Pagina 13 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGINATIVE UNIVERSAL
1. My intention in this article is to discuss thè coherence of Vico’s ac-
count of thè poetic form of thought and, in particular, of thè imaginative
universal. It is well known that in his seminai monograph on Vico
Benedetto Croce made a number of trenchant criticisms of certain as-
pects of Vico’s account of thè world of poetic man, some of which, I be-
lieve, have never been adequately refuted. Two of them are of special im-
portance to thè problems which I shall discuss. The first is that it was
impossible for thè poetic form of thought to function as comprehensively
in thè world of poetic man as Vico suggests. For, although Croce cred-
ited Vico with thè discovery that poetry was thè first form of mind, he
also claimed that, in his account of thè life of poetic man, Vico had con-
flated thè philosophical category of poetry with thè empirical concept of
thè barbarie form of civilisation and, as a resuit, tried to explain by means
of poetry many functions that belonged to other aspeets of human na­
ture1. But, Croce argued, thè first age of man was composed not of philo­
sophical categories but of men of flesh and bone and could not have been
totally occupied with this one operation of thè mind. Though this aspect
might well have been prevalent, «all thè others would have needed to
function together with it, imagination and intellect, perception and ab-
straction, will and morality, singing and counting»2. Secondly, Croce sin-
gled out thè imaginative universal as embodying thè basic mistake in Vi­
co’s theory of thè poetic mind. Here, his criticism was that, by making
thè imaginative universal prior to thè reasoned universal, Vico deprived
it of thè element of universality which would later develop into thè true
universal, a universal reasoned and not imagined. But this, in effect,
amounted to a petitio principii, as a result of which thè origin of reasoned
1B. CROCE, La filosofia di G. B. Vico [first edition, 1911], Bari, 1965, p. 58: «Queste in­
coerenze ed errori, che abbiamo passati in rapida rassegna [...] si riportano più direttamente
al già chiarito vizio fondamentale che è nella struttura della Scienza nuova\ e qui, propriamente,
allo scambio fatto da Vico tra il concetto filosofico della forma poetica dello spirito e il con­
cetto empirico della forma barbarica della civiltà».
2 Ivi, my translation.