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Vico’s Ring
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sociated with intersubjectivity, and social relations. Against this
“gold standard” of human nature, Vico then holds up the
changed situation «when nature was corrupted by fall of Adam»
and «man lost [..] the pure mind» (Chapter 4, §§ 7-12). It is at this
juncture that Vico introduces the dichotomy of
true
and
certain
, to
wit: «But when man lost through sin the pure mind by which he
had knowledge of truth in conducting his life, the
certain
had to
be substituted for the
true
» (italics added). While it may need no
further explanation as to what Vico meant by
true
in view of his
foregoing account of «unfallen nature», the introduction of the
new term «certain» requires clarification, and Vico provides clari-
fication of sorts immediately: «
Certain
gods,
certain
ceremonies,
certain
verbal formulas were instituted by laws so that the religion
might be as eternal as humanly possible» (italics added). Set
against the standard of truth that Vico had earlier established, by
stating, for example, that «God alone is true and truth itself»
(Chapter 4, § 1), the
certain
falls short of that standard, but is the
next best thing
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. It gives structure to human society, and ideally
a significant measure of stability and permanence. This passage is
also noteworthy for the fact that it is at this point in
Philosophy
that Vico associates (positive) law with the
certain
133
. But the con-
cept of
certain
in this context mainly serves to cast the
true
into
relief as the proper subject and substance of “philosophy”,
whereas the
certain
belongs to the sphere of “philology”.
Having established the platform, Vico delineates
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his notions
of human nature and the human mind, free will, and the human
actions by relatively extensive engagement, and polemics, with
classical philosophical currents that he associates with, or attrib-
utes to, Platonism, the Stoics, Epicurus, and Aristotle (Chapters
5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19). He finds common ground with
Plato especially in the recognition that «there is the class of
things beyond the body and thus eternal which are not perceived
by the senses but the intellect, or the doctrine of ideas, insofar as
ideas bring eternal truths to the mind», and that «the human