Spring 2010 - Interpretation

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I n t e r p r e t a t i o n
Appropriating no certainty for himself, Vico’s interpreter
of authority attributes all wisdom to one infinite God that “to all is Jove.”
In this most authoritative God (Deus Optimus Maximus), common Author
of nations, Vico articulates a thorough “critique of Authors,” offering one
sample of “philosophy of authority” converting human semblances into
“questions” (domande) open to an underlying “metaphysical” world of
silent understanding that eludes all imagination (SN44, “Of the Elements,”
Introduction and XIII; “Of the Method,” concluding three paragraphs; Bk.
II.2.iv, concluding paragraphs; “Conclusion of the Work,” par. 3-4). Thus the
Scienza Nuova comes to be the stage both of axiomatic authoritative opinions
or Degnità, and of “reasonings” or ragionamenti (SN44, “Idea of the Work,”
par. 2 and throughout; “Of the Elements,” Introduction). Vico’s “reasonings”
penetrate the axiomatic authoritative opinions, pointing reflexively to their
“metaphysical” significance, and thereby to “minds” and “wills” that nobody
ever made (cf. e.g., ibid., LXIII).
Far from being imposed upon appearances ad hoc (or “a
placito”), the true significance of appearances discloses itself through our
questioning of appearances, or where we cease conceiving appearances as
opaque certainties, or as ideas shut to interpretation. Though our reasoning
may be partially obscured by the feigned authority of our senses, “Natural
Reason” shines forth eternally from within the “dense night” of dreadful
forgetfulness (SN44, “Of the Elements,” CXI-CXIII; and “Of the Principles,”
par. 1). And since as men we fail to reduce darkness to “luminous and
distinct,” i.e. authoritatively defined ideas, human life will necessarily
remain marked by both eternal light and temporal darkness. In turn, the
mutual irreducibility of luminous authority and our natural indetermination
indicates that, for man, even reasoning and the imagination remain mutually
irreducible. Poetry and philosophy, as “making” and “reasoning,” cannot
coincide in our lives (ibid., “Of the Elements,” I; “Of the Principles,” par. 3;
“Of the Method,” par. 6; Bk. II, Introduction, §2, par. 1; Bk. II.9.ii; Bk. IV.4; for
a parallel discussion on “Reason and Faith,” see SN30, “Of the Method that
this Science Uses,” concluding paragraph). There can be no human synthesis
of reason and imagination, and thus no reduction of the understanding to
what we make.
To the extent that we do not “intelligize” or read things
themselves within our minds, but that we rather read things transcending
our own sense of certainty, our reading can yield understanding of what
we do not make, i.e. of the content of God’s Mind. Through our reading or