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marcate the content of the Homeric poems), described in such
phrases as «a mind chastened and civilized by any sort of philos-
ophy» (§ 785); «the constancy […] developed and fixed by the
study of the wisdom of the philosophers […] a philosopher’s
gravity and propriety of thought» (§ 786); «maxims of life, as be-
ing general, […] as sentences of philosophers, and reflections on
the passions themselves are the work of false and frigid poets»
(§ 825); «not […] the natural product of a calm, cultivated, and
gentle philosopher» (§ 828), and «a straightforward, orderly, and
serious mind such as befits a philosopher» (§ 831). Vico, of
course, counted himself among this intellectual class, but he
made a Herculean effort to transcend its strictures, and give
credit where credit is due, for the genesis and generation of
knowledge about the world (italics added):
[…] the [archaic] peoples, who were almost all body and almost no re-
flection must have been all vivid sensation
in perceiving particulars
, strong
imagination
in apprehending and enlarging them
, sharp wit
in referring them to
their imaginative genera
, and robust memory
in retaining them
542
(§ 819).
Their world consisted not only of the external physical envi-
ronment, but also, and more especially so, of the world of social
relations and institutions (juridical/governmental)
in the creation
of the first forms of which, in fact, they were engaged in. As al-
ready stated above, in the Book’s conclusion, Vico relegated
“philosophy” to a dependent position on “poetry” which pro-
vided “philosophy” with the original, fundamental issues and
problems to reflect on, but furthermore «supplied them also with
means of expounding them» (§ 901). There is, on Vico’s part, no
implicit reference to Spinoza, nor need there be one, in order to
justify a comparison. Vico’s argument is not directed against phi-
losophy as such, after all, he was a philosopher himself, but con-
cerns itself with the relative position and status of “philosophy”
and “poetry” (always understood in the Vichian sense), and with
respect to this relation, “poetry” comes first, diachronically and