Читать книгу The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico - Benedetto Croce - Страница 8

The lack of clearness on the relation of philosophy to philology, and the failure to distinguish between the two quite different ways of conceiving the reduction of philology to a science, are at once the consequences and the causes of the obscurity which prevails in the "New Science." By this name we refer to the whole mass of research and theory which Vico was producing from 1720 to 1730, elaborated above all in three works, the De uno universi iuris principio et fine uno and the first and second Scienza Nuova; it attains its maturest and most developed form in the last of these, and this is the most important for reference.

The New Science, agreeably to the various meanings of the terms philosophy and philology and of the relation between them, consists of three groups of investigations, philosophical, historical and empirical. Altogether it contains a philosophy of mind, a history, or group of histories, and a social science. To the first named belong the ideas expressed in various axioms or aphorisms scattered up and down the work, on imagination and the imaginative universal, on the intellect and the logical universal, on myth, religion, the moral judgment, force and law, certitude and truth, the passions, providence, and all the other determinations affecting the course or development of the thought or mind of man. To the second, namely history, belong the sketch of a universal history of primitive peoples from the time of the Flood, and of the origins of the various civilisations: the description of the ancient barbaric or heroic society in Greece and especially in Rome, with regard to religion, customs, law, language and political constitution: the study of primitive poetry, concentrating upon the determination of the genesis and character of the Homeric poems: the history of the social struggles between the patricians and plebeians and the origin of democracy, also studied chiefly in Rome: and the description of the return of barbarism or the Middle Ages, also studied in all aspects of life and compared with primitive barbaric society. Finally, to empirical science belongs the attempt to establish a uniform course of national history, dealing with the succession both of political forms and of other correlative manifestations of life both theoretical and practical, and the series of types successively drawn by Vico of the patriciate, the plebs, feudalism, the patriarchal family, symbolic law, metaphorical language, hieroglyphic writing and so forth.

Now if these three classes of inquiry and theory had been logically distinct in Vico's mind and united and compressed within the limits of a single book for literary reasons alone, the result might have been confused, ill-proportioned, out of harmony, and therefore fatiguing to the reader, but not obscure. But in point of fact it cannot be said that the Scienza Nuova, at least in its second form, the final exposition of his thought given by Vico, lacks a general plan, well enough conceived. The treatise is divided into five books. The first is intended to summarise general principles, that is, philosophy. The second, in addition to a short note on the most ancient universal history, describes the life of barbaric society, to which the third, on the discovery of the true Homer, the most conspicuous example of barbaric poetry, forms an appendix. The fourth is meant to sketch the empirical science of the movement of national history: and the fifth to exemplify the movement of "reflux" in the particular case of the Middle Ages. And yet, in spite of this fine architectonic scheme, the second Scienza Nuova is the most obscure, just as it is the most rich and complete of Vico's works. If on the other hand, while keeping his ideas clear in his mind, Vico had used an unfamiliar terminology or a style of exposition either too compressed or too full of allusions or implicit presuppositions, he would certainly have been a difficult writer, but in this case, as in the other, not obscure. But such a hypothesis does not suit the facts. Vico is very sparing of scholastic language; he prefers living and popular terminology. He is not compressed: in fact, he is fond of repeating his ideas, emphasising them by repetition with great insistence. And he lays all his cards on the table: that is to say, he shows all the material by which his doctrines have been suggested. Finally, it amounts to very little to say that Vico was not fully conscious of his own discoveries: such consciousness is more or less deficient in every thinker, and in fact none could have it more fully. The obscurity, the real obscurity which we find in Vico is not superficial. It does not come either from merely general or from secondary causes. It really consists in the obscurity of his ideas; in his insufficient understanding of certain connections, and the substitution for them of fallacious ones; in the arbitrary element, that is, which he introduces into his thought, or to put it more simply in his own downright errors. One might rewrite the New Science, recasting the order and changing and elucidating the terminology—the present writer has made the attempt for himself—and still the obscurity would remain, or even increase; for in such a translation the work in losing its original form would lose also the turbid but powerful strength which may at times take the place of clarity, and, while it does not illuminate, stirs the reader's mind and generates waves of thought as it were by sympathetic vibrations.

That Vico's obscurity, his mistake or mistakes, is due to the confusion or lack of distinction in his theory of knowledge mentioned above, on the question of the relations between philosophy, history and empirical science—a confusion which exists no less in his actual thought on the problems of the mind and history of man—that this is so can be seen by observing how philosophy, history and empirical science pass into each other by turns in Vico's mind, and vitiating each other in turn produce the perplexities, ambiguities, exaggerations and hasty statements which perturb the reader of the New Science. The philosophy of mind masquerades now as empirical science, now as history: empirical science now as philosophy, now as history: and historical propositions assume the universality of philosophical principles or the generality of empirical schemata. For example, the philosophy of man undertakes to determine the forms, categories or ideal moments of mind in their necessary succession, and in this aspect it well deserves the title or definition of "eternal ideal history" according to which particular histories proceed in time; while no fragment however small of actual history can be conceived in which this ideal history is not present. But, since ideal history is also for Vico the empirical determination of the order in which the forms of civilisations, states, languages, styles, and kinds of poetry succeed one another, it comes about that he conceives the empirical series as identical with the ideal series, and as deriving validity from it. Hence he asserts that this series must always be exactly reproduced in the facts, "even if infinite worlds were produced from time to time through eternity": an assertion which is plainly false, since there is no reason why the empirical fact of Greek or Roman aristocracy should be repeated for ever, with a "must have been, must be now, must be hereafter"; or why civilisations should rise and fall precisely as did those of antiquity. And this very treatment of the empirical course of events as absolute threw a shadow of empiricism over their ideal course; since the latter once identified with the former took over its empirical and temporal character instead of the eternal and extra—temporal character which it had as originally conceived. The same must be said of the various forms of mind which, as ideal and extra—temporal, are always all present in every fact; but Vico, by confusing them with the real and concrete facts which empirical science splits up into its schemata, destroyed them in their ideal form and distinction as soon as he had stated them. It is true that the moment of force is not that of justice; but the empirical type of barbaric society founded upon force, precisely because it is a representative and approximative determination, and is referred to a concrete and total state of things, contains not only force but justice as well; and when this ideal moment and this type of society are interchanged and treated as identical, on the one hand the philosophical concept of force is confused with that of justice and becomes impure, contradictory and incoherent, and finally annuls itself: on the other, the empirical type of barbaric society becomes exaggerated and unduly rigid. The confusion between the philosophic and the empirical is clearly expressed in Vico's aphorism defining the nature of things. "Nature of things is nothing else than their production at certain times and in certain manners: and whenever these latter are of such a kind, then the things produced are of such a kind and no other." Here we see the confusion between time and manner, between ideal and empirical genesis. Similarly, it is perfectly true that history ought to proceed in harmony with philosophy, and that a philosophical absurdity can never be a historical event: but, since the distinction between philosophy and empirical science was not drawn by Vico, when evidence was lacking and philosophy therefore inapplicable he felt no less sure of attaining truth. He merely filled the gap with a conjecture supplied by the schema of empirical science, and persuaded himself that he had fallen back on a "metaphysical proof." Or again, if he found himself faced by uncertain facts, instead of patiently waiting till the discovery of further evidence should dispel the doubt, he cut the knot by accepting the facts, as he put it, in conformity with laws: which always means the empirical schema. A legitimate method, doubtless, when treated as hypothetical. But this hypothesis became in its turn, for Vico, a "truth meditated in the idea": so that the comparison with facts, which none the less he recommends for the sake of confirmation, became strictly speaking superfluous: or, if the comparison showed that the facts disagreed with it, the facts, as mere appearance, must be in the wrong, rather than the hypothesis, which is laid down as philosophical truth, and therefore indubitable. Hence arises the tendency observed in Vico to do violence to the facts.

These examples are enough to indicate the deep-seated fault in the structure of the New Science, and to establish one point in our exposition and criticism of Vico's thought, in the course of which many other examples of the same point will arise of themselves, and those already given will become more clear. But another point which must be well established is that this fault is the fault of an organism in the highest degree healthy, and that the different species of inquiry between which Vico failed to distinguish were composed of investigations of extraordinary originality, truth, and importance. It is in fact the fault often found in highly original and inventive intellects, which seldom work out their discoveries in accurate detail, while less inventive minds are generally more precise and logical. Depth and acuteness do not always flourish equally side by side: and Vico, however much he fell short in acuteness, was always profoundly deep.

Light and shade, truth and error, which alternate and interweave at almost every point in the New Science, are variously distinguished according to the various temperaments of readers and critics: and in conspicuous cases, like that of Vico, such variations assume the most sharply defined form. Some minds are self-willed and suspicious, quick to mark any trifling contradiction, merciless in demanding proof of every statement, and indefatigable in wielding the forceps of dilemma to dismember an unfortunate great man. For them Vico's work, like many others of the same kind, is a closed book. At most, it will provide them with a theme for what is known as a "refutation": an easy and congenial task, yet hardly a successful one, since the man they have demolished generally emerges from the slaughter more alive than before. But there is another type of mind, which, at the first word which reaches the heart, at the first ray of truth which dawns upon the eyes, opens its whole self in desire, abandons itself in faith, and grows wild with enthusiasm; which refuses to hear of faults and never sees difficulties, or the difficulties at once vanish, and the faults find the easiest of justifications: and when it commits itself to writing, its writings appear in the guise of "defences." For such a mind we fear that the New Science is a book all too open. No doubt, if these two attitudes were the only alternatives, if no third choice were open, one would have to choose the fault of love rather than that of cold indifference; the excess of faith, which may yet enrich us by one or two aspects of the truth, rather than the absence of faith which never lets us realise one. But a third attitude is possible to, and indeed incumbent on the critic; namely, that which never takes its eyes off the light, but yet does not conceal the shade; which transcends the letter to attain the spirit, yet not ignoring the letter, but always returning to it, always endeavouring to play the part of a free but not a fanciful interpreter, a warm lover but not a blind one.

The two points above established, the strength and weakness essential to Vico's intellect, his tendency to confusion or his confusion of tendencies, supply us with a kind of general canon of interpretation; namely, that of separating analytically at every step his pure philosophy from the empiricism and history with which he mixes, and in which so to speak he embodies it, and on the other hand separating the latter from the former: and of observing, in the process, the causes and effects of the mixture. The dross cannot be treated as non-existent, bound up as it is with the gold in its natural state: but it must not hinder us from recognising and purifying the gold. Or, to drop the metaphor, the history must be indeed a history, but that it can only be if guided by intelligence.