Pagina 43 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGINATIVE UNIVERSAL 43
‘civil sage’, it is impossible to see how resemblance can be given as thè
reason why thè fables cannot fail to signify appropriately. An alternative
possibility is that thè resemblance does not obtain between thè fable and
thè genus, but between thè fable and thè particular examples of thè genus,
which thè people in question are incapable of grasping as examples o f a
genus. But this seems equally unsatisfactory: for, again, given thè sym-
metrical nature of thè relationship of resemblance, it is difficult to see
how an imagined fable can resemble particular products without simply
having, i.e. sharing, their character. But in this case it could not be a non-
conceptual idea through which a kind could be thought or expressed lin-
guistically any more than any one of thè particular products could.
In thè second important passage81, however, thè concept of similarity
is omitted. This has been thè basis of a widely accepted interpretation, ad-
vanced by Donald Phillip Verene82. Here, having stated that thè fables
were generifantastici, and that thè mythologies must have been allegories
appropriate to them, Vico emphasises an ‘identity of predicability’ through
which thè allegories signified thè diverse species or diverse individuals con-
tained in their generi. Hence, «they must have had a univocal signification,
containing an idea (ragione) common to their species or individuals, such
as in Achilles an idea of valour common to all thè strong; and in Ulysses
an idea of prudence common to all thè wise»83. In using thè notions of an
‘identity of predicability’ or a ‘univocal signification’ proper to poetic char­
acters, Vico might seem to be asserting that thè image of Achilles means
‘valour common to all thè strong’ and that of Ulysses means ‘prudence
common to all thè wise’. But this cannot be correct for, despite his lan­
guage, he is talking of a state prior to any ability to formulate and use in-
telligible, i.e. abstract, universals or concepts. Verene has suggested that
although Vico tends to present his theory frequently in terms of thè pure-
ly logicai distinctions involved in intelligible genera, this must be looked
upon as a way of asking thè question: «if we as modem thinkers form con­
cepts in terms of intelligible genera, how did thè first men think such that
our manner of concept formation can be understood as developing from
a first form of thought?»84. But, as I shall try to show, this under-rates thè
diffìculty of understanding this form of thought.
81 Ibid., § 403.
82 V erene , op. cit., ch apter3.
851have modified Bergin and Fisch’s translation slightly, by taking ragione to mean ‘idea’
rather than ‘quality’, in keeping with thè way in which Vico describes thè examples of Ulysses
and Achilles.
84 Ibid., p. 73.