Pagina 41 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGtNATIVE UNIVERSAL 41
But this makes thè idea that Jove is a unique metaphysical idea avail-
able linguistically through thè mute language of poetic logie problemat-
ic from another point of view. For language requires a generality of mean­
ing such that its elements can signify thè same things to thè community
whose language it is. It is to meet this requirement that Vico refers to thè
poetic character of, or thè language appropriate to, thè Jove of meta­
physics not merely as involving poetic characters but as involving poet­
ic or imaginative universals. The universal aspect is emphasised by thè
description of imaginative universals as poetic generi which, in thè ab-
sence of an ability to create abstract or intelligible concepts, poetic man
creates in order to enable him to understand things that he cannot oth-
erwise understand76. It is necessary to emphasise how important this el-
ement of universality is to thè whole of Vico’s idea of a science in which
thè histories of different nations would exemplify, unless affected by cer­
tain contingencies, a common pattern arising from needs and necessities
that derive from thè essence of human nature or a metaphysics77 of thè
human mind. For, if thè pattern exemplified in these histories derives
from metaphysical needs and necessities, it should follow that thè same
poetic gods with their appropriate language will arise in thè different na­
tions. Hence, as Vico goes on to say, every nation had its Jove78, its Juno,
its Hercules and so on. But this does not constitute thè universality that
thè language of thè imaginative universal requires. For, as Vico points
out, thè universality involved in thè fact that every nation has its Jove is
an empirical discovery made when thè different nations come into con­
tact with one another. It is simply extensional universality. Hence it pre-
supposes thè universality of thè language appropriate to thè imaginative
universal, i.e. thè intensional universality or generality of thè language
used by thè members of each nascent society in their Communications
with one another about thè gods. These assumptions are deeply built in-
possible for anyone to be at thè same time a sublime poet and a sublime metaphysician, for
metaphysics abstraets thè mind from thè senses, and thè poetic faculty must submerge thè
whole mind in thè senses; metaphysics soar up to thè universals, and thè poetic faculty must
plunge deep into thè particulars» (ibid., § 821. See also §§ 703-704 for similar remarks).
76 Ibid., § 403. One should note, however, that thè things that poetic man could under­
stand in this mode cannot be identical with thè things that, later, could be understood through
thè intelligible universal, since, given thè structure of thè world of poetic metaphysics, thè
things understood later through thè intelligible universal would not be available to be un­
derstood earlier. Yet, as we shall see, Vico seems to find some of these later things in thè world
of poetic man.
77 ‘Metaphysics’ is here used in a different sense from that in which Vico talks of poetic
metaphysics. Here he uses it to refer to thè innate properties of thè human mind.
78 Sn44, § 380.