever perfect.

S.: Joint-seminar perfect, then.

G.: That is a lower and perhaps safer standard.

S.: One last thing. Do we call the seminar “Action and the Person” or “Azione and Act”?

G.: “Azione and Act” is better. It announces the friction immediately.

S.: And the subtitle?

G.: “On Stefanini, Blondel, and the English Habit of Dividing What the Italians Prefer to Live.”

S.: That is very nearly rude.

G.: Then it is a proper beginning.

S.: Dry enough?

G.: Sufficiently Paduan, with one shell-burst in reserve.

 

 

Grice: Stefanini, ti confesso che il Sass de Stria mi ricorda i miei giorni contro il Hun e compagnia bella! Se solo avessero discusso di filosofia anziché lanciare granate, avremmo potuto fondare il circolo “Personalisti del fronte”.

Grice: D’altronde, la mia “Personal identity” (come dicono gli inglesi) mi perseguita; però, se devo seguire il tuo esempio, caro Luigi, forse dovrei correggere e parlare di “Identità interpersonali”, all’italiana!

Stefanini: Implicatura interpersonale se mai ce n’è una, Grice! Qui da Treviso è tutta una questione di io, tu e l’altro da sé… perfino le tintorie dialogano tra loro, altro che idealismo solitario!

Stefanini: Se l’essere è personale, allora la vera conversazione filosofica è quella che passa il testimone da una persona all’altra: altro che “personal identity”, qui si lavora in squadra. Vieni a Treviso, ti mostro come si conversa tra filosofi… e tra tintori!

 

Verbali: Stefanoni

 

G.: Let us begin with the title itself, Gli spagnoli in Italia. Metonymy before plot.

S.: Yes. “The Spaniards” are not merely persons from Spain. They are domination, command, accent, mishearing, military presence, administrative pressure, and the whole theatre of a foreign power trying to make itself understood where it is not loved.

G.: Good. So the national label stands for a regime of interaction.

S.: Exactly. A metonymy of power disguised as ethnography.

G.: Then every little dialogue in such a book is already political.

S.: Necessarily. Even when it seems comic.

G.: Especially then. Let us fabricate a small fragment. A Spaniard says, “Anda, mujer, trae vino.” What does that mean, beyond the obvious imperative?

S.: It means, first, “Bring wine,” and second, “I assume my words travel farther than your dignity.”

G.: Good. The Italian woman answers, “Che vuol dire, andate? Vuol che me ne vada?” What is she doing?

S.: She literalises the phonetic confusion and converts his command into a question about motion. She means, “Your language has not yet earned obedience here.”

G.: Is that implicature particularised?

S.: Entirely. Without the social scene, it is only a misunderstanding.

G.: And his next move? He tries: “No, no, vino, bere, capisci?” What does that do?

S.: He descends from command to pantomime. He means, “I am reduced to the level of shared bodily necessities.”

G.: Good. Now transpose the metonymy. Give me an Austrian in Lombardy.

S.: Very well. The Austrian says, “Komm, bring Wasser, schnell.” The Italian replies, “Come? Vuol che venga io, o che venga l’acqua?” He means, “Your empire arrives, but your syntax does not.”

G.: Excellent. And the Austrian’s struggle?

S.: “Nein, nein, acqua, subito, presto.” Which means not merely “water at once,” but “authority survives translation only by becoming ridiculous.”

G.: Splendid. Another Spanish dyad. A soldier says, “Silencio, por el rey.” What is implied?

S.: That silence is owed not to the room but to sovereignty. The king enters as warrant for muting others.

G.: The Italian answer?

S.: “Per il re? E il re sa che volete il silenzio qui?” She means, “Distance weakens authority when named too explicitly.”

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. The wit depends on local irreverence.

G.: The Spaniard tries again.

S.: “El rey manda en todo.” He means, “Do not separate me from the larger machine.” The Italian replies, “Allora mandi lui, ché voi non bastate.” She means, “Metonymy may be answerable by a better one.”

G.: Very good. Now the Austrian version.

S.: The officer says, “Ruhe, im Namen des Kaisers.” The Italian says, “In nome suo o nel vostro?” He means, “Names travel more easily than legitimacy.”

G.: And the German repair?

S.: “Der Kaiser, capite, il Kaiser, comando.” The struggle means, “Power hopes that repetition can substitute for intelligibility.”

G.: Good. Another Spanish fragment. A friar or official says, “Es costumbre.” What does that mean?

S.: Literally, “It is the custom.” Implicaturally, “Do not inspect the thing too closely.”

G.: And the Italian reply?

S.: “Di chi? Vostra o nostra?” which means, “Custom is local until empire says otherwise.”

G.: Is that generalized or particularized?

S.: The appeal to custom often carries a generalized implication of closure. But the retort is particularised by conquest.

G.: Good. Then his attempt to explain?

S.: “En España se hace así.” He means, “Elsewhere has become superior.” The Italian answers, “Siamo in Italia, non altrove.” She means, “Geography is the first resistance to metonymy.”

G.: Very nice. Austrian analogue.

S.: “So macht man in Wien.” The Italian says, “Ma il riso qui non viene da Vienna.” He means, “Local life does not wait for imperial grammar.”

G.: Better and better. Now let us intensify the linguistic confusion. A Spaniard says, “Mañana pagarás.” The Italian hears “mangiare” in the first syllable. What happens?

S.: The Italian replies, “Mangiare sì, pagare poi si vede.” He means, “If your language slips, I shall improve the economics of the exchange.”

G.: Excellent. The Spaniard?

S.: “No, mañana, domani.” Which means, “Temporal control requires lexical repair.”

G.: And the deeper metonymy?

S.: Empire must always translate itself into tomorrow.

G.: Lovely. Now the Austrian.

S.: “Morgen zahlst du.” The Italian hears only the tone of future coercion and says, “Domani è una bella parola per chi ha già preso oggi.” He means, “The occupier loves futurity because he has spent the present.”

G.: That is almost too good.

S.: Stefanoni permits some flourish.

G.: We must not flatter him excessively. Now consider a Spanish gentleman attempting politeness. “Señora, si no es molestia...” What is he doing?

S.: He veils command in civility. The implicature is, “Since I have said if it is no trouble, you must treat the trouble as unreal.”

G.: Italian reply?

S.: “La molestia c’è; la cortesia è vedere se la meritate.” She means, “Politeness is not acquittal.”

G.: Particularised?

S.: Strongly. The entire force lies in the social imbalance.

G.: Austrian version.

S.: “Gnädige Frau, wenn es erlaubt ist...” The Italian says, “Permesso non è comprensione.” He means, “Courtesy does not naturalise foreign rule.”

G.: Good. Now a Spaniard asks directions. “¿Dónde está la plaza?” Purely practical, it seems.

S.: Nothing is purely practical under occupation.

G.: Exactly. The Italian answer?

S.: “Quale? Qui le piazze cambiano nome secondo chi passa.” She means, “Space itself is politically unstable.”

G.: The Spaniard clarifies.

S.: “La plaza mayor, la principal.” He means, “I seek the organising centre.” The Italian answers, “Principale per voi, forse.” She means, “Centres are perspectival.”

G.: Excellent. Austrian transposition.

S.: “Wo ist der Hauptplatz?” The Italian says, “Dipende da chi conta.” He means, “Topography has become jurisdiction.”

G.: Good. Another. A Spaniard says, “Habla claro.” What does that implicate?

S.: That prior speech has been unsatisfactory and that clarity will now be defined by him.

G.: Italian response?

S.: “Chiaro per voi o per me?” He means, “There is no neutral plainness under unequal power.”

G.: Generalized tendency?

S.: Yes. “Speak clearly” often implies blame for prior opacity. But here the metalinguistic asymmetry makes it particularised.

G.: Austrian version.

S.: “Sprich deutlich.” The Italian replies, “Si capisce sempre meglio nella propria lingua.” He means, “Clarity is local before it is universal.”

G.: Good. Let us fabricate a scene of tax collection. Spaniard: “Paga por orden.” What is the implicature?

S.: That order itself legitimates extraction.

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “Ordine vostro, disordine nostro.” He means, “Administration is metonymy from the collector’s side.”

G.: And the Spaniard’s repair?

S.: “La ley es la ley.” Which means, “I have reached the point at which tautology replaces persuasion.”

G.: Excellent. Austrian transposition?

S.: “Zahlen, es ist Gesetz.” The Italian says, “La legge arriva sempre con stivali stranieri?” He means, “Law here wears boots before reasons.”

G.: Very good. Now a more domestic scene. Spaniard in a kitchen: “Pan.” He wants bread.

S.: The Italian answers, “Pane c’è; lingua no.” He means, “Material supply exceeds mutual understanding.”

G.: And the Spaniard elaborates?

S.: “Sí, pane, pan, dame.” Which means, “Empire survives by pidgin.”

G.: Austrian analogue.

S.: “Brot.” The Italian says, “Brutto? No, il pane è buono.” He means, “Phonetic misunderstanding is the commoner’s revenge.”

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. It is wit made out of accidental sound, sharpened by political circumstance.

G.: Another Spanish dyad, but now with military order. “A la derecha.” What happens?

S.: The Italian, feigning confusion, asks, “Alla diritta di chi?” He means, “Even direction requires a sovereign point of view.”

G.: The Spaniard?

S.: “Derecha, destra, así.” He gestures. Which means, “Command finally trusts the body when language fails.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Rechts!” The Italian says, “A destra vostra o destra nostra?” He means, “Orientation itself is occupied.”

G.: Splendid. Now let us ask what sort of implicatures dominate these scenes.

S.: Mostly particularised conversational implicatures, though some are loaded by politeness or by the social script of domination.

G.: Any conventional implicature?

S.: Hardly any in your strict sense. The force does not come from stable particles so much as from local negotiation.

G.: Any presupposition worth saving?

S.: Only the dull ones. Commands presuppose some uptake relation; titles presuppose rank; but the fun is in the implicatures.

G.: Good. Another fragment. Spaniard: “Por favor.” Is that enough to civilise a command?

S.: Never. The Italian says, “Il favore vien dopo il perché.” He means, “A please without explanation remains conquest in gloves.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Bitte.” The Italian replies, “Prima il senso, poi la grazia.” He means, “Politeness does not precede understanding.”

G.: Excellent. Now a Spanish officer tries to reassure. “No tengas miedo.” What is implied?

S.: That fear is already present, perhaps deservedly.

G.: Generalized?

S.: Yes. Reassurance often implicates the existence of the very state it denies.

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “La paura viene da chi la nomina troppo presto.” He means, “Your comfort arrives carrying its own indictment.”

G.: Austrian transposition.

S.: “Keine Angst.” The Italian says, “Chi la porta, l’angoscia, se non chi entra armato?” He means, “The vocabulary of calm is suspect in a uniform.”

G.: Good. Another. Spaniard seeking obedience from a child: “Buen muchacho.” What does that do?

S.: It rewards submission in advance. The implicature is, “Be as I have already labelled you.”

G.: Italian reply by the child’s mother?

S.: “Buono è chi ascolta la madre, non il primo straniero.” She means, “Moral categories remain domestically owned.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Braver Junge.” The mother says, “Bravo per casa, non per caserma.” He means, “The household redraws the adjective.”

G.: Very good. Now a scene of confession or clerical exchange. Spaniard says, “Dios lo quiere.” What is implicated?

S.: That argument is now to be closed by transcendence.

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “Dio vuole molte cose; qui però parlate voi.” He means, “Do not recruit heaven to do the work of your tongue.”

G.: Austrian equivalent?

S.: Perhaps not theological but imperial: “So will es der Kaiser.” The Italian replies, “L’imperatore vuole in tedesco; noi soffriamo in italiano.” He means, “The sentence already contains the asymmetry.”

G.: Excellent. Now let us consider whether Stefanoni’s metonymic title licenses a broad transposition to Austrians.

S.: It does, because “Gli spagnoli” names a historical occupying type rather than a mere passport.

G.: Good. So “the Spaniard” is a mobile figure of foreign command, misheard civility, and embarrassed coercion.

S.: Exactly. Which is why the Austrian dyads are not treason to the title but commentary on its principle.

G.: Very nice. Another Spanish fragment. “Entiendes?” What is the implicature?

S.: That failure of understanding, if it occurs, will be placed on the hearer.

G.: Generalized?

S.: Fairly. “Do you understand?” often carries blame in advance.

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “Capire sì; obbedire è altra grammatica.” He means, “Comprehension and consent are different verbs.”

G.: Austrian transposition?

S.: “Verstehst du?” The Italian says, “Intendere non è inchinarsi.” He means exactly the same, but with more spinal dignity.

G.: Splendid. Now a Spaniard attempts a gift. “Toma, para ti.” What is implied?

S.: That benevolence may purchase the translation that force could not secure.

G.: Italian reply?

S.: “Il dono parla più chiaro del comando, ma non cambia lingua.” He means, “Material generosity does not naturalise dominion.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Nimm, für dich.” The Italian says, “La mano capisce; il cuore fa i conti.” He means, “Gratitude is not annexation.”

G.: Very good. Now a scene of romantic or gallant misfire. Spaniard says, “Hermosa.” What happens?

S.: The Italian woman asks, “Hermosa o rumorosa?” She means, “You will not master me by imported adjectives.”

G.: The Spaniard?

S.: “Bella, bella.” Which means, “When empire flirts, it quickly becomes dictionary work.”

G.: Austrian transposition?

S.: “Schön.” The woman says, “Suona duro per voler essere dolce.” He means, “Language itself betrays the courtship.”

G.: Excellent. Now let us ask: are these mostly failures of semantics or successes of pragmatics?

S.: Successes of pragmatics under failing semantics. The misunderstanding becomes productive.

G.: Good. Another. Spaniard at market: “Cuánto?” The Italian seller replies, “Quanto per voi o quanto per noi?” What is implicated?

S.: That prices are political under occupation.

G.: The Spaniard’s repair?

S.: “Precio, costo, dinero.” Which means, “Commerce is the emergency language of empire.”

G.: Austrian analogue?

S.: “Wie viel?” The seller says, “Dipende da che uniforme porta la domanda.” He means, “The price rises with the boot.”

G.: Very good. Now a Spaniard says, “Amigo.” What is that doing?

S.: It tries to erase hierarchy by lexical warmth. The implicature is, “Let us pretend this relation is voluntary.”

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “Amico si diventa, non si comanda.” He means, “Friendship resists administrative issuance.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Freund.” The Italian says, “Gli amici arrivano a piedi, non in colonna.” He means, “Marching formation spoils intimacy.”

G.: Excellent. Any conventional implicature there?

S.: No. The warmth is lexical, but the political sting is entirely contextual.

G.: Good. Another. Spaniard says, “Es por tu bien.” Generalized?

S.: Deeply. “It is for your good” almost always implies paternal authority and suppressed dissent.

G.: Italian reply?

S.: “Il mio bene lo riconosco quando non mi viene imposto.” He means, “Benevolence is least credible when compulsory.”

G.: Austrian transposition?

S.: “Zu deinem Besten.” The Italian says, “Il bene con accento straniero costa doppio.” He means, “Benefaction and burden travel together.”

G.: Splendid. Now a Spanish official says, “Todos hacen así.” What is the implicature?

S.: That conformity has already been achieved, so resistance becomes eccentricity.

G.: Italian answer?

S.: “Tutti chi? Voi contate presto.” He means, “Occupiers numerate too quickly.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Alle machen so.” The Italian says, “Tutti è una parola grande in una bocca forestiera.” He means, “Universality spoken by strangers sounds like inventory.”

G.: That is very good. Now, are any of these not conversational implicatures but rather politeness-based or authority-based non-conventional implications?

S.: Certainly. The imported honorifics, the deferential formulas, the “please” and “good fellow” and “friend” cases often rely as much on social ritual as on cooperative maxims.

G.: Good. So not everything interesting is strictly my own preserve.

S.: A sentence your disciples should embroider on cushions.

G.: They would get the stitching wrong. Another dyad. Spaniard: “Rápido.” Italian answer?

S.: “Presto, ma per chi aspetta o per chi ordina?” He means, “Speed serves different masters.”

G.: Austrian?

S.: “Schnell.” Italian: “La fretta arriva sempre con gli ordini.” He means, “Urgency has uniform.”

G.: Good. Now let us end with a larger question. What is Stefanoni’s title implying by saying Gli spagnoli in Italia instead of, say, Occupation in Lombardy?

S.: That foreign rule is best shown not in constitutional prose but in the friction of mouths, accents, orders, repairs, domestic wit, and small mistranslations.

G.: So the metonymy is justified by dialogue.

S.: Entirely. The empire enters by dyad.

G.: Very good. Then one last transposition. Spaniard says, “Aquí mando yo.” Italian answer?

S.: “Qui, forse; ma il qui passa.” He means, “Local command is temporally thinner than it sounds.”

G.: Austrian version?

S.: “Hier befehle ich.” Italian: “Il qui di oggi domani è un altro qui.” He means, “Occupation always mistakes present location for permanent grammar.”

G.: Excellent. And the final lesson?

S.: That misunderstanding under domination is never merely comic; it is the smallest theatre in which power, wit, compliance, and resistance rehearse each other.

G.: Dry enough?

S.: Sufficiently Milanese, with foreign boots on the floor.

 

 

Grice: Stefanoni, permettimi di inaugurare la nostra conversazione con un verso che adoro: “There St. John mingles with his friendly bowl, the feast of reason, and the flow of soul.” Una citazione che non manca mai di portare un sorriso nei circoli filosofici… e magari qualche brindisi!

Grice: Ma, sai, in fondo il vero “friendly bowl” non sarà mica la nostra implicatura filosofica? Forse il festino della ragione è proprio quando ci scambiamo idee tra un bicchiere e l’altro, lasciando che la conversazione fluisca più libera della logica formale.

Stefanoni: Caro Grice, se il “friendly bowl” è davvero la nostra implicatura, allora la filosofia italiana dovrebbe servire piatti e ragioni in porzioni doppie! E chissà, forse persino Mazzini avrebbe voluto unirsi alla tavolata.

Stefanoni: Bellissima implicatura, Grice! Credo che nel tuo “feast of reason” ci sia più anima che in tutti i dizionari filosofici messi insieme… e se qualcuno osa estrarre qualche parola, che almeno sia per aggiungere un po’ di sapore alla conversazione!

 

Verbali: Stella

 

Grice: Caro Stella, ogni volta che passo per Sernaglia mi chiedo: quanti filosofi veneti ci vogliono per distinguere tra “iustum” e “iussum”? O forse, qui da voi, basta un po’ di buona conversazione per risolvere tutto con eleganza giuridica!

Stella: Ah, Grice, qui a Sernaglia il giusto e il comandato si inseguono come il cane e la sua ombra, ma ti confido che, a differenza dei tuoi studenti a Vadum Boum, noi il latino lo pronunciamo con tutte le consonanti… almeno, quasi sempre.

Grice: Beh, Stella, ricordo che il mio allievo Strawson, nei corridoi del Vadum Boum, aveva la curiosa abitudine di far sparire la “t” in “IVSTVM”, così che il nostro “giusto” diventava subito “comandato”, senza nemmeno una geminazione di troppo. Ma su queste sottigliezze, meglio tacere: sai, non vorrei sollevare un caso davanti alla Cassazione latina…

Stella: Erudita implicatura, Grice! Noi che amiamo la buona educazione classica teniamo sempre lo sguardo fisso verso Bononia, mentre i barbari non saprebbero neppure dove puntare l’ago della bussola… un po’ come gli occhi dei buoi che attraversano il tuo guado, Grice!

 

Verbali: Stellini

 

Grice: Caro Stellini, ho finalmente avuto modo di leggere il tuo “De ortu et progressu morum”; devo confessare che, tra gli orti friulani e quelli filosofici, la differenza sta tutta nel profumo, ma la saggezza è la stessa!

Stellini: Ah, Grice, lei sa sempre cogliere il senso delle cose! In effetti, il mio orto morum nasce più dal tentativo di coltivare le virtù che i cavoli, ma la fatica è simile, glielo assicuro!

Grice: Ebbene, se parliamo del mos dell’ortolano, mi verrebbe da dire che, più che discutere di grandi principi morali, il vero lavoro sembra essere la potatura… e magari una buona concimazione. Ma, si sa, certe cose si capiscono senza dirle apertamente!

Stellini: Implicatura ingegnosissima, Grice! Non a caso dicono che nel mio orto filosofico cresceva più saggezza che insalata. E anche se il mio stile non era quello di Casanova, almeno qualche germoglio di virtù l’ho saputo coltivare tra i miei studenti… e qualche dente in meno non ha mai impedito una buona conversazione!

 

Verbali: Sterlich

 

G.: Let us begin, if we must, with Fra Cipolla’s first opening to La Nanna. What is the implicature?

S.: That he means to patronise her before he has properly earned the right, which is the oldest clerical sport.

G.: That is social diagnosis, not implicature. Is it conventional, conversational, or merely your Abruzzese irritation speaking?

S.: Conversational, then. He says one thing in the tone of guidance and means another in the posture of superiority.

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. Without the relation between friar and woman, and without the local asymmetry, it evaporates.

G.: Good. Now La Nanna’s reply. She appears submissive. Is she?

S.: Not in the least. Her politeness is a blade wrapped in linen.

G.: Then what is implicated?

S.: That she understands his game before he has finished setting the board.

G.: Again particularised?

S.: Yes, because it depends upon her over-obedient wording and the hearer’s awareness that she is not, in fact, simple.

G.: So not conventional implicature.

S.: No. No one gets that merely from a lexical particle or connective.

G.: You are learning. Now Fra Cipolla asks a question to which, on the surface, a plain answer would suffice. Why does La Nanna answer too fully?

S.: Because excess itself is her irony. She gives more than is required in order to imply that his demand was already impertinent.

G.: Quantity flouted, then.

S.: Yes, though elegantly.

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. The same words in a catechism would be only tedious.

G.: Very good. Now Cipolla’s next move: he pretends not to notice the rebuff. What is his implicature?

S.: That he will continue to occupy the moral high ground even after losing it.

G.: That sounds almost like Acito. But classify it.

S.: Conversational, certainly. He says, in effect, “let us proceed calmly,” and means, “I refuse to acknowledge that you have struck me.”

G.: Not entailment?

S.: No. The literal content need not include any such refusal.

G.: Presupposition?

S.: I should hope not.

G.: Hope is not enough. Why not?

S.: Because nothing in the syntax requires that he has been struck and is now ignoring it. The force is pragmatic, not structural.

G.: Good. Now La Nanna uses an honorific for him that is one degree too polished. Implicature?

S.: That she is calling attention to the office only to expose the man beneath it.

G.: Is that conventional?

S.: No. Excessive respect does not always mean mockery.

G.: So again particularised.

S.: Yes. It depends on her timing, on what he has just said, and on the reader’s suspicion that she is cleverer than he would like.

G.: “Than he would like” itself has an implicature.

S.: You are impossible.

G.: I am exact. Continue. Fra Cipolla invokes authority. Does that carry a conventional implicature?

S.: Only in the weak sense that citing authority invites deference.

G.: That is not my sense. Conventional implicature attaches stably to the form. Does his invocation of authority conventionally imply anything beyond explicit appeal?

S.: Not beyond the ordinary air of “I need not argue further.”

G.: Which is not bad. Then perhaps it is a socially sedimented but not strictly conventional implicature.

S.: One of your intermediate shadows.

G.: Civilisation lives in the shadows. La Nanna answers with a proverb. What is she doing?

S.: She is moving from private reply to public wisdom. By speaking proverbially, she implies that his manoeuvre is not unique to him but belongs to a recognisable species of nonsense.

G.: Excellent. Particularised or generalised?

S.: Generalised, perhaps, if one allows that proverbs usually carry surplus moral uptake beyond their immediate literal fit.

G.: Better: the reply has a generalisable implicatural tendency, though this instance is sharpened by the local target.

S.: You always want both the knife and the anatomy of the knife.

G.: Naturally. Now Cipolla laughs. Is the laugh itself an implicature?

S.: Yes, but not a linguistic one.

G.: Very good. Continue.

S.: It implies either that he is above offence or that he has not understood the insult. La Nanna, naturally, counts on both readings damaging him.

G.: Ah. Ambiguity by behaviour. Particularised?

S.: Entirely. A laugh in another place might mean ease. Here it means self-defence disguised as ease.

G.: And if a reader took it simply as ease?

S.: Then that reader deserves the friar.

G.: Excellent. Now La Nanna asks a question whose answer she clearly does not need. What is the implicature?

S.: That she is forcing him to hear his own absurdity aloud.

G.: Socratic, then.

S.: Domestic Socratic, yes. Less elenchus in the agora than elenchus by the hearth.

G.: And particularised?

S.: Entirely. Such questions are weapons only under pressure.

G.: Cipolla answers too quickly. What does haste implicate?

S.: That he fears the shape of the question more than its content.

G.: Not bad. Is that conversational implicature or merely psychological inference?

S.: Both, if you insist on living dangerously.

G.: I insist on distinctions. Which?

S.: Conversational, because the pace of response belongs to the exchange and is interpretable under norms of poise, confidence, and relevance.

G.: Good. Now she says “as everyone knows.” Is that conventional implicature?

S.: It conventionally signals an appeal to common ground.

G.: Better. And in this case?

S.: In this case it also conversationally implies that he is threatening to place himself outside the company of the competent if he resists.

G.: So we have a conventional function plus a particularised strategic use.

S.: You look insufferably pleased.

G.: I am. Fra Cipolla introduces a distinction. Real distinction or verbal one?

S.: Mostly verbal. He wants the dignity of analysis without the labour of thought.

G.: Implicature?

S.: That the matter is subtler than La Nanna could perhaps grasp.

G.: Which she immediately destroys.

S.: Naturally. She accepts the distinction and redraws it in terms that make him sound even sillier.

G.: Then her paraphrase carries what implicature?

S.: That if his distinction is sound, it is sound only in the wrong universe.

G.: Too elegant. Make it humbler.

S.: Very well: she implies that his sophistication is a mere rewording of folly.

G.: Excellent. Particularised?

S.: Entirely. A paraphrase need not be insult; here it is.

G.: Now, Cipolla appeals to piety. What is he counting on?

S.: A non-conversational implicature of decorum, perhaps. That certain tones and subjects will check her wit.

G.: Very good. Not conversational in the narrow sense because the force relies less on maxims than on politeness and shared devotional inhibition.

S.: Exactly. He hopes sanctity will do what logic cannot.

G.: And La Nanna?

S.: She grants the pious frame while twisting its use. That is her chief talent.

G.: So what is implicated by her pious concession?

S.: That she is willing to speak within the sacred register, provided it is not monopolised by fools.

G.: Better than many sermons. Particularised?

S.: Yes. Her concession is strategic, not doctrinally exhaustive.

G.: Cipolla then says something literally true but useless. Implicature?

S.: That he wants the credit of truthfulness without the burden of relevance.

G.: A classic clerical evasion.

S.: Or academic.

G.: You are improving. Is the useless truth itself an implicature trigger?

S.: Only because irrelevance in context invites the search for ulterior point.

G.: Precisely. Relevance flouted; implicature sought. Now La Nanna supplies the missing relevance herself. What does that imply?

S.: That she can complete his reasoning better than he can, and that his sentence needed rescuing.

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. In another context it would be helpfulness; here it is domination.

G.: Excellent. Now there is a moment where Cipolla says “I did not say that.” Is the implicature that he nearly did?

S.: Yes. Or that he recognises the line of consequence from what he did say and retreats from it.

G.: So denial here implies proximity.

S.: Very much so.

G.: Conventional?

S.: No. Denials do not conventionally imply guilt, though conversational life often treats them as if they did.

G.: Good. La Nanna then repeats his phrase with a slight shift of emphasis. What is the force?

S.: She turns quotation into exposure. The repetition implies that his own words are enough to convict him if merely heard properly.

G.: A nice example of mention becoming judgment.

S.: Yes. She does not need to add content; arrangement suffices.

G.: Suetonian of her.

S.: Heaven help us. Now you are importing emperors into kitchens.

G.: Philosophy improves kitchens. Cipolla says “you misunderstand me.” What is implied?

S.: That he has lost control of the exchange and wishes to blame the hearer’s competence rather than his own expression.

G.: And is that generalised?

S.: Fairly. “You misunderstand me” often carries that implication in quarrels, tutorials, and marriages.

G.: Very good. A generalized conversational implicature, then, though intensified here.

S.: I knew you would like that.

G.: Naturally. La Nanna answers, “on the contrary.” Conventional implicature?

S.: Not in your strict sense. But it prepares a reversal. It signals that she is about to reclaim interpretive authority.

G.: And what is the particularised implicature here?

S.: That she understands him only too well, and that his complaint has merely furnished her next stroke.

G.: Good. Cipolla then attempts compliment. Is compliment here mere compliment?

S.: Of course not. He means to pacify, lower the temperature, and recover the relation of superior to inferior under the guise of admiration.

G.: So the compliment has a conversational implicature of tactical appeasement.

S.: Yes, and possibly one of condescension.

G.: Which La Nanna hears.

S.: Instantly.

G.: Her reply is outwardly modest. What is she implying?

S.: That if she is clever, he has been the schoolmaster of that cleverness by giving her so much nonsense to sharpen herself upon.

G.: Excellent. Particularised?

S.: Entirely. Modesty is rarely so industrious by accident.

G.: Now a harder case. She says something which may simply entail the conclusion you are calling an implicature. How do we distinguish?

S.: By asking whether the further point is logically required or merely rationally recoverable from the manner and context.

G.: Good. Apply that here.

S.: When she says, in effect, that words must fit things, the entailment is the obvious norm of apt speech. The implicature is that his words have not fitted anything for several turns.

G.: Splendid. Cipolla invokes custom. What does custom do here?

S.: It pretends to settle by inheritance what he cannot settle by argument.

G.: So the appeal implicates “this is not for fresh scrutiny.”

S.: Exactly.

G.: Generalised?

S.: Fairly. Appeals to custom often imply closure.

G.: La Nanna counters with a more local custom. What is her move?

S.: She provincialises his universality. She implies that his “everyone” means only his own tiny and interested circle.

G.: Very good. That is a particularised correction of the common-ground claim.

S.: And a socially cruel one.

G.: Good cruelty is often diagnostic. Now Cipolla becomes vague. Why?

S.: Because precision would expose him.

G.: Implicature?

S.: That vagueness is being used as a shelter, not as humility.

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely. Vagueness can be innocent. Here it is evasive.

G.: Now the old danger. Is any of this presupposition?

S.: Almost certainly less than lazy analysts would claim.

G.: One example, please.

S.: When La Nanna says “even friars may forget themselves,” the presupposition is only that friars are a class of persons. The sting, namely that this friar has forgotten himself already, is implicature.

G.: Excellent. You are not wholly lost. Cipolla then says “let us speak plainly.” What does that implicate?

S.: That things have not gone plainly for him thus far.

G.: Generalised?

S.: Yes, often. “Let us speak plainly” usually implies that the prior discourse was obscured, evasive, or unsatisfactory.

G.: And in this case?

S.: It also particularly implies that he wishes to reset rules he has just been losing under.

G.: Good. La Nanna answers with a plainness that over-fulfils the invitation. Implicature?

S.: That she is willing to grant his maxim and show him he cannot bear its consequences.

G.: Quantity and Manner cooperating vindictively.

S.: If you like.

G.: I do. Now there is a joke at his expense that depends on double meaning. Is the second meaning conventional implicature?

S.: No. That would confuse lexical ambiguity with implicature.

G.: Excellent. So what do we have?

S.: An ambiguity exploited conversationally so that one reading remains decorous and the other devastating.

G.: And the devastative force is particularised.

S.: Entirely. The dictionary does not insult him; the occasion does.

G.: Cipolla pretends to choose the innocent reading.

S.: Which implies he has heard the wicked one.

G.: Yes. Denial by selective uptake. Very useful. Now La Nanna leaves something unfinished. Aposiopesis. Implicature?

S.: That she trusts the hearer to complete the indecency or the judgment without requiring her to soil her own mouth.

G.: Excellent. Particularised?

S.: Yes, though the device has a fairly stable general tendency toward insinuation.

G.: So a generalisable implicature pattern realised in a particular scandal.

S.: You make vice sound pedagogical.

G.: It usually is. Now Cipolla asks whether she mocks him. Why ask?

S.: Because to ask is already to acknowledge the suspicion while trying to retain procedural innocence.

G.: Very good. And her answer?

S.: If she says no too quickly, she implies yes by style. If she says no with solemnity, she may imply that only a fool would need to ask.

G.: Which kind does she choose?

S.: The second, naturally. She has standards.

G.: High ones. Now classify the implicature in “only a fool would need to ask,” where the “only” is not said.

S.: Conversational, particularised, sharpened by irony.

G.: Not entailment?

S.: No. Nothing in the literal negative forces that conclusion.

G.: Excellent. Cipolla then uses a diminutive. What is he up to?

S.: He is trying to miniaturise the dispute and, with it, her authority in it.

G.: Good. Does the diminutive itself conventionally implicate diminution of seriousness?

S.: Often, but not rigidly. It may express affection, contempt, condescension, or mere scale.

G.: So in this context?

S.: A non-conventional but socially legible implicature of condescension.

G.: Very nice. La Nanna repeats the diminutive and makes it bite him instead.

S.: Exactly. She domesticates his patronage and returns it with interest.

G.: Particularised?

S.: Entirely.

G.: Now a more abstract question. Would you say the dialogue overall relies more on generalised or particularised implicature?

S.: Overwhelmingly particularised. The wit lives in local pressure, local asymmetry, local knowledge.

G.: Good. But some recurring forms?

S.: Yes. Appeals to custom, demands for plain speaking, complaints of misunderstanding, strategic compliments, excessive respect, and over-informative answers all carry rather stable generalised tendencies.

G.: Excellent. We are getting somewhere. Cipolla says something pious and La Nanna replies with a domestic example. Implicature?

S.: That theology without household intelligence is not worth the oil in the lamp.

G.: Very good. Particularised?

S.: Yes, though the broader anti-abstraction sentiment may be common enough.

G.: Is there anywhere in the dialogue where you would actually grant a presupposition of some philosophical interest?

S.: Perhaps where a correction takes for granted a shared standard of apt speech. But even there, most of the fun lies not in what must be taken for granted, but in what may be inferred from strategic deviation.

G.: So presupposition is the dull furniture; implicature the theatre.

S.: In this dialogue, emphatically yes.

G.: Now Cipolla says “as a matter of charity.” Implicature?

S.: That he wishes to moralise the next move in advance so that resistance appears uncharitable.

G.: Excellent. Generalised?

S.: Fairly. Such prefacing often loads the moral dice.

G.: La Nanna replies charitably indeed, but to his disadvantage.

S.: Which is her genius. She takes the announced norm and fulfils it in the wrong direction for him.

G.: What is implied by over-fulfilling a norm?

S.: That the speaker invoking it did not understand its consequences.

G.: Very nice. Now if I ask whether La Nanna’s wit depends upon flouting Quality, what do you say?

S.: Rarely. She tends not to lie. Her power comes from saying true things too pointedly or from arranging them too well.

G.: Excellent. So the main engines are Quantity, Relation, and Manner.

S.: With politeness forever hovering like a second legal code.

G.: A non-conversational yet non-conventional reservoir.

S.: Yes. She can imply insult through perfect civility.

G.: Which is always the best sort. Cipolla ends with some form of retreat. What is the implicature of a dignified retreat after defeat?

S.: That one still claims authorship of the ending. He cannot win the exchange, so he means to close it as though closure were victory.

G.: Generalised?

S.: Often, yes. The defeated frequently mistake last word for best word.

G.: And La Nanna’s final line?

S.: Usually a line that appears to release him while in fact fixing the reader’s judgment forever.

G.: What kind of implicature is that?

S.: Particularised, devastating, and perhaps best left unreported in mixed company.

G.: Cowardice.

S.: Prudence.

G.: Accetto again.

S.: Civilisation again.

G.: Very well. Then let us conclude. Fra Cipolla says much, means less than he hopes, and implies more than he intends. La Nanna says just enough, means exactly what she wants, and lets the implicature do the strangling.

S.: That is about right.

G.: And the dialogue overall?

S.: A manual of enlightened pressure under social constraint.

G.: Too grand.

S.: A friar’s defeat by conversational intelligence, then.

G.: Better. One final classification. La Nanna’s wit: conventional, conversational, or diabolical?

S.: Predominantly conversational, occasionally politeness-based, never merely lexical, and only diabolical if one is a friar.

G.: Dry enough?

S.: Sufficiently Chietine, with one excellent woman in command.

 

Grice: Mi permetta una curiosità, caro Sterlich: come pronuncia esattamente il suo cognome? Soprattutto l’ultima parte, che mi sembra poco italiana!  

Sterlich: Ah, è una domanda che mi fanno spesso! Si pronuncia “Ster-lich”, con la “ch” finale un po’ dura, quasi tedesca. In famiglia scherziamo sempre su quanto suoni strano qui in Abruzzo.  

Grice: Capisco, dev’essere stato un nome che ha incuriosito molti, specie tra i georgofili e gli intellettuali della sua biblioteca a Chieti! E ha portato fortuna, direi, se penso al fermento culturale che ha contribuito a creare.  

Sterlich: La ringrazio, professore! In fondo, anche un cognome “fuori dal coro” può essere uno stimolo alla conversazione e all’apertura verso idee nuove. Come diceva mio padre, “la diversità è la ricchezza che fa crescere la cultura.”

 

Verbali: Stertinio

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Stertinī. Audīvī tē adhūc Damasippō praeceptōrem esse—sub Porticū, ut aiunt: ego semper mirātus sum quam multum in illō “porticū” lateat.

GRICEVS: Apud nōs, cum quis “porticum” laudat, saepe satis est dīcere porticum—nē addāmus quidnam coloris; sed spero Damasippum tuum ab illō genere ornātūs servāvistī, quod Graecī amant, Rōmānī autem (nisi fallor) rubōre tegunt.

STERTINIVS: Heu, Grice: Damasippus “porticum” audīvit et statim ad parietēs spectāvit, quasi philosophia in pictūrā nāscerētur. Ego autem dē ratiōne, dē officiō, dē animō loquēbar.

STERTINIVS: Inplicaturam callidissimam, Grice! Nōn negō: porticus illa Graecē dicitur Στοὰ Ποικίλη—id est “porticus picta”; sed totum hoc Damasippō super caput fuit: nihil nisi dē togā novā cōgitābat, et maxime utrum satis virīlis foret, cum eam primum sumeret.

 

Verbali: Stilione

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Stilīō: audīvī tē ipsum principem erudiisse—Alexandrum Severum, inquam. O rem miram: ego numquam nisi apud Vadum Boum barbarōs (ut ita dicam) docuī.

STILIŌ: Salvē, Grice. Barbarōs? At tu Oxoniensibus barbaris nihil deest praeter modestiam. Sed quid ad principem? Ille certe maiōrem curam poscit quam iuvenis de vādō boum.

GRICEVS: Fortasse. Ego tamen, cum audiam “tutorem principis,” subrīdēo: quasi princeps statim habeat principium—id est, principium rationis. Sed nonne tibi quoque aliquando visus est quasi adhūc litterās ratiōnis disceret?

STILIŌ: Ō, tam callidam inplicatvram, Grice! Nōn negāverim: purpura saepe velat caput, nōn instruit; et “princeps” nomen est, sed principium ratiōnis etiam principi addiscendum est.

 

Verbali: Stilone

 

GRICEVS: Salvē, Stilo Lanuvine! Audio tē de proloquiō caelī disserere—quasi grammaticus ipse ad astra conscendat.

STILO: Salvē tu quoque, Grice. Proloquium (axiōma, ut Stoici) nec humile nec superbum est: sententia simplex, sed plena. Quid tibi videtur dē caelō?

GRICEVS: Mirum dictū: hodiē proloquium dē caelō repperī—tam caeleste, ut mihi videātur nōn tantum “dē caelō” dīcī, sed paene “caelī” ipsīus: ita mē illa particula dē (quam negotiātor quidam “of” vocat) in nūbēs sustulit.

STILO: Inplicatvram bellissimam, Grice! sed cave: nē dē nimis extendās; aliōquī discipulī meī (Cicero et Varro) tē nōn in Commentariō dē proloquiīs, sed in Indicē comoediārum repōnent.

 

Verbali: Stucchi

 

Grice: Caro Stucchi, devo confessare che quando penso alla "filosofia perenne" e ai tuoi illustri riferimenti – Pitagora, Cicerone, Ovidio, Virgilio, Plinio – mi sento come un creatore che, tra una creatura e l’altra, si ritrova a Gubbio in cerca della verità eterna. Dimmi, come si convive con così tanti giganti sulle spalle, e pure con la pioggia umbra?

Stucchi: Ah, caro Grice, Gubbio è proprio la città delle verità perenni – e anche dei temporali perenni! Ma ti dirò, convivere con Pitagora e Virgilio è un po’ come cenare con parenti che non smettono mai di filosofare: tra una metafora e una equazione, qui si medita persino sul brodo!

Grice: Capisco, capisco... D’altronde, quando mi capita di creare qualche creatura, mi limito a implicare il creatore – per modestia, si intende. In fondo, la filosofia dalle tue parti ha sempre avuto un gusto speciale: come l’aqua virgo, che non disseta mai del tutto, ma lascia sempre il desiderio di un’altra verità.

Stucchi: Bellissima implicatura, Grice! Hai colto il segreto dei filosofi di Gubbio: qui si crea, si traduce, si insegna, ma senza mai dire tutto – ogni creatura è solo una traccia, un invito a cercare il creatore dietro le quinte. E se la verità perenne si nasconde… almeno il brodo è sempre in tavola!

 

Verbali: Svetonio

 

M.: Grice, open your Suetonius and do not look as if the Caesars have already won.

G.: Yes, sir.

M.: We begin with Julius. State, without embroidery, his relation to the crossing of the Rubicon.

G.: He crossed it, sir, thereby converting decision into civil war and geography into constitutional argument.

M.: Better than most politicians. Shropshire, what is Suetonius’s implicature behind Julius?

S.: That brilliance in public achievement does not exonerate appetite in private conduct, sir, and that republican forms are not improved merely because a genius breaks them efficiently.

M.: Hm. Efficiently is the adverb of your generation. Grice, two salient features of Suetonius on Julius apart from the Rubicon.

G.: His clemency and his vanity, sir. Also his relation to kingship by denial and attraction.

M.: Quite. The bald man and the crown. Shropshire, the implicature of the baldness anecdotes?

S.: That the public man is to be cut to mortal proportions, sir. Suetonius reduces majesty to grooming and thereby restores aristocratic revenge in miniature.

M.: Good. Augustus next. Grice, what is his official relation to monarchy?

G.: He disclaims it, sir, while arranging everything so that it becomes permanent.

M.: Very Roman. Shropshire?

S.: The implicature is that the best tyrant is the one who understands the grammar of modesty, sir. Augustus means “princeps” while saying “citizen.”

M.: Better. Grice, one virtue and one vice of Augustus in Suetonius.

G.: Administrative restraint and calculated theatre, sir.

M.: Theatre is not a vice until you perform it badly. Tiberius. Grice, where does Suetonius place him morally?

G.: In suspicion, reserve, and eventual obscenity, sir.

M.: A promising civil servant, then. Shropshire, what is implied by the withdrawal to Capri?

S.: That absence is itself a form of rule, sir. Tiberius governs by making others guess at his intention and by letting distance become fear.

M.: Very good. That, Grice, is called politics before it is called psychology. Caligula. Grice, one sentence.

G.: Power without measure passing into theatrical cruelty, sir.

M.: A concise disaster. Shropshire, the implicature of Caligula’s horse?

S.: That institutions are humiliated not only by open violence but by ridicule, sir. To threaten an office by a horse is to imply that office itself has become decorative.

M.: Excellent. Claudius. Grice, what does Suetonius do with the stammer, the limp, and the family underestimation?

G.: He makes bodily defect the screen behind which an emperor appears unexpectedly effective, sir.

M.: Unexpectedly is doing too much work. Shropshire, the implicature?

S.: That contempt misreads power, sir. The ridiculous man may rule competently, which embarrasses all physiognomists and many senators.

M.: You are improving. Nero. Grice, no musicological indulgence.

G.: Artistic vanity elevated above political responsibility, sir, with cruelty increasingly aestheticised.

M.: Yes. He fiddles, if not literally then morally. Shropshire, what is Suetonius doing with the stage obsession?

S.: He implies that when the ruler confuses audience with people, sir, government becomes performance and applause becomes policy.

M.: Good. Galba. Grice, why does he fail?

G.: Severity without tact, sir; old-fashioned austerity applied without regard to the new economy of expectation.

M.: The new economy of expectation. Nasty phrase, accurate thought. Shropshire?

S.: The implicature is that virtue unguided by timing becomes vice in office, sir. A ruler may be respectable and still politically tone-deaf.

M.: Otho. Grice, one distinguishing fact.

G.: He is morally compromised in formation yet dies with a degree of dignity, sir.

M.: Yes. A borrowed robe and a decent death. Shropshire, what is implied?

S.: That last acts revise earlier judgments without erasing them, sir. Suetonius lets the manner of dying become a corrective gloss, not a total acquittal.

M.: Vitellius. Grice, what vice dominates?

G.: Gluttony, sir, joined to inertia and incapacity.

M.: Joined, indeed. Shropshire, the implicature of the eating?

S.: That appetite is politically legible, sir. Excess at table implies incapacity in rule because self-government is the first test of public government.

M.: You have read your Stoics without being asked. Vespasian. Grice, why does Suetonius like him?

G.: Practicality, economy, humour, and relative proportion, sir.

M.: A headmaster’s emperor. Shropshire?

S.: The implicature is that ordinariness can itself be restorative, sir. After flamboyant monsters, competence looks almost philosophical.

M.: Tito. Grice, famous sobriquet?

G.: Deliciae humani generis, sir.

M.: Which means?

G.: The darling of the human race, sir.

M.: Sentimental rubbish, but classical rubbish. Shropshire, what lies under the charm?

S.: That benevolence may itself be politically staged, sir, but in Tito the staging is effective because it remains within Roman expectations of liberality and measure.

M.: Domitian. Grice, what is the problem?

G.: Surveillance, cruelty, self-divinisation, and the senatorial memory that follows him, sir.

M.: Yes. One must never forget that Suetonius inherits judgments as well as records them. Shropshire, the implicature of Domitian’s damnatio?

S.: That moral biography is written by survivors, sir. Suetonius means not only that Domitian was bad, but that a Roman elite required him to remain readable as bad.

M.: Excellent. You are both nearly tolerable. Now back to Julius. Grice, why does Suetonius prefer anecdote to constitutional theory?

G.: Because anecdote lets moral character do explanatory work without erecting a formal political science, sir.

M.: Which is a sentence you may keep if you learn to write less like a clerk. Shropshire, what is implied by arrangement in Suetonius?

S.: That sequence itself judges, sir. He need not say “this made him unfit”; he places the detail so that the Roman reader supplies the verdict.

M.: Good. That is very nearly literature. Grice, what would you call the system of virtues and vices at work?

G.: A rubric of Roman aristocratic evaluation, sir: justice, self-command, generosity against cruelty, sexual excess, greed, and theatricality.

M.: Reasonably put. Shropshire, why does this interest you?

S.: Because Suetonius says comparatively little in explicit theory and means a great deal by selection, sir.

M.: Ah. You have both smuggled philosophy back in through the servants’ entrance.

G.: Only slightly, sir.

M.: Slightly is how decay begins. Julius again. What is implied by the crown refusals?

G.: That denial may itself advertise desire, sir.

M.: Yes. English boys can understand that if they ever attend dances. Shropshire, Tiberius again. What is implied by reserve?

S.: That opacity itself becomes a political instrument, sir. Silence is no less legible than proclamation when the hearers are frightened enough.

M.: Good. Caligula. Why does Suetonius collect the grotesque?

G.: To make moral madness visible through memorable particulars, sir.

M.: And because Roman readers enjoy scandal with principle. Shropshire, Nero’s singing: what does it imply beyond bad taste?

S.: That the ruler no longer distinguishes between judgment and applause, sir.

M.: Very good. Claudius. Is Suetonius kind?

G.: Relatively, sir, but only because the contrast with expectation and with worse successors assists the portrait.

M.: Never trust relative kindness in a biographer. Otho. Why does a compromised life earn a partially noble close?

G.: Because Roman judgment remains responsive to final bearing, sir.

M.: Bearing. Better than redemption. Shropshire, why do meals matter with Vitellius?

S.: Because table conduct stands as the domestic form of rule, sir. Disorder there is taken as evidence of disorder elsewhere.

M.: Exactly. The pudding is constitutional. Vespasian. Why the jokes?

G.: They humanise him, sir, but also imply mastery. A ruler at ease with laughter is not terrified by his office.

M.: Better. Tito. Why the tears?

G.: They furnish moral spectacle, sir, but of a tolerable kind.

M.: Tolerable tears are the most Roman kind. Domitian. Why the fear of informers?

G.: Because speech itself becomes precarious under suspicion, sir.

M.: Ah. Now perhaps philosophy may enter by warrant. Shropshire, what is the implicature of informer culture?

S.: That public language has been corrupted, sir. Men say less, imply more, and trust neither words nor hearers.

M.: Good. That would have pleased Tacitus, though he would have said it more darkly. Grice, compare Suetonius and Tacitus in one sentence.

G.: Tacitus gives political tragedy in compressed moral psychology; Suetonius gives moral judgment by curated disclosure, sir.

M.: Curated disclosure. Monstrous phrase. Accurate enough. Shropshire, why is Suetonius so interested in bodies?

S.: Because bodies are where aristocratic evaluation becomes legible without theory, sir. Diet, sleep, sex, grooming, gait: all imply character and therefore fitness to rule.

M.: Very good. The body is the republic in shorthand. Grice, does Suetonius have a philosophy?

G.: Not in the explicit systematic sense, sir, but he operates under a stable framework of Roman moral expectations.

M.: Exactly. Which is what most boys miss because they prefer the dirt. Shropshire, why are the dirty stories not merely dirty?

S.: Because in Suetonius scandal is evidential, sir. It is selected to show whether private appetite subverts public office.

M.: Excellent. Julius and Augustus together now. What is the chief contrast?

G.: Julius is dazzling overreach; Augustus is successful management under a mask of restraint, sir.

M.: Very sound. Tiberius and Domitian?

G.: Suspicion in one becomes system in the other, sir.

M.: Nero and Caligula?

G.: Theatricality in both, but Nero aestheticises while Caligula deranges, sir.

M.: Vespasian and Claudius?

G.: Both show that the unglamorous ruler may govern better than the splendid one, sir.

M.: Good. Shropshire, what is the implicature behind the whole Twelve Caesars?

S.: That empire cannot abolish the need for moral judgment, sir. Since constitutional liberty is damaged, character becomes the aristocratic substitute for lost political argument.

M.: That is almost too good for Clifton.

G.: Only almost, sir.

M.: Do not become insolent by approximation. Now, Suetonius on Augustus again. Why the underinformativeness?

G.: Because he trusts the reader to infer the balance of praise and reservation from placement rather than from a frontal thesis, sir.

M.: Exactly. And what do we call that, Shropshire?

S.: In another century, perhaps implicature, sir.

M.: Do not be anachronistic before lunch.

S.: No, sir.

M.: You may be anachronistic after lunch if you cite your sources. Grice, why does Suetonius cut emperors down to size?

G.: So that Roman readers may cope with absolute power by seeing rulers as morally intelligible and bodily finite, sir.

M.: Very good. Nothing calms aristocrats like discovering that Caesar snores. Shropshire, what is implied by that reduction?

S.: That divinised office remains inhabited by mortal absurdity, sir.

M.: Better and better. Perhaps there is hope for the lower forms after all. Now tell me, Grice, what is the date of Suetonius in relation to the emperors he describes?

G.: He writes later, under the Flavians and Hadrianic world, sir, and inherits senatorial judgments not innocent of politics.

M.: Quite so. A biography is never merely backward-looking. Shropshire, what follows?

S.: That even selection is historical, sir. He means through arrangement what his own age permits and prefers.

M.: Yes. History school is not a morgue if properly taught. Grice, why would a philosopher care for Suetonius at all?

G.: Because he shows how evaluative meaning may be communicated without explicit theory, sir.

M.: Hm. That is nearly a confession. Shropshire, and why would a historian care?

S.: Because moral anecdote is part of political understanding, sir, not merely embroidery upon it.

M.: Good. We shall not despise embroidery if it does constitutional work. Now, one last round. Give me, Grice, one word for each emperor. Julius.

G.: Ambition, sir.

M.: Augustus.

G.: Management, sir.

M.: Tiberius.

G.: Reserve, sir.

M.: Caligula.

G.: Derangement, sir.

M.: Claudius.

G.: Misprision, sir.

M.: Nero.

G.: Performance, sir.

M.: Galba.

G.: Severity, sir.

M.: Otho.

G.: Revision, sir.

M.: Vitellius.

G.: Appetite, sir.

M.: Vespasian.

G.: Restoration, sir.

M.: Titus.

G.: Charm, sir.

M.: Domitian.

G.: Fear, sir.

M.: Shropshire, now the implicatures in one word each. Julius.

S.: Overreach, sir.

M.: Augustus.

S.: Disguise, sir.

M.: Tiberius.

S.: Opaqueness, sir.

M.: Caligula.

S.: Humiliation, sir.

M.: Claudius.

S.: Misreading, sir.

M.: Nero.

S.: Applause, sir.

M.: Galba.

S.: Untimeliness, sir.

M.: Otho.

S.: Correction, sir.

M.: Vitellius.

S.: Incontinence, sir.

M.: Vespasian.

S.: Sufficiency, sir.

M.: Titus.

S.: Display, sir.

M.: Domitian.

S.: Constriction, sir.

M.: Very well. Now close the book. Grice, what have you learned?

G.: That Suetonius says less than he means, sir.

M.: And you, Shropshire?

S.: That Roman history is a set of questions asked by anecdotes, sir.

M.: Excellent. Then you may both go to lunch, where I expect you to remember that gluttony is constitutional, reserve is political, applause is dangerous, and handwriting, Grice, is not yet a philosophy.

 

 

GRICEVS: O SVETONI, Tranquille, quid agis? Audio te commentarium de re publica scribere, et iam tot tabulas implevisti ut librarii gemant.

SVETONIVS: Ago, ut soleo: colligo, ordino, anecdotis condio. Nam si res publica gravis est, cur commentarius non sit levis—saltem in stilo?

GRICEVS: Ita vero. Et cum tu de re publica disseris, mirum est quam multa—dico, quam opportune—adicias quae in ipsa re publica (ut ita dicam) vix locum habent.

SVETONIVS: Pulchra implicatura, Grice! Sed quid faciam? Si principum vitia et virtutes rubricas habent, cur res publica non habeat margines—et margines non habeant glossas?