Pagina 36 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

36 LEON POMPA
thè edible, to be discerned in thè different objects, rivers, animals, fruit,
in which they exist. Such a capacity as ingenium, in short, exercised in
conjunction with thè sensory topics, would enable us to discern thè iden-
tities in difference that exist in thè naturai world and on this basis to cre­
ate a language capable of communicating information about them. But
if this is so, then, given thè existence of a language based upon cognitive
contact with thè reai world, there would be no need for a language com-
posed of poetic genera. If such a language were to arise, it could not be
a language based on thè need to maintain life but, as Vico says elsewhere,
one based on conceptions that arise from thè fear of death and an innate
sense of ‘divinity’61. From this it follows that thè first poetic language
need not be a language for thè communication of information about thè
necessities of life but one developed in order to communicate with, and
influence, thè imaginary gods who were believed to control provision of
thè necessities of life. Hence thè reason for prayer, supplication, thè tak-
ing of thè auspices and thè making of sacrifices, practices that abound
in thè life of poetic man.
7. Cantelli’s account of thè primarily visual and active nature of thè
first poetic language raises a further serious problem in connection with
these practices which can conveniently be discussed here. For thè life of
poetic man in thè divine age is full of various relevant kinds of activities
such as commandino or ordering, questioning, wondering, worshipping,
promising and so on. All of these, it must be noted, are practices that re­
quire an intensional object. One cannot just promise but one must
promise to someone to do or not to do something, possibly to Jove or to
Juno to obey their commands, once it has been established what these
are, or to a friend to repay one’s debts. In cases like these there is thè one
activity, let’s say of promising, but two different things may be promised
to two different deities. Thus there must be a way in which thè activity
can be distinguished from its intensional content and its intended re­
cipient. This is normally taken to require thè modal use of language62.
61 Sn25, § 45: «For men cannot unite in a human society unless they share a human sense
that there is a divinity who sees into thè depths of their hearts, since a society can neither be-
gin nor remain stable without a means whereby some rely upon thè promises of others and
are satisfìed by their assertions in secret matters». This sense of divinity is one of thè ‘seeds of
thè true’ left in us after thè Fall.
62 It has become customary since thè publication of J. L. AUSTIN, How To Do Things With
Words, Oxford, 1962, to distinguish between these as different forms of illocutionary acts, of
which Austin lists five different classes. There is no question, of course, given thè time at which
he was writing, of Vico’s distinguishing different kinds of speech acts in this way and, in any