Pagina 40 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

40 LEON POMPA
life as he has described it. Again it might seem that there is no problem
about describing these activities in thè conceptual language of a later age,
as Vico himself does. What is problematic, however, is whether, in so far
as these practices require various uses of language, a poetic language
could, of itself, contain resources sufficient to enable poetic man to en­
gagé in them. To put thè point more generally, people use thè language
through which they express their thoughts and desires in undertaking
certain activities. But their use of it in undertaking these activities is not
something that occurs simply by creating or having a language that is ap­
propriate to express their ideas73. It is something that is made possible
by thè use of it in accordance with thè different conventions that oper­
ate in different contextual situations, for example, in a religious or a le­
gai context. But an originai language involving naturai relations with
what it is meant to express is, presumably, intended to precede any lan­
guage which requires conventions.
Thus, it would seem, while Vico had a correct view of thè formai re-
lationship between ideas and language in generai, it is far from clear that
his account of thè first poetic language allowed thè possibility of a cor­
rect view, of that between language and its usage.
8. The Jove who first arises is a particular being. He may have, or
come to have, many different qualities, such as being of superhuman
strength, of being vengeful and of demanding sacrifices, but he is nev-
ertheless thè one Jove whose body, for thè giants, is an animate being,
co-extensive with what, for us, would be thè inanimate sky, and who is
visible to thè senses. He is, as Vico says, a being whom poetic man can
signify first by ‘mutely pointing’74. Since Jove constitutes reality, or at
least a part of reality, and since there can only be one reality, this means
that he is a unique particular. This, of course, is not only compatible with,
but practically necessitated by, thè sharp distinction that Vico draws be­
tween poetry and our imaginative powers on thè one hand and reason
on thè other: poetry creates thè particular and not thè generai, reason is
concerned with thè generai and not thè particular75.
75 Austin’s own explanation of thè different things done through illocutionary acts is that
they depend upon thè nature of thè different institutional situations in which they are used.
Thus ‘I promise...’ said in a court-room, commits one to telling thè truth under pain of legai
sanction, whereas said to someone in normal conversation, it commits one to doing something
under pain of moral sanction.
74 Sn44, § 402.
75 Ibid., §§ 218-219. The contrast between poetry and imagination on thè one hand and
reason on thè other, runs throughout thè New Science. «By thè very nature of poetry it is im-