SO

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Socellio – Ossia: Grice e Socellio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Socellio The gens Socellia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned by ancient writers, but several are known from inscriptions.  Origin Nearly half of the Socellii mentioned in inscriptions came from towns in Samnium, strongly suggesting that the family was of Samnite origin.  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Socellii were Gaius and Marcus, two of the most common names at all periods of Roman history. There are also individual examples of Lucius, Publius, Quintus, and Sextus, all of which were also common.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Socellius, a centurion in the third cohort of a legion stationed in Britannia between AD 122 and 138.[1] Gaius Socellius, buried in a family sepulchre at Bovianum Vetus in Samnium, dating to the late first century BC or early first century AD, along with his brother, Quintus, and other relatives, and dedicated by Gaius Socellius Celer.[2] Gaius Socellius, the master of Faustus, aged fifteen, and Auctus, aged twenty-two, two slaves buried at Terventum in Samnium.[3] Lucius Socellius, named in an inscription from Rome.[4] Quintus Socellius, buried in a family sepulchre at Bovianum Vetus, dating to the early empire, along with his brother, Gaius, and other relatives, and built by Gaius Socellius Celer.[2] Marcus Socellius M. l. Auctus, a freedman, who together with his brother, Marcus Socellius Firmus, dedicated a monument at Abellinum in Campania to their mother, Socellia Prima.[5] Gaius Socellius Sex. f. Celer, dedicated a family sepulchre at Bovianum Vetus for the brothers Gaius and Quintus Socellius, and other relatives.[2] Socellius Chilo, a centurion mentioned in a second-century inscription from Carales in Sardinia.[6] Marcus Socellius Cleno, built a mid-first-century tomb at Opitergium in Venetia and Histria for his mother, Socellia Pilinna.[7] Lucius Socellius Felix, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his wife, Julia Gemella, aged twenty-seven, and another woman, named Cassia Auxis.[8] Marcus Socellius M. l. Firmus, a freedman, and the brother of Marcus Socellius Auctus, with whom he dedicated a monument at Abellinum to their mother, Socellia Prima.[5] Marcus Socellius Januarius, together with his mother-in-law, Laberia Restituta, dedicated a first-century tomb at Aeclanum in Samnium to his wife, Quinctia Maximilla, aged twenty-four.[9] Socellia C. f. Lucana, buried at Rome, aged seven years, thirty days, in a sepulchre built by her parents, Gaius Socellius Saturninus and Blossia Januaria, for their family and their patron, Socellia Quartilla.[10] Socellia M. l. Pilinna, buried in a mid-first-century tomb at Opitergium, built by her son, Marcus Socellius Cleno.[7] Socellia M. l. Prima, a freedwoman buried at Abellinum, with a monument from her sons, Marcus Socellius Firmus and Marcus Socellius Auctus.[5] Socellia P. f. Prima, dedicated a tomb at Rome for her husband, Quintus Roscius Gratus.[11] Socellia Quartilla, buried at Rome, in a family sepulchre built by her clients, Gaius Socellius Saturninus and Blossia Januaria.[10] Gaius Socellius Saturninus, together with his wife, Blossia Januaria, built a sepulchre at Rome for themselves, their daughter, Socellia Lucana, and their patron, Socellia Quartilla.[10] Socellius Ursio, buried at Vibinum in Apulia, in a third-century tomb dedicated by his children.[12] See also List of Roman gentes References  RIB, i. 1675, 1768, iii. 3413.  CIL IX, 6853.  CIL IX, 6732.  CIL VI, 39789.  Labruna, Storia sociale dell'Hirpinia, 3.  EE, viii. 1, 710.  CIL V, 2018.  CIL VI, 39758.  Supplementa Italica, 29-Ae, 79.  CIL VI, 26616.  CIL VI, 25479.  AE 1994, 522. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Supplementa Italica (Supplement for Italy), Unione Accademica Nazionale. 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). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (abbreviated RIB), Oxford, (1990–present). E. Labruna, Storia sociale dell'Hirpinia in età imperiale (The Story of Hirpinia in the Imperial Age, 2013). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Socellio – Ossia: Grice e Socellio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Socellio For the Socellii, we are back in the epigraphic world, where one has to choose not the most famous person, but the most philosophically suggestive one. My choice would be Gaius Socellius Saturninus and his patron Socellia Quartilla. The inscription tells us that Saturninus and his wife built a family tomb not only for themselves and their daughter Socellia Lucana, but also for their patron Socellia Quartilla. [GREXv3 | Word] Why does that strike me as Gricean? Because it raises the question:  What does one communicate by including someone in one's family memory?  An epitaph is never merely information. Grice e Socellio: Quis de Familia Est? SATVRNINVS. Hoc monumentum familiae meae est. (This monument is for my family.) INTERROGATOR. Cur etiam Quartillam continet? (Why does it also include Quartilla?) SATVRNINVS. Patrona fuit. (She was our patron.) INTERROGATOR. Ergo familia est? (Then is she family?) SATVRNINVS. Non sanguine, sed beneficio. (Not by blood, but by benefaction.) GRICE. Significatio socialis saepe latior est quam significatio biologica. (Social meaning is often broader than biological meaning.) +> Inclusion communicates a relationship beyond mere kinship.  What I find attractive here is that Roman inscriptions constantly perform speech acts. The stone says:  "Here lie X and Y."  But often means:  "These people belonged together."  The act of inclusion itself is communicative. But the family tomb is richer, because it concerns social reference. Who counts as "one of us"? Roman epitaphs answer that question by whom they choose to remember together. Dry Speranzian formula  The Sinnii preserve words; the Socellii preserve relationships. Gaius Socellius Saturninus used a tomb to say more than a tomb can literally say. The inscription records persons; the monument communicates belonging. [GREXv3 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Socellio – Ossia: Grice e Socellio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Socellio  A close second candidate would be Socellius Chilo, the centurion in Sardinia, or the anonymous Socellius serving in Britain under Hadrian. [GREXv3 | Word] The military setting always invites Gricean reflections on signals, commands, and authority.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Solari – Ossia: Grice e Solari: la ragione conversazionale dell’iustum/iussum, o il tutore fascista. Note sulla filosofia del diritto. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Gioele Solari (Albino, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale dell’iustum/iussum, o il tutore fascista. Grice and Solari converge on the idea that reason is not an abstract faculty detached from social life but a governing principle operative within concrete practices, yet they articulate this insight at different levels of analysis and with different emphases. Solari, working within the Italian tradition of legal and historical philosophy shaped by Roman jurisprudence and Vico’s verum-factum principle, conceives “ragione conversazionale” as civil prudence: reason applied to historically constituted institutions, where the distinction between iussum (what is commanded) and iustum (what is just) is negotiated through praxis, not deduced from universal norms. For Solari, rationality is embedded in law, language, and custom, and its authority derives from their communal and historical formation. Grice, by contrast, reconstructs reason-governed practice at the micro-level of communicative exchange: his theory of conversational meaning explains how rational agents coordinate understanding by relying on shared assumptions, intentions, and principles of cooperation, which he treats as reconstructible norms rather than historically given institutions. Yet the affinity is substantive: Grice’s method of rational reconstruction plays a role analogous to Solari’s juridical historicism, translating inherited practices into explicit reasons, while his emphasis on ordinary language and intention resonates with the Italian focus on concrete linguistic and legal forms. Where Solari sees reason unfolding through the institutional history of the iustum, Grice sees it operating in the inferential and normative structure of conversation; both reject purely speculative rationalism and locate reason in lived, rule-governed human activity, one at the level of law and civil order, the other at the level of communicative interaction. Grice: “S. represents a synthesis of the Italian philosophical tradition, which prioritises praxis and the historical evolution of concrete institutions over abstract speculation. His work bridges the gap between the foundational realism of Roman law and the historicist science of VICO .  Rootedness in Roman Legal Realism The Italian tradition, beginning with Roman law, views philosophy not as a detached study of "Being," but as jurisprudence — the practical art of the "good and the equitable" (ars boni et aequi).  Practical Utility: Roman jurists did not seek universal metaphysical truths. They develop laws from specific cases to resolve social conflicts. S.’s Adoption: S. grounds his philosophy in this "juridical" mindset, viewing the law as the objective social framework where the abstract moral value must find concrete expression to be valid.  VICO (veddasi)’s Verum-Factum and Historicism S.’s approach is deeply Vichian, adopting the principle that "the true is the made" -- verum ipsum factum.  Against Pure Speculation: VICO  argues that humans can only truly know what they have created: history, language – la lingua ordinaria – il latino -- , and law. He rejects the Cartesian "geometric method" for a philological-historical approach that examines how social reality is built. Civil Prudence: Like VICO , S. emphasises "civil prudence" — the application of REASON – la ragione conversazionale -- to historical circumstances rather than to fixed, abstract categories. roma antica, Giorgio Guglielmo Federico Hegel, Spaventa, hegelianismo, iustum/iussum – storia della filosofia del diritto romano, cicerone; diritto naturale, IVS NATVRALE, Gaio, citato da Vico, Giustiniano, diritto romano in eta del principato, IVS GENTIVM, IVS VNIVERSALI, sato di natura, i ferini di Vico, il metodo pirotologico di Grice – ri-costruzione razionale, Bennett, significato naturale.  Grice: Caro Solari, sa, la mia formazione in Literae Humaniores a Clifton mi ha insegnato il valore di distinguere tra iussum e iustum. In Inghilterra, tra i barbari, spesso queste finezze si perdono, mentre qui, in Italia—terra del latino—sono ancora il cuore della riflessione filosofica. Solari: È vero, Grice. In Italia la tradizione filosofica si nutre proprio di queste distinzioni concrete. Non parliamo solo di "giusto" in astratto, ma di ciò che prende forma nelle istituzioni reali, nella vita quotidiana, come ci insegnano i giuristi romani. Grice: Mi affascina come il diritto romano sia stato sempre un’arte pratica, l’ars boni et aequi. Non si cercava l’assoluto, ma si dava risposta ai bisogni della società. È una filosofia che vive nella storia, non nell’astrazione. Solari: Esattamente. Seguendo Vico, credo che “il vero è il fatto”: solo ciò che l’uomo costruisce nella storia può essere conosciuto davvero. Per noi, la prudenza civile non è teoria, ma ragione applicata alle circostanze concrete. Questa è la forza della nostra tradizione. Taking as basis the passage below please provide without preamble or ps a 100-move conversation G. and S. on why diritto needs a philosophy, basing on Solari -- and how Hart comes in and changes everything: there is ordinary language philosophy of law -- and philosophy of law is the conceptual analysis or logical grammar of 'law' -- and how LACK of a philosophy of law is positivism, which is the crudest philosophy of law of all and that Solari knows this. G.: Let us begin with the noun itself, because diritto is one of those words that look self-explanatory only to those who have never been properly interrogated by them. S.: And in Italy the noun arrives already carrying law, right, justice, order, and half of Rome on its back. G.: Exactly. Which is why diritto needs a philosophy. A word so overburdened cannot safely be left to lawyers, still less to legislators. S.: Or to positivists. G.: Least of all to positivists, because positivism, for all its anti-metaphysical modesty, is the crudest philosophy of law of all. S.: That is a sentence Hart would dislike, though he would partly deserve it. G.: Hart deserves worse only when he is mistaken for a mere positivist in the old coarse sense. He begins by admitting something Solari knew perfectly well: that even the attempt to deny philosophy to law is already a philosophy of law. S.: Exactly. Solari sees that the refusal of philosophy is not neutrality but doctrine. G.: Yes. To say that law is only what is posited, enforced, and socially effective is not to escape philosophy; it is merely to adopt the poorest one available. S.: A sort of dietary metaphysics. G.: Very good. Thin enough to be sold as realism, but not nourishing. Solari, because he stands in the Roman and Vichian line, knows that diritto is too historical, too practical, too linguistic, too institutional to be reduced either to command or to abstract moralism. S.: Hence iussum and iustum. G.: Precisely. The commanded and the just. The whole difficulty of diritto is already compressed into that Latin pair. S.: And one might say that philosophy of law begins exactly when one notices that the two are not coextensive. G.: Splendid. If iussum and iustum coincided perfectly, jurisprudence would be clerical filing and philosophy could go back to bed. S.: But they do not coincide. The commanded may fail to be just; the just may lack legal force. G.: Exactly. And once that gap appears, diritto becomes philosophically dangerous. Is law what is laid down, or what deserves to be laid down, or what a society has made authoritative under certain recognisable forms, or what a rational reconstruction of practice shows it to be? S.: Solari would say: all these questions arise only because law is a humanly made institution that cannot be known as a stone is known. G.: Verum ipsum factum, yes. Vico matters because he turns knowledge back toward human products: law, language, history, institutions. One knows diritto not by geometric deduction but by understanding what has been made and how it has been lived. S.: Which means philosophy of law cannot be only conceptual in the thin sense. It must also be historical. G.: Up to a point, yes. But here is where Hart enters and changes the game, or at least the classroom. Hart says, in effect, let us ask what we mean by law, what logical grammar this concept has, what distinguishes rules from habits, obligations from predictions, internal from external points of view. S.: And suddenly philosophy of law becomes a species of ordinary language philosophy. G.: Precisely. Or, if one wants to alarm the Continent, the conceptual analysis of “law.” S.: Which sounds dry until one notices how much of the old confusion it sweeps away. G.: Exactly. Hart cleans the room. He does not abolish history, but he refuses to let jurisprudence remain a cloud of reverence around state power or natural-law rhetoric. He asks how people actually use and understand legal concepts in a rule-governed social practice. S.: Solari would not hate that. G.: No, that is the interesting point. Solari is too good to despise conceptual work. What he would resist is the illusion that conceptual analysis can float free of the institutional and historical life of diritto. S.: So Hart changes everything, but not by making history irrelevant. He changes it by forcing philosophy of law to attend to the grammar of the concept itself. G.: Very good. Before Hart, too much philosophy of law either sermonised or systematised. Hart asks: what is a rule, what is an obligation, what makes a legal system more than a threat backed by force? S.: Which is where command theory begins to look rather peasant-like. G.: Yes. Austin’s command theory, for all its disciplinary elegance, becomes too blunt. Law is not merely the sovereign saying do this or else. There are rules conferring powers, secondary rules, procedures of recognition, adjudication, and change. S.: So positivism becomes refined. G.: Hart refines it, yes. But that only sharpens your earlier sentence: lack of a philosophy of law is the crudest positivism, because it takes positivity as brute fact and forgets that positivity itself is conceptually structured. S.: Which is why Solari knows the danger. He is too Roman and too Vichian to believe that law is merely a pile of commands. G.: Exactly. Roman jurisprudence is an ars boni et aequi, not a stenography of orders. The jurists reason from cases, distinctions, equity, persons, statuses, obligations, and remedies. They do not merely receive legislative thunderbolts. S.: So Roman law already teaches that diritto is a practical reason embodied in institutions. G.: Beautifully put. And that is why it needs philosophy: because its object is neither a pure norm nor a pure fact, but a historically formed order of practical reasons, powers, recognitions, and evaluations. S.: Then perhaps we should distinguish two questions. First, why law needs philosophy at all. Second, what sort of philosophy it needs. G.: Yes. On the first: because law is internally related to concepts of authority, obligation, validity, personhood, power, interpretation, and justice, none of which can be used indefinitely without philosophical clarification. S.: And on the second? G.: On the second: because the law needs a philosophy that is at once conceptual, practical, and historical. Solari supplies the historical-juridical and civil-prudential side; Hart supplies the analytical and grammatical side. S.: That sounds suspiciously ecumenical. G.: Only because both men are better than their followers. Solari sees that legal life is made in time, and Hart sees that what is made in time still has a logical structure worth distinguishing carefully. S.: Then where does ordinary language philosophy of law begin? G.: In the moment one asks not “What is Justice?” in a thunderous abstract voice, but “How do we distinguish being obliged from being under threat? What do we mean when we say a rule is valid? What is it for a court to have jurisdiction? What is a legal power?” S.: So philosophy of law becomes the ordinary language analysis of extraordinary institutions. G.: Excellent. That is almost too good. Yes. Hart domesticates jurisprudence just enough to see its real intricacy. S.: And that is what changes everything. The old grand alternatives—natural law, command theory, historical romanticism—must now answer grammatical questions they had often slid past. G.: Precisely. Once one is asked whether a legal system can contain rules about rules, whether obligation is reducible to fear, whether authority can be understood internally by participants rather than merely externally by observers, much of the older coarseness becomes unbearable. S.: Solari, though, would say that even these grammatical distinctions have a Roman and historical body. G.: Yes. He would remind us that concepts like person, office, right, property, and obligation are not eternal atoms but institutions shaped through legal history and social practice. S.: Which is where Vico enters again. G.: Inevitably. If the true is the made, then law is one of the primary regions in which human beings may know what they have made—not because it is transparent, but because it is theirs. S.: That sounds like a rebuke to those who treat legal order as either revelation or nature. G.: Quite. Or as mere force. The legal order is a made order, and therefore intelligible only through a combination of history, philology, concept, and practical reason. S.: Then why do you call bare positivism the crudest philosophy of law? G.: Because it takes the existence of posited norms as sufficient and asks too little about the forms under which such norms count as law, the practices of recognition by which they are accepted, the evaluative vocabulary that still clings to them, and the gap between effective command and juridical legitimacy. S.: In other words, it takes iussum without understanding why iustum continues to haunt it. G.: Exactly. Even the crudest command theorist lives parasitically on a legal culture in which justice, equity, rights, and legitimacy continue to matter, whether acknowledged or not. S.: So the positivist who says “law is just what is laid down” is still speaking in a social world shaped by expectations about justification and fairness. G.: Yes. He is living on inherited credit. That is why the denial of philosophy is never a philosophical blank; it is merely a failure to examine the assumptions one still spends. S.: Hart at least examines them. G.: He does. Hart’s internal point of view is already a philosophical rescue-operation. It shows that rules are not mere predictive regularities enforced by threats; they are standards accepted, invoked, criticised, and used by participants as reasons. S.: Which sounds almost Solarian. G.: In a very English way, yes. Solari would say civil prudence; Hart says internal aspect. Different registers, but both reject the reduction of law to brute obedience. S.: Then what remains of iussum? G.: Plenty. Law is still commanded, posited, promulgated, institutionalised. But the legal philosopher asks under what conditions such positing becomes intelligible as law rather than as mere order backed by force. S.: So iussum needs grammar. G.: Excellent. And iustum needs history. S.: Then diritto is the field in which the two must converse. G.: Precisely. Law is where commandedness and justifiedness negotiate under institutional conditions. S.: That sounds very Solari. G.: It is meant to. Solari is useful because he never mistakes law for either pure command or pure moral essence. He sees it as historically formed praxis, where the just is sought in and through what has been socially ordered. S.: So no speculative rationalism, but no brute factualism either. G.: Exactly. And that is why philosophy is necessary. Without philosophy, law degenerates into either administrative coercion or sentimental moralism. With philosophy, one may at least see the structure of the conflict. S.: Then the old Roman jurists were already philosophers, whether they admitted it or not. G.: In the best sense, yes. They practised distinctions under pressure. They were less interested in Being than in action, relation, remedy, equity, competence, title, and the fit of norm to case. S.: Which is why law in Rome remained closer to prudence than to theory. G.: Precisely. And Solari loves that. He sees in Roman jurisprudence a realism not of brute fact but of practical settlement: the art of the good and the equitable. S.: Ars boni et aequi. G.: Yes. And notice the rhetorical grandeur of that formula. It names law not as command, but as art. S.: So law begins in practice and judgment, not in ontology. G.: Very good. That is why legal philosophy in Italy often remains more civil and historical than the grand Germanic metaphysics of right. S.: Though Hegel intrudes eventually. G.: Hegel intrudes everywhere, but even he must answer to institutions and history. Solari knows his Hegel, but he does not let Geist erase the jurists. S.: And Hart, coming later, translates the problem into analytical prose. G.: Exactly. He asks: what do we mean by legal validity, by rule, by obligation, by a system of primary and secondary rules? It is a different idiom, but the problem remains the same. S.: Which is why, perhaps, philosophy of law after Hart becomes the logical grammar of law. G.: Up to a point. One must not let grammar become another abstraction. But yes: philosophy of law becomes partly the analysis of how legal concepts function, what differences they mark, what inferential roles they bear, how they structure practice. S.: And that is ordinary language philosophy of law. G.: Or one strand of it. The great gain is that one need no longer pretend that law is philosophically addressed only by grand theories of justice or sovereignty. The very use of words like “duty,” “right,” “power,” “authority,” “valid,” “void,” “obliged,” “liable,” “responsible,” and so forth becomes philosophically central. S.: Which is probably why legal philosophers became so much less theatrical and so much more dangerous. G.: Dangerous to lazy thought, yes. Once the grammar is exposed, whole schools begin to look under-described. S.: Including natural law? G.: Certainly. Natural law is safest when left in noble blur. Ask it how “ought” relates to “validity,” or how moral defect affects legal status, and it must start doing better work. S.: And positivism too. G.: Especially positivism. Once one distinguishes rule from threat, validity from efficacy, internal from external viewpoints, the old positivist smugness is no longer enough. S.: Then Solari before Hart and Hart after Solari both attack the same enemy from different directions. G.: That is a useful way to put it. Solari attacks abstraction detached from history and civil practice. Hart attacks coarseness detached from conceptual structure. S.: So one might say Solari saves law from metaphysical emptiness, and Hart saves it from conceptual slovenliness. G.: Excellent. Keep that. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become pleased with yourself. Now, what of diritto itself as a word? Does it lean more toward right or toward law? S.: In Italian it leans both ways, which is why it is so fruitful and so dangerous. It can mean objective law, subjective right, legal order, justice, jurisprudence. G.: Exactly. Its ambiguity is not accidental; it records a history in which law and right were never fully severed. S.: Whereas English splits more quickly between law and right. G.: Yes. Which makes English analytically useful but sometimes historically amnesiac. Diritto reminds one that legal order and rightful claim have long inhabited the same lexical house. S.: So philosophy is needed partly because language itself has not finished distinguishing the things. G.: Precisely. And Hart’s conceptual analysis is, among other things, a disciplined effort to say what our ordinary language partly mingles. S.: Yet Solari would insist that the mingling is historically significant, not a mere defect. G.: Very good. It reflects the historical formation of institutions. One cannot simply shave the word into modern neatness without losing the civil sediment it carries. S.: So philosophy of law must be at once analytic and archaeological. G.: Splendid. That is exactly right. S.: Then does Hart really change everything, or only the terms in which everything must now be argued? G.: Better the latter. He changes the discipline by making certain forms of vagueness no longer respectable. After Hart, one cannot go on speaking about law as if command, rule, validity, obligation, authority, discretion, and interpretation were obvious. S.: Which means even critics of Hart must first pass through him. G.: Very often. As critics of Kant still smell faintly Kantian. S.: Then Solari now looks almost prophetic. G.: In the sense that he already knew law could not survive without philosophy, yes. Not because he anticipated Hart in method, but because he knew that legal life is conceptually and historically too rich to be left either to doctrinaires or to administrators. S.: So the final lesson is that law without philosophy becomes either command or sentiment, and philosophy without law becomes either abstraction or sermon. G.: Excellent. And the best legal philosophy stands exactly where Solari stands at his best: between iussum and iustum, with Rome behind him, Vico at his side, and just enough prudence to know that concepts live in institutions before they live in treatises. S.: And Hart? G.: Hart arrives later with English dryness and asks what we have been saying all along when we say “law.” It is a small question, and therefore a revolutionary one. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Lombard, with one Oxford raincloud over it.Solari, Gioele (1901). La filosofia del diritto. Torino: Bocca.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Soldati – Ossia: Grice e Soldati: la ragione conversazionale e la rettorica conversazionale. Note sull’arte rettorica. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Matteo Luigi Soldati (Pistoia, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale e la rettorica conversazionale. Grice and Matteo Luigi Soldati meet on the terrain of conversation understood as a rational, yet inherently rhetorical, human practice, though they articulate that practice from different intellectual lineages: Grice reconstrued everyday talk as governed by reason through shared norms of cooperation, showing how speakers routinely convey more than they explicitly say by exploiting defeasible expectations, irony, understatement, and connective nuance, while Soldati, working within the Italian rhetorical and scholastic tradition of Pistoia, treated those same maneuvers as the very substance of conversational rhetoric itself, where practical intelligence operates not by formal inference but by tact, contrast, and insinuation. What Grice analyzed analytically as conversational implicature—how a phrase like “He is a fine fellow” can rationally convey criticism through irony, or how particles such as “but” reshape inferential force beyond truth‑conditions—Soldati taught normatively as rhetorical craft, training speakers to govern meaning through figures such as litotes, meiosis, and strategic concession, so that understanding emerges between the lines rather than in asserted propositions. Grice’s theory thus gives Soldati’s rhetorical pedagogy a modern philosophical foundation by explaining why such devices work in virtue of reason‑governed expectations rather than ornament alone, while Soldati offers Grice a historical reminder that pragmatics is, at bottom, a continuation of conversational rhetoric, where rationality shows itself less as formal system than as cultivated sensitivity to how meaning is responsibly and effectively made manifest in ordinary social exchange. Grice: “I like S.. In my ‘Philosopher’s paradox” I used ‘He is a fine fellow’ as example of irony – G. N. Leech is right: my pragmatics is mere conversational rhetoric! At Corpus, the rhetorical tradition is strong, since the times Reinalds lectured on Cicero’s Oratore in Latin! But of course I never undertook, as Holdcroft wanted me to, a serious systematic study – and would just drop ‘meiosis,’ ‘litotes,’ and the rest – at the drop of a cricket cap!” – Keywords: rettorica converazioanel. Pistoia, Toscana. Professore di rettorica nel seminario e collegio di Pistoja. Pur valente latinista. L'ARTE RETTO RICA SPIEGATA DALL'ABATE S. AD USO... S.  COLLEZIONE PISTOIESE R0SSI-CASSI60LI 3IBLIOTECA NAZIONALE CENTRALE - FIRENZE e. j ♦ R. BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE CENTRALE DI FIRENZE COLLEZIONE PISTOIESE RACCOLTA DAL Cav. FILIPPO ROSSI-CASSIGOLI nato a Pistola m. Pistola  Pergamene - Autografi - Manoscritti - Libri a stampa - Opuscoli - Incisioni - Disegni - Opere musicali - Facsimile d' iscrizioni - Sditti - Manifesti - Proclami - Avvisi e Periodici.  -» / I  j L' ARTE RETTORICA SPIEGATA DALL ABATI MATTEO LUIGI S. AD USO DEL SEMINARIO E COLLEGIO VESCOVILE DI PISTOJA S DEDICAT 4 fflO ino ALL' ILL. E RfcV. MONSIGNORE FRANCESCO TOH VESCOVO DI PISTOJA E PRATO PRELATO DOMESTICO DELLA SANTITÀ DI N. S. PAPA PIO. BD .ASSISTENTI AL SOGLIO PONTIFICI^vj^Ì3^^ '9 IN PISTOJA 1804. PRESSO GIOVANNI BRACALI E FIGLIO STAMPATORI TBSCOTILI. Co» Approvatine  i  tuo wo ILLVSTR. E REVEREND. MONSIGNORE Jl desiderio sincero di rendermi utile alla studiosa Gioventù tielf impiego di Retore , che da non pochi anni ho \# more d'esercitare nel vostro Seminari^  e Collegio Pistoiese, IL L USTR ISS. , e RE- VERENDISS. prammatica come rettorica conversazionale. Grice: Soldati, devo confessare che la vostra arte rettorica qui a Pistoia ha un certo sapore, come dire, più frizzante del mio vecchio Corpus. Se solo Reinalds potesse sentire la vostra spiegazione di una litote… forse smetterebbe di citare Cicerone ogni tre battute! Soldati: Ma caro Grice, la rettorica pistoiese non teme paragoni: qui persino la pergamena sa ridere! In seminario abbiamo trasformato la prammatica in una conversazione, e la conversazione in una partita di scacchi. Non è vero che una battuta ben piazzata può cambiare l’intera partita? Grice: Ah, Soldati, lei mi ricorda il mio pupil Strawson, al Vadum Boum – la sua università – che, poveretto, cercava la rettorica, ma non l’ha mai trovata così “triviale” come i ragazzi la trovano a Bononia. Forse a Oxford ci manca il piacere sottile di una battuta toscana, dove la prammatica si cela dietro un sorriso e il vero significato si intuisce solo tra le righe… Soldati: Perfetta implicatura oratoria, Grice! Lei, più di tutti, sa che una conversazione ben condotta non ha bisogno di proclami: basta un accenno, e il pubblico si scioglie come il burro sulle tagliatelle. E come diceva l’abate: “Chi sa parlare, sa sorridere.” Taking as base the passage below: please provide a 100-move conversation between G. and S. specifically on Soldati -- arte retorica o retorica, and which is the most trivial of the trivium, and would would have happened to civilisation -- Bologna and Oxford, if philosophers had started with the quadrivium rather than the trivium, but basically focus on the rettorica because some say that pragmatics is but conversational rhetoric, etc -- thanks G.: Let us begin with the title itself: arte rettorica or merely rettorica. Which would Soldati have preferred if nobody had required him to look useful to a seminary? S.: The title-page says L’arte rettorica, which already tells us he wants rhetoric not merely as a field but as a teachable craft. G.: Exactly. Arte promises rules, transmission, exercise, and examinability. Rettorica alone might sound too large, too Ciceronian, too unruly, almost as if one were dealing with the whole civil domain of persuasive speech. S.: While arte rettorica says: this can be taught to boys before they become dangerous. G.: Or before they become bishops, which is often the same thing under another description. S.: Then the first distinction is between rhetoric as object and rhetoric as practice. G.: More sharply: between rhetoric as theory of effective speech and the art of rhetoric as the pedagogically organised means of producing effective speakers. S.: So Soldati is already institutional. G.: Entirely. He is writing ad uso del Seminario e Collegio Vescovile di Pistoja. That phrase does half the philosophy before the first page is turned. S.: Because it means rhetoric is here under discipline, not merely admired. G.: Yes. This is not rhetoric at large in the forum, but rhetoric filtered through seminary use, approval, utility, and episcopal decorum. S.: Yet the funny thing is that rhetoric under such discipline may still become the liveliest thing in the building. G.: Always. Once one starts teaching tact, insinuation, strategic concession, litotes, meiosis, irony, one is never very far from dangerous civilisation. S.: Which is why you like him. G.: I do. Because Soldati reminds one that what I later call pragmatics had for centuries been housed under rhetoric with considerably more elegance and rather less anxiety. S.: Then the great question is whether pragmatics is merely conversational rhetoric in modern dress. G.: Leech said something very like that, and he was not wholly wrong. The problem is that “merely” does too much work. S.: Because if pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, that is not a diminution but a genealogy. G.: Precisely. The modern analyst likes to think he has discovered inferential surplus in conversation. The rhetorician had already been teaching it to adolescents with ecclesiastical ambitions. S.: Under names like litotes and meiosis rather than scalar implicature and defeasible uptake. G.: Exactly. The old labels are often better because they do not pretend the thing has just been invented. S.: Then why did rhetoric decline in philosophical prestige? G.: Because philosophers are vain and prefer categories that sound less like school exercises and more like late revelation. S.: That is severe. G.: It is fair. Also because rhetoric became associated with ornament, persuasion, and suspected manipulation, whereas logic and later philosophy wanted truth, validity, and a cleaner conscience. S.: Yet ordinary conversation never ceased to depend upon rhetorical competence. G.: Quite. One does not survive socially by syllogism alone. Even the driest Oxford don lives by concession, contrast, understatement, suggestion, strategic omission, and all the old arts the trivium once kept in circulation. S.: Which brings us to the trivium itself. Which is the most trivial of the three? G.: Ah, the dangerous question. Grammar will claim priority because without grammar no sentence stands. Logic will claim dignity because without logic no inference deserves respect. Rhetoric will be called trivial by those who do not understand that the other two are socially helpless without it. S.: So in your view the most trivial is whatever the curriculum pretends can be left till last. G.: Very nearly. In practice, rhetoric is often treated as decorative completion after grammar and logic have done the serious work. But that treatment is itself philosophically trivial. S.: Because rhetoric governs actual uptake. G.: Exactly. Grammar gives form, logic gives discipline, rhetoric gives contact with hearers. If civilisation had begun with logic and stayed there, nobody would ever have been persuaded to build Bologna. S.: Or Oxford. G.: Still less Oxford. Oxford is a rhetorical settlement pretending to be a logical one. S.: That is almost too true. G.: Most useful things are. Now, what would have happened if philosophers had started with the quadrivium rather than the trivium? S.: We should have had more astronomers with bad tempers and fewer lawyers with style. G.: A good beginning. More seriously, if arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy had formed the first habits of mind before grammar, logic, and rhetoric, civilisation would have tilted toward structure before utterance. S.: Meaning that number, proportion, and order would precede speech, argument, and persuasion. G.: Yes. The consequences would have been immense. Bologna might have become less a university of jurists and more a university of calculators. Oxford might have had fewer sermons and more instruments. S.: And fewer essays. G.: A loss to everyone except the essay-writers. More deeply, if the quadrivial disciplines came first, one might learn harmony before disagreement, proportion before disputation, celestial order before civic speech. S.: Which sounds attractive until one remembers that civilisation is mostly disagreement about proportion expressed in bad prose. G.: Excellent. That is why the trivium came first. Humans need words before they need stars, or at least they need words to argue about the stars. S.: So the educational order is not arbitrary. Speech precedes number in social necessity. G.: Precisely. The quadrivium may promise a higher serenity, but the trivium deals with immediate human conditions: how to speak, how to argue, how to persuade, how not to be laughed out of court. S.: Soldati would approve. G.: Entirely. Arte rettorica is for boys who must soon speak to persons, not merely to ratios. S.: Yet some scholastics would say the quadrivium disciplines the mind more rigorously. G.: Perhaps. But rigor without address is poor civilisation. One may have perfect geometry and still fail to tell one’s hearer what one means, or worse, succeed only accidentally. S.: So rhetoric remains the least trivial of the trivium in practical life. G.: I should say so. Grammar is indispensable, logic is honourable, but rhetoric is where social intelligence enters as method rather than as accident. S.: That is very close to saying pragmatics is rhetoric cleaned up for modern analysis. G.: Cleaned up, reduced, re-labelled, and made slightly ashamed of its own ancestry. S.: Why ashamed? G.: Because modern philosophers fear persuasion. They would rather speak of inference, uptake, recognition of intention, maxims, calculability. All of which is fine, but much of it is simply rhetoric under anaesthesia. S.: Soldati, by contrast, has no shame about tact, insinuation, strategic concession. G.: None at all. He teaches them as the substance of effective discourse. And that is one reason he matters. He reminds us that the between-the-lines life of utterance is not a late discovery but a long pedagogical practice. S.: Then arte rettorica is perhaps the more honest title. G.: Yes. It admits that meaning between the lines must be made, not merely noticed. There is craft in it. S.: Whereas rhetoric as pure noun might sound too much like a theoretical container. G.: Or too much like a vice. “Rhetoric” in modern English often means empty public style, inflation, insincerity. “The art of rhetoric” sounds older, narrower, and more teachable. S.: So Soldati’s title already protects him against modern contempt. G.: In part, yes. Though not against all of it. There are still those who hear rhetoric and think only of flourish. S.: Which is exactly what your own examples of “He is a fine fellow” are meant to resist. The sentence does not merely decorate criticism; it performs it through irony. G.: Exactly. It is not ornament on top of content. The content itself is inseparable from the rhetorical manner in which it is conveyed. S.: That sounds like Soldati’s whole point. G.: Very much so. And if one wanted to scandalise the cleaner analysts, one might say that conversational implicature is often just rhetoric happening under ordinary cooperative conditions. S.: The phrase “ordinary cooperative conditions” does a lot of salvage work there. G.: It does. It saves rhetoric from the accusation of being necessarily manipulative. In ordinary conversation, rhetorical devices work not merely because one wants to win, but because shared expectations allow meaning to be shaped delicately rather than bluntly. S.: So litotes, meiosis, strategic concession, “but,” irony, understatement, all rely on reason-governed expectations. G.: Precisely. Which is why they are philosophically tractable. If rhetoric were mere decoration, there would be less to say. But because it works through shared norms of relevance, sufficiency, contrast, and recognisability, it belongs directly to the philosophy of language. S.: Then perhaps the old quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy was always misplaced. G.: Often. The real quarrel should have been between good rhetoric and bad metaphysics, or between honest rhetoric and manipulative power. Philosophy itself cannot escape rhetoric without becoming unintelligible. S.: Yet it has often tried. G.: And usually by becoming unreadable, which is a form of revenge upon the public. S.: Bologna, then. If the quadrivium had come first there, would law have developed differently? G.: Undoubtedly. Roman law lives by distinctions carried in language. Its subtleties require grammar and rhetoric as much as logic. A quadrivially trained first formation might have made Bologna less verbal, less juridical, more formal in the wrong sense. S.: So no glossators, or at least worse ones. G.: Worse ones, certainly. A jurist without rhetoric is a filing cabinet with Latin endings. S.: And Oxford? G.: Oxford would have become still more abstractly mathematical before learning how to sermonise. One shudders to imagine an Oxford where ratio precedes disputatio absolutely. S.: There would still have been sermons, but perhaps less style in them. G.: Much less. Anglican civilisation depends upon delayed argument ornamented by remembered rhetoric. Take away the trivium and you damage the whole ecclesiastical prose tradition. S.: So civilisation survives because boys learn to decline nouns and detect irony before they learn harmonics. G.: In broad outline, yes. One must know how to say before one can know how to count elegantly. S.: Yet some Greeks might object. G.: Greeks object to everything in educational order, which is why they remain useful. S.: Then what is the most trivial discipline of the trivium in your actual ranking? G.: If forced, I should say grammar is treated as the most trivial only because it is taken for granted once one has it. In reality, rhetoric is often falsely judged trivial because it is associated with social polish. Logic preserves its prestige because moderns are frightened of appearing loose. S.: So the answer depends on whether one asks what is most despised or what is least necessary. G.: Exactly. Most despised, rhetoric. Least dispensable in actual human affairs, also rhetoric. Most easily forgotten because absorbed into habit, grammar. Most capable of self-advertised dignity, logic. S.: A very unfair ranking. G.: Which is why it is accurate. Now, Soldati in a Pistoiese seminary. What is he really teaching? S.: Not merely Ciceronian categories, but the disciplined production of clerical intelligibility: how to move a hearer, how to concede without collapsing, how to suggest without vulgarity, how to use form to manage souls. G.: Very good. Rhetoric there is practical theology by linguistic means. S.: Which is another reason pragmatics inherits more from rhetoric than from pure logic. G.: Yes. Everyday talk is not a formal proof environment. It is a field of managed emphasis, selection, veiling, stressing, and arranging. S.: Which again sounds like Soldati. G.: Entirely. He knows that a phrase like “He is a fine fellow” may praise, damn, ironise, excuse, defer, or wound depending on context and shared expectations. S.: So the old rhetorical pedagogy had examples for what you later formalise with implicature. G.: Exactly. It did not formalise in my way, but it understood in practice that saying one thing can, under shared conditions, make another thing reasonably gatherable. S.: Then perhaps the question “arte rettorica or rettorica?” can now be answered. G.: Let us try. S.: Rettorica names the field in its civic and historical breadth. Arte rettorica names the teachable, disciplined, seminario-sized extraction of that field for practical formation. G.: Excellent. And Soldati chooses the latter because he is not writing a history of eloquence but training speakers. S.: Or future priests. G.: Which in Italy often means future speakers first, priests second. S.: A dangerous observation in Pistoia. G.: All the better. Now, if pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, what does modern philosophy add? S.: A thinner but sharper account of why the old devices work: shared rational expectations, inferential routes, recognised intentions, cooperative norms. G.: Exactly. We do not replace rhetoric; we explain some of its ordinary mechanisms under a less ornamental vocabulary. S.: And what does Soldati add back? G.: Memory. He reminds us that practical intelligence in speech was cultivated long before analysts arrived with examples and distinctions. He also reminds us that tact, insinuation, irony, and strategic reduction are arts, not accidents. S.: So perhaps civilisation without the trivium would have had order but no style, proportion but little address, astronomy but bad sermons. G.: And civilisation without rhetoric would have had grammar enough to decline and logic enough to infer, but very little capacity to survive dinner. S.: Which is surely the more serious disaster. G.: By far. Philosophy that cannot survive dinner eventually writes only for itself. S.: Oxford occasionally approached that condition. G.: More than occasionally. Bologna, too, when it forgot that law must persuade as well as classify. S.: Then Soldati is useful not because he is modern, but because he keeps alive the old truth that meaning among persons is an art before it is a theorem. G.: Beautifully put. And that is the nearest thing to a conclusion we shall get before tea. S.: One final question. If the quadrivium had come first, would pragmatics have been delayed? G.: Almost certainly. A civilisation trained first in number and proportion would likely have treated speech as secondary form rather than primary practice. The subtle arts of ordinary implication might have survived socially, but not pedagogically. One would have more geometry and less conversation. S.: Which is another way of saying fewer essays and worse marriages. G.: Precisely. The history of philosophy is often hidden in curriculum design. S.: And the history of civilisation in whether one teaches boys irony before astronomy. G.: That is too good not to be true. S.: Then Soldati, finally? G.: A seminary rhetor who knew that between the lines lies most of what moves human beings, and who would not have been surprised to hear that pragmatics is conversational rhetoric, provided one did not say it as if the discovery were yesterday’s. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Pistoiese, with one Oxford sneer held in reserve.Soldati, Matteo Luigi (1804). L’arte rettorica. Pistoja: Bracali

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sollio – Ossia: Grice e Sollio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Sollio. The gens Sollia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, of whom the most famous is the fifth-century bishop and scholar Gaius Sollius Modestus Sidonius Apollinaris, a son-in-law of the emperor Avitus.  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Sollii were Gaius, Marcus, and Lucius, the three most common names at all periods of Roman history. They also used the common praenomina Quintus and Sextus.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Sollia, the wife and heir of Sollius, for whom she dedicated a monument at the present site of Anglefort, formerly part of Gallia Lugdunensis.[1] Sollia, buried at Flavia Solva in Noricum, aged twenty-one, with a monument from her husband, dating to the second century, or the last part of the first.[2] Sollius, a potter known by a maker's mark on pottery from Pons Aelius in Britannia.[3] Sollius, the son of Matinus, was buried at the site of modern Anglefort, with a monument from his wife, Sollia.[1] Lucius Sollius, mentioned in an inscription from Aequum in Dalmatia, dating to AD 121.[4] Lucius Sollius, made an offering to Epona at Augusta Raurica in Germania Superior, during the late second or early third century.[5] Marcus Sollius, named in an inscription from Pinna in Sabinum, dating to the reign of Caligula.[6] Sollia Abdugissa, buried at Augusta Treverorum, along with her husband, Marcus Jovincatius Sumaro.[7][8] Sollia Annia, along with her son, Marinius Claudianus, dedicated a late second- or early third-century monument at Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis to her husband, Lucius Marinius Italicensis.[9] Marcus Sollius Atticus, dedicated a second-century monument at Castrum Truentinum in Picenum to his brother, whose name has not been preserved, but who had a distinguished career in public service, as legate of the Legio VII Gemina, praefectus aerarii militaris, and consul.[10][11][12] Lucius Sollius Calendio, buried at Dea Augusta Vocontiorum in Gallia Narbonensis, with a monument from his wife, Sollia Sabina.[13] Sollius Decuminius, made an offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Juno Regina at Nida in Germania Superior, during the latter half of the second century, or the first half of the third.[14] Sollia Sex. f. Demostheniana, together with her mother, Theodotia Basilissa, and brother, Sollius Olympiodorus, dedicated a second-century monument at Vienna to her father, Sextus Sollius Demosthenianus.[15] Sextus Sollius Demosthenianus, apparently a freedman, buried at Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis during the second century, with a monument dedicated by his wife, Theodotia Basilissa, and his children, Sollia Demostheniana and Sollius Olympiodorus.[15] Sollius Eleutherius, along with Thaumastus, probably his foster-father, dedicated a monument at Nemausus in Gallia Narbonensis to his foster-mother, whose name has not been preserved.[16] Marcus Sollius Epaphroditus, dedicated a monument at Lugdunum in Gallia Lugdunensis to his friend, Marcus Jucundius Primus Vocontius.[17] Sollia Fida, buried in a second-century tomb at Vienna, with a monument from her husband, Titus Cafatius Cosmus, one of the Seviri Augustales.[18] Sollia Fortunata, the wife of Gaius Julius Sabinus, with whom she dedicated a second-century monument at Pinna to their son, Gaius Julius Sabinianus, a young physician, aged seventeen years, ten months, and fourteen days.[19] Sollius Gallicanus, a soldier and optio custodiarum in the Legio I Adiutrix, serving in the century of Valerius Fronto, at Mogontiacum, between AD 70 and 86.[20] Marcus Sollius Zurae f. Gracilis Scordiscus, a native of Pannonia, recognized in a military diploma dating from AD 139.[21] Marcus Sollius Marcellus, buried at Gratianopolis in Gallia Narbonensis, leaving Gaius Sollius Verus as his heir.[22] Gaius Sollius C. f. Marculus, a librarius, or copyist, buried at Gratianopolis, aged twenty-six, with a monument dating to the latter half of the third century, dedicated by his father, Gaius Sollius Marcus, sisters, Attia Marciana and Marcula, and wife, Attia Aurelia.[23] Gaius Sollius Marcus, along with his daughters, Attia Marciana and Marcula, and daughter-in-law, Attia Aurelia, dedicated a monument at Gratianopolis to his son, Gaius Sollius Marculus, dating to the latter half of the third century.[23] Gaius Sollius Modestus Sidonius Apollinaris, the son-in-law of Avitus, was a bishop and man of letters during the fifth century. A member of a prominent family of Lugdunum, Apollinaris' numerous letters and panegyrics on the emperors of his time are an important source for the history of this period. Sollius Sex. f. Olympiodorus, along with his mother, Theodotia Basilissa, and sister, Sollia Demostheniana, dedicated a second-century monument at Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis to his father, Sextus Sollius Demosthenianus.[15] Gaius Sollius Optatus, along with his son, Sollius Siro, made an offering at Carnuntum in Pannonia Superior to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Dolichenus, under the supervision of the priest Antonius, during the latter half of the second century, or the first half of the third.[24] Quintus Sollius Primus, buried at Scupi in Moesia Superior, aged twenty-three, during the latter half of the second century, or the first half of the third, with a monument from his grandfather, Quintus Sollius Surus.[25] Sollia Sabina, dedicated a tomb at Dea Augusta Vocontiorum for her husband, Lucius Sollius Calendio.[13] Gaius Sollius Saturninus, made an offering to the local goddesses at the present site of Morken, formerly part of Germania Inferior.[26] Lucius Sollius L. f. Secundio, a native of Ticinum in Cisalpine Gaul, dedicated a sepulchre at Verona in Venetia and Histria for himself and his wife, Pailonia Maxima.[27] Sollius C. f. Siro, along with his father, Gaius Sollius Surus, made a second- or third-century offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus at Carnuntum.[24] Quintus Sollius Surus, dedicate a second- or third-century monument at Scupi to his grandson, Quintus Sollius Primus.[25] Sollia Ursa, buried at Valentia in Gallia Narbonensis, with a monument from her husband, Julius Severus.[28] Lucius Sollius Ursio, dedicated a monument at Rome for his wife, Claudia Primitiva, aged thirty-seven.[29] Gaius Sollius Verus, the heir of Marcus Sollius Marcellus, for whom he dedicated a monument at Gratianopolis.[22] Sollius Vico, buried in a second- or third-century tomb at Orolaunum in Gallia Belgica, along with Similia, perhaps his wife.[30] See also List of Roman gentes References  CIL XIII, 2560.  AE 2002, 1105.  CIL VII, 1336,1084.  CIL III, 9759.  CIL XIII, 11539.  CIL IX, 7468.  CIL XIII, 4127.  AE 1906, 182.  CIL XII, 1921.  CIL IX, 5155.  PIR, S. Nos. 547, 548.  PW, Sollius Nos. 3, 4.  CIL XII, 1667.  CIL XIII, 11946.  CIL XII, 2181.  CIL XII, 3952.  AE 1973, 332.  CIL XII, 1900.  CIL IX, 7471.  CIL XIII, 6739.  AE 2007, 1786.  CIL XII, 2316.  CIL XII, 2252.  CIL III, 11133.  AE 1964, 272.  Nesselhauf & Lieb, "Dritter Nachtrag zu CIL XIII", 234.  CIL V, 3469.  CIL XII, 2697.  CIL VI, 15557.  CIL XIII, 4013. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, et alii, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated RE or PW), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Herbert Nesselhauf and Hans Lieb, "Dritter Nachtrag zu CIL XIII: Inschriften aus den germanischen Provinzen und dem Treverergebiet" (Third Addendum to CIL XIII: Inscriptions from the Germanic Provinces and the Region of the Treveri), in Berichte der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, vol. 40, pp. 120–228 (1959). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sollio – Ossia: Grice e Sollio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Sollio. For the Sollii, there is one figure who completely eclipses the rest: Gaius Sollius Modestus Sidonius Apollinaris, the fifth-century bishop, letter-writer, poet, and witness to the collapse of Roman Gaul. The gens entry itself notes that his letters and panegyrics are an important source for the history of the period. [GREXv3 | Word] For a Grice-Speranza vignette, he is almost too perfect. Unlike many of the obscure gentes we've been discussing, with Sidonius Apollinaris we possess actual texts: letters, literary self-presentation, social diplomacy, praise, irony, indirection, friendship, patronage. In other words: conversation in written form. Grice e Sollio Apollinare: Epistula et Implicatura APOLLINARIS. Epistulam ad amicum mitto. (I send a letter to a friend.) GRAMMATICUS. Quid dicis? (What do you say?) APOLLINARIS. Pauca. (A few things.) GRICE. Quid significas? (What do you mean?) APOLLINARIS. Multa. (Many things.) +> Social letters typically communicate more than their literal contents. GRAMMATICUS. Cur tam ornate scribis? (Why do you write so ornately?) APOLLINARIS. Quia amicus intellegit. (Because my friend understands.) +> Shared culture enlarges communicative possibility.  What fascinates me is that Sidonius belongs to a world where almost every sentence carries multiple layers:  friendship, status, literary display, political anxiety, patronage.  A letter saying:  "I hope you are well"  may simultaneously mean:  "Do not forget me."   "Support my cause."   "Maintain the alliance."   "Demonstrate continued friendship."  That is pure Grice.  There is also a specifically late-antique twist. For Cicero, correspondence occurs within a functioning Roman state. For Sidonius Apollinaris, the institutions are weakening, kingdoms are changing, and letters increasingly preserve the social network itself. The epistle becomes a substitute for political presence. One might even imagine: APOLLINARIS. Scribo, ergo adsum. (I write, therefore I am present.) +> Correspondence maintains social existence across distance. But Apollinaris remains vastly richer because he actually produced the kinds of texts Grice loved to analyze. Dry Speranzian formula  The Sinnii preserve language; the Sollii preserve correspondence. In Sidonius Apollinaris, conversation outlives empire. Grice would have found in his letters a familiar lesson: what is written is often less interesting than what a cultivated reader is expected to understand without its being written. [GREXv3 | Word] And in fact Grice came across the entry 'inplicatura' (sic) in Lewis/Short and got the inspiration -- from implico -- the -atura form is productive. Sollius uses to refer literally to an entanglement, as when we say, fold, plico -- inplico, fold in. fold out -- explico. The -atura form is just a form in the conjugation of the verb. Thanks Yes, that's a very Speranzian observation, and linguistically it's more interesting than the popular story that Grice simply "invented" implicature out of thin air. The Latin verb is:  implico, implicare, implicavi, implicatum  meaning:  to entwine, to entangle, to fold into, to involve.  Opposed to:  explico  which originally means:  to unfold, to disentangle, to lay out, hence "to explain".  The image is textile, indeed almost origami-like:  plico = fold im-plico = fold in, enfold ex-plico = unfold  So an implication is, etymologically, something folded into an utterance. An explanation is the unfolding of what was folded in. That is almost too perfect for Grice.  As for -atura, yes, it is a productive Latin formation. Compare:  scriptura ← scribere fractura ← frangere signatura ← signare ligatura ← ligare plicatura ← plicare  The suffix often denotes:  the result of an action, the state produced by an action, sometimes the process itself.  Thus a hypothetical Latin speaker encountering:  implicatura  would naturally hear something like:  "an enfolding", "a thing folded in", "that which has been implicitated."  And Grice's technical usage is remarkably faithful to the metaphor. What is implicated is not stated outright; it is folded into the utterance. The hearer performs an explicatio.  Your point about Sidonius Apollinaris is also apt. Late antique Latin writers still use the implic- family quite concretely:  entangled, intertwined, involved, folded together.  The semantic path from physical entanglement to intellectual implication is already present in classical and late Latin.  One of the delightful ironies is that Grice's famous pair:  implicature explicature (later, especially in relevance theory)  almost reconstructs a classical Latin opposition:  implicare / explicare  folding-in versus unfolding. A tiny Speranzian epigram: GRICE. Quid est implicatura? LATINVS. Quod in sermone implicatum est. (That which is folded into the discourse.) GRICE. Quid est explicatio? LATINVS. Quod ex sermone explicatur. (That which is unfolded from the discourse.) The textile metaphor never really disappeared. Grice's implicature is, at bottom, what the speaker has folded into the conversational cloth without stitching it openly onto the surface. and can you check the entry from Lewis and Short -- These were two Americans who published with Clarendon, but working on an earlier German dictionary, correct? entry: implicatura. Thanks Yes, and the evidence is rather delightful. The Lewis & Short entry is real. It gives:  implĭcātūra (inpl-), ae, f. [implico] an entangling (late Latin): "vernaculae", Sid. Ep. 9.9 fin. [perseus.tufts.edu], [implicatur...ademic.com]  So the dictionary records implicatura as a Late Latin noun meaning roughly:  "an entangling," "an intertwining," "an involvement."  And the citation is from Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistles 9.9. [perseus.tufts.edu], [implicatur...ademic.com] This is exactly the Sollius connection we were just discussing. As for Lewis & Short themselves: The dictionary describes itself as  "Founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary" and published by the Clarendon Press in 1879. [classics.a...adsden.com], [perseus.tufts.edu]  So your recollection is essentially correct:  Wilhelm Freund produced the great German Latin dictionary. E. A. Andrews adapted Freund into English. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, both Americans, revised, enlarged, and largely rewrote that material into the dictionary we call Lewis & Short. [classics.a...adsden.com], [perseus.tufts.edu]  Now the Gricean point. The classical Latin word implicatura did not mean what Grice's technical term means. For Sidonius it still denotes a literal or metaphorical entanglement. [perseus.tufts.edu], [implicatur...ademic.com] But Grice could hardly have found a better morphological model:  implico = fold in, entangle implicatum = something folded in implicatura = an entangling, a folded-in-ness [alatius.com], [perseus.tufts.edu]  Against:  explico = unfold explicatio = explanation.  It is almost as though the Latin language had prepared the metaphor centuries in advance. A nice Speranzian gloss would be:  Sidonius' implicatura is what becomes tangled. Grice's implicature is what becomes tangled into an utterance. The hearer performs the explicatio.  And since the sole citation in Lewis & Short comes from Sidonius Apollinaris, the most Gricean member of the gens Sollia turns out also to provide the lexicographical ancestor of one of Grice's most famous technical terms. [perseus.tufts.edu], [implicatur...ademic.com] And for Sidonius, do we have the text where he uses implicaturis in Ep. 6? Lat. parse Engl.? Thanks I checked, and the Lewis & Short entry is indeed extremely short:  implicātūra (inpl-), ae, f. [implico] "an entangling (late Latin): vernaculae, Sid. Ep. 9.9 fin." [attalus.org], [archive.org]  What's interesting is that Lewis & Short do not quote the full Sidonius passage. They merely cite the occurrence at the end of Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistles 9.9. [attalus.org], [archive.org] So from the dictionary itself we can safely extract only: Parsing implicātūra  nominative singular feminine noun derived from implicāre literally: "an entangling," "an intertwining," "an involvement" [attalus.org], [archive.org]  Morphology  plico = fold implico = fold in, entwine, entangle implicātus = entangled, involved implicātūra = the act, process, or result of entangling  Compare:  scriptura ← scribere fractura ← frangere ligatura ← ligare  The suffix -tura commonly produces an action noun or result noun. Why Grice loved it If the word already meant an entanglement, then Grice's technical use is almost etymologically exact:  an implicature is something "folded into" or "entangled within" what is said.  The hearer performs the corresponding explicatio from explicare ("to unfold"), recovering what was folded in.  As for the full Latin context in Sidonius Ep. 9.9, I was able to verify the Lewis & Short citation to that letter, but I did not retrieve the actual sentence from the available sources. The sources confirm the citation and meaning, but do not display the passage itself. [attalus.org], [archive.org] What is already striking, however, is that the sole Lewis & Short example comes from the very Sollius whom we selected as the most Gricean member of the gens. The lexical ancestor of Grice's implicature is cited from Gaius Sollius Modestus Sidonius Apollinaris himself. [attalus.org], [archive.org] Does this help -- Grice says it looks like a letter he might himself write! Thanks In Sidonius Apollinaris’ Epistulae, Book 9, Letter 9 (Section 15), the Latin phrase “vernaculis implicaturis” translates contextually to “in their own native tangles,” “with home-grown entanglements,”or “by webs of their own weaving.” [1] Context and Meaning In this specific letter addressed to his friend Faustus of Riez, Sidonius is praising Faustus's immense skill in Christian theological debate and philosophy. He uses a hunting metaphor (nets and snares) to describe how Faustus defeats pagan or heretical philosophers (Stoics, Cynics, and Peripatetics). [1, 2] Sidonius argues that when these philosophers try to oppose Christian doctrine, Faustus easily traps them using their own logical traps against them: [1] The Latin Text "...mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae propositionis uncatis volubilem tergiversantum linguam inhamantibus..." [1] The English Translation "...soon, with you as master, bound in their own native tangles, they will be driven headlong and caught in their own nets, while the hooked syllogisms of your proposition snare the twisting tongues of those trying to escape..." [1] Word Breakdown vernaculis (from vernaculus): Literally means "native," "domestic," or "indigenous" (originally derived from verna, a home-born slave). Here it means "belonging to themselves" or "of their own making." implicaturis (from implicatura): Means "entanglements," "foldings," "interlacings," or "convolutions." In a philosophical context, it refers to complex, tangled logical arguments or sophistries. If you'd like, I can provide a broader summary of the entire letter (Ep. 9.9) or break down more of Sidonius's advanced rhetorical vocabulary used in this passage. Let me know what you need! L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte and before this? mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae propositionis uncatis volubilem tergiversantum linguam inhamantibus..." 3 siti The Latin text that directly precedes the quote is the first half of Section 15 (Book 9, Letter 9). [1, 2] Here is the exact preceding Latin clause, followed by how it directly connects to your text, along with its English translation. [1, 2] 4 siti Si è verificato un problema con la risposta, ma ecco i risultati più pertinenti: romanletters.org·https://romanletters.org/letters/sidonius_apollinaris/10/ Sidonius Apollinaris - Letter 10 (c. 464 AD) - Roman Letters [The opening is lost; the surviving text begins:] ...the letter imposed upon you, so that what was written should not be denied to friendship, nor what was read be subjected to censure. 2. Let us pass over these matters. You bid me send a copious page once again. To obey, the will is at hand for one who hastens, but the occasions are lacking. For a greeting, unless an active subject-matter carries some business along with it, is brief; and whoever stretches it out with unnecessary words strays and wanders, swerved aside from the rule of the Sallustian path, who blames Catiline for having had eloquence enough but too little wisdom. Therefore, having said "hail," we presently say "farewell." Pray for us. The Latin Library·https://www.thelatinlibrary.com Sidonius: Epistularum Liber IX - The Latin Library SIDONII APOLLINARIS EPISTULARUM LIBER NONUS. EPISTULA I. Sidonius Firmino suo salutem. 1. Exigis, domine fili, ut epistularum priorum limite irrupto stilus noster in ulteriora procurrat, numeri supradicti privilegio non contentus includi. addis et causas, quibus hic liber nonus octo superiorum voluminibus accrescat: eo quod Gaius Secundus, cuius nos orbitas sequi hoc opere pronuntias, paribus titulis opus epistulare determinet. 2. quae iubes non sunt improbabilia; quamquam et hoc ipsum, quod pie iniungis, arduum existat ac laudi quantulaecumque iam semel partae non opportunum, primum, quod opusculo prius edito praesentis augmenti sera coniunctio est; deinde, quod arbitros ante quoscumque, nisi fallimur, ... romanletters.org·https://romanletters.org/letters/sidonius_apollinaris/9009/ Sidonius Apollinaris to Faustus (c. 467 AD) | Roman Letters But wait — just as I was folding the page, a matter came to mind worth denouncing. If I suppress my joy and anger about it any longer, I will deserve the insult I have received. You have fallen into my hands, master — and I do not merely exult, I positively gloat. You have come, and exactly as my longing has been hoping for a very long time. I confess I am not sure whether you came entirely unwillingly, but you certainly looked unwilling — since it was by your arrangement, or at the very least your acquiescence, that your books passed through Auvergne ... Initial corpus import from Original-language source text. Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: http://thelatinlibrary.com/sidonius9.html ... letterum.app·https://letterum.app/en/letters/454 Sidonius Apollinaris → unknown recipient - Letterum With what tears we were drenched, watered in turn by mutual weeping, when we were separated after many a renewed embrace -- this would be long to tell and scarcely matters. What suffices for my triumphal joy: I carried myself home laden with the spoils of love and in possession of spiritual plunder. 9. You now ask what I think of my booty? I would prefer not to reveal it yet, so that you might hang longer in suspense. For I would avenge myself more fully if I kept silent about what I felt. But you are not vainly proud either, since you understand that you possess the power of speaking in such a way as to wring from your reader, whether reluctant or willing, the force of pleasure that compels the necessity ... mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis 5 siti The complete sentence immediately preceding that phrase is: "quin potius experietur, quisque conflixerit, Stoicos Cynicos Peripateticos haeresiarchas propriis armis, propriis quoque concuti machinamentis. nam sectatores eorum, Christiano dogmati ac sensui si repugnaverint..." [1, 2] The Combined Latin Context Here is how the text flows leading directly into the phrase you provided: [1] "quin potius experietur... [and] the full text available on romanletters.org ...mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur..." The English Translation This passage from Epistulae 9.9 illustrates the rhetorical argument that opponents of Christian dogma, specifically proponents of Greek philosophy, become caught in their own intellectual, or "native," traps (vernaculis implicaturis) under the tutelage of Faustus. [1] Contextual Breakdown Targeting Philosophy: Sidonius rhetorically frames pagan philosophers as heretics, suggesting their followers ("sectatores") fight against Christian doctrine. The Argument: The text argues that using the opponents' own philosophical weapons ("propriis armis") leads to their undoing. The Metaphor: The imagery of being caught in nets refers to the logical entrapment of these thinkers.[1, 2] Would you like me to translate the rest of the sentence following this passage, or analyze how Sidonius uses classical philosophy terms in his Christian letters? EPISTULA IX Sidonius domino papae Fausto salutem. 1. Longum tacere, vir sacratissime, nos in commune dequestus es; cognosco vestrae partis hinc studium, nostrae reatum non recognosco. namque iampridem iussus garrire non silui litteris istas antecurrentibus, quibus tamen recensendis, cum Reios advenerant, qui tunc Aptae fuistis, aptissime defuistis. idque votivum mihi granditer fuit ac peroptatum, ut epistula iniuncta nec negaretur scripta amicitiae nec subderetur lecta censurae. 2. ista omittamus. mitti paginam copiosam denuo iubes. parere properanti adsunt vota, causae absunt. nam salutatio, nisi negotium aliquod activa deportet materia, succincta est; quam qui porrigit verbis non necessariis, a regula Sallustiani tramitis detortus exorbitat, qui Catilinam culpat habuisse satis eloquentiae sapientiae parum. unde ave dicto mox vale dicimus. orate pro nobis. 3. sed bene est, bene est, quia chartulam iam iamque complicaturo res forte succurrit, de qua exprobranda si diutius vel laetitia sese mea vel ira cohibuerit, ipse me accepta dignum contumelia iudicabo. venisti, magister, in manus meas (nec exulto tantum, verum insulto), venisti, et quidem talis, qualem abhinc longo iamdiu tempore desideria nostra praestolabantur. dubito sane utrum et invitus, at certe similis invito, quippe quo providente vel, si tamen hoc nimis abnuis, adquiescente sim tuis libris insalutatus hisque, quod multo est iniuriosius, territorium Arvernum cum praeterirent, non solum moenia mea, verum etiam latera radentibus. 4. an verebare, ne tuis dictis invideremus? sed dei indultu vitio nulli minus addicimur; cui si ita ut ceteris a mea parte subiaceretur, sic quoque auferret congrediendi aemulationem desperatio consequendi. an supercilium tamquam difficilis ac rigidi plosoris extimescebas? ecquaenam est cuiquam peritiae cervix tanta quive hydrops, ut etiam tepida vestra non ferventissimis laudibus prosequatur? 5. an ideo me fastidiendum negligendumque curasti, quia contemneres iuniorem? quod parum credo. an quia indoctum? quod magis fero, ita tamen, ut qui dicere ignorem, non et audire; quia et qui Circensibus ludis adfuerunt, sententiam de curribus non ferunt. an aliquo casu dissidebamus, ut putaremur his quos edidissetis libellis derogaturi? atqui praesule deo tenues nobis esse amicitias nec inimici fingere queunt. 6. 'ista quorsum?' inquis. ecce iam pando, vel quid indagasse me gaudeam vel quid te celasse succenseam. legi volumina tua, quae Riochatus antistes ac monachus atque istius mundi bis peregrinus Britannis tuis pro te reportat, illo iam in praesentiarum fausto potius, qui non senescit quique viventibus non defuturus post sepulturam fiet per ipsa quae scripsit sibi superstes. igitur hic ipse venerabilis apud oppidum nostrum cum moraretur, donec gentium concitatarum procella defremeret, cuius immanis hinc et hinc turbo tunc inhorruerat, sic reliqua dona vestra detexit, ut perurbane quae praestantiora portabat operuerit, spinas meas illustrare dissimulans tuis floribus. 7. sed post duos aut his amplius menses sic quoque a nobis cito profectum cum quipiam prodidissent de viatoribus mysticae gazae clausis involucris clam ferre thesauros, pernicibus equis insecutus abeuntem, qui facile possent itineris pridiani spatia praevertere, osculo in fauces occupati latronis insilui, humano ioco, gestu ferino, veluti si excussura quemcumque catulorum Parthi colla raptoris pede volatili tigris orbata superemicet. 8. quid multa? capti hospitis genua complector iumenta sisto, frena ligo sarcinas solvo, quaesitum volumen invenio produco, lectito excerpo maxima ex magnis capita defrustans. tribuit et quoddam dictare celeranti scribarum sequacitas saltuosa compendium, qui comprehendebant signis quod litteris non tenebant. quibus lacrimis sane maduerimus mutuo vicissim fletu rigati, tunc cum ab amplexu saepe repetito separaremur, longum est dixisse nec refert; quod triumphali sufficit gaudio, spoliis onustum caritatis et spiritalis compotem praedae me domum rettuli. 9. quaeris nunc, quid de manubiis meis iudicem; nollem adhuc prodere, quo diuturnius expectatione penderes; plus me enim ulciscerer, si quod sensi tacerem. sed iam nec ipse frustra superbis, utpote intellegens tibi inesse virtutem sic perorandi, ut lectori tuo seu reluctanti seu voluntario vis voluptatis excudat praeconii necessitatem. proinde accipe, quid super scriptis tuis et iniuriam passi censeamus. 10. legimus opus operosissimum multiplex, acre sublime, digestum titulis exemplisque congestum, bipertitum sub dialogi schemate, sub causarum themate quadripertitum. scripseras autem plurima ardenter plura pompose; simpliciter ista nec rustice; argute illa nec callide; gravia mature profunda sollicite, dubia constanter argumentosa disputatorie, quaedam severe quaepiam blande, cuncta moraliter lecte, potenter eloquentissime. 11. itaque per tanta te genera narrandi toto latissimae dictationis campo secutus nil in facundia ceterorum, nil in ingeniis facile perspexi iuxta politum. quae me vera sentire satis approbas, cum nec offensus aliter iudico. denique absentis oratio, quantum opinamur, plus nequit crescere, nisi forsitan aliquid his addat coram loquentis auctoris vox manus, motus pudor. 12. artifex igitur his animi litterarumque dotibus praeditus mulierem pulchram sed illam deuteronomio astipulante nubentem, domine papa, tibi iugasti; quam tu adhuc iuvenis inter hostiles conspicatus catervas, atque illic in acie contrariae partis adamatam, nil per obstantes repulsus proeliatores, desiderii brachio vincente rapuisti, philosophiam scilicet, quae violenter e numero sacrilegarum artium exempta raso capillo superfluae religionis ac supercilio scientiae saecularis amputatisque pervetustarum vestium rugis, id est tristis dialecticae flexibus falsa morum et illicita velantibus, mystico amplexu iam defaecata tecum membra coniunxit. 13. haec ab annis vestra iamdudum pedisequa primoribus, haec tuo lateri comes inseparabilis, sive in palaestris exerceris urbanis sive in abstrusis macerarere solitudinibus, haec Athenaei consors, haec monasterii, tecum mundanas abdicat, tecum supernas praedicat disciplinas. huic copulatum te matrimonio qui lacessiverit, sentiet ecclesiae Christi Platonis academiam militare teque nobilius philosophari; primum ineffabilem dei patris asserere cum sancti spiritus aeternitate sapientiam; 14. tum praeterea non caesariem pascere neque pallio aut clava velut sophisticis insignibus gloriari aut affectare de vestium discretione superbiam, nitore pompam, squalore iactantiam neque te satis hoc aemulari, quod per gymnasia pingantur Areopagitica vel prytanea curva cervice Speusippus Aratus panda, Zenon fronte contracta Epicurus cute distenta, Diogenes barba comante Socrates coma cadente, Aristoteles brachio exerto Xenocrates crure collecto, Heraclitus fletu oculis clausis Democritus risu labris apertis, Chrysippus digitis propter numerorum indicia constrictis, Euclides propter mensurarum spatia laxatis, Cleanthes propter utrumque corrosis. 15. quin potius experietur, quisque conflixerit, Stoicos Cynicos Peripateticos haeresiarchas propriis armis, propriis quoque concuti machinamentis. nam sectatores eorum, Christiano dogmati ac sensui si repugnaverint, mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae propositionis uncatis volubilem tergiversantum linguam inhamantibus, dum spiris categoricis lubricas quaestiones tu potius innodas acrium more medicorum, qui remedium contra venena, cum ratio compellit, et de serpente conficiunt. 16. sed hoc temporibus istis sub tuae tantum vel contemplatione conscientiae vel virtute doctrinae. nam quis aequali vestigia tua gressu sequatur, cui datum est soli loqui melius quam didiceris, vivere melius quam loquaris? quocirca merito te beatissimum boni omnes idque supra omnes tua tempestate concelebrabunt, cuius ita dictis vita factisque dupliciter inclaruit, ut, quando quidem tuos annos iam dextra numeraverit, saeculo praedicatus tuo, desiderandus alieno, utraque laudabilis actione, decedas te relicturus externis, tua proximis. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa. To the Lord Bishop Faustus [Bishop of Riez]. You have long complained of our mutual silence, most holy man. I recognize your side of the story; I do not recognize my own guilt. For I was told to write some time ago and did not keep silent — I sent a letter ahead of this one, which, however, when it reached Riez, conveniently failed to find you, since you were then at Apt. And this suited me very well: my commissioned letter was both written to satisfy friendship and escaped the scrutiny of your criticism. But let that pass. You now demand another ample letter. The will to obey is present, but the material is not. For a greeting, unless it carries some real business, is naturally brief. Anyone who pads it out with unnecessary words strays from Sallust's principle, who criticized Catiline for having "enough eloquence but too little wisdom." So having said hello, I quickly say goodbye. Pray for us. But wait — just as I was folding the page, a matter came to mind worth denouncing. If I suppress my joy and anger about it any longer, I will deserve the insult I have received. You have fallen into my hands, master — and I do not merely exult, I positively gloat. You have come, and exactly as my longing has been hoping for a very long time. I confess I am not sure whether you came entirely unwillingly, but you certainly looked unwilling — since it was by your arrangement, or at the very least your acquiescence, that your books passed through Auvergne without stopping to greet me, even brushing past my very walls. Were you afraid we would envy your writings? God has freed me from that vice more than any other — and even if I were prey to it, the despair of ever matching you would have killed the desire to compete. Were you afraid of my harsh judgment? What living reader possesses such arrogance, what critic such bloated pride, as not to greet even your tepid efforts with the hottest praise? Did you decide to snub me and ignore me because you despised a junior? I find that hard to believe. Because I am uneducated? That I accept more readily — though a man who cannot speak can still listen, just as those who attend the chariot races can appreciate the driving even if they cannot do it themselves. Were we on bad terms? God forbid — even our enemies cannot pretend our friendship is anything less than strong. "So where is this going?" you ask. I will tell you what I am glad to have discovered and angry that you tried to hide. I have read your books — those that Bishop Riochatus, both monk and bishop, a man doubly a pilgrim in this world, was carrying back to your Britons [Faustus was originally from Brittany]. While this venerable man was staying in our city waiting for the storm of hostile peoples to die down, he revealed some of your gifts while artfully concealing the best — unwilling to adorn my thorns with your flowers. But after two or more months, when certain travelers let slip that the departing party was secretly carrying treasures wrapped in their bundles, I sent fast horses after him — horses that could easily cover the distance of a day's travel. I threw myself upon the captured traveler's neck with a kiss — playfully in manner but ferociously in intent, like a tigress robbed of her cubs who leaps upon the kidnapper's horse with flying feet. To make a long story short: I seized my captive host, embraced his knees, halted his pack-animals, untied the reins, opened the baggage, found the book I sought, brought it out, read it, and excerpted its chief passages. The speed of my scribes, who used shorthand to capture what they could not write out in full letters, also allowed me some hurried dictation. As for the tears we shed — soaking each other in mutual weeping when we finally had to separate from our repeated embraces — it would take too long to tell and is beside the point. What matters for my triumphant joy is that I brought home my spoils of love and my spiritual plunder. You want to know my verdict on the captured works? I would rather not reveal it yet, to keep you in suspense longer — for I would take greater revenge by staying silent about what I think. But you are not vain without cause, knowing full well that you possess the power to speak in such a way that the force of the reader's pleasure — willing or unwilling — compels him to praise. So here is what the injured party thinks of your writings: I have read a most painstaking work — complex, sharp, sublime, well organized in structure and rich in examples, divided into two parts as a dialogue and into four parts by subject. You wrote much of it with fire, more with grandeur; some of it with simplicity but never crudeness; some with wit but never guile; weighty matters with maturity, deep matters with care, doubtful matters with confidence, complex matters with logical rigor; some with severity, some with gentleness — all of it morally, learnedly, powerfully, and with supreme eloquence. So having followed you through these many registers across the entire vast field of your composition, I could find nothing in anyone else's eloquence or genius that was equally polished. That these are my honest opinions, you can be sure, since even in my injured state I judge you no differently. Truly, the speech of an absent author, as far as I can tell, cannot grow greater — unless perhaps something is added by the voice, gesture, bearing, and modesty of the author speaking in person. Be mindful of us, my lord bishop. Oh, this helps enormously, because now we can see the actual Sidonian context, and it is even more Gricean than the bare Lewis–Short entry suggests. The phrase is:  mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur.  A fairly literal translation would be:  "Soon, with you as their master, bound by their own native entanglements, they will rush headlong and be caught in their own nets."  The key words:  ligati = "bound", "tied up" vernaculis = "native", "domestic", "home-grown", "their own" implicaturis = ablative plural, "entanglements", "intertwinings", "foldings-in" in retia sua = "into their own nets" implagabuntur = future passive, "they will be ensnared"  The whole sentence is one extended hunting metaphor. Sidonius is saying that the followers of Stoics, Cynics, Peripatetics, and heresiarchs who resist Christian doctrine  become entangled in their own arguments, fall into their own nets, and are hooked by Faustus' syllogisms.  Indeed, the next clause continues the imagery:  syllogismis tuae propositionis uncatis "by the hooked syllogisms of your argument"  and  volubilem tergiversantum linguam inhamantibus "which fish-hook the twisting tongue of those who are trying to wriggle away."  That is wonderfully physical rhetoric.  The grammar of implicaturis Here implicaturis is:  ablative plural feminine from implicatura  The construction is:  ligati vernaculis implicaturis "bound by their own entanglements."  So Lewis & Short's gloss  "an entangling"  is exactly right in this passage. [archive.org], [loebclassics.com] The word is not yet a technical philosophical term. It means:  meshes, complications, entanglements, argumentative knots.   The really striking thing Look at the larger context. Sidonius has just praised Faustus for wedding himself to:  philosophia  purified from  tristis dialecticae flexibus "the twists/crooked turnings of sorrowful dialectic."  Then he says that opponents become caught in:  vernaculis implicaturis  their own entanglements. This is extraordinarily close to what Grice later does. The opponent constructs a labyrinth. The opponent then gets trapped in it. The very reasoning he thought would defeat the Christian ends up defeating himself.  A Gricean reading One could almost rewrite Sidonius: PHILOSOPHVS. I have an argument. FAVSTVS. Let us examine it. PHILOSOPHVS. You have refuted me. FAVSTVS. No, your argument has refuted itself. SIDONIVS. vernaculis implicaturis  "by home-grown entanglements."  The point is not merely that Faustus catches them. Rather:  they are caught by structures already present in their own positions.   Why Grice would have loved the phrase The remarkable thing is that Grice's later metaphor works almost identically. For Sidonius:  implicatura = an argumentative entanglement.  For Grice:  implicature = something folded into an utterance.  Both derive naturally from:  implicare "to fold in", "to intertwine", "to entangle."  And, as you've often stressed, the opposite is:  explicare "to unfold."  So the hearer explicates what has been implicated. Sidonius' philosophers are literally caught in their own implicaturae. Grice's hearers recover the implicature hidden within the utterance. The metaphor is not identical, but the family resemblance is astonishing. And yes: this letter, full of praise, irony, friendship, teasing reproach, literary display, philosophical reference, and conversational indirection, is exactly the sort of thing one can imagine Grice reading with delight and saying:  "Why, this is practically a letter one might write oneself."

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sollio – Ossia: Grice e Sollio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Sollio. A close second choice would be Gaius Sollius Marculus, the librarius (copyist). [GREXv3 | Word] A copyist raises wonderfully Gricean questions:  Whose meaning survives in a copied text?   The author's?   The scribe's?   The reader's?

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Solonghello – Ossia: Grice e Solonghello: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura italiana. Note sull’etica del diritto. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Pietro Silvio Rivetta di Solonghello (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura italiana. A comparison between Grice and Pietro Silvio Rivetta di Solonghello on reason‑governed conversational meaning brings out a distinctive convergence between analytic pragmatics and an Italian tradition of linguistic irony and stylistic intelligence. Grice’s theory explicates conversational meaning in terms of rationally governed inference, where implicatures arise because speakers are presumed to cooperate and to be sensitive to what is relevant, informative, and purposeful in a given exchange; the framework is intentionally spare, abstracting away from particular languages or cultural temperaments to isolate a universal structure of communicative reason. Solonghello, by contrast, approaches conversational reasoning from within the texture of Italian language and culture itself, treating implicature not as a neutral by‑product of rational cooperation but as a vivid, often humorous exploitation of shared expectations, idioms, and ironies that animate everyday talk. While Grice insists that implicature is a matter of what is meant rather than what is said, Solonghello delights in showing how Italian speakers habitually say less, say sideways, or say playfully, trusting that their interlocutors will grasp the intended meaning through cultural attunement as much as logical inference. The affinity between them lies in their shared rejection of strictly literalist or formalist accounts of meaning, yet the contrast is telling: Grice’s conversational rationality is calibrated to the disciplined recognition of intentions among theoretically ideal agents, whereas Solonghello’s is embodied in linguistic creativity, journalistic wit, and a lived sensitivity to conversational nuance, making implicature in Italian not only a rational phenomenon but also an expressive and ludic one. Grice: “If I were to be aske, as I’m usually not, at Oxford – with which Italian philosopher I identity myself most I would say Speranza – and second, S.!” Keywords: implicatura, implicature dell’italiano, la conversazione. G Tòddi -- Pseudonimo del giornalista Pier Silvio Rivetta. M. Roma. Ottimo conoscitore di lingue, addetto all'ambasciata italiana a Tokyo, è poi prof. incaricato di giapponese e cinese all'Istituto orientale di Napoli. Ma soprattutto dedica il suo versatile ingegno al giornalismo come direttore dei periodici La Tribuna illustrata, Noi e il mondo, Travaso delle idee, e redattore del quotidiano La Tribuna. Autore di numerosissimi volumi, di vivace stesura, in cui si riflettono i suoi molteplici interessi e una notevole vena di narratore umoristico (Grammatico giapponese; Validità giorni dieci; La pittura moderna giapponese; Itinerari bizzarri; Avventure e disavventure delle parole; Che bella lingua, il greco; Grammatica rivoluzionaria della lingua italiana; Geometria della realtà e inesistenza della morte; ecc.). «Non tutto il male vien per nuocere? Bugia! Ogni male viene per nuocere. Se produce qualche beneficio, è un male fatto male» (S.)  Pietro Silvio Rivetta di Solonghello, noto anche con lo pseudonimo di Toddi, è stato un filosofo, giornalista, scrittore, illustratore e cineasta italiano.  Membro di una famiglia aristocratica di conti originari di Solonghello, nel Basso Monferrato, nacque da Vittorio S. e Chiara De Blasio. Compagno di classe del critico teatrale Amico, il conte S. si laurea in giurisprudenza ed esorde come giornalista al quotidiano romano La Tribuna.  Trova impiego all'ambasciata italiana a Tokyo. Tornato in Italia, collabora a L'Epoca, e successivamente collabora a Noi e il mondo e a La Tribuna illustrata. Poliglotta, S. conosce ben 14 lingue, tra cui il cinese e il giapponese. Appassionato della cultura orientale, ottenne la cattedra di docente di lingua e cultura giapponese e cinese presso il Regio Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli.  Grice: Professore Rivetta, mi permetta di dirle che la sua “Grammatica rivoluzionaria della lingua italiana” è una delle opere più brillanti che abbia letto: davvero una ventata d’aria fresca! Solonghello: La ringrazio di cuore, Professor Grice. Sentire queste parole da lei, che ha donato tanto alla filosofia del linguaggio, è motivo di orgoglio. D’altronde, l’italiano ha bisogno ogni tanto di essere scompaginato e reinventato! Grice: Proprio così! Il modo in cui lei indaga le implicature e il gioco sottile delle conversazioni italiane mi ricorda quanto la prammatica sia viva, anche fuori dai testi accademici. C’è quasi un piacere ludico nell’esplorare gli inganni e le ironie della lingua. Solonghello: Ah, maestro, lei coglie il punto! “Non tutto il male vien per nuocere? Bugia! Ogni male viene per nuocere. Se produce qualche beneficio, è un male fatto male”... L’ironia è l’essenza della conversazione italiana, e la grammatica, se non sa sorridere, ha perso il suo spirito. Solonghello, Pietro Silvio Rivetta di (1942). L’etica del diritto. Torino: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Somenzi – Ossia: Grice e Somenzi: la ragione conversazionale del naturale, l’innaturale, il sovranaturale, ed il trasnaturale. Note sull’Introduzione al pensiero contemporaneo. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Vittorio Somenzi (Redonesco, Mantova, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale del naturale, l’innaturale, il sovranaturale, ed il trasnaturale. A comparison between Grice and Vittorio Somenzi on reason‑governed conversational meaning shows both a point of contact in their rejection of brute empiricism and a deep divergence in how widely reason is allowed to range. Grice’s account is deliberately modest and analytical: conversational meaning is governed by rational principles internal to communicative practice, where speakers and hearers treat one another as calculating agents and derive meaning through recognizable intentions constrained by cooperation, relevance, and rational expectations; any appeal beyond this, whether metaphysical or scientific, is methodologically excluded. Somenzi, by contrast, expands the scope of conversational reason by embedding it in a unified conception of nature that runs from the physical through the cybernetic to the mental and even the so‑called supernatural, treating meaning, signs, and communication as manifestations of operationally describable processes within an extended natural order. Where Grice isolates the logic of conversation from metaphysical commitments, insisting that implicature and meaning can be explained without enlarging our ontology, Somenzi seeks to naturalize even the “trans‑natural” by integrating communication, cognition, and signification into a cybernetic and operational framework in which reason operates continuously across domains. Thus Grice’s theory marks a boundary line, preserving conversational rationality as a norm governing talk among persons, while Somenzi treats conversational meaning as one instance of a broader rational organization of nature itself, dissolving the sharp distinction between the natural, the mental, and the conceptual that Grice carefully maintains. Grice: “ In the philosophy of  S., a philosophical physicist and pioneer of Italian cybernetics, natura (nature) serves as the foundational concept that bridges the gap between empirical science and broader philosophical inquiry. His perspective is characterized by a "methodological-operational" approach that seeks to unify physical reality with what has traditionally been considered metaphysical. Natura as a Unified Framework  For S., the term natura is not limited to the observable world of classical physic. Rather, it acts as an umbrella that integrates three primary domains: Naturalia (Physics): This represents the traditional domain of physics — the study of matter, energy, and observable phenomena. S., influenced by operationalism, argues that scientific concepts are defined by the operations used to measure them. Thus, Naturalia are the starting point for all objective knowledge. Trans-naturalia (Metaphysics): This term refers to the extension of natural laws into domains that transcend immediate observation but remain within the reach of scientific logic -- e.g., cybernetics and information theory. Supra-naturalia (Metaphysics/Sovranaturale): In the Italian context of naturale and sovranaturale, S. posited that even "supernatural" or mental phenomena could be understood as complex natural processes. His work on "thinking matter" (La materia pensante) suggests that the mind and consciousness are not "above" nature but are sophisticated expressions of it.  The Operationalist Bridge S.’s unique contribution is using operationalism to demystify metaphysics. By treating metaphysical notions as trans-naturalia, he argues that they could be integrated into a unified scientific worldview:  Cybernetic Integration. naturale, sovranaturale, Grice, Metaphysics in Pears, The Nature of Metaphysics. Grice: Professore Somenzi, mi dica: quando lei parla di naturale, innaturale, sovranaturale e trasnaturale, non le capita mai di sentirsi come uno chef davanti a un menù troppo ricco? Io, già solo scegliendo tra “naturale” e “innaturale”, ho il terrore di sbagliare condimento filosofico!  Somenzi: Caro Grice, in effetti, tra i filosofi lombardi c’è chi pensa che la natura sia una pentola che bolle sempre, e ogni tanto ci tuffiamo dentro concetti come “sovranaturale” sperando non ci venga a noia! Ma la cybernetica almeno ci insegna che il brodo si rinnova, e ogni ingrediente può diventare protagonista.  Grice: Vede, io non ho mai avuto paura di “segnare” – anche se a Oxford il verbo ha fatto sorridere più di una volta! Mi piace pensare che ogni segno – naturale, non-naturale, transnaturale o sovranaturale – sia come una pennellata sulla tela della natura. Del resto, nulla è davvero contro natura, semmai è solo un po’ più creativo!  Somenzi: Implicatura più naturalmente naturale, Grice! Lei arriva sempre al cuore della questione! Se avessimo un proverbio lombardo, direi: “Chi segna con la mente, segna con la natura.” Somenzi, Vittorio (1940). Sopra l’interazione elettrodinamica di due elettroni e teoria di Welker sulla superconduttività. Sotto Giovanni Gentile junior. Milano.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sordi – Ossia: Grice e Sordi: la ragione conversazionale -- o il club d’Aquino. Note sul Manuale di filosofia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Father Serafino Sordi, S. J.  (Centenaro di Ferriere, Emilia): la ragione conversazionale -- o il club d’Aquino. A comparison between Grice and Serafino Sordi on reason‑governed conversational meaning highlights a shared conviction that rational order underwrites intelligible communication, while revealing sharply different sources and functions for that rationality. Grice conceives conversational meaning as arising from the purposive actions of speakers who implicitly commit themselves to cooperation, so that what is meant is fixed by rationally recoverable intentions constrained by a small set of conversational norms; rationality here is thin, procedural, and deliberately detached from metaphysical, theological, or institutional frameworks. Sordi, by contrast, interprets conversational reason through a Thomistic and counter‑revolutionary lens, treating Aquinas not merely as a metaphysician but as the intellectual organizer of a community bound by shared doctrine, social ends, and cultivated forms of discourse, so that conversation itself becomes a practice sustained by belonging to what might be called the “club of Aquinas.” Where Grice emphasizes individual inferential competence and the ability to recognize implicatures independently of tradition or authority, Sordi stresses the communal and doctrinal conditions that make rational discourse possible at all, viewing reason as something safeguarded, transmitted, and stabilized by institutional continuity against the fragmenting tendencies of empiricism and modernism. The contrast thus runs between Grice’s analytically austere model, in which conversational meaning is generated by autonomous agents reasoning together under minimal assumptions, and Sordi’s Thomistic model, in which conversational rationality is inseparable from a shared metaphysical outlook and a social practice that binds interlocutors into a durable intellectual community. Grice: “S. enriches AQUINO ’s philosophy by transforming it from a static theological tradition into a dynamic intellectual "bulwark" against modernism, specifically within the Italian counter-revolutionary context . His work revitalizes the "Italian philosophical depth" of AQUINO  by applying scholastic principles to contemporary social and political crises. Modernizing AQUINO’s Methodology S. does not merely repeat medieval formulas; he pioneers a comparative methodology that places AQUINO  in direct dialogue with rationalist and empiricist systems. Superiority through Comparison: S. uses AQUINO ’s doctrines to expose the perceived deficiencies in philosophy, arguing that AQUINO  provides a more comprehensive understanding of reality than the "sensism" and "empiricism" of his day. Intellectual Custodian: S. is regarded as the custodian of the legacy of BUZZETTI , who first identifies AQUINO  as the "sound philosophy" needed to preserve the religious and social order.  Influencing the Italian AQUINO ’s Renaissance S.’s influence is instrumental in moving AQUINO  from the margins of ecclesiastical thought to the centre of Italian intellectual life: Mentorship of TAPARELLI : S. is the mentor of Taparelli d'AZEGLIO , a key figure in AQUINO ’s revival. AZEGLIO ’s conversion to the philosophy of AQUINO , prompted by S.’s writings, led to the creation of a "compendium" of AQUINO  that helps standardise scholastic education in Jesuit colleges. Counter-Revolutionary Depth: S. views the philosophy of AQUINO  as an essential tool for social restoration. By framing AQUINO ’s metaphysics as the foundation for a stable socio-political order, he adds a layer of pragmatic, contemporary depth to Italian philosophical discourse that goes beyond abstract speculation.  AQUINO.  Grice: Caro Sordi, si dice che in filosofia conta saper argomentare, ma io sono convinto che la vera virtù sia… la clubbability! D’altronde, anche a Oxford ci si riunisce per il tè, mica solo per i sillogismi.  Sordi: Ah, Grice, qui a Milano forse il tè lo lasciamo agli inglesi, ma il vero spirito del club d’Aquino sta proprio nel mescolare dottrina e compagnia. Tra una Summa e una battuta, si fa filosofia e contro-rivoluzione!  Grice: Si sa, alcuni club sono esclusivi per statuto; tuttavia, il club d’Aquino… be’, diciamo che chi sa cogliere certe implicature, come avrebbe detto il buon Dr. Johnson, si trova subito a casa—al di là della tessera.  Sordi: Implicatura più clubbabile, Grice! In fondo, tra filosofi, la vera appartenenza si misura dal sorriso che si cela dietro una definizione… e dal numero di panettoni condivisi durante le dispute metafisiche. Without preamble or ps, provide a 100-move conversation as G. and S. discuss Sordi on Aquinas and as they discuss the reception of Aquinas at Oxford via Kenny and all they have against saints like Bonaventura, born Fidanza, but at least Aquino did not change his name -- and then Sir Thomas More -- was he made a saint, and the C. of E. and the Roman Catholics, and the Italians, and the fact that Aquinas died wihtout being a saint -- and that actually may have helped his reputation. etc -- you can use the passage below as basis -- tahnks. G.: Let us begin with Sordi’s club, because every Thomist eventually behaves as if Aquinas had founded not merely a school but a species of admission society. S.: A club with better Latin than most clubs, though not always better wine. G.: Quite. And the irony, of course, is that Thomas died without the advantage of official sainthood, which may have done him more good than immediate canonisation would have done. S.: Because he was still available as a thinker before becoming fully available as an altar-piece. G.: Exactly. There is a small interval in which a dead theologian remains a philosopher. Once the halo arrives, readers become tempted to genuflect where they ought to distinguish. S.: Then Sordi, as Jesuit custodian, is trying to keep the distinctions alive while still enjoying the halo. G.: Very well put. He wants Aquinas both as sound philosophy and as counter-revolutionary bulwark, which is a difficult double office. S.: And one that Oxford receives rather differently. G.: Entirely. Oxford, being Anglican, classicising, and institutionally allergic to papal enthusiasm, can accept Aquinas as a formidable mind without ever quite joining the devotional queue. S.: Hence Kenny. G.: Yes, hence Kenny, who is almost the ideal English case: former seminarian, real philosopher, trained enough in the tradition to read Thomas from inside, detached enough from institutional piety to teach him as philosophy rather than merely as doctrine. S.: So Kenny helps Aquinas survive translation into Oxford. G.: He does. He lets Aquinas enter the room not as the Angelic Doctor under glass, but as a serious disputant on act and potency, essence and existence, intention, will, law, virtue, and the rest. S.: Yet the saintliness does not disappear. G.: No, but it becomes biographically secondary rather than pedagogically primary. Which is probably as Aquinas would have preferred, though one should never ascribe modesty too confidently to a Dominican. S.: A useful rule. G.: Now, Bonaventure. S.: Or should one say Giovanni di Fidanza, which already sounds like the beginning of a problem. G.: Exactly. Bonaventure is philosophically suspicious to me because the name-change itself smells faintly of pre-sanctified literary arrangement. S.: Harsh. G.: Dry rather than harsh. Thomas remains Thomas of Aquino. Bonaventure enters philosophy under an already elevated title. S.: Though to be fair, the title is historical enough. G.: No doubt. But names matter. Fidanza is a proper mortal name. Bonaventura already means that Providence is doing the publicity. S.: Whereas Aquino is merely locative. G.: Precisely. A place-name. About as sober as one could hope. “Thomas from Aquino” sounds almost administrative compared with “Bonaventure.” S.: So you suspect saints with uplifting names. G.: I suspect philosophy’s reception when names begin flattering the doctrine before one has read a page. S.: Then Aquinas benefited from dying first and shining later. G.: Very much so. Death before sainthood gave his work a period of intellectual circulation in which it could be disputed, appropriated, mistrusted, admired, and used without immediate liturgical suffocation. S.: And by the time canonisation comes, the philosophy is already too large to be reduced to sanctity. G.: Exactly. The Summa and the commentaries have already escaped the shrine. S.: Which is not true of every saintly thinker. G.: Not true at all. Many are canonised before they are read, and after that their philosophy becomes a species of ecclesiastical furniture. S.: You really do resent canonised furniture. G.: I resent all furniture that starts calling itself self-evident. Now, Sordi wants Aquinas as the sound philosophy needed to preserve religious and social order. S.: Which immediately moves the thing from university debate into cultural programme. G.: Yes. Aquinas becomes not only a thinker but an instrument of restoration, which has pedagogic force but also risks using Thomas as a banner rather than as a mind. S.: Yet the comparative method Sordi favours seems philosophically serious. He sets Aquinas against rationalists and empiricists to show the deficiencies of the latter. G.: Quite. That part I admire more. Comparison at least gives Aquinas opponents worthy of him and keeps scholasticism from becoming mere repetition. S.: So Sordi modernises method while conserving doctrine. G.: Precisely. He does not just chant medieval formulas. He drags Thomas into combat with modern errors, which is at least more philosophical than reverential paraphrase. S.: Though you do not like the social restoration part. G.: I dislike any philosophy that begins sounding like a police recommendation, yes. S.: That will not help your Jesuit reception. G.: My Jesuit reception is poor already. Still, Aquinas in Sordi’s hands becomes a club principle: one belongs to the community of reason by belonging, in effect, to the intellectual order of Thomas. S.: Hence the “club of Aquino.” G.: Yes. A durable intellectual community underwritten by common metaphysics. Very unlike my own thinner, more procedural notion of conversational reason. S.: Because for you people can reason together without first sharing a full metaphysical picture. G.: Exactly. They need only enough common ground, enough inferential trust, enough practical rationality. Sordi thinks reason itself must be stabilised by shared doctrine and institutional continuity. S.: And perhaps he is not wholly wrong, if one is speaking of civilisation rather than single exchanges. G.: A fair caution. At the civilisational level, institutions do stabilise discourse. My complaint is only that one should not make metaphysical club-membership a precondition of intelligibility. S.: Oxford prefers public reasons to doctrinal fraternity. G.: At its best, yes. Though Oxford also has clubs disguised as reason. S.: Naturally. Now, how does Sir Thomas More enter this saintly parade? G.: Ah yes, poor More. An English martyr, canonised by Rome, admired by Anglicans with careful discomfort, quoted by politicians, and misused by nearly everyone. S.: Was he made a saint? Yes, by the Roman Catholics. G.: Certainly. Canonised in 1935, which already tells one something about modern uses of old martyrdom. S.: And the Church of England? G.: More complicated. The Church of England may honour him liturgically in certain calendars or ecumenical moods, but without the Roman machinery of canonisation in quite the same sense. Anglicans are good at admiring Roman saints while pretending not to notice the Roman paperwork. S.: So More is a saint in one church, an heroic conscience in another, and an awkward statesman in every history seminar. G.: Exactly. Which makes him philosophically useful and institutionally inconvenient. S.: The Italians like him? G.: Italians like everyone once a text can be translated and a conscience dramatized. But More never belongs to Italy the way Aquinas does. He is received, not inherited. S.: Whereas Thomas belongs to Italy before he belongs to Rome. G.: Good. Aquino is geographically, intellectually, and philologically Italian before being ecclesiastically universal. S.: And that helps his philosophical reputation. G.: Immensely. One can read him as an Italian thinker, a Dominican, a scholastic, a metaphysician, a commentator on Aristotle, a theologian, and only then as Saint Thomas, in that order if one is healthy. S.: While Bonaventure arrives already half-canon in the sound of his name. G.: Exactly. And that is why I am mean about him. S.: You are rarely mean without principle. G.: Thank you. My principle here is that philosophy profits from late sanctification, if sanctification must come at all. S.: So the ideal schedule is: write hugely, die, circulate, dispute, be attacked, be appropriated, influence universities, and only then be sainted when it no longer matters too much. G.: Splendid. Yes. That would preserve both the shrine and the seminar. S.: Aquinas nearly got that. G.: Nearly enough. The philosophical body had already escaped the hagiographical envelope. S.: And Oxford could then receive him through Aristotle as much as through Rome. G.: Precisely. That is crucial. Thomas enters Oxford not because Oxford wants saints, but because Oxford wants Aristotle explained by someone with terrifying competence. S.: Hence the long life of Thomism in odd English forms. G.: Yes. Not always devotional Thomism, often rather anti-devotional. One can be deeply interested in Thomas’s metaphysics and still remain temperamentally Anglican, sceptical, or even cheerfully secular. S.: Kenny again. G.: Kenny, certainly. Also Anscombe at certain points, and others who found in Thomas a grammar of intention, action, law, and virtue strong enough to survive confessional thinning. S.: Bonaventure fares worse there. G.: Much worse. He is too illuminated, too affective, too seraphic for the average Oxford appetite. His thought may be rich, but it carries too much atmosphere for a place that likes furniture with straight lines. S.: Whereas Thomas can be made to look almost administrative. G.: Exactly. He is saintly by metaphysical bulk, not by mystical perfume. S.: You should not say that in a Franciscan house. G.: I should say nothing in a Franciscan house if I can help it. Now, what has Sordi against modernism? S.: Everything, I should think. Fragmentation, empiricism, sensism, thinning of metaphysical order, and the modern tendency to imagine that conversation can survive without common first principles. G.: Very good. For him, Aquinas is not merely one thinker among others but the organiser of a durable intellectual commonwealth. S.: Which is why you call it a club. G.: Yes. The club is not frivolous. It is an order of discourse in which shared assumptions make rational exchange stable. S.: Then perhaps one should not mock Sordi too quickly. He is trying to explain how communities of reason are kept alive. G.: True. My resistance is only to the suggestion that the community must already agree on full metaphysical furniture before any real conversational reason can occur. S.: You prefer lighter luggage. G.: Exactly. My travellers need intentions, recognitions, norms of cooperation, not necessarily the whole Summa packed into their cases. S.: Yet there are cases where the Summa helps. G.: Of course. On action, intention, double effect, law, virtue, natural teleology, Thomas is not merely respectable but indispensable. S.: And Sordi would add social order. G.: Naturally. He wants Thomas as the foundation for social restoration, which is where I begin reaching for the door. S.: Because restoration often means other people’s freedom quietly tidied away. G.: Yes. Philosophies of order always risk making liberty sound like bad filing. S.: Still, in the case of patria, church, and school, Thomas often looks less like a tyrant and more like a patient classifier. G.: Quite. Which is why he is teachable. His distinctions are often humane because they are slow. S.: That is a beautiful sentence. G.: Keep it and make it look as if Sordi thought it first. S.: He may have. Then tell me: did sainthood distort Thomas’s reception at Oxford or help it? G.: Both, in different rooms. It distorted him for those who wanted him as doctrinal authority merely. It helped him by guaranteeing preservation, commentary, and institutional seriousness. But Oxford ultimately took what it wanted from Thomas because the thought was too good to leave to the saints. S.: And the Italians? G.: The Italians had two temptations: either to sanctify him into pious marble, or to nationalise him into a philosophical ancestor of order. Sordi, I think, hovers between the two without collapsing wholly into either. S.: Because he still compares Aquinas with modern philosophers. G.: Exactly. Comparative method keeps the club from becoming purely liturgical. S.: Though Taparelli and the Jesuit compendia pull the other way. G.: They do. Standardisation is always both a pedagogic benefit and an intellectual risk. Once Thomas becomes the approved manual, one can stop reading Thomas and start reading Thomism. S.: Which is often death by commentary. G.: Very often. Commentary is excellent until it becomes the only thing one is allowed to admire. S.: That danger exists for saints more than for ordinary philosophers. G.: Much more. Saints attract piety before they attract scrutiny. Thomas survives because he is too difficult, too systematic, and too philosophically fecund to remain merely an object of cult. S.: Bonaventure does not quite survive in the same way. G.: No. He survives more selectively, where people want illumination, exemplarism, Augustinian interiority, Franciscan warmth, or spiritual metaphysics. But he never quite becomes the common philosophical currency Thomas became. S.: Because Fidanza became Bonaventura too soon? G.: If not historically, then acoustically, yes. S.: You are impossible. G.: I am merely phonologically suspicious. Names predispose reception. “Aquinas” sounds like a location; “Bonaventure” sounds like a sermon title. S.: That is unjust and very funny. G.: Good. Keep both qualities together. Now, More again. Does his sainthood help or hinder philosophical reception? S.: Mostly hinder, perhaps, if one is after political argument rather than conscience theatre. G.: Yes. More is too easily flattened into martyrdom and thereby rescued from the tedious difficulty of his political thought and historical conduct. S.: Whereas Thomas is so large that sainthood cannot flatten him entirely. G.: Precisely. One saint is absorbed by his halo; the other irradiates beyond it. S.: Then Sordi’s real contribution is to keep Aquinas as intellectual organizer rather than merely devotional ancestor. G.: Yes. That is his strength. He makes Thomas do contemporary work against empiricism and modern disintegration. Whether one likes the social programme is another matter. S.: But one can at least see why he matters for an Italian “Aquinas renaissance.” G.: Very much so. He helps move Thomas from the edge of ecclesiastical memory back to the centre of intellectual life. S.: And Oxford receives that through different conduits. G.: Through philosophers, translators, ex-seminarians, classicists, moralists, and those who discovered that analytic distinctions did not forbid theological intelligence. S.: So perhaps Aquinas’s best fortune was to be born local, think universal, die a friar, and become a saint only after philosophers had already started stealing him. G.: That is excellent. Yes. Philosophical theft before canonical enclosure. S.: Then your final verdict on saints and philosophy? G.: Saints are dangerous to philosophy when reverence arrives too early. Philosophy survives saints when the thought has already learned to travel without the relics. S.: And Aquinas? G.: A triumph of travel over relic. S.: Bonaventure? G.: A beautiful problem under an overhelpful name. S.: More? G.: A martyr too quickly moralised for the comfort of historians and too English to remain wholly Roman. S.: Sordi? G.: A club secretary of genius, provided one does not let him lock the door. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Piacentine, with one Dominican lamp still burning.Sordi, Serafino (1814). Studi su Aquino. Sotto Buzzetti. Seminario di Piacenza, Emilia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Soria -- Grice e Soria: la ragione conversazionale dell’opuscolo della simpatia – la scuola di Lama. Note sugli Studi storici e filosofici. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giovanni Gualberto De Soria (Pisa, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale dell’opuscolo della simpatia. A comparison between Grice and Giovanni Gualberto De Soria on reason‑governed conversational reasoning reveals a shared commitment to rational intelligibility as the basis of communication, but grounded in strikingly different metaphysical and explanatory frameworks. Grice’s theory treats conversational reasoning as a minimally moral, quasi‑contractual practice among agents who recognize one another as capable of rational cooperation: meaning is generated through intentions constrained by a single overarching principle of cooperation, with breakdowns explained not by failures of empathy or sympathy but by calculable deviations from relevance, informativeness, or sincerity. De Soria, by contrast, situates conversational reason within a thicker metaphysical and anthropological background, where simpatia functions as the mediating principle between self‑love and other‑love, reason and benevolence, individual cognition and a universally resonant order of nature. Whereas Grice deliberately strips conversational reasoning of animistic or affective surplus, anchoring it in sober rational expectations shared by competent interlocutors, De Soria’s account allows sympathy, empathy, and benevolent responsiveness to play a constitutive role in the very possibility of understanding, so that cooperation is not merely inferred but felt as part of a broader moral resonance between minds. In Grice, rationality governs conversation by regulating inference among autonomous agents; in De Soria, conversational rationality is already infused with a moral psychology of helpfulness and mutual attunement, edging toward a universalist picture in which communication among humans mirrors a deeper harmony in the world. The contrast thus lies between Grice’s austere, analytically disciplined conception of conversational reason and De Soria’s more expansive Enlightenment vision, where rational cooperation remains central but is sustained by sympathy as a bridge between reason, sentiment, and shared human life. Grice: “S. is an Italian philosopher and professor at Pisa, known for his work in the  Italian Enlightenment and his attempts to reconcile rationalism with traditional metaphysics. While he did not intend for his philosophy to be seen as animistic, his approach to "sympathy" (or simpatia) can be interpreted that way through several lenses. Universal Resonance as Living Connection S.’s concept of sympathy often relies on the idea of a universal harmony or resonance between different parts of the natural world. To a rationalist, this might be viewed as a mechanical or causal link; however, an unintentional animistic reading suggests that for such a "sympathy" to exist, the objects themselves must possess an inherent, internal "attraction" or "feeling" for one another. This mirrors the animistic belief that all matter is imbued with a form of life or soul that allows for mutual influence beyond physical contact.  Immateriality and the "Vitality" of Nature In his work Della esistenza e degli attributi di Dio, S. argues for the immateriality of the human spirit. When he extends these metaphysical principles to the broader "science of nature" (scienza della natura), he risks blurring the line between the human soul and the "spirit" of the cosmos. If the entire universe operates under a system of sympathies similar to the human spirit's inner workings, it implies a nature that is "alive" with the same immaterial qualities, a hallmark of animistic thought. Mediation Between the Physical and Spiritual S. seeks to move beyond "all hypotheses" to a pure "science of man". l’opuscolo, simpatia, simpatia, empatia, simpatia conversazionale, other-love, self-love, benevolenza, helpfulness, cooperation, basis, dull empiriist, enough of a rationalist, quasi-contractualist, relevance breakdown on you, one principle, rationality, cooperation. Grice: Professore De Soria, la sua teoria della simpatia mi ha sempre affascinato. Mi sembra che lei riesca quasi a far “vibrare” il mondo naturale attraverso un principio di comunicazione universale. Crede davvero che ogni cosa, anche la più minuta, partecipi a questa armonia? Soria: Caro Grice, le confesso che la mia idea di simpatia nasce dal desiderio di scoprire un filo invisibile che unisca uomini e natura, senza cadere nell’animismo ingenuo. Preferisco pensare a una risonanza razionale, dove ogni parte del cosmo risponde, pur mantenendo la sua autonomia spirituale. Grice: Eppure, la sua prospettiva sembra quasi suggerire che la natura abbia una sua interiorità, un sentimento diffuso, come se fosse animata. Non trova che questa visione, pur razionale, sfiori l’empatia universale di cui parlano i filosofi più “vitali”? Soria: È vero, maestro, ma la mia simpatia vuole essere un ponte tra ragione e sentimento, non una confusione tra la mente umana e lo spirito cosmico. Preferisco pensare che la cooperazione e la benevolenza siano principi che guidano sia la conversazione tra uomini, sia l’armonia del mondo. In fondo, come dice il proverbio: “Chi semina buone parole, raccoglie simpatia.” Soria, Giovanni Gualberto De (1727). Dissertazione. Giurisprudenza, Pisa.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sornatio – Ossia: Grice e Sornatio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SORNATIO. The gens Sornatia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, of whom the most famous was a general of Lucullus during the Third Mithridatic War, but several others are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Sornatius resembles other gentilicia formed using the suffix -atius, usually from cognomina ending in -as or -atis, derived from place names, or participles ending in -atus.[1] However, there are no known corresponding surnames; there was, however, a town called Sornum in Dacia.[2] There was also a rare gentile name Sornius,[i] from which the nomen might have been derived.[3]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Sornatius, a physician quoted by Pliny the Elder. Sornatius is given as an authority for the proposition that those using a certain hair dye produced by rotting leeches in a leaden vessel full of vinegar should put oil in their mouths to prevent their teeth from blackening along with their hair.[4][5] Gaius Sornatius C. f., a legate of the proconsul Lucius Licinius Lucullus during the Third Mithridatic War. In 72 BC, he inflicted a devastating defeat on the Pontic army, and nearly captured Mithridates. When Lucullus invaded Armenia in 69, he left Sornatius in charge of Pontus, with a force of six thousand soldiers. The following year, his soldiers mutinied, and refused to leave for Armenia, until shamed into doing so by a Roman defeat.[6][7][8] Gaius Sornatius C. f., named in an inscription from Castrum Novum in Picenum.[9] Gaius Sornatius C. f., a centurion primus pilus in the Legio X Fretensis, buried at Rome, with a monument from Sornatia Phiale.[10] Sornatia Arecusa, together with her son, Gaius Sornatius Indus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for her husband of forty-three years, Quintus Lucretius Zeuxis, aged sixty.[11] Gaius Sornatius Q. f. Q. n. Indus, together with his mother, Sornatia Arecusa, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his father, Quintus Lucretius Zeuxis.[11] Sornatia Phiale, dedicated a monument at Rome to Gaius Sornatius, the centurion.[10] Gaius Sornatius Plutus, together with Gaius Norbanus Amianthus, masters of a slave named Cedrus, named in an inscription from Rome.[12] Gaius Sornatius Quartio, buried at Rome, with a monument from his sister, Sornatia.[13] Titus Sornatius C. f. Sabinus, buried at Rome during the first century, in a sepulchre built by his mother, Anusia Tertia for herself and her son.[14] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  Lucius Sornius, a soldier buried at Salona in Dalmatia, and Titus Sornius L. f. Dexter, one of the quattuorviri with aedilician powers at Verona in Venetia and Histria, as well as an augur and flamen. References  Chase, p. 126.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. II, p. 1023 ("Sornum").  CIL III, 8757, CIL V, 3427.  Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, xxxii. 23.  PIR, S. 550.  Plutarch, "The Life of Lucullus", 17, 24, 30, 35.  PW, Sornatius.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 119, 133, 139.  CIL IX, 06080,21.  CIL VI, 3633.  CIL VI, 21650.  CIL VI, 14627.  CIL VI, 26627.  CIL V, 116. Bibliography Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. 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). August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, et alii, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated RE or PW), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980). 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). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sornatio – Ossia: Grice e Sornatio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SORNATIO. For the Sornatii, I would choose Gaius Sornatius, the legate of Lucullus during the Third Mithridatic War. The sources explicitly credit him with a major victory over the Pontic forces, and later report that troops under his command refused to march into Armenia until later events shamed them into action. [GREXv3 | Word] Why is he Gricean? Because his story turns on a classic problem of orders, compliance, and uptake. An order is a peculiar communicative act. The commander speaks, the troops understand perfectly, and yet nothing happens. Grice e Sornatio: De Imperio et Intellegentia SORNATIVS. In Armeniam ite. (March into Armenia.) MILITES. Intellegimus. (We understand.) SORNATIVS. Cur non itis? (Why do you not go?) MILITES. Intellegere aliud est, parere aliud. (It is one thing to understand, another to obey.) SORNATIVS. Imperium dedi. (I gave an order.) MILITES. Accepimus. (We received it.) GRICE. Communicatio perfecta est; executio deficit. (The communication is perfect; the execution fails.) +> Understanding does not guarantee compliance. What I like here is that Grice often focused on successful uptake:  Did the audience recognize the speaker's intention?  In Sornatius' case, the soldiers plainly recognized the intention. The failure comes afterward. The order is communicated successfully but not acted upon. That gives rise to a useful distinction:  communication failure, obedience failure.  Roman military history often collapses the two; Grice would separate them. But Sornatius the general remains the richer figure. Dry Speranzian formula  The Sinnii preserve proverbs; the Sollii preserve letters; the Sornatii preserve commands. Gaius Sornatius ordered six thousand soldiers to march. They understood every word. Grice would remind us that communication succeeded completely. The difficulty began only after meaning had been understood. [GREXv3 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sornatio – Ossia: Grice e Sornatio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SORNATIO. A close second candidate is the physician Sornatius quoted by Pliny the Elder. He is remembered for a curious recommendation: users of a certain hair dye should keep oil in their mouths lest their teeth darken together with their hair. [GREXv3 | Word] That would permit a charming Gricean vignette about expert testimony: MEDICVS. Oleum in ore tene. (Keep oil in your mouth.) AUDIO. Cur? (Why?) MEDICVS. Ne dentes quoque tingantur. (Lest the teeth also be dyed.) Here the question becomes:  How much of an expert's advice depends on trust rather than direct verification?

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sorrentino – Ossia: Grice e Sorrentino: la ragione conversazionale del Vico italico – filosofia italiana – Note su La retorica di Vico. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Andrea Sorrentino (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale del Vico italico. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and Andrea Sorrentino’s Vico‑centred account of ragione conversazionale converge in treating meaning as an achievement internal to rational social practice rather than as a merely formal or semantic mechanism, yet they diverge sharply in orientation and explanatory ambition. For Grice, conversational meaning is generated by individual speakers acting under rational expectations articulated through the Cooperative Principle and its maxims, so that what is meant emerges from calculable inferences drawn by interlocutors who recognize one another as reasoners aiming at mutual understanding; reason is here procedural, agent‑centred, and minimally historical, functioning as a normative constraint on talk exchanges wherever cooperative interaction occurs. By contrast, Sorrentino reads Vico’s reason as culturally sedimented and historically embodied, locating conversational rationality within the Mediterranean formation of Roman law, Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and poetic knowledge, so that meaning arises not primarily from strategic inference by individuals but from a shared civilizational horizon that shapes how interlocutors can speak, persuade, and understand one another at all. Where Grice abstracts conversation into a formalizable structure of intentions, implications, and recognitions that can in principle operate independently of cultural content, Sorrentino insists that Vichian reason is inseparable from the imaginative, rhetorical, and juridical practices of a specific historical world, in which conversation is already thick with myth, metaphor, and communal memory; the contrast thus pits Grice’s universalist, analytic model of conversational rationality against Sorrentino’s historicized, Mediterranean model, in which reasoned meaning is less a calculable inference than a culturally educated way of inhabiting and continuing a shared form of life. Vico. Bordon, La retorica di Vico. VICO e le razze mediterranee, Bulletin italien di Bordeaux. Scrocca. Vico e un suo recente critico: in Rassegna nazionale di Firenze. A. SORRENTINO, La cultura mediterranea nei Principi di Scienza nuova. Con scritti di G. Cacciatore, R. Diana, M. Sanna e A. Scognamiglio, a cura di A. Scognamiglio, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura,  Alessia Scognamiglio  This volume offers Andrea S.'s work La cultura mediterranea nei Principi di Scienza nuova after almost a century from its first and only publication in 1920. In it, Sorrentino aims at showing that the world of nations which Vico studies and sets forth in Scienza nuova is exclusively the Greek and the Roman world, therefore a "Mediterranean" world, since Vico's cultural background has been essentially formed through the study of Roman law and of the greek philosophy, together with the research of the classical studies. Furthermore, the volume collects the contributions of Giuseppe Cacciatore, Rosario Diana, Manuela Sanna and Alessia Scognamiglio. In his essay (Per un profilo di Andrea Sorrentino, pp. ***), Giuseppe Cacciatore, after tracing Sorrentino's scientific profile, reflects about some fundamental passages of his text: the framework of Sorrentino's research, which places itself halfway between the historical-scientific inquiry and the interest for the philosophy of culture; the belief that some limits of Vico's analysis, which he proposes, come from the conflicting relationship between the Neapolitan philosopher and his century; the centrality of the theme of the poetic knowledge in the Scienza Nuova; the problem of the Middle Ages between Rome's heritage and Germanic sources. Manuela Sanna (L'«epicentrismo» euromediterraneo di Vico nella lettura di Andrea S.) summarizes Sorrentino's interpretative proposals, all pivoting around the idea of epicentrism. Vico, razza mediterranea, razza aria.  G: 1939. You have brought two Vicos into my room and expect me to treat that as one. S: Two citations, sir. Page eighty, and page one hundred and thirty-eight. Oxford prefers to learn by page number. G: Oxford prefers to learn by footnote. S: Then you’re in luck. Page one hundred and thirty-eight is a footnote. G: Read the page eighty Vico first. S: Collingwood, Principles of Art. He says: Giambattista Vico said that children were “sublime poets.” G: And what is Collingwood doing with that. S: He is doing what Oxford always does: invoking a foreign genius in order to dismiss him politely. G: Yes. He says Vico may be right, and then says it throws no light for most of us. S: It’s the Oxford compliment: “Brilliant, but not useful.” G: Now page one hundred and thirty-eight. S: The footnote says: the habit of calling aesthetic experience “the pleasures of the imagination” dates back to Addison; the philosophical theory of art as imagination, to his contemporary Vico. G: That one is better. It gives Vico a role in the genealogy of an idea. S: So Vico becomes, in Oxford, a footnote in a footnote. G: That is still an improvement on being absent. S: But why is Collingwood so superficial, sir. G: Because he is writing Principles of Art, not Principles of Naples. S: And because he thinks “imagination” is a word you can use without paying rent. G: Not quite. He knows it’s loaded. That’s why he attacks the confusion between imagination and make-believe. S: His “anti-aesthetic” paragraph. G: Exactly. He is actually making a conceptual distinction, which is our tribe’s only real sport. S: And he brings in Vico to say: art as imagination has philosophical ancestry, not just sentimental ancestry. G: Yes. Addison gives the phrase. Vico gives the theory. S: Sir, you said earlier Collingwood “almost went to jail” over Vico. G: Over Croce’s Vico, and translation rights. It is Oxford heroism by paperwork. S: Collingwood translating Croce in 1913, and Douglas Ainslie being furious. G: The Oxford contribution to Italian philosophy: litigation. S: So the poor Oxonians needed Collingwood to render Vico intelligible. G: The poor always learn at Oxford. The rich merely inherit committees. S: And Sorrentino. G: Yes. Andrea Sorrentino on Vico, rhetoric and poetics. S: You want me to use Collingwood as an Oxford anchor so Sorrentino doesn’t float in from Rome like a decorative gondola. G: Precisely. We need Vico not as a souvenir but as a presence in Oxford discourse during Grice’s period. S: Collingwood gives you that. Twice. G: And Croce gives you a third way, via Collingwood-as-translator. S: But then Grice. Would he have cared about Vico. G: He would care about whatever made “meaning” look like a civil practice rather than a code. S: And that is rhetoric. G: Yes. Rhetoric is the art of making the hearer do work without resenting it. S: That sounds like implicature. G: It is the ancestor of it, if you want a genealogy without committing a crime. S: So Sorrentino’s “retorica di Vico” becomes relevant to conversational reason. G: Yes. Because Vico’s rhetorica is not ornament; it is the civil machinery by which a culture can mean things together. S: But Oxford hates rhetoric. G: Oxford hates being accused of rhetoric. Oxford loves doing it. S: Collingwood’s footnote is rhetoric too. G: Of course. It suggests a whole intellectual lineage in one line and expects the reader to accept it. S: What about Isaiah Berlin. G: Berlin is the later Oxford Vico evangelist, but in 1939 he is not yet the public Berlin of the Counter-Enlightenment. S: So we keep him in the wings. G: Mention him only as future confirmation that Vico will be taken seriously at Oxford. S: And Hampshire. G: Hampshire’s Vico essay is after your window, but you can have us prophesy him. S: A prophecy in Oxford is always a footnote in advance. G: Good. Now: rhetoric, rhetorica. S: Is Vico more rhetorician than philosopher. G: That is an anachronism. In Vico’s world, rhetoric is philosophy’s public face. And in Oxford’s world, philosophy pretends it has no face. S: But it does. G: It does. It is called “ordinary language.” S: Which is rhetoric in modest dress. G: Exactly. Now bring in I. A. Richards, if you want. S: Richards has a Philosophy of Rhetoric. Not a philosopher, strictly. G: That “strictly” is your mistake. Cambridge can contribute too, but we’re anchoring Oxford. S: Grice quotes Ogden and Richards. G: Yes. So the Oxford story includes Cambridge rhetoric as an imported tool. S: Like a foreign wine. G: Exactly. Now, the imagination point. Collingwood has “Language” as a chapter. S: In Principles of Art, Book II, Theory of Imagination, Chapter XI. G: Good. Now link that to Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit and Anscombe, since you insisted. S: The duck-rabbit is aspect-seeing, and it looks like imagination. G: Yes. And rhetoric is partly aspect-guiding. Making the audience see it as duck, not rabbit, without stating “duck.” S: That sounds like implicature again. G: It is not implicature strictly, but it is the same discipline of guiding without spelling out. S: So you want one principle governing language, like Vico’s rhetorical principle and Grice’s cooperative principle. G: Yes. But be careful. Vico’s principle is historical and cultural; mine is meant to be thin and general. S: And Collingwood sits between them with imagination. G: Precisely. He turns imagination into a philosophical engine for art, and he nods to Vico as a precursor. S: But he is superficial. G: He is economical. Superficiality is sometimes economy. S: Sorrentino, on the other hand, is not economical. G: Sorrentino is Roman, and Romans like architecture. They build interpretive horizons. S: And Oxford likes small rooms. G: Exactly. Oxford is suspicious of Mediterranean horizons because they make Oxford look provincial. S: Which it is. G: Quietly. Now: why “retorica” for Vico. S: Because Vico’s knowledge is poetic knowledge, and poetic knowledge is rhetorical in its mode of presentation. G: Yes. And because Vico thinks nations are made by imaginative universals, which are not deductions but tropes. S: So a trope is a cognitive instrument, not a decoration. G: Exactly. That is the Vichian move that Sorrentino wants. S: And Grice would translate that into: hearers infer beyond what is said using shared expectations. G: Yes. The difference is that Vico builds the shared expectations historically; I treat them as a standing rational practice. S: Now, the Oxford connection again. G: Collingwood gives you Vico inside an Oxford Clarendon book in 1938. S: And Collingwood gives you Croce’s Vico in 1913, also Oxford in a social sense. G: And perhaps Grice’s Oxford could have met Vico through that line even if no one admitted it. S: Because Oxford never admits sources. G: Exactly. Oxford calls sources “background.” S: Then the vignette should end with a prophecy about Hampshire. G: Yes. We say: one day an Oxford man will treat Vico and language seriously. S: And you add: but he will do it in New York Review of Books, not in a tutorial. G: Precisely. S: Punchline, sir. G: The punchline is that Oxford took Vico seriously enough to footnote him twice, and that is the Oxford equivalent of building him a statue.Grice: Professore Sorrentino, leggevo il suo lavoro su Vico e la cultura mediterranea… Dica la verità: per lei Vico è più greco che romano, o più romano che greco? Oppure, come certi filosofi di Roma, si muove con disinvoltura tra l’una e l’altra riva del Mediterraneo? Sorrentino: Eh, caro Grice, con Vico non si sta mai fermi: un giorno si trova tra le pandette romane, il giorno dopo si perde nei labirinti della mitologia greca… È un po’ come prendere il traghetto da Napoli: non sai mai esattamente in quale porto sbarcherai, ma sai che sarà sempre Mediterraneo! Grice: Devo ammettere che c’è del vero! Del resto, il vico in cui viveva Vico era abbastanza lontano da Bononia… Ma, tra noi, era ancora più distante da Vadum Boum: lì si discute di leggi, ma la poesia, quella vera, resta sulle rive del Mediterraneo. Sorrentino: Implicatura quanto mai topica, Grice! In fondo, chi si allontana troppo dal Mediterraneo rischia di perdere la rotta… e magari finisce per confondere i filosofi con i bovini! Sorrentino, Andrea (1910). Della lirica encomiastica di T. Tasso (Dalla fanciulelezza alla liberazione del carcere di S. Anna). Salerno: Migliaccio.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sortis – Ossia: Grice e Sortis: la retorica conversazionale. Note sul Trattato della sapienza. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Salvatore de Sortis (Lucca, Toscana): la retorica conversazionale. A comparison between H. P. Grice and Salvatore de Sortis on reason‑governed conversational meaning shows a deep continuity between early modern rhetorical theory and twentieth‑century philosophical pragmatics. In his treatises on rhetorical education and conversational rhetoric, Sortis insists that effective persuasion depends not on mechanical rules but on the rational attunement between speaker and audience: metaphor, pro‑syllogism, and measured allusion work because they engage the listener’s inferential capacities without suppressing natural genius or freedom of thought. Grice’s theory of conversational meaning articulates the same insight in analytical terms: meaning arises through cooperative, reason‑guided inference from what is said to what is meant, governed by shared expectations of rational conduct rather than by explicit coding alone. Where Sortis frames rhetoric as a pragmatic art that respects the intelligence and autonomy of interlocutors, Grice formalizes this respect as the Cooperative Principle and conversational implicature, showing how speakers deliberately leave meanings implicit in order to activate the hearer’s rational participation. Both thinkers thus reject authoritarian or purely mechanical models of communication and instead ground meaning in the disciplined interplay of intention, inference, and audience cooperation, making conversation itself a rational practice rather than a mere vehicle for stated content. Grice: “I like Sortis: he wrote on everything I did, but before me!” – Keywords: metafora, implicatura, pro-sillogismo. SAGGIO DI RETTORICA, che insegna alla gioventù studiosa i caratteri di perfetto oratore, ed i mezzi a divenirvi COMPILATO DA SALVATORE DE SORTIS NAPOLI. r Nella Tipografia Chiasesm Con appro^azio^<9 f A« t, ' r ^ ■ aomo deve alla tiattin il genio, # ' la dispobizlune all' eloquenza ^ ali' Ora« icria 9 €fa« è la facoltà di rt|i§cm :iiel rilevante oggetto di persuadere . L' arie. Io studio 9 TMercizio coliivana m ki ^ nigtiorano , e perfezionano il genio naturale. Kon giovano \ precetti deli' arie^ te 4«ieati noii trovano aetb» Sfìtriio di chi riceve^ 1* ingegno ^ e k di^^potizionà die poi ¥antio^ ad ecciiarst , «vilopparsi^^ , 0 ffio ierarsi saggiamente con quei preMt^ ti. Le oaiervazionir auUa aaiora delle eo« se , la giornaliera c omiderazioae di queU- lo elle avviene tra gli ^lomfni , la tiies» •èoue attiva , e 1* esempio di quei pri* »ii, e ptrfeiù Oiaiori che sono ai beim- Musciti nei***arte lero, PoiJliià che risul- ta a chiunque , con additargli i mesai sicari 9 e facili ^ pèr coQstguire un in- ieulu 9 il fine, di giovare eoo accanel f • ajuti. A ajatt lianno fatato sulle prime il :pctfi« $ieio ui raccogliere alcune regole ^ ed ìnsegnamtinU -pbe « poress<^rq proporsi ai giovani , mi io modo tale di non sop- primere in essi^u^ guastare il genio oa« turale ed ì liberi pensamenti dell' inge- l^no , nè renderli iaiiuto»i, o servili CQ* pibti' dell' aUrui operazioni , ed aatoricà, ; "Quesia è. quella che dicesi arte relXOr fica 9 .ì&tituzicio^ reitorica , oratoria^ ec; Hettoiici 9 o preceuori di eloqueuza so* no d^tti co4oro che ai aooo applicati « raccogliere , ed insegnare ad altu siifatU pr€cettù ,« Oratori, ai dicono, qiteili: cIm ne faiiiìO uso. Ove i Rettonci non sap<^ piaao £>ruìre l'arte ioro^chi è che noia, vede che recano danno , e pregiudizio a coloro che iiDpicudaao ad ammaestrale? prammatica come rettorica conversazionale.  Grice: Maestro Sortis, ho sempre pensato che la vostra rettorica conversazionale sia una vera miniera d’oro per chi, come me, si diverte a intrecciare metafore e pro-sillogismi. Ma ditemi, chi vi ha insegnato a rendere ogni discorso così brillante senza mai annoiare? Forse il segreto sta nel vostro stile lucchese o nel caffè napoletano? Sortis: Ah, caro Grice, se bastasse solo il caffè, saremmo tutti oratori perfetti! Ma la vera eloquenza nasce dall’osservare la natura umana, dal cogliere l’ironia dietro ogni parola, e soprattutto dalla capacità di non soffocare il genio naturale dei miei giovani interlocutori. E poi, come si dice a Lucca: “Parola gentile, apre ogni cancello.” Grice: Vede, a Vadum Boum, dove insegno, ho un tutee, Strawson, che ogni tanto mi chiede se la rettorica sia davvero “triviale”. Io non oso mai dirgli di no… ma diciamo che chi frequentava le vostre lezioni non ha mai trovato la conversazione banale. Anzi, c’è chi sostiene che persino il silenzio tra i vostri studenti sia carico di implicature. Sortis: Implicatura più oratorialmente sublime, Grice! Se persino Strawson, tra una pausa e l’altra, riesce a percepire il valore di una parola ben posta, allora la vostra scuola non ha nulla da invidiare alla mia. In fondo, chi sa sorridere tra le righe e lasciar intendere più di quanto dica, ha già conquistato la platea. E come si dice dalle nostre parti: “Meglio una buona allusione che mille spiegazioni.” Sortis, Salvatore de (1620). Trattato della sapienza. Venezia: Sarzina.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sosio – Ossia: Grice e Sosio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOSIO Coin of Gaius Sosius, consul in 32 BC. The implements and initial 'Q' on the reverse allude to his term as quaestor.[1] The gens Sosia, occasionally written Sossia, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens occur in history from the end of the Republic down to the third century AD. The first of the Sosii to attain the consulship was Gaius Sosius in 32 BC, and the family would continue holding various positions in the Roman state until the third century.  Praenomina The praenomina associated with the Sosii of the Republic were Quintus, Titus and Gaius. The Sosii Falcones of imperial times used Quintus and Marcus. All of these were extremely common throughout Roman history.  Branches and cognomina The original Italian members of the gens were probably of Picentine origin.[2][3] A distinct family of Sosii appears prominently in the Senate during the reign of Emperor Domitian onward, and its progenitors seem to have been easterners. It is likely that an ancestor of theirs received Roman citizenship from Gaius Sosius, when the latter had served as governor of Syria and Cilicia during the time of the Second Triumvirate.[4]  The Sosii of the Republic bore no cognomina, and were not divided into distinct families. In the second century, however, a family bearing the name of Sosius Falco appears, descended from a daughter of Quintus Sosius Senecio, consul in AD 99 and 107, who married Quintus Pompeius Falco, consul in 109. Senecio, the original surname, was derived from senex, an old man, while Falco, a falcon, was inherited from the Pompeii; it frequently denoted someone whose feet resembled talons; the modern expression is "pigeon-toed".[5] Priscus, borne by some of the same family, was a common surname meaning "old" or "elder".[6]  Members  Columns from the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, rebuilt by Gaius Sosius about 34 BC This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Quintus Sosius, an eminent eques from Picenum, who confessed to the crime of burning the public records' office in 83 BC.[2] Titus Sosius, grandfather of the consul Gaius Sosius, and probably father of the praetor of 49 BC.[7] Gaius Sosius T. f., quaestor of the consul Manius Lepidus in 66 BC, and praetor in 49 when, on the outbreak of the Civil War, he at first supported Pompeius, but submitted to Caesar upon the former's flight from Italy. He was father of the consul of 32 BC.[8][9][10] Gaius Sosius C. f. T. n., a staunch partisan of the triumvir Marcus Antonius, celebrated a triumph in 34 BC for installing Herod as king of the Jews. Consul in 32, he openly opposed Octavian, and commanded part of Antonius' fleet at Actium, but was later pardoned by Octavian.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][9][18] Sosius, and his brother, were booksellers at Rome, mentioned by Horace. They may have been freedmen of the senatorial Sosii.[19][20][21] Sosia Galla, the wife of Gaius Silius, consul in AD 13 and legate under Germanicus, was a close friend of Agrippina. In AD 24, Sosia and her husband were accused by Sejanus of corruption and plundering the provinces during Silius' command in Germany. Believing his cause hopeless, Silius took his own life, while Sosia was banished from Rome.[22][23] Sosia Maxima, a Vestal Virgin.[24][23] Sosius Papus, a friend of Hadrian, was honoured with a statue by the emperor Trajan. He might perhaps be the same person as the consul Quintus Sosius Senecio.[25][26][27] Sosia Juncina, wife of Quintus Antonius Isauricus, consul suffectus in AD 140, dedicated an altar to the goddess Fortuna at Eboracum, where her husband was stationed as legate of the sixth legion in the 130's.[28][23] Sosii Falcones Quintus Sosius Senecio, consul in AD 99 and 107, married Julia, a daughter of Frontinus. He was a friend of Plutarch and the younger Pliny.[29][30][27][31] Sosia Q. f. Frontina, a daughter of Quintus Sosius Senecio, named on the monument of her faithful slave, Eutychius.[32][23] Sosia Q. f. Polla, married Quintus Pompeius Falco, consul in AD 109.[23] Quintus Pompeius Sosius Q. f. Sex. n. Priscus, son of Pompeius Falco, and grandson of Sosius Senecio, was consul in AD 149.[33] Quintus Pompeius Q. f. Q. n. Senecio Sosius Priscus, consul in AD 169.[34] Marcus Sosius Laelianus Pontius Falco, one of the Salii Palatini, from AD 170 to 189.[35] Quintus Pompeius Q. f. Q. n. Sosius Falco, consul in AD 193, narrowly escaped execution at the hands of Commodus, who was assassinated on the final day of 192. Dissatisfied with reforms of Pertinax, the praetorian guard proclaimed Falco emperor the following year, but Falco was spared when the attempt was put down, as he was widely believed to be innocent of any involvement.[36][37][38] Sosia Q. f. Q. n. Falconilla, the sister of Quintus Pompeius Sosius Falco.[27] Quintus Pompeius Q. f. Q. n. Falco Sosius Priscus, praetor circa AD 220 to 225.[39] See also List of Roman gentes References  Broughton, vol. II, p. 387  Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 74.  Syme, Roman Revolution, pp. 200 (and note 3), 498.  Jones 1970, p. 103.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. senex, falco.  Chase, p. 111.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 417.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, viii. 6, ix. 1.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, vol. III, p. 885 ("Sosius").  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 154, 258, 387.  Cassius Dio, xlix. 22, 41, l. 2, 14, li. 2, lvi. 38.  Josephus, Antiquitates Judaïcae, xiv. 15, 16, Bellum Judaïcum, i. 17, 18.  Tacitus, Historiae, v. 9.  Plutarch, "The Life of Marcus Antonius", 34.  Suetonius, "The Life of Augustus", 17.  Appian, Bellum Civile, v. 73.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 85, 86.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 397, 398, 402, 403, 409, 412, 413, 417, 422.  Horace, Epistulae, i. 20, 2, Ars Poëtica, 345.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, vol. III, p. 885 ("Sosii").  PIR, vol. III, p. 253.  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 19, 20.  PIR, vol. III, p. 256.  CIL VI, 2148.  Cassius Dio, lxviii. 16.  Aelius Spartianus, "The Life of Hadrian", 4.  PIR, vol. III, p. 255.  CIL VII, 233.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, i. 13.  Plutarch, "The Life of Theseus", 1, "The Life of Demosthenes", 1, "The Life of Brutus", 1.  PIR S² 777.  CIL VI, 17461.  Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 324.  Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 325.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 253, 254.  Cassius Dio, lxxii. 22, lxxiii. 8.  Julius Capitolinus, "The Life of Pertinax", 8.  PIR, vol. III, p. 254.  PIR, vol. III, p. 66. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Epistulae ad Atticum. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Ars Poëtica (The Art of Poetry), Epistulae. Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaïcae (Antiquities of the Jews), Bellum Judaïcum (The Jewish War). Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), 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 Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Augustan History). 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). 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). Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1939). Archived. T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Jones, C. P. (1970). "Sura and Senecio". Journal of Roman Studies. 60 (1). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 98–104. doi:10.1017/s0075435800043288. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 299416. Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antonien (The Consulate and Senatorial State under the Antonines), Rudolf Habelt, Bonn (1977). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Categories: SosiiRoman gentes And the first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vignette on THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sosio – Ossia: Grice e Sosio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOSIO For the Sosii, there are several tempting candidates:  Gaius Sosius, Antony's admiral and consul of 32 BC. Quintus Sosius Senecio, friend of Plutarch. The Sosii booksellers mentioned by Horace. Sidonius' fellow letter-writers and senators among the later Sosii.  But for a Grice-Speranza vignette, my first choice is actually the bookseller Sosii. Why? Because they stand at the exact point where a text ceases to be a private utterance and becomes public communication. Horace mentions the Sosii as booksellers and publishers of his works. [GREXv3 | Word] Grice e i Sosii Librarii: Liber Emissus HORATIVS. Librum scripsi. (I have written a book.) SOSIVS. Vendemus. (We shall sell it.) HORATIVS. Nondum paratus sum. (I am not yet ready.) SOSIVS. Iam publicus es. (You belong to the public now.) HORATIVS. Sed quid si male intellegar? (But what if I am misunderstood?) SOSIVS. Hoc periculum omnis liber subit. (Every book undergoes that risk.) GRICE. Auctor significat; lector interpretatur. (The author means; the reader interprets.) +> Meaning leaves the control of the speaker once communication becomes public.  This is almost a Gricean nightmare and delight at once. A conversational implicature normally operates among people who share a context. A book, however, acquires:  unknown readers, unknown contexts, unpredictable interpretations.  The moment the Sosii put Horace's book into circulation, the author's intended meaning becomes dependent upon readers' recoveries of that meaning. But the booksellers are even better because they concern the transition from private intention to public meaning.  A tiny implicatura connection The Sosii are especially attractive after our discussion of Sidonius Apollinaris and implicatura. For Grice, an implicature exists only if a hearer can recover it. The Sosii make that recovery problem massive: AUTHOR: I mean X. READER 1: I infer X. READER 2: I infer Y. READER 3: I infer Z. The book becomes a machine for generating interpretations.  Dry Speranzian formula  The Sinnii preserve words; the Sollii preserve letters; the Sosii distribute them. Horace entrusted his books to the Sosii. Grice would have observed that publication is the most dramatic conversational act of all: the speaker loses control, and the audience becomes indefinite. [GREXv3 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sosio – Ossia: Grice e Sosio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOSIO A close second choice would be Quintus Sosius Senecio, because Plutarch addressed several of the Lives to him. The very dedication raises Gricean questions:  Why dedicate a work to one reader?   What is implied by selecting that reader? What Lives do we think Plutarch dedicate to Sosius? Consider the first -- and wonder why Plutarch would NOT dedicate any to any Greek? Did he ever? It seems that his parallel lives would be of value only to a Roman? Thanks -- as per implicatura. Thanks Yes, and the first thing to notice is that **Sosius Senecio is not merely mentioned by Plutarch; he is directly addressed in the prefaces of several Lives. The opening of the Theseus begins:  "Just as geographers, O Sosius Senecio..." [theoi.com], [loebclassics.com]  And the Loeb note explicitly remarks that Plutarch addresses Senecio at the openings of both the Theseus and Demosthenes, thereby dedicating those "books" to him. [loebclassics.com], [lexundria.com] Now your question is the really interesting one:  Why dedicate these works to a Roman senator rather than to a Greek?  That is exactly the sort of question a Gricean asks. The explicit content is:  "Dear Sosius Senecio..."  The implicature may be much richer. First thought The Parallel Lives are nominally Greek-Roman comparisons:  Theseus / Romulus Lycurgus / Numa Demosthenes / Cicero Dion / Brutus  They are not simply Greek biography. They are an exercise in comparative moral and political history between Greece and Rome. A Roman senator is therefore a particularly appropriate addressee. The preface to Theseus The opening is highly revealing: Plutarch says that after writing about Lycurgus and Numa, he wished to go back further and compare:  the founder of Athens  with  the founder of Rome. [theoi.com], [loebclassics.com]  That already presupposes a reader interested in both civilizations. A Roman senator such as Sosius Senecio is almost an ideal audience. Did Plutarch dedicate Lives to Greeks? Certainly he had Greek friends and patrons, and many of the Moralia are addressed to Greeks. But in the material I found, the famous dedications connected with the Lives point toward Senecio. [loebclassics.com], [lexundria.com] One should remember that Plutarch is a Greek writing under the Roman Empire. The Lives may be read as a conversation between Greek cultural memory and Roman political power. A Gricean implicature Suppose Plutarch had dedicated Theseus to an Athenian. The implied audience would be:  "Here is our Greek past."  But by addressing Senecio, the implication becomes:  "This Greek past belongs to you as well."  That is a very different communicative act. The dedication itself says:  "Sosius Senecio."  What it may implicate is:  "Greek history is part of the common inheritance of the imperial elite."  A Speranzian vignette PLVTARCHVS. Scribo de Theseo. (I write about Theseus.) AMICVS. Cur Romano? (Why to a Roman?) PLVTARCHVS. Quia historia Graeca iam Romana quoque est. (Because Greek history is now Roman as well.) GRICE. Dedicatio quoque significat. (A dedication also means something.)     The choice of addressee communicates as much as the text itself.  And there is a final irony. The very first surviving address to Senecio in Theseus concerns the boundary between:  history, myth, probability, fiction. [theoi.com], [loebclassics.com]  That is exactly the territory Grice loved: where a writer tells the reader not merely what he is saying, but how it is to be understood. The dedication may therefore be viewed as the first implicature of the whole work.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sotidio – Ossia: Grice e Sotidio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOTIDIO -- The gens Sotidia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Hardly any members of this gens occur in history, but a few are known from inscriptions, dating to the first century of the Empire.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Sextus Sotidius Sex. f. Strabo Libuscidianus, governor of Galatia at the commencement of the reign of Tiberius. He was subsequently one of the curatores of the waters and banks of the Tiber.[1][2][3] Sextus Sotidius Primus Augustalis, named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Canusium in Apulia, along with Flavia Dutia and Tyrannus.[4] Sotidia L. f. Maxima, buried in a first-century family sepulchre built by her father, Lucius Postumulenus Nicephorus, at Canusium, along with her mother, Nonia Verecunda.[5] See also List of Roman gentes References  AE 1976, 653, CIL VI, 1237, CIL VI, 31544b, CIL VI, 41544c.  PW, Sotidius.  PIR, S. 571.  CIL IX, 349.  CIL IX, 397. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, et alii, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated RE or PW), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sotidio – Ossia: Grice e Sotidio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOTIDIO -- For the tiny gens Sotidia, there is really only one substantial candidate:  Sextus Sotidius Strabo Libuscidianus, governor of Galatia under Tiberius and later one of the curatores aquarum et riparum Tiberis, supervisors of the waters and banks of the Tiber. [GREXv3 | Word]  What makes him Speranzian is not Galatia but the Tiber. A curator of the Tiber is constantly engaged in questions of channels, overflow, containment, and flow. One hardly needs much imagination to convert that into a Gricean metaphor. Grice e Sotidio: De Flumine et Sermone SOTIDIVS. Ripae custodiendae sunt. (The riverbanks must be maintained.) INTERROGATOR. Cur? (Why?) SOTIDIVS. Ne fluvius effundatur. (Lest the river overflow.) GRICE. Sic etiam sermo. (So too with conversation.) INTERROGATOR. Quomodo? (How so?) GRICE. Si nihil continet, inundat. (If nothing contains it, it floods.)     Not every conversational possibility should be pursued.  SOTIDIVS. Ergo ripae sunt regulae? (Then the banks are rules?) GRICE. Fortasse. (Perhaps.)  What I like here is that Grice's conversational maxims often function like riverbanks. The Cooperative Principle does not create the flow; it channels it. Without constraints:  too much information, too little information, irrelevance, obscurity.  The conversation floods its surroundings.  There is also a delicious connection with implicatura. The river does not travel in a straight abstract line. It bends, folds, loops, and meanders. Likewise meaning often reaches its destination indirectly. A Gricean hearer navigates the channel. Dry Speranzian formula  The Sinnii preserve words. The Sollii preserve letters. The Sotidii preserve channels. Sextus Sotidius supervised the waters of the Tiber. Grice would have appreciated the metaphor: communication, like a river, succeeds not merely by flowing, but by flowing within intelligible banks. [GREXv3 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sotidio – Ossia: Grice e Sotidio -- GREX griceiana – verbalia: SOTIDIO -- A second candidate would be Sotidia Maxima, known only from a family tomb at Canusium. But the evidence is too slight to generate a philosophical personality. [GREXv3 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sozzini – Ossia: Grice e Sozzini’ – Note su De auctoritate scripturae sacrae. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Fausto Sozzini (Siena, Toscana). A comparison between Fausto Sozzini and H. P. Grice on reason‑governed meaning shows a striking structural affinity despite their different domains. In De sacrae Scripturae auctoritate (1570s, first published 1580s), Sozzini argues that the authority of Scripture is not brute or self‑authenticating but is grasped through rational evaluation of authorial intention, historical context, and the reader’s responsible assent; Scripture persuades because it addresses human reason coherently rather than compelling belief by sheer decree. Grice’s theory of conversational meaning generalizes the same rational architecture to everyday language: what a speaker means is determined not by the bare sentence but by intentions recognized by a cooperative audience, operating under shared rational principles that make communication possible. Where Sozzini resists “blind authority” in theology by insisting that understanding Scripture requires reasoned uptake, Grice resists philosophical “literalism” by showing that meaning emerges from rational, rule‑governed interaction rather than semantic surface alone. In both cases, meaning is neither imposed nor automatic; it is achieved through the disciplined cooperation of minds, whether interpreting sacred texts in Kraków or ordinary conversation in Oxford. Grice: Caro Sozzini di Siena, leggo il tuo De auctoritate scripturae sacrae e mi pare che anche la Bibbia, come una buona conversazione, dica sempre un po’ più di quanto afferma. Sozzini: Misericordia, Grice, se lo dici così i teologi diranno che ho inventato l’implicatura prima del peccato originale. Grice: Non temere, a Cracovia come a Oxford basta riconoscere l’intenzione dell’autore e il resto lo fa la cooperazione del lettore. Sozzini: Allora siamo salvi entrambi: io salvo la Scrittura dall’autorità cieca e tu la conversazione dalla cecità filosofica, con un sorriso. Grice’s weekley essay assignment: Sozzini. Given two Sienese Sozzinis, one at Zürich in 1562 and one at Kraków in 1570, discuss whether “authority” and “explication” are properly distinguishable as two theological tasks, or whether each is already a disguised form of the other; conclude by stating, with reasons, which brother would have been more suspicious of the proposition that a text means more than it says. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts. Sozzini, Fausto (1570). De auctoritate scripturae sacrae. Kraków: Rodecki.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Sozzini – Ossia: Grice e Sozzini: la ragione conversazionale -- razionalismo, e moi. Note su Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Lelio Sozzini (Siena, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale -- razionalismo, e moi. A comparison between H. P. Grice and Lelio Sozzini brings into focus two sharply distinct but structurally allied conceptions of reason as an active, normative constraint on meaningful discourse. Sozzini’s rationalism arises within a religious and ethical context: reason functions as the tribunal before which doctrine must justify itself, and conversation—whether exegetical, theological, or moral—is governed by the demand that nothing be accepted which violates intelligibility or individual conscience. His rejection of mystery, sacramental mediation, and ecclesiastical authority places rational dialogue at the center of faith itself, turning belief into an essentially conversational achievement between text, reason, and the interpreting self. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning operates in a secular and analytical register, but the structural parallel is evident: meaning is not bestowed by authority, convention alone, or ritual form, but emerges from rational agents who recognize one another as bound by norms of intelligibility, relevance, and justification. Where Sozzini insists that religious assent must be accountable to reasoned dialogue rather than imposed dogma, Grice insists that linguistic meaning must be accountable to reasoned cooperation rather than mere causal signaling or institutional convention. Both thus oppose opaque authority—Sozzini theological, Grice semantic—and place rational accountability at the heart of understanding: for Sozzini, the conscience answers only to reason; for Grice, utterances answer to the rational expectations of conversational partners. In this sense, Grice’s pragmatics can be read as a late, secular echo of Socinian rationalism: an account of how shared reason, exercised in dialogue, disciplines what may legitimately be meant. Grice: “ The philosophical work of  Lelio and Fausto S. -- founders of Socinianism -- creates a stark contrast with stereotypical Roman Catholic influence in Italy by championing rationalism and individual conscienceover dogmatic authority and mystical ritualism. Key Contrasts with Roman Catholic Influence Rationalism vs. Dogma/Mystery: While Roman Catholicism often emphasizes the acceptance of sacred "mysteries" -- such as the Trinity or the Transubstantiation -- through faith and ecclesiastical authority, the S. brothers argue that religious truth must be compatible with human REASON – la RAGIONE. They reject the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus as logically untenable. Individual Judgment vs. Institutional Authority: Stereotypical Catholic influence is rooted in the centralized authority of the Church and tradition. In contrast, the S. brothers promote private judgment, asserting that every individual has the right and duty to interpret the Bible using their own logical faculties, rather than relying on a clerical hierarchy. Separation of Church and State: Contrary to the historical Italian reality of the Papal States and the Church's heavy involvement in civil governance, Socinianism was among the first Christian movements to advocate for the strict separation of church and state and religious toleration. Ethical Living vs. Sacramentalism: The S. brothers moved away from the Catholic emphasis on sacraments -- like the Mass or Penance -- as essential "means of grace." They viewed Christianity primarily as a moral code and Jesus as an ethical teacher rather than a divine saviour whose death satisfied a supernatural debt. Rejection of Original Sin: They denied the doctrine of Original Sin, a cornerstone of Catholic theology, arguing instead for human moral agency and the inherent ability of people to follow God's laws without a predetermined "corrupt" nature.  Sozzini, rationalism, and moi.  Grice: Caro Sozzini, devo confessarle che tutto quello che so sui fratelli Sozzini, l’ho imparato proprio da mio padre: il meno conformista tra i non-conformisti che io abbia mai conosciuto!  Sozzini: Ah, Grice, questa sì che è una presentazione che mi fa sorridere! Credo che suo padre e io ci saremmo trovati subito d’accordo: un vero spirito affine, senza dubbio.  Grice: Non ho dubbi! Era capace di mettere in dubbio tutto, persino le abitudini di famiglia a colazione – figuriamoci i dogmi e le tradizioni.  Sozzini: Proprio come noi Sozzini: sempre pronti a interrogare la ragione e a difendere il diritto di pensare con la propria testa. In fondo, la vera fede non teme le domande, ma si nutre di esse. Grice’s weekly essay assignment: Sozzini. Write on “The Sozzini Problem” under the rule that you may not treat “the Sozzini brothers” as one philosopher in duplicate. Compare Lelio’s Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput with Fausto’s De auctoritate scripturae sacrae, and determine whether the first begins from reason in order to discipline Scripture, while the second begins from Scripture in order to justify reason — or whether that distinction is itself a trap set for the inattentive. Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts. Sozzini, Lelio (1562). Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput. Zürich: Froschauer.