261 / 298
Vico’s Ring
261
[…] And, […] they were received by Homer in this corrupt and dis-
torted form (§§ 814, 815)
566
.
Also, on a more mundane level, Vico points out glaring
anachronisms, at least as he considered them to be the case: «Yet
we do not see how to reconcile so many refined customs with
the many wild and savage ones which he attributes to his heroes
at the same time, and particularly in the
Iliad
» (§ 804)
567
. Based
strictly on a close reading of the poems
–
in constant mutual in-
teraction with, and interpenetration of, his theoretical frame-
work, comprising “philosophy” and “philology”
568
–
without the
benefit of a wealth of linguistic/historical/archaeological data, he
arrived at views and conclusions that are not incompatible with
the stock-in-trade of modern Homeric studies, or at least certain
currents in such studies
569
. The «confused mass of material» (§
853) made his project by his own admission exceedingly diffi-
cult
570
and slow in taking shape, over two decades by his own
reckoning. But the point that stands out is that the questionable
state and condition of the extant and available literary resources
did not preclude them, in Vico’s mind, from being an indispen-
sable repository of historical knowledge, provided, of course,
they are treated with the right kind of investigatory tools.
Despite the multi-layered distortions and outright replace-
ment(s)/substitution(s) of “original” material,
in principle
it was
still possible to arrive at a coherent picture of the nature of an-
cient civilization(s). This conclusion provides a point or space of
contact, and comparison, with Spinoza’s hermeneutics of
TTP
.
On the other hand, as discussed above, in
TTP
, Chapter 7, Spi-
noza presents a catalogue of “difficulties” associated with biblical
studies, the cumulative effect of which amounted to the realiza-
tion that
in principle
, knowledge of ancient biblical matters (ex-
tended by Spinoza to any and all “sacred” texts) was impossible.
Vico and Spinoza, at the same time, share a commonality in that
both thinkers approach the chosen ancient literature with ulterior
“ideological” motivations; these ulterior reflections are brought