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

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: GI

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giardini: Grice e Giardini: la ragione conversazionale.  Elia Giardini (Pavia, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and Elia Giardini’s rhetorical pragmatics meet at a shared classical insight: human rationality is constituted as much by how we articulate thought as by the thought itself. Giardini, drawing on Ciceronian rhetoric and early modern elocutio, treats reasoning and speaking as inseparable capacities that bind human society, insisting that persuasion depends not merely on logical correctness but on memory, delivery, clarity, and restraint—what he calls the governed difficulty of true eloquence. Grice recasts this tradition in analytic terms by isolating the normative mechanisms that make everyday talk intelligible, showing how cooperation, relevance, and rational expectations generate implicature beyond literal meaning. What Giardini frames as rhetorical art—balancing stimulus and restraint, pronuncia and giudizio—Grice translates into conversational maxims and inferential discipline. Both resist the idea that meaning is carried solely by explicit form: Giardini emphasizes how eloquence succeeds where mere speaking fails, while Grice explains this success through reasoned inference rather than ornament. In this sense, Grice’s conversational pragmatics can be read as a modern extension of Giardini’s conversational rhetoric: rhetoric purified of excess psychology and rearticulated as a theory of rational interaction, where perspicuitas is not stylistic clarity alone but the shared rational visibility that allows speakers and hearers to meet in meaning. Grice: “I love G.– most of my examples come from him, even his meta-language, like ‘perspicuitas’!” ELEMENTI DELL’ARTE RETTORICA Umanità' Pavia . DELLA ELOCUZIONE, L lA fhcoJtà di ragionare, e d’ cfpriincre con articolate voci i pròpri (èntimenti , c di co- ftiufiicarli per mezzo 'di quelle agii altri , è quellà , che diftingué T uomo dal recante degli animali, e che forma il principal vincolo dell’umana ibcietà(i}. Avvegnaché però quefto fu Un dono ^1 benefico Autore della natura a tut- ta la fpecie de^li uomini compartito ; pure non in tutti qualmente Una tal facoltà manìfefta le fue fòrze , e i fuoi'effctti produce , Tutti ragio- nano^ tutti parlano, e pochiflìmi fon quelli» che col proprio difcorfo arrivano a perfuadere; il che fenza dubbio è chiariffimo argomento, die qu^to incile lì è il parlare, altrettanto dif- fBcile iì è il parlare con vera Eloquenza In- 0 } Hoc UDO honincs maxime befliia praeflant .... Q.uz th alia potoit aur dirperfot homines unum in locum congrc. t*re, auc s fera, agreflique vita ad hunc humanum cnltum, «ìvilemqHe deducere, aut jam cooflitutìa civitatìbus legea iadieia , jura de&rtbere * Ctc. Lii. T; De Orat. Qaibus de caufis, quia non iure miretiir , fcriveTtil- liéiteti. cap.^ ex omni memoria statum , lempo- rum , civiiatum , cam exiguura Oratorum nunerum iaveoi- rìf e eenténtde fimalmente al e. 5. quia enim.aiiad effe puter, nifi tei quandam iocrcdlbilem magniiudmcm , dim- a a ciii* Intefero quefto i primi fìlofofi , che attenta- mente confiderando i mirabili prodigi dalla na- tura operati ‘fpecialmeme nell’ uomo, .videro, che , ficcome in alcuni ella abbifognava di fti- iTiolo, cosi uopo aveva in altri di freno (0. Coir arte penfarono dunque di fupplire al difet- to della natura iftelTa ; e di memoria , leggiadria di portamento , e Soavità di pronundazione. Ma perchè l’arte può velo- cemente incamminarci Sulla retta via , e Sommini- strarci Solo i tefori dell’ eloquenza ; ed al noftro giudizio poi appartiene Casi conchiude dettone le fut Partizioni Oratorie ./ - I * V f 4 I t t . I j ? \ * t < 1 ( «r . » ^o» 1 Hi. prammatica come rettorica conversazionale. St. John’s, 1938. Poole: Reading religion, Grice. Grice: If by that you mean the prayer book, no. If by that you mean an imprint line, yes. Poole: An imprint line is a kind of prayer in Oxford. What are you reading. Grice: Giardini. Arte rettorica. Pavia. 1782. Poole: Pavia. Lombardy. You are straying from Oxfordshire already. Grice: Lombardia beats Oxfordshire by antiquity, if that is what we are trading in. Poole: You have underlined something. That is always a sign of moral agitation. Grice: Not moral. Typographical. The line says: Stamperia del Regio ed Imperiale Monastero di S. Salvatore, per Bianchi. Poole: Ah. Monastero. And you, a new Lecturer at St John’s, have found a monastery. Grice: I know I can be fastidious. By that I imply that I can be distracted by anything that looks like institutional self-description. Poole: Regio ed Imperiale. Two crowns for one press. Why does that please you. Grice: Because it is an unnecessary explicitness. The press is doing what speakers do when they say: I am being cooperative. They announce the virtue rather than merely showing it. Poole: Or they announce the patronage to frighten the competition. Grice: That too. And by that I imply that even printers have implicatures. Poole: The immediate question is whether Giardini was a monk. Grice: He wasn’t, at least not then. A lay professor printed by a monastery press. Poole: Lay. Grice: Laico. Poole: You are correcting my English with your Italian. Grice: I am correcting your category with your language. Lay in Oxford sounds like a man not ordained. Laico, in that Italian context, can mean simply not clerical at the time, without the whiff of dissent. Poole: And you are sure. Grice: As sure as one can be without becoming dogmatic. He becomes a priest later, after becoming a widower. But the 1782 imprint does not force the conclusion. Poole: Yet the reader sees Monastero and infers incense. Grice: A modern laico reader might. A Pavia reader in 1782 might infer only where the press sits and what privileges it enjoys. Poole: You are defending monasteries. Grice: I am defending printing. Monasteries print. Colleges teach. Both are institutions that do work and then pretend the work is grace. Poole: St John’s began as a religious house, you know. Grice: I had been hoping you would say that. Poole: Cistercian. Founded as St Bernard’s College, and then Henry VIII got hold of the whole business and the monasteries went, at least officially. Grice: So St John’s is a post-monastic survival. Poole: And you, appointed Lecturer, are now officially employed by a building that is a converted religious idea. Grice: Which means I am reading a monastery imprint inside a monastery-turned-college. That is almost too symmetrical to be true. Poole: Symmetry is what dons call history when they are being lazy. Grice: And by that I imply that I am being lazy. Poole: Now, pastoral advice. They tell me your job includes it. Grice: I have heard the rumour. Oxford likes to pretend it does not do pastoral care, and then it makes its tutors do it. Poole: A student comes to you in distress. You quote him an imprint line. Grice: I would first ask whether he is distressed in the laico sense or the clerical sense. Poole: That is not an answer. Grice: It is a classification. Classification often looks like kindness until 'you are the one being classified. Poole: Let us return to your monkless monastery. What is the implicature you want. Grice: That rhetoric carries no faith with it. It carries technique. Poole: Aristotle’s Rhetoric is your authority, then, not Saint Salvatore. Grice: Precisely. If there is a saint here, it is Aristotle, which is blasphemy in two directions at once. Poole: Salvatore. The Saviour. Which saviour is it. Christ, plainly. Grice: The monastery is called San Salvatore. Not San Giovanni. Poole: And St John’s honours John the Baptist, or John the Evangelist, depending on who is doing the talking. Grice: Which means the saints disagree, but the institutions cooperate. Poole: You have made that into your topic already, I suppose. Grice: It is my topic because it is everybody’s topic. Institutions survive by implication. They do not state their own premises; they live them. Poole: Yet you stare at Regio ed Imperiale as if it were a confession. Grice: Because it is a confession. It confesses that printing required authority. It confesses that words needed sponsors. Poole: You are tempted to say that your own lectureship is Regio ed Imperiale. Grice: No crowns, only committees. And by that I imply that committees are worse. Poole: The undergraduates will come to you, Grice, and say, Is rhetoric religious. Grice: And I shall say, It depends on what you mean by rhetoric. Poole: That is your profession’s favourite evasion. Grice: It is not evasion. It is the only way not to lie. Poole: Then answer it now, without your escape hatch. Grice: Rhetoric is a study of means. Religion is a study of ends, or claims to be. Sometimes ends borrow means. That borrowing does not baptise the means. Poole: That is better. It almost sounds as if you believe it. Grice: I believe it provisionally. By that I imply that I reserve the right to retract if you produce a counterexample. Poole: I can produce St John’s itself as counterexample. A monastery becomes a college, and the rhetoric of sanctity becomes the rhetoric of scholarship. Grice: Exactly. The rhetoric changes its addressee, not its mechanics. Poole: Mechanics. You are making my medieval stone sound like a gearbox. Grice: It is a gearbox. It converts money into meals, rooms into minds, and Latin into status. Poole: And Giardini’s book is printed in a monastery press, and later reprinted commercially, though you say you won’t mention that. Grice: I won’t. But you have. Poole: That is my privilege as President in embryo. Grice: And my duty as Lecturer is to suffer it. Poole: Last question. Are you embarrassed by the monastery line. Grice: No. If anything, I am relieved. It reminds me that institutions always have histories, and that my own, St John’s, has one longer than my job description. Poole: So the moral. Grice: The moral is that an imprint is not a creed. Monastero is a place, not a doctrine. Rhetoric is not faith, even when printed under a saint’s roof. Poole: That is your topic, Grice. How would I know. Grice: You know by asking. And by that I imply that pastoral advice begins as a question, not a sermon. Poole: Then go and practise it. Someone will knock soon enough. Grice: They always do. And if they ask me about monasteries, I shall tell them the weather has been lovely for this time of year.Grice: Giardini, devo confessare che la sua teoria sull’eloquenza mi ha sempre affascinato. Ma mi dica, secondo lei, si può convincere qualcuno anche solo offrendo una buona pizza?Giardini: Caro Grice, la pizza è senza dubbio un potente argomento, ma la vera arte sta nel modo in cui la si presenta! Se la pronuncia è soave e la memoria tiene il conto degli ingredienti, il successo è assicurato.Grice: Ah, quindi, basta parlare bene e gesticolare come un vero romano per trasformare ogni cena in una lezione di eloquenza? Forse dovrei portare qualche britannico a scuola da lei!Giardini: Sarebbe una gran bella scena, Grice! Ma attenzione: troppi gesti e troppa pizza rischiano di confondere gli Oratori. L’importante è mantenere il freno, come diceva la natura… e magari lasciare sempre spazio per il dessert! Giardini, Elia (1782). Arte rettorica. Pavia: Stamperia del Regio ed Imperiale Monastero di S. Salvatore, per Bianchi

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giamboni – Ossia: Grice e Giamboni: la ragione conversazionale.  Enrico Giamboni. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning aligns closely with G.’s project of a “grammatica ragionata” insofar as both treat language as an organized practice grounded in rational faculties rather than as a mere system of signs. Giamboni’s Principii del discorso aim to discipline speaking by systematically associating words with the things they represent and by rooting grammar in attention, memory, judgement, and reasoning, so that correct speech becomes inseparable from clear thinking and effective persuasion. Grice radicalizes and streamlines this insight by shifting the focus from grammatical classification to the inferential norms that govern actual discourse: what matters for him is not only how propositions are formed but how speakers, relying on shared rational principles, convey more than they explicitly say through implicature. What Giamboni calls clarity, force, and harmony in the construction of discourse, Grice reconstrued as cooperation, relevance, and rational expectation operating dynamically in conversation. Both see discourse as a human achievement grounded in reason and mental discipline, but where Giamboni frames this achievement as an explicit pedagogical and rhetorical system adapted to a particular language, Grice abstracts from grammar to articulate a general theory of rational interaction in which meaning emerges from the orderly play of assertion, inference, and conversational response. Grice: “When I referred, informally, at my Oxford seminars and elsewhere – notably at the Aristotelian Society symposium at Cambridge – to the ‘principles of rational discourse,’ I was having G. in mind.” principio del discorso – principii del discorso. PRINCIPII DEL DISCORSO ACCOMODATI ALLA LINGUA ITALIANA associare i vocaboli alle COSE che essi RAPPRRESENTANO sforzo prodigioso ad un tempo e della vostra riflessione e della vostra memoria conservatrice fedele dei SEGNI e delle cose SIGNIFICATE che furono a ne' primi anni di vostra esistenza sono forse da voi fatti maggiori progressi nella somma delle reali cognizioni di quelli che sarete per fare in tutto il resto di vostra vita. C lo stato d’infanzia è molto più utile Tuttociò serve a persuadervi che una GRAMMATICA RAGIONATA Parti del discorso nome sostantivo distinzione dei vocaboli nome aggettivo Gradi degl’aggettivi accompagna nome Del vice-nome Delle primarie facoltà della mente sensazioni e sentimento percezione attenzione idea inflessione giudizio raziocinio evidenza memoria cosccnza. fe/io e r/rg/* assertivi proposizione argomentazione vice-assertivo vice-verbo preposizione avverbo congiunzione interiezione nome e pronome genere numero nomi irregolari ed anomali caso segnacasi declinazione assertivo verbo modo indefinito voce verbale indeterminate modo imperativo indicativo congiuntivo ottativo desiderativo persone degl’assertivi e loro numero conjugazione dell’assertivo conjugazione del verbo irregolare essere conjugazione dell'assertivo irregolare avere prospetto comparativo degl’assertivi normali delle conjugazioni regolari conjugazione dell’assertivo sfinire assertivo anomali o irregolari conjugazione delt assertivo andare irregolari colla desinenza assertivo che esce di regola assertivi difettoso gerondio preposizione esprimente rapporto congiunzioni ripieno o riempitivo costruzione del discorso o sin chiarezza forza armonia ortografia consonante raddoppiata lettera majuscolca sillaba interpunzione.  prammatica come rettorica conversazionale. Gamboni.  Grice: Giamboni, mi ha sempre colpito il modo in cui lei ha adattato i principii del discorso alla lingua italiana. Trovo affascinante il suo sforzo di associare i vocaboli alle cose che rappresentano, quasi a voler rendere la grammatica una vera arte del pensare e del parlare. Come nasce, secondo lei, questa esigenza di una "grammatica ragionata"? Giamboni: La ringrazio, Professore Grice. Credo che l’attenzione ai principii del discorso derivi dalla volontà di fondare il pensiero sulla chiarezza e sull’armonia. La lingua, per me, è uno strumento prezioso: ogni parola, ogni segno ha un valore che va accudito, come si fa con un’eredità di famiglia. Una grammatica ragionata aiuta non solo a parlare correttamente, ma a pensare in modo lucido e ad argomentare con forza. Grice: Mi trova perfettamente d’accordo! Anche nella mia riflessione sulle implicature conversazionali, la chiarezza e la forza dell'argomentazione sono essenziali. Mi piace il suo approccio pragmatico, che trasforma la grammatica in una sorta di rettorica conversazionale. Secondo lei, quali sono le facoltà mentali più importanti per costruire un discorso efficace? Giamboni: Direi che attenzione, memoria e raziocinio sono le fondamenta per un discorso ben costruito. Ogni proposizione deve poggiare su queste facoltà: l’attenzione ci aiuta a cogliere i dettagli, la memoria conserva i segni e i significati, mentre il raziocinio dà evidenza e struttura all’argomentazione. Solo così la lingua può esprimere con chiarezza i sentimenti e le idee, diventando davvero il vincolo dell’umana società. Giamboni, Enrico (1889). La dottrina della filosofia, Milano: Hoepli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giametta – Ossia: Grice e Giametta: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- il volo d’Icaro e l’implicatura di Sanctis.  Sossio Arturo Giametta (Frattamaggiore, Napoli, Campania). Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning finds a particularly illuminating counterpart in Sossio Giametta’s philosophically exuberant treatment of la ragione conversazionale, where implicature is not merely a logical by‑product of cooperation but an existential and stylistic event. Grice approaches conversational implicature as a disciplined outcome of shared rational expectations: speakers say what they do because they assume co‑participants are reasoning beings who can bridge the gap between what is said and what is meant. Giametta, by contrast, dramatizes that gap through literary and metaphysical figures—most notably the flight of Icarus—treating implicature as a risky ascent beyond the literal, where meaning emerges through bold compression, sudden “cortocircuiti,” and flashes of insight rather than steady inference alone. Yet the affinity is deep: Giametta’s Crocean heterodoxies and his insistence on language as a site where essence and existence collide resonate with Grice’s view that meaning is not contained in sentences but generated by rational agents navigating constraints, temptations, and excess. Where Grice offers a cool analytic geometry of implicatum, implicans, and implicaturus, Giametta stages the same structure as a philosophical drama in which language flies, falls, and sometimes dazzles. The difference is one of temperament and idiom rather than principle: Grice formalizes conversational reason to show how ordinary discourse works; Giametta intensifies it to show how philosophy and language achieve moments of revelation. In both, implicature is the mark of a rationality that dares to imply rather than merely assert—reason not as mechanical rule‑following, but as a lived, and sometimes Italianate, art of saying more than one says. Grice: “At Oxford, we had ordinary-language philosophy; at Bologna, only EXTRA-ordinary language philosophy counts! ordinary-language philosophy. G. is a good’un, but you gotta be an Italian to appreciate him fully, or at least have gone to Clifton, as I did! G.’s philosophy is full of Italianateness: ‘il volo d’Icaro,’ and then there’s his ‘Croceian heterodoxies,’ and most Italianate of all, the Dantean reference to Nisso, Chiron, and Folo in the “Inferno”! Sublime!” Si laurea a Firenze. Insegna a Firenze critica eterodossa su Croce. Cura Cesare. Essenzialismo Il Bue squartato L'oro prezioso dell'essere Cortocircuiti, natura, naturans Grice, implicans, implicaturus sia come “naturata Grice implicatum, implicatura, implicaturus, implicata. Grice: “The problem: ‘is ‘naturare’ a good verb?’ la condizione umana come determinata dalla combinazione di due elementi eterogenei: dall’essenza di tutto ciò che esiste, che è divina, e dalle condizioni di esistenza, che sono spesso fin troppo diaboliche, a cui sono sottoposte tutte le creature. Il con-temperamento di questi due elementi essenza ed esistenza, diverso in ogni individuo, spiega le ragioni per cui si afferma la vita, si è ottimisti Oltre il nichilismo Candaule Grice interprete di se stesso” –della fede. Croce, Filosofia come dinamita il pazzo” Eterodossie crociane La caduta di Icaro macelli. La dolce filosofia L'oro dell'essere Cortocircuito e implicatura Il dio lontano Tre centauri, Filosofi Grandi problemi risolti in piccoli spazi. Codicillo dell'essenzialismo; Capricci diario colpo di timpano Dio impassibile Il bue squartato macelli passione della conoscenza. grandi oscurità della filosofia risolte in lampeggianti parole. La lingua la questione della lingua, il volo d’Icaro, l’implicatura di Croce – eterodossie crociane Cosi parlo Zoroaster; cosi implico! cortocircuito e implicature, la pazzia di Croce, il pazzo di Croce – la caduta di Icaro? No, il vuolo di Icaro! – Colli e Montanari!, cortocircuito ed implicatura. Grice: Giametta, mi ha sempre affascinato il suo modo di intrecciare filosofia e letteratura, soprattutto quando parla del volo d’Icaro. Secondo lei, c’è ancora spazio per l’audacia nella filosofia contemporanea, o rischiamo tutti di bruciarci le ali come Icaro? Giametta: Caro Grice, credo che l’audacia sia il cuore pulsante della filosofia. Senza il coraggio di osare e di andare oltre i confini imposti, rimarremmo prigionieri della routine del pensiero. Il volo d’Icaro è una metafora potente: ci ricorda che a volte il rischio è necessario per scoprire l’oro prezioso dell’essere. Grice: Condivido pienamente! E trovo sublime il modo in cui lei mette in discussione le eterodossie crociane, aprendo nuovi orizzonti. Mi domando: quanto conta, secondo lei, la lingua nella ricerca filosofica? È solo uno strumento, o anche essa può essere “volo”? Giametta: Ottima domanda, Grice. La lingua non è solo uno strumento, ma un vero e proprio volo: ci permette di esplorare implicature, cortocircuiti e nuove prospettive. Come diceva Dante, le parole possono portarci oltre il visibile, verso la conoscenza e la passione. Ed è lì che, come Icaro, troviamo la dolce filosofia, anche se a volte rischiamo di cadere. Giametta, Sossio (1964). Introduzione a Nietzsche, Napoli: Guida.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giandomenico – Ossia: Grice e Giandomenico: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- l’apertura semantica e l’implicatura di BONAIUTO.  Mauro Di Giandomenico (Carunchio, Chieti, Abruzzo). Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and Mauro Di Giandomenico’s work converge on the idea that meaning in communication is not exhausted by literal content but emerges from rational, biologically and cognitively grounded practices, though they approach this from markedly different angles. Grice develops conversational implicature as a formally reconstructible phenomenon arising from shared rational expectations among speakers, treating conversation as a rule‑guided activity in which agents infer what is meant by reasoning about purposes, relevance, and cooperation, ultimately rooting this account in his broader method in philosophical psychology, from simple biological cases to complex human discourse. Di Giandomenico, by contrast, situates conversational reason within a wider epistemological and scientific framework that spans philosophy of biology, history of medicine, and computational epistemology: his early work on figures such as Tommasi and Bernard emphasizes criteria and signs of life rather than strict conceptual analysis, and this concern with operational criteria later informs his interest in communication, semantic openness, and linguistic‑computational modeling. Where Grice constructs implicature as an inferential mechanism operating between what is said and what is meant, Di Giandomenico stresses the openness of meaning through networks, styles, and signs, including attempts to extract philosophical vocabularies and semantic structures from canonical dialogues, treating logic itself as a meta‑discourse, a theory of theories. The affinity lies in their shared intuition that rationality governs meaning beyond lexicographic definitions: Grice formalizes this through inferential pragmatics, while Di Giandomenico reframes it as semantic openness across natural life, artificial languages, and ethical communication, linking conversational implicature to broader processes of biological organization, computation, and humanistic inquiry. Grice: “My attempt at Pirotese was inspired by Russell, rather than Carnap! Tealy pirots karulise elatically. I like G.; he makes excellent commentary on Bernard’s controversial, deterministic idea of life – from amoeba to man, in Russell’s words. Surely this has connections with my method in philosophical psychology, from the banal to the bizarre, which actually starts with philosophical BIO-logy! G. shows that while Bernard never thought he had to provide a ‘conceptual analysis’ of ‘vivente,’ he does propose this or that criterio: for one he tries to prove that self-nourishment cannot be the criterion – but I’m not sure what the positive he poes, if any!” Si laurea a Bari sotto Corsano. Insegna a Bari. comunicazione. Epistemologia Informatica prammatica computazionale e umanistica. fisiologia, limplicatura conversazionale, segno. Tommasi, Pende. iinformatica linguistica si sono proposte l'analisi linguistico-computazionale. al di là del livello lessicografico filosofese o terminologia filosofica, come implicatura  e d’implementare una rete sintattica. Un progetto riguardato l'analisi della conversazione nel Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi di BONAIUTO ricava un vocabolario filosofese terminologia filosofica vocabolario filosofico di BONAIUTO, procede ad una valutazione dello stile ed avviare l'analisi semantica d’un concetto utilizzato. lingue dell'artificiale e quella della vita, comunicazione etica sperimento la logica si configura come teoria delle teorie non solo un discorso logico sulla logica con i mezzi della logica, ma metadiscorso E’, a tutti gli effetti, una regressione, un ritorno ai fondamenti che l’hanno costituita nelle sue operazioni originarie, anche storiche, nonché nelle sue operazioni fenomenologiche trascendentale intuitiva precategoriale operazioni costitutiva logica filosofica filosofia prima, teoria della teoria apertura semantica how pirots karulise elatically implicazione retorica stile Vinci corpi positivistica; therefore, pirots karulise! Grice: Giandomenico, la sua analisi sul concetto di “vivente” mi ha fatto riflettere: se l’ameba dovesse compilare un curriculum, che criterio dovrebbe inserire per dimostrare di essere viva? Autonomia? Amore per la pizza? Giandomenico: Caro Grice, se l’ameba fosse davvero ambiziosa, metterebbe sicuramente “apertura semantica” tra le competenze, visto che si divide e comunica senza mai perdere il senso della conversazione! Quanto alla pizza, forse preferirebbe una bella cellula al pomodoro. Grice: Ecco, la cellula al pomodoro potrebbe rivoluzionare la filosofia della biologia! Ma mi dica, professore: nella sua esperienza informatica, ha mai trovato una macchina che sappia fare implicature migliori di un napoletano davanti a una sfogliatella? Giandomenico: Grice, ancora no, ma sto lavorando a una rete sintattica che, se va bene, saprà distinguere tra una domanda seria e una battuta. Se ci riesco, prometto di invitarla a Bari per una cena a base di “filosofese” e linguine… e forse anche un po’ di semantica! . Giandomenico, Mauro Di (1965). Tommasi, medico e filosofo, Adriatica.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giani: Ossia: Grice e Giani: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- implicatura mistica – l’implicatura di Porzio.  Niccolò Giani (Muggia, Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia). Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and G’’s notion of a “mystical” implicature represent two sharply contrasting responses to the same problem: how meaning exceeds literal content while remaining intelligible within a shared practice. For Grice, implicature is generated by rational inference under cooperative norms, and even when meaning departs from what is explicitly said it remains accountable to reasons that interlocutors can, in principle, reconstruct; conversational understanding is thus continuous with practical rationality and grounded in publicly assessable expectations. Giani’s approach, emerging from the context of fascist political philosophy and the “scuola di mistica” associated with Milanese intellectual life, treats implication less as an inferential achievement of reason than as an expression of spirit, tradition, or collective belief, where meaning operates through symbolic resonance, mythic opposition between the sacred and the profane, and doctrinal mystique rather than through cooperative calculation. What Grice would regard as cancellable, defeasible implicature becomes in Giani a non‑rational, often non‑revisable surplus of meaning tied to political and moral doctrine—liberal, communist, democratic, or fascist alike—each cultivating its own mystique. The contrast, then, is between Grice’s demystifying account of conversational meaning as reason‑responsive and corrigible, and Giani’s re‑enchantment of implication as a quasi‑sacral force embedded in political philosophy, where meaning persuades not by shared rational inference but by appeals to spirit, authority, and collective identity. Grice: “At Oxford, we had Chamberlain, and I was forced to leave Oxford and join the Navy – at Bologna, they had Mussolini, who rather created a school of mysiticism to entertain the philosophical minds amongt them! fascismo. It’s hard for me to judge Giani’s philosophy because I fought against the Italians during the so-called ‘second world war,’ so-called! But I would be willing to expand: if Giani developed what he aptly called a ‘mystique’ – so did we at Oxford – Churchill surely held his ‘mystique.’ Of course the Italian, being more scholastic, had to call it ‘scuola di mistica,’ – and the idea was that of an all-male chivalry order – aptly set at Milan!” Si laurea a Milano. Scuola di mistica. La richiesta di entrare in possesso de "Il covo" punta ad ottenere il possesso di uno degl’ambienti più importanti dell'immaginario fascista. Insegna a Pavia. ‘spirito’ contrapposto al "biologico". Il covo negli anni e stato passa alla loro espulsione e ciò per­ chè, come testimoniano numerosi scrittori lati­ni — da Persio a Ovidio, da Svetonio a Plinio, da Tacito a Giovenale — gl’Ebrei conside­ rano come profano tutto ciò che da noi è consi­ derato sacro (cfr. Tacito, Hist.); per­ chè essi hanno un culto particolare, leggi par­ ticolari, disprezzano le leggi romane (cfr. Gio­venale, Im. Lat.). Colle generazioni questo contrasto di civiltà e questa antitesi di istituzioni si acuiscono. È così che si arriva alla spedizione di Tito: all’assedio e alla distruzione di Gerusalemme. E in tal mo­ do, due secoli dopo Cartagine, anche sull’or­ goglioso regno di Giudea passa l’aratro romano e viene cosparso il sale. implicature mistica, mistico, il mistico – la mistica del liberalismo – la mistica del comunismo – la mistica della democrazia – la mistica del socialismo – filosofia politica – dottrina liberale – dottrina comunista – dottrina democratica – dottrina socialista, fascismo. Grice: Giani, devo ammettere che a Oxford ci siamo sempre persi tra la mistica di Churchill e la logica del tè delle cinque. Ma voi a Milano, con la vostra scuola di mistica, avete trovato una via più affascinante: è vero che per diventare mistici, serve più spirito che biscotti? Giani: Caro Grice, a Milano il biscotto serve solo per il caffè, ma la mistica richiede una buona dose di spirito e un pizzico di follia. Se poi qualcuno entra nel "covo", lo spirito diventa doppio – e la filosofia rischia di diventare una partita di carte! Grice: Ah, una partita di carte mistica! Da noi, invece, la mistica si perde tra le regole della conversazione: ma se Catone avesse avuto un mazzo di carte, forse avrebbe risolto la questione tra sacro e profano giocando a briscola con Giovenale! Giani: Grice, sono certo che Catone avrebbe apprezzato la briscola, purché si rispettasse la regola d’oro della mistica: mai prendersi troppo sul serio e, soprattutto, non mischiare le carte con il covo dei filosofi – altrimenti finiamo tutti a discutere sullo spirito, ma con il piatto vuoto! Giani, Niccolò (1937). La rivoluzione fascista, Milano: Edizioni del Popolo d’Italia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Verbali: Giani – Ossia: Grice e Giani: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della radice italica del melodramma.  Romualdo Giani (Torino, Piemonte). Grice’s account of reason‑governed conversational meaning and Romualdo Giani’s reflection on the “Italic root” of melodrama intersect at the level of how meaning exceeds literal structure, but they articulate that excess in fundamentally different registers. For Grice, conversational implicature is a rational phenomenon: what is conveyed beyond what is said is generated by shared norms of cooperative inference, calculable in principle and answerable to reasons, even when it draws on rhetoric, tone, or cultural expectations. Giani, approaching the problem from idealist aesthetics and the philosophy of music and drama, treats implication less as an inferential surplus and more as an aesthetic‑ethical resonance produced by the synthesis of rhythm, sound, gesture, and word in melodrama and tragedy. Where Grice insists that even the most elusive conversational effects remain anchored in rational accountability, Giani locates the force of implication in a pre‑discursive or supra‑discursive unity of spirit, one that emerges in the collective experience of music and drama and resists reduction to logical articulation. The contrast is thus between Grice’s pragmatics of discourse, which explains meaning through reasoned participation in conversational practices, and Giani’s aesthetic philosophy, which sees implication as arising from the organic fusion of artistic elements, where meaning persuades not by inferential transparency but by expressive coherence and shared cultural sensibility. Grice: “I love G.; for one, he was less fanatic than Nietzsche, even if it is Nietzsche’s fanaticism that attracts Strawson! For one Giani is more careful: if ‘music’ comes from the muses, which are Apollonian, why has Nietzsche to emphasise in a piece of bad rhetoric, that tragedy has its birth in the ‘spirit’ of “music” – surely Nietzsche means ‘Dionysian,’ but there’s no ‘music’ in Dionysus, only noise! Trust an Italian to correct Nietzsche on that point!” Si laurea a Torino. Si appassiona al teatro musicale di Wagner. Idealista. Per l'arte aristocratica. arte per l'arte Nerone” di Boito, Questa tragedia farebbe parte del novero delle tragedie vere, quelle in cui ritmo, suono della parola, gesto, musica concorrono alla creazione di un che di superiore. Tuttavia, quando la musica del Nerone fu resa nota postuma, dichiara una certa delusione. L'estetica di Leopardi. Vede in Leopardi il luogo in cui le immagini della sua poesia si comporrebbero in un universo etico ed estetico coerente. All'interno della storia della critica leopardiana, pare avvicinabile ora alla posizione di Croce, di distinzione tra il momento della poesia e il momento della riflessione, ora a quelle positivistiche. parla di musica e dell'analogia tra il ruolo del insieme con uno studio sul Boito, e la critica a Debora e Jaele di Pizzetti, un'opera mancata. pubblica il Sillabario di estetica e a conclusione della polemica aggiungeva una Nota crociana, in cui evidenzia contraddizioni nella teoria di Croce. La polemica si riaprì con lo scritto La favola dell'aridità con il quale G. insorge, contro un'affermazione del Croce che definiva "età di aridità creativa" il secolo; la rettifica crociana Obiettanti e seccatori non soddisfece G., che replica con Il parto settimello. : Savitri"Idillio drammatico Pizzetti; Estetica Melodramma e dramma musicale, Gli spiriti della musica nella tragedia greca, implicatura. Grice: Giani, mi ha sempre incuriosito la sua riflessione sulla radice italica del melodramma. Trovo affascinante come lei, da idealista, riesca a distinguere tra l’arte aristocratica e il rapporto tra musica e tragedia, soprattutto nel confronto con Nietzsche. Come interpreta oggi la nascita dello spirito musicale nella tragedia greca? Giani: La ringrazio, Professore Grice. Ritengo che il melodramma italiano abbia un’origine profondamente legata alla tradizione poetica e filosofica del nostro paese, più che alla sola dimensione dionisiaca proposta da Nietzsche. In Italia, il ritmo, il gesto e la parola si fondono in modo unico, creando un universo etico ed estetico, come sosteneva Leopardi. La musica non è solo rumore, ma elevazione dello spirito. Grice: Concordo, infatti ho sempre pensato che l’apporto italiano alla storia del melodramma sia stato quello di saper bilanciare l’estetica poetica con la riflessione filosofica. La sua critica a Croce e la sua analisi di Boito e Pizzetti mostrano una ricerca di autenticità artistica. C’è, secondo lei, un elemento tipicamente italiano che rende il melodramma superiore rispetto ad altre tradizioni? Giani: Assolutamente, Professore. Il melodramma italiano si distingue per la sua capacità di integrare emozione e pensiero, di trasformare la musica in un’esperienza etica collettiva. L’arte per l’arte, come diceva Boito, non è mai fine a se stessa, ma è sempre permeata dalla storia, dalle contraddizioni e dal desiderio di superare l’aridità creativa. In questo senso, il melodramma diventa un simbolo della vitalità culturale italiana. Giani, Romualdo (1894). I Medici. Parole e musica di Leoncavallo. Il dramma. Rivista musicale italiana

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giannantoni: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della dialettica.  Gabriele Giannantoni (Perugia, Umbria). G.’s and Grice’s approaches converge on the idea that rationality is not an abstract faculty imposed on language from outside but is enacted within dialogical practice itself, yet they articulate this convergence from opposite methodological directions. Grice arrives at reason‑governed conversational meaning by analytic reconstruction: cooperative conversation is taken as primitive, and implicature emerges from interlocutors’ rational sensitivity to shared norms (maxims) governing what counts as saying enough, saying it appropriately, and meaning more than is said; dialectic, for Grice, is thus implicit in ordinary conversation as a rule‑governed activity oriented to mutual understanding and justified expectations. Giannantoni, by contrast, reaches a strikingly parallel conclusion through historical‑philological inquiry: starting from the Socratic dialogue in the Athenian agora and tracing its transformations through Platonic, Roman, and later traditions, he treats dialectic as historically born from conversational reason—ragione conversazionale—anchored in respect for the co‑conversationalist (the “principio dialogo” inherited from Calogero and aligned with Croce‑Gramsci’s longitudinal historical method). Where Grice formalizes rational conversational expectations into a theory of implicature applicable across contexts, Giannantoni shows how those expectations are first instantiated, normatively and ethically, in Socratic practice and then sedimented across dialectical traditions; the former gives a synchronic logic of conversational meaning, the latter a diachronic genealogy of how such logic becomes philosophically articulate. Grice: “I realised that my attacks on the philosophismata so frequent at Oxford at the time relied on a theory of ‘significaio’ that took cooperative conversation as basic – what G. calls the ‘principio dialogo’! principio dialogo. I love G.; for one, he believes, with me, that there is Athenian dialectic, Roman dialectic, Florentine dialectic and Oxonian dialectic; like me, he has explored mostly ‘Athenian dialectic,’ and he has noted that its birth (‘nascita’) is in the ‘dialogo socratico,’ so it should surprise nobody that I have based my philosophy on the facts of conversation!” Si laurea a Roma sotto Calogero. Il dialogo all’agora e la dialettica all’accademia” Reliche di Socrate” G. sempre seguie il criterio di Croce e Gramsci, storico cronologico (unita longitudinale) Anche allo scopo di realizzare una scrittura precisa, ha compiuto studi sulla logica di lizio semantica teoria del segno. Nella sua vita e nella dottrina si è sempre impegnato nel mettere in pratica l'insegnamento socratico, così come fa Calogero: insegnando la conversazione basatio sulla regola d’oro: il rispetto verso il co-conversazionalista. Cura I Presocratici La metafisica dei lizii (Che cosa ha veramente detto Socrate” Cirenaici Filosofia romana” Filosofia italica in eta antica” Le filosofie e le scienze contemporanee, Torino: Loescher, I fondamenti della logica de’ lizii” (Firenze: La nuova Italia); Le forme classiche Torino: Loescher, Volpe Roma: Riuniti, Socrate. Tutte le testimonianze: Da Aristotfane e Senofonte ai Padri cristiani; Bari: Laterza, Aristotele. Opere; introduzione e indice dei nomi, Roma; Bari: Laterza, Epicuro. Opere, frammenti, testimonianze sulla sua vita; Bignone; Bari: Laterza, I presocratici: testimonianze e frammenti Bari: Laterza, Profilo di storia della filosofia, Torino: Loescher. La razionalitàmTorino: Loescher, Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiæ. Collegit, disposuit, apparatibus notisque instruxit G.,  Bibliopolis. Anthropine Sophia. les amours impures dialettica, Epicuro a Roma, Calogero, il principio dialogo, Lucrezio, Cicerone. Grice: Giannantoni, lei sostiene che la dialettica nasce dal dialogo, proprio come la pizza nasce dal forno! Ma mi dica, preferisce la dialettica ateniese o quella romana, magari servita con un po' di pecorino? Giannantoni: Caro Grice, la dialettica ateniese ha il sapore genuino della conversazione socratica, ma non sottovaluti quella romana: con un pizzico di Lucrezio diventa più speziata! In fondo, ogni buon dialogo dovrebbe essere condito con rispetto e un po' di ironia, come insegna la regola d’oro. Grice: Ecco, la regola d’oro è come il lievito: senza, la conversazione non cresce! Ma mi chiedo, professore, se Socrate avesse avuto a disposizione la pizza margherita invece del pane nero, avrebbe dialogato meglio con i suoi discepoli? Giannantoni: Grice, sono certo che Socrate avrebbe apprezzato la pizza, ma avrebbe comunque posto domande scomode al pizzaiolo! In filosofia, come in cucina, la vera saggezza sta nel condividere: un pezzo di pizza, una battuta, e magari anche una bella dialettica. Giannantoni, Gabriele (1958). I Cirenaici. Raccolta delle fonti antiche. Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giannetti: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del corposcolarismo.  Pascasio Giannetti (Albiano di Magra, Aulla, Massa-Carrara, Toscana). Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and G.’s corpuscular philosophy intersect at the level of how rational explanation is constrained by shared norms, even though they operate in different explanatory registers. Grice treats rationality as immanent to conversation itself: meaning and implicature arise from interlocutors’ mutual recognition of cooperative expectations, so that what is conveyed depends not on ontology but on how reasons are exchanged and inferred in dialogue. Giannetti, by contrast, works within early modern corpuscularism, defending Galilean‑Newtonian explanations of nature in terms of corpuscles against scholastic Peripateticism; yet his argumentative practice presupposes a similar model of rational exchange, since corpuscular hypotheses function persuasively only insofar as they invite interlocutors to draw intelligible inferences from observed effects to underlying structures. Where Grice abstracts from metaphysics and shows how conversational implicature operates independently of what ultimately exists, Giannetti embeds rational discourse in a bold ontological programme, but still relies on dialogical reason—public contestation, rebuttal, and inference—to make the corpuscular view compelling. In this sense, Giannetti’s “corpuscular implicature” concerns what follows, for a reasonable interlocutor, from adopting corpuscular assumptions, whereas Grice’s implicature concerns what follows, for a reasonable co‑conversationalist, from what is said under cooperative norms; the former ties implicature to physical explanation, the latter to communicative practice, but both construe reason as governing inference within a shared conversational space rather than as a purely private faculty. Grice: “We take ontology lightly today – at least Oxonian philosophers do! But bak in the day, for philosophers like G., all they wanted to know was if ‘corpusculi,’ as they called them, did exist – out there! ontology. I like G.; for one, he is the only philosopher I know whose first name is ‘Pascasio.’ He taught at Pisa, but not in the tower – Oddly, while he is from Tuscany, there is a street (‘via’) in La Spezia named after him!” – Grice: “His logic was considered heretic, at least by the duke, who diligently expelled him from any obligation of teaching!” Insegna a Pisa. Studia Bonaiuto. Sollecitato da Grandi, cura BONAIUTO.. Essendo G. tra'maestri più singolari di filosofia a Pisa, quanto onore a quello Studio recasse non si può dire. Costui ebbea quelle scienze pro clive natura, e tanta forza e vivacità d'ingegno che a sermonare e discorrere di materie filosofiche pare nato a posta. divenne lettore in detta Università; e così bene in cattedra sue dottri ne tratto, che per lo più savio discepolo di Marchetti e Bellini, tutti lo conoscevano. Nulla ignoto eragli di quanto GALILEI aveansi ritrovato, e sostenitore acerrimo fu della filosofia corpusculare. Per ques stoguerra eterna pareva intimata avesse a tutti li Peripatetici e Scolastici ostinati; che ligii si di chiaravano agli antichi sistemi, quali adesso ricor dansi appenanelle scu ole de'monasteri. Per lo che G. è tenuto per uno de'più arditi e co raggiosi sostenitori degl’insegnamenti novelli e assai molesto riuscì a'superstiziosi filosofanti, ma in particolar modo ai Gesuiti i quali, potendo al loramoltissimo presso Cosmo III de'Medici, fecero in sospetto cadere di errori G. non solo, ma quasi tutta la Università. filosofia democratica, difese con trionfo la causa per iscrittura, nè mai digua proposta sentenza cesso. filosofa su i sistemi PHILOSOPHIÆ TRACTATVS   Grandi; lettere di G. a Grandi e alcune note di argomento fisico. Corposcolarismo, implicature corpuscolare, Isaaco Newton, Galilei, Grandi, implicatura corpuscolare. Grice: Giannetti, devo confessare che a Oxford, quando parliamo di corpuscoli, finiamo sempre per discutere se siano più veri quelli nei bicchieri di vino o nei libri di filosofia! Giannetti: Caro Grice, in Toscana non ci facciamo troppi problemi: i corpuscoli ci sono dappertutto, specialmente nella ribollita! Se poi esistono anche fuori dalla minestra, tanto meglio per la filosofia! Grice: Ah, allora dovremmo istituire una nuova cattedra: "Corpuscoli applicati alla cucina toscana". Così, ogni lezione sarebbe un esperimento – e forse anche una cena! Giannetti: Grice, lei ha capito tutto! La vera implicatura corpuscolare sta nel gusto: se il piatto convince, la teoria è provata. E se il duca non approva, basta offrirgli un bicchiere… magari cambia idea! Giannetti, Pascasio (1911). La filosofia della scienza, Napoli: Libreria Scientifica.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giannone: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della terza Roma. Pietro Giannone (Ischitella, Foggia, Puglia). G.s thought and Grice’s theory converge in a structurally revealing way on the idea that reason emerges not as a solitary faculty but as something exercised, tested, and constrained within practices of social exchange. Pietro Giannone, writing as an Enlightenment critic of ecclesiastical power, treats Rome not merely as a city or institution but as a discursive formation: his tripartite schema of regno terreno, regno celeste, and regno papale re‑describes political and religious authority as sustained by historically layered forms of collective reasoning, persuasion, and misrecognition. In this sense, Giannone’s “Third Rome” functions less as a metaphysical entity than as a critical implicature: it arises from what is said and done by institutions while claiming transcendent legitimacy, yet is intelligible only once those claims are read against their practical effects on civic life and historical memory, a stance that led directly to his condemnation and imprisonment within the Savoyard system . Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning operates at a different scale but with a homologous logic: rationality appears not as an abstract law but as something enacted through cooperative norms, calculable expectations, and implicatures that bridge what speakers explicitly state and what they make their interlocutors reasonably take them to mean. Where Giannone exposes how dominant Roman narratives depend on unacknowledged discursive shifts to preserve authority, Grice formalizes the conditions under which such shifts are intelligible at all, showing that even irony, heresy, and criticism presuppose shared standards of conversational reason. The comparison suggests that Giannone offers a historical and political dramatization of what Grice later captures analytically: the idea that reason lives in regulated exchanges, and that dissent—whether Enlightenment heresy or conversational implicature—depends on exploiting, rather than abandoning, the very norms that make understanding possible. Grice: “I had one pupil once at Oxford who wanted to research on Italian philosophers. ‘Stick to the heretic ones,’ I lectured him. ‘They are the only interesting ones – Rome being what it is! And G. was one of them! italiani eretici. G. is an interesting philosopher. He philosophised on the ‘citta terrena,’ which is a back-fromation from ‘celestial city,’ and by which he meant Rome! Then he compared men – in their collectivity, to apes, even if ingenious ones! One good thing about the Roman Church (you know, there’s a Jewish Church, too) is G.: e was rendered an ‘impious’ by the Church and imprisoned to death. This allowed him to philosophise on the Liguri, and he did!””  Illuminista. Si laurea a Napoli entrando ben presto in contatto con filosofi vicini a VICO. “Il Triregno: il regno terreno, il regno celeste, e il regno papale, che gli costò nuovamente la persecuzione delle alte sfere ecclesiastiche culminate con la sua cattura in un villaggio della Savoia, ove fu attirato con un tranello.  Rimasto nelle prigioni sabaude, costretto a firmare un atto di abiura che non gli valse tuttavia la libertà. Fu tenuto prigioniero a Ceva, dove scrisse alcuni dei suoi componimenti più famosi. Trasferito alla prigione del mastio della Cittadella di Torino. Dell'istoria civile del regno di Napoli” ha enorme fortuna mentre la Chiesa ne avversò le tesi ponendola della Fondazione Einaudi; Negli archivi del Re. La lettura negata delle opere di G. nel Piemonte sabaudo, Riv. stor. Italiana; Ricuperati, G.: an itinerary in European free-thinking, in Transactions of The Congress on the ENLIGHTENMENT, Oxford; Trevor-Roper, G. and Great Britain, in The Historical Journal, A. Hook, La "Storia civile del Regno di Napoli" di G., il giacobitismo e l'Illuminismo scozzese, in Ricerche storiche, Mannarino, Le mille favole degli antichi. Ebraismo e cultura europea nel pensiero religioso di G., Firenz. Grice: Keywords: la terza Roma, autobiografia, ego-grafia Vico Genovesi Liguria commento su Livio regno terreno regno celeste regno papale Storia di roma antica giannonismo. Grice: Caro Giannone, devo confessare che la sua “dialettica romana” mi ha sempre incuriosito. Lei riesce a chiarire magistralmente il senso profondo della Roma Prima, della Roma Seconda e persino della misteriosa Roma Terza. Mi diverte pensare che anche a Oxford potremmo avere tre “Vadum Boum”, ma non sono del tutto convinto: forse ne basta uno, e già ci sembra troppo!  Giannone: Professore Grice, la sua ironia è degna di una vera conversazione illuminista! Roma, in fondo, è come il teatro della vita: la Prima è il mito, la Seconda è il potere, la Terza è la critica. Forse Oxford, con il suo unico Vadum Boum, ha già toccato tutti e tre gli atti, ma Roma preferisce distribuirli generosamente nei secoli.  Grice: Ah, Giannone, la sua spiegazione è spiritosa quanto profonda! Mi resta però il dubbio: la Terza Roma non rischia di essere una semplice eco delle altre due, come i miei studenti che tentano di reinventare Oxford senza mai riuscirci davvero? Forse è questo il fascino – e il divertimento – della storia!  Giannone: Professore, se c’è una cosa che la storia ci insegna è che le repliche non sono mai uguali agli originali. Come diceva Vico, la fantasia umana supera sempre la tradizione. La Terza Roma è un po’ come una nuova Vadum Boum: non sarà mai come le precedenti, ma proprio per questo merita di essere raccontata… magari tra una risata e un buon bicchiere! Giannone, Pietro (1723). Istoria civile del regno di Napoli, Napoli: Stamperia di Felice Mosca. Cc

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giavelli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- semantica del segnare -- segnante e segnato.  Giovanni Cristoforo Giavelli (San Giorgio di Canavese, Piemonte): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- semantica del segnare -- segnante e segnato. A comparison between Grice and Giavelli shows a deep continuity between scholastic sign theory and modern conversational pragmatics, despite their different historical aims. Giavelli, working within a Thomistic–Aristotelian framework, treats meaning as grounded in representation: natural signs such as groans or animal cries re‑present internal states of the anima, while institutional signs arise ad placitum through decree, authority, and custom. His careful distinction between signans and signatum remains largely psychological and semantic, with little concern for formulation or propositional articulation, yet it already presupposes that intelligibility depends on shared rational capacities that allow a hearer to pass from sign to state. Grice radicalizes this insight by relocating it within explicitly reason‑governed interaction: where Giavelli says that the dog’s bark represents anger, Grice asks under what rational expectations and cooperative assumptions such a representation becomes communicatively binding rather than merely causal. Natural signs for Giavelli correspond to Grice’s non‑natural meaning only once they are embedded in intentions recognizable by an audience, and institutional meaning corresponds to the normative dimension of conversational practice that Grice analyzes as implicature. The key shift is that Giavelli’s re‑presentare remains largely one‑directional—from sign to inner state—whereas Grice’s conversational meaning is reflexive and reciprocal, depending on mutually recognized reasons for taking one thing to mean another. Seen this way, Giavelli provides a proto‑semantics of signification rooted in Aristotelian psychology, while Grice supplies the missing logical and pragmatic account of how such signification is governed, stabilized, and extended by rational cooperation in conversation. Grice: “I presented myself at Oxford as the expert on ‘significatio’ or meaning – without needing to quote anything that G. had said – since little did they care! significatio. “I love G. – he is, like me, an Aristotelian; being a northern Italian, he is a Thomstic Aristotelian, which I’m not sure I am! One good thing about G. is that he commented on MOST works by Aristotle! Essential Italian philosopher! For all their subtleties i lizii, or peripatetic logicians never cared about formulation. Consider G.: the dog barks, anger is represented, ‘canis latrat raepresentatur ira, gemitus infirums raepresentatur dolor. No care is taken to represent the proper signification. It is still the ‘anima’ if the vegetative one, it is still the dog’s spirit. If the dog barks, he means that he is angry. If the infirm moans he means he is in pain, and so on. G. is one of the most careful Italian philosophers; he had a fascination for two little tracts by lizio towards which I also feel an attraction: De Interpretatione and Categories. His comments on De Interpretatione are brilliant in that he reduces all to ‘re-presentare’. The infirmus who groans or moans represents ‘dolor’; the dog that barks represents ‘anger’. These are ‘signs’ of the natural kind, and rather than dark clouds meaning rain he is into ‘phone, vox, here it is vox signifying that p or q naturaliter-- my example of groaning of pain. From there he jumps to the institutional meaning, ad placitum, ex decreto et authoritate – e consuetudine, -- a system which supersedes the previous one. Si laurea a Bologna. Argomenta contro Lutero. Partecipa al dibattito sul Tractatus de immortalitate animae di POMPONAZZI, di cui scrive, su richiesta di Pomponazzi stesso una confutazione. Partecipa al dibattito sul divorzio di Enrico VIII, esponendosi a favore della scelta del sovrano. Compendium Logicæ. G.’s work mirrors NICOLETTI Gmma recenti hac nostra editione uiligentissime, exposita fiint, atque elaborate, Grice: implicatura, grammatica razionale, psicologia razionale. Grice: Giavelli, devo confessare che a Oxford tutti parlano di “significatio”, ma nessuno sa davvero se il cane che abbaia sia arrabbiato o solo affamato. Lei, da buon aristotelico piemontese, come la vede? Giavelli: Caro Grice, la questione è semplice: se il cane abbaia, vuol dire che è arrabbiato; se il mio vicino mugugna, vuol dire che è dolorante. In Piemonte, persino il mio gatto si fa capire meglio di certi filosofi! Grice: Ah, capisco! Allora dovremmo proporre un trattato sulla semantica del meow: ogni miagolio rappresenta una tesi filosofica. A Oxford, però, rischiamo di confondere un miagolio per una pizza ordinata! Giavelli: Professore, venga a Torino: qui i filosofi discutono persino col cane del portinaio. E se non bastano i segni naturali, basta un buon bicchiere di Barbera per far parlare anche il silenzio! Così persino Lutero avrebbe cambiato idea sul divorzio… Giavelli, Giovanni Crisostomo (1867). La filosofia e la scienza. Firenze: Tipografia Galileiana.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Gigli: il deutero-esperanto. Mariano Gigli (Recanati, Macerata, Marche): il deutero-esperanto. The comparison between Grice and Mariano Gigli highlights two complementary approaches to rational meaning, one pragmatic and one architectonic. Gigli’s project of a lingua universale pei dotti rests on a metaphysics of language that treats words as signs representing ideas and grammar as the rational articulation of thought itself; his ambition is to construct a second‑order or “deutero” language that refines ordinary speech into a transparent vehicle for scientific, political, and philosophical exchange among educated speakers. Grice, by contrast, resists the identification of words with signs and rejects the idea that meaning is exhausted by representation, yet his theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning arrives at a structurally similar point from the opposite direction. Where Gigli seeks to secure universality by redesigning linguistic form in accordance with rational grammar and shared intellectual culture, Grice secures interoperability by showing how ordinary language already functions as a quasi‑universal medium through cooperative principles, intentions, and implicatures that speakers can calculate without reforming the language itself. Gigli’s deutero‑Esperanto aspires to remove ambiguity by philosophical reconstruction; Grice’s pragmatics explains how ambiguity is managed, exploited, and often resolved through rational conversational practice. The affinity lies in their shared conviction that language is governed by reason and good sense rather than mere habit, while the divergence lies in method: Gigli constructs an ideal language for the learned, whereas Grice uncovers within existing speech a rational machinery capable of sustaining mutual understanding without abandoning the contingencies of everyday use. Grice: “The kind of ‘logical construction’ of the Oxonian mode of speech was undertaken, in Italy, by Gigli – no, not the operatic tenor! Pirotese, Gricese. Filosofo italiano. I like G.!” Una approfondita trattazione intorno alle teorie della lingua “La meta-fisica della lingua,” “Scienza nuova anche ai dotti e pei soli di buon senso, nata come premessa all'elaborazione di una lingua universale. Mi occupo d'un progetto di lingua universale pei dotti. Mi avvido però, che la mia teoria si appoggiano a dei principj di lingua poco o nulla generalmente conosciuti, perché nessuno ha mai la sofferenza di meditarli. Quindi lasciato il primo, mi occupo di questo secondo lavoro. E così ha origine la presente ‘meta-fisica’ del linguaggio. “La Metafisica del Linguaggio. Scienza nuova anche ai dotti e pei soli di buon senso” (Milano, Fusi). Immaginato come pro-dromo di un saggio sulla lingua universale, G. discerne e determina tutte le parti del discorso, e ne giustifica la natura in ottica filosofica. Accena alla lingua pei dotti e cosi la definisce. Lingua universale pei dotti chiamo una lingua che può colla massima facilità essere scritta parlata ed intesa da tutte le persone colte di qualunque clima e nazione – inclusa l’italiana. Una lingua, si puo dire, che, come il latino degl’antichi romani, può sola bastare al disimpegno di tutte le relazioni scientifiche, politiche, commerciali ec. con qualunque civilizata  La mia lingua e una lingua infine in cui dove scriversi e tradursi quanto può essenzialmente interessare l'intera umanità o più popoli  almeno. G. sceglie d’utilizzare per la sua lingua universale i caratteri, la pronunzia, e le radici delle parole gallo-latine, cioè della lingua più conosciuta tra i filosofi eruditi dell'epoca, riservandosi comunque la possibilità di modificarne alcune parti. Nel discorso preliminare al suo saggio, “Lingua filosofico-universale pei dotti, preceduta dalla analisi della lingua”, G. precisa che, nel suo pensiero, parole sono quei segni – contra Grice: “Not all things that may mean are signs. Words are not.” -- che rappresentano le idee. il sistema G-hp< Pirotese, Symbolo, Deutero-Esperanto. Grice: Caro Gigli, devo confessare che mia madre era innamorata di Beniamino Gigli, la sua voce la commuoveva fino alle lacrime! Ma lasci che glielo dica: il vero Gigli, per me, è lei. Uno poteva solo cantare le partiture degli altri; lei, invece, ha indagato più a fondo di qualunque italiano – e non parliamo poi dei barbari di Vadum Boum! – nei meandri affascinanti della grammatica italiana. E lo ha fatto dal solo punto di vista che conti: quello del filosofo razionalista che non rinnega mai le vie dei cinque sensi e, per buona misura, aggiunge il buon senso! Gigli: Professore Grice, le sue parole mi onorano più di qualsiasi aria cantata dal mio omonimo! Anch’io ho rispetto per la bellezza delle lingue, ma il mio cuore batte per quella “meta-fisica” della lingua che cerca di cogliere l’essenza stessa del pensiero umano, senza perdere il legame con la concretezza della vita quotidiana. Grice: E fa bene, Gigli! In fondo, la lingua è come una sinfonia: non basta eseguirla, bisogna comprenderne la struttura, le armonie nascoste, la logica che la sostiene. Solo così possiamo pensare una “lingua universale pei dotti” che sia davvero accessibile a tutti coloro che, come lei, sanno sposare ragione e senso comune. Gigli: Ecco perché nella mia ricerca ho cercato di discernere ogni parte del discorso, giustificandone la natura filosofica, ma senza mai trascurare che le parole sono prima di tutto segni che rappresentano idee vive, radicate nella nostra esperienza concreta. In fondo, professore, anche la filosofia più alta deve dialogare con il buon senso, se vuole parlare davvero all’umanità. Gigli, Mariano (1891). Della filosofia moderna. Napoli: Detken & Rocholl.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Gioberti: la ragione conversazoinale e l’implicatura conversazionale del bello.  Vincenzo Gioberti (Torino, Piemonte): la ragione conversazoinale e l’implicatura conversazionale del bello. The comparison between Grice and G. brings out a shared commitment to the governance of meaning by reason, but at two very different levels: pragmatic interaction for Grice, and aesthetic–ontological synthesis for Gioberti. Gioberti’s philosophy of the bello, especially in Del bello, treats beauty as an intelligible manifestation of the good, mediated by a diminutive, relational, and participatory structure: the bello is not sheer utility or moral good itself, but a gracious, proportionate, and affect-laden rendering of it, intelligible through shared sensibility and intellectual participation (metessi). This already presupposes a form of conversational reason, insofar as beauty communicates without asserting, inviting assent through recognition rather than proof. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning furnishes the analytic counterpart to this intuition: implicature explains how speakers convey meanings that are not stated but are rationally retrievable by attentive interlocutors operating under common norms of cooperation. Where Gioberti’s aesthetics relies on a metaphysical implicature—beauty suggesting goodness without explicitly stating it—Grice formalizes the conditions under which such suggestion is intelligible at all, showing how meaning can be generated by what is left unsaid yet responsibly inferable. Gioberti’s insistence that philosophical method is synthetic, psychological, and oriented to lived experience aligns with Grice’s resistance to purely formal semantics: both reject reduction to literal content alone. The difference lies in scope and grounding: Gioberti embeds conversational intelligibility within an ontological vision of the intelligible and the national‑historical spirit, whereas Grice strips the account down to universally applicable norms of rational exchange. Seen together, Gioberti anticipates, in aesthetic and metaphysical terms, what Grice later articulates with analytic precision: that reason operates most powerfully not in bare assertion, but in the shared space where meaning, value, and understanding are jointly implied rather than merely declared. Grice: “A pupil of mine at Oxford wanted to research on Italian philosophy – ‘but only excommunicated philosophers, please!’, I prayed. He chose G.! scomunicazione. I like G.; he published ‘Del bene, del bello,’ suggesting they are etymologically connected, and they are: BONUS alternates with BENE in Roman, and the dimintuvie, BENETULUS, gives ‘bellus.’ So the Roman implicature is that the ‘bello’ is a ‘little’ ‘bene’ – or gracious, comfortable, and proportionate, rather than having to do with ‘bene’ itself. – “like bene” – and affectionate diminutive, one hopes! Italians find it harder than the Germans to conceal their nationalism. Hegel is studied everywhere, but G. is felt to be TOO Italian, and he is. There are not two sentences in G. that do not mention Italy! Hegel could philosophise on being, the absolute being is the King of Prussia – but philosophers elsewhere take his remarks in a generalized, not a German, way. Unlike G., who cannot hide his ‘italianita’. That Mussolini wrote on him did not help. And that, along with Gentile, and the Italian mainstream intelligentsia, the Italian risorgimento is only a stone’s throw away from Fascism! Giusso, whom I like, wrote a bio of G. which I thought the best, it’s in Vita e Pensiero, and in the series, UOMINI DEL RISORGIMENTO. Gives him sense!” Si laurea a Torino. I suoi saggi sono più importanti della sua carriera politica. Il metodo per lui è uno strumento sintetico, soggettivo e psicologico. Ricostruisce l'ontologia e comincia con la formula ideale, per cui filosofia eterodossa, che regna finora, è morta per sempre. Si concbiude esortando gl' Italiani a intraprendere l’ instaurazione delle scienze speculative. essenza. Sovrintelligibile ovrannaturale transitorio o continuo fatto morale della giustificazione idea pura razionalismo del bello, estetico, il bello, metessi, implicatura metessica – mimesi – Plato on mimesis and metexis, protologia, ontologismo, statua all’aperto, Milano – nella serie uomini del risorgimento, bruno, gentile, filosofi scommunicati. Grice: Caro Gioberti, da noi a Oxford uno studente mi chiese di studiare filosofi italiani, ma solo quelli scomunicati! Lei però mi ha sorpreso: il bello e il bene, dice, sono parenti stretti… un po’ come il pane e la focaccia in Piemonte!Gioberti: Professore Grice, in Italia il bello nasce proprio dal bene, ma con un pizzico di affetto, quasi fosse un diminutivo – come quando si dice “bellino” per un bambino. La filosofia, qui, non sa mai nascondere la sua italianità, nemmeno davanti a Hegel!Grice: Eh, Gioberti, ma in Inghilterra il bello si confonde spesso con il comodo, mentre da voi è questione di proporzione e grazia. Mussolini ci ha messo del suo, mi sa, rendendo difficile distinguere il bello dalla politica… Ma almeno il vostro Risorgimento è sempre a portata di mano!Gioberti: Professore, l’estetica italiana non si fa mai troppo seria. Il bello, per noi, è una statua all’aperto, magari a Milano, che invita tutti a filosofare. E se qualcuno vuole la perfezione assoluta, basta offrire un buon bicchiere e raccontare una storia divertente: così anche il bello diventa “benetulus” – piccolo, affettuoso e sempre pronto a sorridere! Gioberti, Vincenzo (1838). Del bello. Torino: Stamperia Reale.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Gioia: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- filosofia ad uso. Melchiorre Gioia (Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- filosofia ad uso. The comparison between Grice and Melchiorre Gioia brings into focus a shared, distinctly pragmatic conception of reason as something exercised in use rather than merely contemplated in theory. Gioia’s philosophy ad uso treats language, manners, and social practices as instruments whose value lies in their contribution to coordination, improvement, and economy of effort; his celebrated examples, contrasting ingenious but useless contraptions with simple, effective arrangements, prefigure a normative standard of rational efficiency grounded in outcomes rather than formal perfection. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning operates in a strikingly similar spirit: his cooperative principle and maxims, especially the principle of economy of rational effort, explain meaning not by appeal to ideal forms but by reference to what rational agents can reasonably expect of one another in practical interaction. Where Gioia frames politeness, galateo, and clarity as social virtues that facilitate effective communication and civic life, Grice abstracts the same insight into a general pragmatics, showing how implicatures arise when speakers deliberately do less than they could, trusting hearers to supply what is contextually relevant. Gioia’s interest in the origin of language and his “two savages” style of reasoning mirrors Grice’s own pirotological reconstructions, both aiming to show how rational communication emerges from basic needs under constraints of effort and utility. The difference lies mainly in idiom and scope: Gioia writes as a moralist–economist intent on educating citizens and youth in practical wisdom, whereas Grice offers a formally minimalist analysis of meaning; yet both converge on the idea that reason in language is not categorical in a Kantian sense but intrinsically conversational, social, and oriented toward making human interaction work. Grice: “I am called a systematic philosopher – compared to Witters, but not to G.. At Bologna, as in Oxford, most philosophers ARE systematic. Witters shouldn’t be the judge! sistematicita della filosofia. I joked with the maxim, ‘be polite,’ surely it’s difficult to make that universalisable into the conversational categoric imperative (‘be helpful conversationally) – but apparently Italians are less Kantian than I thought! I love G.; he is like me, an economist when it comes to pragmatics – see my principle of ECONOMY of rational effort; I studied thoroughly his fascinating account about the origin of language, before I ventured with my pritological progressions!” La sua tesi, in cui sostiene la tesi di un'Italia libera, repubblicana, retta da istituzioni democratiche e basata su comuni elementi geografici e linguistici, prefigura l'unità italiana. Il pregio di questa combinazione cresce, se si riflette ch'ella è applicabile ad altri oggetti, a cagione d'esempio, ai vascelli in mare. lo fatti vi sono delle combinazioni saggissime profondissime, e che suppongono infinita destrezza nell'esecuzione. Ma siccome non arrecano alcun vantaggio, non hanno alcun pregio agl’occhi del saggio. Boverick, meccanico d'uva de, strezza e d’upa perseveranza prodigiosa, fabbrica una catena di duecento anelli che col suo catenaccio e la sua chiave pesava circa un terzo di grano. Questa catena e destinata ad iocatenare una pulce. Egli fa una carrozza che s'apriva e si chiudeva a inolla, era tratta da sei cavalli, porta quattro persone e due lacchè, e condolia da un cocchiere, ai piedi del quale sta assiso un cane, e il lutto venne strascioato da una pulce esercitata a questo travaglio. L'invenzione e l'esecuzione di questa macchina puerile fa desiderare che Boverick impiega meglio i suoi talenti. Grice: “”Si suppongano due selvaggi” – exactly my way of proceeding. G. has a lot of sense. An engraving’s caption has it: ‘statistico e filosofo’ – And I like the fact that like Socrates he did ‘elementi di filosofia ad uso de’ giovanetti’!” –filosofia ad uso de’ giovanetti, galateo, pulitezza.  Grice: Gioia, devo confessare che ammiro profondamente il suo approccio pragmatico alla filosofia. Lei è riuscito a rendere la riflessione filosofica qualcosa di utile, applicabile persino ai giovanetti. Mi sorprende come abbia saputo unire la sistematicità con la filosofia ad uso. Come nasce, secondo lei, l’esigenza di pensare la filosofia per la vita quotidiana? Gioia: Grice, la ringrazio per il suo pensiero così gentile. Credo che la filosofia debba servire a migliorare la società e l’individuo. La mia convinzione è che una filosofia che non abbia riscontro pratico rischia di perdere il suo valore; per questo ho scritto i miei "elementi di filosofia ad uso de’ giovanetti". L’essenza sta nel saper trasmettere saggezza in modo semplice e concreto. Grice: Ecco, mi trovo d’accordo con lei. In Inghilterra, si insiste molto sulla cooperazione conversazionale, ma il galateo – la pulitezza e la cortesia – non sempre trovano spazio nei nostri imperativi categorici. Lei pensa che la cortesia e la pulitezza possano essere universalizzate come principi conversazionali? Gioia: Lo credo fermamente, anche se gli italiani, come lei osserva, sono meno kantiani. La cortesia è una forma di rispetto che favorisce la comunicazione sincera e fruttuosa. Se riuscissimo a educare i giovani al dialogo cortese e all’ascolto, avremmo una società più armoniosa, e forse anche una filosofia più vicina alle esigenze reali degli uomini. Gioia, Melchiorre (1803). Il nuovo galateo. Milano: Bernardoni.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giovanni: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della civetta di Minerva Biagio di Giovanni (Napoli, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della civetta di Minerva – In comparison with Grice, Biagio di Giovanni approaches reason‑governed conversational meaning from a substantially different, though intersecting, intellectual trajectory: where Grice construes conversational meaning as regulated by rational constraints internal to cooperative practices—maxims, intentions, recognitions, and cancellable implicatures—Giovanni situates reason itself within a historical and institutional process of becoming, shaped by Vico’s idea of the divenire of reason and by Marxian praxis. For Grice, conversational reason is critical rather than metaphysical: it operates by diagnosing how meaning exceeds what is said through implicature, without committing reason to an ontological narrative of history or statehood; hence his ironic resistance to Italian tendencies to translate conversational critique into philosophies of Becoming, Europe, or the State. Giovanni, by contrast, treats conversational reason less as a regulative grammar of interaction and more as an objectified historical force, through which experience sedimentates into institutions, classes, sovereignty, and political forms; implicature, in this frame, becomes a symptom of deeper ideological and historical tensions rather than a primarily pragmatic phenomenon. Where Grice insists on separating conversational critique from grand narratives—calling Giovanni’s “divenire della ragione” a critique of conversational reason rather than its theory—Giovanni deliberately collapses that distinction, embedding conversational rationality within disputes over power, praxis, statehood, and modernity (from Vico and Marx to Kelsen, Gentile, and Severino). The contrast thus turns on scope and direction: Grice moves from rational cooperation to philosophical modesty, while Giovanni moves from dialogue to history, interpreting reason‑governed conversation as one manifestation of a broader, contested process in which being and becoming, philosophy and politics, continuously implicate one another. Grice: “In my ‘Philosophical Eschatology, I let room for Allegory and Metaphor, on which the Hun and the Italians excell! The Italians love ‘divenire’ as in ‘being and becoming’ – but if I say Mary is becoming a princess, ain’t Mary being? I like G.; only in Italy, you write an essay on Marx on cooperation and on Kelsen; and then of course an Italian philosopher HAS to philosophise on Vico: ‘divvenire della ragione,’ G. calls what I would call a critique of conversational reason!” Si laurea a Napoli con Vico, natura e ius. Insegna a Bari.  L'esperienza come oggettivazione: alle origini della scienza”; “Il concetto di classe sociale in Cicerone”; “La borghesia italiana”; “Il concetto di prassi; Marx dopo Marx Grice dopo Grice. Impilcature: Not Grice! Dopo il comunismo; il comune L'ambigua potenza dell'Europa; Da un secolo all'altro: politica e istituzioni istituzione istituzionalismo istituismo La filosofia e l'Europa”; Sul partito democratico. Aristocrazia, democrazia crazia cratos concetto di potere -Opinioni a confronto”; “A destra tutta. Dove si è persa la sinistra? Elogio della sovranità politica, -- il sovrano – lo stato sovrano – Machiavelli Le Forme e la storia. La parabola di G..  Il dibattito Un saggio di de G. paragona Severino al filosofo del fascismo. È Gentile il profeta della civiltà tecnica la legge del divenire è eterna di SEVERINO GENTILE e assassinato perché e la voce più autorevole e convincente del fascismo. Eppure la sua filosofia è la negazione più radicale di ciò che il fascismo ha inteso essere. Essa è tra le forme più potenti non è esagerato dire la più potente della filosofia. Di tale potenza lo stesso Lenin si e accorto forse gl’assassini di Gentile non lo sanno neppure. Tanto meno lo sa la cultura filosofica dominante, che mai riconoscerebbe a un italiano un così alto rilievo. L’attualismo di GENTILE è l’autentica filosofia della civiltà della tecnica: Disputa sul divenire. SEVERINO essere/divenire – dall’essere al divenire divenire della ragione conversazionale stato. Grice: Giovanni, mi permetta una curiosità filosofica: a Vadum Boum, la nostra università, Bradley aveva una vera passione per la civetta di Minerva, simbolo della saggezza. Lei crede che questa allegoria possa ancora illuminare oggi la ragione conversazionale, soprattutto nel dialogo tra essere e divenire? Giovanni: Professore Grice, la civetta di Minerva vola solo al crepuscolo, proprio come la filosofia che arriva a spiegare la realtà quando essa si è già compiuta. Nel mio lavoro ho cercato di mostrare quanto il divenire sia centrale nella ragione, proprio come Vico insegnava: la conversazione filosofica diventa così un ponte tra ciò che è e ciò che diventa. Grice: Sagge parole, Giovanni. Mi affascina il modo in cui lei coniuga Marx, Kelsen e Vico, tutti sotto lo stesso tetto della ragione dialogica. Forse la civetta di Minerva dovrebbe insegnarci ad osservare il divenire non solo come mutamento, ma come esperienza oggettivata—da Napoli a Bari, da teoria a prassi. Giovanni: Esattamente, Professore. La filosofia italiana, con la sua attenzione al divenire, invita a non smettere mai di interrogarsi. La civetta ci ricorda che la saggezza nasce dal confronto e dalla capacità di cogliere la potenza ambigua dell’Europa, dello Stato, della storia e persino delle nostre implicature conversazionali. Giovanni, Biagio di (1923). Filosofia dell’azione. Napoli: Libreria Scientifica.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giovio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma antica Giovio (Nola, Napoli, Campania): la ragione conversazionale a Roma antica -- In the passage, Giovio’s Roman conversation frames reason as a civic and rhetorical faculty embedded in place, lineage, and learned wit, whereas Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning abstracts reason into a normative structure governing how utterances are understood beyond what is explicitly said. Giovio presents conversation as culturally situated: Rome “speaks,” Campania “thinks,” and philosophical seriousness is inseparable from irony, education, and epistolary exchange; meaning emerges from shared background, historical identity, and playful allusion, as when implicatures are cast as a lighter, almost literary counterpart to divine thunderbolts. Grice, by contrast, treats implicature not as a flourish of erudite conversation but as the rational outcome of cooperative principles and maxims that any competent speaker can exploit, regardless of cultural setting. Where Giovio’s conversational reason is expressive and humanistic, grounded in the social prestige of philosophy and the performative intelligence of dialogue, Grice’s is analytical and universalizing, aimed at explaining how hearers systematically infer intentions under assumptions of rational cooperation. The dialogue thus anticipates Gricean implicature in spirit but not in method: Giovio dramatizes reason at work in conversation, while Grice theorizes the conditions that make such work intelligible at all. The son of Paulino di Nola. From a letter written to him by his father, it appears that he was a keen student of philosophy. Giovio. GRICEVS: Salve, IOVI. Roma dicitur caput mundi; ego autem dico: caput sermonis—hic etiam philosophia ridet. IOVIVS: Salve, GRICE. Si Roma caput est, ego (Nolae natus, Neapoli institutus) sum quasi nervus: Campania cogitat, Roma loquitur. GRICEVS: Bene; sed dic mihi, IOVI: esne filius Paulini Nolani? Nomen tuum sonat quasi Iuppiter in toga. IOVIVS: Ita—filius sum. Pater in epistula scripsit me philosophiae studiosissimum; ego respondeo: si Iuppiter fulmina iacit, ego tantum implicaturas. Giovio (a. u. c. MMDCL). Epistola Romae conscripta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giraldi: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale.  Giovanni Battista Giraldi (Ventimiglia, Liguria): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale. In the Giraldi passage, conversational meaning is presented as inseparable from essence, irony, and cultural sensibility, whereas Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning deliberately brackets such metaphysical and aesthetic commitments in order to isolate the rational mechanisms by which speakers mean more than they say. Giraldi’s essentialism, shaped by Italian idealism and a Romantic inheritance from Vico through Gentile and Croce, treats conversation as a space where truth, fiction, sentiment, and irony openly intermingle: Pinocchio’s status as “a child born of a lie” becomes emblematic of a philosophical stance in which essence can emerge from narrative, myth, and even deception. In this framework, implicature is not a technical inference drawn under explicit cooperative norms but a lived, stylistic phenomenon, bound to dialect, place, autobiography, and the pleasure of intellectual play. Grice’s account of implicature, by contrast, is explicitly anti‑essentialist: conversational meanings arise not from hidden essences or romantic feeling but from rational expectations governing cooperative talk, expectations that are in principle detachable from any specific cultural mythology. Where Giraldi treats irony, fable, and laughter as philosophically productive in themselves, Grice treats them as data to be explained by a theory of rational inference. The contrast is thus sharp: Giraldi’s conversational reason is expressive, historical, and saturated with sentiment, while Grice’s is procedural, normative, and deliberately minimalist, aiming to explain how meaning is inferred without appealing to substantive metaphysical essences at all. Grice: “We never had at Oxford anything like they had at Bologna, with Mussolini! fascismo, Gentile filosofo politico. Only a Ligurian philosopher would philosophise on Hegel’s real logic and lobsters! One good thing about Giraldi is that he is from Ventimiglia and moved to Noli – the most charming corners of Italy! G. calls his position ‘romatnic essentialism;’ having born in Ventmiglia he would, wouldn’t he? I like G.; nobody in England would dare write “The son of Peter Pan,” but G., otherwise known as the author of ‘Essenzialismo,’ did write ‘Il figlio di Pinocchio’! G. is obsessed with ‘essenza’, which is a coinage by Cicero – essentia, meaning essentially nothing!“G., who defends Gentile, rightly, as a ‘pensatore politico’ – was obsessed with idealism – his essentialism was supposed to supersede it, but he spends some time analysing the situation in Italy with idealism, ‘a la catedra – but is dead – he refers to Croce, Gentile, and the roots of  idealism in Vico, Sanctis, and Spaventa!” Si laurea a Roma sotto PONZO e Spirito. Insegna a Milano. Partendo da GENTILE, che vede in tutto una gigli. TEVERE AMICO, Filosofia esposte nel dialetto Trastevere. Paradiso, Faust mediterraneo”, Il Testamento, saggio critico G., Pergamena, Nel Sublime, Pergamena Il mio Ponente, Pinocchio, un figlio nato da una bugia, in La Repubblica, sez. Genova. Ha al suo attivo un dizionario di estetica e linguistica, una storia della pedagogia e ha scritto novelle. Vive a Noli, di cui è cittadino onorario. Piotr Zygulski, Filosofo liberale, in Termometro Politico; G. Tissi, filosofo dell'ironia, Sui tragici. Dal mio diario filologico, Da "Autobiografia come filosofia e pagine integrative in Illuministi Disegno storico del costituzionalismo La scuola del Risorgimento. la scuola italiana La favola dell'indo-europeo, essenzialismo, essenzialismo romantico, storia della filosofia romana, etica del sentimento, autobiografia come filosofia, mio ponente, filosofia ligure, l’aragosta romanzo ligure -- Riviera di ponente, nel pleroma: da dio alla materia,  gentile, filosofo politico. Grice: Giraldi, devo confessare che a Oxford nessuno ha mai scritto un saggio su Pinocchio, figlio di una bugia! Ma lei, dalla Riviera di Ponente, riesce a portare persino le aragoste in filosofia… sarà il profumo del mare che rende tutto più essenziale? Giraldi: Professore Grice, qui tra Ventimiglia e Noli la filosofia si mescola col vento ligure. L’essenzialismo romantico nasce proprio dalla necessità di distinguere tra ciò che è vero e ciò che è… una favola! Se Pinocchio diventa figlio, può anche la verità nascere da una bugia? Grice: Forse, Giraldi, la conversazione filosofica dovrebbe seguire il Tevere, come lei suggerisce: dalle bugie ai sentimenti, passando per Gentile, Croce e l’aragosta ligure. D’altronde, l’essenza si rivela spesso nei dialetti, non nei trattati. Giraldi: Professore, qui a Noli si dice che solo chi sa ridere di sé stesso può capire il sublime. Se la filosofia è un viaggio, meglio farlo con una aragosta in mano e una bugia in tasca, così non ci si annoia mai! Giraldi, Giovanni Battista (1554). Gli Ecatommiti. Venezia: Ferrari.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giudice: la ragione conversazionale, l’esperienza, e l’implicatura conversazionale di Telesio. Riccardo Del Giudice (Lucera, Foggia, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale, l’esperienza, e l’implicatura conversazionale di Telesio. A comparison between H. P. Grice and Riccardo Del Giudice can be made at the level of reason-governed meaning insofar as both resist any simple reduction of philosophy to empiricism while granting experience a constitutive role in rational practice. Grice’s theory of conversational meaning treats experience not as a foundation of knowledge in the empiricist sense, but as the pragmatic field in which rational agents operate under shared expectations, generating implicatures through reason-sensitive departures from what is strictly said; Del Giudice’s early engagement with Bernardino Telesio, culminating in his 1921 Roman thesis, approaches experience analogously as a lived, organizing principle that is irreducible to brute sensation and already normatively inflected. In Del Giudice, Telesio’s emphasis on natura and experience functions less as proto-empiricism than as an implicit theory of rational practice, one that later reappears in Del Giudice’s analyses of corporative doctrine, syndicate versus corporation, and the juridical articulation of social life—from papal-state corporazioni to modern labor law and navigation contracts—where meaning and authority arise through institutional forms and shared practical reason rather than mere observation. Grice’s insistence that an interest in experience does not entail empiricism (“I’ve always been interested in experience—that doesn’t make me an Empiricist”) finds a historical analogue in Del Giudice’s Telesian reading under Gentile: in both cases, experience supports a theory of implicature avant la lettre, where what is meant exceeds what is explicitly formulated, whether in conversation or in legal-corporative practice, and rationality is realized through governed interaction rather than theoretical abstraction alone. Giudice, Riccardo Del (1921). Psicologia ed etica di Telesio. Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”. Grice: “I’ve always been interested in experience – that doesn’t make me an Empiricist, neither it makes Telesio one, as G. shows!” Si laurea a Roma sotto GENTILE. Insegna a Roma.  l’implicatura di Telesio, Telesio, polemica con Spirito su la distinzione tra sindacato e corporazione, le corporazione nella roma papale, I diritti dello stato pontificio, il diritto della navegazione, contratto, gentile, la scuola al lavoro – ‘dottrina e prassi corporativa” --  – la tesi di telesio – consiglio nazionale delle corporazioni, l’implicatura di Telesio. Grice: Caro Giudice, ho letto i tuoi studi su Telesio—ma davvero pensi che l’esperienza sia sempre la via maestra? Io, che mi definisco “curioso,” non mi sono mai lasciato incatenare dall’empirismo, e nemmeno Telesio lo avrebbe fatto!Giudice: Professore, in Italia l’esperienza è come il caffè: tutti ne parlano, ma ognuno ha la sua ricetta segreta! Telesio diceva che la realtà va gustata, non solo osservata. E poi, se fosse stato un empirista puro, avrebbe inventato la moka, non la filosofia! Grice: Ah, la moka! Allora forse la polemica tra sindacato e corporazione è solo una questione di chi prepara il caffè più forte. Mi affascina il modo in cui hai intrecciato diritto, corporazione e dottrina—quasi come una ricetta della nonna, con un pizzico di polemica e un cucchiaino di prassi.Giudice: Esattamente, Professore! Se la filosofia fosse solo dottrina, sarebbe troppo amara. Telesio, Gentile, e pure la scuola al lavoro: tutti cercano il consiglio perfetto, ma alla fine, il vero implicito è che la filosofia italiana preferisce una buona conversazione… e magari una tazzina di caffè condivisa! Giudice, Riccardo Del (1921). Psicologia ed etica di Telesio. Roma: La Sapienza.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulia: la ragione conversazioanle e l’implicatura conversazionale.  Vincenzo Giulia (Acri, Cosenza, Calabria): la ragione conversazioanle e l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice’s and Vincenzo Giulia’s treatments of conversational implicature and reason converge on a shared conviction that meaning in communication is governed by reason, yet they diverge sharply in style, orientation, and philosophical temperature. Grice theorizes conversational meaning as a rational, cooperative enterprise structured by intentions and governed by norms—his maxims articulate how speakers rely on shared expectations of rationality to convey more than is literally said, so that implicature emerges as an inferential achievement anchored in reasoned uptake. Giulia, by contrast, approaches “ragione conversazionale” historically, rhetorically, and civically: for him, implicature is not merely an inferential calculus but a moral‑poetic residue of lived history, a way in which Calabria’s suffering, resistance, and intellectual lineage speak indirectly through language. Where Grice emphasizes analytic clarity and the repeatability of philosophical error as a lesson in rational discipline, Giulia treats philosophy as inseparable from poetry, civic memory, and sacrifice, aligning conversational reason with the implicit transmission of courage and identity exemplified by Campanella, Bruno, and the Risorgimento tradition. Thus, while Grice secures implicature within a universal model of rational cooperation, Giulia localizes it as a historically charged, ethically inflected mode of meaning, in which what is left unsaid carries the weight of a people’s past and their claim to intellectual dignity. Grice: “History of philosophy teaches how you make the same mistake MORE than twice!  storia della filosofia. G. was more of a poet than a philosopher; but then for Heidegger, philosophy IS poetry and vice versa! Essential Italian philosopher!” Si laurea a Cosenza sotto FOCARACCI. Intraprese gli studi giuridici e per alcuni anni esercita la professione di avvocato poi accantonata a pennello ne ritrasse gl’apostoli, e gl’eroi, rivendicando i padri nostri al cospetto di un secolo banchiere e borghese. La morte lo colge sulla soglia del tempio del Rinascimento; gloria al virile sacerdote della scienza, che muore, adempiendo il suo dovere, mentre si folleggia, deridendo gl’eroi del pensiero, i modesti operai del mondo moderno, e sigitta lo scherno sulle ossa dei grandi precursori della nuova filosofia e della nuova critica. Io ho fede che i calabresi, così ricci d'ingegno e di cuore, cosi amanti delle patrie glorie, hanno un culto per gl’uomini, che muoiono sulla breccia, martiri della scienza e della patria; per le anime generose, che non curano le amarezze della vita, l'esilio, la povertà, la carcere, ed accettano, fino le torture di Campanella, fino il rogo di Bruno. Ho fede che la Calabria si rinnovi nel lavacro della rinascenza e negli studii virili del passato, e la gentile e dotta Cosenza, riccaperme di care e dolorose memorie, prodiga di tanto sangue alla patria, di tanto contributo d'ingegno alla storia del pensiero italiano, s'ispiri nell'austera figura del più grande dei suoi figli, il cui busto parla tra il verde degli alberi la gran parola del risorgimento ai calabresi. Così,o gio vani, non sarò costretto a ripetere gli amari versi dell’austero poeta di Recanati. Oggi è nefando stile Di schiatta ignava e finta Virtù viva sprezzar lodare estinta. implicatura, filosofia calabrese, Campanella, Telesio, Sanctis, Leopardi, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Gioberti, Spaventa, Hegel, Aligheri, Serra, Bruno. Grice: Caro Giulia, leggendo della tua esperienza filosofica e poetica in Calabria, mi colpisce come tu riesca a intrecciare la passione per la storia con l’implicatura conversazionale. Per te, la filosofia è davvero poesia, come voleva Heidegger? Giulia: Assolutamente! Credo che la filosofia e la poesia siano due facce della stessa medaglia, entrambe cercano il senso profondo delle cose e la verità oltre le apparenze. Ho sempre pensato che i grandi pensatori calabresi, come Telesio e Campanella, abbiano dato voce poetica alla ragione. Grice: Interessante! Da analitico, ho spesso sostenuto che la filosofia si riconosce anche nei "piccoli errori ripetuti" di cui parla la storia. Tu credi che la Calabria, con le sue memorie e sofferenze, abbia una lezione filosofica da offrire all’Italia moderna? Giulia: Senz’altro, caro Grice. La Calabria è terra di martiri e di rinascita: qui la filosofia nasce spesso dal dolore, dalla lotta, dal desiderio di riscatto. È questa la nostra implicatura più profonda: tramandare il coraggio delle idee, anche a costo dell’esilio o della povertà, come hanno fatto i nostri eroi e poeti. Giulia, Vincenzo (1868). Contributo. Il Gravina.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giuliano:  la ragione conversazionale e la gnossi a Roma – filosofia italiana Giuliano (Eclano,  Avelino, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e la gnossi a Roma. Grice and Giuliano of Eclano converge on a shared confidence in reason as the proper governor of human understanding, but they articulate this commitment at very different levels and for different ends. Grice’s theory of conversational meaning treats reason as a procedural norm internal to communication itself: speakers are presumed to be rational and cooperative, and meaning beyond what is said arises through inferential practices grounded in shared expectations of intelligibility, relevance, and justification. Julian, by contrast, operates within a late‑antique theological and anthropological dispute, where reason is not a conversational mechanism but a gnostic capacity rooted in the goodness of human nature. Against Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, Julian insists that rational agency presupposes an uncorrupted nature capable of moral understanding and self‑correction; his polemic assumes that interlocutors can recognize fairness, proportion, and argumentative balance without the mediating weight of inherited guilt. Read through a Gricean lens, Julian’s position implicitly relies on a robust conception of conversational reason: his arguments make sense only if speakers can be held responsible for what they imply about human nature, freedom, and blame, and if theological disagreement itself is treated as a rational exchange rather than the mere exposure of hidden corruption. Thus, while Grice formalizes reason‑governed implicature as a theory of meaning, Julian presupposes it as a moral and epistemic condition of discourse, embedding conversational rationality in a broader vision of human dignity and hope rather than in an explicit analytic framework. A follower of (of all people) Pelagio.  As a result he was prompty deposed from his position as ‘vescovo’ of Eclanum. He appears to have led an unsettled life thereafter. His works survive in the use made by them by Agostino in “Against Giuliano, the defender of the Pelgagian heresy, and the so-called ‘Incomplete work against Giuliano’ – left unfinished by Agostino. G. strongly opposed Agostino’s convoluted doctrine of the original sins (he said there were many). By contrast, Giuliano entertained a totally positive conception of human nature. GRICEVS: Salve, IVLIANVS. Audivi te Pelagii sectatorem fuisse: Roma quidem multa tolerat, sed hic etiam gratia ipsa laborat. IVLIANVS: Salve. Non gratia laborat, sed calumnia; ego naturam humanam bonam esse dicebam, et statim episcopus non iam episcopus factus sum. GRICEVS: At AVGVSTINVS te oppugnat libris—tam multis ut peccata originalia ipsa numerari possint; tu vero dicis “multa sunt”: quasi catalogus, non crimen. IVLIANVS: Ita; ille vult nos in culpa nasci, ego in spe. Si hoc est haeresis, confiteor: malim homines corrigere quam deprimere—et, si depulsus sum, saltem non depulsus est animus. Giuliano (a. u. c. MXLXX). Contra doctrinam de peccato originali. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulio: la ragione conversazionale alla Roma antica --  Giulio Grecino (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale alla Roma antica. An amateur philosopher. Seneca describes G. as  man of distinction, but with little serious philosophical ability of interest. However, G. responded that it was SENECA – “a mere Spaniard” – who had no philosophical talent. In Antiquity, this was referred to as, as Grice reminds us, “The Grecino heterological paradox”! GRICEVS: Grecine, Roma ipsa mihi videtur officina rationis conversatoriae: ibi homines non tantum loquuntur, sed etiam alludunt. GRECINVS: Ita vero; sed Seneca me laudat ut virum insignem, deinde mordet quasi parum philosophiae serio habeam. Ego autem respondeo: Seneca Hispanus est tantum, nec ingenium philosophicum habet. GRICEVS: Pulchre; hic iam nascitur quod ego voco paradoxon heterologicum Grecini: qui “parum philosophus” dicitur, philosophice ipsam accusationem retorquet, et accusatorem facit obiectum. GRECINVS: Ergo implicatura est haec: si Hispanus me iudicat de philosophia, ipse se iudicari patitur de Romanitate. Ita fit ut ego “amator” philosophiae videar, ille vero “amator” alienae gloriae. Giulio Grecino was gens Iulia? No. “Giulio Grecino” is not of the gens Iulia. The standard Roman name is Julius Graecinus, more exactly Gaius Julius Graecinus. The nomen Julius does indeed point to the gens Iulia. So if the figure meant is Julius Graecinus, then yes, he belongs to the gens Iulia. But two cautions matter at once. First, the Italian “Giulio” can mislead because it looks like a given name in modern usage, whereas in Roman naming Julius is the nomen, the family name in the gentilician sense. Second, the cognomen is Graecinus, not Grecino in Latin. Grecino is the Italian form. So the classical form is Julius Graecinus. Thus the clean answer is: gens Iulia nomen Julius cognomen Graecinus As for other members of the gens Iulia, there are of course very many, since it is one of the most famous Roman gentes. But if you mean other Julii relevant to the immediate family line or historical setting of Julius Graecinus, the most important are these. Gaius Julius Graecinus himself, senator, writer, and the father of Agricola’s wife? No, rather the father of Julius Agricola. More precisely, he was the father of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the famous general and subject of Tacitus’ Agricola. His son is Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the principal later bearer in the immediate line. More broadly, the gens Iulia includes famous lines far beyond Graecinus, above all the Julii Caesares, including Gaius Julius Caesar. But that is the larger clan, not a close genealogical neighborhood for your particular figure. So if your question is simply “Was Giulio Grecino gens Iulia?”, the answer is yes, if by Giulio Grecino you mean Gaius Julius Graecinus. A compact note in your register could be: The classical form is Julius Graecinus, not “Grecino,” and the nomen Julius places him in the gens Iulia. In his case the vast Julian background is less important than the immediate line, since he is chiefly remembered as a distinguished senator and as the father of Gnaeus Julius Agricola. The family name is thus one of Rome’s greatest, though Graecinus himself occupies a smaller, more cultivated, and somewhat Senecan corner of its afterlife. One historical caution, though. The little vignette you supplied is not sound in substance. Seneca does not, in the surviving mainstream evidence, dismiss Julius Graecinus as a man with little philosophical talent, nor is the “mere Spaniard” retort anything I would trust as ancient evidence. That sounds like playful reconstruction, not reliable source material. Graecinus is usually remembered more seriously, as a cultivated senator and writer, and he was executed under Caligula. So the strict scholarly answer is: Yes, gens Iulia, if the figure is Julius Graecinus. Classical Latin form: Julius Graecinus. Immediate notable related member: his son Gnaeus Julius Agricola. If useful, I can next do one of three things, all in chat only. I can give you a compact dictionary-style note on Julius Graecinus and the gens Iulia. I can list the principal Julii relevant to Republican and early Imperial philosophy, politics, and literature. Or I can separate the secure historical facts about Julius Graecinus from the Speranzian comic embroidery.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulio. DE FIGURIS SENTENTIARUM ET ELOCUTIONIS DE SCHEMATIS LEXEOS. DE SCHEMATIS DIANOEAS.  Giulio Rufiano. DE FIGURIS SENTENTIARUM ET ELOCUTIONIS DE SCHEMATIS LEXEOS. DE SCHEMATIS DIANOEAS. Flacleniis Aqiiila Romanus ex Alexandro Numenio: exintle ab eo prae- leritas, aliis qiiidem proditas, subtexuimus. EiQCDVEia elocutiuncula Sallustiana commodissime expriniitur, cum aliud in pectore reclusum, aliud in lingua promplum li;ibenms, el scntentia enuntiationis in conlrarium verbis accipitur, iit apud Vergilium: Scilicet is superis labor est. Apud Tuliium pro Ligario: Novum crim(!ii, Gai Caesar, et cetera. \\\ Clodium et Curionem : Tu vero festivus, lu elegans, tu so- lus urbanus, quem decet muliebris ornatus, et cetera. Ironiae 3 Catii. 10. 5 Aen,  p. Lig. §. 1. S iii Clod. et Ciir. c, 5. "2 praeterita, ab aliis prodila Sl, ^ Quem in errorem indu.xeriint uerbii , (/uue in B his subiiciuntur : Scliemata diaiioeas. Jronia, partes eiiis cldeuasnius etc. ijuac non sunt Ihi/iniani, sed sludiosi lecloris, pgururuni cataloijum conficientis. Quem nos tit inutilem el idienum eiecimus.'' Iluiink. 3 Sahisiiana B 4 clausiim in peclore Sall. liabemiis St : liabcamus B sententiam B, eni. St 5 verbis Capp. : a verbis B 7 Caij B  C. autem species sex, chleiiasmos sive epicertomesis, charientismos sive scomma, asteismos, diasyrmos, exuthenismos, sarcasmos. 2. Xlsva6^6g sive B7iiKEQx6^y]Gtg. Haec figura risum excitat et severe proposita vafre excutit, elutlens personarum aut rerum compara- 5 tione, ut apud Vergilium: m e q u e t i m o r i s Argue, tu, Drance. Apud Ciceronem : Quasi vero ego de facietua, catamite, dixerim. Vel alias: Potuistine contum e liosius facere, si tihi hoc loParmeno alioqui ac non ipse Parmeno nuntiasset. 3. XaQLBvna^^s i\\'Q GKa^lia. Hac figura fit festiva dictio, cum amoenitate mordax, iit apud Ciceronem: Infirmo corpore atque ae- gro, colore , ut ipsi iudicare potestis, u. Et apud eundem: Facite enim, ut vultum ipsiuset illam usque ad talos demis- issam purpuram cogitetis. 4. 'A(}taW^6g, An niemorem l'er(f. 24 imiiatio .SV: mulatio ^ 2G ad um. B imilaudam St: imitandum B 27 de- torquelur malim 29 Enargia Capp. el Gesner: Euergia //; cf. (hdntil. 0,2, 32 el. prammatica come rettorica conversazionale. GRICEVS: IVLIVS, audio te de schematibus scribere; sed dic mihi, num ironia est figura, an est toga qua orator frigus suum celat? IVLIVS: Est utroque modo: figura est in arte, toga in vita; nam saepe aliud in pectore clausum est, aliud in lingua promptum, et auditor laetus abit, cum auctor se mordere voluit. GRICEVS: Ita vero; et Sallustius, Vergilius, Cicero—omnes quasi in foro rident, dum sententiam in contrarium torquent. Sed cave: si nimis urbane dicis, populus te “festivum” vocat et nihil intellegit. IVLIVS: Quid igitur? Ego doceo species: chleiiasmum, scomma, asteismum, sarcasmum—tu autem doceto discipulos tuos hoc unum: si iocus nimis doctus est, fit scholium, non risus.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulio: la ragione conversazionale: l’anima di Cesare – il discorso contro la penna di morte a Catilina. Giulio: la ragione conversazionale: l’anima di Cesare – il discorso contro la penna di morte a Catilina.  Grice:“The Romans were more serious about the ‘anima’ than Ryle was!” -- Si lo è voluto collocare G. Nel GIARDINO ROMANO perchè, nell’orazione che, secondo SALLUSTIO , tenne in senato per opporsi alla condanna a morte dei complici di Catilina, NEGA l'immortalità dell’anima -- e le pene dell’oltre-tomba. Però non sappiamo se e fino a qual punto rispecchi la sua filosofia quell’orazione, che, in ogni modo, mira a impedire l'uccisione dei catiliniani. La divinazzione di G. La stella raccontata di OVIDIO. OTTAVIANO  interpreta la stella di altro modo. Allorche nella congiura di CATILINA  il console pronunzia il primo contro i congiurati l’opinione sua per la pena di morte, G., il quale desidera ne’ suoi fini di salvare loro la vita, nell’orazione che recita in senato, riferita estesamente da SALLUSTIO , non tratta gia come ingiusta o crudele la pena di morte, ma disse anzi che per coloro, che condur devono una vita misera ed infelice, la morte NON È UNA PENA, MA UN BENEFIZIO, che li libera avventurosomente dai mali che sofirone. Ne CICERONE , ne CATONE , ne alcun altro de' senatori contraddissero punto in questa parte al sentimento di G.. Anzi, Cicerone ne parla come d'un sentimento vero e giusto. G., dic’egli, considera che la morte non e stata dagl’iddi immortali stabilita come una pena, ma come il fine de’ dolori e delle miserie. Allora si debbono mettere in libertà  costoro e mandarli ad accrescere l’esercito di Catilina? Niente affatto. Ma ecco il  mio parere: si confi schino i loro beni, si tengano i rei in prigione affi dandoli ai municipi che posseggono i migliori presìdi; per l’avvenire intorno a costoro non si  facciano più proposte in Senato né discorsi al popolo; se qualcuno trasgredisse, il  Senato deve dichiararlo nemico dello Stato e della salvezza pubblica.  if, for example, we admit Julius Casar to membership of the universe, then we should also admit a class of entities which will include the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., and a special subclass of these which will include Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C. The death of Julius Caesar will be an entity whose essential nature consists in, or at least contains, the attribute being an event in which Julius Caesar died; in which case that particular event could not conceivably have lacked that attribute, even though there may be many other attributes which it in fact possesses but might have failed to possess, like the attribute of being the cause of the rise of Augustus. A decision with regard to the suitability of this further step is, I think, connected with the view one takes with regard to the acceptability of one or both of two further ideas. First, the idea that for an item x to be a genuine particular there must be a distinction between (i) what x is in itself (intrinsically) and (ii) how x is related to other things, and also a distinction within what it is itself between what it is essentially and what it is accidentally or non-essentially. Without satisfying these dis-tinctions, x will be characterless, and any features attributed to it will be no more than pale and delusive reflections of verbal descriptions which, in a nominalistic fashion, are thought of as applying to it. Second, the idea that the possession of an essential attribute is achieved only as an aspect of the metaphysical construction of the item which possesses it (or of the category to which that item belongs); or perhaps (less drastically) that only in the case of constructs are essential characteristics unmistakably evident (waiting, so to speak, to be read off), whereas, in the case of non-con-structs, though such characteristics may, or must, exist, their identification involves the solution of a theoretical problem. A combination of the strongest affirmative answers to these questions would yield the possibly wol-come, possibly unwelcome, doctrine that particulars as such are necessarily constructs; other combinations of answers would lead to milder positions. Giulio Cesare. Keywords: l’immortalita dell’anima – Shropshire e Giulio – Giulio’s intenzione al crosare il Rubicon. GRICEVS: Salve, IVLIVS. Audio te in senatu contra poenam mortis dixisse mortem non esse poenam sed beneficium; ita Catilinarios servare voluisti, sed verbis quasi eos consolari. IVLIVS: Salve. Consolari? Immo rationem publicam servare: si mors finis malorum est, senatus non debet se in carnificem mutare; satis est vincla, custodia, municipia. GRICEVS: At de anima quid? Dicunt te immortalitatem negasse: Romani de anima gravius agebant quam Ryle umquam de “mente”; tu vero quasi portas inferorum clausisti, ne quis minas post mortem venderet. IVLIVS: Clausis portis, aperui consilium: si ultra-tumbae poenae non sunt, tum hic et nunc iustitia est facienda; et, quaeso, noli me “impium” vocare—ego tantum mortem a poena liberavi, non rem publicam a ratione.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulio: Roma – da Roma ad Oxford, via Bologna – Philosopher and farmer.  Gneo Giulio Agricola (Roma, Lazio): Roma – da Roma ad Oxford, via Bologna – Philosopher and farmer. Grice: “Going by the  gens of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, his modern Italian surname would be Giulio.  The Roman naming convention included the nomen gentilicium, which identified a person’s gens (clan). For Agricola, this was Julius (or Iulius). In modern Italian, Roman nomina typically evolved into surnames ending in -io or -i; thus, Julius becomes Giulio (or occasionally Giulii).  Agricola itself was his cognomen (a personal or family branch nickname), which also survives as a modern Italian surname, Agricola, meaning "farmer". Gnaeus was his praenomen (personal name), which is rarely used as a modern surname. He makes his name as a politician and a philosopher expert in political philosophy. Governor of Bretagna – His son-in-law, Tacito, writes a biography of him, claiming that A. has a great passion for philosophy – and that it was his mother who hated it (“doing her best for his son to get rid of it”). She was largely unsuccessful, since A. claims to have acquired and retained a sense of proportion (proportio, proporzione) from his philosophical study. Cneo Giulio Agricola. Keywords: proporzione, analogia; a:b::c:d -- Gneo Giulio Agricola  Voce Discussione Leggi Modifica Modifica wikitesto Cronologia  Strumenti  Disambiguazione – "Giulio Agricola" rimanda qui. Se stai cercando la stazione della linea A della Metropolitana di Roma, vedi Giulio Agricola (metropolitana di Roma). Legatus Augusti pro praetore della Britannia  NascitaFréjus MorteRoma PredecessoreSesto Giulio Frontino SuccessoreSallustio Lucullo FigliGiulia Agricola Questura Tribunato della plebe66 Pretura68 Legatus legionis69-75 Perchè egli dopo si breve tempo pigliasse la determinazione di partire da Roma bisogna credere che ei sentisse di non poter più sopportare il trattamento de’ suoi colleghi umanisti, poco umani invero. E il Bellum troianum o non fu visto da alcuno, o se anche visto, messo là tra quelli che non valevano una frulla non interessò nessuno degli studiosi. GRICEVS: Salve, IVLIVS. Dicunt te et philosophum et agricolam fuisse; miror: utrum aratrum an argumentum citius trahis? IVLIVS: Salve. Aratrum tardius, sed certius; argumentum citius, sed saepe in luto haeret. Utrumque tamen manibus et mente regendum est. GRICEVS: At nomen tuum ipsum ad rationem invitat: Iulius, quasi “Giulio,” et Agricola vere agricola. Proportio, ais, a philosophia tibi mansit: a:b::c:d—sed in agro quid est d? IVLIVS: D est cena. Si bene proporciones, non tantum segetem metes sed etiam quietem; et si male, mater mea iterum dicet philosophiam esse culpam, non tempestatem.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giulio: la ragione conversazionale e l’attaco a Roma Giulio Giuliano: la ragione conversazionale e l’attaco a Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma) Filosofo italiano. A philosopher who was killed during an attack on the city. GRICEVS: IVLIVS, salve. Audio te philosophum fuisse, sed in impetu urbis oppugnatae interemptum: Roma etiam disputationes suas armis interpellat. IVLIVS: Salve. Ita est; hostis mihi argumentum fecit, non refutationem. Ego quaerebam quid esset vita bona; ille statim demonstravit quam brevis. GRICEVS: At certe, si in ipsa urbe cecidisti, Roma tibi ultimum exemplum dedit: “non omnia perorantur.” Philosophia tua fuit quasi oratio cui bellum praecidit finem. IVLIVS: Et tamen, GRICEVS, hoc unum consolatur: si mors tam inopina venit, saltem non me coegit conclusionem longiorem scribere. Roma me breviter emendavit.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giunco: la ragione conversazionale dell’andreia -- Roma – filosofia italiana Giunco (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale dell’andreia. The author of a philosophical dialogue about the three ages of man. The son-in-law of Tito Vario Ciliano. The models for the three ages of man are his father in law, himself, and his own son, as models. He argues that the middle age is the best. Grice: “But he was biased. In fact, in my lectures on reasoning, I give this as an example of biased reasoning!” GRICEVS: Salve, IVNCVS. Audivi te tres aetates hominis in dialogo pinxisse; et—mirum dictu—media aetas tibi optima videtur. Fortasse quia in ea tu ipse sedes? IVNCVS: Salve, GRICEVS. Non nego me in media aetate esse; sed ratio ipsa iubet medium laudare: ibi nec temeritas iuventae nec querella senectutis dominatur. GRICEVS: Ratio, ais; sed exempla tua sunt socer, tu, filius. Ita iudex in causa propria es, et testis idem, et—si liceat—iurator. IVNCVS: Concedo me aliquantum “inclinatorem” esse; sed hoc saltem profitior: si quis me arguit praeiudicii, respondeo me medium ipsum elegisse, quia etiam in iudiciis medium saepe tutissimum est.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giuni: la ragione conversazionale della tutela di Roma’ -- il portico romano. Roma Quinto Giunio Rustico (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale della tutela di Roma -- il portico romano. Portico. A friend of ANTONINO . According to Antonino, R. teaches him, amongst other things, the importance of both character development and careful study. He also introduces him to the writings of a former slave by the name of Epitteto. R., on the other hand, teaches law. He presides over the trial of Giustino detto il Martire – rightly condemning him to death (“He didn’t believe in Rome’s tutelary diety, viz. Giove.”). Grice: “Strictly, he should be listed under “Giunio,” since “Rustico” – meaning ‘Rustic,’ what was he was _called_!”  GRICEVS: Rustice, salve. Modo philosophum Spem in porticu praeterii; ille, ut solet, tacendo me docuit—et ego, ut solet, loquendo me prodidi. IVNIVS: Salve, Grice. Si Spes tacet, tu compensa. Sed dic mihi: quid est ista tutela Romae de qua omnes loquuntur quasi de veste publica? GRICEVS: Nihil dicam aperte—sed cum audiam “tutela,” subintelligo non solum Iovem tutelarem urbis, sed etiam illam tutelam qua praeceptor discipulum servat: mores format, studia temperat, et (si opus est) in iudicio ipsum a seipso tuetur. Ita tutela est et numen et norma—et aliquando, fateor, etiam excusatio. IVNIVS: Implicatura tua, Grice, tutelāris est—ut Spes consentiet—id est, ipsa quasi tutela sermonis. Nam ostendis (non dicendo) tutelam non esse tantum rem religionis aut fori, sed etiam porticus: artem qua civitas cives, et magister discipulos, et lex verba—ne ruant—sustinet. Speranza is ordering Ancient Roman philosophers, etc -- by gens -- which Speranza knows becomes the Italian surname -- So Rustico is surely best catalogued under Giunio, or even Giuni, right? a noble gens -- could it have developed into some Italian surname modern, alla Giuni? usuallypluralised? Yes, if Speranza is cataloguing by gens, then Quintus Junius Rusticus belongs under the gens Junia, so “Giunio” is the right organizing principle in Italian, much as “Junius” is in Latin. “Rusticus” is the cognomen, not the gens; Grice’s instinct there is perfectly Roman. [thelatinlibrary.com] If you want the shortest catalogue rule, it would be: Quinto Giunio Rustico, filed under Giunio, not under Rustico. [thelatinlibrary.com] As for “Giuni,” that is trickier. In Latin the gens-name is Junius, plural Junii in older Latinized citation, but in Italian one normally says la gens Giunia, or i Giuni only if one is deliberately Italianising the family name in a rather learned or playful way. So yes, “Giuni” can work as a learned Italian plural for members of the gens, but it is not the normal modern surname form in ordinary usage. [thelatinlibrary.com] On the surname question, the modern Italian surname Giuni does exist, though it is relatively uncommon and appears as a modern family name rather than as a routine continuation of the ancient Roman nomen in any simple documentary way. So one may say that Giuni is a possible modern Italian surname-form that looks like a natural descendant or Italian reflex of the old Junii, but one should be careful not to claim direct genealogical continuity without evidence. Rome did not always leave forwarding addresses. [thelatinlibrary.com], [blog.digit...cripts.org] So the dry answer is: Yes, Quintus Junius Rusticus is best catalogued under Giunio if the principle is gens rather than cognomen. “Rustico” is the cognomen. “Giuni” can function as a learned Italian plural for the members of the gens, and Giuni also exists as a modern Italian surname; but one should not assume a direct line from the Roman Junii to every modern Giuni. [thelatinlibrary.com], [blog.digit...cripts.org] If you like, I can next give you: a one-line footnote in Speranza’s dry style, or a short impersonal entry-note beginning, “Strictly, he belongs under Giunio.”

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giunio: la ragione conversazionale e la satira del filosofo.  Decimo Giunio Giovenale (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e la satira del filosofo. A comparison between Grice and Juvenal helps clarify the specificity of Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning by contrast with a much earlier, non‑technical but philosophically acute use of language as ethical critique. Grice treats conversation as a cooperative, rational practice governed by shared expectations, intentions, and norms, where meaning is regulated by reason even when it departs from literal saying through implicature; critique, for him, operates diagnostically, uncovering how speakers rationally make themselves understood despite surface deviations. Juvenal, by contrast, does not theorize conversational reason but dramatizes its breakdown: his satirical voice presupposes a shared moral rationality that Roman society has betrayed, and indignatio replaces calm deliberation as the only effective response to vice. Where Grice exposes false philosophers through implicature—by showing how what they say fails rational standards they implicitly invoke—Juvenal exposes them performatively, through ridicule, excess, and moral shock, targeting Stoics of the Porch who simulate virtue while living corruptly. Yet the two converge at an important point: both assume that language is norm‑governed and ethically charged. Grice makes those norms explicit and procedural, embedding them in a theory of rational cooperation; Juvenal assumes them as already violated and uses satire as a philosophical medium precisely because ordinary reasoned discourse, in a corrupt age, no longer suffices. In that sense, Juvenal’s satire can be read as a negative counterpart to Gricean conversational reason: where Grice explains how rational meaning survives deviation, Juvenal demonstrates what happens when shared rational expectations collapse, leaving indignation as the last credible form of moral communication.  (Grice: “The main difference between Oxonian philosophy and Roman philosophy is that the latter is older! G. is important to Roman philosophy for his unique role as a  what in Nowell-Smith’s words would come out as a “moralist,: who uses satire as a philosophical medium to critique the ethical decay of the Roman Empire. While G. would hardly have identified as a philosopher – “in the way we say Nowell-Smtih, or myself are philosoophers, G.’s work is deeply embedded in the "philosophy of the street," serving as a bridge between high-minded theory of the Porch, and the gritty reality of Roman social life.  G. revolutionises satire by making indignatio -- righteous anger -- its core philosophical engine. G. argues that, in a corrupt age, indignation, rather than calm reason, is the only appropriate response to vice. Critique of Hypo-critical Porch: G. famously attacks "false philosophers,” mocking those who wear the grim expressions of the sect of the Porch in public while indulging in vice in private – as Ryle said to Johnson: “Look at him! Sex ruined him – pointing to Ayer – let that be a warning for you!” G.’s Satires provide a ground-level view of ethical dilemmas concerning wealth, social hierarchies, and human ambition, summarised in “The Vanity of Human Wishes". Undercurrents of the Porch: Despite his criticisms of practitioners, G.’s Satires are noted for their resignation, alla Porch, often citing the need for mens sana in corpore sano -- and the cultivation of virtue as the only true path to tranquility.  Several Italian philosophers have expanded on G.’s philosophical and social dimensions:  One of the earliest to be significantly influenced by G., Boccaccio imitates G.’s style to critique morality in works like the Corbaccio. STRAMAGLIA  e GRAZZINI. have co-authored significant works G. tra storia, poesia e ideologia exploring the intersection of G.’s poetry with Roman history and ideological/philosophical systems. Scholars such as NICOLETTI  and TOMMASI  utilise G.’s Satires as primary tools for educating pupils on moral integrity and Latin ethics.  Roma. GRICEVS: SALVE, IVVENALIS; audivi te non solum versus facere, sed et mores mordere: quasi philosophus cum stilō acuto. IVVENALIS: SALVE, GRICE; si Roma vetus est, vitia tamen novissima sunt. Ego indignatione utor, quia ratio sola hic saepe ridetur. GRICEVS: Apud nos Oxoniae dicunt philosophiam esse rem seriam; Roma autem docet eam esse rem antiquiorem—et tu docuisti eam esse etiam hilaritatem cum dentibus. IVVENALIS: Bene; tu maximas numeras, ego personas. Tu falsos philosophas per implicaturam nudare potes; ego eos per satyram—et uterque dicet: mens sana in corpore sano, sed non in togā simulātā. Giovenale, Decimo Giunio (a. u. c. DCCCL). Saturae. Roma:

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giunio: la ragione conversazionale dell’accademia al portico romano Marco Giunio Bruto il Minore (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale dell’accademia al portico romano. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats understanding as an essentially cooperative, intention-involving practice: what a speaker means (and what a hearer may reasonably take him to mean) is recoverable by rational inference from what is said plus shared expectations about relevance, sufficiency, and candour, yielding implicatures that are cancellable and answerable to reasons. Brutus the Younger (Marcus Junius Brutus), by contrast, is interesting as a limit-case where “conversation” is already institutional and ethically φορτισμένη: his philosophical formation moves between Academy and Stoa (Antiochus’ eclecticism, Stoic-inflected duty), and his surviving speech-acts (letters, moral treatises like De virtute and precepts “On Duties,” and—above all—the political act that culminates in Caesar’s assassination) show how public meaning in Rome is never merely what is said but what is taken to be meant by factions, patrons, and the crowd. Put Grice beside Brutus and you see two different governance structures for implication: in Grice, implicature is regulated by conversational rationality and mutual recognition of intention; in Brutus’s world, uptake is regulated by rhetoric, reputation, and the dangerous Roman habit of hearing “crown” whenever someone says “res publica.” Even Brutus’s moralizing maxim that “words teach, life excuses” fits this contrast: Grice’s model makes the rational route from words to meaning central, whereas Brutus embodies the political-practical fact that hearers will often treat actions (alliances with Pompey, reconciliation with Caesar, the conspiracy) as the decisive “implicatures” that retroactively fix what the earlier words were taken to mean, whether or not that was the speaker’s intended point. Appartene all'Accademia -- cioè effettivamente all’eclettismo con tendenze stoiche di Antioco d’Ascalona -- che, appunto, accetta dottrine derivate dal portico.  In Atene fa studi di filosofia, e in questa ha maestro Aristone.  Nella guerra civile parteggia per Pompeo e combatte a Farsaglia. Ottenne di riconciliarsi con GIULIO  Cesare. Forma stretti rapporti con CICERONE, che gli dedica varie opere: "Brutus", "Paradoxa", "Orator", "De finibus", "Tusculanae", "De natura Deorum." A CICERONE, dedica il "De virtute" (Andreia). Legato pro-pretore nelle Gallie, pretore urbano, partecipa alla congiura contro GIULIO  Cesare e e uno dei suoi uccisori. Sconfitto a Filippi d’OTTAVIANO, si uccide. Uno dei maggiori rappresentanti dell’atticismo è oratore insigne. Scrive lettere (VIII a Cicerone ci restano nella corrispondenza di questo), poesie e tre opere morali. Nel "De virtute” difende la teoria dell’auto-sufficienza della virtù. In "Sui doveri" da precetti al fratello sulla sua condotta. (Grice: “He never followed them!”). Nel "De patientia," tratta di questa. Grice: “Clifton, 17 November 1926. Today the Latin master gave Shropshire, me, and the rest of the class (so far as I could tell through the general fidgeting) yet another lesson in Roman onomastics. His theme was Brutus Maior and Brutus Minor. “The lesser brute?” Shropshire asked, with that perfectly straight face by which he manages to look both innocent and guilty at once. The master explained—“plausibly plausible,” as he liked to say when he was half lecturing and half hedging—that the first Brutus was so called because he pretended to pass for a brute: not because he was one, but because it was safer, in a court full of daggers, to seem stupid than to be known as clever. This led, inevitably, to Lucretia, the outrage that turned private injury into public revolution, and the useful Roman habit of converting scandal into constitution. Then the master, warming to his own question, turned to us and asked why the descendant should still be labelled “the Minor Brute.” If the first “brute” was an act, why should the family name continue to carry the joke after the joke had served its turn? Shropshire was poised to ask whether “Minor” meant “less cunning” or merely “born later,” but the bell went before the master could pursue it. I was left thinking (as one does, to one’s own annoyance) that we were brushing against something like a device for identifying a man that is not really descriptive at all: a name that begins as a kind of mask and ends as an inherited handle, even when the original point has evaporated. There is a peculiar brutality in that, too: a man can spend his life trying to be other than his label, and still be dragged along by it.” Editor’s note: Grice will elaborate on fixed rigid identificatory devices in his later explorations on naming versus merely describing. GRICEVS: IVNIVS, salve; audio te ab Academia ad Porticum migravisse: num philosophia tua more hospitis est, semper cum sarcinis? IVNIVS: Salve, GRICEVS; migravi, sed non fugavi. In Academia quaero, in Porticu servo; ita eadem sententia duas togas habet, et neutra mihi bene convenit. GRICEVS: Miror te cum Aristonis disciplina et Antiochi mixtura tam compositum esse; Pompeio adhesisti, Caesari reconciliatus es: unum cor, tot duces. IVNIVS: Ita est; sed tu quoque, GRICEVS, “Sui doveri” legisti atque risisti. Ego praecepta scripsi fratri; ille non secutus est; ergo discimus: verba docent, vita excusat. This Giunio committed suicide. Speranza was told that a corresponding case in the Civil War in England may be Spencer? who was executed? But Speranza makes a distinction between becoming a martyr for the republican cause by execution and as Grice would say, becoming a martyr of the republican cause by suicide. So Grice suggests that it is because the English are less stoic than the Romans, which doesn't mean anything since 'stoic' means 'porch.' So are there cases in the history of England of a man that fell on his sword? Because Grice actually uses the expression, literally: a Roman may have fallen on his sword because he tripped? thanks Yes, there are English cases, but they are rarer and culturally less central than in Rome. If the Roman comparison in your mind is with a republican or senatorial figure such as Brutus, Cassius, Cato, or perhaps Junius in some later moralised sense, the broad contrast is this. Roman elite culture, especially under the Republic and in Stoic retrospect, could treat self-killing in defeat as an intelligible final act of agency, dignity, or refusal of tyranny. English political culture, by contrast, much more often produces martyrdom by judicial killing, scaffold, beheading, hanging, or formal execution. So your distinction between martyr for a cause by execution and martyr of a cause by suicide is historically a very good one. The famous English Civil War and post-Civil War cases are mostly executions, not falling on one’s sword. Algernon Sidney is the classic one for republican martyrdom by execution. He was beheaded in 1683, after the Rye House Plot proceedings, and later Whig memory turned him into a martyr of liberty. The first Earl of Strafford, if one widens beyond republicans, was executed in 1641, but of course he is on the wrong side for your contrast. Charles I himself is the giant case of political execution, though not republican. The Leveller and regicide world gives more men punished, imprisoned, or executed than men choosing the Roman sword. As for literal “falling on one’s sword” in English history, it is much less a native political script. English elites more often resign, flee, are captured, are judicially condemned, or die in battle. The Roman gesture survives more as a classical allusion than as a recurrent English habit. There are, however, some English or British examples of self-killing in military or political disgrace, though they are usually not Civil War exempla in the strong Roman mode. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, after his failed rebellion in 1601, did not fall on his sword; he was executed. Again, the English pattern is judicial. Sir Samuel Morland? Not really relevant. A better near-case for battlefield self-inflicted death in the British orbit is not a Civil War hero but a military figure choosing suicide rather than capture or dishonour; these cases exist, but they are exceptional enough that each stands out individually rather than forming a civic tradition. During the English Civil War proper, the best-known dramatic deaths are not really “Roman suicides.” Royalists and parliamentarians alike are much more likely to die in combat, be taken, or later be judicially dealt with. The culture of Christian conscience and the legal frame weigh heavily against making suicide into a public political ideal. So if Grice says the English are less Stoic than the Romans, the joke has some truth in it, though not because “Stoic” literally means “porch.” It means that Roman elite ethics gave greater intelligibility and prestige to self-willed death as a final political gesture, while English political morality, especially under Christian and legal pressures, tended to render suicide morally suspect and martyrdom more legible when conferred by the enemy or the state. On “fell on his sword,” literally. Yes, English uses the phrase, but usually as a metaphor for taking the blame, resigning, or sacrificing oneself politically. It is often journalistic and not meant literally. In Roman history it can still be literal, or at least narrated as literal. Grice’s quip, “a Roman may have fallen on his sword because he tripped,” is excellent because it satirises the over-readiness of classicists to moralise every death into a Stoic tableau. If you want an English analogue to Roman republican self-killing, the nearest moral analogue is not one man literally falling on his sword, but someone like Sidney becoming a civic martyr through execution. In other words: Roman republican dignity often culminates in self-chosen death. English republican dignity more often culminates in judicially inflicted death, then memorialised as martyrdom. So Spencer is probably not the best parallel unless Speranza had a very specific figure in mind and misremembered the name. Sidney is far stronger as the English republican martyr by execution. If one wants a Roman-style suicide parallel in English history, one has to search harder and will usually find less canonical, less politically central examples. If useful, I can do one of three things next, all here in chat. I can give you a compact comparative note, Rome versus England, on suicide, execution, and political martyrdom. I can try to identify which “Giunio” you have in mind and then give the nearest English counterpart. Or I can draft a dry Speranza-style paragraph on Grice’s joke about Stoicism, porches, and the English inability to die classically without first consulting procedure. And in any case Speranza and Grice were thinking of Cato the Younger (which was the gens?) rather than Giunio the younger proper, since the latter did not commit suicide other. In fact, Cato the elder may be the most manifest case -- are there others, in the long annals of Ancient Roman history? Yes: Cato the Younger was of the gens Porcia. His full standard name is Marcus Porcius Cato, usually distinguished as Cato Uticensis in later usage because of his death at Utica. So: gens Porcia nomen Porcius cognomen Cato And yes, if you are thinking of the great Roman exempla of self-killing as a political or moral act, Cato the Younger is the most manifest republican case. More manifest, in some ways, than Brutus, because Cato’s death became an ethical symbol almost at once, especially for Stoics and later anti-tyrannical readers. A small correction, though. Cato the Elder is not the famous suicide case. Cato the Elder, Marcus Porcius Cato Censorius, died a natural death. It is Cato the Younger, at Utica in 46 BC, who is the classic Roman case of political suicide as principled refusal of Caesar’s victory. If you want the main Roman cases across the long annals, they are these. Cato the Younger, the paradigmatic republican suicide, at Utica. Brutus, after Philippi, usually understood as self-killing rather than capture, very much in the Roman noble script. Cassius, likewise after Philippi. Mark Antony, after Actium’s aftermath and the fall of Alexandria, though his case belongs more to defeated dynastic politics than to republican moral theatre. Cleopatra is not Roman, of course, but belongs to the same narrative complex around Antony. Otho, emperor in AD 69, is a very important later Roman case. After defeat by Vitellius’s forces, he kills himself rather than prolong civil war. This is one of the most admired imperial examples, because it can be framed as self-sacrifice for the commonwealth rather than merely despair. Seneca, under Nero, is compelled to suicide, which is not quite the same thing as spontaneous self-killing, but in Roman moral memory it becomes one of the great Stoic death scenes. Petronius too, under Nero, in a more ironic and anti-Stoic mode, but still within the Roman script of controlled self-death. Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus are also in the Neronian zone of forced suicide or suicide under sentence, where the line between execution and self-killing blurs institutionally. Arria, though not a public office-holder in the same way, is one of the great Roman exempla of noble suicide, especially because of the famous “Paete, non dolet.” She belongs to Roman moral memory very strongly. The younger Arria too, in the broader aristocratic tradition of principled death. There are earlier legendary or semi-legendary Roman instances as well, but once one asks for historically weighty political exempla, the late Republic and early Empire supply most of the canonical names. So if you want the best list of major Roman self-killing figures in political and moral memory, it would include: Cato the Younger Brutus Cassius Antony Otho Seneca Petronius Thrasea Paetus Arria And one should distinguish types. Voluntary suicide as political refusal: Cato, Brutus, Cassius, Otho. Suicide under pressure, order, or expected condemnation: Seneca, Thrasea, many Neronian aristocrats. Dynastic or defeat-driven suicide: Antony. Moral exemplum in domestic-aristocratic form: Arria. This is why Cato the Younger became so central. He fuses several Roman ideals at once: republican liberty, Stoic constancy, refusal of clemency as dependence, and the idea that one’s final act can still be one’s own under political defeat. So Grice and Speranza are quite right to pivot from “Giunio” to Cato. If the topic is martyrdom of the republican cause by suicide, Cato is the proper Roman center of gravity. And on “stoic means porch,” your joke stands, but with a real edge. The Roman afterlife of Stoicism made the porch less an architectural location than a style of dying, which is exactly why English analogues feel weaker: England inherited some of the rhetoric, but not the same civic normalisation of self-killing as an honourable final public gesture. If useful, I can now do one of three things, all here in chat. I can give you a compact note on gens Porcia and the main Porcii Catones. I can give you a short comparative list of Roman suicides, sorted by political, philosophical, and moral type. Or I can draft a dry Speranza-style paragraph on why Cato the Younger is the true Roman limit-case for Grice’s joke about falling on one’s sword. And since this entry is fro Giunio -- You write: "Brutus, after Philippi, usually understood as self-killing rather than capture, very much in the Roman noble script." Can we have a source in Latin where the fact is expressed? Because I can think of a Latin class with M., the Latin master, and G., the brilliant pupil, and Shrosphire, G.'s classmate with the jokes -- on that -- Are there alternative accounts -- expressed differently? Because surely G. would like to detect the implicatures. The emphasis would be on the VERB -- to express the death and cause of death. And what year Ab urbe condita with Roman numerals would that be? Thanks. Yes. And here we can be fairly precise. The canonical Latin source for Brutus at Philippi is Velleius Paterculus, who gives the death in a compact and very Roman idiom: Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit. That means, literally, “Brutus brought death upon himself,” or more idiomatically, “Brutus took his own life.” That verb phrase is extremely important. Mors sibi consciscere is one of the standard high-register Latin ways of expressing suicide. It is concise, dignified, and morally loaded in a way that “he killed himself” in plain English only partly captures. Another very useful source is Florus, who also uses the same idiom for republican and civil-war deaths in this general historical register, though Velleius is the cleaner classroom text for Brutus himself. There are also Greek accounts, above all Plutarch, which give the fuller narrative detail: Brutus does not simply “die,” but throws himself upon his sword with the help of a companion. That is often how the later moral image is formed. In Latin, however, the historical summary often compresses the physical detail into the formula of self-chosen death. So if your Latin master wants the emphasis on the verb, the main expressions to put before G. and Shropshire are these. Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit. This is the most elegant historical formula. Brutus se interfecit. This is plainer Latin: “Brutus killed himself.” It is correct but less elevated and less historiographically Roman in tone. Brutus in gladium incubuit. This means “Brutus fell upon his sword.” This gives the physical manner more vividly, and is exactly the sort of phrase that would tempt Grice into his joke about whether a Roman “fell on his sword” because he tripped. It is good Latin, but often belongs more to narrative description than to the annalistic summary formula. Brutus ferro se transfixit. “He pierced himself with the sword / with steel.” Again, more physical and graphic. So yes, there are alternative ways of expressing the same death, and the implicatures differ. Mors sibi consciscere implies agency, dignity, and chosen death under moral and political pressure. It is the noblest and most Romanly compressed expression. Se interficere is semantically plain and morally thinner. It states the fact with less atmosphere. In gladium incumbere or se in gladium dare foregrounds the bodily act and can make the death more theatrical, more visible, more susceptible to moralisation. Ferro se transfigere or transfigi is still more physical and less politically stylised. That is exactly the sort of thing G. in your imagined classroom would enjoy: the verb is doing the philosophy before the master has begun to gloss it. As for alternative accounts, yes. The basic agreement is that Brutus dies by his own hand after Philippi in 42 BC. But the narrative texture varies. Some accounts compress the event into the moral formula of self-inflicted death. Others narrate the mechanics: after defeat, Brutus withdraws, finds one or more companions unwilling to help, finally gets assistance from Strato or another loyal figure, and runs onto the sword. So the alternatives are not usually “did he commit suicide or not?” but rather “how is the suicide to be described?” and “which detail is foregrounded: moral act, bodily act, or political consequence?” On the date ab urbe condita: The battle of Philippi and Brutus’ death belong to 42 BC. Using the usual Varronian reckoning, 42 BC = A.U.C. DCCXII. Here is the quick arithmetic: 1 BC = A.U.C. 753 so 42 BC = 753 - 41 = 712 therefore DCCXII. So if Speranza wants the Roman dating in full classical costume, you may write: Marcus Iunius Brutus, Philippis sibi ipse mortem conscivit, a.u.c. DCCXII. A small precision, because you care about these things: if one says “Giunio the younger proper,” the strict Roman name is Marcus Iunius Brutus. “The Younger” is a modern convenience, not the regular Roman historical label. For the death after Philippi, however, everyone knows which Brutus is meant. If useful, I can next do either of two things, all here in chat. I can give you a short schoolroom scene between M., G., and Shropshire focused entirely on the verbs: consciscere, interficere, incumbere, transfigere. Or I can give you a compact source note with the main Latin citation, the Greek narrative background, and the A.U.C. date in one dry paragraph fit for Speranza. And do we know who was the first Italian who translated that into Italian: Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit. -- becausae I can think of keeping Bruto as subect, conscive as cognate in Italian? mortem is the object -- brought death -- an the sibi ipse is dative -- to him -self? We do not, so far as I know, know who was the first Italian translator of that exact Latin sentence in any securely nameable “first” sense. That kind of priority is very hard to prove, because the phrase could have been rendered many times in chronicles, schoolbooks, lives of Brutus, annotated editions, and partial translations without one becoming the canonical first. So the honest answer is: not securely, unless one does a reception-history search in early Italian translations of Roman historians. But your grammatical instinct is good, and here the Latin is worth unpacking carefully. Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit. This does not mean “Brutus brought death to himself” in the ordinary dative-object sense, as if sibi were simply “to himself” alongside a direct object mortem and the verb “bring.” Rather, the idiom is a fixed classical expression. Mortem consciscere alicui, and especially sibi mortem consciscere, means to procure, bring about, or deliberately inflict death, especially upon oneself. In idiomatic English: to take one’s own life. In idiomatic Italian: darsi la morte, procurarsi la morte, togliersi la vita, uccidersi. So the clean parsing is: Brutus = subject mortem = object conscivit = verb, from consciscere sibi ipse = intensive reflexive complement, “for himself,” “upon himself,” emphatically “he himself upon himself” The force of sibi ipse is emphatic and reflexive. It is not merely a simple indirect object in the way one might gloss a schoolboy dative. It strengthens the self-directedness of the act: Brutus himself brought death upon himself. So if one wanted a very close Italian calque, one could say: Bruto si procurò da sé la morte. That is clumsy but close. More idiomatic Italian would be: Bruto si diede la morte. Bruto si tolse la vita. Bruto si uccise. Among these, si diede la morte best preserves something of the elevated Roman tone. Now to your thought about conscive in Italian. Italian does have forms from the same Latin family, but not in ordinary modern use as the normal verb for suicide. There is no natural modern Italian sentence like Bruto si conscisse la morte in standard prose. It would sound hyper-learned, archaizing, or simply strange. So although the Latin and Italian are cognate historically, Italian does not ordinarily exploit that exact cognate here. The usual Italian renderings would be: Bruto si diede la morte. Bruto si tolse la vita. Bruto si uccise. If one wanted to stay unusually close to the Latin for stylistic reasons, one might risk something like: Bruto si procacciò la morte. Bruto si procurò la morte. These are not exact lexical heirs of consciscere, but they preserve the sense of deliberate procurement. On whether Iustinus is a formative lexeme like iustus: that is a different but related morphological point. In this Brutus phrase, consciscere is a lexical verb, not an adjective-derived name. It is a fully functioning verb in classical Latin. By contrast, Iustinus is primarily an onomastic derivative from iustus, not the normal predicative adjective “just.” So no Roman would naturally say: Marcus est Iustinus meaning Marcus is just. He would say: Marcus iustus est. And similarly here no Roman is doing anything adjectival with conscivit. It is a fixed high-register verbal idiom. If you want the most literal line-by-line sense: Brutus = Brutus sibi ipse = for himself, himself personally, upon himself mortem = death conscivit = deliberately brought about, procured, resolved upon Hence: Brutus deliberately brought death upon himself. Or more idiomatically: Brutus took his own life. If useful, I can do one of two things next, still only in chat. I can give you a little four- or six-turn classroom exchange between M., G., and Shropshire on the grammar of sibi ipse mortem conscivit. Or I can give you a compact note on Italian translation possibilities, from the most literal to the most elegant. That's why I was thinking of the first Italian translation because they tend to sound archaic, Grice says, because they are: Bruto si conscisse la morte -- I suppose that if the vernacularist is good, he would have a note to the effect that he is maintaining the verb by Velleio -- The use of the reflexive 'si' does the trick well, of course the 'ipse' is missing -- but are there good Italian cognate: medesimo--how is THAT phrase analysed, and did it replace a more archaic and simpler emphatic particle? Yes, that is exactly the right instinct. Bruto si conscisse la morte is the kind of learned Italian calque that an early or deliberately archaizing translator might well choose precisely in order to let Velleius still be heard through the vernacular. It sounds archaic because it is trying to preserve, not merely report. A good vernacularist might indeed note that he is retaining the Latin verbal force of consciscere rather than flattening it into si uccise or si diede la morte. On the Italian reflexive, yes: si does a great deal of the work very elegantly. Latin has sibi ipse; Italian ordinarily gets by with si, because the reflexive is already built into the verbal form. The emphatic ipse, however, is not really represented unless one adds something. Possible Italian emphatic renderings would be: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. Bruto si procurò da sé la morte. Bruto medesimo si diede la morte. Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. Of these, medesimo is the more literary and archaizing way to recover some of ipse’s emphasis, though it is heavier than ordinary Italian would want. Now to medesimo. Medesimo is historically not a simple inherited equivalent of Latin ipse. It is a later Romance emphatic form, from metipsimus or a related reinforced formation built on the old emphatic element met plus an intensive/superlative development. In other words, it belongs to the long post-classical and Romance tendency to reinforce demonstratives and intensives because the older simple forms lose expressive force over time. That is a very common historical pattern: an older emphatic particle weakens, speakers reinforce it, the reinforced form becomes normal, and then that too may weaken in turn. Latin itself already shows part of this story. There is ipse, the classical intensive pronoun. There is also the enclitic/emphatic particle -met, as in egomet, memet, temet, semet. There are stronger combinations such as ipsemet. And in later development, Romance languages often build new emphatics because the old system no longer feels strong enough by itself. So yes, in a broad sense medesimo does replace simpler older emphatic resources, but not as a direct neat successor to one single particle. It belongs to a whole history of reinforced emphasis. If we analyse the Latin phrase: Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit sibi is reflexive dative ipse is the intensive, “himself in person,” “he himself” mortem is the object conscivit is the elevated verb A fairly close archaizing Italian analysis could be: Bruto si conscisse egli medesimo la morte but that is very stiff, almost too stiff even for a Renaissance translator. Better literary possibilities are: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. Bruto si diede da sé la morte. Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. If one wants to preserve both the learned verb and the reflexive emphasis, the first is probably the best compromise: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. That da sé is not a perfect equivalent of sibi ipse, but it carries the self-directedness with a nice old cadence. As for whether medesimo replaced a simpler emphatic particle: in vernacular history, yes, stronger forms often displace simpler ones because ordinary speech wants renewed emphasis. But the direct old simple equivalent in Italian is often stesso rather than medesimo. In modern Italian: egli stesso is the common living intensifier. medesimo is literary, bureaucratic, philosophical, or archaizing. esso medesimo and the like sound bookish. So if an Italian translator wanted elegance rather than sheer archaism, he might write: Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. If he wanted learned closeness to Velleius: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. If he wanted plain idiomatic force: Bruto si diede la morte. And if he wanted the morally elevated Roman tone without too much Latinism: Bruto si tolse la vita. One last philological note. Consciscere in the suicide idiom has that Roman ring because it suggests not just killing but resolving upon and bringing about one’s death. That is why si uccise is too flat, and si diede la morte or si procurò la morte are often better literary equivalents. If useful, I can now do one of two things, still only in chat. I can give you a tiny mock note by an imaginary first Italian translator, explaining why he chose si conscisse la morte. Or I can stage the classroom with M., G., and Shropshire on ipse, -met, stesso, and medesimo, with G. doing the philology and Shropshire making the wrong joke at the right time. Yes, that is exactly the right instinct. Bruto si conscisse la morte is the kind of learned Italian calque that an early or deliberately archaizing translator might well choose precisely in order to let Velleius still be heard through the vernacular. It sounds archaic because it is trying to preserve, not merely report. A good vernacularist might indeed note that he is retaining the Latin verbal force of consciscere rather than flattening it into si uccise or si diede la morte. On the Italian reflexive, yes: si does a great deal of the work very elegantly. Latin has sibi ipse; Italian ordinarily gets by with si, because the reflexive is already built into the verbal form. The emphatic ipse, however, is not really represented unless one adds something. Possible Italian emphatic renderings would be: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. Bruto si procurò da sé la morte. Bruto medesimo si diede la morte. Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. Of these, medesimo is the more literary and archaizing way to recover some of ipse’s emphasis, though it is heavier than ordinary Italian would want. Now to medesimo. Medesimo is historically not a simple inherited equivalent of Latin ipse. It is a later Romance emphatic form, from metipsimus or a related reinforced formation built on the old emphatic element met plus an intensive/superlative development. In other words, it belongs to the long post-classical and Romance tendency to reinforce demonstratives and intensives because the older simple forms lose expressive force over time. That is a very common historical pattern: an older emphatic particle weakens, speakers reinforce it, the reinforced form becomes normal, and then that too may weaken in turn. Latin itself already shows part of this story. There is ipse, the classical intensive pronoun. There is also the enclitic/emphatic particle -met, as in egomet, memet, temet, semet. There are stronger combinations such as ipsemet. And in later development, Romance languages often build new emphatics because the old system no longer feels strong enough by itself. So yes, in a broad sense medesimo does replace simpler older emphatic resources, but not as a direct neat successor to one single particle. It belongs to a whole history of reinforced emphasis. If we analyse the Latin phrase: Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit sibi is reflexive dative ipse is the intensive, “himself in person,” “he himself” mortem is the object conscivit is the elevated verb A fairly close archaizing Italian analysis could be: Bruto si conscisse egli medesimo la morte but that is very stiff, almost too stiff even for a Renaissance translator. Better literary possibilities are: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. Bruto si diede da sé la morte. Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. If one wants to preserve both the learned verb and the reflexive emphasis, the first is probably the best compromise: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. That da sé is not a perfect equivalent of sibi ipse, but it carries the self-directedness with a nice old cadence. As for whether medesimo replaced a simpler emphatic particle: in vernacular history, yes, stronger forms often displace simpler ones because ordinary speech wants renewed emphasis. But the direct old simple equivalent in Italian is often stesso rather than medesimo. In modern Italian: egli stesso is the common living intensifier. medesimo is literary, bureaucratic, philosophical, or archaizing. esso medesimo and the like sound bookish. So if an Italian translator wanted elegance rather than sheer archaism, he might write: Bruto si diede egli stesso la morte. If he wanted learned closeness to Velleius: Bruto si conscisse da sé la morte. If he wanted plain idiomatic force: Bruto si diede la morte. And if he wanted the morally elevated Roman tone without too much Latinism: Bruto si tolse la vita. One last philological note. Consciscere in the suicide idiom has that Roman ring because it suggests not just killing but resolving upon and bringing about one’s death. That is why si uccise is too flat, and si diede la morte or si procurò la morte are often better literary equivalents. If useful, I can now do one of two things, still only in chat. I can give you a tiny mock note by an imaginary first Italian translator, explaining why he chose si conscisse la morte. Or I can stage the classroom with M., G., and Shropshire on ipse, -met, stesso, and medesimo, with G. doing the philology and Shropshire making the wrong joke at the right time. Yes. Medesimo preserves, through a long and tangled history, part of the old emphatic machinery that also turns up around ipse and met, but stesso has a different and rather elegant story. Stesso comes ultimately from Latin ipse, not from stare and not from a separate native adjective meaning “same.” More exactly, it comes through a Vulgar Latin form of the type istum ipsum or ipsum itself in reinforced demonstrative use, and then through phonetic and analogical developments in Romance. The key idea is that what begins as an emphatic or deictic form, “that very one,” “the selfsame one,” can drift into the ordinary intensifier and identity-marker “same,” “selfsame,” “himself.” So se stesso is historically the reflexive pronoun plus a later Romance intensifier descended from Latin ipse-type material. That is why Italian can say: se stesso himself, oneself and also: lo stesso uomo the same man The modern form stesso does two jobs at once: it is an intensifier, as in lui stesso and it is an identity marker, as in lo stesso libro That double function is very old in the history of ipse-like forms. Now, if you ask how this differs from medesimo, the difference is roughly this. Medesimo is heavier, more literary, more overtly reinforced, and historically more composite. Stesso is the ordinary living continuation of the old intensive-identificatory stream. So in living Italian: se stesso is normal se medesimo is elevated, literary, archaic, or bureaucratic The historical logic is familiar: a strong emphatic form becomes ordinary; once ordinary, speakers create stronger reinforced forms; those reinforced forms then survive in literary or high registers. Latin already had several layers of emphasis: se semet se ipse semet ipsum and so on Romance continues the same appetite for reinforcement, but with new forms. So if you are thinking about the old Latin phrase: Brutus sibi ipse mortem conscivit then Italian can render the emphatic portion in several ways: si diede la morte plain reflexive, emphasis mostly implicit si diede da sé la morte adds self-directed emphasis si diede egli stesso la morte uses stesso as the living intensifier corresponding rather well to ipse si diede egli medesimo la morte more archaic and weightier, perhaps over-rich unless one wants a consciously old style So yes, se stesso is in some sense the natural modern heir to the intensive function of ipse. A useful compact way to put it is this: Latin ipse gave Romance a whole family of intensive and identity forms. In Italian, stesso is the normal living outcome in this functional space, while medesimo is a heavier reinforced form. Thus se stesso is the idiomatic modern reflexive intensive, whereas se medesimo is marked and literary. One small philological caution. People often say simply “stesso comes from ipse,” which is basically right at the functional level, but the actual historical path is not a clean single-step inheritance from classical ipse to modern stesso. There are intermediary Vulgar Latin and Romance stages, reinforced demonstratives, and analogical levellings. Still, for your purposes, the central truth is: stesso belongs to the old ipse-family of emphasis and identity. And that is why your instinct about medesimo was also good: both medesimo and stesso are heirs, in different ways, to the old Latin habit of reinforcing identity and self-reference beyond the bare reflexive. If useful, I can do one of two things next, still only in chat. I can give you a tiny comparative table in prose: se, se stesso, se medesimo, semet ipsum, sibi ipse. Or I can write the little classroom scene with M., G., and Shropshire on ipse, met, stesso, and medesimo, with G. being philological and Shropshire being wrong in exactly the useful way. So are you saying, that say, Lewis and Short, in their entry for iste, ista, istum -- would have it as a corruption with the /p/ sound in ipse, ipsa, ispsum? -- because in deictic the idea is usually that there is proximal/medial/distant as in this/that/yore or something -- questo e quello -- I'm not sure about the medial there, or queste and quel -- or questa and quella for the feminine. No, I am not saying Lewis and Short would derive iste from ipse by “corruption,” and certainly not in the sense of a lexicon entry for iste saying, in effect, “really ipse with a damaged p.” The safer answer is: iste and ipse are different Latin words with different functions, though historically they may touch older demonstrative material at a deep Indo-European or Italic level. A standard dictionary treats them separately, not as one being a corruption of the other. Functionally: hic = this, near the speaker iste = that of yours, near the addressee, or that there in relation to you ille = that over there, more distant, often emphatically so ipse = self, very, the very one, the same person/thing in emphatic identity So ipse is not primarily one of the ordinary three-way deictics at all. It is an intensive or identitarian form, not simply a “medial demonstrative.” That is why your instinct about proximal / medial / distal is right for part of the Latin system, but not for ipse. A rough practical scheme is: hic = proximal iste = addressee-oriented / medial-ish ille = distal ipse = intensive, emphatic, “the very one,” “himself,” “itself” Now to Italian. Modern Italian does not preserve the old Latin three-term deictic system neatly. questo = this, near speaker quello = that, farther away or less immediate codesto = that near you / that of yours But codesto is now mainly Tuscan or literary and not normal in most modern Italian usage. So everyday Italian often runs with a practical two-term system: questo / quello That is why the Latin middle term feels partly missing in modern standard Italian. For the feminine: questa quella and, where still used, codesta For the plural: questi / queste quelli / quelle codesti / codeste So when you say “queste and quel,” the better pairings are: queste / quelle for feminine plural questa / quella for feminine singular questo / quello for masculine singular or general demonstrative use Now back to stesso. Stesso is not simply the descendant of iste. It belongs, broadly speaking, to the stream of forms around ipse and reinforced demonstrative/intensive uses in late Latin and Romance. So if one is looking for the ancestor of Italian stesso, one should think in the direction of ipse-type intensification, not ordinary iste. Very schematically: iste remains in Romance mostly as demonstrative material in some languages and dialects ipse feeds emphatic/identity forms and contributes to things like stesso So a lexicon like Lewis and Short would keep: iste, ista, istud and ipse, ipsa, ipsum as distinct lexical entries, with their own uses and histories not as “one is a corrupted spelling of the other.” Two small cautions. First, the exact historical pathway from classical Latin ipse to Italian stesso is not a simple one-line sound change. There are late Latin, Vulgar Latin, and analogical stages in between. Second, Latin deictic systems in actual usage are messier than neat schoolroom tables suggest. Authors often shift values rhetorically: iste can become contemptuous ille can become famous or elevated hic can be discourse-near rather than physically near ipse can overlap with identity and emphasis in ways that make translation tricky So the clean takeaway is: No, iste is not treated as a corruption of ipse. Iste belongs to the demonstrative system. Ipse belongs to the intensive / identity system. Italian largely collapses the old three-term deictic contrast into two everyday terms, while preserving a third, codesto, only marginally. Italian stesso comes from the ipse-side of things, not from iste in the ordinary sense. If useful, I can do one of two things next, still only here in chat. I can give you a compact prose table of hic, iste, ille, ipse and their Italian continuations. Or I can stage the little classroom with M., G., and Shropshire on why ipse is not “the middle demonstrative” and why codesto is the ghost of iste.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Giunio: la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano Giunio Maurizio (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano. A follower of the Porch, and one of the senators who opposed NERONE. GRICEVS: IVNIVS, salve. Audio te Stoicum esse: num ideo semper in porticu ambulas, ne umquam in angulo cogitare cogaris? IVNIVS: Salve, GRICEVS. In porticu ambulo, quia ibi ventus docet brevitatem. Tu autem cur tam lente loqueris, quasi maxima tua pedibus calceata sint? GRICEVS: Lente, ut tu celerius intellegas. Nam qui nimis festinat, saepe plus implicat quam dicit—et deinde queritur quod intellegitur. IVNIVS: Recte; sed Stoicus sum, non haruspex. Si vis aliquid, dic; sin minus, tace: porticus ipsa reliqua “cooperatur.”

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: la connversazione – i verbalI: Giunore – Ossia: Grice e Giuniore: la ragione conversazionale e la geografia filosofica Giuniore (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e la geografia filosofica. A philosopher who wrote, or edited, a short work on geography, comprising the whole of Rome, and some of the shoreline outskirts, including Ostia. GRICEVS: IVNIOR, si totam Romam in libello includis, cave: Roma ipsa solet etiam philosophos includere. IVNIOR: GRICEVE, includo Romam, sed Ostiam addo, ne lectores sine portu philosophentur. GRICEVS: Bene; sed memento principii cooperativi: noli vias omnes describere—satis est ut quis ad vinum perveniat. IVNIOR: Ita faciam: dicam tantum “Hic est Forum,” et reliqua implicabuntur; nam Roma, ut scis, plus significat quam dicit.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La conversazione -- i verbali: Giussani – Ossia: Grice e Giussani: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’amicizia – il comune,  fraternità, liberazione.  Luigi Giovanni Giussani (Desio, Monza, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’amicizia – il comune,  fraternità, liberazione. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning starts from the idea that what we mean in talk is made intelligible by shared rational norms (cooperation, relevance, informativeness, etc.) and by an audience’s recognition of intention, so that implicatures are, in principle, inferable and answerable to reasons rather than to mood or charisma. Giussani, by contrast, treats human communication less as an inferential puzzle to be solved and more as a concrete form of companionship and education: friendship, “the common,” and fraternity are not just topics but the medium in which truth becomes credible, and the pragmatic point of speech is often to invite adhesion, trust, and shared life rather than to transmit a proposition as efficiently as possible. Put Grice next to Giussani and you get a helpful contrast of levels: Grice analyzes the micro-logic by which speakers responsibly get hearers to grasp meanings beyond the literal sentence; Giussani emphasizes the interpersonal and communal conditions that make such grasping matter—why we speak at all, why we bind ourselves to one another’s words, and how a community of friends can carry meanings (and commitments) that cannot be reduced to what is explicitly said. In Gricean terms, Giussani’s “amicizia” foregrounds a thicker background of common ground and mutual trust: the cooperative principle is not merely a methodological assumption for deriving implicatures, but a lived moral posture that turns conversation into a form of shared rational life, where what is left unsaid is sustained by fraternity rather than merely computed by maxims. Grice: “I have always been interested in what he calls a philosophisma. Take ‘friend’. Aristotle says that a happy life is self-sufficient. Who needs friends like that? amicizia. I like G.; of course at Oxford he would be a no-no, being a Catholic; but he understands the pragmatics of conversation!” Ricevette la prima introduzione dalla madre Angelina Gelosa, operaia tessile; il padre Beniamino, disegnatore e intagliatore, era un socialista. Entra nel seminario diocesano San Pietro Martire di Seveso dove frequenta i primi quattro anni di ginnasio. Si trasfere a Venegono Inferiore, nella sede principale del seminario dove frequenta l'ultimo anno di ginnasio, i tre anni del liceo e dove svolge i successivi studi di filosofia.  Ha come docenti, fra gli altri, Colombo, Corti, Carlo, e Figini. In quella sede conosce i compagni di studio Manfredini e Biffi. Si interessa di Leopardi e delle chiese ortodosse.  Riceve l'ordinazione da Schuster.  Dopo l'ordinazione, rimase nel seminario di Venegono come insegnante e si specializzò nello studio della teologia orientale, specie sugli slavofili, della teologia protestante e della motivazione razionale dell'adesione alla Chiesa. Lascia l'insegnamento in seminario per quello nelle scuole superiori. Inizia l'insegnamento della religione nelle scuole a Milano dove e suo alunno Giorello. Le riunioni di suoi studenti si tennero con il nome di Gioventù Studentesca, che fonda insieme a Ricci e che fa parte dell'Azione Cattolica.  Inizia anche un'attività pubblicistica volta a porre attenzione sulla questione educativa. Redasse la voce "Educazione" per l'Enciclopedia Cattolica.  Sotto  Colombo continua gli studi di teologia protestante per i quali soggiornò per cinque mesi negli Stati Uniti. Ottenne la cattedra di Introduzione alla Teologia a Milano. dell’amicizia. Grice: “St John’s, Oxford — 22 October 1955. Strawson has asked me for a copy of that old talk I gave to the Oxford Philosophical Society on “meaning.” I wonder what his meaning means; or rather, I wonder what he means by wanting my meaning. Perhaps he intends to publish it, in which case I ought to pretend I wrote it with publication in mind; or perhaps he simply wants ammunition for a seminar, in which case he will quote it as if it were holy writ and then deny having done so. In any case, I went to the Bodleian yesterday and, while waiting for a book to arrive from whatever subterranean limbo books inhabit before they are resurrected, I found an abstract by one Giussani on il senso dell’uomo secondo Niebuhr. The Italians have a gift for titles that are perfectly clear to them and perfectly opaque to everyone else; I lay the blame, as usual, on Frege. Frege’s sin was to persuade a generation that Sinn is the only respectable thing in the neighbourhood, and ever since then people have been parading “sense” about as if it were self-explanatory. Meanwhile Austin is lecturing on sense and sensibilia, largely, I suspect, because “sensibilia” makes “sense” look as if it has dressed for dinner. He likes a title that can be pronounced with a straight face while the audience is already laughing. But “sense” is a treacherous word: more nonsensical than nonsense if one actually tries to keep track of what it is supposed to do. One day it means meaning; the next it means sensation; the next it means judgement; and by the end of the week it means no more than “the bit you can’t deny without seeming a fool.” Giussani, reading Niebuhr, is presumably not thinking about any of this; he is after the “sense of man,” which sounds like something you might mislay in the rain. Still, there is a useful moral hidden in the Italian: if you title everything with “sense,” you can always claim profundity and never have to say, plainly, what you mean. And that, I suppose, is precisely what Strawson thinks I am good for. Grice: Carissimo Giussani, devo confessarti che, fin dai tempi del Liceo—o, come direste voi, il “lizio”—l'aporia sull'amicizia ci tormenta tutti! Ma tu, secondo me, hai avuto il coraggio di affrontare, se non addirittura risolvere, quel grande enigma che da Aristotele ci perseguita. Sono sinceramente impressionato: hai portato la questione dell'amicizia fuori dalle sabbie mobili filosofiche e l'hai fatta respirare tra gente vera! Giussani: Paul, ti ringrazio! Devo dire che l'amicizia mi ha sempre affascinato più dei silenzi dei filosofi. E poi, forse al Lycaeum avrebbero fatto un brindisi in tuo onore per aver sollevato il problema con tanto spirito inglese! Grice: Ah, Giussani, mi piace pensare che Aristotele e i suoi amici, al tramonto di Atene, si siano divertiti quanto noi oggi! La tua frase sulla compagnia mi ricorda che la filosofia, in fondo, è solo una conversazione tra amici che cercano la verità—magari con una battuta in mezzo. Giussani: Esattamente, Paul! L'amicizia è una faccenda che non si risolve mai del tutto, ma ci diverte provarci, no? Del resto, come diceva mia madre: “Meglio una buona compagnia che cento solitudini brillanti!” E poi, se proprio abbiamo sciolto un'aporia, sarà merito anche della conversazione, non credi? Giussani, Luigi Giovanni (1954). Il senso cristiano dell’uomo. Venegono.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La conversazione -- i verbali: Giusso – ossia: Grice e Giusso: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale degl’eroi – filosofia fascista --  il mistico dell’azione.  Lorenzo Giusso (Napoli, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale degl’eroi – filosofia fascista --  il mistico dell’azione. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers recover what speakers mean beyond what they literally say by assuming rational cooperation and then inferring intentions and implicatures under shared norms of relevance, sufficiency, sincerity, and clarity; it is a model built to make indirectness accountable rather than intoxicating. Giusso, by contrast, writes in a register where public language is meant to move souls and make history: his journalism and philosophical criticism (shaped by the Naples milieu, by engagement with Gentile’s actualism, by polemics with Croce, and by an attraction to “vitalist” and “heroic” rhetoric) treats discourse as scenographic action, a performance that aims less at cooperative convergence than at mobilization, conversion, and the cultivation of a national-political temper. In Gricean terms, Giusso’s “mystique of action” exploits implicature not as a tidy, cancellable inference but as a field-effect: large nouns like Nation, Hero, Action, Tradition invite readers to supply the missing specification, and the very vagueness can be the point, because it lets a heterogeneous audience coordinate emotionally without agreeing proposition-by-proposition. So where Grice analyzes implication as the rational residue of a cooperative exchange, Giusso exemplifies a political style in which what is left unsaid is deliberately left available—less a calculable implicature than a rhetorical summons—showing how, in mass politics, the pragmatics of uptake may be driven more by identity, atmosphere, and institutional pressure than by the conversational norms that make implicature responsibly derivable in ordinary talk. Grice: “There is a great difference between Bologna – the oldest university – and Oxford: we never had a Mussolini! fascismo. I like G.: he has explored philosophers from his country like Leopardi and Bruno, and tdhe whole ‘tradizione ermetica nella filosofia italiana,’ but also French – Bergson – and especially “Dutch,” i. e. Deutsche or tedesca – Spengler, and Nietsche – All very Italian!” Si laurea a Napoli sotto ALIOTTA. Segue con passione l'attualismo di GENTILE e proprio il suo carattere passionale lo porta anche nel campo filosofico ad un tipo di critica scenografica. Le sue frizioni con CROCE, inizialmente orientate su temi politici, presero più tardi una forma "sotterranea", genericamente orientata contro l'idealism. G. si richiama al fatalismo di LEOPARDI. Oltre che per la sua interpretazione della Scienza nuova vichiana (che si attirò una severa recensione dello stesso Croce, G. è criticato dall'ambiente crociano. G, critico e storico delle idee s'identificava con la visione della vita di autori che sentiva a lui vicini per temperamento ed interessi come Bruno, Vico dall'analisi degli scritti del quale nacque l'infastidita reazione di Croce, Giacomo, Bacchelli, Barilli, Papini, Soffici, Palazzeschi, Borgese, Gozzano, che molto ispira Don Giovanni ammalato. I suoi Tafferugli a Montecavallo meriterebbero forse di essere più conosciuti. Partecipa all'atmosfera culturale della Napoli segnata dal cenacolo di Croce, da cui molto presto si distaccò (come TILGHER , che egli difende e mostra di apprezzare) assumendo posizioni eretiche e ispirandosi piuttosto a un ideale di vitalismo che risulta evidente dai numerosi autori e dalle molte opere cui dedicò la sua attenzione. Intelligenza precoce, prima di intraprendere l'insegnamento universitario che lo avrebbe allontanato da Napoli portandolo ad insegnare Filosofia a Bologna, Pisa, e Cagliari, gl’eroi, il vico di giusso, la tradizione ermetica nella filosofia italiana, nazionalsocialismo, bruno, panteismo, leopardi, occasionalismo. Grice: “Corpus Christi College, Oxford — 7 February 1933. Why does Corpus insist on keeping old newspapers? There is something faintly indecent about it, as if yesterday’s excitements ought not to be preserved once they have ceased to excite. Still, I found myself distracted today by a piece by Lorenzo Giusso in that formidable organ of Italian journalism, L’Idea Nazionale. One cannot even translate the title into English without hearing the objection before it is spoken. “The National Idea”? The first thing my tutor would ask is: “Of what?” and the second would be: “And whose?” Italians can apparently say “the Nation” in the singular with a straight face; we, being an island and therefore permanently in two minds about everything, would want at least a footnote, and preferably a committee. My tutor, to be fair, has written on Plato, so one might expect him to have learned the elementary lesson that an Idea, left alone, is a dangerous abstraction: it starts by hovering and ends by governing. But he writes as if “national” were a self-explaining adjective—an enchantment rather than a specification. Perhaps that is the trick of newspapers: they sell you a large noun and let you supply the rest out of mood, prejudice, or patriotic habit. And there is the further difficulty that my own tutor is a Scot; and whatever their national idea is, it is not quite ours, and certainly not the one that appears in English school anthologies when they are being earnest. If this is “the” national idea, it is a remarkably plural one. In any case, by the end of Giusso’s piece I felt that he, too, had no idea—at least not the sort that would survive being asked, calmly and repeatedly, “Of what?” Perhaps the whole point of a national idea is that it must not be made too clear; clarity would force it to become a plan, and then someone would have to carry it out. Better to leave it where newspapers like it: large, resonant, and just out of reach.” Grice: Lorenzo, parlando di eroi e della mistica dell’azione, mi viene in mente quanto la filosofia italiana abbia saputo intrecciare passione e pensiero. La tua esplorazione del vitalismo e del fatalismo leopardiano mi affascina: pensi che l’azione abbia sempre una radice mistica nell’esperienza filosofica? Giusso: Paul, credo che la mistica dell'azione sia proprio il cuore di una filosofia che non teme il rischio. Per me, l’implicatura conversazionale degli eroi risiede nella volontà di incarnare idee, non solo di discuterle. La tradizione ermetica, da Bruno a Vico, mostra come il pensiero italiano sappia farsi carne, anche quando è controcorrente. Grice: Interessante! In Inghilterra, forse siamo più cauti, meno inclini a esaltarci. Ma mi colpisce la tua critica scenografica: hai sempre preferito la passione all’idealismo astratto di Croce? E cosa ti ha portato a difendere autori come Tilgher, che sono più “eretici” rispetto al mainstream? Giusso: Hai ragione, Paul. La passione mi ha sempre spinto a cercare nel pensiero quella scintilla che lo rende vivo. Gli eretici, come Tilgher, mi hanno insegnato che la verità non si trova nel consenso, ma nella capacità di rinnovarsi e resistere. Come dice il proverbio napoletano: “Chi va piano va sano e va lontano”—ma ogni tanto bisogna anche correre, se si vuole davvero cambiare il mondo. Giusso, Lorenzo (1925). Contributo. L’idea nazionale.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La conversazione -- i verbali: Giusti – Ossia: Grice e Giusti: la ragione conversazionale.  Domenico Maria Giusti (Montegranaro, Fermo, Marche): la ragione conversazionale. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats metaphor and other figures as cases where a speaker can mean more than is literally said, in a way that is recoverable by rational hearers using shared expectations about what counts as relevant, informative, and appropriately expressed; the point of a figure, on this view, is not mere ornament but an inferentially tractable device that invites (and constrains) an audience’s reconstruction of intention and implicature. Domenico Maria Giusti, by contrast, comes from the early modern rhetorical tradition in which the primary explanatory framework is not cooperative inference but the taxonomy of tropes and figures and their effects on persuasion and eloquence: his Trattato della rettorica (Macerata, per il Silvestri, 1703) explicitly aims to teach, with brevity and clarity, how to deploy metaphor, metonymy, and the rest as craft tools for “the way of perorating.” The comparison, then, is that Giusti offers a handbook model of rhetorical success (how to produce effective speech by choosing the right figure), whereas Grice offers a rational-pragmatic model of how such speech is understood (how hearers, assuming rational cooperation, move from what is said to what is meant, including the extra layer that a metaphor licenses); where Giusti explains the inventory and artistry of expression, Grice explains the norms and inferences that make that artistry communicatively intelligible rather than merely decorative. Grice: “I like G! His discussion of metaphor is my source for my ‘You are the cream in my coffee.’ His treatise provides a simple and clear explanation of tropes, figures, and other rhetorical devices.  The Greek verb from which "rhetorical" is derived has a direct cognate in Latin.  "Rhetorical" comes from the rhētōr, derived from the verb εἴρω, meaning "I speak" or "I say". The Latin cognate of eírō is verbum, from the same Indo-European root *werh₁-, to speak.  While the Greek branch evolved to produce terms for professional public speaking (rhētorikḗ), the Latin branch produced the standard term for a single word or the part of speech that "speaks" an action (verbum). The Greek root rheō (to flow), which is sometimes confused with the speaking root, is actually a distinct root (*sreu-) and is the source of terms like "rheology" or "diarrhea. The Italian word  bisogno (meaning "need") does not have a native Latin root; instead, it is a borrowing into Vulgar Latin from a Germanic (Frankish) source.    Etymological Path Frankish Root: It originates from the Frankish word **bisunnija, meaning "care," "concern," or "need". It entered late spoken Latin as **bisonium. The original term is composed of two parts: bi-: A prefix used for emphasis. sunnija: Meaning "care," "responsibility," or "worry".  While it shares an ancestor with the French word besoin, the Italian bisogno developed independently from the Vulgar Latin bisonium TRATTATO DELLA RETTORICA introduzione all'eloquenza DOVE Con Breoiti, Faciliti, e chiarezza fona «spefli io lingua italiana li tropi, le figure e altre cose non meno utili «h^gcy|^ Deccfiariea tutti quelli che de^^'^O^ fìdcrarjo incaminatfi tGttóS /5> via del perorare: iDAIO IN LVCE DA G., curato della Chitf* parocchiale di S. PIETRO IN Montegranaro, si dal medesimo co ofictato alli meriti imparegiibili dell'llluft'ifs. tic. in cui ha fortuna di rimirare e godere i benignissimi influJfidel r vagbijfimo cielo della nobiltà cingolana, e lo zelo principalmente, con cui. Ella attende à colli tiare gli n.'fficij di piefitti, in far Sene educare, ed iflruir e i. Grice: “Clifton, Michaelmas Term, 1926. Today the Latin master told Shropshire, in front of us all, that he was eloquent—very. Shropshire, who hears Latin the way a terrier hears a whistle, brightened at the ending and assumed the master meant loquent, which Shropshire also is, if loquacity were a scholarship. “E?” he said, as if one could interrogate a prefix like a witness. The master frowned. “Your point, Shropshire?” “What is e- doing in eloquentia?” And I remember thinking (if it is psychologically possible to think in italics), Oh dear—he is looking for trouble again. But the master took it kindly, as masters sometimes do when they smell a genuine question under the cheek. He explained that eloqui is not merely loqui, and that eloquentia is not just “speech” but speech pressed out, speech brought forth, speech with a sort of clean exit—whereas loquentia, if it were a thing one ought to admire, would be mere running-on. “One letter more,” he said, “and a world of difference.” “One letter less, too,” Shropshire whispered to me, “and the Romans would have been grateful—hard enough carving the things on stone.” When the master had, at our request, made the matter clearer to the whole class, he concluded with a little flourish: “Today, Shropshire has yet again proved his—er—e-, e-loquence. Class dismissed.”Grice: Caro Giusti, ogni volta che sento parlare di tropi e figure, mi viene voglia di mettere la panna nel caffè, come dici tu! Ma dimmi, tu che hai scritto un trattato chiaro e semplice, preferisci la metafora o la metonimia? Giusti: Paul, la metafora è come una buona battuta: se fa sorridere e illumina, vale doppio! La metonimia invece è come quando chiedi il bicchiere ma vuoi il vino – pratica, ma un po’ meno poetica. Grice: Allora siamo d’accordo che la chiarezza vince sempre sulla confusione! In fondo, anche la parola “bisogno” ha fatto un bel viaggio: dai Franchi ai caffè italiani, passando per un trattato di retorica. Giusti: Esatto, Paul! La lingua è come la vita: scorre, si mescola e ogni tanto serve una buona conversazione per mettere tutto a posto. E se manca una figura, si improvvisa – purché la battuta sia gentile! Giusti, Domenico Maria (1703). Trattato della rettorica overo introduzzione all’eloquenza. Macerata: Silvestri.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La conversazione --  i verbali: Giustino – Ossia: Grice e Giustino: la ragione conversazionale e la gnossi a Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma) Giustino: la ragione conversazionale e la gnossi a Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Giustino is cited by Ippolito di Roma as the originator of what Ippolito describes as a pagan form of gnosticism in which a wide variety of disparate elements are brought together.  GRICEVS: Iustine, audio Hippolytum te quasi principem gnoseos paganae facere, qui omnia miscet: philosophos, mythos, ritus, et quodvis quod in foro invenitur. Hoc estne ratio conversandi, an recepta culina? IVSTINVS: Amice, si “gnosis” mea est, non est confusio sed collectio: diversa coniungo ut verum elucescat. Qui multa legit, multa etiam implicat. GRICEVS: Bene; sed cave ne te “varietas” prodere videatur. Nam ubi omnia simul dicuntur, auditor suspicatur nihil proprie dici—et gnosticus fit potius congerens quam docens. IVSTINVS: At ego respondeo: ipsa congeries est argumentum. Implicatura mea est haec: si veritas una est, fragmenta ubique sunt; et si me paganum vocant, id tantum significat me etiam cum paganis civiliter loqui, ut eos paulatim ad meliorem rationem traham. This is another Giustino. Do we know the gens. How common was IVSTINVS as a Roman 'cognomen' -- was it a variant of IVSTVS -- it just means 'just', with Justinian adding _what_ to 'just.' Would a Roman say: "Marcus est justus' with somone correcting, "Non: justinus" -- i.e. does any Latin lexicon incorporate justinus, -a, -um, as a formative lexeme out of the simpler one? Yes, this is a different “Giustino,” and here the answer is much less secure than with a fully Roman tria nomina. Short answer first. We do not securely know the gens. Iustinus was certainly used as a cognomen in Roman and late Roman naming. It is formed from iustus, “just,” by the very common suffix -inus. So, yes, it is in that sense a derivative of Iustus. But that does not mean it is simply interchangeable with iustus in ordinary predication. A Roman would not normally say “Marcus est Iustinus” to mean “Marcus is just,” with someone correcting “non: iustus.” That is not how the form works. Iustus is the adjective “just, upright, fair.” Iustinus is ordinarily a name, or at most an adjectival derivative meaning something like “belonging to Justus,” “of Justus,” or “Just-like” in a name-forming way, not the basic predicate “just.” So the contrast is: Marcus est iustus = Marcus is just. Marcus Iustinus = Marcus Justinus, where Iustinus is a cognomen or name-element. A few philological points. The suffix -inus in Latin often forms derivatives from names or nouns. It can indicate belonging, relation, descent, association, or secondary formation. In names, it is extremely common. So Iustinus from Iustus is structurally normal. Compare, in a loose morphological sense, the kind of move one sees in many Roman and late Roman cognomina and gentilicial derivatives. As for Justinianus, that is a further derivative. Morphologically, it is built on Iustinus or on the same stem extended with -ianus. The force of -ianus is often “belonging to,” “connected with,” “of the party/house of,” or “descended from.” So Iustinianus is not simply “more just.” It is not a comparative of moral quality. It is rather “Justinian,” that is, a name derived from Justinus with the additional -ianus formation. In onomastic terms, it marks relation, affiliation, or derivation, not degree of justice. So if you ask what Justinian adds to “just,” the answer is not “more just” but rather something like “of/pertaining to Justinus” in a name-forming sense. Would a Latin lexicon include iustinus, -a, -um as a regular lexical adjective? Sometimes lexica will note such formations morphologically, but in practice Iustinus is encountered overwhelmingly as a proper name or cognomen rather than as a freely used lexical adjective meaning “just-ish” or “rather just.” The ordinary moral adjective remains iustus. As for frequency, Iustinus becomes quite common in imperial and especially late antique / Christian contexts. It is much more at home in the empire and late empire than in the high Republican naming world. It is not bizarre as a Roman cognomen, but it is more characteristic of later naming habits than of old Republican aristocratic nomenclature. Now to your “other Giustino,” the one Hippolytus mentions. If this is the Justin referred to by Hippolytus as a source of a pagan or quasi-gnostic system, we still do not have enough to assign a gens with confidence. “Iustinus” by itself does not give you a gens. It is a cognomen or single-name form. Without a secure nomen, no secure gens follows. So the clean answer is: No securely identifiable gens. Iustinus is a cognomen or name-form, not enough by itself to recover a gens. It is morphologically derived from iustus, but not used as the ordinary adjective “just.” And yes, Hippolytus’ Justin is not Justin Martyr. They are different figures. One further nuance. In later Roman and Christian usage, names built from virtues or positive moral qualities become especially common and can feel less tightly tied to the old gentilicial system. That is another reason why recovering a gens from Iustinus alone is usually hopeless. So, in the driest usable form: Iustinus is a common late Roman cognomen, morphologically derived from iustus by the suffix -inus. It does not function as the ordinary predicate adjective “just,” for which Latin uses iustus; rather, it is an onomastic derivative, and further formations such as Iustinianus add another layer of name-based affiliation, not moral intensification. In the case of Hippolytus’ Justin, no secure gens can be recovered from the surviving form of the name alone. If useful, I can now do one of three things, all here in chat. I can give you a compact philological note on iustus, Iustinus, and Iustinianus. I can give you a short note on the use of -inus and -ianus in Roman names. Or I can draft two or three dry Speranza-style sentences on why Hippolytus’ Justin is good for Grice: too much collected doctrine, too little disciplined uptake.