185 / 298
Vico’s Ring
185
atto, dunque, che in primo luogo istituisce la distanza fra uomo e natura, fra
coscienza e mondo (An act, therefore, which in the first place institutes the
distance between man and nature, between consciousness and world)» (Id.,
Il
segno di Giove
, cit., p. 102). The “logical” process of “cross-identification” is
described as a “linguistic” process in M. Danesi,
Messages and Meanings: An In-
troduction to Semiotics,
Toronto, Canadian Scholars’ Press, 1993. So while Vico’s
term of “poetic logic” has as its etymology “words”, and thus language, the
first, originary language was not devoid of logic in its narrow, technical sense.
G. Wohlfart observed: «[…] così fin dagli inizi della lingua, nella lingua
“divina” almeno virtualmente vi è sempre stata una lingua anche “umana”, ma
per il momento solo
in nuce
([…] just as from the beginning of language, in the
“divine” language, at least virtually, there is always contained also a “human”
language, but for the time being only
in nuce
)» (Id.,
Vico e il carattere poetico del
linguaggio
, trans. by G. Cacciatore, G. Cantillo and P. Pierri, in «BCSV», XI,
1981, pp. 58-95, p. 93).
Not all Vico students see matters this way, for example, G. Cantelli de-
scribed the first language as follows: «Una lengua “natural”, valga decir no
convenida, que nace de forma completamente espontánea, sin reflexión al-
guna, en la mente del hombre (A “natural” language, meaning not formed by
convention, that is born in a completely spontaneous manner, without any
reflection, in the human mind)» (Id.,
De la lengua heróica del Diritto universale
a la
lengua divina de la Scienza nuova
, trans. by J. M. Sevilla, in «CsV», 9-10, 1998, pp.
57-74, p. 63).
388
We would like to emphasize again the particular (counterintuitive)
meaning of “calculus” intended here since it commonly has the very opposite
connotation. This is brought out clearly in A. Pennisi,
“Calcolo” versus “Inge-
nium”
in Giambattista Vico: per una filosofia politica della lingua
, in
Prospettive di storia
della linguistica. Lingua linguaggio communicazione sociale,
ed. by L. Formigari and F.
Lo Piparo, preface by T. De Mauro, Rome, Editori Riuniti, 1988, pp. 191-211.
Pennisi affirms Vico’s conception of «la creatività dello strumento linguistico
(the creativity of the linguistic tool)», as against «punti di vista […] calcolisti
(points of view based on […] calculability)» (
ibid.
, p. 191). The creativity of
language is intimately connected with the imagination and
ingenium
, whereas
«calcolo (calculation)» is the result of
ratio
circumscribed by regularity, repeti-
tive manipulation, and exactitude, as in arithmetic (
ibid.
, p. 193). Our usage of
“calculus” in the present context obviously falls under the category of lan-
guage as creative tool.
389
Contra
Cantelli: «En aquel primer “estado” del hombre su experiencia
es la de hallarse “dentro” de una lengua, no de ser él el fundador de ésta. Exi-
stir dentro de esta lengua es para el hombre vivir en una realidad significativa,