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

 G.: I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so. S.: The Reverend Sidney again. G.: A useful patron saint for titles. Esistenzialismo e storicismo is almost too obliging. S.: Because it tells us at once what quarrel is intended. G.: Or what pair of quarrels. Let us begin with the first half and pretend, for five minutes, that titles are faithful. S.: Esistenzialismo. G.: Yes. Which is almost unbearably modern until one notices that the old problem of est and existit is merely wearing a black tie. S.: Then let us strip it of the tie. G.: Good. Start with A est. S.: The old copula. G.: Or old enough to have bullied generations. A est. Then B est. Then, by temptation, A est B. S.: Which is precisely where one begins to slide from existence to predication. G.: Exactly. One hears “is” and at once refuses to ask what office it is discharging. S.: So A est may mean existence, while A est B means predication. G.: Or so the schoolroom says. The trouble is that Latin itself does not always help, because est does too much with too little ceremony. S.: Hence existit. G.: Just so. Cicero occasionally gives one existere, though not with any vulgar modern obsession. S.: What does it add? G.: That is the whole question. If A existit, what have I said that A est did not already manage, or mismanage? S.: Perhaps emergence. Standing forth. Coming into view. G.: Very good. Ex-sistere is not mere being, but standing out, coming forth, appearing, turning up in a way that est lacks. S.: So A existit has a dramatic quality. G.: Slightly theatrical, yes. A enters the scene, as it were, instead of merely haunting the syntax. S.: Then the old existentialist could exploit that. G.: Naturally. Once existence begins to sound like emergence, decision, standing-forth, one is halfway to bad cafés already. S.: Le Deux Magots before breakfast. G.: Precisely. But let us be fair. Paci is not merely filing Heidegger into Italian vowels. S.: No. He is also dealing with storicismo. G.: Exactly. Which means that the title is not just “does A exist?” but “what becomes of A across time?” S.: So now we need indices. G.: Yes. A est at t1, and A non est at t2. S.: Which threatens contradiction if one is lazy. G.: And historians are lazy in a different way from logicians, but no less dangerously. S.: Then one writes A(t1) and not-A(t2), or better perhaps E(A,t1) and not-E(A,t2). G.: Better. Though if you say E too quickly someone in a symposium will ask whether existence is a predicate. S.: You recently attended such symposia. G.: I did. The trouble with symposia is that one remembers the canapé and forgets the conclusion. S.: You do not remember the answer? G.: Not with confidence, no. I remember Kant being invoked, Frege being brandished, and several people behaving as though grammar alone would save them. S.: “Existence is not a predicate.” G.: Yes, yes, the modern catechism. But one must ask what one means by predicate, and whether one is speaking of first-order predication, second-order existence claims, or merely trying to frighten undergraduates. S.: Then let us try to be less frightening and more exact. G.: Good. If I say A est B, B is plainly predicated of A. S.: And if I say A existit? G.: There the temptation is to treat existit as a first-order predicate. But the logical scruples arrive and say that what is really asserted is that the concept under which A falls is instantiated, or that the relevant term has reference, or some such hygienic paraphrase. S.: Yet ordinary Latin did not wait for Frege. G.: Quite. Cicero did not suspend his prose until Begriffsschrift arrived. S.: Then perhaps existit is a lexical reinforcement where est is too thin. G.: Very likely. It tells you that mere copulative being is not enough, that the thing is there in the scene of discourse. S.: Almost “turns up.” G.: Yes, and that is why insistere becomes an amusing contrast. S.: You mean as an opposite? G.: Not an exact opposite, but the irony is useful. If ex-sistere is to stand forth, one is tempted to imagine in-sistere as standing in, remaining fixed, insisting, staying put. S.: So A insistit would mark persistence rather than emergence. G.: Precisely. Not a classical antonym one should force too far, but philosophically useful. A insistit at t1, A existit at t2, and suddenly one can distinguish persistence, appearance, and disappearance without asking est to do all the work. S.: Then storicismo becomes less mystical and more indexed. G.: That is my hope. Historicism often sounds profound only because people omit the dates. S.: So if A est at t1 and A non est at t2, we have mere temporal variation. G.: Exactly. No paradox, only laziness remedied. S.: But Paci would not be content with mere coordinates. G.: No. Because his storicismo is not a railway timetable. It concerns identity through temporality, sense as historically constituted, and the way existence is not detachable from becoming. S.: Which is why your indices solve less than the whole. G.: Of course. They solve the pseudo-problem that arises from unindexed predications, not the full phenomenological drama. S.: Yet pseudo-problems deserve dissolution. G.: Most philosophers earn their bread by ignoring that. S.: You say that as one who earned his. G.: Dryly, yes. Now, if A existit at t1 and A non existit at t2, we are still speaking too coarsely unless we specify whether A is a person, an institution, a meaning, a role, or a historical formation. S.: So storicismo enlarges the variable. G.: Exactly. A may be Caesar, Christianity, bourgeois society, or “the self,” and each survives or fails differently over time. S.: Which means that identity is typed. G.: Very much so. The persistence conditions for a person are not those for a republic, still less those for a concept. S.: So A at t1 and A at t2 may be the same person but not the same state. G.: Precisely. Historicism without sortal discipline becomes fog. S.: And existentialism without temporal indices becomes posture. G.: Splendid. Keep that. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become pleased with yourself. S.: I shall become only moderately indexed. G.: Better. Now, what does Paci add by coupling the two isms? S.: Perhaps this. Existence is never a mere punctual “there is,” but always a historically situated standing-forth. G.: Very good. That is the charitable reading. Existence as lived emergence within a temporal horizon, not as bare logical quantification. S.: So he is not asking whether some entity satisfies a predicate, but how being-there is constituted historically. G.: Exactly. And at once one hears Heidegger south of the Alps. S.: Brought there, perhaps, by Abbagnano and company. G.: Yes. One suddenly sees the whole traffic. Heidegger reviewed by Ryle in England, Jaspers and Sartre making weather in Paris, and in Italy the ism of esistenza becoming pronounceable without surrendering all local dignity. S.: As opposed to neo-critica. G.: Yes. We do not say neo-Kantian, and we do not say it on purpose. S.: Because “neo-critique” sounds more Italian and less apologetic. G.: Quite. And because the Italian scene liked to receive northern goods while pretending to have grown them in the garden. S.: Which is often the best way to receive philosophy. G.: Frequently. Now, if Paci is reacting both to existentialism and to storicismo, perhaps he is trying to avoid two simplifications at once. S.: Which two? G.: First, the simplification that existence is a bare logical matter. Second, the simplification that history is merely chronology. S.: So he wants lived being and lived time. G.: Exactly. But we, being drier, begin by clearing the logical underbrush. S.: Then let us do it methodically. A est. G.: Copulative ambiguity. S.: A existit. G.: Standing-forth, emergence, or at least stronger existential colour than est. S.: A insistit. G.: Persistence, continuance, remaining in place, useful if not canonically opposite. S.: Then A existit at t1 and A insistit from t1 to t2. G.: Very good. And if A non existit at t2, we may mean either annihilation, disappearance from the scene, cessation of relevance, or failure of instantiation. S.: So the real work lies in the typed reading of A and the indexed reading of the predicate. G.: Precisely. Which already dissolves much of the symposium smoke. S.: You really remember nothing of the symposium answer? G.: Only that several people said Kant in tones of relief, as though invoking Königsberg absolved them from analysis. S.: But Kant does matter here. G.: Of course. If existence is not a real predicate, then A existit does not add a determination to the concept of A in the way A est B does. S.: It says not what A is, but that A is instantiated. G.: That is the tidy modern summary, yes. But Paci’s title indicates that he is after something less tidy and more lived. S.: So existentialism re-thickens what logic thins. G.: Exactly. It makes existence sound again like a mode of being-there rather than a mere logical tick. S.: And historicism thickens temporality likewise. G.: Yes. Time becomes not a coordinate only, but the field within which meanings, selves, and worlds are constituted. S.: Then the analytic danger is reduction. G.: Always. But the continental danger is inflation. S.: Which is why we need both est and t1. G.: Splendid. Keep that too. S.: Thank you. G.: Again, do not become pleased. S.: I shall become only historically self-aware. G.: Worse and worse. Now, Cicero again. You noted that he does not use existere excessively. S.: Which suggests he did not feel a perpetual metaphysical panic about existence. G.: Quite. The ancients often managed without the modern obsession because they had not yet decided to be haunted by predicates. S.: So the pseudo-problem is partly a product of later grammar-philosophy. G.: Yes. Once one asks “is existence a predicate?” without first asking what language-game the question belongs to, one has already endangered the afternoon. S.: Yet Paci’s title almost invites the danger. G.: Because titles are bait. Esistenzialismo promises ontology, storicismo promises temporality, and reviewers promise themselves a quarrel before opening the book. S.: Hence the Reverend Sidney. G.: Exactly. Never read it first. S.: Let us suppose A is a person. G.: Very well. S.: Then A insistit from t1 to t2 if enough continuity conditions obtain. G.: Yes. Memory, body, agency, social recognition, whichever theory one prefers or pretends to prefer. S.: And A existit at t1 marks not merely logical instantiation but presence in the historical world. G.: On the thick reading, yes. S.: Then if A est at t1 and A non est at t2, one must ask whether this is death, absence, or merely non-presence under the same description. G.: Exactly. Historicism forces redescription. The same man may not be “the same” under all descriptions across times. S.: So Paci’s storicismo can be read as a warning against unhistorical identity-talk. G.: Quite. The self is not a pebble carried through time unchanged. S.: Though you do not want merely lyrical flux. G.: Never. Flux without criteria is tourism. S.: Then perhaps the real philosophical point is that existence claims are index-sensitive and sortal-sensitive. G.: Very much so. And once one admits that, much of the bad metaphysical thunder subsides. S.: Yet not all. G.: No. Because the existentialist then returns and says: very well, but what is this mode of standing-forth, this ex-sistere, as lived by a finite being among others? S.: And the historicist adds: and how is that mode constituted by a world already formed before the agent arrives? G.: Exactly. Which is where Paci enters with relation, intersubjectivity, and life-world talk. S.: So his title is not merely about “exists” but about existence as relationally and historically articulated. G.: Very good. That is why the easy analytic dismissal would miss the point. S.: Though the easy continental inflation would miss the grammar. G.: Precisely. Our task is to deny both their satisfactions. S.: That sounds almost like an Oxford motto. G.: It was, unofficially. Now, what of Abbagnano? S.: He helps explain the southern reception of Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, and the whole existential weather. G.: Yes. Once one sees that, Paci’s title stops being merely odd and begins to look like a local chapter in a larger European rearrangement. S.: The Alps leak. G.: Always have. Philosophers cross mountains more readily than customs men imagine. S.: Then “esistenzialismo” in Italian is not simply translation but adaptation. G.: Exactly. Italian softens the consonants and domesticates the alarm. S.: While “storicismo” preserves the old obsession with history. G.: Yes. The neo-critique people had already dignified history, but now existence arrives and insists that history is lived from within. S.: So the two isms meet in the human subject as temporally situated. G.: Very likely. And that is why Paci matters for relation and communication too. S.: Because if meaning is relational and historical, the utterance cannot be a mere isolated token. G.: Precisely. Public meaning inherits temporal sediment and intersubjective formation. S.: Which sounds much less like bare A est. G.: It is leagues away from bare A est, which is why we begin there only to avoid getting lost later. S.: Then perhaps the pseudo-problem is this. One asks whether existence is a predicate, as though all uses of “is” must be squeezed into one logical drawer. G.: Excellent. And one forgets that languages have several offices under one little word, and that philosophers have several questions under one headline. S.: So A est, A existit, A insistit, A est B, and A est at t are not rival superstitions but different instruments. G.: Exactly. Once separated, the noise decreases. S.: And storicismo becomes less an ism than an index discipline. G.: Dryly put, but useful. Historicism at minimum requires that one not utter identity claims without date stamps. S.: Though Paci would say that date stamps are not yet historical consciousness. G.: Quite rightly. But they are the beginning of intellectual hygiene. S.: That word again. G.: I have a weakness for clean distinctions. S.: Which existentialists often treat as bad faith. G.: Only when they wish to keep their fog unmolested. S.: You are severe today. G.: Titles do that to me. Now let us try a final schema. Suppose A is “the self.” S.: Dangerous already. G.: Naturally. At t1, A existit as a lived centre of experience. At t2, A insistit if continuity conditions obtain. But what counts as those conditions is itself historically interpreted. S.: So storicismo enters not merely as external chronology but as part of the criteria of identity. G.: Precisely. A medieval self and a post-Hegelian self do not carry the same persistence conditions in discourse. S.: Then existentialism and historicism intersect in the concept of personhood. G.: Yes. And perhaps Paci’s title should be heard there: the being-there of a self whose standing-forth is always historically mediated. S.: Which is much better than shouting “existence is a predicate” across a symposium table. G.: Infinitely better. S.: You are sure you do not remember the symposium answer? G.: I remember one man saying “second-order” as though it were a sacrament, and another invoking Kant as though he had personally licensed the wine. S.: That is almost enough. G.: More than enough for a memoir, not quite enough for an argument. S.: Then the argument is ours. Distinguish est, existit, insistit; index with t1 and t2; type A carefully; and the worst confusions dissolve. G.: Yes. And after that one may return to Paci and ask the larger question: what does it mean for a being not merely to be, but to stand forth historically in relation? S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Milanese, with a little Monterado fog retained for atmosphere.