|
In the final paragraph of his magnum opus, the New Science,
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) provides a summarizing statement
concerning the overall character of the work:
Insomma, da tutto ciò che si
Š quest' opera ragionato, Š da finalmente conchiudersi che
questa Scienza porta indivisiblmente seco lo studio della piet&ldots;,
e che, se non siesi pio, non si può daddovero esser saggio.
[To sum up, from all that has been set forth in this work, it is to
be finally concluded that this science carries inseparably with it
the study of piety, and that he who is not pious cannot be truly wise.]
Why did Vico conclude the New Science with the assertion that,
from everything set forth in this work, this science carries
inseparably with it the study of piety? And why did he choose to end
the New Science with the declaration: "He who is not
pious, cannot be truly wise"? In what sense is Vico's New
Science a science of piety? Vico's conception of the ideal eternal
history— the universal pattern of the histories of all the
nations— signifies a passage from the traditional metaphysical
conception of history, as the history of beings, to a metaphysic or
science of the certain as the certain reflects or embodies the common
nature of nations. This common nature of nations, moreover, is seen
in the light of divine providence. Vico's metaphysics, therefore,
does not attempt to conceptualize universal, unchanging truth as an
abstraction existing outside human praxis, but contemplates the
invisible substance of historicity in and through praxis. Vico's
science is, at one and the same time, a science of concrete human
praxis, since it is a science of the certain, and a science of divine
providence, since it is a science of the true.
In his Introduction to the New Science Vico says that the
first principal aspect of this science is that it is a science of
divine providence. Vico's divine providence is his name for the Being
of the whole of human becoming. Vico's science does not locate this
whole as an absolute hovering somewhere outside of the certainties of
historicity, but examines the conduct of divine providence as it
shows itself in and through historicity. This providential order is
neither the result of Epicurean chance or Stoic fate. Nor is it the
result of sheer human making. Although appearing in human praxis,
providence is something that remains exterior to man, other than man,
working, for the most part, contrary to human intentions.
On the basis of the first principal aspect of Vico's New Science—
that it is a rational civil theology of divine providence— it
is clear that Vico's science is not simply a science of the things
made by man alone. As Vico himself says, if it were due to private
utility alone, human beings "...vessero in solitudine da fiere
bestie." ["...they would live like wild beasts."].
Vico's science is first and foremost, a science of the word. And, the
word is born out of a necessity that imposes itself on man. The
poetic word does not occur out of sheer human doing or making, but
arises out of man's response to the particular manner in which divine
providence makes its claim on man from time to time in human
historicity. History is not created or produced by men, but occurs as
a result of man's fantastic and archaic response to that which is
exterior to man, to that which surpasses and ultimately uses man's
desires to design the course and recourse of human historicity.
Vico claims that the second principal aspect of the New Science is
that it is a philosophy of authority. When Vico claims that his
science is a philosophy of authority he means that it contemplates
the origins and histories of the customs and institutions of the
peoples of the various nations. These histories are contained in the
fables of the various nations which are true universal histories of
their customs and institutions. The authors of this poetry were the
first peoples who were the theological poets. The nations are
governed by the certainty of authority. This authority, however, is
not ultimately that of the theological poets who brought forth the
myths of the gods and heroes. For they were subject to, and had to
take their directive from a higher authority. This higher authority
was the common sense of the human race. The sensus communis—
judjments made without reflection born from customs shared by an
entire people— is that which provides the basis of the
structures of the human world, structures which the poets expressed
in various ways in their divine and heroic poetry. And the domain of
the sensus communis is concrete human praxis. This originary praxis
is expressed poetically as the "clearing" of the
"primordial forest," depicted by the Greek poets as the
"labors of Hercules." This "clearing of the primordial
forest" (schiarita nel bosco) must not be understood only
literally. Vico's "clearings" or "luci" are
rather, original expressions of the common sense of the human race.
And this common sense is itself designed by that which invisibly uses
man's collective desires to fashion an ideal eternal history. Seen in
this way, Vico's luci are not to be understood merely as burnt lands
within the enclosures of the woods, but as Ernesto Grassi expresses
it, "the bursting forth of Being in human historicity from time
to time, always in new forms realizing itself originally in the
poetic, imaginative word (parola fantastica) in function of which the
world appears in its human significance."
The third principal aspect under which Vico claims his science should
be viewed is that it is a science of the natural law of the gentiles.
Let us first recall Vico's description of the origin of the natural
law of the gentiles.
From out of a period of barbarism in which humans had reduced
themselves to the conditions of wandering beasts, some of these proto
humans were shaken and aroused by a terrible fear of the sky and of
the phenomena of the sky. Their imaginative response to these
phenomena, together with their experience of the awesome power and
indifference of nature, assumed the form of a fear of a particular
Uranus or Jove which they feigned and believed in. We should notice
here that, for Vico, the origin and sustaining force of the natural
law of the gentiles was fear of an aprehended divinity. And this fear
was the first piety. It was out of piety (i.e., fear of the absolute
Other) that human beings invented religion and entered into carnal
unions of solemnized marriage and hence, began to beget certain
children of certain parents. This in turn made possible the birth of
families. Through continued residence in certain places and through
burial of the dead, these first people came to found the first
dominions of the earth. Thus, for Vico, piety is the origin of the
natural law of the gentiles and hence made possible the emergence not
only the three most rudimentary institutions of humanity, marriage,
religion and burial of the dead, but of the luci. Man was able to
break out of nature through startling fear at the experience of his
own alienation from nature. Vico's luci thus arise out of man's pious
response to the indifference and overpowering power of nature, to the
otherness of nature which the theological poets first envisaged as divinities
When we gather together these three principal aspects of Vico's New
Science we find that all three aspects hold one thing in common. They
all involve the idea that this science is a science of man's
engagement with, or response to, an essential exteriority or
otherness to man. They all imply that for Vico, the poetic wisdom
which founds, animates and gives meaning and value to the human world
arises out of man's recognition of, and primary response to that
which is neither a being nor even to the totality of all beings, but
to that which is other than man. We discover that poetic wisdom
arises out of and is sustained by piety.
We are now in a position to respond to our second question: Why does
Vico say that from everything set forth in this work, it must finally
be concluded that "he who is not pious cannot be truly wise"?
The answer to this question is already implied in our examination of
the sense in which Vico's science is a science of piety. Piety, we
saw, is the archaic human response to that which is other than man.
If there is to be poetic wisdom, there must be piety. But when Vico
says further, that from this it must be concluded that "he who
is not pious, cannot be truly wise," he is saying something
more. He is saying to the reader that if one is to gain that noetic
vision of the whole which is rendered visible by this science, one
must have no share in the conceits which are the cause of all the
errors and distortions of this whole. One must rid oneself of the
conceit of scholars (boria d‚ dotti) which impertinently extends
familiar modern categories and modes of thinking into unfamiliar
ancient times and places; and, the conceit of the nations (boria
delle nazioni), whereby one nation sets itself up above and beyond
the ideal eternal history. This insight leads not only to an
understanding of the New Science as a science of how philosophical
piety functions to render the whole intelligible it also leads to a
recognition of how impiety or conceit distorts and fragments the
vision of the whole.
The central task of Vico's thought is not to develop a philosophical
anthropology as is commonly thought but to redeem philosophy from
traditional metaphysics, from the conceptual word and from
rationalistic ethics. Understanding Vico's thought as a redemption of
philosophy from traditional metaphysics reveals how his science
functions to liberate philosophy from the inherent conceit which
plagues the history of metaphysics: the conceit of attempting to
attain an apprehension of Being, of the whole, on the basis of a kind
of thinking appropriate only for beings. In his own way, therefore,
Vico was fully cognizant not only of the ontological difference but
also of how a failure to realize this difference is ultimately due to
conceit. His thought also functions to liberate philosophy from the
inherent conceit of the conceptual word. The conceptual word is the
expression of conceit when it presumes to be able to reveal the
whole. This whole, however, is not a being. But concepts refer always
to beings. Thus when it attempts to express the primary sense of
Being, conceptual thinking is an expression of conceit or impiety.
The barbarism of the concept not only forgets its own metaphorical
origin, but makes impossible any apprehension of the whole. Vico's
New Science functions to redeem philosophy from the inherent conceit
of rationalistic ethics. As an alternative to imprudent ethics Vico
develops the ancient phronesis and Renaissance notion of prudentia.
Here we should notice the impiety or conceit at the basis of any
ethic which attempts to determine what ought to be done in the here
and now on the basis of previously established rules which are to
determine action within the historical situation. Such a practice is
impious because it denies any openness or receptivity on the part of
man to what is given in the historical situation.
By focusing on how Vico's thought delivers philosophy from the
subjectivity of the metaphysics of beings, from the primacy of the
conceptual word and from rationalistic ethics, our recollection of
Vico serves to disclose a new way to view the New Science, one
which not only satisfies Heidegger's call for a more primordial way
of thinking, but, since it is rooted explicitly in philology, in the
particularity and certainty of what has been given to man, it reveals Vico's
New Science as a genuine phenomenology of the historical
appearance of the human world, one that does not fly off into an
abstract ontology of Being. It reveals Vico's science as a vision of
man's historical engagement in the concrete history of the truth of Being.
Our recollection of Vico makes it clear why Vico ends his New Science
the way he does. For he enables us to realize that the vision of the
whole which the New Science renders visible is, at the same
time, a vision of the oblivion of poetic wisdom. The loss of poetic
wisdom, in other words, is due to man's conceit which necessarily
forgets all exteriority or otherness. Such conceit thus imprisons man
to the confines of his own subjectivity, prohibiting any ingress into
what is common to all.
Vico concludes his science of the principles of humanity declaring
that from everything set forth in this work it is to be finally
concluded that "he who is not pious cannot be truly wise"
because his science moves beyond philosophical conceit. Vico's
science allows us to understand how piety and wisdom belong together
for he shows us why the whole story of human existence cannot be
apprehended on the basis of any attempt to turn Being, which remains
unfamiliar, into something familiar, namely into a being. The whole
remains transcendent. But although Vico's sense of Being is one that
preserves the transcendent aspect of Being, to the extend that it is
not a being, Being is at the same time, present within human
historicity, appearing as its hidden order and abysmal ground. By
preserving Vico's conception of the simultaneous immanence and
transcendence of the whole, his sense of an embodied transcendence
which inwardly animates the human world by being its other, we become
alerted to the futility and danger of attempting to turn what remains
unfamiliar into something familiar. Vico's science teaches that the
relation of the thinker to Being is not a frontal relation of the
spectator to the spectacle, it is rather one in which the thinker
finds this whole recurring within his own mind, as something that
modulates and modifies his mind. His science leads us to recognize
the necessity of preserving the otherness of the whole, of
philosophical piety, for a science of wisdom. From this recognition
of the limits of human knowledge we come to the realization that the
highest knowledge of divine and human things must remain, properly
speaking, human wisdom. |
