Pagina 52 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

52 LEON POMPA
be, if it were not distinguishable from its particular instances. The con­
cepts of particulars, species and kinds are internally related: just as we
would not know what it would be for a particular to be a particular if it
had no characteristics of some or other kind, we would have no idea what
a kind would be if it were not manifested as, or in, thè common charac­
teristics of some particulars.
I do not think, therefore, that this objection can simply be set aside,
as Verene suggests, on thè grounds that thè references to particulars,
species and genera represent thè onlyway of explaining in our own terms
something which cannot be understood in such terms. The problem
here, it should be noted, is not one of translatability, since thè distinc-
tions available in thè world of thè intelligible universal are not meant to
be translatable into a different set of distinctions. The doubt concems
thè intelligibility of thè alternative scenario and it has not so far been re-
moved105. What, at thè very least, we must be able to see is how thè lan­
guage appropriate to thè imaginative universal is capable of being a
means of communication for thè members of a society.
10. At this point, it is necessary to consider more directly thè sort of
universality that is in question. One thing that Vico means, when he
claims that something is universal, is that it is an idea, belief, custom,
practice, or any other necessary feature of thè development of human
life, that has arisen universally or, given thè correct conditions, that
105 It is noticeable that ncither Cantelli nor Verene nor, even more importantly, Vico, is
able to render thè alternative world intelligible without introducing into it conceptions that
ought not to be available to poetic man. Cantelli, for example, makes thè perfectly valid point
that our conception of reality is interwoven with thè ideas and language available. But then,
having given a long account of thè differences in poetic man’s conception of thè world, he
suggests that, nevertheless, behind these differences there are conceptions or ideas which look,
on thè face of it to be identical with those of thè age of thè intelligible universal. Thus, to take
just one example, Jove is not merely thè animate god whom poetic man creates through his
imaginative projection of himself but he is a ‘power’ that is manifested through a multiplici-
ty of sensible phenomena, such as lightning, thunder, cagles (G. CANTELLI, Gestualità e mito,
cit., p. 105). This is explained by thè fact that thè originai language never had any literal sig-
nificance but always and only a metaphorical significance (ibid. p. 102). But thè idea of a
‘power’, in its literal sense, is perfectly intelligible, though it ought not to be given thè structure
of thè poetic world, while, on thè other hand, if it is of metaphorical significance, what is this
significance, thus characterised, supposed to be? Verene (op. cit., pp. 76-77) cites thè passage
in which Vico states that Achilles is ‘an idea of valour, common to all thè strong’ and Ulysses
‘an idea of prudence common to all thè wise’ (Sn44, § 403). But how are these ideas of valour
and prudence to be understood other than in thè way in which they are understood through
thè intelligible universal, which ought not, of course, to be available in thè circumstances as
described?