Pagina 15 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGINATIVE UNIVERSA!. 15
planation of thè creation of a poetic character by means of antonomasia
presupposes thè ability to identify thè property of exceptional strength,
i.e. thè ability to identify instances of abstract or intelligible universals6.
Since Vico is not, however, offering poetic characters as anything more
than a linguistic device of a poetic nature, by which to refer to such ab­
stract universals, thè explanation would not be vulnerable to Croce’s crit-
icism of thè imaginative universal, which is directed specifically towards
thè idea that this form of universal can constitute a first mode of thought
which is in no way indebted to thè abstract universal. Nevertheless, this
has two consequences. First, it follows that thè tales of fables that abound
in De constantia iurisprudentis can be nothing more than a series of in-
terpretations of stories about thè gods and heroes in which thè Greeks
and Romans believed, understood in a language that would differ very lit­
tle from thè conceptual language of a later age, in which, of course, Vico
himself recounts them. Using a language in which abstract universals are
referred to by means of proper names rather than by abstract nouns can-
not constitute a non-conceptual mode of thought, since thè ability to
identify thè properties denoted by abstract concepts is common to both
kinds of language. Second, if thè idea of a poetic character, as it is used
here, is an element in a language that presupposes thè abstract univer­
sal, then, if it is a linguistic sign, it can only be a sign in a language that
operates on thè basis of conceptual distinctions.
Although this may be true of what Vico says about poetic characters,
it would be a mistake to read what he says in this work about thè nature
of ideas and language only in thè light of those parts which seem to be
relevant to his later theories of poetic characters and ideas. For along
with these aspects of his theory there is a considerable appeal to elements
more normally associated with thè rationality to which he is often taken
to be opposed. Thus his acceptance of thè two substance thesis of Carte-
sian dualism7, forces him to deny that thè corporea! can be thè cause of
thè context of this work, that Vico is here explaining a linguistic device, i.e. thè substitution
of a proper name for a generai concept, proper to his own age in which thè existence of in­
telligible universals or generai concepts is taken for granted. For here thè reference to a gen­
erai concept is essential, since if, for example, ‘Maelius’ meant ‘Maelius’, no meaningful sub­
stitution would be involved.
6 This point has already been noted by Cantelli, who states that thè explanation of poet­
ic characters in terms of antonomasia would reduce them to a mode of expression in which a
proper name is substituted for a concept. But in this case thè poetic character would lose its
right to be regarded as thè basis of an originai non-conceptual language (G. CANTELLI, Mente
corpo linguaggio, cit., pp. 56,84).
7 In De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno [now De uno], in thè Proloquium, under
thè heading «Assumptiones metaphysicae» he introduces five lemmas, thè first of which states