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Giambattista Vico and "The Method of Studies in Our Times": A Criticism of Descartes' Influence on Modern Education Author(s): Henry J. Perkinson Reviewed work(s): Source: History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Mar., 1962), pp. 30-46 Published by: History of Education Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/367334 . Accessed: 02/04/2012 19:56
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GIAMBATTISTA VICO AND "THE METHOD OF STUDIES IN OUR TIMES": A CRITICISM OF DESCARTES' INFLUENCE ON MODERN EDUCATION Henry J. Perkinson
Giambattista Vico was born in 1668, at a time when Italy was just beginning to recover from the enervating effects of more than a century of clerical and foreign domination. In 1559, a century before Vico's birth, the long contest between France and Spain for supremacy in the peninsula had been decided in favor of Spain by the treaty of Cateau-Cambresia. Following this, hope for the independence of Italy had definitely been abandoned. The minor princes submitted to being Spanish vassals, and the Spanish rulers joined hands with the Roman Curia in a strict surveillance of the thought and action of the Italian people. The Church, fearful of the spread of Protestantism, drew more straight and narrow the way of orthodoxy, increasing at the same time the degree of punishment for those who strayed. The decadence and torpor that engulfed Italy during this period has come to be called secentismo or baroque.
After having initiated Europe to the new civility of Humanism and of the Renaissance, after having opened the way to speculation and to modern science with naturalism, with the experimentalism of the Galilean school, with the intuition of real politics of Machiavelli, and with the grandiose and premature synthesis of Bruno and Campanella, Italy was cut off from spiritual commerce with other peoples and passively underwent a double political and religious servitude.1

By the end of the seventeenth century pressure from both Spain and from the Catholic Church was lessened. Spain was now a waning power, and by this time, too, the growth of Protestantism had been constrained by the work of the Counter Reformation. The time was ripe for a rebirth in Italian thought. Such a rebirth did occur, and one of the most important centers of this rebirth was Naples, the city of Vico's birth. Naples had traditionally been the home of Italian philosophers, Thomas Aquinas and Bruno having been born in or near it. Bruno had taught there, as had his somewhat younger contemporaries,
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Campanella and Telesio. Now, once again, Naples was to become the center of intellectual activity. The primary cause of the rebirth in Italian thought, or its motivating force, was the discovery and importation of the philosophy of Rene Descartes. "It can be said that in the eighteenth century Italy became Cartesian: it is like a new renaissance of which Naples is the center and the seat."2 The works of Descartes were not introduced into Naples until 1649. In that year, Tommaso Cornelia (1614-1684), a teacher of medicine, returned from a trip abroad with the works of Descartes.3 As a result, the influence of Descartes was first felt in the field of medicine. But it was not only in the field of medicine that the Cartesian philosophy came to dominate Neapolitan thought. A second generation of Cartesians soon arose, those whose primary interests were in metaphysics, the metaphysics contained in the Meditations of Descartes.4 There was still a third sphere of thought that was affected by the Cartesian philosophy: educational theory. I. Cartesian Theory of Education Descartes' philosophy contains no references to education, other than his criticisms of his own in the Discourse on Method.5 Nevertheless, his philosophy contains principles that have been, and to a certain extent still are predominant in the assumptions of modern educational theory. First, all men, according to Descartes, are equally endowed with the ability to learn. "Good sense is the thing of all else in this world that is most equally distributed . . . the latent ability to judge well, to distinguish the true from the false, is naturally equal among all men."6 Secondly, this good sense or sound intelligence of man can be and should be developed. It is not enough to have a sound mind; the principal thing is to make a good use of it. Reason is developed by the enforcement of a strict method of knowing-a method that provides criteria for accepting or for rejecting whatever is received under the label of "knowledge." This brings us to the third element in Descartes' philosophy that has been taken up in modern educational theory, i.e., for the mind to require proof or self-evidence for all that is presented to it as true. Descartes propounds this view in the very first rule of his Method: "The first of these rules was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice in judgements, and to accept in them
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nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it."7 The first appearance of a Cartesian-inspired theory of education was in the so-called "little schools of Port Royal." Started by Saint Cyran in 1638, these schools played an important part in the Jansenist movement in France. Their short, although active career was ended in 1660 when the Jesuits finally succeeded in getting them permanently closed. The theological controversy between Jesuits and Jansenists need not concern us, since more important to us is that in its later years many of the teachers of Port Royal were also ardent Cartesians, and it was through the writings of these men that Cartesianism was first introduced into educational theory. The most important, and most well-known book that did this was the Port Royal Logic, or the Art of Thinking, written jointly by Nicole and the "Great Arnauld." Indeed, Cadet goes so far as to say that the greatest merit of this book is that it introduced Cartesian philosophy into education.8 Published in 1662, two years after the closing of the Port Royal schools, the Logic had a wide readership in both France and Italy during the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. Maugain's exacting scholarship has uncovered six separate editions of this work (three in Latin, three in Italian) published in Italy between 1722 and 1749.9 If we accept Vice's account of this work in his Autobiography, then it would supply further evidence that the Logic was widely known and used in Naples. In the Autobiography, Vico includes part of an annual lecture that he gave to young men at the University. In this lecture he speaks of the "pernicious practice" of giving children "barely out of grammar school the so-called Logic of Arnauld."'l0 who is commonly In the first Discourse of the book, Amrnauld, held to be the principal author of the work, announces that "he has borrowed from the books of a celebrated philosopher of this age, who is distinguished as much for perspicuity as others are for confusion of mind.""l He is referring, of course, to Descartes. In true Cartesian form, Arnauld immediately declares that the aim of all studies is to "perfect the reason," and to "render our judgment as exact as possible."l2 Since "correct thinking" is infinitely more important than all the speculative knowledge that we can obtain --even by means of the most solid and well-established sciencesthen this aim should lead men to engage in those speculative
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disciplines "only as far as they may contribute to that end, and to make them the exercise only, and not the occupation of the mental powers."'3 So, according to Arnauld, what is taught is only taught as a means-a twofold means that renders judgment as exact as possible, and perfects reason.
If we have not this end in view, the study of the speculative sciences, such as geometry, astronomy, and physics, will be little else than a vain amusement, and scarcely better than the ignorance of these things, which has at least this it is less laborious, and affords no room for that empty vanity advantage-that which is often found connected with these barren and unprofitable knowledges. These sciences not only have nooks and hidden places of very little use, they are even totally useless, considered in themselves, and for themselves alone. Men are not born to employ their time in measuring lines, in examining the relations of angles, and considering the different movements of matter-their minds are too great, their life is too short, their time too precious, to be engrossed with such petty objects; but they ought to be just, equitable, prudent, in all their converse, in all their actions, and in all the business they transact; and to these things they ought specially to discipline and train This care and study are so very necessary that it is strange themselves. that this exactness of judgment should be so rare a quality.14

We must rid ourselves of "confused ideas," Arnauld continues, and the only way to do this is the way we have been shown by Descartes: to throw aside the prejudices of youth and "to believe nothing which is within the province of that reason through which we have judged of it before, but only through that which we judge of it now."'l5 Only in this way shall we arrive at natural ideas; i.e., "clear" ideas, "true" ideas. So, according to Arnauld, after completing a successful education-that is, one that perfects reason and renders judgment exact -man is able to know which ideas are "true,"which "false." The true, the certain ideas, are those that are clear and distinct, and "we may affirm of a thing all that is contained in its clear and distinct idea."'l6 (Italics added.) Inherent in this theory of education is the lurking belief that man is an absolute subject; that is, that man can have an idea, an image, or a conception that corresponds perfectly and absolutely to reality. It is this conception of man as absolute subject that Vico criticizes most severely. II. Vico and the Cartesian Theory of Education As professor of rhetoric at the University of Naples, Vico delivered seven inaugural lectures to the students and faculty.
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In the seventh oration, delivered in 1709 and entitled "The Method of Studies of Our Time" (II metodo degli studi del tempo nostro), Vico attacks the Cartesian educational theory. In the education based upon the Cartesian philosophy, Vico saw a result diametrically opposed to his own views on the aims of education. Throughout all of his previous six orations given at the University of Naples he had developed the conception that education was the means by which man could overcome his natural conditions of alienation. But now in the Cartesian inspired education what he saw was an intensification of that alienation. Cartesian Education and the Alienation of Man from Truth "Today, all studies," Vico says, "are initiated by critica."17 Critica he never defines, but in context it seems to mean a critical attitude toward all knowledge, typified by the Cartesian philosophy. The aim of critica, he continues, is to liberate genuine truth not only from every error, but also from whatever may wake the smallest suspicion of error. Critica insists that we rid the mind of all secondary truths, or what he calls the "verisimili (i.e., likely things), in the same way that one rids oneself of whatever is false.l8 Verisimili are intermediate between the true and the false; they are opinions, beliefs, ideas, etc., that are usually true, or, conversely, are rarely false. "As science is to truths and error is to falsehoods, so common sense generates the verisimili."19 "Common sense" is an important notion in Vice's philosophy. Generally speaking, he used the term to mean more or less what we mean, i.e., the normal, unsystematic, rigorless "logic" common to the masses, that creates and sustains certain opinions, beliefs, ideas, etc. Vico maintains that students should be educated in that common sense so that in their maturity, when they are called upon for practical action, they will not "burst forth in estranged and rebellious acts." Vico is not against critica, or the use of the critical attitude, but he is against teaching this attitude to children. At one level his criticism of this kind of education is based upon the theory of human development that he had outlined in his sixth oration. This theory states that the reason is active in manhood, whereas during youth the imagination and memory are more active. Vico's argument is that if the order of education does not follow the order of human development, then the development of the memory and imagination might be impeded.
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As reason dominates old age, so imagination dominates youth, nor is it advisable to blind this faculty in children, since it has always been regarded as an index of their future talent.20

It is necessary to develop the faculty of imagination as well as faculty of memory ("which if it is not the same thing as imagination is certainly almost the same"),21 because these faculties are of prime importance in the arts of poetry, oratory, and jurisprudence. But the fundamental reason for Vice's criticism of this Cartesian-inspired education is not that such education is an impediment to the development of certain arts, but rather that it is through these arts that man, in part, pursues wisdom. In what follows it will be seen that his basic criticism of this kind of education is that it intensifies man's alienation from himself, alienates him from what by his very nature he seeks: Truth. Before the teaching of critica, he cautions, there should be instruction in topica, The term topica, or loci communes, was first used by Aristotle, and later by Cicero to refer to the study of arguments that experience had demonstrated to be particularly effective.22 But as Vico uses the term, he seems to mean more than this; topica, for Vico, means the invention of arguments designed to investigate the matter at hand.
Today, critica exclusively is cultivated: topica, far from being placed first in order, is completely forced out. And this is wrong, since, as the invention of arguments precedes by nature the evaluation of truth, so topica should precede critica.2

Topica, as Vico uses the term, can only be understood by recourse to the works of the English philosopher, Francis Bacon, who exerted a great influence upon the Neapolitan at this time.24 According to Bacon, topica, or topics, is concerned with the invention of arguments. "The use and office of this invention is no other than out of the mass of knowledge which is collected and laid up in the mind to draw forth readily that which is under consideration."25 Yet topics, Bacon says, are not of use in debate only, for they also function to uncover new knowledge pertinent to the question in hand.
Only it may be observed by the way, that this kind of topic is of use not only in argumentations where we are disputing with another, but also in meditations, where we are considering and resolving anything with ourselves; neither does it serve only to prompt and suggest what we should affirm and assert, but also what we should inquire or ask.'

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Bacon divides topics into two classes, general and particular. The former, he says, has been sufficiently heralded in logic so that there is no need to dwell on its explanation. Here he is probably referring to the "places" treated by Aristotle.27 But of the particular topics, which concern "places of invention and inquiry appointed to particular subjects and sciences," Bacon gives us an extended example. The example is entitled "Articles of Inquiry Concerning Heavy and Light." It is a series of nineteen questions, by means of which one inductively comes to know more about heavy and light.28 When Vico asserts that the teaching of topica should precede the teaching of critica for the reason that "the discovery of arguments comes naturally before the judgment on the truth," he must have been referring to topica as a method of investigation or discovery. He must, that is, have maintained a conception of topica similar to that expressed by Francis Bacon, who had also said about topics:
. . . the fuller and more certain our anticipation is, the more direct and compendious is our search. The same places therefore which will help us to shake out the folds of the intellect within us, and to draw forth the knowledge stored therein, will also help us to gain knowledge from without; so that if a man of learning and experience were before us, we should know how to question him wisely and to the purpose; and in like manner how to select and peruse with advantage those authors, books, and parts of books, which may best instruct us concerning that which we seek.29

But today, laments Vico, we exclude the teaching of topics, judging it good for nothing. Provided as men are with critica, they affirm-discovering and distinguishing whatever there is of truth in everything taught-without having learned any topica. One result of this is that by following the very criterion of truth (i.e., critica) they learn nothing of the likely things (verisimili) that are about. But, in addition, he asks, who can be certain of having seen all of the circumstances? In other words, without topica, which, according to Bacon and Vico, aids us in obtaining the greatest amount of information about something, it is impossible to be certain of having made a "true" judgment.
Although human nature is susceptible of errors, nevertheless, the single end of the arts is to render ourselves certain of having acted rightly, and if critica is the art of true oration, topica is the art of fecund oration."

So far Vico has criticized the Cartesian-inspired education, which teaches critica to the exclusion of fopica, because it alienates
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man from the truth in two ways. First, by following critica alone, one accepts only what is "certain," and so neglects or cuts oneself off from whatever is likely (the verisimili). Second, by following critica alone, one judges of a thing before knowing the greatest possible amount of information about it, so that one's judgments cannot be '"true"and "certain." He next makes the assertion that not only are the students alienated from truth by this kind of education but so, also, is the rest of society. Those who have been taught only critica are unable to share with or to teach to the rest of the community whatever new truths they might obtain. This is because those who are not exercised in topica "never have the experience of immediately seeing whatever persuasive is implicit in every cause." For this reason the students of the Cartesianinspired education are not able to persuade the masses to accept the truths they try to share with or to teach them. The Cartesian approach, of course, as Vico realizes, is that "they claim to teach people to think." But Vico, who was a professor of rhetoric, maintains that the art of teaching, like the art of oratory, is based completely upon the listeners (or learners). Therefore, the orator (or the teacher) must adapt his oration to the opinion of the public. He asserts that the public is often unmoved by ponderous reasoning, but their opinions are moved by some light arguments more often than not. Vico, as an example, cites Cicero's defense of Milo after the latter had killed the tribune Clodius in 52 B.C. Clodius was a scoundrel and has even been called a "gangster" by a modern historian.31 According to Vico, Brutus "who acted like the modern critics," insisted that Cicero defend Milo by reciting only the facts about the murder, and by indicating Milo's great merit for having exterminated the pest, Clodius. Cicero, against his own wishes, did so, with the result that Milo was exiled. Cicero then composed an oration as he would have delivered it, had he been able, in which he developed all of the favorable circumstances, not facts alone. Milo read it and "was convinced that had it been so given he would not have been condemned."32 At this point Vico appears to be hovering close to expediency. It must be recognized that the threat of expediency is imminent throughout all of his work. But expediency is, in fact, repugnant to his philosophy. In all of his orations the central problem was the contradiction between what men are and what they can be. Vico believed that men, by their very nature, can know truth and can perform good acts. Men can, but many do not. Vico has
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conceived education as the means for the transformation of man from what he is to what he can be. In this present oration, what has sounded like the espousal of expediency is really the that expression of a methodological principle of pedagogy-one is widely recognized today-which states that to teach effectively one must take into consideration the abilities and capabilities of one's students. Vico earlier applied this principle to the formal, or institutional education, and now he applies it to the informal, or non-institutional education that the students will, in the future, attempt to give to the masses. He earlier prescribed topica as a prerequisite to critica in the schools, for the reason that topics is a necessary complement to critica in man's search for truth, but, in addition, he did this for pedagogical reasons; that is, because topica is more in keeping with the capabilities and abilities of youth since youth is dominated by imagination and memory, just as critica is more in keeping with the capabilities and abilities of later youth and manhood since at this time reason is more dominant. So when Vico now prescribes topica to be used in the communication of new truths to the masses, his reasons are again pedagogical. The masses, he believes, are for the most part incapable of reasoning. Consequently, topica, which not only helps us to gain new knowledge but also helps us to perceive what is persuasive in any cause, should be used in teaching to the masses those truths of which we ourselves are already certain through means of critica. In conclusion, then, Vico believes that both topica and critica are necessary in education. In this he disagrees with both Arnauld and Cicero, since the former disparaged the learning of topica, while the latter advocated the study of topica to the exclusion of critica.3 The teaching of both will cultivate in the students the common sense of their time, will lead them to civil prudence and to eloquence, and will enable them to judge what is true and what is false. As a result of such an education, Vico claims, the student will be
. . . exact in science, vigilant in the practical conduct of their lives, fecund in eloquence, imaginative in poetry and painting, and rich of memory in jurisprudence."

Through such instruction, he concludes, the students will not become rash as those who dispute the material they are to learn,
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nor will they become religiously credulous, as those who regard everything that they are told by a teacher as true. Cartesian Education and the Alienation of Man from Good After criticizing the Cartesian-inspired education because it intensified man's alienation from truth, Vico next attacks it because it intensified man's alienation from good, or from the performance of good acts.
But the gravest danger of the modern method [i.e., the Cartesian inspired education] is that while we occupy ourselves diligently with natural sciences, we neglect morality, especially that side that concerns itself with the character of our soul and of its tendencies to civil life.35

"Today," he continues, "the single end of studies is truth."36 Accordingly, we study nature insofar as it seems certain to us, and we do not observe human nature because it is uncertain. But, Vico claims, the result of this method of study is to prevent the development of sufficient prudence in students so that they can conduct themselves in civil life. Nor can they conduct a discourse colored with knowledge of their own customs and mores, he adds. Thus we see that for Vico, goodness, or the performance of good acts, takes place in the context of human society, and civil life must be conducted according to prudence. Civil life, he says, cannot be conducted according to science, because human affairs are dominated by occasion and choice, both of which are uncertain. Those who are taught to cultivate truth exclusively have difficulty in availing themselves of the means to act in civil life and even still greater difficulty in following their ends. "So," he concludes, "deluded in their very propositions, they frequently desert political
action."37

In place of the method of science, which he claims is just not suited to the guidance of civil life, Vico offers the method of prudence.
In science they excel who go in search of a single cause to which they are able to reduce multiple natural phenomena; whereas in civil prudence, they persist who, from one fact alone, give themselves to investigate a great number of possible causes, in order to conjecture which among them is the true one.88

Science, Vico says, tends to the highest truths, whereas prudence tends to the lowest. The highest truths are eternal and never changing, whereas the lowest are those that from one
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moment to the next become false. Since human affairs, in his view, are dominated by occasion and choice, both of which are uncertain, then it is the lower truths toward which prudence tends that are important for the conduct of civil life. Vico next gives a picture of four different approaches to the conduct of civil life, the last of which is the approach he is advocating. The "fool" tends neither to the lofty truths nor to those of the inferior order and so continually pays the penalty of his foolishness. The "illiterate astute," who is privileged with a practical sense by which he gathers practical truths but not universal truths, "draws advantages today, but not tomorrow." The learned man, who lacks a practical sense, moves from the universal truths to the particular, but in doing so he is '"tangled in the tortuosity of life." But the wise man, who moves from the lowest truths to the highest, is able to conduct his affairs advantageously, because "when he sees that it is impossible to take the right way, moves around the obstacle and takes useful decisions in a mature manner and as naturally as possible."39 According to Vice, then, the result of exclusive concern with the modern (Cartesian) educational aim of "truth," is that the students become incapable of performing good acts. The reason for this is that this singular aim dictates the method of science as the best and only rule for the guidance of life in all its aspects. Science, however, Vico maintains, is not suited for the conduct of civil life, and the attempts to employ it thus result in an alienation of man from the pursuit of good. In place of science Vico proposes the method of prudence. Next-in a criticism analogous to the one that he made earlier in regard to the alienation from truth resulting from the Cartesianinspired education-Vico claims that this education alienates not only the students from the pursuit of goodness, but it alienates the rest of the community as well. The reasoning behind this claim is similar to that employed in the earlier instance; that is, that this kind of education prevents the students from sharing their knowledge of the good with the masses, that it prevents communication or instruction in what are good acts, what are not. Vice's argument is that those who adopt the method of science in civil affairs measure facts according to reason, while the rest of mankind do not rule themselves according to rational decision
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but according to caprice and chance; and, since these "scientists" have not cultivated common sense, nor even followed the likely, being contented solely with truth, they do not bring before men what is concrete or what seems to be true.40 In other words, even when these students of the Cartesian-inspired education do have a true knowledge of what are good acts, they are unable to communicate this because they lack the ability to make it seem true to the masses. Vico is not unaware that this sounds like anti-intellectualism, but, he points out, from the ancient academy and lyceum of Athens there came forth such politician-philosophers as Cicero and Demosthenes, who did adapt their reasoned doctrines to civil prudence.41 Vico here is, of course, insisting upon the interrelatedness of the good and the true, insisting that "wisdom is virtue." To the accusation that he wants to produce courtiers instead of philosophers, Vico replies that he wants "philosophers of the court," who "indeed love the truth, but at the same time love what seems so, followers indeed of honesty, but also followers of that which receives universal approval."42 The Cartesians, of course, Vico realizes, will say that it is better to "attack" a mind with reason, which cannot be evaded, rather than with oratory, or mere words, after which the soul returns to its earlier character. Vico, however, believes otherwise. He replies that eloquence appeals to the animo, or the soul of man, and that the soul was not, as the Cartesians seemed to believe, the mind. Though the mind, he admits, can be enveloped with what is certain by starting with a subtle network of truth, not so the soul. To conquer, to move the soul, requires concrete oratory. Wise men perform their duty because they understand it, but such is not the case with the masses. The masses must be made first to love their duty by being allured to it through the corporal images of oratory. Once they love it, it is easy to induce them to believe and finally to will it. The proposals Vico has just made in regard to the pursuit of the good have a definite relationship to the proposals he made earlier in regard to the pursuit of truth. In the case of the latter, Vico had said that critica, which tends to the absolutely certain, must be complemented by, indeed follow, topica, which tends to the particular, and the likely. He also maintained that in the teaching of new truths to the masses, the art of rhetoric, or oratory, must be employed, which is dependent upon critica for the truths
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presented, but upon topica for the way in which these truths are pronounced. Now, in regard to the pursuit of the good, he says that the method of science or philosophy (since to the Cartesians there was but one method applicable to all branches of knowledge), which tends to the absolute and eternal, must be complemented by, indeed preceded by, the method of prudence which tends to the particular and the uncertain. He also maintains that in the teaching of what is good to the masses, the art of rhetoric, or oratory, must be employed. In both of these cases it is obvious that Vico is placing a tremendous moral responsibility upon the shoulders of those whom he calls "wise." But such a conception does not take into account the fact that frequently highly intelligent and knowledgeable men do use their intelligence for ends that are not virtuous, e.g., demagogues. A necessary prerequisite for the appearance of demogoguery is the freedom of the masses to judge and to follow whatever appeals to them as desirable. Yet the only cure for demagoguery, in which the cure is not a form of tyranny, is the further extension of freedom to the masses. Such a method of averting demagoguery depends upon a deep faith in the masses. This faith, the seeds of which are already apparent, comes to the fore in Vico's later works, particularly in his greatest and most widely known book, The New Science. Were this not to happen, the dictum "Wisdom Is Virtue" could be employed, as it was by Plato, to support a totalitarian, hence tyrannical philosophy of society and of education.43 Before resuming the analysis of Vice's seventh oration, something must be said about Vice's conception of rhetoric or eloquence. Though the purpose of this study is not to trace the origins of Vice's thoughts, nor to indicate their relationship to those of other philosophers, something of this sort is necessary if one is to understand his conception of rhetoric, which is for him intrinsically a part of man's pursuit of wisdom, his pursuit of the true and the good. According to Francis Bacon, "the duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply Reason to imagination for the better moving of the will."44 The important point here is the phrase "better moving of the will." By this Bacon means that rhetoric moves men to actions, actions that are good.
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For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that which is good than in coloring that which is evil; for there is no man but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think: and it was excellently noted by Thucydides in Cleon that because he used to hold the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech; knowing that no men can speak fair of courses sordid and base.46

Today we usually think of rhetoric purely in terms of style, and if at all in connection with reason, as something opposed to it. But for Bacon, and Vico, rhetoric is an aid to reason. "The end of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to oppress it."46 Both philosophers agree that man's conduct ought to be governed by reason, but they also agree in believing that because of the nature of man and of society, such is not always the case. In a passage anticipating Vice's notion that knowledge of good should be made "concrete" or made to "seem" to be good, Bacon says:
it is the business of rhetoric to make pictures of virtue and goodness, ... so that they may be seen. For since they cannot be showed to the sense in corporal shape, the next degree is to show them to the imagination in as lively representation as possible by ornament of words.47

But Vico enlisted rhetoric not only in the service of teaching good actions but also in the teaching of new truths as well. And this function of rhetoric can be found expressed in the work of Bacon also. Without the aid of rhetoric to teach new and strange truths to the masses, such truths, says Bacon, are lost.
So those knowledges are like to be received and honoured which have their foundation in the subtlety or finest trials of common sense, or such as fill the imagination; and not such knowledge as is digged out of the hard mine of history and experience, and falleth out to be in some points as adverse to common sense or popular reason, as religion, or more. Which kind of knowledge, except that it be delivered with strange advantages of eloquence and power, may be likely to appear and disclose a little to the world and straight to vanish and shut again.4"

Vice's conception of rhetoric seems largely derived from that of the English philosopher. It is a conception quite foreign to us today, for after the time of Bacon and Vico it was lost.49 But in this idea of rhetoric, both the Englishman and the Italian shared an understanding of the dynamics of the intellectual development of society. Unlike the Cartesian rationalists, whom Vico called "Stoics"-recalling Bacon's indictment of the latter50-both philosophers saw that the advancement of knowledge for the whole society could not be accomplished merely by appealing to the
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reason inherent in all men. For any lasting advancement of knowledge, which must include teaching the masses what is true and good, rhetoric is indispensable. Cartesian Education and Man as Absolute Subject In the seventh oration it is apparent that in attacking the Cartesian-inspired education Vico is attacking the philosophy of Descartes himself. At least he is attacking the assumption implicit in this philosophy that man can know with certainty what is other, i.e., the conception of man as absolute subject. Descartes had attempted to discover or invent the method by which man could obtain absolute certainty, a method by which man, through the use of his reason alone, could be led to true knowledge and to the performance of good acts. In his Method, Descartes believed that he had found such a way to certainty. But Vico saw in this "Method" a rejection of man as he really is. In other words, Vico saw in the Cartesian philosophy an alienation of man from himself, because, according to Vico, the Cartesian philosophy could not lead all men to the truth and goodness toward which they tend. Paradoxically, it was Descartes' insistence on the ability of all men to attain absolute certainty that convinced Vico of the limitations of Descartes' philosophy. Vico did not believe man was an absolute subject. Descartes did, and, as is well known, based his belief on the certainty of mathematics. Vico in the seventh oration makes a rather remarkable comment on the Cartesian conception of mathematics as the model of perfect or absolute knowledge. Speaking of the use of mathematics in physics he says:
We demonstrate geometrical things because we make them; if we were able to demonstrate physical things we would make them.65

This is not a criticism of the certainty of mathematics but an insight into the reason for its certainty. What it does do is to deny that mathematical knowledge is knowledge of what is "other." In so doing, Vico is attacking (and if he is correct, demolishing) the cornerstone of the Cartesian conception of man as absolute subject. These few rather cryptic remarks which Vico makes about mathematics are the first expression of his famous and important epistemological formula: Verum est factum (truth is made).
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Having shown that the Cartesian philosophy does not enable man to overcome his natural alienation from truth and goodness, but rather intensifies it, Vico in his future works devoted himself to the formulation of a philosophy that guarantees the overcoming of this alienation.
NOTES
1. E. Codignola, Problema Della Educazione (Firenze, 1955), II, 167-68. 2. L. B. DeBessucele, Les Cartesiens D'ltalie (Paris, 1920), 47. 3. R. Cotugno, La Sorte di Giovan Battista Vico (Bari, 1914), 22. See also M. H. Fisch, "The Academy of the Investigators in Science, Medicine, and History," Essays in Honor of Charles Singer (Oxford, 1953), I. 4. G. B. Vico, Opere, a cura di F. Nicolini, La Letteratura Italiana Storia e Testi, Vol. XLIII. (Milano, 1953), n. 10 of Nicolini, 30. 5. R. Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637), Philosophical Works, Vol. I, trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (New York, 1931), 83-87. 6.. Ibid., 81. 7. Ibid., 92. 8. F. Cadet, Port Royal Education, trans. A. D. Jones (London, 1898), 30. 9. G. Maugain, Etude sur l'Evolution intellectuelle de lI'ltalia de 1657 a 1750 environ (Paris, 1909), 199. 10. Vico, Opere, Autobiografia, 17. See also G. B. Gerini, Gli Scrittori Pedagogici Italiani Del Secolo Decimo Settimo (Torino, 1900), 223-26 and 228-39. 11. A. Arnauld and P. Nicole, Logic or the Art of Thinking, Being the Port Royal Logic, trans. T. S. Bayres (Edinburgh, 1850), 8. 12. Ibid., 1. 13. Ibid., 2. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 67. 16. Ibid., 332. 17. Vico, Opere, II metodo degli studi del tempo nostro, 176. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid.) 177. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., n. 3 of Nicolini, 178. 23. Ibid., 178. 24. Vico, Opere, Autobiografia, 39. 25. F. Bacon, Philosophical Works, reprinted from the text and translation with the notes and prefaces of Ellis and Spedding, edited by J. M. Robertson (London, 1905), 511. 26. Ibid., 512. 27. E. R. Wallace, Francis Bacon on Communication and Rhetoric (Chapel Hill, 1943), 57. 28. Bacon, 513 et seq. 45

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Ibid., 512. Vico, Opere, II Metodo, 176. F. R. Cowell, Cicero and the Roman Republic (London, 1956), 242-49. Vico, Opere, II Metodo, 180. Ibid.; cf. Arnauld and Nicole, Chap. XVII: "Places or the Methods of This Method Is of Little Use." Finding Arguments.-That Ibid., 181-182. Ibid., 192. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 193. Ibid. Ibid., 194. Ibid., 196. Ibid., 196-197. K. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1950), Part I, especially Chapter 7. Bacon, 127. Ibid., 128. Ibid. Ibid., 536. Ibid., 120. Wallace, Chap. 13: "Bacon and Post-Elizabethan Rhetorical Theory.''" Bacon, 536. Vico, Opere, II Metodo, 184.

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