Pagina 46 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

46 LEON POMPA
In developing this view, Verene concentrates on Vico’s claims about
thè univocal, not analogical, meaning of thè mythologies that correspond
to thè fables. ‘Allegory’, Vico asserts:
[...] is defined as diversiloquium in sofar as, by identity not o f p roportion
but [...] o f predicability, allegories signify thè diverse sp ecies o r thè diverse
individuals com prised under these genera. S o that they m ust have a univo­
cal signification com preh end ing an idea comm on to all their sp ecies and in­
dividuals (as in Achilles, an idea o f valou r comm on to all strong men, or
U lysses an idea o f p rud en ce comm on to all w ise m en)93.
On thè face of it, Vico here seems to be making a claim similar to that
in thè earlier passage94, where he writes of creating imaginative univer-
sals to which, as to certain models, to ‘reduce’ all thè particular species
which resemble them. But thè reference to similarity has now been omit-
ted and he talks only of thè allegories having an identity of predicability
through which they signify thè diverse species or individuals comprised
under certain genera or, as he puts it alternatively, a univocal significa­
tion comprehending an idea common to their species or individuals. Vi­
co does not explain what sort of ‘reduction’ he has in mind here, but
elsewhere he states that thè reduction goes by way of enlargement of thè
particular95. Thus Jove, for example, comes to be thè imaginative uni­
versal not merely of a particular divine being but of all that depends up­
on his being divine, i.e. thè taking of auspices, thè practice of sacrifice
and so on. Setting this aside for thè moment, however, it is at least clear
that thè expressions ‘identity of predicability’ and ‘univocal signification’
are thè same in meaning.
On thè basis of this passage, Verene suggests that Vico is claiming that
each member of, for example, thè class of wise men is not a Ulysses, nor
is he like Ulysses, but «each is identical with Ulysses. Each individuai can
be said to be Ulysses in thè sense that Ulysses is their reality; each is to
were not also a universal it could not be recognisetl as being identical upon its various ap-
pearances and would not therefore introduce a point of stable reference in thè flux of sensa-
tion. But thè problem of how thè imagination can create an image that is both a particular and
a universal is not explained at this point and is assumed to have been resolved in thè account
now under discussion.
93 Sn44, § 403.
94 Ibid., § 209.
95 Ibid., § 816. «It is an eternai property of thè fables always to enlarge thè ideas of par-
ticulars. On this there is a fine passage in Aristotle in which he remarks that men of limited
ideas erect every particular into a maxim. The reason must be that thè human mind, which is
indefinite, being constricted by thè vigour of thè senses, cannot otherwise express its almost
divine nature than by thus enlarging particulars in imagination».