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

 G.: Pucci at Oxford, then. I am told he was there, and I am further told he was doing something theological enough to annoy a Calvinist. That narrows Oxford very little. S.: Very little, but not to nothing. The secure points are these. Francesco Pucci went to Oxford in 1572, took the M.A. on 18 May 1574, applied for a lectureship in theology, and was expelled before June 1575 after disputations that troubled the authorities. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxforddnb.com] G.: What college? S.: That I do not know. G.: What do you mean you do not know? S.: I mean precisely that the material I found gives Oxford, degree, application for a theological lectureship, and expulsion, but does not identify a college. The Oxford biographical notice is behind a paywall in the search results, and the open notices do not supply the college. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxforddnb.com] G.: So Oxford in the abstract, which is a place only administrators believe in. S.: In this case, yes. G.: And what capacity was he there in? Visitor, student, lecturer, menace? S.: First as a resident scholar or student of some kind, at any rate enough to proceed to the M.A.; then apparently as a candidate for a lectureship in theology. One source even says he was “advised to write a thesis” when seeking that post. [en.wikipedia.org], [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org] G.: Ah yes, the thesis. The thing with the title that sounds at once pious and predicamental. S.: De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit. G.: Assuming the transmission is not corrupt. S.: Quite. The form survives in late biographical notices, and there are signs of corruption in some of them, but the recurring core is stable enough: De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit. [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org], [dbpedia.org] G.: Good. Let us therefore do what Oxford men do when they do not know the circumstances: over-read the title. S.: With pleasure. G.: De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit. I immediately hear Aristotle’s Categories knocking at the door. S.: Because of quae and qualis. G.: Exactly. One asks what faith is, and what sort of thing it is. Or perhaps rather, what faith in God is, and of what quality it is. S.: Though you are making quae do rather a lot. G.: I always expect a pronoun to earn its keep. S.: Still, one must be careful. In Latin, quae here need not map neatly onto our what, nor qualis onto our which. G.: I should have said what and what-sort, perhaps. S.: Better. Because which and qualis are not cognate. G.: I know they are not cognate. That is why I use them in Oxford, where equivalences need not descend from etymology. S.: Still, one must keep the distinction. What seeks identification, account, essence, subject matter. Which seeks selection among already delimited candidates. Qualis seeks kind, quality, what sort. G.: Quite. So if one sticks with the Latin, quae asks for something like substantia, substratum, subjectum, perhaps even first ousia if one is feeling Greek before luncheon. S.: Whereas qualis points toward qualitas, certainly, and not toward a mere picking-out among alternatives. G.: Exactly. Which is why the title intrigues me. De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit. It asks first what faith in God is, then what sort of thing it is. Substance and quality marching in theological file. S.: With sit in the subjunctive. G.: Yes. And I like that too. S.: Why? It is hardly an explosion. It may simply be indirect question. G.: Of course it is indirect question. But indirect questions are where grammar begins to look philosophical. S.: Only in Oxford. G.: Especially in Oxford. The subjunctive here does not merely report uncertainty; it subordinates inquiry. It says: let us inquire what it may be, and of what quality it may be, under the government of the asking. S.: That is almost too elegant for a job application. G.: Job applications have occasionally risen above themselves. S.: So you hear two questions in one title. G.: Very much so. First, what is faith in God? Second, what sort of thing is it? That is to say, what is its status, species, modality, perhaps even its theological chemistry. S.: Then we should separate the two. The first question seeks an account of faith itself. G.: Yes. Is it assent, trust, confidence, infused habit, disposition of the will, intellectual acceptance, salvific relation, or some alarming mixture? S.: And the second asks how it is to be classified. G.: Exactly. Is it cognitive, affective, volitional, theological virtue, natural disposition, supernatural gift, quality of soul, relation to God, or all of these under different descriptions? S.: There you are already halfway to the Categories. G.: I admitted as much. Oxford encourages one to turn every title into a syllabus and every syllabus into Aristotle. S.: But then what of your English equivalents? You said what and which. G.: I retract which and substitute what sort. One can survive the correction. S.: Good. Because what and what sort better preserve the Latin. Quae asks, as you say, for something like subject matter or essence. Qualis asks for quality or kind. G.: And not quantitas, for Pucci was not asking how much faith there is in God. S.: Quite. G.: Though one is tempted. S.: Naturally. But if we bring in Kant, the modern tidying becomes interesting. He has quantitas, qualitas, relatio, modus. G.: Whereas I, from my own looser habits, might say quantitas, qualitas, relatio, modus too, though perhaps in a different order when bored. S.: The point remains that qualis goes cleanly with qualitas. G.: And qualitas, as every schoolboy knows and no schoolboy enjoys, is Ciceronian. S.: Along with quantitas. G.: Yes. Cicero coins and the schools never forgive him. S.: So qualis in Pucci’s title can be heard against the long Latin afterlife of qualitas. G.: Very much so. One asks not merely what faith is, but what quality it has, or under what quality it falls, or how it is to be characterised as a theological item. S.: Then the little et begins to matter. G.: Ah yes, the whole title hangs on the et. S.: Because if one asked only quae sit, one would get an account of what faith is. G.: In principle, yes. S.: And if one asked only qualis sit, one might presuppose that one already knows the subject and is now classifying or characterising it. G.: Exactly. The et says that neither question is sufficient alone. S.: But are they really separable? G.: In scholastic prose, always. In life, less so. S.: Suppose one answered the first and not the second. G.: One might say: faith in God is trust. Very good. But what sort of trust? Rational? Salvific? Natural? Infused? Meritorious? The first answer leaves the second ungoverned. S.: And suppose one answered the second without the first. G.: One might say: it is a theological virtue, or a habitus, or a quality of the soul. But unless one says what faith is, one has merely classified a word. S.: So the et marks incompleteness on both sides. G.: Precisely. It is the conjunction of identity-question and quality-question. What is it, and what sort of thing is it? Oxford in four words and a conjunction. S.: There is also a subtler possibility. Perhaps quae asks for the thing under one description and qualis for it under another, not as separate stages but as mutually correcting. G.: Very good. One answer may constrain the other. If faith is trust, then its quality must be the quality of trust of a certain kind. If it is assent, then qualis becomes a question about the kind of assent. S.: Then the title is almost an anti-reductionist device. G.: Yes. It prevents one from saying either “faith is just x” or “faith is of such-and-such quality” in a vacuum. It forces a two-level account. S.: Which makes sense if Pucci was already quarrelling with Calvinists. G.: Indeed. One can imagine him wanting to say that faith is not exhausted by the party’s preferred formula, and also that its status or character differs from what they make of it. S.: The biographical notices do say that his disputations offended because he openly combated Calvinist dogmas. [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org], [en.wikipedia.org] G.: Which means the title may have been chosen as a civil form for an uncivil thesis. S.: Very likely. G.: Now tell me again what he was doing at Oxford. S.: Studying, taking the M.A., apparently seeking appointment, and disputing enough to be expelled. Francesco Pucci was admitted M.A. on 18 May 1574 and then applied for a theological lectureship; his controversies led to expulsion before June 1575. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxforddnb.com] G.: Still no college. S.: Still no college. G.: Oxford hates an unspecified college the way Aristotle hates a vacuum. S.: And yet here we are. G.: Then perhaps he never wrote the thing. S.: That is possible. G.: More than possible. Very Oxford. S.: In what sense? G.: In the sense that one is advised to write a thesis, discussed as if one had written it, opposed as if one had published it, and expelled before the manuscript acquires ink enough to be bibliographically respectable. S.: That would fit the atmosphere. G.: Does any source say the treatise was printed at Oxford? S.: No secure open result I found says that. One cluster of later notices speaks of his being advised to write the thesis; another, less securely, says he “printed a treatise” with that title and had to leave England. But this latter line appears in derivative encyclopedic notices and is not solid enough, on present evidence, to treat as confirmed. [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org], [dbpedia.org] G.: So we have the perfectly academic possibility that the title survived better than the text. S.: Yes. G.: A title with a career, and perhaps no treatise with one. S.: Very Oxford. G.: Good. Then let us continue over-reading the ghost of it. De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit. If one were severe, one could say that quae presses toward substance while qualis presses toward quality. But faith is not a substance. S.: No, though scholastic usage might still let one ask what it is in terms of habitus, actus, virtus, and the like. G.: Quite. Substance in the loose sense of whatness, not in the strict sense of an independently standing thing. S.: So substratum and subjectum are perhaps too strong unless carefully handled. G.: True. One wants whatness without reification. S.: And qualis without trivialisation. G.: Precisely. For qualis is not asking for decorative attributes. It is not: is faith charming, pale blue, and good at tennis? S.: Though one should not rule Oxford out. G.: Never. Still, the point is serious. Qualis asks for the character under which faith is to be understood. Is it natural or supernatural, intellectual or fiducial, humanly available or divinely infused? S.: Which matches the later reports that Francesco Pucci developed views about a natural faith insita in all human beings. The Basel theses De Fide natura hominibus universis insita show that “faith” for him very soon became a question of universal natural endowment rather than narrow confessional possession. [en.wikipedia.org], [biblicalcy...opedia.com] G.: Excellent. Then the Oxford title may already foreshadow the larger Puccian problem. What is faith, and of what kind is it, if it is not merely the confessional ticket of the elect? S.: Exactly. G.: Then one sees why Calvinists might have become peevish. S.: More than peevish. G.: Fair. Now, what do you make of the subjunctive again? S.: Grammatically, indirect question. Philosophically, open inquiry under a dependent clause. No assertion yet, only the field of investigation. G.: Which is why it has an air of caution. The title promises an inquiry, not yet a manifesto. S.: Though titles often lie. G.: Especially when written for appointment. S.: Then perhaps the true Oxford reading is this. The title behaves modestly, but the disputation did not. G.: Very likely. One may begin with an indirect question and end by directly annoying the faculty. S.: That too is Oxford. G.: Let us put the what and the what-sort once more. If I ask what faith is, I ask for its account. If I ask what sort of thing it is, I ask for its place in a classificatory scheme. S.: Yes. G.: And the et prevents either answer from monopolising the field. S.: Exactly. G.: Then perhaps the title is better than the book, whether or not the book existed. S.: That also would be Oxford. G.: One more point. You corrected my which, and rightly. Yet English often uses which where the mind is really asking what sort. S.: Sloppily, yes. G.: Sloppily, but productively. We ask “which faith?” and mean not one item from a shelf but what species of faith is in question. S.: Whereas Latin qualis keeps the matter cleaner. G.: Indeed. One of the few advantages of scholastic Latin over common-room English is that it forces one to distinguish selection from qualification. S.: And if one does not, the categories begin to slosh. G.: Beautifully put. Then Pucci’s title is, in a modest way, a lesson in not letting the categories slosh. S.: Provided he wrote it. G.: Provided he wrote it. Always the English proviso. S.: Still, the open evidence does support Oxford, M.A., candidacy for a theological lectureship, controversy, and expulsion. It does not yet support a college name, and it leaves the actual status of De fide in Deum, quae et qualis sit somewhat uncertain between proposed thesis, written disputation, and perhaps printed treatise in later retelling. [en.wikipedia.org], [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org], [oxforddnb.com] G.: Then that is already enough for one conversation and one application denied. S.: Quite. G.: So what was Pucci doing at Oxford? S.: Learning enough theology to take a degree, seeking enough preferment to risk a thesis, and quarrelling enough with Calvinism to be shown the door. [en.wikipedia.org], [biblicalcy...opedia.com], [studylight.org] G.: And what college? S.: Still unknown. G.: Dry enough? S.: Sufficiently Oxonian, with one subjunctive and no fellowship.