Pagina 37 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGINATIVE UNIVERSAL 37
The question that Cantelli’s interpretation raises is whether thè creation
of thè fables and particularly of thè mute language appropriate to them
can enable these activities to be carried out. On thè face of it, it is diffi-
cult to see how thè creation of thè idea and its appropriate naturai lan­
guage is sufficient, simply o f itself, to account both for thè content and
thè use of language involved in these activities. But without thè ability to
engage in them, it is difficult to see how poetic man’s activities could be
based upon a relationship with thè content of his imaginary world.
The problem can be approached most directly by reference to thè
practices of asserting and denying63, which are how we normally express
thè fact that we take certain things to be true and others to be false. When
outlining thè nature of thè first language, Vico does not talk explicitly in
terms of asserting and denying. It is possible that this is because he as-
sociated these modalities with thè conceptual and linguistic abilities
proper to thè third, rational, age. But, whether or not that is so, it is cer-
tainly a mistake to think that there can be a language, naturai or other-
wise64, which is not internally connected with thè notions of truth and
falsity. The fact that Vico’s idea of a language based upon naturai rela­
tions with certain ideas fails to conform to this requirement, may, to some
extent, be obscured by his ascribing beliefs about thè gods to poetic
man65. But to believe something involves at least an implicit assertion or
denial of its truth, i.e. thè adoption of a certain cognitive attitude towards
it66. To imagine a world of gods is one thing67 but to believe in it or to
case, his theory does not involve thè use of verbal speech at this stage. But this does not mean
that Austin’s theory is wholly irrelevant to thè present issue. For many of thè kinds of illocu-
tionary acts that he distinguishes correspond to activities that are undertaken in thè world of
poetic man. So, although Vico could not possibly have undertaken such an investigation, it is
surprising, given thè amount that has been written in support of his theory of thè first natur­
ai language, that, as far as 1know, nobody has raised thè question whether his account of this
language can provide thè resources required to perform these activities.
65 Asserting and denying are modal practices, because to assert or deny something is to
take a different attitude towards it, than, say, from imagining or entertaining it.
64 By a ‘naturai language’ I do not intend to refer to Vico’s rather specialised idea of a lan­
guage based upon naturai relations with an idea, but to any language adequate to thè demands
of normal social life, as distinet from a technical language of thè sort to be found in many of thè
sciences and many ol thè more specialised activities of cultural life, such as religion or thè arts.
65 S»44, § 379.
66This idea is often expressed in terms of ‘propositional attitudes’, but since propositions
are normally taken to be conceptual in character while poetic ideas are not meant to be con­
ceptual, I have substituted thè expression ‘cognitive attitude’, since poetic language must is­
sue in something that can be taken to be true or false.
67 Here I assume that to imagine a world of gods is thè same as to have thè idea of such
a world, i.e., to imagine a world that could exist. If it were treated as meaning to imagine that