Horst Steinke
100
on to singling out three concrete human “institutions”: religion,
marriage, and burial of the dead. In §§ 333 to 337, which are part
of the section on “Principles”, provides a justification for what
he calls «these three eternal and universal customs as three first
principles of this Science».
(§ 332) Vico does not leave it at this ethnographical ac-
count
232
; in the section on “Method” that immediately follows,
he endeavors to show what went on in the minds of men to
make them subject themselves to the countervailing institutions
of religion, marriage, family life, and ultimately human society at
large (§§ 338-341), all the more remarkable in view of the prem-
ise stated in § 340: «But these first men, who later became the
princes of the gentile nations, must have done their thinking un-
der the strong impulses of violent passions, as beasts do».
From an epistemological standpoint, these three «princi-
ples»
233
occupy a peculiar position; rather than arising “logically”,
necessarily, by inference from the theoretic framework of “phi-
lology”, they are ontologically independent of its theorizing.
Without using the term, Vico took them to be the
constants
of
human life: «For these institutions […] give us the universal and
eternal principles […] on which all nations were founded and
still preserve themselves» (§ 332)
234
. In that respect, they are not
unlike the physical constants that must be incorporated in math-
ematical physics to yield correct results. Such constants are evi-
dence of the irreducible incommensurateness of constructs that
are purely theoretical.
In the same section on “Method”, Vico goes on to discuss
another “factor”, if that is the right term, that militates against
any theoretical constructs perfectly depicting and explaining (so-
cio-political) reality, namely, what he calls «divine providence»
(§§ 342-345). Stripped to its most basic connotation, Vico sees it
as an outworking «without human discernment or counsel, and
often against the designs of men» (§ 342)
235
. How ironic and
counterintuitive, that public
virtues
arise out of private
passions
: