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Horst Steinke
96
that we have stressed, (1) the (initial) world of actual custom pre-
served through tradition (powerfully present in traditional socie-
ties/communities to this day), (2) an evolving body of legal prin-
ciples mediating between the real world, and (3) the ideal of true
equity
210
. This is also reflected in the block of material on the
ide-
al eternal history
of Axioms LXVI to XCVI (§§ 241-294) where the
mostly socio-political theoretical constructs, the
principles
211
, are
shown to receive their inspiration from actual historical devel-
opments
212
.
From the category-theoretic perspective, nonetheless, this
portrayal, however complex it appears in itself, tells only half the
story, at best, since the epistemic state of affairs is not simply a
matter of addition or sums of parts, lacking interaction, but ra-
ther of mutual dependence and productive engagement. Our
piecemeal approach of exposition is therefore intrinsically inade-
quate to properly convey the dynamic interactions that take place
at different levels, and different cycles and directions, just as an
anatomical investigation cannot come close to capturing a living
organism
213
. This fundamental shortcoming becomes highly
acute in bringing into the picture the other type of functor in-
volved,
contravariant functors
, going from right-to-left. In contrast
to the forgetful functors that have their ultimate source in the
phenomena of the real world, embracing all human culture, but
in which the socio-political sphere is Vico’s particular focus, the
starting point of contravariant functors is the realm/category of
“philosophy”. This is the point reached, therefore, at which to
quote the rest of § 140 of Axiom X: «This same axiom shows
[…] likewise how the latter [the philologians] failed by half in not
taking care to give their authority the sanction of truth (
averrare
)
by appeal to the reasoning (
Ragion
) of the philosophers»
214
. The
truth
and
reasoning
are of course the province of “philosophy”,
and, among other
truths
, contain Vico’s conclusions about man’s
ultimate nature, such as his sociability, sense of and desire for
justice, willfulness and ability or propensity to act, his finite mind