Pagina 28 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

28 LEON POMPA
as thè above passages suggest, Vico also believes that thè giants project,
albeit in a magnified form, their own nature onto thè sky, this would seem
to imply that they must have had some prior conception of this nature.
In other words, they must have had some way of taking themselves to be
shouting and grumbling and, since, on this basis, they take Jove to be
shouting and grumbling to them, they must first have taken themselves
to be shouting and grumbling to one another. But if thè giants had some
grasp of what it was to grumble and to shout to one another, they must
have been in a communicative situation, i.e. one inwhich they could com­
municate their thoughts, feelings and emotions, hefore they could pro­
ject these characteristics onto a Jove who is capable of communicating
with them. And this, in fact, is one way of understanding what Vico
means when he asserts that it is because thè first men spoke by means of
cenni that they took thunder and lightning to be signs from Jove to
them42. Otherwise, thè fact that thè giants had projected their own na­
ture onto thè world would not explain wrhy, for example, in so doing,
they had introduced intentionality into it, i.e. thè intentionality involved
in taking something to be thè expression of a command or an order or
even just an expression of displeasure directed towards them. It is true,
of course, that, once created, Jove will alter thè structure of their un­
derstanding of their world. But that is quite different from saying that
prior to thè creation of Jove they could have no understanding or idea
of anything at all, as Cantelli seems to claim.
The cruciai point here concerns precisely what is imported into thè
world of poetic man when thè giants project their own nature into it in
such a way as to give rise to thè idea of thè world as a world of animate
beings. Unfortunately, Vico does not teli us much more than that they
project such an idea into thè inanimate world, whereas thè points made
above suggest that a great deal would need to be projected in order to
fili out even thè cultural components of thè life that is ascribed to poet­
ic man. It could, however, be argued that thè textual evidence is insuffi-
cient to show that Vico believed that poetic man already spoke in signs
or that thè importation of such a mode of speaking into thè divine world
was thè basis of his ability to take thunder and lightning as Jove’s signs.
Perhaps an easier way to address thè problem is to ask what capaci-
ties would be required by thè giants and poetic man to be able to live thè
sort of life Vico attributes to them prior to and after thè creation of thè
world of divinities. At thè very least, it would seem, they would need thè
capacities required for maintaining their lives and protecting those of
42 Ivi.