SEB

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sebasmio – Ossia: Grice e Sebasmio: la ragione conversazionale della classe romana. Note su De ratione conversationis et classe civili. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice Sebasmio (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale della classe romana. The comparison between Grice and Sebasmio brings out a fundamental contrast between a universal, reason‑governed pragmatics and a historically embedded, class‑sensitive conception of conversational meaning. For Grice, conversational meaning is governed by rational principles that operate independently of social rank: implicatures arise because speakers are presumed to be cooperative, relevant, and oriented toward mutual understanding, and these presuppositions apply equally to any competent conversational agent. Sebasmio, by contrast, represents a specifically Roman understanding of conversational reason, in which meaning is inseparable from civic stratification and aristocratic self‑placement. In his dialogue with Grice, the very term classis carries unavoidable implicatures of precedence, authority, and priority, shaping what can be meant before anything is explicitly said. Where Grice treats such implicatures as incidental, cancellable by clarification, Sebasmio treats them as structurally constitutive of conversation within Roman elite culture. Reason, for Sebasmio, does not merely regulate inference between speakers but orders them socially in advance, so that conversational meaning both reflects and reinforces hierarchy. The result is that Grice’s theory abstracts reason from social identity in order to explain how meaning is coordinated, whereas Sebasmio’s view embeds reason within class consciousness, explaining how conversational meaning serves as a medium through which Roman aristocratic order is continuously enacted. S. is a philosopher mentioned on a list of philosophers belonging to the Roman aristocracy.  GRICEVS: Salvē, Sebasmī. Audio tē inter philosophōs aristocratiae Rōmānae numerārī: pulchrum est—sed perīculōsum; nam quī in indicem intrat, statim putat sē iam sapientem. SEBASMIVS: Salvē, Grice. In indice esse leve est; in vitā gravissimum. Sed, fateor, Rōmānī etiam philosophiam per ordines distribuere amant, quasi virtūs ipsa censū metiatur. GRICEVS: Ita. Et cum dīcitis “classis,” mihi subit non tantum scholastica divisio, sed classis navium—prima, secunda, tertia: unde fit ut quisque, dum de “clāsse” loquitur, iam se prōrae admoveat, nec umquam remigem se esse patiatur. SEBASMIVS: Inplicātūra prīmae classis, Grice! Nam tu, dum de “clāsse” iocāris, ostendis quomodo nōn sōlum in portū sed etiam in philosophia quisque prīmum locum occupāre cupiat. Et hoc ipsum Cicerō sensit, cum ἀριστοκρατίαν Latīnē reddere conārētur: verbum Graecum exotice sonat, sed Rōmānus statim rogat, “Quis in prīmā clāssē est?” Ego autem—nē minimam quidem horam dubitō—sī quando alteram clāssēm agnōscere opus sit, prīmārum prīmus me esse oportet: nam nisi prīmum agnōscam, quōmodo alterum agnōscam? Sebasmio (a. u. c. DCXC). De ratione conversationis et classe civili. Roma.