Spring 2010 - Interpretation

Questioning Northrop Frye’s Adaptation of Vico
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That which transcends our imagination, we divine, intend
or surmise as “something”—one most perfect “Entity” (ens)—beyond all
other finite and thus imperfect “something’s.” That perfect “something” will
be the only true Entity (De Antiquissima, Ch. I.1-2), in the light of which
all other entities will appear almost false (compare SN44, “Of the Elements,”
XLVII; De Antiquissima, Ch. I.2, par. 9; and Risposta 1711, part. 3, concluding
paragraphs); for we intend the metaphysical always and only in the “geometrical,”
as something posited outside of the physical (Risposta 1712, part
4, par. 10). But that which is “set aside” outside of the physical is, literally, a
parola (from parabola), a “mental word” or a word pointing to properties of
minds and wills (SN44, “Of the Elements,” LXIII and Bk. II.2.i, par. 1). In this
respect, the origin or nature of speech is “silent” or “mute,” as are the ideas
of the mind constituting the “mental dictionary” (dizionario mentale) common
to all “spoken” tongues—a dictionary belonging to the “ideal eternal
story” (storia ideale eterna) presupposed by all temporal stories (ibid., “Of
the Elements,” XXIII). All spoken temporal speech presupposes one eternal,
mental speech as its underlying ground: the “order of words” (ordo verborum)
partakes in a silent order. Far from being lost in Chaos (which in reality is but
a “confusion of seeds”—SN44, Bk. II.7, par. 1—and thus a confused mind),
words are originally disclosed in the mind, as ideas. The first or truly natural
world is the world of pure ideas. It is only where the mind reverses itself (si
riversa) upon itself in “self-love” or love of its own (amor propio or philautia—
compare SN44, “Of the Method,” 2, and De Uno, Bk. I, Ch. XXVIII, XXXIII),
that ideas are “impiously” assumed to be relative to a particular author, as
private properties uprooted from things themselves to serve as instruments
imposed ad hoc (a placito) on all objects of sense (cf. e.g., SN44, Bk. II.2.iv,
par. 1 and 8).
Somehow, man’s impiety presupposes piety; his “corrupt
nature” (natura corrupta) presupposes an “integral nature” (natura integra;
De Uno, Ch. XIV, XXI, and XC). But even in his corruption, man is not utterly
lost. An “eternal lamp” (lume eterno) shines through the darkness of his
ignorance, namely God in the certain guise of divine or divined providence
(SN44, “Of the Elements,” CXIII and De Uno, “Principium,” §4). Wherever
the human mind seeks the “author” or true source of its undetermined being,
it finds “something” to abide and stop in—something to rest its faculty or
“volition” in (SN44, “Of the Elements,” IX). By reflecting piously upon this
“something,” the mind finally reaches the Idea of God, or God as the perfect
convergence of all mental object-forms (compare ibid., “Idea of the Work,”
par. 2 and 4; Bk. II.3, par. 1; “Conclusion of the Work,” par. 4).