85 / 298
Vico’s Ring
85
duces the cardinality from three to two, the language of “dualism”, under-
stood in this particular structural sense, arises naturally. Thus, it is our view
that “collapsing”, so to speak, the two distinct spheres of “philology” (i.e. the
theoretical apparatus) and the objective reality of human history in all its man-
ifestations, into one (the “factual”), serves heuristic purposes, namely, to ac-
centuate the “ideal”. (Conversely, the equivalence relation of “epistemology”,
mentioned above, subsuming “philosophy” and “philology”, tends to shift
heuristic attention to the ontological realm).
In an in-depth discussion of the “factual”, however, the distinction we
have insisted on, will arise inevitably. In this connection, M. Vanzulli’s article,
Sulla relazione di ideale e fattuale, di metafisica e storia nell passaggio dal De uno
alla
Scienza nuova, in «BCSV», XXXIV, 2004, pp. 199-219, is relevant. While
Vanzulli, as the title proclaims, maintains a “dualistic” perspective, with re-
spect to “factuality” the exposition takes place in terms of both spheres: on
the one hand, there is «il processo civilizzatore (the civilizing process)» (
ibid.
,
p. 203), «il mondo civile con la sua lotta socio-politica (the civic world with it
social-political struggle)» (
ibid.
, p. 215), «le istituzioni positive, i governi reali
(the actual institutions, the real governments)» (
ibid.
, p. 216). Vanzulli also
quotes approvingly D. Pasini, who stated that «[p]er il Vico […] la forza del
vero […] deve dirigersi ad un mondo reale, concreto, corporeo, qual è, ap-
punto, il mondo della realtà storico-sociale (that for Vico […] the force of the
true should be aimed at a world that is real, concrete, corporeal, which is, pre-
cisely, the world of historical-social reality)» (
ibid.
, p. 203, footnote 22). On the
other hand, Vico is also said to advance «[la]
spiegazione logico-storico
che dispone
una costellazione di fattori in una relazione causale di valore generale (the
logi-
co-historical explanation
which casts a network of factors in a causal relationship
of general validity)» (
ibid.
, p. 209; italics original). A concrete example of such
theorizing is Vico’s Roman historiography: «La lotta per l’estensione dei diritti
civili e politici costituisce infatti il filo unitario su cui si snoda la narrazione
vichiana della storia Romana fino al principato (The struggle to expand the
civic and political rights constitutes in fact the single thread that unravels Vi-
co’s narrative of Roman history up to the Principate)» (
ibid.
, p. 205).
Vanzulli is not alone in approaching Vico’s framework in terms of a dual-
istic structure. For instance, Otto adopted the converse, but analogous, per-
spective: «La
Scienza nuova
non separa il “mondo delle menti umane”, il “mon-
do metafisico” dal “mondo della volontà umana”, il “mondo civile”; questi
due mondi non possono assolutamente venir separati l’uno dall’altro, poiché
l’uno deve essere ritrovato nelle modificazioni dell’altro (
Scienza nuova
does not
separate the “world of the human minds”, the “metaphysical world” from the
“world of human will”, the “civic world”; these two worlds absolutely cannot