147 / 298
Vico’s Ring
147
universals»
312
(§ 460). One of the historical examples Vico cites
for this “imaginative”, because image-based, display is the Athe-
nian statesman Solon who took up the cause of «the plebeians»,
and was made into an icon of their push for civic rights and a
new identity: «[…] Solon was [a poetic character for] the Atheni-
an plebeians themselves, considered under this aspect [of know-
ing themselves and demanding their rights]» (§ 414). Because So-
lon became an iconic figure in the sociopolitical imagination, Vi-
co could then say something otherwise anachronistic: «The an-
cient Romans must also have had such a Solon among them», re-
ferring to the pleibeians in their power struggles with the ruling
elite (§ 415). These examples by Vico immediately follow a refer-
ence to «the nature of children» (of a certain age, to be sure) as to
their propensity, as well as ability, to engage also in a form of
iconicity that transcends the level of the purely gestural. Repris-
ing Axiom XLVIII (§ 206), he attributes to children the tendency
to find «resemblances» or «relations» between objects and people
they «see», or visually interact with (§ 412). Such equivalence rela-
tions are visual, literally iconic, in the case of children, and part
of their cognitive psychology. But what follows, not only literally
in the text, but by an implication explicitly made by Vico («Now
in view of the nature of children […] we assert that poetic
speech, in virtue of the poetic characters it employs, can yield
many important discoveries concerning antiquity», § 413), takes a
giant leap from cognitive psychology to the realm of social and
political
issues
and discourse
313
. And yet, despite this unbridgeable
gulf, by this juxtaposition we are forced to draw the conclusion
that, in his view, sociopolitical activism can be better, or rather
must be, understood against the backdrop of anthropology.
Thus, in the realm of social/political actors, forms of (lowly)
iconicity have the potential of becoming “sublimated”
314
, raised
to their highest level of expression in societal values.
These aspects of Vico’s thoughts on language are relevant in
addressing the question that is highlighted in the section heading