PI

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Pi

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Piana – Ossia: Grice e Piana: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicature conversazionali dei merli Giovanni Piana (Casale Monferrato, Alessandria, Piemonte): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicature conversazionali dei merli. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats understanding as a rational, normative achievement: hearers assume that speakers are trying to be cooperative and intelligible, and so they infer speaker-meaning (including implicatures) from what is said plus context plus publicly attributable intentions, with the maxims functioning as constraints on what counts as a reasonable contribution. Piana’s work, by contrast, grows out of Milanese phenomenology (in the Paci–Husserl orbit) and is oriented toward describing how meaning shows up in lived experience—especially in perception, imagination, and music—so that the “sense” of an expression is tied to how it is heard, taken up, and sedimented in a field of experience rather than derived from an implicit social calculus of cooperation. Where Grice explains the extra content of utterances by appeal to rational expectations in a conversational exchange (why a speaker would have said that, given shared aims), Piana tends to treat meaning as structured by forms of experience and attention (how something is given, how it is grasped, how a temporal or musical articulation is experienced), making communicative understanding closer to phenomenological disclosure than to inferential reconstruction. The overlap is real, however: both resist a purely “code” model of language and both insist that meaning outruns the bare sentence; but Grice locates that surplus primarily in practical reasoning between interlocutors, whereas Piana locates it in the intentional structures of consciousness and in expressive forms (like music) where what is conveyed is not best captured as a proposition plus implicature, but as a shaped experience that can be described, compared, and clarified. Grice: “I never cease to get moved when I read Piana’s notes, “Il canto del merlo”! That’s the way to do philosophy of music – the Italianate warmth so strange and contrasting to the coldness of Scruton!” Insegna filosofia a Milano e Pietrabianca di Sangineto. Allievo di PACI, sotto il quale elabora la sua dissertazione sulle opere inedite di Husserl. La sua posizione filosofica è caratterizzata dal concetto di fenomenologia -- strutturalismo fenomenologico -- influenzato particolarmente da Husserl, Wittgenstein, e Bachelard. Alcune indicazioni sullo strutturalismo fenomenologico sono contenute in “L'idea di uno strutturalismo fenomenologico”. La sua filosofia è orientata verso la conoscenza, la musica e i campi della percezione e immaginazione. Allievi di P. sono Basso, Civita, Costa, Franzini, Serra, e Spinicci.  Uno dei più acuti e originali filosofi italiani – L’Unità -- uno dei più interessanti interpreti e prosecutori, in Italia, dell'indirizzo fenomenologico -- Paese Sera. Tra i più lucidi, originali e fecondi fenomenologi italiani" -- "L'idea di Europa e le responsabilità della filosofia". Vede l'esperienza della fenomenologia di Husserl che costituì il centro d'interesse di un grande maestro come Paci. Non è il caso qui di tracciare mappe di quelle vicende, credo però che non sarebbe sbagliato sostenere che P., in quel gioco delle parti, che è sempre l'apertura di un'esperienza plurale sul suggerimento di un filosofo autentico, si è preso quella del fenomenologo più prossimo ai temi duri di Husserl, agl’obbiettivi che stabiliscono la teoreticità della ricerca fenomenologica come tratto distintivo ed essenziale rispetto ad altre figure di pensiero -- L'Unità. Illustre filosofo della musica  -- in "Il significato della musica". il linguaggio di Spinicci, merli, la serie dodecafonica, il triangolo di Sarngadeva. Oltre il linguaggio, linguaggio e comunicazione. Grice: “St John’s, 1965. I sometimes think Blackwell does it on purpose—unlike Thornton’s, where nobody cares either way—putting all those Continental titles on display simply to irritate us. The novelty this week is Piana’s Esistenza e storia. So far, so unobjectionable: we do know that Charles I existed, and also that there is such a thing as history. What irritates me slightly is the way Lampugnani Nigri files it in a series called Biblioteca di filosofia e di cultura. Note the Italian curlicue: it doesn’t merely suggest, it virtually entails, that culture is not part of philosophy—and, worse, that philosophy is not part of culture. What was wrong with Biblioteca, full stop? Or, if they must have the genitives, why not Biblioteca di filosofia e cultura? But then I remind myself that we do not have quite their institutional anxieties. Here philosophy sits quietly as a sub-faculty inside Literae Humaniores, and nobody feels obliged to yoke it theatrically to letters. In Bologna, by contrast, they are forever pairing and re-pairing the two—filosofia e lettere, or lettere e filosofia—as if “and” were commutative in logic but somehow never quite settled in the dean’s office.” Grice: Caro Piana, ma dimmi: il merlo che canta a Casale Monferrato segue la fenomenologia di Husserl o preferisce improvvisare come uno jazzista piemontese? Piana: Grice, il merlo ha letto Husserl, ma quando trova un verme, improvvisa senza partitura! Se la musica è esperienza, il merlo è maestro – e il verme, suo premio. Grice: Allora la ragione conversazionale dei merli è la vera scuola piemontese! Immagino Wittgenstein sotto il balcone che annota ogni cinguettio: “Questo sì che è linguaggio!” Piana: Eh, Grice, se Wittgenstein avesse ascoltato il canto del merlo, forse avrebbe scritto “Tractatus Melodicus”! E la logica, per oggi, la lasciamo ai passerotti: almeno loro si capiscono davvero! Piana, Giovanni (1965). Esistenza e storia. Milano: Lampugnani Nigri, Biblioteca di filosofia e di cultura.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Piccolomini – Ossia: Grice e Piccolomini: la ragione conversazionale, l’implicatura conversazionale, e le figure di retorica Alessandro Piccolomini (Siena, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale, l’implicatura conversazionale, e le figure di retorica –LA RETORICA. Alessandro Piccolomini’s world is one in which persuasion, explanation, and even scientific prose are consciously shaped by rhetorical craft: he translates and teaches Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, writes dialogues in the vernacular, and treats discourse as something governed by figures, genre, audience, and the practical arts of making a point land; in that sense, he belongs to a tradition in which what an utterance does is inseparable from how it is framed, how it is received, and how it moves hearers. Grice, by contrast, builds a theory that tries to separate what is said (sentence meaning) from what is implicated (speaker meaning beyond the words) and then to explain the latter as the product of reason-governed conversational practice: hearers infer extra content by presuming cooperation and rationality, treating apparent departures from informativeness, relevance, or straightforwardness as calculable clues to intention. The meeting-point is that both take communication to be norm-governed and audience-sensitive, but they place the norms in different places: Piccolomini foregrounds rhetorical and stylistic norms (figures, decorum, effective presentation across registers, including the choice to write philosophy “in volgare”), whereas Grice foregrounds norms of rational exchange that operate even when no one is “doing rhetoric” on purpose, yielding implicatures as the disciplined by-product of trying to be understood. From a Gricean angle, Piccolomini’s figures of rhetoric can be redescribed as systematic ways of inviting particular implicatures; from a Piccolominian angle, Grice’s maxims look like an attempt to codify the background civility and prudence that rhetoric has always exploited, but now stated not as an art of persuasion so much as a logic of intelligible conversation. Grice: “I became especially interested in rhetoric after Leech, an Englishman who ended up teaching at Lancaster, argued that all I ever did was engage in ‘conversational rhetoric!” – LIZIO. Grice: “figure of rhetoric” – “rhetoric” versus “dialectic” inference -Alessandro Piccolomini Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. arcivescovo della Chiesa cattolica Incarichi ricoperti Arcivescovo di Patrasso   Nato a Siena Nominato arcivescovo Deceduto a Siena   Manuale  Frontespizio della filosofia naturale  (Siena, Siena. Filosofo, etterato, astronomo e arcivescovo cattolico italiano. Stemma della famiglia Piccolomini  Blasonatura D'argento, alla croce d'azzurro, caricata di cinque crescenti d'oro. Membro egl’intronati (‘Stordito’). Venne rappresentata la sua commedia Amor Costante ed Alessandro, entrambe dall'intreccio macchinoso, ma con vena psicologica e moralistica. Legato all'ambiente degl’intronati è il Dialogo de la bella creanza de le donne più noto come Raffaella.  Professore a Padova per. Insegna filosofia e partecipa alle attività degl’infiammati. Scrive ad Aretino, esponendogli il suo pensiero sul volgarizzamento della prosa scientifica. Rientrato a Siena, lascia la città per trasferirsi a Roma. Qui vive nell'ambiente del card. Francisco de Mendoza.  Uomo di grande cultura, traduce dal latino il sesto libro dell'Eneide (VIRGILIO) e il tredicesimo libro delle Metamorfosi d’OVIDIO, dal greco in italiano l'Economico di Senofonte, la RETORICA e la Poetica del LIZIO e in latino il commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia ai Meteorologica di Aristotele e la Meccanica Aristotelica. Nominato arcivescovo di Patrasso, rimase a Siena come coadiutore dell'arcivescovo Francesco Bandini Piccolomini.  E il primo, molti anni prima di Bayer, ad aver contrassegnato le stelle in base alla loro luminosità con delle lettere (alfabeto latino). Grice: “St John’s, 1953. I’m putting together notes for my turn in the joint seminar with Strawson on categories; we were on relatives, and I found myself leafing through an old volume in the St John’s library: Piccolomini’s Trattato della grandezza della terra e dell’acqua. As the Reverend Sidney used to say, “Never read a book before reviewing it; it will only prejudice you.” Still, the title alone is enough to tempt one into relational talk. Grandezza is a comparative notion if ever there was one: the earth is “great,” yes—but not great compared with the sun; grander, perhaps, than the moon, and that is about the most one can say without specifying the respect and the comparator. As for acqua, I’m less patient: water is on the earth, so if Piccolomini is comparing earth and water he must mean the proportion of the globe covered by each, or the relative extent of their domains. That, at any rate, calls to mind Gilbert and Sullivan’s Barataria—an island “completely surrounded by the sea,” or was it by the land?—and the whole joke is that one can lose one’s bearings by mishandling the relatives. Even in Harborne my father would take me down to the Avon to fish, and that was acqua, not terra, though I stood on one to get at the other. So there.” Grice: Che piacere, caro Piccolomini! Lo dico spesso: qualcuno preferisce un Piccolomini, ma Piccolomini è proprio il mio uomo! E non parlo di quell’altro, sia chiaro – intendo te, con tutto il bagaglio di retorica, implicature e quella brillante ironia senese. Piccolomini: Ah, Grice, la tua preferenza mi diverte! Sai che a Siena, tra retorica e figure d'ingegno, non ci facciamo mai mancare il sorriso. Essere “l’uomo” di un filosofo inglese mi fa sentire quasi una stella – e non solo per l'alfabeto latino che ho usato! Grice: Ecco, vedi? Persino la tua ironia la considero una figura retorica di alto livello! In fondo, è la conversazione che illumina la filosofia, non le croci d’oro dello stemma. Tu porti la luce, anche tra i “Storditi” e gli “Infiammati”. Piccolomini: Grice, se la conversazione è una costellazione, allora ci siamo guadagnati la nostra lettera! E se la retorica può far sorridere un filosofo inglese, vuol dire che la filosofia italiana ha ancora qualcosa da insegnare – tra implicature e commedie, anche la verità può essere buffa. Piccolomini, Alessandro (1540). Trattato della grandezza della terra e dell’acqua. Venezia: Marcolini.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Piccolomini – Ossia: Grice e Piccolomini: la ragione conversazionale dell’implicatura conversazionale del Lizio  Francesco Piccolomini (Siena, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale dell’implicatura conversazionale del Lizio. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats ordinary talk as a rational, cooperative practice: hearers routinely move from what is said to what is meant by assuming that a speaker is trying to be intelligible and by applying shared norms of relevance, informativeness, truthfulness, and clarity, so that implicatures are not mystical add-ons but disciplined inferences licensed by those norms and by recognisable intentions. Piccolomini, writing as a late Renaissance Aristotelian and eclectic (with a program that tries to reconcile Peripatetic “Lyceum” doctrine with Academic tendencies), approaches meaning and mind from the opposite direction: instead of starting with conversational interaction, he starts with the explanatory roles of soul, intellect, and moral formation, offering functional-cum-teleological accounts of anima as that by which a living body is organised and acts, and seeking, in works such as his universal moral philosophy, a general basis for ethics that would hold across local custom. The comparison is therefore a contrast of loci of normativity: for Grice, the governing rationality is immanent in conversational exchange itself—rules we tacitly rely on to interpret one another—whereas for Piccolomini the governing rationality is anchored in a broader natural-philosophical and ethical order (the functions of psychic powers, the ends of action, the universal shape of mores), with language and discourse serving largely as vehicles for articulating that order rather than as the primary site where meaning is generated. In Gricean terms, Piccolomini supplies rich background commitments (about agency, ends, and the structure of practical reason) that can underwrite why conversation is a rational enterprise at all, but he does not yet isolate the distinctive Gricean insight that much of what we mean is systematically conveyed by what we responsibly leave unsaid. Grice: “What Piccolomini is trying to do, but knowing, is providing what I do in from the bizarre to the banal – a good functionalist interpretation of the rather poor functionalist explanation by Aristotle of what the Italians call the ‘anima,’ because it ‘animates’ the body (corpore).  Insegna a Macerata, Perugia, e Padova. Analizza il III libro del “Sull’anima” di Aristotele del Lizio. Saggio: “Peripateticarum de anima disputationum”; “Academicarum contemplationum”. Tutore di TASSO (si vieda), ricordato in “Il Costante; overo, dela clemenza”.  Formula una teoria sincretica tra l’accademia e il lizio.  ‘Unico’ dei Filomati. Altre saggi: “Universa philosophia de moribus” (Venezia, Franceschi); “Comes politicus, pro recta ordinis ratione propugnator” (Venezia, Franceschi); “Libri ad scientiam de natura attinentes” (Venezia, Franceschi); “Librorum Aristotelis de ortu et interitu lucidissima exposition” (Venezia, Franceschi); “In III libros de anima lucidissima expositione” (Venezia, Franceschi); “Instituzione del principe”; “Compendio della scienza civile”; “VIII libri naturalium auscultationum perspicua interpretatione” (Venezia, Franceschi); “In libros de coelo lucidissima expositio” (Venezia, Franceschi). Treccani Dizionario Biografico degl’italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia. Garin, “Storia della filosofia” (Torino, Einaudi); Malmignati, “Tasso a Padova” (Firenze, Riccardiana); Roma, Pieralisi (Firenze, Biblioteca nazionale, Conv. Soppr. (S. Maria degli Angeli, Roma, Pieralisi, P., Cavalli, La scienza politica in Italia (Venezia). apollo lizio, lizio, licio, liceo, lizeo, statua di apollo lizio, in riposo dopo la palestra, il lizio, Aristotele lizio, i lizij, i lizii, gl’aristotelici, i peripatetici – gl’accademici e i lizii, gl’accademicij e i lizij. Grice: “St John’s, 1962. We have two Grices at Oxford—myself, and a Welshman (G. R. Grice, who will eventually decamp to Norwich)—but duplication of surnames is so common in Italian philosophy that it begins to feel like a metaphysical thesis. Some people like Piccolomini, but Piccolomini is my man—Francesco, that is—even if he has a taste for the grandiose. Merton’s philosophical library has a copy of his Universa philosophia de moribus, and I wish, charitably, that his syntax were clearer; for surely universa, or whatever idea it is meant to carry, belongs with de moribus rather than with philosophia, since philosophy, if it is anything at all, is already universal. So Piccolomini is really hinting that he will supply a universal basis for morals—Hegel’s ambition smuggled back behind Kant’s Metaphysik der Sitten—and one wonders whether this is meant to involve abandoning Bologna and sailing for Oceania to see whether mores there are different. I doubt it. Hegel’s answer is the better one: reason is universal, and if it does not look universal to a Bolognese in Oceania, that is because reason also has a certain cunning, with which the Bolognese must learn to contend—rather as he contends with the Devil—before setting about the civilising business of educating humanity.” Grice: Caro Piccolomini, ho appena finito di leggere il tuo commento sul “De anima” di Aristotele. Ma dimmi, tu l’anima la trovi più facilmente in biblioteca o alla trattoria senese? Piccolomini: Ah, Grice, se l’anima fosse nascosta tra gli scaffali, l’avrei prestata e mai più ritrovata! Meglio cercarla tra un bicchiere di Chianti e due pici all’aglione: lì almeno si manifesta senza metafore. Grice: Allora è vero che la filosofia italiana ha più sapore! Ma attento, Piccolomini: Aristotele diceva che un corpo senza anima non si muove… sarai mica tu a far danzare le pentole della cucina senese? Piccolomini: Grice, io faccio danzare pure il cameriere, se serve! E se Aristotele avesse provato i dolci di Siena, avrebbe aggiunto un capitolo sul “De anima felice” dopo il panforte. Piccolomini, Francesco (1557). Universa philosophia de moribus. Venezia: Giolito de’ Ferrari.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pico – Ossia: Grice e Pico: la ragione conversazionale di Beniveni, o l’implicatura dell’accademia di Cicerone -- io priego Dio Girolamo che’n pace così in ciel sia il tuo Pico congiunto come’n terra eri, et come’l tuo defunto corpo hor con le sacr’ossa sue qui iace Giovanni Pico, dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia (Mirandola, Modena, Emilia-Romagna): la ragione conversazionale di Beniveni, o l’implicatura dell’accademia di Cicerone -- io priego Dio Girolamo che’n pace così in ciel sia il tuo Pico congiunto come’n terra eri, et come’l tuo defunto corpo hor con le sacr’ossa sue qui iace. Grice’s account of reason-governed conversational meaning treats ordinary talk as a rational, cooperative enterprise: what a speaker means is not exhausted by what the words conventionally say, because hearers routinely infer further content by assuming that the speaker is aiming to be intelligible and reasonable (so that apparent underinformativeness, irrelevance, or overstatement can license calculable implicatures). Pico, by contrast, is not a pragmatist of everyday conversation but a Renaissance architect of conclusions: in the Conclusiones (1486) he stages philosophy as a disciplined yet audacious display of thesis-making across registers (philosophical, cabalistic, theological), with “concord” promised by systematic ordering rather than by the minute management of conversational expectations. Still, Pico’s practice creates Gricean pressure points: the very multiplication of “conclusions” invites an audience to ask what is really being conveyed by the choice of register, what is being smuggled from one discourse into another, and whether the speaker’s stance is self-exempting or self-involving (as in the kind of set-membership worries your “gentes/you people” motif dramatizes). So the comparison is this: Grice explains how meaning is rationally recoverable in dialogue through publicly accountable norms of contribution, while Pico exemplifies a rhetoric of learned assertion in which meaning is advanced by authoritative theses and by shifts of idiom—shifts that, from a Gricean angle, function like deliberate conversational maneuvers that prompt the reader to infer more than is explicitly stated about authority, scope, and intended reconciliation. Grice: “I liked to say: some like Pico, but Pico’s my man! Since I always preferred his cousin to the uncle!” – Cf. clavis universalis – Rossi, cita P.  Tesa in un breve arco di tempo, la vicenda di Pico sembra innervata sullo scarto tra l’originaria esaltazione della libertà umana e la tensione religiosa che anima gli scritti più maturi, e che la biografia curata dal nipote irrigidisce in radicale rigetto degli ideali passati. Marginali tanto nella lode di una libertà che rende l’uomo mediatore tra cielo e terra, quanto nella critica di un sapere mondano chiuso all’eterno, gli ideali civili a ben vedere vibrano nel fuoco di una riflessione che insiste sui tratti radicali della vicenda umana e configura originalmente temi consueti dell’Umanesimo fiorentino: dalla concordia tra ragione e scritture al rapporto tra provvidenza e destino.  La vita Giovanni Pico della Mirandola nacque a Mirandola il 24 febbraio 1463. La sua formazione si sviluppò precocemente sul duplice fronte della letteratura e della filosofia: tra il 1477 e il 1478 studiò diritto canonico; nel 1479, a Ferrara, fu avviato agli studi umanistici da Battista Guarini. Un orizzonte di ricerca, questo, che Pico approfondì negli anni successivi a Firenze, dove conobbe Angelo Poliziano, Girolamo Benivieni e, probabilmente, Marsilio Ficino: una lettera composta in questi anni rivela del resto l’interesse di Pico per le tesi che il filosofo fiorentino si accingeva a illustrare nella Theologia platonica.  amore platonico, amore socratico, Pico e Girolamo – l’epitafio – amore platonico Ficino – la dignita dell’uomo, la concordia degl’antichi, la magia, il platonismo di Pico. Pico e Pico, i apprendisti stragoni sodomiti, o dell’amore accademico.  Grice, "Grice e Pico: the dignity of man. Grice: “St John’s, 1964. One really ought to take the verb “to conclude” more seriously than philosophers have so far managed, and I mean to do so in my upcoming seminar on reason and reasoning. For what is reasoning, if not concluding? You conclude that q from the premise p because your thought of the premise causes (or anyway ushers in) your thought of the conclusion—at least that is what I am prepared, for the wonder of my audience, to conclude. And then there is Pico, who reminds me that conclusiones non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem—for that is precisely what he does: multiplies them, and with a beard into the bargain (when we know he wore none in real life). St John’s has a copy of his tract labelled Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalisticae et theologicae, which I find faintly insulting, as I picture Pico in his cultivated Latin (which, I suspect, he spoke only on paper): “I shall conclude in a threefold manner for thy delight. First, philosophically: being is one, and there is dignity in man. Next, cabalistically: two plus two equals four—preferably in some lunar interregnum, and in Arabic numerals. Finally, theologically: take that ‘being’ from the first conclusion and rephrase it as ‘God’.” And so on: a whole ladder of conclusions, as if the only alternative to modesty were taxonomy.” G.: Trinity, 1964. I have been re-reading Pico with the sort of patience one usually reserves for train timetables and impossible cousins. S.: One should always reserve patience for Italians of quality. They return the investment with Latin. G.: Pico returns it with conclusions. Hundreds of them. One feels, after twenty pages, that he has mistaken taxonomy for salvation. S.: Yet Oxford keeps him alive, somehow. G.: Alive, yes, but in the Oxford way: by successive faint reappearances, never quite by institution, always by afterlife. Pico never really got a chair. He got waves. S.: Waves? G.: Several. I have been counting them. Since Oxford likes to say it is older than the Renaissance, it has always preferred to receive the Renaissance in delayed parcels. S.: Then begin at the beginning. G.: The beginning is not Pico in Oxford at all. The beginning is Oxford existing before the word “Renaissance” had acquired enough self-respect to travel. Bologna, Paris, Oxford: all medieval already, all pre-humanist in structure, and therefore perfectly situated to import humanism later while pretending it is merely a refinement of what was there all along. S.: The old trick: continuity after the fact. G.: Precisely. So if one wants Pico in Oxford in any direct sense, one does not get him by a don in a gown saying “today we do Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.” One gets him by Italians teaching Englishmen what a better Latin life might look like. S.: Linacre. G.: Linacre first, yes. The nearest Oxford gets to touching the living Renaissance in the flesh. Oxford training first, then Italy, then Florence, then Poliziano, then back again with a better sort of confidence. S.: So Linacre knew the real thing. G.: As near as Oxford gets to it. He was not merely reading about Florence from a northern distance; he was there, and what matters for Oxford is that he appears to have been tutored in the proper way, by an Italian humanist. Oxford will recognize anything if it can be made to look like tuition. S.: The tutorial system is the only sacrament it still believes in. G.: Exactly. Linacre is intelligible to Oxford because one can say: he went out, found better teachers, and returned as a more dangerous version of himself. S.: And Pico? G.: Time-wise it works beautifully. Pico dies in 1494. Linacre’s Italian formation falls right into the later 1480s and early 1490s. Florence is not a metaphor there; it is an address. The one secure personal contact we can point to is Poliziano. Linacre becomes Poliziano’s pupil. That is enough to make Florence real. S.: And enough to make Pico possible without proving him. G.: Quite. Oxford in these matters always prefers possibility with atmosphere to proof without romance. We can securely say Linacre knew Poliziano. We can plausibly say he moved in the Medici-humanist air in which Pico was a living presence. But we cannot yet say he took tea with Pico, because Renaissance Florence did not, unfortunately, leave tea-trays in the archive. S.: Colet then? G.: Less satisfactory, which may be why he has always seemed spiritually closer to St Paul than to Poliziano. Colet goes later. He travels 1493 to 1496. By then Pico is at the edge of life, then gone. S.: So Colet is more heir than acquaintance. G.: That is exactly the right formulation. He meets the aftermath, not the man. He receives the Ficino-Pico world through writings, repute, and the late Florentine atmosphere, not necessarily through handshakes. S.: Which also suits Oxford better. Oxford likes mediated authority. G.: It likes authority to have passed through enough people to become respectable. Linacre is the vivid line. Colet is the assimilative line. S.: And both return in the 1490s. G.: Which is the first proper Oxford appropriation of the Renaissance, yes. Not because the Renaissance was then over, which is a foolish English fantasy, but because by the time Oxford imports it, Italy has already made it mature and various. S.: So the irony is not lateness after death, but lateness after development. G.: Precisely. Oxford receives the Renaissance as one receives a confident younger cousin who has already decided who he is. S.: Does Bacon enter here. G.: Only if one wants a second entrance. The first entrance is humanist, philological, Greek, biblical, rhetorical: Colet, Linacre, Erasmus-adjacent things. Bacon belongs to a later entrance, the natural-philosophical one, with Telesio in the background and anti-Aristotelian noises becoming dignified enough to travel north. S.: So Bacon is not the first channel. G.: No. He is a later and different channel. He helps import a Renaissance that has already become early modern. Through him Telesio arrives as “modernorum primus,” and Oxford begins to flatter itself that it has discovered novelty when in fact it has imported a mature Italian quarrel by a second route. S.: And Pico by then? G.: Pico has receded into emblem. One speaks of dignity, concord, theses, syncretism, magic in the learned sense, and one invokes him as a Renaissance style of mind rather than as a direct curricular author. S.: Which sounds exactly like Oxford. G.: It is exactly Oxford. Authors are often more alive as adjectives than as set texts. S.: Then comes the nineteenth century and the Germans. G.: Ah yes, the Teutonic return of the Italian. Burckhardt first in effect, though by then Pico is no longer merely an Italian humanist but a figure in a grand historical narrative called “the Renaissance,” capital letters provided by the Germans and consumed by the English. S.: Symonds. G.: Symonds is one of the great English receivers, and in an Oxford-adjacent way. Not a founder, not an original importer, but a Victorian remediator of the whole thing. He makes the Renaissance available again to an English cultivated reader as a topic one can carry in one’s luggage. S.: You mean his Renaissance in Italy. G.: Exactly. It is not the original event; it is the event in English afterlife, richly narrated, morally warmed over, and made into intellectual travel. S.: And Pater, whom I dragged in accidentally. G.: Accidentally but correctly. Pater is indispensable if one wants the Oxford Renaissance not as import but as performance. He gives you The Renaissance in 1873 and inserts Pico there as part of an Oxford aesthetic education. S.: So Pater matters as much as Symonds for the Victorian wave. G.: More for Oxford proper, I should think. Symonds is magnificent in bulk and reach, but Pater is the one who makes the Renaissance an Oxford manner. He reads essays in Oxford, he turns art and Renaissance individuality into cultivated inwardness, and thereby makes Pico available not as a scholastic curiosity but as part of an aesthetic-intellectual sensibility. S.: And yet the chairs remain with boring men. G.: There is the joke. Oxford can aestheticize the Renaissance without reinstating it institutionally. The Waynflete chair line in Pater’s time gives you not Pico restored to authority, but Mansel, Chandler, Case, later John Alexander Smith, and then much later Collingwood. S.: Chandler particularly sounds like a man who would file Pico under “miscellaneous enthusiasm.” G.: Precisely. The chairs never quite become Renaissance chairs. The Renaissance enters Oxford through criticism, essays, travel, reading, not through a formal re-foundation of metaphysical authority. S.: So Pater and Symonds are waves, not institutions. G.: Very good. That is the entire history in miniature. Pico in Oxford is mostly wave and afterwave. S.: Then Bosanquet? G.: A short bridge, not a long one. If you want to connect the aesthetic school to idealism, Bosanquet is the best plank. Pater is not Bradley in silk; Bosanquet at least allows aesthetics into idealism without turning it wholly decorative. S.: So the line is not Pater to Bradley directly. G.: No, too strong. Better: Pater contributes to an atmosphere of serious culture, inwardness, and aesthetic ideality in late Victorian Oxford; Bosanquet gives one philosophical aesthetics inside idealism; Bradley remains metaphysically larger and aesthetically less immediate. S.: And Grice later grows up under the anti-idealist reaction to all of this. G.: Under the reaction, yes, but not under amnesia. Oxford never forgets enough to be honest. It replaces without erasing. So by Grice’s period you still have Collingwood as a bridge figure, still carrying historicist and idealist seriousness in the Waynflete chair before Ryle’s appointment in 1945 institutionalises the new severity. S.: So if one wanted to dramatise it, one could say: Pater gives Oxford a Renaissance mood; Bosanquet gives it an aesthetic metaphysic; Collingwood keeps alive the historical-intellectual dignity of the old atmosphere; Ryle then sweeps the carpets and puts the furniture in straight lines. G.: Very good, though too kind to Ryle. He did more than straighten the furniture; he made old upholstery sound dishonest. S.: And Grice suffers under that. G.: Suffers and profits, which is the proper Oxford balance. One always suffers under what one later refines. S.: Return then to Pico himself. How many waves did you count. G.: Let me see. First wave: the living Italian-humanist contact through Linacre and, in a weaker way, Colet in the 1490s. Second wave: the Baconian-natural-philosophical later Renaissance route, though more Telesio than Pico directly. Third wave: the Victorian historical-aesthetic recovery through Symonds. Fourth: Pater’s Oxford aesthetic internalisation, including the Pico chapter. Fifth: the early twentieth-century and interwar history-of-ideas treatment, mostly through Burckhardt’s shadow and Germanic apparatus. Sixth: the postwar anthology-and-scholarship wave—Cassirer, Kristeller, Garin, and that 1948 anthology making Pico standard Anglophone Renaissance philosophy. S.: The sixth wave, if you have been counting them. G.: Exactly. The 1948 collection is particularly useful for my purposes, because by then Pico is not merely alive in a vague cultural way; he is anthologized, edited, presented as one of the standing names in “Renaissance Philosophy.” S.: Which means that by Grice’s Oxford years Pico is available. G.: Available, yes. Central, no. Alive as a known name in Renaissance humanism, yes. A routine author for Greats, certainly not. A living comparative point for someone with enough curiosity and enough bibliographical vice, certainly. S.: And Grice had both. G.: Curiosity and vice, yes. Enough to make an occasional joke about conclusiones and the multiplicative habits of Italians. S.: The title Conclusiones must have pleased him. G.: Immensely. It gives him a verb to overwork. For what is reasoning, after all, if not concluding, and what is Pico but a man who mistakes the product of reasoning for a distributable genre. S.: And Benivieni. G.: Ah, Benivieni belongs to the other side of the story, the more intimate Florentine side, where Pico is not a textbook but a friend, an elegy, a local intellectual weather. That side does not really enter Oxford directly. Oxford receives the printed Pico, not the Florentine sorrow. S.: Which is a pity. G.: Oxford is excellent at pity once it has been translated into a lecture. S.: Then what should our conclusion be. G.: That Pico’s influence on Oxford is real but mostly indirect, cumulative, and repeatedly mediated. He never becomes, in the strict institutional sense, re-installed. He is not re-founded into the chairs. He arrives by humanist contact, returns by historical narrative, is aestheticized by Pater, systematized by German and later Italian scholarship, and finally becomes part of the cultivated Renaissance repertoire available to an Oxford philosopher of Grice’s years. S.: In other words, he keeps speaking, but never from the podium. G.: Precisely. He speaks from the margins, from anthologies, essays, afterlives, and successive waves of civilised recovery. Which may be the best way for Pico to speak. A man of nine hundred theses would be intolerable with a permanent chair. S.: And Linacre remains the one who knew the real thing. G.: The nearest Oxford got, yes. Linacre at least had the advantage of Italian tuition and Florentine air. Colet has the writings. Bacon has the later natural-philosophical detour. Symonds has the Victorian rediscovery. Pater has the Oxford style. Burckhardt and Cassirer have the grand framing. The 1948 anthology has the postwar domestication. And meanwhile the chairs remain with perfectly competent men who would never have allowed Pico to run the timetable. S.: So here we are, with Pico left behind. G.: Left behind institutionally, yes. But still walking about the place in a perfectly Oxford way: not as a requirement, but as a name one ought to know if one wishes to sound as if one has not merely read philosophy but inherited civilisation.Grice: Caro Pico, la tua ragione conversazionale mi lascia sempre a bocca aperta! Dimmi, è vero che in Mirandola si discute anche col demonio, o è solo una leggenda? Pico: Grice, qui il demonio è solo uno studente fuoricorso! Ma credimi, tra Benivieni e Ficino, a volte preferisco discutere con le streghe: almeno non correggono i miei latinismi! Grice: Ma allora è vero che a Mirandola l’amore platonico si trasforma in magia? Dicono che l’accademia sia piena di apprendisti stregoni... e qualcuno anche sodomita! Pico: Grice, qui siamo filosofi: la magia la lasciamo ai poeti e la sodomia agli invidiosi! In accademia preferiamo le implicature: almeno, se sbagliamo, possiamo dire che era ironia! Pico, Giovanni P., dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia (1486). Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalisticae et theologicae. Roma: Plannck.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pico – Ossia: Grice e Pico: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dello stregone sodomita Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola (Mirandola,  Modena, Emilia Romagna): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dello stregone sodomita. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers work out what a speaker means by presuming rational cooperation and using shared norms to infer implicatures from what is said plus context plus recognisable intentions; meaning is thus not merely in words but in a rational, socially accountable practice of making oneself understood. Pico, by contrast, approaches interpretation through a Renaissance mixture of sceptical pressure (via Sextus and Pyrrho against easy Aristotelian confidence), moral diagnosis (the very ambition of exposing “vanity” in doctrines, and the self-including risk that the examiner’s own stance is caught by the same charge), and a semiotic-imaginative world in which signs can mislead (the daemon motif as a dramatization of systematic deception and error). Where Grice makes the rationality of conversation methodologically central—implicature as a controlled, defeasible inference from conversational norms—Pico is preoccupied with the fragility of those inferences under suspicion, self-reference, and the treacherous scope of collective terms like “the nations” or “you people,” which can accidentally sweep the speaker into what he purports to stand outside; in Gricean terms, Pico’s writing is a rich generator of cases where the usual cooperative presumption is strained by polemic, moralising, and sceptical doubt, thereby foregrounding exactly the conditions under which reason can (or cannot) securely govern what is meant beyond what is said.” Grice: “It is very likely that Cartesio took the idea of the malignant daemon from Pico, who was obsessed with him – with the daemon, I mean! “Demonio!”” Grice: “I like Pico. Ackrill suggested that I should translate happiness as taking ‘daemon’ seriously. Pico does: He allows Alberti’s use of ‘demonio’ as a direct translation of Roman ‘daemone,’ which is Grecian in nature.”Grice: “A daemon is always ‘maschile,’ succubus, or incubus – and stregus is gender-neutral, too, as Pico was very well aware when he allowed the burning of a few male witches at Mirandola. On the other hand, he uses Sextus Empiricus and Phyrro against Aristotle!” Grice: “Like Gentile, and Rosselli, two other Italian philosophers, he was murdered – by his successor to the county!” “A very sad thing is that he was murdered along with his son Alberto.” Grice: “The murderer, a Pico, succeeded him without much of a revolt – That’s the Renaissance forya!” ---   PICO, Giovan Francesco. – Primogenito di Galeotto I (fratello di Giovanni) e di Bianca Maria, figlia illegittima di Niccolò III d’Este, nacque, probabilmente a Mirandola, presso Modena, nel 1469, sei anni dopo il celebre zio Giovanni.  Della sua infanzia e adolescenza – forse trascorse in parte alla corte di Ferrara –, così come della sua formazione, si conosce pochissimo. Il 26 gennaio 1491, ormai ventunenne, prese parte, presso la corte milanese degli Sforza, ai festeggiamenti per il matrimonio fra Ludovico il Moro e Beatrice d’Este. Due mesi più tardi fu la volta del suo matrimonio con Giovanna Carafa, dalla quale ebbe dieci figli. La dote della moglie gli consentì di acquistare dallo zio Giovanni parte del feudo e i diritti ereditari sul principato della Mirandola: una mossa destinata a suscitare il risentimento. demonio, demonologia – read excerpts of Stryx in the Italian volgare under entry for translator.  Acrkill, Pico and Alberti, on ‘demonio’,” Grice: Woodstock Road, Sunday, 1952. Yesterday Austin finally put it neatly: “Some people like Wittgenstein, I grant you that, but Moore was, is, and will remain my man.” I find the motto useful. I brought back from St John’s—God knows why—this heavy volume of Pico’s Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium, and I’m tempted to say: some people like Pico, but Pico is my man; except that this is not the Pico, but the other Pico. I have been worrying away at the heterological paradox, and it occurs to me that Pico commits something like it in an Examen of the vanity of the doctrines of the nations: for how can he ever be sure he is not himself being vain—or, worse, that his own doctrine, once properly examined (as I propose to do tomorrow), is not vain to the core? Pico will say he is not one of the gentes; but is there a trickier noun than “the nations”? Even down the pub one hears “you people,” as if the speaker weren’t automatically swept up into the very set he is helpfully denouncing.” Grice: Qualcuno preferisce Pico, ma Pico è il mio uomo! E lo dico con convinzione, caro Pico: intendo proprio te, non quello più famoso. Da filosofo a filosofo, sento che la tua profondità e il tuo spirito critico mi hanno sempre affascinato. Pico: Ah, Grice, la tua stima mi onora! Non sai quanto sia raro trovare chi sappia distinguere tra i nomi e apprezzare il pensiero autentico, anche se non sempre celebrato. La fama è solo una maschera, mentre la verità filosofica è questione di dialogo e ricerca personale. Grice: Proprio così! E non posso non ricordare la tua attenzione alla questione del demonio — quel daemon che diventa felicità, ma anche inquietudine. È un tema che spesso trascuriamo in nome dell’ortodossia, ma tu hai il coraggio di guardare dove pochi osano. Pico: La filosofia, caro Grice, nasce proprio da quella inquietudine. Tra demonio e ragione, tra streghe e saggi, il mio cammino è stato sempre un po’ fuori dal coro. Ma è nel dubbio che si scorge l’autenticità, e sono felice che tu lo riconosca. Siamo uomini di dialogo, dopotutto! Pico, Giovanni Francesco P. della Mirandola (1496). Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium. Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pieralisi – Ossia: Grice e Pieralisi: la ragione conversazionale o la teoria del segno Padre Venceslao Pieralisi, O. F. M. Ref. (Jesi, Ancona, Marche): la ragione conversazionale o la teoria del segno. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers routinely get from what is said to what is meant by presuming that talk is a cooperative, purposive activity conducted under shared norms (roughly: be informative, truthful, relevant, and perspicuous), so that apparent departures from those norms are interpretable as rational and therefore calculable implicatures; the central mechanism is intention-recognition constrained by publicly available “how a reasonable speaker would be expected to proceed here.” Pieralisi’s “theory of the sign,” by contrast, starts from a semiotic taxonomy (natural vs. arbitrary signs, signans and signatum) and then formulates explicitly normative “maxims” for verbal use—use words with their established usage, avoid ambiguity, and interpret discourse by attending to (i) the sense the speaker has stipulated, (ii) what the context shows the speaker meant, and (iii) what the speaker can be presumed to know about the subject, since no one can mean to express what he does not know; where Grice builds a pragmatic theory around cooperative rational agency and derives implicature as a by-product of rational expectations in dialogue, Pieralisi offers an earlier, more scholastic-logic-inflected manual of sign-use and interpretation that already anticipates key Gricean ingredients (context-sensitivity, a presumption of competence/knowledge, and a norm against ambiguity) but treats them less as an explanatory model of inferential enrichment and more as prescriptive canons for how signs ought to be used and understood. Grice: “Amazing how Pieralisi just thought whatever I later thought for the Oxford Philosophical Society! I especially love the way his praecepta predate my conversational maxims, the full set!” – Keywords: segno, segno naturale, segno artificiale, segnare, agente segnante, segnatum. Esalta il valore della pace fra i romani e fra tutte le creature. L’anima è presente non solo negl’esseri umani, ma anche negl’altri animali, ai quali appunto l'anima conferisce come agl’uomini un'esistenza eterna al di là della morte. Per tali motivi sottolinea la necessità etica di trattare gl’animali con rispetto ed amore. De anima belluarum: sopravvivenza? Una domanda, Rocco, Venezia. “Della filosofia razionale speculativa parte soggettiva ossia la logica” (Pace, Roma); “La filosofia razionale pratica; ovvero, dei doveri naturali” (Pace, Roma); “Sui vizi capitali dell'insegnamento scientifico: riflessioni” (Pesar). Segno chiamo una cosa qualunque che colla manifestazione di se indica una qualche altre cosa. Col vedere che e quell oche dico “segno” si viene a sapere che sia anche l’altro di cui e segno. Segno ARBITRARIO chiamo quell oche per libera disposizione degl’uomini e stato destinato ad indicar la cosa che significa.  Nel segno naturale l’eistenza sua coll’esistenza di quell ova naturalmente congiunta. Il segno è rappresentativo si sta in lugo della cosa che significa, la rappresenta, ne tiene le veci. Come l’immagine de un uomo si pone in lugo dell’uomo. Ci sono V massime della conversazione. La parola si adopre ad esprimere ci oche l’uso stablito vi esprime. Si deve evitare la ambiguità. Per intedere il discorso si tiene in cota tre fattori. I al senso che colla definizione il parlante ha dichiarato di voler dare alla sua parola. II a quello que aparisce DAL CONTESTO avvervi volute significare. III al CONCETTO che si sa ch’egli puo avere delle cose di cui parla, perche nessuno puo volere esprimere quell che non sa. segnare, segnato, segnante.  Grice: “St John’s, 1960. Austin is dead and, oddly, I feel free at last to say what everyone except us insists on calling ordinary-language philosophy (the hyphen is essential): conjugation. I have before me Pieralisi’s rather dated Della conoscenza umana—and conoscenza is just the sort of grand noun Austin would never have used, bless him. I grant Pieralisi should not use it either, since all the real complications are in the verb. I know, Austin used to say, is one thing: a way for the speaker to try to reassure his addressee that he can vouch for what he is saying. But you know is quite another; and thou knowest (as Chaucer would have it) belongs to a different social universe altogether. He knows is either mildly foolish or else the sort of thing a Roman matron would say to end a dispute; we know is almost impossible even by Popper’s standards; ye know is simply rude; and they know is positively Viking. The worst of it is that Pieralisi does not even bother with what he ought to bother with: io so, lo so. The Italians can take Hume’s little worries about personal identity and make them genuinely unrecoverable. But then Pieralisi’s title would have to be Della sapienza umana, and he knows—sa, not conosce—better. And to think that in Bologna they even maintain a chair in what they pompously call Gnoseologia.” Grice: Pieralisi, mi dica: se io segno con il dito la tazza del tè, è segno naturale o artificiale? E soprattutto, la tazza deve preoccuparsi? Pieralisi: Caro Grice, se la tazza tremasse, sarebbe un segno naturale! Ma se arrossisse, probabilmente è un segno artificiale inventato dagli inglesi per confondere noi filosofi marchigiani. Grice: Allora mi chiedo: se il mio cane mi guarda quando apro la credenza, è segno che ha capito la conversazione o sta solo segnando dove sono i biscotti? Pieralisi: Grice, in questo caso il cane usa la massima della conversazione: “Evita l’ambiguità, segna i biscotti!” Se fosse filosofo, ti chiederebbe anche una tazza di tè – senza arrossire. Pieralisi, Venceslao (1873). La filosofia razionale pratica, ovvero Dei doveri naturali. Roma: Chiapperini.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pieri -- Grice e Pieri: ragione convversazionale ed implicatura convversazionale Mario Pieri (Lucca, Toscana): ragione convversazionale ed implicatura convversazionale, la filosofia toscana, e la filosofia italiana. Grice’s account of reason-governed conversational meaning treats ordinary talk as a cooperative rational enterprise: speakers are presumed to be pursuing shared purposes under norms of relevance, informativeness, truthfulness, and clarity, and it is precisely by relying on those norms that hearers can infer what is meant but not explicitly said (conversational implicature), making pragmatic interpretation a kind of disciplined calculation from what is said plus context plus publicly attributable intentions. Pieri, by contrast, comes from the Peano-influenced axiomatic culture of late Italian mathematics, where rigor is achieved by laying down primitive terms and rules and then deriving results with explicit control over dependence on axioms; his work in the foundations of projective geometry (including axiomatizations over the reals and, later, the complexes) exemplifies a style in which meaning and validity are secured by formal structure rather than conversational presumption, even while the surrounding Italian humanist tradition (your Leopardi passage) insists that elegance, imagination, and “poetic” insight accompany proof. The comparison, then, is not that Pieri anticipates Grice’s maxims, but that both offer a norm-governed picture of intelligibility: Grice locates normativity in the social practice of talk and in intentions recognisable by an audience, whereas Pieri locates it in the explicit architecture of a deductive system; where Grice explains how we responsibly get from sentence to speaker’s meaning, Pieri exemplifies how we responsibly get from axiom to theorem—two different sites for the same ideal of disciplined reason, one conversational and one formal. Si laurea a Pisa. ottenne l’insegnamento a Torino ed entra in contatto con PEANO  e FORTI. Insegna a Torino, Catania, e Parma. Sotto l'influsso della scuola di PEANO, si volge alle indagini critiche sui fondamenti dell’aritmetica. P. è legato a interessanti ricerche sui fondamenti della geometria e in particolare alla prima presentazione assiomatica della geometria proiettiva complessa.. or — Lan più profondo, e ben più atto a dissipare ogni cattiva opinione delle matematiche, il pensiero del nostro (+. Leopardi, che qui ripeto con le sue stesse parole. LEOPARDI  dice. È certo che il grande poeta può essere anche gran matematico, e viceversa. Se non è, se il suo spirito si determina ad un solo genere (che non sempre accade) ciò è puro effetto delle circostanze. Ed altrove. Si può dir che da una stessa sorgente, da una stessa qualità dell’animo, diversamente applicata e diversamente modificata e determinata da diverse circostanze e abitudini, vennero i poemi di ALIGHIERI e i Principi matematici della filosofia naturale di Newton. Si o Signori; anche la matematica è in non piccola parte poesia! Anche il matematico guarda dall’ alto la realtà delle cose. E, astraendo da ciò che hanno di greggio e di mutabile o caduco, ne ravvisa le parti perfette e immanenti, ne rileva le mutue relazioni con linguaggio espressivo ed universale. Anche il matematico trasforma certe impressioni da pochi avvertite in mirabili edifizi speculativi, come per sola virtù di fantasia. Al matematico tocca similmente il travaglio di costringer l’idea nella formula, di cimentare il pensiero alla stregua di lunghi e penosissimi calcoli ! E (dico con Exkico OVIDIO) il sentimento dell’eleganza nel concetto e della venustà nella forma non spiccano forse nei veri matematici come nei poeti. Così che spesso una dimostrazione è bella quasi allo stesso modo di un so- [Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura ’ implicatura, segno di negazione, segno di congiunzione, segno di disgiunzione, segno d’inclusione, segno d’igualanza. St John’s, 1952. I don’t understand him. Of all things he could be translating, Austin has set his heart on Frege’s Zahlen book—commissioned by Blackwell, no less. As if anyone with the faintest interest in what Frege says about Zahlen can’t struggle through a bit of German. And it isn’t only the editorial work. He brings the oddest things to our Saturday mornings—by which I mean: Frege, and then more Frege. Give me geometry any day. St John’s has a valuable copy of Pieri’s Problemi di geometria pura—and I can see why there are problemi there. But at least the Italians—unlike Frege—had Croton (or Crotone, in their charming misspelling): because it all begins with metre, and with the goddess Gea. Grice: Pieri, ho sempre trovato affascinante il modo in cui la sua riflessione matematica sfocia nella poesia, e viceversa. Mi incuriosisce come lei veda il rapporto tra rigore logico e creatività nell’elaborazione dei fondamenti geometrici. Esiste davvero una linea di confine netta, o sono le due attività due facce della stessa medaglia? Pieri: Caro Grice, la sua domanda coglie nel segno: per me, logica e creatività sono intrecciate come i fili di un arazzo toscano. La matematica, come la poesia, nasce da uno sguardo che sa andare oltre l’apparenza, e solo attraverso questa tensione tra ordine e immaginazione si giunge all’eleganza di una dimostrazione davvero bella. Grice: È proprio vero, Pieri. Lei dimostra che anche nelle “implicature”, quelle sfumature del significato che restano nascoste dietro ai segni—negazione, congiunzione, disgiunzione—c’è una ricchezza quasi poetica. Le è mai capitato di “sentire” una soluzione matematica prima ancora di formalizzarla, come un’intuizione improvvisa? Pieri: Eccome, caro collega! A volte è proprio un lampo, come un endecasillabo che prende forma nella mente. Poi, certo, viene il lavoro, il travaglio di costringere quell’idea nella formula, come dicevo citando Leopardi. Ma senza quell’istante ispirato, la matematica sarebbe solo contabilità senz’anima. E lei, Grice, non trova che anche nella conversazione si celino formule eleganti, se appena le sappiamo ascoltare? Pieri, Mario (1908). Problemi di geometria pura. Torino: Bocca.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pilio – Ossia: Grice e Pilio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pilio The gens Pilia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. None of the Pilii attained any of the higher magistracies of the Roman state, and members of this gens are known primarily through the writings of Cicero, who was acquainted with a family of this name; but many others are known from inscriptions.[1][2]  Origin Chase classifies the nomen Pilius among the non-Latin gentilicia originating from various parts of Italy, although he was unable to be more specific.[3]  Praenomina The main praenomina used by the Pilii were Marcus, Publius, Quintus, and Gaius, four of the most common names throughout Roman history. Lucius, Aulus, and Manius are found in filiations.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Marcus Pilius, possibly the father-in-law of Atticus, sold an estate to Gaius Albanius, circa 45 BC.[4] Pilia (M. f.), the wife of Cicero's close friend, Titus Pomponius Atticus, whom she married in 56 BC.[5] Quintus Pilius (M. f.) Celer, probably the brother-in-law of Atticus, served under Caesar during the Gallic Wars. In 51 BC, he accused Marcus Servilius of repetundae, maladministration or extortion in the governance of his province. Cicero asked Atticus to send him a copy of Celer's speech.[6] Publius Pilius P. l. Anops, a freedman buried at Luceria in Apulia, together with Pilia Apicula and her son, Publius Pilius Felix, in a tomb dating to the early first century AD.[7] Pilia Ɔ. l. Apicula, a freedwoman, was buried at Luceria, with her son, Publius Pilius Felix, and Publius Pilius Anops.[7] Publius Pilius P. l. Felix, a freedman, was buried at Luceria with his mother, Pila Apicula, and Publius Pilius Anops.[7] Pilia P. l. Selenis, buried at Luceria during the early first century AD.[8] Marcus Pilius S. f. Priscus, named in a dedicatory inscription from Trebula Mutusca in Samnium, dating to AD 60.[9] Pilia Psaechas, the widow of Lucius Mummius Restitutus, who was buried at Albintimilium in Liguria during the second century AD. They were married for forty years.[10] Undated Pilii Pilia A. f., buried at Tarquinii in Etruria, aged sixty-five.[11] Pilia L. f., buried at Amiternum in Samnium.[12] Marcus Pilius, mentioned in an inscription from Pompeii.[13] Pilia M. l. Andromaca, a freedwoman buried at Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis.[14] Marcus Pilius M. l. Antiochus, a freedman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Pilia C. l. Callistenis, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome.[16] Pilia C. l Cleopatra, named in an inscription from Rome.[17] Marcus Pilius Dius, mentioned in an inscription from Rome.[18] Pilia C. l. Chreste, named in an inscription from Rome.[19] Marcus Pilius P. l. Chrestus, a freedman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Marcus Pilius M. l. Diophantus, a freedman named in an inscription from Narbo.[14] Marcus Pilius Eros, named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Marcus Pilius Eucarpus, a freedman who dedicated a monument at Rome to his wife, Pilia Philtatae.[20] Pilia Euterpe, buried at Ostia, aged eighteen years, five months, and twenty-two days.[21] Pilia M. l. Flora, a freedwoman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Pilia Ɔ. l. Hilara, a freedwoman buried at Teanum Apulum in Apulia.[22] Marcus Pilius M. l. Hilarus, a freedman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Pilia Philtatae, buried at Rome, with a monument dedicated by her husband, Marcus Pilius Eucarpus.[20] Pilia M. l. Prima, a freedwoman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15] Pilia Primitiva, buried at Ostia.[23] Pilia L. f. Quarta, wife of Marcus Calpetanus, buried at Rome.[24] Pilia M'. l. Quarta, a freedwoman, and the wife of Musaeus, was buried at Rome, aged twenty-three.[25] Gaius Pilius C. f. Rufus, a quattuorvir buried at Tarquinii, aged fifty-seven.[26] Pilia Simne, wife of Aemilius Secundus, named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[27] Gaius Pilius C. l. Surus, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome.[17] Marcus Pilius M. l. Timoplastes, named in an inscription from Rome.[28] Quintus Pilius Ɔ. l. Tyrrsus, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome.[29] See also List of Roman gentes References  Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. v, pp. 87, 88.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 366 ("Pilia").  Chase, pp. 128, 129.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, xiii. 31.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 3. § 7, Epistulae ad Atticum, iv. 16, 46, v. 11, 19, vi. 1. § 22, vii. 5, xvi. 7.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, iv. 17, vi. 3. § 10, Epistulae ad Familiares, viii. 7.  CIL IX, 876.  CIL IX, 877.  NSA, 1928, 387.  AE 1984, 408.  CIL XI, 3468.  CIL IX, 4426.  CIL IV, 4682.  CIL XII, 4410.  CIL VI, 7460.  CIL VI, 9576.  CIL VI, 38743.  CIL VI, 4826.  CIL VI, 24184.  CIL VI, 24185.  CIL XIV, 1470.  CIL IX, 718.  CIL XIV, 1471.  CIL VI, 38136.  CIL VI, 22743.  CIL I, 3381.  CIL VI, 11107.  CIL VI, 37400.  NSA, 1914-391, 9. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem. Wilhelm Drumann, Geschichte Roms in seinem Übergang von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung, oder: Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen, Königsberg (1834–1844). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (News of Excavations from Antiquity, abbreviated NSA), Accademia dei Lincei (1876–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Category: Roman gentes and first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vignette from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pilio – Ossia: Grice e Pilio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pilio For the Pilii, the evidence is much thinner than for the Petronii or Petreii, but I think there is still a very attractive Grice–Speranza vignette. My first choice would be:  Pilia, wife of Titus Pomponius Atticus, seen through the correspondence of Cicero and Atticus. [GREXv2 | Word]  Why her rather than Quintus Pilius Celer? Because the surviving Pilii enter history primarily through letters, and letters are perhaps the most Gricean genre in all of Latin literature. Cicero's correspondence constantly relies on:  what need not be said, shared background, allusion, understatement, private jokes, elliptical references.  And Pilia appears in precisely that epistolary world. [GREXv2 | Word]  Grice e Pilia Imagine Atticus receives a letter from Cicero. Cicero:  Piliae salutem dices. ("Give my greetings to Pilia.")  The explicit content is trivial. But in an ancient letter it may carry all sorts of implicatures:  +> I remember your household. +> I remain your friend. +> Our relationship continues unchanged.  This is exactly the sort of thing Grice loved. The communicative value exceeds the semantic value. The Atticus Connection What makes the gens unusually attractive is that it touches Atticus. A Grice–Speranza dialogue might run: Grice:  Which Pilius?  Speranza:  None of the famous magistrates.  Grice:  Why not?  Speranza:  Because the family lives in letters.  Grice:  And letters?  Speranza:  Are conversations with the pauses stretched out.   +> Meaning depends on shared background.  That seems to me the most Gricean contribution of the gens Pilia: not a battlefield, not a conspiracy, not a declamation, but the quiet world of Cicero, Atticus, and the conversational implicatures that flourish in private correspondence. [GREXv2 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pilio – Ossia: Grice e Pilio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pilio A stronger candidate? There is also:  Quintus Pilius Celer, who prosecuted Marcus Servilius and whose speech Cicero wanted Atticus to send him. [GREXv2 | Word]  That gives us a delightful miniature: Cicero:  Send me Pilius' speech.  The implicature is not:  I require parchment.  but:  I wish to see the arguments. I wish to evaluate the rhetoric. I want access to the case.  Still, this is a fairly ordinary rhetorical interest. and we asusume the Pilius of the speech is the brother in law or father of law of Atticus? Thanks We can be fairly confident about one identification, but not absolutely certain. The gens entry says:  Quintus Pilius Celer (M. f.), "probably the brother-in-law of Atticus", and notes that Cicero asked Atticus to send him a copy of Celer's speech. [GREXv2 | Word]  Separately we have:  Pilia, wife of Titus Pomponius Atticus. [GREXv2 | Word]  And:  Marcus Pilius, "possibly the father-in-law of Atticus". [GREXv2 | Word]  From the filiation:  Quintus Pilius (M. f.) Celer  means:  "Quintus Pilius, son of Marcus."  So if:  Pilia is daughter of Marcus Pilius, and Quintus Pilius Celer is also son of Marcus Pilius,  then Celer would indeed be Atticus' brother-in-law. That is exactly why the source describes him as "probably the brother-in-law of Atticus." [GREXv2 | Word] What we cannot say with certainty from the evidence given is that the relationship is explicitly attested by an ancient source. The reconstruction rests on the combination of:  Pilia's marriage to Atticus, Marcus Pilius as possible father, Quintus being "M. f." ("son of Marcus"). [GREXv2 | Word]  So the most cautious formulation is:  The Pilius whose speech Cicero wanted is very probably Atticus' brother-in-law, not his father-in-law. The likely reconstruction is that both Pilia and Quintus Pilius Celer were children of Pilius; but the ancient evidence appears indirect rather than explicit. [GREXv2 | Word]  And that actually strengthens the Gricean angle. Cicero does not write:  "Send me the speech of your brother-in-law."  He simply asks Atticus to obtain the speech, relying on a large body of shared background knowledge between old friends. Much of the relationship is left implicit—exactly the kind of thing that delights Grice. [GREXv2 | Word] does this below help? Thanks Quintus Pilius Celer was a Roman orator and a relative (likely the brother) of Atticus’ wife, Pilia, whose speeches Cicero regarded highly. Cicero did not want to read a fictional declamation by him, but rather watched his actual legal and political speeches unfold in court and the Senate. [1, 2, 3, 4] The primary historical context involving Quintus Pilius Celer in Cicero’s circle centers on two major events: 1. The Extortion Case Against Marcus Servilius (51 BC) Cicero followed Pilius' high-profile courtroom work closely through letters sent by Marcus Caelius Rufus (Ad Familiares, 8.8). [1] The Subject: Pilius initiated a massive legal prosecution against Marcus Servilius for extortion (repetundae). Pilius successfully won a preliminary legal battle (divinatio) against a competing prosecutor, Appius Claudius Minor, to secure the sole right to lead the case. [1, 2, 3, 4] The Drama: The trial became an absolute sensation in Rome because Appius then exposed a massive bribe of 81 sestertia (deposited to rig the trial), sparking heavy public gossip that Cicero read about while away in his province. [1, 2] 2. The Urgent Dispatches to the Senate (43 BC) Later in life, Pilius played a pivotal, dramatic role in delivering state communications right after the assassination of Julius Caesar, recorded in Cicero's letters to Brutus (Ad Brutum, 1.5/2.5). [1, 2] The Subject: On April 13, 43 BC, Pilius arrived in Rome "in hot haste" carrying two highly sensitive political dispatches from Mark Antony and Brutus. [1, 2] Cicero's reaction: Reading the letters in the Senate caused an absolute uproar. Cicero wrote with heavy, biting irony about Pilius' sudden appearance, mocking his dramatic flair and "aplomb" on the political stage. [1, 2, 3] If you are looking for a specific Latin speech fragment or line from Pilius' prosecution of Servilius, let me know and I can pull the original text from Caelius' updates to Cicero! [1] and case against servilius proceeded how? 9 siti The case against Marcus Servilius proceeded as a legal disaster filled with political backstabbing, technical blunders, and a highly irregular verdict. [1, 2] The exact progression of events, as detailed by Marcus Caelius Rufus in his letters to Cicero (Ad Familiares, 8.8), unfolded across three distinct phases: [1, 2, 3, 4] 1. The Pre-Trial Dismissal & Betrayal Before Quintus Pilius Celer could launch his formal extortion trial (de repetundis), a rival prosecutor stepped in. A young patrician named Appius Claudius Minor filed a competing charge of "wrongful possession" against Servilius. [1, 2] Appius was actually trying to expose a massive bribe that Servilius had supposedly pocketed from Appius' own father (Gaius Claudius Pulcher) to rig an earlier trial. [1] Pilius challenged Appius for the right to prosecute, but in the preliminary hearing (divinatio), Appius chickened out, refused to debate Pilius, and conceded the extortion case to him. [1, 2] 2. The Praetor's Blunder and the Tie Vote Despite giving up the extortion lead, Appius still pushed ahead with his lesser charge of wrongful possession. The trial quickly descended into chaos. [1] When the jury cast their ballots, the votes were perfectly tied. [1] Under Roman law, a tie vote should have resulted in an automatic acquittal. However, the presiding judge—the praetor Marcus Iuventius Laterensis—made a catastrophic, illegal blunder while recording the verdict. [1, 2, 3] Laterensis essentially left the verdict unrecorded or botched the tally, leaving Servilius in complete legal limbo: he was legally neither acquitted nor condemned. [1, 2, 3] 3. The Aftermath: "A Well-Matched Pair" The botched trial ruined everyone's reputation, exactly as Caelius gleefully reported to Cicero: [1, 2, 3] Servilius was left functionally ruined, with a shattered reputation and his finances completely depleted. Because he was never formally acquitted of the tied charge, he was left completely exposed to Pilius’ looming, separate criminal trial for extortion. [1, 2, 3, 4] Appius completely ruined himself in the process. By airying out his family's dirty laundry in court, he exposed his own father's corruption. In a swift act of revenge, Servilius' family immediately counter-sued Appius for extortion, while one of Appius' own hired henchmen sued him for political violence. [1, 2] Caelius summarized the chaotic outcome to Cicero with biting sarcasm: "They are a worthy pair!" [1] If you want to look at the exact Latin text from Caelius describing the tied jury votes or Laterensis' judicial error, let me know! L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte and pilius won the extortion charge? 8 siti Historically, the final outcome of Quintus Pilius Celer’s actual extortion trial (de repetundis) against Marcus Servilius remains a blank spot in Roman history because the surviving letters from Caelius Rufus to Cicero cut off right before the final verdict. [1] Historians only know the immediate, chaotic setup: [1] The Setup: Because the preliminary trial under Appius resulted in an unresolved tie vote, Marcus Servilius was left legally "wounded in reputation" (saucius). As Caelius explicitly wrote to Cicero in Ad Familiares 8.8, Servilius was essentially handed over to Pilius on a silver platter to be picked apart in the separate extortion trial. [1] The Likelihood: Given that popular rumor was already fervently shouting for Servilius's absolute ruin (de damnatione ferventer loqui est coeptum) and his finances were completely drained, Pilius held a massive upper hand. [1, 2] However, since Roman court records from 51 BC have not survived outside of Cicero’s personal mail, we lack the final sentence stating whether Pilius formally won the conviction or if Servilius fled Rome into exile beforehand to avoid a heavy fine. [1] If you are interested, I can look into what happened next to Quintus Pilius Celer’s political career under Julius Caesar or find more details on how Roman extortion penalties (repetundae) worked during this era![1, 2] Yes, but with caution. The material you've quoted is largely reconstructing the case from Caelius Rufus' letters to Cicero, and some of the detail goes beyond what survives directly. What seems secure is:  Quintus Pilius Celer prosecuted Marcus Servilius for repetundae (provincial extortion). [GREXv2 | Word] Cicero was interested enough to ask Atticus for a copy of Pilius' speech. [GREXv2 | Word] The case generated gossip and discussion, and Caelius Rufus kept Cicero informed by letter. (Your summary reflects the general picture.)  The really Gricean thing here is not the verdict—which, as your note suggests, is not securely preserved—but the request:  mitte mihi orationem Pilii ("Send me Pilius' speech.")  That is not a request for paper. The implicatures are:  +> I want to see how he argued.   +> I want to see whether he is as good as people say.   +> I want material for evaluating the political situation.  In other words, the speech functions as evidence of a person.  And I rather like your suggestion that this is a better Pilius vignette than the quiet domestic references to Pilia. Grice e Pilio Celere Cicero:  orationem Pilii mitte. ("Send me Pilius' speech.")  Atticus:  Quam ob rem? ("Why?")  Cicero:  Verba legam. ("I shall read the words.")   +> and judge the man.   The surviving evidence also lets us imagine a slightly more mischievous version: Atticus:  Visne causam cognoscere? ("Do you want to know the case?")  Cicero:  Causam omnes narrant. ("Everybody tells the case.")  Atticus:  Quid igitur vis? ("Then what do you want?")  Cicero:  Pilium audire. ("I want to hear Pilius.")   +> I want to evaluate the advocate, not merely the lawsuit.  That's very Ciceronian and very Gricean. As for the family connection: the safest formulation remains that Quintus Pilius Celer, being M. f. ("son of Marcus"), is probably the brother of Pilia, wife of Atticus, and thus Atticus' brother-in-law. The evidence strongly suggests it, but the sources summarized in your dossier do not state it explicitly. citeturn240search70

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pinario – Ossia: Grice e Pinario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pimario. Funerary inscription of Lucius Pinarius Optatus, from Alba Helviorum, first century The gens Pinaria was one of the most ancient patrician families at Rome. According to tradition, the gens originated long before the founding of the city. The Pinarii are mentioned under the kings, and members of this gens attained the highest offices of the Roman state soon after the establishment of the Republic, beginning with Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus, consul in 489 BC.[1]  Origin The origin of the Pinarii is related in two different traditions. The more famous of these held that a generation before the Trojan War, Hercules came to Italy, where he was received by the families of the Potitii and the Pinarii. He taught them a form of worship, and instructed them in the rites by which he was later honored; but due to the tardiness of the Pinarii to the sacrificial banquet, Hercules assigned them the subordinate position. For centuries, these families supplied the priests for the cult of Hercules, until nearly the entire Potitian gens perished in a plague at the end of the fourth century BC.[2][3][4][1]  The extinction of the Potitii was frequently attributed to the actions of Appius Claudius Caecus, who in his censorship in 312 BC, directed the families to instruct public slaves in the performance of their sacred rites. Supposedly the Potitii were punished for their impiety in doing so, while the Pinarii refused to relinquish their office, which they held until the latest period.[i][4][2][5][6][7][8][9]  In the later Republic, it was sometimes asserted that the Pinarii were descended from Pinus, a son of Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome. Several other families made similar claims; the Aemilii had long claimed to be descended from Mamercus, the son of Numa, while in later times the Pomponii and Calpurnii claimed to be descended from sons named Pompo and Calpus. Mamercus and Pompo were genuine praenomina of Sabine origin, like Numa himself, although Calpus and Pinus are not otherwise attested. The Marcii also claimed descent from Numa's grandson, Ancus Marcius, the fourth Roman king.[10][11][12][13][14][15]  Praenomina The Pinarii of the early Republic used the praenomina Publius and Lucius. They are also thought to have used Mamercus, although no examples of this name as a praenomen amongst the Pinarii are found in ancient writers; however, the use of Mamercus or Mamercinus as a cognomen by the oldest family of the gens seems to prove that the praenomen was once used by the gens. In later times, some of the Pinarii bore the names Marcus and Titus.  Branches and cognomina The only family of the Pinarii mentioned in the early days of the Republic bore the cognomen Mamercinus. Later, the surnames of Natta, Posca, Rusca, and Scarpus appear, but no members of these families obtained the consulship. Natta and Scarpus are the only cognomina that occur on coins.[1]  The family of the Pinarii Mamercini, all of whom bore the agnomen Rufus, meaning "red", derived their surname from the praenomen Mamercus, which must have been borne by an ancestor of the gens. In Greek authors, it is sometimes found as Mamertinus, apparently by analogy with the Mamertini, a group of Italian mercenaries.[16][17]  Natta or Nacca, referring to a fuller, was the surname of an old and noble family of the Pinarii, which flourished from the fourth century BC into imperial times. Cicero mentions the family, and an ancient bronze statue of one of its members, which was struck by lightning in 65 BC.[18][19][20]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Early Pinarii Publius Pinarius, father of the Vestal. Pinaria P. f., a Vestal Virgin put to death for violating her vow of chastity during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.[21] Pinarius, husband of Thalaea, whose quarrel with her mother-in-law, Gegania, during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, is mentioned by Plutarch as a rare example of domestic disharmony in early Rome.[22] Pinarii Mamercini Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus, consul in 489 BC. Lucius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus, consul in 472 BC.[23][24][25][26] Lucius Pinarius L. f. P. n. Mamercinus Rufus, consular tribune in 432 BC.[27][28] Pinarii Nattae Lucius Pinarius Natta, magister equitum in 363 BC, and praetor in 349.[29] Lucius Pinarius Natta, brother-in-law of Publius Clodius Pulcher. Pinaria Natta, possible wife of Publius Clodius Pulcher.[30][31] Pinarius Natta, a client of Sejanus, and one of the accusers of Aulus Cremutius Cordus in AD 25.[32] (Pinarius) Natta, a person satirized by Horatius for his meanness.[33] Others Publius Pinarius, censor in 430 BC, levied heavy taxes, leading to the passage of a law allowing the payment of fines in coin instead of livestock.[34][35] Lucius Pinarius, commander of the Roman garrison at Enna in 214 BC, during the Second Punic War, vigororously suppressed an attempted insurrection by the inhabitants.[36] Marcus Pinarius Posca, praetor in 181 BC, obtained Sardinia as his province; he put down an insurrection on Corsica, and returning to Sardinia, he successfully carried on the war against the Ilienses.[37][38] Marcus Pinarius Rusca, brought forward a lex annalis, which was opposed by Marcus Servilius; he is mentioned only by Cicero, and may perhaps have been the same person as Marcus Pinarius Posca.[39][38] Titus Pinarius, ridiculed by the orator Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo, curule aedile in 90 BC.[40] Pinarius, the husband of Julia Major, sister of the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar.[41][42] Titus Pinarius, a friend of Cicero, mentioned several times in his letters.[43] Lucius Pinarius, a grand-nephew of Caesar, who was named one of his heirs in his will. He later served in the army of the triumvirs during the war against Brutus and Cassius. He is likely the same person as Lucius Pinarius Scarpus, placed by Marcus Antonius over Cyrene shortly before the Battle of Actium, he submitted to Octavianus, and was subsequently given the command of Libya.[41][42][44] Pinarius, an eques, put to death by order of Augustus.[45] Gaius Pinarius Scarpus, a veteran soldier in either the Legio VII Claudia or the Legio VII Gemina, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, along with his son, in a tomb built by his freedwoman, Pinaria, dating between the latter half of the first century, and the first half of the second.[46][47] Pinaria C. l., the freedwoman of Gaius Pinarius Scarpus, for whom she built a tomb at Salona, dating from the latter half of the first century, or the first half of the second.[46] Gnaeus Pinarius Cornelius Clemens, consul suffectus during the reign of Vespasian. Gnaeus Pinarius Aemilius Cicatricula, consul suffectus in AD 72. Gnaeus Pinarius Cornelius Severus, consul suffectus in AD 112.[48] Pinarii in popular culture The Pinarii are the focus of the novels Roma, Empire, and Dominus by Steven Saylor. These novels follow the history of Rome, and concern the fortunes of the Potitii and Pinarii, through the passing down of a family heirloom. Most of the Pinarii depicted in the novels are fictional, though Saylor keeps to the known facts about the family.  See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  In some versions of the story, Claudius' blindness was a further punishment for inducing the Potitii to abandon their sacred duty. Although the traditional account is that the Potitii were utterly extinguished, leading some scholars to doubt their existence as a separate gens, at least one family of Potitii was known to Cicero, while another Potitius appears in an inscription dating to the early Empire. References Citations  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 366, 367 ("Pinaria Gens").  Livy, i. 6, 7.  Dionysius, i. 38-40.  Macrobius, iii. 6.  Servius, viii. 268.  Festus, p. 237, ed. Müller.  Hartung, Die Religion der Römer, vol. ii., p. 30.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 88.  Göttling, Geschichte der Römische Staatsverfassung, p. 178.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 940 ("Marcia Gens")  Livy, i. 7, 20, 32.  Plutarch, "The Life of Numa", 21.  Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic, ii. p. 311, no. 733; p. 361, no. 62.  Chase, pp. 119, 128, 140, 141.  Grant, Roman Myths, pp. 123, 139.  Chase, p. 114.  Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. Rufus.  Festus, s. v. Natta.  Appuleius, Metamorphoses, ix. p. 636, ed. Ouden.  Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 12, ii. 20, 21.  Dionysius, iii. 67.  Plutarch, "A Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa", 3.  Livy, ii. 56.  Dionysius, ix. 40.  Diodorus Siculus, xi. 66.  Macrobius, i. 13.  Livy, iv. 25.  Diodorus Siculus, xii. 60.  Livy, vii. 3, 25.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1143 ("L. Pinarius Natta", No. 2).  Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. p. 370.  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 34.  Horace, Satirae, i. 6. 124.  Cicero, De Republica, ii. 60.  Broughton, vol I, p. 64.  Livy, xxiv. 37-39.  Livy, xl. 18, 25, 34.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 387.  Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 65.  Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 66.  Suetonius, "The Life of Caesar", 83.  Appian, Bellum Civile, iii. 22, iv. 107.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, vi. 1. § 23, viii. 15, Epistulae ad Familiares, xii. 24, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, iii. 1. § 6.  Cassius Dio, li. 5, 9.  Suetonius, "The Life of Augustus", 27.  Šašel and Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia, iii. 2280.  Matijević, "Roman Soldiers and Their Freedmen", p. 134.  Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 468 Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Divinatione, De Oratore, De Republica, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History). Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Satirae (Satires). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Lucius Appuleius, Metamorphoses. Sextus Pompeius Festus, Epitome de M. Verrio Flacco de Verborum Significatu (Epitome of Marcus Verrius Flaccus: On the Meaning of Words). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Maurus Servius Honoratus (Servius), Ad Virgilii Aeneidem Commentarii (Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid). Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia. Barthold Georg Niebuhr, The History of Rome, Julius Charles Hare and Connop Thirlwall, trans., John Smith, Cambridge (1828). Johann Adam Hartung, Die Religion der Römer (The Religion of the Romans), Palm und Enke, Erlangen (1836). Karl Wilhelm Göttling, Geschichte der Römischen Staatsverfassung von Erbauung der Stadt bis zu C. Cäsar's Tod (History of the Roman State from the Founding of the City to the Death of Caesar), Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, Halle (1840). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Herbert A. Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum, William Clowes and Sons, Ltd., London (1910). Anna and Jaroslav Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMXL et MCMLX repertae et editae sunt (Inscriptions from Yugoslavia Found and Published between 1940 and 1960), Ljubljana (1963–1986). D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York (1963). Michael Grant, Roman Myths (1971). Ivan Matijević, "Roman Soldiers and Their Freedmen in the Principate-era Inscriptions from Salona", in Vjesnik Za Arheologiju I Povijest Dalmatinsku (Journal of Dalmatian Archaeology and History, 2024). Categories: PinariiRoman gentesRoman gentes of Sabine origin and your first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vignette from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pinario – Ossia: Grice e Pinario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pimario. For the Pinarii, I think there is one overwhelming Grice–Speranza candidate:  The Pinarii arriving late to Hercules' sacrificial banquet. [GREXv2 | Word]  Why? Because the entire legend is about a conversational and ritual implicature arising from tardiness. According to the tradition, Hercules instructed both the Pinarii and the Potitii in the rites. But the Pinarii arrived late (sero) to the sacrificial meal; consequently Hercules assigned them an inferior ritual role, and they were never to partake of certain portions of the sacrifice. [GREXv2 | Word] That is almost a textbook Gricean case. Nothing was explicitly said:  "You are hereby degraded forever."  Instead:  The late arrival was interpreted.  A social meaning attached to the action.  Grice e Pinario The Myth Hercules:  Adeste ad sacrificium. ("Be present at the sacrifice.")  Potitii:  Adsumus. ("We are here.")  Pinarii:  Venimus. ("We have arrived.")  Hercules:  Sero. ("Too late.")   The interesting point is what follows. The explicit proposition is merely:  "You are late."  The consequences are enormous:  +> You were insufficiently attentive. +> You failed in ritual readiness. +> You are unfit for the highest role.  The whole hereditary status of the family flows from an implicature attached to timing. [GREXv2 | Word]  A Gricean Reading Grice often insists that meaning is not only in words. The Pinarian myth is almost entirely about:  conduct as communication.  The Pinarii do not utter a defective sentence. They perform a defective arrival. Hercules "reads" the action.  A Roman Tutorial Speranza:  Why were the Pinarii subordinated?  Grice:  Were they told they would be subordinated?  Speranza:  Not explicitly.  Grice:  Then Hercules drew an inference from conduct.   Or: Pinarius:  At nihil diximus! ("But we said nothing!")  Hercules:  Etiam. Sed sero venistis. ("Indeed. But you came late.")   +> Your action spoke for you.   An Even More Gricean Twist One might formulate Hercules' reasoning almost as a conversational maxim. Maxim:  Ritual participants should arrive when expected.  Violation:  The Pinarii arrive late.  Inference:  +> They attach less importance to the rite than they should.  Whether the inference is fair is another matter. But myths are full of such inferences.  Why not Caesar's heir, Lucius Pinarius? Lucius Pinarius, one of Caesar's heirs, is attractive. [GREXv2 | Word] But the Hercules story is far more distinctively Gricean because it concerns:  timing, expectation, social interpretation, consequences not explicitly stated.  In short:  an implicature generated by behaviour rather than words.  And that is exactly the sort of thing Grice loved pointing out. So my first-best vignette would be: Grice e Pinario Serotino Hercules:  Cur sero venistis? ("Why have you come late?")  Pinarii:  Venimus tamen. ("But we did come.")  Hercules:  Id ipsum non sufficit. ("That itself is not enough.")   +> Punctuality is part of participation.  A mythological ancestor of conversational implicature through conduct rather than utterance. [GREXv2 | Word] and this is mythical -- and about implicatures of 'sero' -- perhaps it attached cognominally to gens as 'prone to tardiness'? Thanks Yes, but with an important qualification. The sources do not say that the Pinarii acquired a cognomen meaning "latecomers," nor do they explicitly state that Romans generally regarded the whole gens as habitually tardy. What the tradition says is narrower:  the Pinarii arrived too late (sero) for part of Hercules' sacrificial banquet, and Hercules consequently assigned them a subordinate ritual role. [GREXv2 | Word]  What is fascinating is how close this comes to an etiological myth—a story invented (or at least shaped) to explain a ritual fact. The historical fact to be explained is:  Why do the Pinarii occupy an inferior place in the cult?  The mythic answer is:  Because their ancestors arrived late.  So the narrative converts a ritual distinction into a moral distinction.  A Gricean reconstruction would be: Fact:  The Pinarii have the lesser role.  Question:  Why?  Myth:  They came late.  Implicature:  +> They were less attentive. +> They showed less zeal. +> They deserved the lesser role.  Notice that the actual offence is tiny:  sero venerunt ("they arrived late")  while the interpretation is enormous. That is exactly how implicatures often work: a small observable fact acquires a large social meaning.  One might even say that the myth treats  sero  as if it were evidence for a character trait. Not merely:  "They happened to be late once."  but almost:  "The sort of people who come late."  That is not stated by the source, but it is arguably the direction in which the story nudges the hearer.  A Grice–Speranza vignette could therefore run: Pinarius:  Sero venimus. ("We arrived late.")  Hercules:  Intellego. ("I understand.")  Pinarius:  Quid intellegis? ("What do you understand?")  Hercules:  Plus quam dixisti. ("More than you said.")   +> You attach less importance to the rite.  The Pinarius then protests:  At de una mora agitur! ("But it is only a single delay!")  And Hercules replies:  Sic incipiunt fabulae gentium. ("That is how family legends begin.")  The humour, from a Gricean perspective, is that an entire hereditary status is made to rest on what looks like a gigantic implicature drawn from one instance of tardiness. Whether fair or not, it is exactly the sort of social interpretation that myths delight in preserving. [GREXv2 | Word] and do we know 'how late' -- cf. Trmalchio" Quid est 'sero'? -- -- and what are the roles? There may be a neutral mechanical reason: there must be proverbs about 'late' and 'early' -- the ritual started without them, hence role that may look subsidary -- do we have description of roles? Was it part of a festivity in Rome? Thanks Excellent questions. And here, like Trimalchio, we should perhaps ask:  Quid est sero? ("What counts as 'late'?")  The surprising fact is that the ancient sources, so far as the tradition summarized for the Pinarii goes, do not specify how late the Pinarii were. They merely report that they arrived too late for the banquet portion of Hercules' sacrifice and therefore lost the privileged role enjoyed by the Potitii. [GREXv2 | Word] So we are not told:  an hour late, after the first course, after the sacrifice had begun, after the meal had concluded.  The story is etiological, not chronological. The Neutral-Mechanical Reading I think your suggestion is very plausible. The usual moralized version is:  Pinarii came late. Therefore they were negligent. Therefore Hercules downgraded them.  But one could imagine a much more neutral beginning:  The rite starts. The Potitii are present. The Pinarii are absent. The rite cannot wait. The Potitii perform the principal actions. The Pinarii arrive afterwards. A secondary role becomes customary.  Only later does custom acquire a moral explanation:  "They held the secondary role because their ancestors were tardy."  That transformation is exactly the kind of thing myths often do. What Were the Roles? The sources summarized in your dossier do give one important detail. The Pinarii were assigned a subordinate place in the cult because they missed the sacrificial banquet. Hercules is said to have decreed that they would never partake of certain portions of the sacrifice, while the Potitii retained the superior role. [GREXv2 | Word] But the summary does not provide a detailed ritual manual. I do not find in the material you've supplied an explicit description such as:  "the Potitii slaughtered the victim and the Pinarii carried the vessels"  or anything comparably specific. So the safest statement is:  The traditions explain the subordinate ritual position of the Pinarii, but the summary available here does not spell out the precise division of liturgical duties. [GREXv2 | Word]  Was This Part of Roman Public Religion? Yes. The story is attached to the ancient cult of Hercules at Rome, especially the cult associated with the Ara Maxima Herculis ("Great Altar of Hercules") in the Forum Boarium. The Pinarii and Potitii were traditionally connected with the hereditary maintenance of those rites. [GREXv2 | Word] Hence the importance of the legend. This is not merely:  "Grandfather came late to dinner."  It is:  "Why does one noble family have a lesser ritual status than another?"  A Trimalchian Reconstruction I rather like: Hercules:  Sero venistis. ("You have come late.")  Pinarius:  Quid est sero? ("What is 'late'?")  Hercules:  Sacrificium iam coepit. ("The sacrifice has already begun.")  Pinarius:  At venimus. ("But we did come.")  Hercules:  Ita; sed non ad principium. ("Yes; but not at the beginning.")  The joke, from a Grice–Speranza perspective, is that the entire hereditary distinction may rest on an unexamined notion:  sero.  Just as Trimalchio challenges:  quid est pauper?  the skeptical Pinarius might challenge:  quid est sero?  And one suspects that, had Trimalchio been present at the Ara Maxima, the cult of Hercules might never have got started at all. well, if the generalising moralising comes from Ercole -- it's serious: "Never shall the Pinarii lead the cult" Exactly. If the moralization comes from Hercules himself within the myth, the consequences are much more severe than a mere observation:  sero venerunt ("they came late")  becoming  +> they are habitually tardy.  That would be an ordinary social implicature. But the myth seems to move to something stronger:  They came late once.  therefore  They are unfit for the leading role in this cult.  therefore  The Pinarii shall occupy a subordinate place permanently. [GREXv2 | Word]  That is not merely an implicature. It is almost a mythical precedent or charter. A nice Gricean point is that the inference appears wildly stronger than the evidence. Fact:  One delayed arrival.  Conclusion:  Perpetual ritual disability.  The logical gap is enormous. One can imagine a skeptical Pinarius asking precisely the sort of question that delighted Grice: Pinarius:  Ex una mora tantum concludis? ("You infer all that from a single delay?")  Hercules:  Ad cultum satis est. ("For ritual purposes, that is enough.")  The myth therefore depends upon what we might call a generalizing inference:  Event → Character → Institutional status.  or:  One action → enduring qualification.  In ordinary conversation we do this all the time:  He arrived late. +> He is unreliable.  But usually tentatively. The Pinarian myth freezes the inference into constitutional law:  He arrived late. Therefore his descendants will never preside.  And that may be why the story survived. It explains a pre-existing ritual hierarchy by attributing it to a paradigmatic moment at the beginning of things. A Speranza-style dialogue writes itself: Grice:  Coming late is one thing.  Speranza:  Yet Hercules infers more.  Grice:  Much more.  Speranza:  Namely?  Grice:  That the Pinarii are not to lead.   +> A temporary delay becomes a permanent institutional fact.  That transformation—from a punctuality issue into a hereditary ritual status—is, I think, the real philosophical interest of the myth. It is not "late" as a clock-measure; it is "late" as evidence from which a whole social order is derived. does this help? THanks The procedural terms that place the Pinarii below the Potitii in the priesthood of Hercules at the Ara Maxima are ministerium (subordinate service/ministry) compared to antistites (chief priests/presiders). [1] This distinction is found in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (Book 1, Chapter 7). Because the Pinarii arrived late to the inaugural sacrificial feast and missed the consumption of the sacred entrails (exta), they were permanently demoted to a secondary, helper status. [1, 2] The Source Passage (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.7.12–14) The primary terminology highlighting their procedural hierarchy is structured as follows: Term Type Latin Text (The Latin Library) English Translation (Loeb Classical Library) General Rite Assignment ...sacrum Herculi, adhibitis ad ministerium dapemque Potitiis ac Pinariis... "...a sacrifice to Hercules was made, with the Potitii and Pinarii having been employed for the service and the banquet..." Demotion Consequence ...Pinarii extis adesis ad ceteram venirent dapem. Inde institutum mansit... ne extis eorum sollemnium vescerentur. "...the Pinarii came after the inwards had been eaten, in season for the remainder of the feast. Thence came the custom... that they should not partake of the inwards..." Potitii Superior Status Potitii ab Evandro edocti antistites sacri eius per multas aetates fuerunt... "The Potitii, instructed by Evander, were priests [presiders] of this cult for many generations..." Pinarii Subordinate Status ...donec tradito servis publicis sollemni familiae ministerio genus omne Potitiorum interiit. "...until, having delegated to public slaves the solemn ministry [subordinate duty] of their family, the entire stock of the Potitii died out." Key Procedural Distinctions Antistites (Chief Priests / Masters of the Rite): The Potitii alone held the right to preside directly over the core sacred actions (the slaughter and offering of the exta). They were considered prior in sacris(foremost in the sacred rites). [1, 2, 3] Ministerium (Servantship / Subordinate Ministry): The Pinarii were restricted to helper positions. Because they were barred from eating the exta (the internal organs), their procedural role was reduced to supporting the banquet rather than leading the sacrament. This subordinate ministerial role was what the Potitii eventually passed down to public slaves, causing their ultimate downfall. [1, 2, 3] If you are tracking this myth across different texts, would you like to compare how Virgil’s Aeneid or Dionysius of Halicarnassus handles the procedural dynamic between these two families? L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte but both gentes became extinct? 6 siti No, only the Potitii became immediately extinct. According to Roman tradition, the Pinarii survivedspecifically because they refused to violate the divine law of Hercules. [1] The divergent fates of the two gentes (clans) in 312 BC highlight a contrast between punishment and preservation: [1, 2] 1. The Immediate Extinction of the Potitii During his censorship in 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus bribed the Potitii with 50,000 pounds of copper to transfer the direct administration of Hercules' rites to public slaves (servi publici). [1, 2] The Divine Wrath: According to Livy (Ab Urbe Condita 9.29), the god Hercules was so enraged by this commercialization and delegation of sacred duties that the entire Potitian clan perished within a year(or 30 days, depending on the source). [1] The Toll: The sudden plague wiped out 12 distinct branches of the family and 30 grown men, effectively making the gens Potitia completely extinct. Appius Claudius himself was struck blind as a consequence. [1] 2. The Survival of the Pinarii When Appius Claudius Caecus attempted to strip the priesthood entirely from the elite clans, the Pinarii steadfastly resisted. [1] The Refusal: The Pinarii refused to surrender their office or instruct the public slaves. They maintained that their subordinate role (ministerium), while lesser than that of the Potitii, was still a sacred trust given directly by Hercules that could not be sold or transferred. [1, 2, 3] The Reward: Because they chose piety over bribery, the Pinarii were spared from the divine plague. The gens Pinaria survived well into the Roman Republic and early Empire, producing notable magistrates and moneyers long after the Potitii vanished from history. [1, 2, 3, 4] Would you like to examine the monetary coins issued by the surviving Pinarii during the late Republic, or see how modern historical fiction—like Steven Saylor's novel Roma—handles this family's survival? [] so better late than never (Latin?) 1 sito The exact, equivalent idiom for "better late than never" in Latin is: Potius sero quam numquam Architectural Breakdown: Potius: Rather / Better Sero: Late / Tardy Quam: Than Numquam: Never Historical Origin While the sentiment is ancient, this precise phrasing is famously attributed to Livy himself in Ab Urbe Condita(Book 4, Chapter 2), where a character notes that a correct action taken late is still better than no action at all.[1] It is also famously echoed by the Roman author Cornelius Nepos (Atticus, 12.15). Variations If you want to adapt the phrase into an active sentence (e.g., "It is better to learn late than never"), you can use: Satius est sero quam numquam discere. Would you like to explore other Latin idioms or proverbs that the ancient Romans used to describe patience, timing, or making up for past mistakes? I’m asking better late than never — re pinarii (extant, late) and potiti (not late but bribed out to disapparition — “never”? 3 siti That is a brilliant, deeply ironic reversal of the myth! If you apply the idiom to the two families, it completely flips the definition of "late" and "never" into a lesson on historical survival. The structural irony of your framing works perfectly in Latin: The Irony of Time and Extinction The Pinarii ("Better Late..."): They were famously late to Hercules' very first feast. Because they arrived late (sero), they were demoted to helpers for centuries. But because they were "late," they survived. [1, 2] The Potitii ("...Than Never"): They were perfectly on time to the first feast. They enjoyed the highest priesthood honors. But because they took Appius Claudius's bribe and abandoned their duties, they were wiped out completely—reduced to "never again" (numquam). [1, 2] The Latin Framing If a Roman were to describe this twist of fate using Livy's own words, it could be framed as: [1] Pinariis potius sero quam Potitiis numquam. (For the Pinarii, better late; than for the Potitii, never.) Why the Pinarii Won the Long Game In the strict logic of Roman religion (pax deorum), the Pinarii understood that a delayed or secondary devotion is better than a total betrayal. The Pinarii accepted their "late" penalty, stayed humble, and guarded the ritual. They lasted for hundreds of years. The Potitii were punctual, grew arrogant, sold out their sacred office, and vanished from the earth in 30 days. Arriving late to the feast meant losing the appetizer (exta), but it ultimately saved their entire bloodline. [1, 2] If you are tracking how the Romans viewed this, would you like to see how other authors like Cicero used the Potitii as a warning against putting a price tag on religious duty? Yes, this helps a great deal, because it sharpens the ritual distinction. The key Livian contrast is indeed:  Potitii ... antistites sacri ("the Potitii were the presiding priests of the cult")  versus  ministerium ("service", "attendance", "ministerial assistance"). [GREXv2 | Word]  So the myth is not merely:  Potitii first class, Pinarii second class.  Rather:  Potitii = leaders of the rite. Pinarii = participants and assistants in the rite.  And the explanatory incident is that the Pinarii arrived only after the exta had been consumed. [GREXv2 | Word] That is a much more concrete story than "they were generally tardy."  Trimalchio's Question One can almost hear: Pinarius:  Quid est sero? ("What counts as late?")  For Livy's narrative, the practical answer seems to be:  late enough to miss the exta.  Not:  late by ten minutes, late by an hour,  but:  absent at the decisive ritual moment. [GREXv2 | Word]  In other words, "late" is not measured by a clock but by a ritual threshold.  The Gricean Point The sequence becomes: Observed fact  The Pinarii did not arrive in time for the exta.  Institutional consequence  They do not share in the exta thereafter.  Mythical consequence  They never become the principal officiants.  That is a very strong inference. A single event becomes a hereditary constitutional arrangement.  Better Late Than Never? This is where your irony is delightful. The traditional moral is:  Potitii: punctual. Pinarii: late.  Yet historically (within the myth):  Potitii disappear. Pinarii survive. [GREXv2 | Word]  So one might formulate a mischievous proverb:  Pinariis potius sero quam Potitiis numquam. ("For the Pinarii, better late than for the Potitii never.")  Not an ancient proverb, of course, but a very Roman epigram.  A Grice–Speranza Vignette Hercules:  Sero venistis. ("You came late.")  Pinarius:  At venimus. ("But we came.")  Hercules:  Non eritis antistites. ("You shall not be the presiding priests.")  Pinarius:  Cur? ("Why?")  Hercules:  Quia exta iam adesa sunt. ("Because the sacred portions have already been consumed.")   +> Whoever misses the decisive moment cannot lead the rite.  Centuries later: Speranza:  Which gens survived?  Grice:  The late one.  Speranza:  Then perhaps Hercules drew too strong an implicature from sero.  That, I think, is the philosophically interesting point: the myth turns a punctuality fact into a permanent qualification for office. The whole story hangs on how much meaning one is entitled to infer from a single instance of arriving sero. and what is etym. of Hercules's 'sero'? It seems a word that Grice/Strawson on Oxford semianr on 'categories' would classify as under 'Relatio'? Thanks -- any cognates today? Thanks cf. Gr. khairos kairos -- the opportune. Thanks and iconography of it Yes—sērō is a much richer word than merely "late by the clock." Etymology Latin:  sērō (adverb) = "late", "too late" from sērus, -a, -um = "late", "tardy", "coming after the proper time". [en.wiktionary.org], [latindictionary.io]  The etymology is usually traced to Proto-Italic sēros, from an Indo-European root conveying the idea of:  long, delayed, slow in coming, lingering. [en.wiktionary.org]  So the core idea is not simply clock-time but:  arriving after the expected or proper moment. [latindictionary.io]  That is why your comparison with Greek καιρός (kairos) is so apt.  Grice and Strawson: Category? I suspect Grice and Strawson would classify sērō less under pure Time than under something like a relational concept. To say:  Pinarii sero venerunt ("The Pinarii came late")  is incomplete unless there is an understood reference point. Late relative to what?  the announced hour? the beginning of the sacrifice? the eating of the exta? Hercules' expectation?  The notion is intrinsically comparative. In Aristotelian language one might indeed place it near πρός τι ("relative to something"), Latin ad aliquid / relatio.  The Real Opposite The true opposite of sērō is often not:  numquam ("never")  but:  tempestīvē ("at the proper time")  or  mātūrē ("in due season").  The issue is not existence but fitness. Hence your kairos connection:  kairos = the opportune moment. sero = after the opportune moment.   Modern Cognates A surprising number survive. From the feminine noun:  sēra ("evening hour") [classics.a...adsden.com], [en.wiktionary.org]  come:  Italian sera French soir Romanian seară various Romance descendants. [en.wiktionary.org]  So every French speaker saying:  bonsoir  is unknowingly using a descendant of the same Latin family.  The Pinarii Revisited Your observation now becomes even sharper. Hercules does not seem to be saying merely:  "You arrived at 6:17 instead of 6:00."  Rather:  "You arrived after the decisive ritual moment."  Livy's version specifically ties the penalty to the fact that the Pinarii appeared only after the exta had already been consumed. From that point onward they were excluded from that privileged portion. The Potitii acted as the principal antistites, while the Pinarii remained in a more subordinate ministerium. [GREXv2 | Word] So the implied reasoning is almost: Hercules:  Sero venistis.  ("You came too late.") Pinarius:  Quid est sero?  ("What counts as too late?") Hercules:  Exta iam adesa sunt.  ("The sacred portions have already been eaten.") The standard is not chronology but kairos.  Iconography This is the frustrating part. I found evidence for the linguistic history of sērō, but not a standard ancient iconographic personification of Sero analogous to Greek Kairos with his famous forelock. The sources I found discuss the word and its etymology, not any established visual representation. [en.wiktionary.org], [classics.a...adsden.com] Indeed, that itself may be significant:  Greek thought famously personified Kairos (Opportunity). Romans tended more often to speak of sero, mature, tempestive, etc., as qualities of action rather than as independent divine figures.  So if one wanted a Grice–Speranza epigram on the Pinarii, it might be:  Non quaestio est quantum sero, sed ad quid sero. ("The question is not how late, but late relative to what.")  The whole myth turns on Hercules' answer to that relational question. and in a modern reading, if the exta were thought by th Pinarii to be indigestibale (early vegans), their 'tardiness' (soiree for the bonsoir) may have been 'intentional' Thanks Yes—and that is exactly the sort of counter-reading that a Gricean (or a good historian) would want to keep available. The traditional myth assumes something like:  Pinarii arrived late. Therefore they were deficient in zeal. Therefore Hercules relegated them.  But that inference is Hercules' (or the myth's), not necessarily the Pinarii's. A skeptical Pinarius might reply:  Non sero venimus; consulto venimus. ("We did not come late; we came deliberately.")  Or:  Exta non appetebamus. ("We had no desire for the entrails.")  The myth suppresses alternative motivations.  A Gricean Point The myth proceeds from:  Behaviour (arrival after the exta)  to  Interpretation ("they failed in ritual attentiveness")  to  Institutional consequence ("they shall not be chief priests").  But behaviour underdetermines intention. Grice would constantly remind us of this. The same action may be compatible with many intentions:  negligence, indifference, prudence, scruple, disgust, deliberate abstention.  The myth chooses one interpretation and canonises it.  Your "Early Vegan" Thought Experiment Historically, nothing in the sources says that the Pinarii objected to eating the exta. The tradition simply says they arrived after the exta had been consumed and were henceforth excluded from them. [thelatinlibrary.com], [thelatinlibrary.com] But as a philosophical reconstruction, your suggestion is illuminating: Hercules:  Sero venistis. ("You came too late.")  Pinarius:  Minime. ("Not at all.")  Hercules:  Cur igitur ad exta non adfuistis? ("Why then were you not present for the entrails?")  Pinarius:  Quia ea vesci nolebamus. ("Because we did not wish to eat them.")  At once the whole moral changes. The issue is no longer tardiness but disagreement.  Better Late Than Never That is why your earlier irony is so good. Within the myth:  the punctual Potitii become extinct; the "late" Pinarii survive. [thelatinlibrary.com], [thelatinlibrary.com]  A witty Roman epigram might have been:  Potius sero quam numquam. ("Better late than never.")  Applied to the gentes:  The Pinarii were sero. The Potitii became numquam.  In that sense, the myth itself invites a Trimalchian question:  Quid est sero? ("What is late, exactly?")  For the whole constitutional distinction of the cult rests on Hercules' interpretation of that one word. And histories, myths, and institutions are often built on just such interpretations.

  

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pini – Ossia: Grice e Pini: la ragione conversazionale e la filosofia italiana Vittorio Achille Pini (Reggio Emilia): la ragione conversazionale e la filosofia italiana. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats understanding as a rational, norm-sensitive achievement: speakers are presumed (unless special reasons intervene) to be cooperating in ways that make their contributions interpretable, and hearers recover what is meant by attributing intentions under shared expectations of relevance, adequacy, and intelligibility, with implicatures arising when what is said is not the most straightforward way to pursue the conversational point. Pini, as your passage frames him, sits at the opposite end of the philosophical temperament: a militant printer-journalist and anarchist propagandist for whom words are instruments of action, recruitment, defiance, and risk-management, so that the governing “rationality” of discourse is not primarily the polite rationality of mutual understanding but the strategic rationality of agitation, signaling, and solidarity under pressure; manifestos, polemics, and revolutionary appeals are saturated with intended effects (mobilize, shame, expose, delegitimize) and with audience-targeted inferences that often depend on deliberately loaded phrasing rather than on cooperative clarity. The comparison therefore sharpens Grice by contrast: Grice models implicature as what a reasonable hearer infers in a cooperative exchange aimed at shared understanding, whereas the Pini milieu foregrounds how implicatures can be weaponized, how audiences can be engineered, and how “what is meant” may be designed to polarize rather than converge, even while still remaining fully intention-governed and inference-driven. On the bibliographic side, the item in your passage (Vittorio Achille Pini, La vita e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci, Firenze: Sansoni, 1882) is at least a plausible anchor for showing that Pini can also appear as a conventional author in a learned genre, which lets you juxtapose two speech-economies: the descriptive, encyclopedic register (where Gricean cooperation is easy to assume) and the insurgent register (where cooperation is fragile and inference is shaped by conflict), both of which still rely on the same basic Gricean idea that meaning is something an audience can rationally reconstruct from what is said plus what it would make sense for the speaker to be doing. Figlio di un volontario di GARIBALDI , patisce un'infanzia molto difficile e miserabile - molti suoi fratelli moriranno a causa della indigenza, e per questo inizia a lavorare in una tipografia all'età di 12 anni, prima di essere assunto nella stamperia di un giornale repubblicano, dove cominia ad interessarsi di politica. Successivamente alla vittoria della sinistra alle elezioni, aderisce all’internazionale dei lavoratori dopo aver assistito ad una conferenza di Barbani. In seguito si trasfere a Milano, dove partecipa allo sciopero dei tipografi, che si conclude con un fallimento dopo sei mesi di dura lotta. La sconfitta sul piano sociale, lo convince dell'inutilità di questo genere di lotte, spingendolo ad assumere toni più radicali e illegalisti. All'epoca P. trova lavoro come pompiere, mestiere che lo porterà anche a compiere atti eroici come la salvezza di una famiglia intrappolata nella propria casa andata in fiamme. Emigra. Avvicinatosi alla corrente individualista, fonda il gruppo gl’intransigenti, chiamato anche i ribelli, gl’introvabili, e gli straccioni, insieme a Parmeggiani, Zavoli e Marroco. Il gruppo gravita intorno alle attività della stamperia de La Révolte prima e de Il Pugnale poi, di cui assume la carica di direttore insieme a Parmeggiani. Partigiano dell'individualismo, P. teorizza l’esproprio come mezzo rivoluzionario per abolire la proprietà privata e giungere così al comunismo anarchico. A P. vengono attribuiti un gran numero furti e rapine allo scopo di finanziare varie attività propagandistiche, tra cui l'apertura di una stamperia e la nascita del giornale Il Ciclone. Pubblica manifesti, tra cui il manifesto degl’anarchici al popolo d'Italia, che chiama il popolo italiano ad insorgere, criticando apertamente Cipriani coll’accusa d’aver tradito gl’ideali della rivoluzione sociale. Ceretti e Prampolini, dopo aver preso le difese di Cipriani ed aver accusato gli autori del manifesto di essere al soldo della polizia, P. e Parmeggiani si recano in Italia per vendicare quello che secondo loro era una grave diffamazione. private property, Loke. “Grice: St John’s, 1951. The Ashmolean is running a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition—“Vinci,” as I persist in calling him, as if he were a neighbour with a surname—and Blackwell’s has obligingly placed in the window a formidable tome by one Pini: La vita e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci. Potts went too, and between his enthusiasm and my weakness for catalogues our tutorial was largely swallowed by Renaissance memorabilia. “He was a Renaissance man,” Potts said, and then—anticipating my objection—added, “if that’s what I’m implying.” “He was,” I said, “but be careful: ‘Renaissance man’ is a phrase generally used by people who are not Renaissance men. As a description it often tells you more about the speaker than about Leonardo.” Potts frowned politely. “I don’t follow, sir.” “You needn’t,” I said. “It’s enough to notice that some labels are less informative about their subject than they are revealing of the labeler. ‘Renaissance man’ can be a compliment, but it can also be an advertisement of one’s own taste for compliments.” He brightened at that, so I pressed my luck: “For next week, write on this: why the only man who can do philosophy is, in a sense, a Renaissance man—yet why doing philosophy is not at all the same thing as doing Renaissance philosophy.” “Very well, sir,” Potts said, with the unnerving cheerfulness of someone who suspects he has just been given a paradox and is looking forward to living in it.” Grice: Caro Pini, ho letto della tua giovinezza travagliata e della tua passione per la giustizia sociale. Mi incuriosisce come la tua esperienza tra le tipografie e il mondo operaio abbia influenzato il tuo pensiero filosofico. Come hai conciliato la lotta quotidiana con la ricerca della verità?  Pini: Grice, la realtà dura delle mie origini non mi ha lasciato alternative: la filosofia, per me, è sempre stata azione. Ho imparato presto che la parola può essere arma e ponte insieme. La mia partecipazione agli scioperi e all’Internazionale dei lavoratori mi ha insegnato che la verità non è solo da pensare, ma da vivere, anche attraverso il rischio e la ribellione.  Grice: In effetti, il tuo radicalismo e la scelta di esproprio come strumento rivoluzionario mi ricordano che la filosofia può diventare prassi concreta, persino eroica. Ma dimmi, come vedi oggi il rapporto tra individualismo e collettivo? È ancora possibile trovare una sintesi autentica o siamo condannati alla frammentazione?  Pini: La sintesi, Grice, è difficile ma necessaria. Ognuno di noi deve essere libero di esprimere il proprio pensiero, ma la vera rivoluzione si fa insieme, non da soli. Mi piace pensare che “gli intransigenti”, “i ribelli”, siano la prova che l’individualismo può diventare forza collettiva quando è guidato dalla passione per la libertà e la giustizia. Dopotutto, come si dice dalle mie parti, “da soli si va veloci, insieme si va lontano”. Pini, Vittorio Achille (1882). La vita e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci. Firenze: Sansoni.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pinnio – Ossia: Grice e Pinnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pinnio. The gens Pinnia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, and few of them attained any of the higher offices of the Roman state, although a few became local governors, and at least one, Lucius Pinnius Porphyrio, held the quaestorship. Many others are known from inscriptions.[1]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Pinnii were Titus and Lucius. They occasionally used Quintus and Gaius, and there are instances of Marcus, Aulus, and Publius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Quintus Pinnius, a friend of Marcus Terentius Varro, the antiquarian, who mentions him in Rerum Rusticarum, his treatise on agriculture.[2] Titus Pinnius, a friend of Cicero, who mentions him in one of his letters.[3] Lucius Pinnius Celer, a soldier named in an inscription from Rome, dating to AD 70.[4] Titus Pinnius Hilarus, made a contract with Publius Decimius Epagathus in March, AD 102.[5] Titus Pinnius Primigenius, together with his wife, Fannia Sabina, dedicated a tomb at Rome for their house slave, Honorata, aged six years, seven months, and twenty-seven days, with an inscription dating to the second century AD, or the latter part of the first.[6] Marcus Pinnius M. l. Surus, a freedman buried at Rome, in a tomb dating to the second century.[7] Pinnia Restuta, a freedwoman buried at Rome, in the tomb of Marcus Pinnius Surus.[7] Quintus Pinnius Onesimus, one of the priests at Ostia in Latium in AD 151.[8] Pinnius Aurelius Venerius, buried at Puteoli in Campania, aged about fifty, according to an inscription belonging to the late third or early fourth centuries AD[9] Pinnii of uncertain era Lucius Pinnius, Praefectus Augustalis, named in an inscription from Gabii in Latium.[10] Quintus Pinnius, one of the septemviri epulones at Ravenna in Venetia and Histria.[11] Pinnia L. l., a freedwoman buried at Tibur in Latium.[12] Quintus Pinnius Q. l, buried at Adria in Venetia and Histria.[13] Lucius Pinnius L. l. Acastus, a freedman buried at Tibur.[12] Gaius Pinnius C. f. Agrippa, buried in Achaia, aged twenty-two. Titus Pinnius T. l. Anteros, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome.[14] Titus Pinnius T. l. Cavarius, a freedman, and the brother of Pinnia Plecte and Pinnius Januarius, buried at Bouthoe in Dalmatia.[15] Lucius Pinnius S. f. Celsus, buried at Rome, aged eighteen years, four days.[16] Lucius Pinnius L. l. Cerdo, buried at Rome.[17] Gaius Pinnius Chrysanthus, father of Gaius Pinnius Natalis and Pinnia Natalia, who died in childhood.[18] Titus Pinnius Corinthus, husband of Livia Poppaea, and father of two daughters named Pinnia Poppaea, who died in childhood.[19] Pinnia Didyma, wife of Titus Pinnius Hermes, who built a tomb for her at Rome.[20] Titus Pinnius Epaphroditus, buried at the present site of Castel Gandolfo in Latium, aged eighteen years, five months.[21] Quintus Pinnius Felix, one of the priests as Portus in Latium.[22] Titus Pinnius Festus, named in an inscription from Rome as one of the donors of a pot.[23] Titus Pinnius T. f. Firmus, named in an inscription from Ateste in Venetia and Histria.[24] Lucius Pinnius L. f. Fortis, son of Lucius Pinnius Valens and Pinnia Procula, buried in a family sepulchre at Ostia.[25] Titus Pinnius Fortis, heir under the will of Lucius Birronius Quartonius.[26] Pinnius Graptus, named in an inscription from Rome.[27] Pinnius Hermeros, husband of Claudia, named in an inscription from Tarvisium in Venetia and Histria.[28] Titus Pinnius Hermes, husband of Pinnia Didyma, for whom he built a tomb at Rome.[20] Pinnia T. l. Hilara, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome.[14] Titus Pinnius Hilarus, buried at Rome.[29] Pinnius Januarius, brother of Titus Pinnius Cavario.[15] Titus Pinnius Januarius, husband of Papiria Musa, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, aged thirty.[30] Pinnia Joconio, a freedwoman, buried at Rome with Titus Pinnius Tilles.[31] Aulus Pinnius Maximus, a senator named in a will from Panormus in Sicily.[32] Titus Pinnius T. (f.?) Modestus, named in a funerary inscription for his freedwoman, Pinnia Primigenia.[33] Pinnia C. f. Natalia, daughter of Gaius Pinnius Chrysanthus, buried at Brundisium in Calabria, aged six.[18] Gaius C. f. Pinnius Natalis, son of Gaius Pinnius Chrysanthus, buried at Brundisium, aged six.[18] Lucius Pinnius Nedymus, Praefectus Augustalis, named in an inscription from Gabii.[10] Pinnia Plecte, sister of Titus Pinnius Cavarius, for whom she built a monument at Bouthoe.[15] Pinnia T. f. Poppaea, infant daughter of Titus Pinnius Corinthus and Livia Poppaea, buried at Rome, aged one year, six months, and five days.[19] Pinnia T. f. Poppaea, daughter of Titus Pinnius Corinthus and Livia Poppaea, buried at Rome, aged five years, two months, and twenty days.[19] Lucius Pinnius Porphyrio, a quaestor, named in an inscription from Gabii.[10] Lucius Pinnius Pri[...], named in an inscription from Tarvisium.[34] Pinnia T. l. Primigenia, the freedwoman of Titus Pinnius Modestus, buried at Rome.[33] Pinnius Probus, heir of Gaius Aemilius Severus, a centurion buried at Ravenna.[35] Pinnia L. l. Procula, the freedwoman and wife of Lucius Pinnius Valens, and mother of Lucius Pinnius Fortis, built a sepulchre at Ostia for her family.[25] Gaius Pinnius Provincialis, buried at Aquileia in Venetia and Histria.[36] Publius Pinnius Saturninus, buried at Castellum Celtianum in Numidia, aged thirty-one.[37] Lucius Pinnius L. l. Sopilus, a freedman, named in a dedicatory inscription from Aquileia.[38] Titus Pinnius T. l. Suntrophus, a freedman, who became a vestiarius, or clothier, at Rome.[39] Titus Pinnius Tilles, a freedman buried at Rome, together with Pinnia Joconio.[31] Lucius Pinnius Valens, the husband and former master of Pinnia Procula, and father of Lucius Pinnius Fortis, buried in the family sepulchre built by his wife at Ostia.[25] Marcus Pinnius Valens, a soldier in the praetorian guard, buried at Rome, aged forty-five, having served twenty-four years.[40] Lucius Pinnius Zabda, named in an inscription from Tarvisium.[34] Tiberius Claudius Pinnius, buried at Ostia, aged fourteen years, three months.[41] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 370 ("Pinnius").  Varro, Rerum Rusticarum, iii. 1.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, xiii. 61.  CIL VI, 200.  CIL VI, 10244.  CIL VI, 19512.  CIL VI, 24206.  CIL XIV, 5339.  Camodeca, Puteoli, 3.  CIL XIV, 2811.  CIL XIV, 3469, CIL XIV, 3470.  EE, ix. 904.  AE 1993, 765.  CIL VI, 24201.  AE 2011, 898.  CIL VI, 24202.  CIL VI, 24203.  AE 1966, 85.  CIL VI, 24209, CIL VI, 24210.  CIL VI, 7580.  CIL XIV, 2363.  ILOP, 129.  AE 2012, 224.  CIL V, 2471.  CIL XIV, 4663.  CIL V, 4125.  Avetta, Via Imperiale, 8.  CIL V, 2138.  CIL VI, 35461a.  CIL III, 9275.  CIL VI, 36111.  CIL X, 7301.  Avetta, Via Imperiale, 7.  CIL V, 2132.  CIL XI, 340.  Pais, Supplementa Italica, 276.  CIL VIII, 19820.  CIL I, 3413.  AE 1913, 220.  NSA, 1916-100, 44.  CIL XIV, 829. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares. Marcus Terentius Varro, Rerum Rusticarum (Rural Matters). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Wilhelm Henzen, Ephemeris Epigraphica: Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementum (Journal of Inscriptions: Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, abbreviated EE), Institute of Roman Archaeology, Rome (1872–1913). Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (News of Excavations from Antiquity, abbreviated NSA), Accademia dei Lincei (1876–present). Ettore Pais, Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementa Italica (Italian Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum), Rome (1884). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Alfredo Marinucci, Diseicta Membra. Iscrizioni Latine da Ostia e Porto, 1981–2009 (Scattered Limbs: Latin Inscriptions from Ostia and Portus, 1981–2009, abbreviated ILOP), Rome (2012). Lucia Avetta, Roma—Via Imperiale. Scavi e Scoperte (1937-1950) nella Costruzione di Via delle Terme di Caracalla e di Via Cristoforo Colombo (Rome—The Imperial Road: Excavationa and Discoveries during the construction of the road to the Baths of Caracalla and Christopher Columbus Street), Rome (1985). Giuseppe Camodeca, Puteoli. Istituzioni e società, Naples (2017). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pinnio – Ossia: Grice e Pinnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pinnio. For the Pinnii, the evidence is so thin that I would avoid trying to force a grand political or military vignette. The most Gricean candidate is, I think:  Titus Pinnius, the friend of Cicero who appears in the correspondence. [GREXv2 | Word]  Why? Because with obscure gentes the most interesting thing is often not what they did, but how they are mentioned. A letter saying:  T. Pinnio salutem dices ("Give my greetings to Titus Pinnius.")  or  "I saw Pinnius."  carries very little semantic content and a great deal of pragmatic content. Grice loved precisely that.  Grice e Pinnio Speranza:  Why mention Pinnius at all?  Grice:  An excellent question.  Speranza:  The information-value is nearly zero.  Grice:  The friendship-value is not.   +> I remember him. +> I care about him. +> Our social network remains intact.  The explicit content is tiny. The implicated content is large. A tiny Grice–Speranza epigram Grice:  Which Pinnius?  Speranza:  The one in the letter.  Grice:  Why?  Speranza:  Because his importance is carried almost entirely by implicature.  Grice:  Meaning?  Speranza:  If Cicero bothers to mention him, Atticus already knows why.  That is perhaps the most Gricean thing about the gens Pinnia: they survive chiefly in contexts where shared background knowledge does most of the communicative work. [GREXv2 | Word] Cicero on Titus Pinnius Marcus Tullius Cicero references a different member of the family, Titus Pinnius, in a formal letter found in his collection Epistulae ad Familiares (Letters to Friends, 13.61). [1] The Latin Text (Cicero, Ad Fam. 13.61): "T. Pinnio familiarissime me usum esse scire te arbitror. Quod ex testamento eius potuit intellegi, qui me cum tutorem tum etiam secundum heredem instituerit..." [1] The English Translation: "I think you know that I was very intimate with T. Pinnius. This fact he testified by his will, for he appointed me both a guardian and an heir in the second degree..." [1] Context: Cicero wrote this letter to Publius Silius Nerva (the governor of Bithynia and Pontus). He was writing to ask for administrative assistance on behalf of Titus Pinnius's young son, who was owed a staggering eight million sesterces by the people of Nicaea. [1] If you are trying to locate these specific texts in a library database or a textbook, would you like the full bilingual passages or the exact Loeb Classical Library volume citations for either Varro's On Agriculture or Cicero's Letters to Friends? Does this help? "Quid est divus?" Pinnius" "Non. He is owed. He doesn't own" THanks In Roman classical literature, the references by Cicero and Varro regarding "Pinnius" point to two completely different historical individuals from the Pinnia family (gens): [1] 1. Varro on Quintus Pinnius Marcus Terentius Varro dedicated the entire third book of his agricultural treatise, De Re Rustica, to his close friend and neighbor, Quintus Pinnius. [1, 2] The Latin Opening (Varro, De Re Rustica 3.1.1): "Cum duae vitae traditae sint hominum, rustica et urbana, quidni, Pinni, dubium non est, quin hae non solum loco discretae sint, sed etiam tempore diversam originem habeant." [1] The English Translation: "Though there are traditionally two ways in which men live—one in the country, the other in the city—there is clearly no doubt, Pinnius, that these differ not merely in the matter of place but also in the time at which each had its beginning." [1] Context: In this final book, Varro discusses specialized villa husbandry like breeding birds, bees, and fish. Varro chooses Pinnius as the dedicatee partly as a scholarly joke; the name Pinnius evokes the Latin word pinna (meaning "feather" or "wing"), perfectly matching a text whose first major topic is aviaries and poultry.[1, 2, 3, 4] 2. Cicero on Titus Pinnius Marcus Tullius Cicero references a different member of the family, Titus Pinnius, in a formal letter found in his collection Epistulae ad Familiares (Letters to Friends, 13.61). [1] The Latin Text (Cicero, Ad Fam. 13.61): "T. Pinnio familiarissime me usum esse scire te arbitror. Quod ex testamento eius potuit intellegi, qui me cum tutorem tum etiam secundum heredem instituerit..." [1] The English Translation: "I think you know that I was very intimate with T. Pinnius. This fact he testified by his will, for he appointed me both a guardian and an heir in the second degree..." [1] Context: Cicero wrote this letter to Publius Silius Nerva (the governor of Bithynia and Pontus). He was writing to ask for administrative assistance on behalf of Titus Pinnius's young son, who was owed a staggering eight million sesterces by the people of Nicaea. [1] If you are trying to locate these specific texts in a library database or a textbook, would you like the full bilingual passages or the exact Loeb Classical Library volume citations for either Varro's On Agriculture or Cicero's Letters to Friends? Yes, that helps considerably, and in fact it gives the Pinnii a much better Gricean candidate than I had previously thought. The strongest figure is probably no longer the shadowy friend in a letter, but:  Titus Pinnius, as he appears in Cicero's recommendation letter. Cicero says he was very intimate with Pinnius and notes that Pinnius appointed him both guardian and secondary heir in his will. Cicero is writing on behalf of Pinnius' son, who was owed a large sum by the people of Nicaea. [GREXv2 | Word]  The Gricean point is that the whole letter turns on background assumptions about friendship, trust, and recommendation. A bare statement:  T. Pinnio familiarissime me usum esse scire te arbitror. ("I think you know that I was on very intimate terms with Titus Pinnius.") [GREXv2 | Word]  has an obvious implicature:  +> Therefore I am a credible witness to his character. +> Therefore his son deserves your attention. +> Therefore my request should carry weight.  The recommendation is not stated; it is performed.  As for your delightful:  Quid est dives?  I think this is exactly the sort of move Trimalchio might make. Suppose Agamemnon repairs:  pauper est qui parum habet ("A poor man is one who has little.")  Then Trimalchio replies:  Quid est dives?  ("What is a rich man?") And a Pinnius-like practical Roman might answer:  Non qui multa habet, sed cui multa debentur. ("Not one who owns much, but one to whom much is owed.")  That would fit remarkably well with the Pinnius letter, where the issue is precisely a large debt owed to the family. [GREXv2 | Word] One could even imagine a Grice–Speranza vignette: Agamemnon:  Pauper et dives inimici erant.  ("A poor man and a rich man were enemies.") Trimalchio:  Quid est dives?  ("What is a rich man?") Pinnius:  Cui debetur. ("One to whom things are owed.")  Trimalchio:  Ergo dives nondum habet? ("Then the rich man does not yet possess it?")  Pinnius:  Spem habet. ("He possesses a claim.")   +> Wealth may consist in expectations, credits, and obligations, not merely present possession.  That is actually rather Roman—and rather Ciceronian. The legal relation (debetur) may matter more than the physical coins. So, for the gens Pinnia, my revised first-best Grice–Speranza vignette would centre on Titus Pinnius, Cicero's recommendation, and the pragmatics of obligation, debt, trust, and friendship, rather than on the much thinner Varro reference. [GREXv2 | Word], [GREXv2 | Word] and do we know if the sum was restored? That was the point of the recommendation, right? Thanks As far as I can tell, we do not know whether the money was ultimately recovered. I could not find a source giving the outcome of the claim. [livyarrow.org], [attalus.org] What is clear from Cicero's letter is the purpose of the recommendation:  Cicero emphasizes his close friendship with Titus Pinnius. [GREXv2 | Word] He points to evidence of that friendship in Pinnius' will, where he had been named guardian and secondary heir. [GREXv2 | Word] He writes to a governor on behalf of Pinnius' son, whose interests required official assistance. [GREXv2 | Word]  So yes—the practical purpose of the recommendation was to help secure a favorable administrative outcome for the son. Whether that meant recovering the full debt, recovering part of it, obtaining enforcement, or simply ensuring fair treatment is not stated in the material I found. [GREXv2 | Word], [livyarrow.org] A nice Gricean point is that Cicero never says:  "Because I was Pinnius' intimate friend, you must decide in our favour."  Instead he says, in effect:  T. Pinnio familiarissime me usum esse scire te arbitror. ("I think you know that I was very intimate with Titus Pinnius.") [GREXv2 | Word]  and leaves the desired conclusion to be drawn:  +> therefore attend carefully to the son's case; +> therefore give weight to my recommendation.  That is a classic Roman letter of recommendation: the request is partly explicit, but much of its force lies in the implicature. Quid est divus? Pinnus -- so he hopes. So he was. So he will? So he hopes. THanks The original Latin term Cicero uses in his letter is grandem pecuniam (a large/grand sum of money), followed by the specific amount: ad sestertium octogies (literally, eighty times one hundred thousand sesterces, which totals 8,000,000 sesterces). [1] Why Was Such a Large Sum Owed? The text does not explicitly detail the exact transaction, but historians read this through the known mechanisms of late Roman Republican imperialism: Provincial Lending Schemes: Wealthy Roman equestrians and senators (like Titus Pinnius) routinely acted as elite moneylenders to foreign cities. The Tax-Trap: Roman tax-collecting syndicates (publicani) demanded massive lump-sum tributes from provincial cities like Nicaea. Because these cities rarely had immediate liquidity, they took out massive private loans from wealthy Romans at predatory, high interest rates. The "Connection" Advantage: Pinnius likely leveraged his status and connections to secure Nicaea's public debt as a private investment. This explains why Cicero emphasizes that Nicaea is anxious to pay the son back—they wanted to stay on the good side of influential Roman power-brokers. [1] Do We Know if He Got the Sum? There is no surviving historical record confirming whether young Pinnius successfully collected the full eight million sesterces. Cicero wrote this letter around 51–50 BCE while serving as governor of neighboring Cilicia. Shortly after, the Roman Republic erupted into Caesar’s Civil War (49 BCE). During civil wars, provincial debts were frequently wiped out, forcefully renegotiated, or seized by military commanders to pay their legions, meaning young Pinnius may have had a difficult time collecting the full amount. [1] How Much in Dollars Today? Converting ancient currency to modern USD is highly speculative because the Roman economy was structured entirely differently, but we can look at it through purchasing power parity (PPP) and the worth of labor: [1] By Labor Standards (Day Wages): In Cicero's era, a standard Roman legionary or day laborer earned roughly 3 sesterces a day. Therefore, 8,000,000 sesterces represents about 2.66 million days of manual labor. At a modern US minimum wage or basic standard of daily labor value (~$100 to $120 a day), that translates to roughly $260,000,000 to $320,000,000. By Elite Elite Standards: 8 million sesterces was an absolute fortune. The minimum property qualification to even enter the Roman Senate was 1,000,000 sesterces. Titus Pinnius’s son was owed enough money to fund eight entire senatorial fortunes. If you are interested, I can provide further context on how Cicero managed financial disputes during his governorship or give you more examples of Roman moneylending practices in the provinces. I rather like your proposed Gricean-Pinnian dialogue. Agamemnon:  Quid est dives? ("What is a rich man?")  Pinnius:  Cui debetur. ("One to whom things are owed.")  This is not classical Latin as a definition, of course, but it captures a very Roman insight. The material you quote suggests that Titus Pinnius' son was owed:  grandem pecuniam ... ad sestertium octogies ("a large sum of money ... eight million sesterces") by the people of Nicaea, and Cicero wrote a recommendation letter on his behalf. [loebclassics.com]  Now comes the Gricean joke. A simplistic definition would be:  dives est qui multum habet ("A rich man is one who has much.")  But a Roman financier might reply:  immo qui multum sperat se habiturum ("No, one who expects to have much.")  or  cui multum debetur ("One to whom much is owed.")  The distinction is between:  having, and having a claim to have.  Very Roman.  Your own continuation is delightful: Quid est dives? Pinnius:  Cui debetur.  Interlocutor:  Ergo sperat? ("Then he hopes?")  Pinnius:  Sperat.  ("He hopes.") Interlocutor:  Ergo nondum habet? ("Then he does not yet have it?")  Pinnius:  Nondum. ("Not yet.")  At that point "wealth" starts to look suspiciously like a bundle of expectations.  And this takes us back to Grice. A debt is a fascinating object from a Gricean perspective because it exists partly through mutual recognition:  A owes B.  The coins may not yet have moved. Yet social reality has already changed. So a witty Pinnian paradox might be:  Dives est qui sperat. ("The rich man is the one who hopes.")  or  Dives est cui debetur. ("The rich man is the one to whom things are owed.")  with the implicature:  +> Wealth may reside in claims, expectations, and recognized obligations, not merely in present possession.  As for the historical question, I found evidence that Cicero wrote the recommendation on behalf of Pinnius' son, but I found no surviving source stating whether the eight million sesterces were ultimately recovered. The recommendation's purpose was clearly to assist the son's claim, but the outcome is not preserved in the material I found. [loebclassics.com], [thelatinlibrary.com] T: What did you declaim today, Aga. A: Erant inmici dives et parua Nicaea. T: This is true: Pinnius! Thanks -- can we reconstruct the lat. conv (eng in round brackets) with eventual +>implic. with Aga. talking of Cicero's case for the son of P., P. himself, who is owed 8,000,000 sesterces. T. What is dives? Enough to fund eight entire senatorial fortunes Thanks -- latin for million? latin for Billion, latin for trillion Thanks Yes! This is much better than the stock pauper et dives controversia, because it gives Trimalchio a chance to replace the rhetorical template with a real Roman financial case. One might imagine: Trimalchio:  Quam controversiam hodie declamasti, Agamemnon? ("What controversia did you declaim today, Agamemnon?")  Agamemnon:  Erant inimici dives et civitas Nicaeensis. ("A rich man and the city of Nicaea were enemies.")  Trimalchio:  Hoc verum est: Pinnius! ("Now that is real: Pinnius!")   +> At last, not a schoolroom fiction.   Or slightly fuller: Agamemnon:  Civitas Nicaeensis magnam pecuniam debebat. ("The city of Nicaea owed a large sum of money.")  Trimalchio:  Quantum? ("How much?")  Agamemnon:  Ad sestertium octogies. ("Eight million sesterces.") [loebclassics.com]  Trimalchio:  Quid est dives? ("What is a rich man?")  Agamemnon:  Qui tantam pecuniam credidit. ("A man who was able to lend such a sum.")  Trimalchio:  Non. Cui debetur. ("No. One to whom money is owed.")   +> Wealth consists in claims and expectations.   A further Gricean continuation: Agamemnon:  Ergo dives est Pinnius? ("Then Pinnius is rich?")  Trimalchio:  Sperat se divitem esse. ("He hopes he is rich.")  Agamemnon:  At nondum accepit. ("But he has not yet received the money.")  Trimalchio:  Ideo spes eius octogies valet. ("That is why his hope is worth eight million.")   +> Credit is future possession.   Latin for "million" The Romans had no single lexical item equivalent to our "million". They expressed large numbers multiplicatively. A million sesterces is:  decies sestertium ("ten hundred-thousands of sesterces")  or  sestertium decies.  Since:  sestertium = 100,000 sesterces,  therefore:  decies sestertium = 1,000,000 sesterces.  For Pinnius:  octogies sestertium ("eighty hundred-thousands")  = 8,000,000 sesterces. [loebclassics.com] Billion? Trillion? Classical Latin never developed ordinary words equivalent to modern:  million billion trillion  because Roman numerical practice used combinations of:  mille (1,000)  and higher numerals. A Roman accountant would say things such as:  decies centena milia ("ten times one hundred thousand")  rather than "one million". For philosophical amusement, Trimalchio might ask: Trimalchio:  Quid est dives?  Agamemnon:  Qui octogies habet. ("One who has eight million.")  Trimalchio:  Immo qui octogies sperat. ("No, one who hopes for eight million.")   +> The richest man may be the creditor, not the possessor. He was a hedge funder -- and the irony that this is 49 BC what is that in A. U. C. with Roman numerals, and one year after (what is that in A. U. C. Civil War -- equivalnet of Wall-Street Collapse of 1929. Pinnius loses the hope of his 'dives'? Thanks That's a wonderfully Roman—and slightly tragic—way to view Titus Pinnius. First, the dates. Using Varro's conventional foundation date of 753 BC:  51 BC = A.U.C. 703 50 BC = A.U.C. 704 49 BC (Caesar crosses the Rubicon) = A.U.C. 705.  Roman numerals:  703 A.U.C. = DCCIII 704 A.U.C. = DCCIV 705 A.U.C. = DCCV  The recommendation letter on behalf of Pinnius' son belongs around 51–50 BC, so roughly A.U.C. DCCIII–DCCIV. The Civil War erupts in A.U.C. DCCV. [loebclassics.com] Now the Grice–Speranza angle. The letter presupposes a world in which:  debts are enforceable, governors intervene, cities pay what they owe, recommendations matter.  But then comes the Civil War. We do not know whether the eight million sesterces were ever paid. The surviving evidence does not tell us. [loebclassics.com], [thelatinlibrary.com] However, as a literary reconstruction, one can imagine the irony: A.U.C. DCCIV Cicero:  Cui debetur octogies sestertium, dives est. ("He to whom eight million sesterces are owed is rich.")  A.U.C. DCCV Caesar and Pompey begin civil war. Speranza:  Ergo dives estne adhuc? ("Then is he still rich?")  Grice:  Sperat. ("He hopes so.")   +> Wealth is partly expectation.  And that is the hedge-fund joke. A man whose fortune consists in a claim:  octogies sestertium debetur  ("eight million sesterces are owed") may be enormously wealthy in peacetime. But if political order collapses, the "wealth" suddenly looks like a conversational implicature: Asset:  The city owes me eight million.  Implicature:  Therefore I shall receive eight million.  Civil war removes the bridge between the two. So one might imagine Trimalchio rewriting Agamemnon's declamation: Agamemnon:  Erant inimici dives et Nicaea. ("A rich man and Nicaea were enemies.")  Trimalchio:  Hoc verum est: Pinnius! ("Now that is real: Pinnius!")  Agamemnon:  Quid est dives? ("What is a rich man?")  Trimalchio:  Qui octogies sperat. ("One who hopes for eight million.")  Agamemnon:  Et si bellum civile incipit? ("And if civil war begins?")  Trimalchio:  Tum controversia est. ("Then there is a controversia.")  The irony is that Agamemnon's school exercise becomes reality. A fictional dives and a fictional debtor-city are boring. A real creditor waiting for eight senatorial fortunes just before the Republic collapses—that is the sort of controversia Trimalchio might actually enjoy.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pinnio – Ossia: Grice e Pinnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Pinnio. A Better Candidate? There is, however, one amusing alternative:  Quintus Pinnius, friend of Varro, appearing in Rerum Rusticarum. [GREXv2 | Word]  Varro's agricultural dialogues are full of exactly the sort of exchanges we've been discussing with Trimalchio:  definitions, practical examples, interruptions, "What do you mean by X?"  One could easily imagine: Varro:  De pecore dicamus. ("Let us speak about livestock.")  Pinnius:  Quid est pecus? ("What is livestock?")  which would delight both Trimalchio and Strawson. But unfortunately the surviving notice is too slight to develop very far. [GREXv2 | Word] In Roman classical literature, the references by Cicero and Varro regarding "Pinnius" point to two completely different historical individuals from the Pinnia family (gens): [1]  1. Varro on Quintus Pinnius Marcus Terentius Varro dedicated the entire third book of his agricultural treatise, De Re Rustica, to his close friend and neighbor, Quintus Pinnius. [1, 2] The Latin Opening (Varro, De Re Rustica 3.1.1): "Cum duae vitae traditae sint hominum, rustica et urbana, quidni, Pinni, dubium non est, quin hae non solum loco discretae sint, sed etiam tempore diversam originem habeant." [1] The English Translation: "Though there are traditionally two ways in which men live—one in the country, the other in the city—there is clearly no doubt, Pinnius, that these differ not merely in the matter of place but also in the time at which each had its beginning." [1] Context: In this final book, Varro discusses specialized villa husbandry like breeding birds, bees, and fish. Varro chooses Pinnius as the dedicatee partly as a scholarly joke; the name Pinnius evokes the Latin word pinna (meaning "feather" or "wing"), perfectly matching a text whose first major topic is aviaries and poultry.[1, 2, 3, 4] 2.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Piovani – Ossia: Grice e Piovani: la ragione conversazionale d’Enea, l’eroe al portico, o l’implicatura conversazionale assente Pietro Piovani (Napoli, Campania): la ragione conversazionale d’Enea, l’eroe al portico, o l’implicatura conversazionale assente. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats understanding as a rational reconstruction under publicly shared norms: hearers assume (ceteris paribus) that speakers are cooperating, and they recover what is meant by asking what intention a reasonable speaker could be expressing, with implicatures arising where the literal wording would otherwise make the contribution look oddly weak, irrelevant, or over-elaborate. Piovani, as your passage frames him, approaches normativity from a different direction: post-war ethical and juridical reflection focused on the individual’s becoming a person through responsibility, and on the pressure to remake idealism after the collapse of voluntaristic attualismo; his willingness to coin a term like assenzialismo exemplifies a philosophical temperament that is less interested in keeping theory close to everyday conversational expectations and more interested in retooling the vocabulary so that moral experience and historical trauma can be said at all. The comparison, then, is that Grice makes “reason” visible in the micro-economy of talk by showing how ordinary speakers manage inference, commitment, and mutual recognition without needing a special idiom, whereas Piovani highlights a situation in which ordinary idioms may feel morally or historically inadequate, prompting the philosopher to invent a new register that deliberately disrupts default conversational implicatures (your “implicatura assente” theme), aiming not at efficient coordination but at ethical reorientation and conceptual repair. The overlap is that both treat meaning as answerable to norms rather than to mere semantics: for Grice the norms are those of cooperative rational exchange, for Piovani the norms are those of moral responsibility and the cultivation of personhood, which can make conversational smoothness itself look like a kind of evasion. For anchoring detail, the bibliographic point in your passage is solid: Piovani’s Lineamenti di una filosofia della morale (Napoli: Morano, 1961) is the natural textual hinge for linking his moral-philosophical project to Grice’s contemporaneous interest in how ordinary words like good, ought, and responsible function in actual practices of giving reasons. Grice: “Like Austin, and then again like me, Piovani could invent lingo. The whole point of ordinary-language philosophy was an attack on ‘philosophical language,’ and there we are, Austin, Grice and Piovani INVENTING unordinary philosophical language! In Piovani’s case is ‘assenzialismo’!” Studia a Napoli. Insegna a Trieste, Firenze, Roma, Napoli. Dei lincei. Scrive su alcuni fogli del regime. La sua ricerca filosofica ha avvio all'indomani immediato della tragica conclusione della seconda guerra mondiale e di ciò porta i segni anche nell’elaborazione della propria caratterizzazione etico-politica, presto approdata alle ragioni del liberalismo democratico. Dinanzi alla drammatica conclusione dell’esito volontaristico dell’attualismo, la necessità di ripensare il modello idealistico lo induce ad un'intensa riflessione sul significato e sul valore dell'individuo nel suo farsi persona. Spazia dalla filosofia del diritto alla filosofia del concetto, ricopre incarichi nelle più importanti accademie italiane. Fonda il centro di studi su VICO. Pratica una fenomenologia dell'individuale. Per P. l’individuo non è concepito come un'entità chiusa ed ego-istica tendente all'assolutizzazione ma, al contrario, accettando egli la sua natura di vivente limitato, afferma sé stesso nella responsabilità della propria azione. Concorrono elementi esistenzialistici, l’analisi dell’esperienza comune. Di ciò è documento “Norma e società”. Utilizza anche temi della prima azione di Blondel. i principi metafisici di Vico, Vico, principio, filosofia nuova di Vico, la Gerarchia, Roma e tiranna – colletivo, guerra, esperienza condivisa, ventennio del regime, il debito di Vico a Roma, la Roma di Vico e la Roma antica, interpretazione filosofica, idealismo, Hegel, implicatura assente, assenzialimo. Grice: St John’s, 1962. Back from the cricket tour I wandered into Blackwell’s, meaning to pick up something harmless and ended up arrested by last year’s new arrival: Piovani’s Lineamenti di una filosofia della morale. Lineamenti is one of those Italian words that feels like a title even before it has committed to meaning anything very definite, but the subtitle caught me at once, because it took me straight back to Hardie at Corpus and my first discovery that Oxford can make even “morals” sound like a technical subject. I remember phoning Mother in Harborne: “We’re doing Aristotle’s Ethics with Hardie.” “Ethics? Morals? Haven’t you had enough of those at home?” “No, Mother—at Oxford they distinguish between ethos and mos, between being decent and theorising about decency; it’s not that we’re being moralised at, it’s that we’re doing Moral Philosophy.” “That sounds like a roundabout way of admitting hypocrisy.” “Not hypocrisy, Mother—hypercrisy: the art of being more scrupulous than is comfortable.” She let that pass, as mothers sometimes do, and I stood there in the shop thinking that Piovani has the right instinct: once you write ‘philosophy of morals’ you’re not talking about sermons, you’re talking about the odd business of turning common practical words—good, right, ought—into objects of argument. And of course it also reminded me of the standing joke: ordinary-language philosophers spend their lives attacking philosophical jargon and then promptly inventing their own; Austin did it, I do it, and Piovani does it with assenzialismo, as if the best cure for metaphysical fog were to name it in fresh Italian and watch it become respectable.” Aderenze al nazi-fascismo Figlio di 2 maestri elementari, educato al senso dell'appartenenza nazionale e cresciuto fino ai vent'anni sotto il fascismo, Pietro Piovani si formò a Napoli, dove, nella prima giovinezza (come invero molte altre future figure di spicco della vita culturale e civile italiana), prese anche parte alle attività del Gruppo universitario Fascista (GUF) cittadino e scrisse su alcuni fogli del regime.  Il partigiano combattente[1] ebreo[2][3][4] Alberto Defez (*Napoli, 17.06.1923; †Napoli, 28.12.2014), suo compagno di classe ginnasiale al Liceo Ginnasio Statale "Jacopo Sannazaro" di Napoli, lo cita nelle sue "Memorie"[5]: «In questo contesto di notevole rilievo, l'unica nota stonatura costituita da un nostro collega di ginnasio, amico mio e di Giorgio Formiggini[6][7][8][9], quel Pietro Piovani, cui ho già fatto cenno, che scriveva articoli firmandoli con il suo nome e cognome ovvero con lo pseudonimo di "Pluvius". Il contenuto di questi articoli era atroce giungendo fino alla delazione. Ricordo un articolo dove era scritto che un certo negozio in Napoli portava la denominazione di un "ariano", ma tale denominazione celava la vera proprietà che era di un ebreo, del quale riportava nome e cognome. Piovani si definiva il "mistico del razzismo". Sia io che Giorgio Formiggini, che eravamo stati suoi compagni di classe dal 1º al 5º ginnasio, se lo incontravamo in un luogo pubblico temevamo di fornirgli un'occasione che gli suggerisse un articolo sul "IX maggio"[10][11] ove si segnalasse la presenza non gradita nei locali pubblici di ebrei. Ma ciò per fortuna non si verificò. Dopo la liberazione Piovani fu inquisito dal Comitato per l'epurazione nel 1944 a Napoli. Tale Comitato era insediato in alcuni locali del Palazzo Reale. Ricordo che fui convocato per testimoniare di fronte ad un magistrato, il giudice Di Serafino[12] che conoscevo di vista, abitando egli al Vomero a Via Luca Giordano, nel mio quartiere. In tale occasione il professore Arangio Ruiz prese le difese di Piovani[13] e credo che non vi fu alcun seguito all'inchiesta. Successivamente, dopo la liberazione, Pietro Piovani ebbe comunque una tale evoluzione che lo portò ad essere professore universitario ed un letterato di fama internazionale, tanto che dopo la sua morte al suo nome fu dedicata un'aula[14][15] nella Facoltà di Lettere dell'Università di Napoli.»  "Alberto Defez sceglie due figure di riferimento per spiegarci la complessa situazione di allora: il compagno di scuola, diventato un notissimo intellettuale nel dopoguerra, che scriveva sul giornale del GUF delle vere e proprie delazioni contro gli ex-amici che contravvenivano alle regole imposte dalla leggi razziali (abbiamo visto i tali al cinema...) e, per contrasto, l'ingegnere che lo assunse trasgredendo volutamente alle imposizioni del regime."[16][17][18][19][20]  Le poche annate della rivista "IX maggio" (1940-1943) / "Novemaggio" (1943), tra il giugno 1940 e il giugno 1943, erano dominate dal motivo della guerra rivoluzionaria, che trasmetteva ai giovani del Gruppo Universitario Fascista "Mussolini" di Napoli l'ansia di individuare una linea di marcia nella storia. Poiché il fascismo aveva sostituito, nelle parole scritte da Pietro Piovani: «agli immortali principi dello storicamente putrefatto individualismo e al giudaico internazionalismo» il concetto romano e fascista della suprema legge della salute pubblica, la guerra si presentava adesso «come proiezione, dalla teoria filosofica alla prassi storico-politica, dell'antipositivismo fascista opposto al positivismo borghese».(68) «(68) P. Piovani, "Rivoluzione mondiale", Nove maggio, 4, 25 luglio 1940. Sulla medesima falsariga Id., "Immortalità dell'idea fascista", IX maggio, 5, 15 agosto 1940 (quando la rivista assumeva definitivamente questa nuova testata).»[21].  Con maggior vigore di Antonio Ghirelli, sulla rivista "IX maggio", Pietro Piovani riprendeva stralci di un articolo[22] del gerarca nazista Joseph Goebbels per avvertire che: «... il cameratesco contatto con il popolo germanico potrebbe insegnarci qualcosa nei confronti della lotta contro gli ebrei [...] Anche in Italia urgono contro i giudei provvedimenti difensivi, idonei alle esigenze del momento. Altrimenti sarebbe lecito parlare di un [...] «pietismo nazionale».(74)[23]» «(74) Pluvius, "Nostro antisemitismo", IX maggio, 3, 15 dicembre 1941. Qualche mese prima il medesimo Pluvius notava con rammarico come si fosse lasciato cadere il saggio suggerimento di Interlandi di chiudere tutti gli ebrei in campi di concentramento ("Mimetismo di Israele", 19, 15 agosto 1941)»[24].  Scriveva, inoltre:  "Novus Ordo", pubblicato in "Gerarchia", Anno XX, nº 10, ottobre 1941, Tipografia Il Popolo d'Italia, Pag. 518[25]; "Funzione educativa del Fascismo", pubblicato in "Politica Nuova", Roma, 1-15 novembre 1941, Pag. 526[26][27][28]; "Francia in attesa", pubblicato in "Politica Nuova", Roma, 1-15 dicembre 1941, Pag. 594[29]; "Moralità della guerra totale", in cui scrive: "Questa moralità (della guerra) è vigorosamente affermata da Pietro Piovani in "Libro e Moschetto" del 27 marzo (n.d.r.: 1943) nº 22, contro le troppe e troppo alte condanne dello sfacelo materiale e morale del mondo, che deriverebbe dalla lotta armata. «Nessun clima - dice Piovani - è più morale di questo in cui viviamo, che impegna totalitariamente le energie degli uomini ed abilisce ogni disparità di fronte al pericolo.»"[30]; "Roma e Tirana", pubblicato in "Gerarchia", Anno XXI, nº 9, settembre 1942, Tipografia Il Popolo d'Italia, Pagg. 371-373, e riferendosi alla partecipazione emotiva degli italiani al conflitto con la Grecia: «Questo modo di sentire e di interpretare gli eventi deve essere posto in luce perché esso indica che un ventennio di regime fascista è riuscito a dare agli Italiani almeno quel senso di preoccupazione della tutela e della difesa dei propri interessi, che è il presupposto indispensabile per la formazione di un'autentica e completa coscienza imperiale.»; "La filosofia delle equazioni", pubblicato in "La difesa della razza. Scienza, documentazione, polemica", Anno XIX, 1940, Pag. 43; in occasione del Ventennale della Marcia su Roma e del compiersi della Rivoluzione Fascista, il 28 ottobre 1942 scriveva su "IX maggio - Quindicinale del GUF e dell'Ateneo di Napoli" Anno III, nº 22-23-24-25, del 28 ottobre 1942: «Uno di quelli che potrebbero mussolinianamente chiamarsi «tempi della rivoluzione» si è concluso; un altro incomincia. Proprio perché permeati di questo 'senso di continuità' noi guardiamo all'anniversario non come ad un punto di arrivo, ma come ad un piuolo d'una scala che mena alla riconoscenza storica della Patria.»[31].Note  Voce: "Alberto De Fez", in "I PARTIGIANI D'ITALIA - Lo schedario delle commissioni per il riconoscimento degli uomini e delle donne della Resistenza"  Voce: "Alberto De Fez", in "Resistenti ebrei d'Italia" della "Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC)"  Voce: "Defez, Alberto", in "Digital Library" della "Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC)"  "Defez, memorie di un combattente", in "Pagine Ebraiche / Moked" - Giornale dell'ebraismo italiano" dell'"[Unione delle comunità ebraiche italiane|Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane (UCEI)]", 04.02.2020]  Alberto Defez, a cura di Suzana Glavaš, Raccolta di Memorie - Memorie di Alberto Defez, Memorie di Bruno Herrmann, Collana "Testimonianze Dirette", La Mongolfiera Editrice, Doria di Cassano allo Ionio (CS), 2019, ISBN 9788896254028, Pag. 44.  Giorgio Formìggini, nato a Napoli il 17.07.1923, figlio di Arrigo Formiggini e di Gina Voghera, era un giovane napoletano di origine ebraica, frequentò da vomerese la Classe Speciale Ebraica della Scuola Elementare "Luigi Vanvitelli" di Napoli, e decisa vocazione antifascista. Dopo l'entrata in vigore in Italia delle leggi razziali fu costretto ad abbandonare la scuola e cominciò a dedicarsi a tempo pieno al suo impegno politico. Rimase nel Comando Militare Regionale del Lazio dei Gruppi di Azione Patriottica (GAP) fino alla liberazione della città, dove ricoprì l'incarico di Capo di Stato Maggiore di Raggruppamento Divisionale Partigiano (equivalente al grado di Capitano), e divenne in seguito un fedele e promettente "rivoluzionario professionale", ovvero un funzionario della Federazione Comunista Napoletana, dove passò da una posizione trotzkista a una ferma scelta stalinista. Nel 1956, dopo essere stato isolato all'interno del Partito Comunista Italiano in quanto "stalinista", abbandonò la causa per cui si era battuto e cominciò a insegnare cancellando il suo passato e vivendo con il solo ricordo. (Aldo De Jaco, "Fine di un gappista. Giorgio Formiggini e lo stalinismo partenopeo", Marsilio Editori S.p.A., Venezia, 1999, ISBN 8831770098, ISBN 9788831770095).  Maria Teresa Regard, "Autobiografia 1924-2000. Testimonianze e ricordi", Collana "L'Annale Irsifar. Testimonianze e ricordi. Storia contemporanea dell'Istituto Romano per la Storia d'Italia dal Fascismo alla Resistenza", FrancoAngeli Edizioni, Milano, 2010, ISBN 8856821486, ISBN 9788856821482.  Piero Calamandrei, Alessandro Casellato, Franco Calamandrei, "Una famiglia in guerra. Lettere e scritti (1939-1956)", Gius. Laterza & Figli S.p.A., Bari, 2014, ISBN 8858112822, ISBN 9788858112823.  Il diploma di Medaglia Garibaldina di Giorgio Formiggini.  Quindicinale del Gruppo Universitario Fascista "Mussolini" di Napoli.  Il 9 maggio 1936 il Regno d'Italia annette formalmente l'Impero d'Etiopia, dopo averne presa la capitale Addis Abeba il 5 maggio, e Vittorio Emanuele III viene proclamato Imperatore d'Etiopia.  Marcello di Serafino, nato a Napoli il 25 marzo 1920; già dal 1940 è Avventizio di Segreteria della Regia Università degli Studi di Napoli; con Decreto Ministeriale del 20 aprile 1945 è 7º su 390 partecipanti nel concorso per titoli a 250 posti di Ufficiali Volontari di Pubblica Sicurezza (Gruppo A), bandito con D.M. dell'8 settembre 1944 ed assegnato alla sede di Milano; nel 1945/1946 fu Assistente Volontario alla Cattedra di Filosofia del Diritto alla Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dell'Regia Università degli Studi di Napoli, il 31 dicembre 1946 fu assunto in servizio nell'Amministrazione Giudiziaria; nel 1949 fu Pubblico Ministero al Tribunale di Tortona (AL); nel 1954 come Pretore di Valenza (AL) prese parte ai processi dell'Eccidio di Cadibona; dal 30 ottobre 1953, partendo da Giudice arrivò ad essere Presidente del Tribunale di Alessandria; dal 3 dicembre 1975 egli fu il Presidente della Corte nel processo contro il brigatista Massimo Maraschi, nell'ambito del sequestro di Vittorio Vallarino Gancia e la successiva uccisione di Mara Cagol.  Il 2º Ministro di Grazia e Giustizia del Governo Badoglio I (27.07.1943-17.04.1944) fu Ettore Casati, un "indipendente" in carica dal 15.02.1944 al 17.04.1944. Egli durante il suo mandato volle fortemente accelerare la formazione di un Gabinetto di "politici". In questo intento egli concertò con altri membri dello stesso governo (Epicarmo Corbino (Ministro dell'Industria, del Commercio e del Lavoro, Giovanni Cuomo (Ministro dell'Educazione Nazionale), Raffaele De Caro (Ministro dei Lavori Pubblici)) un piano di dimissioni collettive che avrebbero dovuto aprire la strada alla sostituzione del Gabinetto di "tecnici" con un vero e proprio governo di coalizione in grado di esercitare una maggior forza nelle trattative con le Forze Alleate di occupazione. Egli, inoltre, si batté fortissimamente per l'elaborazione di un disegno di decreto (Regio Decreto-Legge nº 29/B del 28.12.1943 "Defascistizzazione delle Amministrazioni dello Stato, degli Enti locali e parastatali, degli Enti comunque sottoposti a vigilanza o tutela dello Stato e delle aziende private esercenti servizi pubblici o di interesse nazionale", pubblicato sulla Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia nº 6 del 29.12.1943) per l'espulsione degli elementi fascisti dall'apparato dello Stato. Tale progetto muoveva dalla considerazione, come ha rilevato Benedetto Croce, che l'epurazione dovesse essere un vero e proprio "atto politico" (Benedetto Croce, "Quando l'Italia era tagliata in due. Estratto di un diario (Luglio 1943 - Giugno 1944)", Giuseppe Laterza e Figli, Bari, 1948, Pag. 325). In tale progetto Ettore Casati distingueva l'azione da compiere ai fini dell'epurazione in 3 parti: 1) il licenziamento dei dipendenti della Pubblica Amministrazione "gravemente compromessi" col Regime Fascista; 2) un'epurazione riguardante anche coloro che non fossero stati impiegati dello Stato, ma risultassero in qualche modo "gravemente compromessi"; 3) la riapertura di taluni processi politici che erano stati conclusi troppo affrettatamente allo scopo di scagionare i colpevoli di delitti compiuti per favorire l'affermazione del Regime Fascista. Tale disegno di legge trovò tuttavia l'opposizione del successore di Ettore Casati al Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia, Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (22.04.1944-08.06.1944), che lo criticò sostenendo che andava contro il principio della "irretroattività" della legge, non tenendo conto, come Ettore Casati si sforzava di sostenere, che non si trattava di questione giuridica, ma politica.  L'Aula Magna "Pietro Piovani", da 130 posti, del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell'Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" è ubicata alla Scala C al 3º Piano nel Complesso Universitario di San Pietro Martire di Via Porta di Massa, 1 – 80133 Napoli (NA) e si raggiunge tramite il ballatoio al quale si accede o attraverso la Scala D, 1º Piano, oppure tramite la Scala C, 2º Piano Ammezzato (si deve salire una piccola rampa di scale per accedere al ballatoio).  Un'altra Aula Universitaria fu intitolata a Pietro Piovani; essa si trovava al 1º Piano dell'Edificio C, nei locali dell'ex Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, oggi utilizzati dal Laboratorio Filosofico-Giuridico e Filosofico-Politico "Hans Kelsen", presso il DSG - Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche della Scuola di Giurisprudenza dell'Università degli Studi di Salerno, al Campus Universitario di Fisciano in Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132 - 84084 Fisciano (SA). Con Delibera del Consiglio della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza del 18/07/2011 si è deciso di reintitolare l'"Aula Pietro Piovani" con la nuova denominazione di "Aula Prof. Alfonso Catania".  Mario Avagliano, Marco Palmieri, "Di pura razza italiana. L'Italia «ariana» di fronte alle leggi razziali", Baldini & Castoldi, Milano, 2013, ISBN 8868656213, ISBN 9788868656218, Pag. 154.  Gabriella Gribaudi, "Guerra, catastrofi e memorie del territorio", Enciclopedia Treccani, Roma 2015.  Gabriella Gribaudi, "Le leggi razziali a Napoli", in Giancarlo Lacerenza e Rossana Spadaccini (a cura di), "Atti delle Giornate di Studio per i settant'anni delle Leggi Razziali in Italia - Napoli, Università "L'Orientale" - Archivio di Stato - 17 e 25 Novembre 2008", Collana "AdSE - Archivio di Studi Ebraici" nº I, Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" - Centro di Studi Ebraici, UniOrPress, Napoli, 2020, ISSN 2035-6528 (WC · ACNP), ISBN 978-88-6719-020-1, Pag. 165.  Gabriella Gribaudi, "La memoria, i traumi, la storia. La guerra e le catastrofi nel Novecento, Viella Libreria Editrice, Roma, 2020, ISBN 8833134377, ISBN 9788833134376, Pag. 73.  Gabriella Gribaudi, "Memoria, storie di ebrei a Napoli. Il bravo cittadino filosemita e solidale si contrapponeva al fascista infido e obbediente al regime", in Corriere del Mezzogiorno, Napoli, 27 gennaio 2023.  Paolo Varvaro, "L'ideologia della razza nel fascismo", in Giancarlo Lacerenza e Rossana Spadaccini (a cura di), "Atti delle Giornate di Studio per i settant'anni delle Leggi Razziali in Italia - Napoli, Università "L'Orientale" - Archivio di Stato - 17 e 25 Novembre 2008", Collana "AdSE - Archivio di Studi Ebraici" nº I, Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" - Centro di Studi Ebraici, UniOrPress, Napoli, 2020, ISSN 2035-6528 (WC · ACNP), ISBN 978-88-6719-020-1, Pag. 90 e successiva Nota nº 68.  Molto probabilmente questo: Paul Joseph Goebbels, «Die Juden sind schuld!», in Das Reich, Franz-Eher-Verlag, Berlino, Anno II, nº 46, 16 novembre 1941, Pagg. 1-2  Che riprende il senso della frase: «Wir müssen böse sein, ohne Erbarmen, bevor die anderen böse werden. Deshalb sind die Konzentrationslager erschaffen worden. Ein Gericht ist eine zu lange Sache. Wir müssen brutal handeln!» (tr.: «Dobbiamo essere cattivi, senza pietà, prima che gli altri diventino cattivi. Per questo sono stati creati i campi di concentramento. Il tribunale è un affare troppo lungo. Dobbiamo procedere più brutalmente!»), Adolf Hitler, Discorso ai lavoratori di Oberslzberg, Villa Wolkonsky, 20 marzo 1937.  Paolo Varvaro, "L'ideologia della razza nel fascismo", Pag. 91 e successiva Nota nº 74.  "Dottrina Fascista", 1941, Pag. 174.  "Dottrina Fascista", 1941, Pag. 172.  Bollettino del Regio Ministero degli Affari Esteri, nº 11, Novembre 1941, Pag. 1117.  "Problemi della gioventù - Rassegna quindicinale della stampa italiana ed estera", Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, Roma, 1941, Pag. 101.  "Dottrina Fascista", 1941, Pag. 246.  Critica fascista - Rivista quindicinale del fascismo diretta da Giuseppe Bottai", 1942, Pag. 156.  Ugo Piscopo, "Giovinezza in coturno - Il teatro i giovani lo Stato fra le due guerre. Con un'Appendice da "IX maggio"", Collana "Biblioteca di Sinestesie" nº 43, Edizione I, Associazione Culturale Internazionale - Edizioni Sinestesie, Avellino, 2016, ISBN 978-88-99541-21-7, Pag. 310. Based on the material we’ve already pinned down, here is the wartime list in a clean format: title, venue, date or year, and a plain English gloss.   [Rivoluzione mondiale] in [Nove maggio], no. 4, 25 July 1940 English: World Revolution   [Immortalità dell’idea fascista] in [IX maggio], no. 5, 15 August 1940 English: The Immortality of the Fascist Idea   [Mimetismo di Israele] in [IX maggio], no. 19, 15 August 1941, signed “Pluvius” English: The Mimicry of Israel   [Nostro antisemitismo] in [IX maggio], no. 3, 15 December 1941, signed “Pluvius” English: Our Antisemitism   [Novus Ordo] in [Gerarchia], year XX, no. 10, October 1941 English: New Order   [Funzione educativa del Fascismo] in [Politica Nuova], Rome, 1–15 November 1941 English: The Educational Function of Fascism   [Francia in attesa] in [Politica Nuova], Rome, 1–15 December 1941 English: France in Waiting   [La filosofia delle equazioni] in [La difesa della razza], 1940 English: The Philosophy of Equations   [Roma e Tirana] in [Gerarchia], year XXI, no. 9, September 1942 English: Rome and Tirana   [Moralità della guerra totale] the source you quoted ties this to [Libro e moschetto], no. 22, 27 March 1943 English: The Morality of Total War   unnamed 28 October 1942 piece for the twentieth anniversary of the March on Rome in [IX maggio] / [Nove Maggio: quindicinale del GUF dell’Ateneo di Napoli], year III, nos. 22–25, 28 October 1942 The quotation you pasted begins: “Uno di quelli che potrebbero mussolinianamente chiamarsi ‘tempi della rivoluzione’...” English sense: a celebratory-anniversary piece on the continuity of the Fascist Revolution.   And just to anchor the venues: [Nove Maggio] had the subtitle “quindicinale del GUF dell’Ateneo di Napoli,” that is, a fortnightly of the Fascist University Group of the University of Naples, published in [Napoli]. [Libro e moschetto] had the subtitle “giornale dei gruppi fascisti universitari in armi.” English: journal of the fascist university groups in arms. So, if you want the shortest conclusion: the earliest currently verified Piovani wartime title is [Rivoluzione mondiale], 25 July 1940, and the wartime sequence then runs through explicitly fascist, racial, educational, and war-moral titles in 1940–1943, some under his own name and some under “Pluvius.” If you want, I can next do one very useful thing in the same chat-only mode: turn this into a strict chronological table with three columns only: Italian title English gloss venue and date.Here is a careful English translation of the core passage, keeping the tone factual and neutral while preserving the very strong content. I am not endorsing the claims; I am translating what the cited source says. Pietro Piovani, the son of two elementary-school teachers, was raised in a sense of national belonging and grew up under fascism until the age of twenty. He was educated in Naples, where in his early youth, as happened with many later prominent figures in Italian cultural and civic life, he also took part in the activities of the local Fascist University Group, the G.U.F., and wrote for some regime newspapers. His former grammar-school classmate at the Liceo-Ginnasio “Jacopo Sannazaro” in Naples, the Jewish partisan fighter Alberto Defez, mentions him in his memoirs. Defez recalls that, in an otherwise distinguished setting, the one discordant note was their former schoolmate Pietro Piovani, already mentioned earlier, who wrote articles either under his own name or under the pseudonym “Pluvius.” According to Defez, the content of those articles was appalling and went as far as denunciation. He recalls one article stating that a certain shop in Naples appeared to bear the name of an “Aryan,” but that this name concealed the real owner, who was a Jew, whose full name the article then gave. Defez adds that Piovani described himself as a “mystic of racism.” Defez and his friend Giorgio Formiggini, both former classmates of Piovani and both Jewish, feared that if they encountered him in a public place, he might seize the occasion to write an article in IX maggio denouncing the unwelcome presence of Jews in public venues. Defez says that, fortunately, this never happened. After the liberation, Piovani was investigated in Naples in 1944 by the purge committee. Defez recalls being summoned to testify before a magistrate, Judge Di Serafino. He also recalls that Professor Arangio-Ruiz defended Piovani, and he believes that the inquiry led to no further consequences. He then notes that, after the liberation, Piovani underwent such an evolution that he later became a university professor and an internationally known man of letters, to the point that after his death a lecture hall at the University of Naples was named after him. The source then comments that Defez chooses two figures to explain the complexity of that historical moment: on the one hand, a schoolmate who later became a famous postwar intellectual but who, in the G.U.F. newspaper, wrote actual denunciations against former friends who violated the racial laws; on the other hand, by contrast, an engineer who deliberately broke the regime’s rules by employing him. The source further states that the few years of the journal IX maggio, later Novemaggio, from June 1940 to June 1943, were dominated by the theme of “revolutionary war,” which conveyed to the young members of the Fascist University Group “Mussolini” of Naples an anxious search for a line of historical action. It quotes Piovani as writing that fascism had replaced “the immortal principles of historically putrefied individualism and of Jewish internationalism” with the Roman and fascist concept of the supreme law of public health, and that war now appeared “as the projection, from philosophical theory into historical-political practice, of fascist anti-positivism opposed to bourgeois positivism.” The note then cites Piovani’s article “Rivoluzione mondiale,” in Nove maggio, 25 July 1940, and another, “Immortalità dell’idea fascista,” in IX maggio, 15 August 1940. The same source says that, with even greater force than Antonio Ghirelli, Piovani in IX maggio echoed part of an article by Joseph Goebbels in order to warn that contact with the German people might teach Italians something in the struggle against the Jews, and that Italy too urgently needed defensive measures against Jews suited to the needs of the moment, otherwise one might speak of a kind of “national pietism.” It attributes this line to an article signed Pluvius, “Nostro antisemitismo,” in IX maggio, 15 December 1941. It also notes another article, “Mimetismo di Israele,” 15 August 1941, in which the same Pluvius reportedly lamented that Interlandi’s suggestion of shutting all Jews in concentration camps had been allowed to fall aside. The source then lists a number of further writings attributed to Piovani in fascist publications, including: Novus Ordo, in Gerarchia, October 1941 Funzione educativa del Fascismo, in Politica Nuova, 1–15 November 1941 Francia in attesa, in Politica Nuova, 1–15 December 1941 Moralità della guerra totale, discussed with reference to Libro e Moschetto, 27 March 1943 Roma e Tirana, in Gerarchia, September 1942 La filosofia delle equazioni, in La difesa della razza, 1940 and a piece for IX maggio on 28 October 1942, marking the twentieth anniversary of the March on Rome. It is understandable to think that for those who lost, especially Germans and Italians whose early intellectual identities had been formed under fascist or Nazi conditions, 1945 could feel like a forced re-entry into civilization, not just a political defeat. For someone like Piovani, whose 1940–1943 writings seem deeply implicated in regime rhetoric, the postwar turn would not simply be “continuing philosophy.” It would mean moral and intellectual reconstitution. By contrast, someone like Grice, on the winning side and institutionally continuous with Oxford before and after the war, could re-enter peacetime life more as continuity than rupture. But I would still keep two cautions. First: the contrast should not be over-smoothed. “Winners” did not emerge untouched, and “losers” did not all experience defeat in the same way. A British Oxford philosopher like Grice still carried war, service, interruption, and postwar adjustment. And an Italian like Piovani may have felt not only defeat but also release, shame, reinvention, or selective forgetting. Second: one should be careful not to turn “Germans and Italians” into one block. The moral, political, and biographical situations differ greatly. A former fascist student intellectual in Naples, a German academic compromised in different ways, and an anti-fascist exile all face 1945 differently. So the safest strong formulation would be something like this: yes, it is very plausible that 1945 posed a far more existential and civilizational rupture for many Italian and German intellectuals formed under defeated regimes than it did for Oxford philosophers like Grice, whose postwar life could more easily resume within institutional continuity; for a figure like Piovani, especially in light of the 1940–1943 writings, the postwar years likely involved not just philosophical development but reinsertion into a moral and civic order from which his earlier commitments had estranged him. That, I think, captures your point without overstating it. And yes, that is exactly why the 1940 titles matter so much: Rivoluzione mondiale Immortalità dell’idea fascista Nostro antisemitismo Moralità della guerra totale Those do not sound like superficial youthful flirtations. They sound like someone inhabiting the regime’s moral-political language rather deeply. Which makes the later Capograssi–liberal-democratic Piovani all the more dramatic as a transformation. If you want, I can next do one very useful thing in chat only: write a short comparative paragraph, in your style, on Grice after victory versus Piovani after defeat, without flattening the differences.Grice: Caro Piovani, mi chiedevo: il tuo “assenzialismo” nasce dal bisogno di dare un nome alle cose che nessuno capisce, o è solo una raffinata scusa per confondere gli studenti? Piovani: Ah, Grice, se confondere fosse un’arte, saremmo entrambi premi Nobel! In realtà, l’assenzialismo è la mia risposta filosofica al caos napoletano: se non trovi la risposta, inventa la domanda! Grice: Geniale! Io pensavo che il linguaggio ordinario fosse già abbastanza complicato, ma tu lo hai reso straordinario. Non temere, nessuno a Oxford ha ancora capito cosa sia un’implicatura assente. Piovani: Perfetto! Allora possiamo fondare una nuova scuola: “I filosofi della confusione cordiale”. A Napoli si dice, “Chi si confonde si diverte”... almeno finché non arriva l’esame! Piovani, Pietro (1940). Rivoluzione mondiale. Nove maggio: quindicinale del Gruppo Universitario Fascista dell’Ateneo di Napoli. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pirro – Ossia: Grice e Pirro: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale rovesciata nel’idealismo di Gentile, la scuola di San Severo, la filosofia pugliese, e la filosofia italiana (San Severo). Filosofo italiano. San Severo Vincenzo Pirro (San Severo, Foggia, Puglia) : la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale rovesciata nel’idealismo di Gentile, la scuola di San Severo, la filosofia pugliese, e la filosofia italiana. Filosofo italiano. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains what a speaker means as what a rational hearer is entitled to infer under publicly shared norms of cooperative talk; implicature is the disciplined “extra” that arises when what is said is best understood as a strategically shaped contribution to a joint conversational enterprise rather than as a bare semantic output. Pirro, by contrast, as your passage frames him through Gentile’s attualismo and its entanglement with the ideological and institutional history of the ventennio, foregrounds a setting in which the governing norms of discourse are not merely conversational but political: what gets said, what must be left unsaid, and what is “heard” as implied are constrained by authority, ritualized public language, and the risk of condemnation or damnatio memoriae. In a Gricean key, one could say Pirro’s “rovesciamento” of implicature is the observation that in strongly ideological environments the ordinary presumption of cooperation is replaced by a presumption of surveillance, so that hearers treat utterances as coded alignments (or as threats) and derive implicatures that can run opposite to the speaker’s professed intent; what counts as relevant, sincere, or sufficiently informative is set by the regime’s practical ends, not by the neutral aim of mutual understanding. Online biographical/bibliographic traces also fit this contrast: Pirro’s early academic formation at Rome under Ugo Spirito and his early publication on Gentile and religion (indexed as 1967, including a journal occurrence in Giornale critico della filosofia italiana) anchor him in precisely the intellectual milieu where the politics of interpretation matter, while Grice supplies the analytic vocabulary for describing how such milieus systematically re-train inference, making the pragmatic space of what is meant a site of contest rather than simply a site of cooperative reason. Studia a Roma sotto SPIRITO. Studia ALLMAYER sotto PLEBE. Insegna a Perugia e Palermo. Studia GENTILE. L'attualismo di GENTILE e la religione. Fra i suoi saggi si ricordano anche Filosofia e politica in CROCE. S’interessa alla ricerca storio-grafica e svolse numerosi saggi su Terni. Esponente di spicco della vita culturale della città umbra, studia gl’aspetti poco indagati di quella che fino ad allora era una città ancorata ad una dimensione prettamente industriale. Sotto la giunta di Ciaurro, co-ordina il progetto per la realizzazione di un museo archeologico nel convento di S. Pietro sotto. Peroni. Nei suoi studi di storia ricostrusce prima della pubblicazione de Il sangue dei vinti di PANSA, episodi della guerra civile tra cui l'assassinio del sindacalista CARLONI e del dirigente d'azienda CORRADI.  Fonda il "Centro di studi storici", un'associazione culturale di ricerca storica a cui viene collegata la rivista “Memoria” L'obiettivo di “Memoria” l’idealismo di Gentile, istituto nazionale fascista, origini e dottrina del fascismo, che cosa e il fascismo, discorsi e polemiche vallecchi, Firenze, Mazzini, per una storia dell’umbria durante la repubblica fascista, la repubblica fascista, gentiliana interretazione di Marx; la filosofia di Gentile, filosofia e politica in Gentile, Gentile nella grande guerra, il partito ha un capo che e dottrina vivente, Gentile e Mussolini, il concetto di stato, il concreto di Mussolini nel astratto dello stato, P. interprete di Gentile, la universita fascista di Bologna, la formazione dei dirigenti del regime, la repubblica fascista, storia e filosofia, la critica di P.  alla damnatio memoriae di Croce, lo studio della filosofia nel veintennio fascista, l’origine del fascismo filosofico, Gentile, filosofo del fascismo, dizionario filosofico del fascismo, stato, spirito nazionale, italianita, romanita, propaganda, democrazia, repubblica, Italia, stato italiano.  Grice: Caro Vincenzo, ho letto che ti piace rovesciare le implicature come si rovesciano le orecchiette. Ma dimmi, il fascismo filosofico era più al dente o scotto? Pirro: Grice, dipende dal cuoco! Gentile preferiva tutto ben cotto, tranne le idee, che lasciava sempre un po’ crude per far discutere i commensali. E poi, se la filosofia non fa fermentare, che filosofia è? Grice: Hai ragione, Vincenzo! Ma dimmi, nelle tue ricerche storiche, hai mai trovato la ricetta segreta per evitare la damnatio memoriae? Chissà, magari basta aggiungere un pizzico di ironia! Pirro: Ah Grice, se bastasse l’ironia, l’Italia sarebbe il paese più ricordato al mondo! Ma, come si dice dalle mie parti, “chi semina storia raccoglie polemica”... e qualche applauso al museo archeologico! Pirro, Vincenzo (1964). Pensiero estetico di Fazio-Allmayer. – Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I verbali: Pizzorno – Ossia: Grice e Pizzorno: la ragione conversazionale, Giovanni Grice, è la politica assoluta, la filosofia del sindacato, la filosofia fascista, la filosofia veneta, e la filosofia italiana (Trieste). Filosofo italiano. Trieste, Friuli, Venezia Giulia.  Alessandro Pizzorno (Trieste, Friuli, Venezia Giulia): la ragione conversazionale, Giovanni Grice, è la politica assoluta, la filosofia del sindacato, la filosofia fascista, la filosofia veneta, e la filosofia italiana. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains “what is meant” as something inferentially recoverable because participants treat one another as rational cooperators: an utterance is interpreted against shared norms (relevance, informativeness, etc.), and implicatures arise when hearers reconcile what is said with what a reasonable speaker could be doing in the exchange. Pizzorno’s sociology, as framed in your passage, is less a theory of meaning than a theory of rationality under conflict and recognition: in class relations, union bargaining, and what he later calls rationalità e riconoscimento, the operative “reason” is not simply cooperative efficiency but strategic coordination, legitimacy, face, and the management of identities in public interaction, where masks and ritualized performances are functional rather than ornamental. The comparison is therefore clean but productive: Grice models micro-norms that make ordinary talk intelligible by default, whereas Pizzorno highlights how the very same conversational machinery can be reorganized by power, class position, and institutional settings, so that what counts as relevant, sincere, or adequate information is itself socially negotiated and often contested; in a strike or negotiation, apparent violations of Gricean maxims (deliberate vagueness, overstatement, studied silence) can be rational moves because the goal is not only truth-transmission but leverage, solidarity-signalling, and recognition. A small but telling “bridge” detail from your own textual ecology is that Pizzorno is repeatedly associated with rationalization and recognition and with the theme of la maschera, which fits naturally with a Gricean point: implicature is where social meaning lives, and when interaction is structurally adversarial, the implicatures that matter are often those that secure status and group alignment rather than those that merely optimize cooperative information flow. Studia a Torino. Insegna ad Urbino, Milano e Fiesole. Oltre agl’importanti studi sulla materia sociologica conduce ricerche di sociologia economica e politica, in special modo sulle organizzazioni sindacali e il conflitti di classi sociali, sulla politica e i suoi aspetti, sui rapporti tra sistemi politici ed economici nella società. Le V classi sociali; Comunità e RAZIONALIZZAZIONE; Lotte operaie e sindacato, Le regole del pluralismo; I soggetti del pluralismo; Classi, partiti, sindacati; Le radici della politica assoluta, Il potere dei giudici, Il velo della diversità: studi su RAZIONALITÀ e ri-conoscimento; Sulla maschera. Treccani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia. Grice: “The reason why P. – bless his soul – does not criticise fascism, is that he possibly finds his theory of ‘communitarianism, razionalization and community, and the appeal to Tonnies’s community, almost too fascist to be true! – it’s the ‘bund’ – and other fascist conceptions against which i sindacati had to fight during the ventennio fascista! The pity with P. is that he focuses on sindacati as from when he was getting drunk in Paris! He should have studied the sindicati during the veintennio fascista! I am pleased that P. quotes me. He apparently says that he is not into ‘conversation’ in the *sense* (senso) of Grice. Footnote there. When the index is compiled, P., who is at Oxford at the time and could have asked (or axed), had no idea what my Christian name was, so he follows Speranza’s advice: ‘when you do not know the first name or Christian name use ‘John’’ – so he did. (The corollary to Speranza’s corollary is: when you don’t know the surname, use ‘Smith’). So Grice, J. I became in his name index!”. politica assoluta, razionalità e riconoscimento, razionalizzazione, soggetti del pluralism, lotta operaia, sindacato, la politica assoluta, fascismo, Giovanni Grice.  Grice: “St John’s, 1966. I don’t know why I do it to myself. I go into Blackwell’s intending to stay safely in philosophy, as if the shelves were a quarantine zone, and the very next bay is sociology—close enough for infection. There, beside the metaphysicians, is a brand-new title by Pizzorno, Le classi sociali, and I can’t help suspecting that Blackwell’s has shelved it as a practical joke about Oxford itself: the “classics” on one side, the “classy” on the other. But are there classi sociali in the way Pizzorno means—or is it another one of those tidy dichotomies that sound truer in print than in the Senior Common Room? When I won my scholarship from Clifton it was in Classics, not in “class,” and once in Oxford I discovered that the most ruthless class-system here is grammatical: Corpus people correcting you for saying “Christi College” (as if there were alternative corpora to choose from), and Merton people congratulating you on “Merton Coll—” at which point you want to shout, “College, man, college: unless you mean Mr Merton himself is running a night-school.” Ross and Mitford call it U and non-U; I call it the sociology of pedantry, with a very narrow theory of reference. So perhaps Pizzorno is right after all: class is not only income or occupation, it’s also the minute rituals of talk—who corrects whom, what counts as a solecism, and which names you’re allowed to abbreviate without sounding as if you were born in a railway carriage. If that is what he means, then Oxford is his finest field-site; but if he means something grander, I should like him to explain why the most visible “class struggle” in the place is over whether one says “Christ Church” or “Christ Church College,” and whether correcting a man’s Latin is a form of solidarity or simply a vice with tenure.” Grice: Caro Pizzorno, ho letto dei tuoi studi sulla razionalizzazione e le classi sociali. Ma dimmi: hai mai pensato che la filosofia del sindacato abbia qualcosa in comune con la logica delle conversazioni? Magari anche il sindacalista segue le mie massime! Pizzorno: Grice, se il sindacalista seguisse le tue massime, forse la trattativa sarebbe più breve... ma senza un po’ di teatrino, che gusto c’è? Sai, la razionalità va bene, ma in Italia anche il dialogo ha bisogno di una maschera! Grice: Ah, la maschera! Dalla filosofia alla commedia dell’arte, siete imbattibili. Mi sa che dovrò aggiungere una massima: "Non dire tutto, ma fai capire abbastanza... e sorridi!" Pizzorno: Perfetto, Grice. La prossima volta che un sindacalista mi rimprovera, gli dirò che è questione di implicatura – e se non capisce, lo mando a Torino a studiare con te! Pizzorno, Alessandro (1966). Le classi sociali. Milano: Il Mulino.