SCU

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Scupoli – Ossia: Grice e Scupoli: la ragione conversazionale della lotta coll’angelo – la lotta dell’angelo e il demonio. Note su Il combattimento spirituale. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice Lorenzo Scupoli (Otranto, Taranto, Puglia): Grice: “La ragione conversazionale della lotta coll’angelo – la lotta dell’angelo e il demonio. The comparison between Grice and Lorenzo Scupoli brings into focus two complementary but distinct ways in which reason governs human life, one centered on conversation and the other on inner moral struggle. For Grice, reason‑governed conversational meaning arises from the assumption that speakers are rational agents engaged in cooperative exchanges, where what is meant is shaped by shared expectations, inferential norms, and the capacity to recognize and evaluate intentions. Meaning, on this view, is a public, intersubjective achievement regulated by rational principles that allow speakers to navigate misunderstanding, temptation toward obscurity, and strategic deviation. Scupoli, by contrast, situates reason in the interior arena of the soul, where it must govern passions through disciplined self‑knowledge and temperance; his “combat” is not conversational but spiritual, a struggle between a higher, reasonable will and the impulses of sense. Yet the affinity between them is clear: Scupoli’s insistence that reason must continually monitor, correct, and supervise inner movements parallels Grice’s insistence that rational scrutiny underwrites meaningful communication. In both cases, reason is not merely theoretical but practical and normative, guiding action through self‑regulation, whether that action takes the form of moral conduct or conversational contribution. Where Scupoli frames reason as the inner governor that makes moral life possible regardless of emotion, Grice frames it as the shared rational background that makes understanding possible despite divergence of interests or motives. Together, they show how reason can be both an interior discipline and a public principle, governing the battle within the self and the cooperative exchange between selves. S.’s  The Spiritual Combat functions as a bridge between the Graeco-Roman tradition of "spiritual exercises" and the rationalist moral rigour of later Continental and non-conformist philosophers like Kant. Graeco-Roman Basis: Temperance and Reason S.s methodology is deeply rooted in the Classical concept of philosophy as a "way of life" (bios) rather than a mere academic pursuit.  The Primacy of Reason: Much like the Stoics, S. posits a "superior will" or "reasonable will" that must govern the "will of sense". The combat is essentially the struggle of reason over passion, mirroring the Stoic goal of apatheia (freedom from suffering through the control of impulses). Temperance as Strategy: His exercises focus on temperance — the disciplined regulation of desires. He provides practical "spiritual tactics," such as identifying specific internal weaknesses and using repetitive acts to form new habits of virtue, echoing Aristotle’s habituation and the Stoic practice of askēsis. Socratic Self-Knowledge: The starting point for S. is "self-mis-trust" based on rigorous self-evaluation, which mirrors the Socratic injunction to "know thyself" and the awareness of one’s own ignorance as the beginning of wisdom. Connection to Kant and Rationalist Philosophers While S. is a Catholic Theatine, his emphasis on internal duty and universal moral laws aligns with the ecumenical rationalism found in later Continental thought.  Moral Rigorism and Duty: S.’s insistence that one must fight passions regardless of emotional fervour finds a parallel in Kant’s Categorical Imperative. Both emphasise that moral value lies in acting from duty (reason-guided will) rather than inclination or sentiment. continentia, temperanza. Grice: Caro Scupoli, devo confessarti che due fonti hanno ispirato il mio personale pellegrinaggio alla città della verità eterna: da bambino, mia madre ci leggeva a me e a mio fratello il classico di Bunyan, ma ciò che mi ha acceso davvero il desiderio di ricerca è stata anche la lettura del tuo capolavoro, "Il Combattimento Spirituale"! Scupoli: Grice, che gioia sentire queste parole! Il mio intento era proprio aiutare chiunque volesse affrontare la propria battaglia dell’anima. È curioso come la voce di una madre abbia intrecciato la mia con quella di Bunyan: alla fine, tutti lottiamo con i nostri angeli e i nostri demoni, non credi? Grice: Assolutamente, caro amico! E mi colpisce come tu abbia posto la ragione al centro del combattimento interiore, quasi anticipando le riflessioni dei razionalisti moderni. La tua insistenza sulla temperanza e la conoscenza di sé mi hanno insegnato che il vero viaggio filosofico inizia dall’ascolto dei propri limiti. Scupoli: Vedi, Grice, per attraversare quella città ideale bisogna, prima di tutto, vincere le tempeste interiori con costanza e disciplina. Se le mie pagine ti hanno incoraggiato su questa strada, sono davvero contento: dopotutto, come dice il proverbio, "la via più lunga inizia sempre dal primo piccolo passo dentro di noi". Re: passage below. Imagine 100-move conversation, no preamble, no ps, between G. and S. with G. -- who does not speak to Ryle often, giving him as Cristmas present a copy of this book by Scupoli -- S. asks if the combatimento is spiritual, what would Ryle make of it, a Rylean agitation. G. argues that it's all metonymical. The idea of the godmother and the fairy mother and the eudaeomon and the kakodeumon and the idea of the BODY -- so not to be regarded as a ghost in the machine, this combatimento spiritual but some kind of exercise that Ryle may like to play with his twin sister fo the occasion -- and the whole point of it as Robertson recalling Ryle showing Ayer as he was passing by their collage -- and, Ryle being Robertson's tutor expressing: Look at him, a man ruined by ... passions. Let THAT be a warning for you. When Robertson was only thinking of passions at the time -- etc -- just preamble or ps, no ps. thank you and make Scupoli the centepiece. G.: Since we now have the right friar, let us begin again where one ought to begin — with Scupoli, not with any stray Roman aristocrat who wandered in by mistake. S.: A relief already. And you still mean to give Ryle a copy for Christmas? G.: In imagination, certainly. In reality, one does not often speak to Ryle, which is half the reason the gift becomes elegant. S.: A dangerous elegance. If the title is Il combattimento spirituale, what is Ryle to make of “spiritual” except a fresh invitation to denounce ghosts in machines? G.: Only if he reads like a customs officer. My whole point is that the combatimento is metonymical. S.: Metonymical is your general amnesty. G.: It is my method of preserving texture without accepting bad ontology. Scupoli’s angel and demon, the good daemon and the bad daemon, the fairy mother, the godmother, all those figures are not little substances flapping in the thorax. S.: Then what are they? G.: Operative names. Figures for direction, tutelage, temptation, governance, collapse, encouragement, discipline. A moral and practical topography given old imaginative clothing. S.: So the fairy mother survives as what — formative influence? G.: Better, formative protection in a mode the soul can recognise before it can analyse. The godmother too, if you like, is not a supernatural nanny but a name for one kind of moral mediation. S.: And the eudaimon and kakodaimon? G.: Again, directional names. Prosperous tendency, destructive tendency. One’s life under a favourable or unfavourable practical description. S.: Ryle would say you are reducing mythology to dispositions. G.: Not reducing. Translating through. That is different. One preserves the old language while refusing to treat it as zoology. S.: Yet the title still says spiritual combat. G.: Yes, and that is precisely why it should interest Ryle. The phrase promises ghostly artillery and then delivers a handbook of exercises. S.: Exercises? G.: Certainly. Watchfulness, restraint, recollection, anti-self-deception, habituation, examination, refusal, repetitive correction — all very bodily, all very anti-ghostly. S.: So “spiritual” here means not “immaterial,” but “pertaining to the governance of the whole person under a moral description.” G.: Exactly. Or, if you like, the care of life under the aspect of salvation and self-command. S.: Ryle would not like the salvation. G.: He would dislike the noun and admire the drill. S.: A Rylean agitation indeed. G.: Very much so. He would open the book ready to strike and find instead a manual of disciplined conduct. That would annoy him in exactly the right way. S.: Then why Christmas? G.: Because Christmas permits one to give a man a book he would refuse in Hilary. Festivity is camouflage for exact provocation. S.: You imagine him unwrapping it beside the fire. G.: Naturally. Frowning at the title, glancing at the spine, and then reading one paragraph too many to remain dismissive. S.: With his twin sister present, no doubt, since you like the scene too much not to stage it. G.: Of course. I like to imagine the twins making a secular entertainment of it. “Come, Hilda, let us see whether this friar has given us a ghost or merely a regimen.” S.: And Hilda says? G.: “If it is a regimen, Gilbert, you will be obliged to admit it before pudding.” S.: Very domestic. G.: Philosophy ought occasionally to be. Otherwise it mistakes itself for statute. S.: But Scupoli is not domestic. He is agonistic. G.: Yes, and that matters. “Combat” preserves the resistance that “exercises” alone would flatten. The whole thing concerns inner conflict — passions, temptations, vanity, fear, sloth, lust, despair, self-love, false confidence. S.: Then we are near the anecdote about Ayer. G.: Inevitably. Robertson recalling Ryle, his tutor, pointing at Ayer as he passed by the college and saying: Look at him, a man ruined by passions. Let that be a warning for you. S.: And Robertson, being young, heard only “passions.” G.: Naturally. Young men are always captivated by the vivid noun and neglect the ruin. S.: Whereas Ryle meant the ruin. G.: Entirely. He meant a visible style of life. Not a ghostly corruption but a bodily, practical, public deformation of conduct. S.: So Ryle, in that sentence, becomes almost Scupolian. G.: Precisely. That is why Scupoli is the centrepiece. He lets one see the continuity between old ascetic discipline and modern anti-passional moralism. S.: Though Scupoli would have spoken of sin, temptation, grace, the will. G.: Yes, and Ryle of self-indulgence, disorder, vanity, loss of command, perhaps affectation. The lexicon shifts, the practical eye remains. S.: So when Ryle says Ayer is ruined by passions, he is reading the body. G.: Exactly. Bearing, pace, style, expression, habits — all the things the anti-dualist ought to notice and the spiritual manual had long ago classified under another grammar. S.: Then your gift would be less absurd than it sounds. G.: It was never absurd, only affectionate. One gives a man the book he would deny needing and then watches him discover that he has been living with its problems under another vocabulary. S.: Still, Ryle’s first objection would be simple. “Spiritual combat” suggests one thing battling another inside the body. G.: Yes, and that is where the metonymy must be defended at once. The “combat” is not between two substances but between tendencies, habits, orders of desire, styles of attention, and forms of self-rule. S.: And the body? G.: Central. That is the whole point. One fasts, rises, kneels, refuses, speaks or keeps silence, arranges one’s day, checks one’s appetite, monitors one’s gesture, submits to a regimen. There is no ghostly artillery at all. S.: Then why not simply say “moral discipline”? G.: Because that would betray the richness of the old register and lose the drama of the struggle. Scupoli is not a dry code. He is a tactical manual of inward war. S.: Which is why the angel and demon remain. G.: Exactly. They remain as names for contrary vectors in a life, not as census entries in invisible biology. S.: And the fairy mother? G.: She remains because moral formation is not only command but nurture. A child, or half the adult, learns better under image than under abstraction. S.: Ryle would say image is where confusion begins. G.: He would say that before tea. After tea he might admit that image is where training begins, provided one later distinguishes properly. S.: You are very charitable to him. G.: Christmas encourages the vice. S.: Let us be exact. Scupoli’s “superior will” or “reasonable will” governing the “will of sense” — that is where Ryle might become interested. G.: Yes. Because one can read the contrast not as mind-versus-body but as higher-order governance over first-order impulse. S.: Something like trained disposition over appetite. G.: Exactly. Stoic enough, Aristotelian enough, and anti-Cartesian enough to make Ryle lower the cudgel. S.: Then Scupoli as a bridge from Graeco-Roman spiritual exercises to later rigorism. G.: Very good. He is not merely a pious friar but part of a long practical tradition of self-command. S.: Which is why Kant hovers. G.: He does, though rather differently dressed. Duty against inclination, law over appetite, the worth of action not lying in emotional fervour. S.: Ryle would dislike Kant too. G.: He would dislike the architecture, perhaps, but not the anti-sentimentalism. Ryle’s moral temperament is closer to rigorism than he liked to admit. S.: So your imagined gift is really a double jest: Scupoli for Ryle, and Ryle already in Scupoli. G.: Exactly. The old Theatine gives the anti-ghostian a mirror, provided the latter can survive the title page. S.: What would you write in the inscription? G.: “To G. R., against atmospheric temptations.” Or perhaps, “For use in combating non-mechanical disturbances.” S.: Hideous. G.: Serviceably so. S.: And Hilda reads it and laughs. G.: Of course. One needs a witness when Gilbert becomes over-severe with inherited vocabularies. S.: The body still troubles me, though. If Scupoli speaks of the soul, are we not forced back into dualism? G.: Not if we read “soul” as a practical name for the person under moral and salvific description. Old texts often say “soul” where moderns would say life, self, person, moral agency, or conduct under eternity. S.: That sounds suspiciously like reduction. G.: No. Reduction throws away the atmosphere; translation through preserves the function and the gravity. I am not saying Scupoli meant exactly what a later secular ethicist would mean. I am saying his vocabulary can be read without committing us to a ghost-substance. S.: Then the struggle is intrapersonal without being inter-substantial. G.: Precisely. One life, one body, one practical field, many tensions. That is enough war for anyone. S.: And this is why Robertson’s anecdote belongs here? G.: Absolutely. Ryle pointing at Ayer gives us a secular ascetical sentence. “A man ruined by passions” is Scupoli with tobacco in his pocket and no sacramental remedy to hand. S.: And Robertson’s misunderstanding is part of the charm. G.: Entirely. He hears “passions” and imagines excitement; Ryle means disordered life made visible. S.: Ayer as moral diagram. G.: Yes. A moving cautionary note in a college court. S.: It is cruel. G.: Oxford often teaches through cruelty wrapped in epigram. That is one of its less charming continuities with monasteries. S.: So if Ryle read Scupoli he might recognise himself, not as believer, but as monitor. G.: Exactly. He would see that the old “spiritual” warfare is largely a matter of conduct, command, vice, correction, and visible ruin. S.: Then where would he still resist? G.: He would resist the reification of inward agencies. He would bridle at demonological speech taken literally. He would suspect any explanatory slide from practical conflict into occult cause. S.: And what would you tell him? G.: I should say: read the demons as names for recurrent temptational patterns; read the angel as the moral vocabulary of rescue and right orientation; read the soul as the person under governance; read the combat as a regimen of acts. S.: A great deal of reading. G.: Better reading than bad dismissing. S.: What of Bunyan, whom your mother also read? G.: Bunyan gives pilgrimage, Scupoli gives combat. One is narrative progress; the other tactical discipline. Together they make an excellent Protestant-Catholic childhood confusion. S.: Which you have spent your life clarifying? G.: Or refining. Childhood confusions are often where later concepts are born. S.: Then Scupoli is not only a Christmas gift but a private source. G.: He is. The old battle-texts teach one that reason is practical before it is theoretical. They also teach one that self-knowledge without discipline is vanity. S.: Ryle would like the second half. G.: Very much. “Know thyself” only becomes serious when joined to anti-self-indulgence. S.: Which is why Scupoli keeps returning to distrust of one’s own immediate tendencies. G.: Yes. Self-mistrust in the healthy sense: not theatrical abasement, but refusal to take appetite’s first report as law. S.: Again very bodily. G.: Entirely. Appetite, fatigue, fantasy, embarrassment, pride, sensual lure, resentment — all these are lived in and through the body. The “spiritual” names the level of governance, not the absence of flesh. S.: So perhaps the best formula is that spiritual combat is embodied moral drill under theological description. G.: Excellent. Keep that. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not make it pious. S.: I shall try to keep it only properly severe. G.: Better. Now, one might object that your metonymical reading domesticates too much. Perhaps Scupoli really did believe in demons. S.: And angels. G.: Yes. Very likely he did. But that does not oblige us to read the philosophical usefulness of the text at the same metaphysical register. Historical fidelity need not be credulous imitation. S.: So one may grant the author his ontology while translating the practice. G.: Exactly. That is the mature reader’s charity. S.: Ryle might call it evasive. G.: Ryle sometimes mistakes tact for evasion. It is one of his few systematic habits. S.: Then what would he say about the title after actually reading the book? G.: Perhaps: “A badly titled but excellent manual of anti-silliness.” Or, if more generous, “A handbook of discipline surprisingly free of machinery.” S.: “Surprisingly free of machinery” is good. G.: Keep it. One must occasionally let Gilbert write his own dust-jacket. S.: And Hilda’s verdict? G.: “Gilbert, you always liked combat as long as it could be expressed as correction.” S.: Very nice. G.: Families are good for diagnostic cruelty. S.: Let us return to the godmother and fairy mother. Why insist on them so much? G.: Because they show that the imaginative apparatus of moral life is not reducible to bare rules. Formation comes through figures of care, warning, mediation, and enchantment. Remove them all too quickly and you leave only instruction, which seldom forms anyone deeply. S.: So image is pedagogical. G.: Exactly. The old spiritual manuals know that governance needs drama if it is to touch habit. S.: Ryle would grant habit, if not drama. G.: Then let him keep the habit and leave us the necessary remnants of drama. Without them the text becomes a memorandum. S.: Which Scupoli decidedly is not. G.: Not at all. He is a field-manual for a person who suspects himself capable of ruin. S.: Again Ayer enters. G.: Indeed. “Look at him, a man ruined by passions.” Ryle there gives a one-sentence Scupoli with secular clothing and a college path for theatre. S.: Ayer as the visible caution, Robertson as the susceptible novice, Ryle as reluctant spiritual director. G.: Precisely. It writes itself. S.: Which perhaps is why Scupoli belongs at the centre. He reveals that old ascetic speech and modern Oxonian moralism are not strangers. G.: Yes. They are cousins who prefer not to acknowledge one another publicly. S.: Then the gift is really an act of family introduction. G.: A charming way to put it. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become familial. Now, could the combatimento be played with, as you suggested, by Ryle and his twin sister? S.: In the sense of being tested as a manual of exercises, not mocked as superstition. G.: Exactly. “Let us see whether chapter three corresponds to any recognisable human temptation not requiringG.: Very well, let us repair the gift before Christmas passes entirely into theory. The book is Scupoli, and Scupoli is the centrepiece. S.: Better. Scupoli deserves the centre, whereas Sebasmius would only have supplied a triclinium and a class-list. G.: Quite. I imagine giving Ryle a copy of Il combattimento spirituale. S.: You, who scarcely speak to him. G.: Which is why a present is useful. It lets one say several things while saying none of them directly. S.: A conversational Christmas. G.: Precisely. “Dear Ryle, here is a spiritual combat manual; please do not strike it dead before chapter two.” S.: He would open it, see spirituale, and begin frothing at once. G.: He would begin by suspecting a ghost, yes. “Spiritual combat” sounds exactly the kind of phrase likely to tempt a careless theologian into machinery with upholstery. S.: So why Scupoli? G.: Because the title is misleading in exactly the right way. The combatimento is spiritual, but not in the sense of two disembodied entities fencing in the pantry of the soul. S.: Then what sense? G.: In the old practical sense. It is an exercise, a regimen, a discipline of self-government. One might almost say it is a handbook of anti-passional drill. S.: Which Ryle might like if one translated enough of it into anti-ghostly English. G.: Or into anti-theatrical English. Scupoli is not staging a ghost in the machine. He is describing a rational animal learning how not to be ruled by appetite, vanity, fear, resentment, acedia, and all the rest. S.: So your line is that the whole thing is metonymical. G.: Exactly. The angel and the demon are names for regions of practical orientation, not census items from an invisible zoo. S.: The good daemon and the bad daemon as directional forces rather than little interior persons. G.: Very good. Eudaemon and kakodaemon, if one wants Greek dignity. Or, better, auspicious and ruinous tendencies in a life that can still be read as one life. S.: And the godmother and fairy mother? G.: Figures of tutelage, nurture, intercession, kindly governance, the old imagistic way of speaking about how one is formed before one is fully one’s own master. S.: Ryle would not like fairy mothers. G.: He would like them less if called entities than if called formative agencies. Tell him “fairy mother” is a dramatic shorthand for educative nurture and he may stop grumbling for five minutes. S.: That is all one can hope for with him. G.: More would be indecent. The point is that Scupoli’s vocabulary is thickly figurative but practically exact. Its truth lies in the operations, not the ontology. S.: Then the body matters from the start. G.: Deeply. The body is not the machine haunted by a soul-spectre; it is where the whole business happens. Sleep, fasting, appetite, speech, kneeling, gesture, attention, recollection, habit, pause, all of it. S.: So “spiritual” here is almost corporeal by method. G.: Better: spiritual through corporeal discipline. One does not combat vainglory with ectoplasm. One combats it by habits, refusals, silences, humblings, forms of attention, repeated acts. S.: Exercise rather than apparition. G.: Precisely. If one had to make Scupoli safe for a Rylean common room, one would say: “This is a manual of practical exercises for the governance of passion under theological description.” S.: Hideous, but useful. G.: It ought to be both. A Christmas present should always contain an insult to bad ontology if possible. S.: And what would Ryle make of the title before opening the book? G.: “Combattimento spirituale? More dualist melodrama.” Then, if he read on, he might discover that Scupoli is less interested in a separable soul than in a whole person under disciplined management. S.: Which is very nearly Ryle’s own region, though with angels at the edge of the page. G.: Exactly. Ryle dislikes spirits because he thinks people mean substances. Scupoli often means exercises, dangers, dispositions, and tutelary images. S.: Then you really do think he could have enjoyed it. G.: Privately, yes. Publicly he would have called it “a very old and not altogether foolish drill-book.” S.: High praise. G.: The highest available west of the Alps. Now, the twin sister. S.: You must have his twin sister in the Christmas scene? G.: Naturally. Twins improve all philosophical experiments. I like to imagine him saying, “Come, Hilda, let us see whether this Italian priest has given us a ghost or only a grammar of temptation.” S.: And she replies? G.: “If it is a grammar, Gilbert, it is one of habits, not nouns.” Something of that sort. S.: A festive anti-dualism by the fire. G.: Exactly. The pudding between them, Scupoli on the table, and the first question being whether the combat is in the soul or in the conduct of the person. S.: And your answer? G.: In the conduct of the person, under an interior vocabulary. The interior is not denied, but neither is it turned into a hidden substance. S.: Then how do the angel and demon function? G.: As dramatis personae for inwardly and outwardly legible tendencies. The demon is what seduces one toward disordered appetite, self-excuse, resentful fantasy, spiritual vanity; the angel is what calls toward measure, recollection, humble action, steadiness. S.: That sounds half Stoic, half monastic. G.: Exactly. Scupoli sits in that marvellous old corridor between Graeco-Roman askēsis and Christian ascetic drill. That is why he matters. He is not merely pious upholstery; he is method. S.: Which is why the comparison to Bunyan in your own upbringing matters too. G.: Yes. My mother gave us Bunyan, but Scupoli gave the combat its sharper practical edge. Bunyan is pilgrimage and allegorical topography; Scupoli is exercise and tactical inward warfare. S.: So pilgrimage versus drill. G.: Very good. And Ryle would take more easily to drill than to allegorical mountains. S.: Unless the allegories were cunningly translated into dispositions. G.: Which is our whole enterprise. Now, this line of yours about the godmother and fairy mother—why do you want them kept? S.: Because they show how thickly social and imagistic the old moral world is. It is not a world of bare “conscience” in the Protestant and somewhat thin sense. It is mediated, tutored, mothered, attended. G.: Precisely. Conscience is too dry, too singular, too post-Reformation for Scupoli’s atmosphere. The older figures preserve nurture, favour, exemplary mediation, inherited moral imagination. S.: And yet you still say metonymy. G.: Because one must not literalise them. Metonymy saves thickness without committing oneself to fairy ethnography. S.: So the fairy mother is not a being but a figure for how grace and formation are mediated in life. G.: Exactly. And Ryle, if he is patient, may be led to admit that moral life is often learned not by propositions alone but by scenes, images, and embodied tutelage. S.: He might call that anthropological residue. G.: He might, but he would mean it approvingly if he were in a good humour. S.: When is he in a good humour? G.: Usually when someone else is being corrected. Which brings us to Robertson and Ayer. S.: Ah yes. Robertson remembers Ryle pointing at Ayer as he passed by the college and saying, “Look at him, a man ruined by passions. Let that be a warning for you.” G.: Exactly. It is a secular Scupoli scene if ever there was one. S.: Explain. G.: Because Ryle there becomes the monitor of moral physiognomy. He is not speaking about a separable soul corrupted by invisible vapours. He is reading a person in public as a visible style of life disordered by passion. S.: So “ruined by passions” is already Scupolian, only without the saints. G.: Precisely. Ryle would reject the devotional apparatus, but he keeps the eye for disordered appetite made visible in bearing, timing, face, pace, speech, and social form. S.: And Robertson, being young, hears only “passions.” G.: Naturally. Young men always hear the tempting noun and miss the disciplinary sentence surrounding it. S.: He thinks perhaps of romance, drink, scandal, or something much less structural. G.: Exactly. Ryle means not “how exciting” but “how a life can be visibly bent out of shape by ungoverned inclinations.” S.: Which Scupoli would have understood immediately. G.: Entirely. Scupoli would only have added that the passions do not ruin by poetry alone but by habit, indulgence, self-deception, and the refusal of exercise. S.: Then perhaps the best way to put it is that Ryle’s remark is a Scupolian judgment translated into anti-ghostly Oxford idiom. G.: Splendid. Keep that. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become pleased. Now, if I give Ryle Scupoli, what am I giving him really? S.: A manual of embodied anti-passional discipline hidden under an alarmingly dualist title. G.: Excellent. And he, if he reads far enough, discovers that “spiritual combat” is not an episode in supernatural physics but an agonistic programme of self-regulation. S.: You do like “agonistic.” G.: It preserves the resistance. If one says merely “exercise,” one loses the enemy. If one says merely “combat,” one invites bad metaphysics. Agonistic exercise is near enough. S.: Against what enemy? G.: Against self-flattery, self-indulgence, unruly appetite, resentment, despair, vanity, sloth, and the rest of the old lethal banalities. S.: Which are not ghosts. G.: No. Nor are they mere internal weather. They are practical structures of life, stabilised or destabilised through repeated action. S.: So Scupoli is really about habits. G.: Habits, yes, but also attention, self-scrutiny, recollection, and strategic resistance. Aristotle, the Stoics, and monastic Christianity all in one severe little room. S.: That would please Kant too, if one removed enough sacrament. G.: Quite. Duty over inclination, discipline over feeling, moral worth in acting against one’s ease: Scupoli can sound remarkably like rigorism before rigorism receives its Königsberg tailoring. S.: Which again might interest Ryle. He liked anti-sloppiness. G.: He adored anti-sloppiness. Scupoli is nothing if not anti-sloppy. He distrusts fervour without form, feeling without regulation, piety without drill. S.: So he is not a sentimental ascetic. G.: Quite the contrary. He is procedural. That is one of the reasons I like him. He gives one tactics, not only atmosphere. S.: Tactics is a good word. G.: Yes. “Combatimento” is tactical from the start. One identifies weaknesses, anticipates occasions of fall, forms contrary habits, uses the body against the passions that misuse the body. S.: Which makes the body a site of recovery rather than a machine to be transcended. G.: Exactly. That is why one must not let “spiritual” mislead. The body is not to be despised as mechanism; it is the theatre of practice. S.: Ryle would approve the theatre if one did not peopled it with ghosts. G.: Yes. And Scupoli may be read without ghosts if one is sufficiently alert to his figurative economy. S.: You are very attached to metonymy. G.: It saves civilization daily. S.: More than irony? G.: On alternate days. Here it matters because the figures point to operations. The angel names a mode of correction, the demon a mode of derangement. The godmother or fairy mother names tutelary nurture, not an attendance register in the air. S.: Then the “reasonable will” versus the “will of sense” is not dualism either? G.: No. It is a practical distinction internal to one life. The higher and lower, the governing and the appetitive, the disciplined and the impulsive—one need not convert that into substances. S.: So Scupoli’s “soul” is perhaps more like the person under a moral description. G.: Very good. That is exactly the safe and intelligent way of hearing it for our purposes. S.: Then Ryle’s protest would be aimed mostly at bad readers of Scupoli, not necessarily at Scupoli himself. G.: That is my suspicion. Ryle is often at war with vulgar metaphysics rather than with old moral writing as such. Present him with the latter under the right pressure and he may become unexpectedly sympathetic. S.: Provided the title does not make him throw it into the fire first. G.: Which is why Christmas matters. Christmas gives even alarming titles a brief amnesty. S.: The liturgy softens the anti-dualist. G.: Or at least distracts him with pudding. Now, what if he says, “This is all just pious behaviourism.” S.: You would say? G.: “Better pious behaviourism than lazy dualism.” And then I should wait to see whether he smiled. S.: He might. What of the phrase “ghost in the machine” itself? Does Scupoli ever tempt it directly? G.: Only if one insists that every interior distinction names an ontological compartment. But that insistence is ours, not necessarily his. S.: So the temptation is anachronistic. G.: Deeply. Scupoli is writing within a spiritual and moral vocabulary where “interior” and “exterior” need not map onto two kinds of stuff. S.: Then perhaps the modern reader’s task is not to secularise him flatly, but to clarify his practical ontology. G.: Very nice. Practical ontology is a risky phrase, but here it helps. What sort of being is a temptation? Not a particle, not a ghost, but not merely a mood either. It is a structured practical possibility under a moral language. S.: That would also help with the demon. G.: Exactly. Demons are the old language for patterned ruination when one wants to keep visible that evil is not merely abstract but insinuating, recurrent, and intelligent-looking. S.: Intelligent-looking is important. G.: Yes. Temptation is never presented as brute force alone. It reasons badly, flatters, insinuates, reframes. In that sense the demon is also a model of false practical intelligence. S.: Which is very close to self-deception. G.: Entirely. Scupoli is excellent on self-deception, though he gives it older names. One lies to oneself in order to remain indulgent, proud, idle, sensual, or resentful. S.: And the cure? G.: Suspicion of oneself, guided by rule, aided by repetition, checked by confession or scrutiny, redirected by counter-habit. Again, very procedural. S.: So if you gave Ryle Scupoli, you would be giving him not merely theology but a manual of anti-self-deceptive practice. G.: Exactly. And one of the old Oxford temptations is to think that only modern secular philosophy discovered that project. S.: It did not. G.: Of course not. The ancients, the monks, the rigorists, and the better moralists had long since done the work in other lexica. S.: Which is why Scupoli belongs with the spiritual exercises tradition. G.: Yes, as bridge between Greek-Roman askēsis and later rigorist ethics. He can be read with Epictetus in one hand and Kant in the other, though one should not make either jealous. S.: That would make a fine footnote for Ryle. G.: Ryle dislikes footnotes to his Christmas presents. S.: Then perhaps an inscription. “For Gilbert: an exercise-book, not a haunting.” G.: Too direct. Better to let the book irritate him into discovery. S.: You enjoy irritation pedagogically. G.: It has done better work than encouragement in some colleges. Now, back to Robertson’s anecdote. Why does it matter so much? S.: Because it shows that Ryle, for all his anti-ghostly philosophy, could still think in moral physiognomies. He reads Ayer not as a bundle of propositions but as a person visibly shaped, or misshaped, by passions. G.: Exactly. Which means he is already living in a world where old ascetic categories have secular continuations. S.: Ayer becomes a cautionary icon. G.: Yes. “Look at him,” says Ryle, not “listen to his arguments.” The body, carriage, and social presence become moral evidence. S.: That is very Scupolian. G.: Entirely. The passions have become readable. Not because they float outside the body, but because they mark it. S.: Then the body is the machine only if one is stupid enough to call all visible conduct merely mechanical. G.: Precisely. Ryle’s whole better point is that intelligent or unintelligent conduct is not made less personal because it is publicly embodied. S.: Which gives you another bridge to Scupoli. G.: Yes. The combat is visible in life because it is fought in habits and dispositions, not in spectral chambers. S.: So perhaps the real gift to Ryle is not the theology, but the recognition that old spiritual literature sometimes knew his own point better than modern dualists did. G.: Beautiful. That is exactly the Christmas mischief I had in mind. S.: And if he refused it? G.: Then I should say I did not give it to him for agreement, but for agitation. S.: A Rylean agitation. G.: Precisely. Every decent Christmas present should slightly unsettle a philosopher’s self-satisfaction. S.: Then Scupoli is the ideal centrepiece because he unites old spiritual combat, embodied discipline, anti-passional moralism, and enough imagery to make the anti-imagistic philosopher nervous. G.: Exactly. He is all the better for that. A boringly secular moral handbook would teach Ryle nothing. Scupoli teaches by offending first and clarifying later. S.: Very like some tutors. G.: The best ones. Now, if we had to formulate the whole point in one sentence? S.: Scupoli’s combattimento spirituale is not the warfare of ghostly substances but an agonistic programme of embodied self-government under theological and allegorical description, which is precisely why a philosopher like Ryle ought to be irritated into reading it. G.: Perfect. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Italian for Christmas, with one Oxford demon reduced to a disposition. Scupoli, Lorenzo (1589). Il combattimento spirituale. Venezia: Giolito de’ Ferrari

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Scutario – Ossia: Grice e Scutario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Scutario The gens Scutaria was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, but others are known from inscriptions.[1]  Origin The nomen Scutarius belongs to a class of gentilicia derived from occupations; a scutarius was a shield-maker.[2][3] The family seems to have come from Venusia in Apulia, originally a Samnite town, captured during the Third Samnite War. A Roman colony was established there in 291 BC.[4]  Praenomina The only praenomina found in the inscriptions of the Scutarii are Lucius and Sextus, both of which were common throughout all periods of Roman history.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Scutaria, named in a late second- or early third-century inscription from Aleria in Corsica.[5] Scutarius, named in an inscription from Anicium in Gallia Aquitania.[6] Lucius Scutarius, quaestor at Venusia in Apulia in 32 BC, and one of the duumviri in the following year.[7][8] Sextus Scutarius Aethrius, built a tomb for himself and his family at Rome.[9] Lucius Scutarius Andrea, dedicated an early first-century tomb at Venusia to the freedman Marcus Turellius Diomedes.[10] Scutaria L. l. Epistolio, a freedwoman buried at Allifae in Campania.[11] Sextus Scutarius Successus, named in a funerary inscription from Pisae in Etruria.[12] See also List of Roman gentes References  PIR, vol. III, p. 187.  Chase, pp. 111, 112.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. scutarius.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. II, pp. 1276, 1277 ("Venusia").  AE 2013, 674.  CIL XIII, 1575.  CIL IX, 422.  Magoffin, The Quinquennales, p. 37.  CIL VI, 687.  CIL IX, 569.  CIL IX, 2418.  CIL XI, 1449. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1854). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Ralph Van Deman Magoffin, The Quinquennales: an Historical Study, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore (1913). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Samnite origin And from THIS gens? Thanks Grice e Scutario

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Scutario – Ossia: Grice e Scutario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Scutario For the gens Scutaria, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Lucius Scutarius of Venusia, quaestor in 32 BC and duumvir in 31 BC. He is not grand, which is part of the advantage. A shield-maker’s nomen, in a Samnite-colonial town with a Roman constitutional office attached to it, gives Speranza a compact theatre of protection, office, and public uptake. The name says scutum before the man says anything. The office says: this man is not merely making shields, if indeed any ancestor did; he is now helping manage a Romanised community. That is exactly the sort of social promotion Roman nomenclature loves to preserve without explaining. The philosophical point would be that scutarius begins as an occupational description, but as a gentilicium it no longer entails that the bearer makes shields. It becomes inherited civic sound. A Scutarius need not be a shield-maker any more than a Grice must be a pig or grey, or a Speranza must be hopeful. But the old sense remains available for implicature. In a Grice-Speranza vignette, Lucius Scutarius can be made to stand for the passage from craft to office: from the object that protects the soldier to the magistracy that protects the town. Venusia supplies the setting beautifully, since it is both Samnite in origin and Roman by colonisation. The shield is no longer only military equipment; it becomes a civic metaphor. A dry title might be: “Grice e Scutario: lo scudo della colonia.” The reconstructed point could be: Scutarius: “Scutum olim feci; nunc rationes tueor.” “I once made shields; now I guard the accounts.” Implicature: the occupational origin of the name is being redescribed as a civic function. Protection has migrated from battlefield to magistracy. A sceptic might reply: Scepticus: “Nomen tuum ferrum sonat, non ius.” “Your name sounds of iron, not law.” Implicature: old craft-name is being used to diminish public office. The sceptic hears workshop where Scutarius wants magistracy. Scutarius: “Ferrum sine iure latro est; ius sine scuto nudum.” “Iron without law is robbery; law without a shield is naked.” Implicature: the defence of civic order requires both force and rule. The old occupational name becomes philosophically useful rather than socially embarrassing. This makes Lucius Scutarius better than the more scattered inscriptional Scutarii. Sextus Scutarius Aethrius has a good funerary dignity, and Scutaria Epistolio is tempting because the cognomen Epistolio almost begs for a joke about letters; but Lucius at Venusia has office, place, date, and transition. The date is also useful: 32–31 BC, just at the hinge of Actium and the end of the Republic. A local magistrate called Scutarius in those years is almost too apt. Rome is changing shields while pretending to preserve forms. The dry Speranzian formula would be: Scutarius is not interesting because he made shields. He is interesting because Rome made even “shield-maker” decline like a citizen. The name keeps the craft; the office cancels the reduction. In Gricean terms, “Scutarius” says less than it lets the hearer gather, and Venusia supplies the rest.