VE

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Veca: la ragione conversazional e l’implicatura conversazionale della massima dell’altruismo conversazionale. Note su Brecht e la contraddizione di Galileo. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Salvatore Veca (Milano, Lombardia): l Compared institutionally, Salvatore Veca is much closer to H. P. Grice than many of the figures you have been discussing, because both are unmistakably academic philosophers; but they still belong to very different institutional ecologies. Salvatore Veca was born in Rome in 1943, studied philosophy in Milan, and became professor of political philosophy in Florence and then Pavia, where he later served as preside of the Facoltà di Scienze Politiche and directed the Centro interdipartimentale di studi e ricerche in filosofia sociale. He was also president of the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli and of the Casa della Cultura in Milan, which already shows that his intellectual life stretched beyond the university into the institutions of public culture. [filosofian...ensiero.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s, plus CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Salvatore Veca, by contrast, was an Italian professor of political philosophy in the state-university system, active also in the extra-academic world of foundations, publishing, and civic institutions. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Salvatore Veca to the world of university chairs and public philosophy. [filosofian...ensiero.it] That institutional difference suits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and calculating implicature under conversational norms. Salvatore Veca, by contrast, works at the macro-level of justice, cooperation, public reason, and civic argument. He began with Marx, especially the epistemological dimensions of Marx’s theoretical programme, but then turned decisively toward Anglo-American ethics and political philosophy, especially John Rawls, becoming one of the central figures in the Italian reception of Rawls after the collapse of the old Marxist horizon. The standard biographical sources describe Salvatore Veca exactly in these terms: from Marxist epistemology to Rawlsian justice, public reason, emancipation, and the civil function of philosophy. [filosofian...ensiero.it] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how rational cooperation makes meaning possible in a local exchange. Salvatore Veca explains how cooperation must itself be judged, organised, and moralised within a shared civic space if it is to count as just rather than merely efficient. In your own apt idiom, Grice gives you the inferential machinery of cooperation; Salvatore Veca gives you the normative horizon in which cooperation becomes reciprocity, fairness, and public justification. [filosofian...ensiero.it] That is why your phrase “massima dell’altruismo conversazionale” is actually quite good as a comparative gloss, even if it is not Veca’s own formula. One can say: for Grice, helping in conversation is mainly epistemic and interpretive: make your contribution useful so that others can infer what you mean; for Salvatore Veca, the helping becomes explicitly moral and political: offer reasons in ways that others can accept within fair terms of cooperation. [filosofian...ensiero.it] There are two important corrections, though. First, your final bibliographic line is wrong. I cannot verify “Salvatore Veca (1964). Brecht e la contraddizione di Galileo. aut aut.” The secure early bibliographical anchor is instead Saggio sul programma scientifico di Marx, published in 1972 by il Saggiatore. That is the first major book everyone cites in the biographical records. [filosofian...ensiero.it] Second, if you want a truly central later anchor for the phase you are interested in, the cleanest is [La società giusta] from 1982, which very visibly marks the Rawlsian and justice-centred turn. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Salvatore Veca, by contrast, was an Italian professor of political philosophy, formed in Milan, active in Florence and Pavia, and deeply involved in the public institutions of philosophy and culture beyond the university. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the world of college tutorials and faculty lectures; Salvatore Veca to the world of university chairs, foundations, and public reason. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Salvatore Veca theorises the ethical and political conditions under which cooperation, reciprocity, and the exchange of reasons can count as fair and emancipatory. [filosofian...ensiero.it] And the clean bibliographic anchors for your dossier are these. Salvatore Veca. Saggio sul programma scientifico di Marx. Milan: il Saggiatore, 1972. [filosofian...ensiero.it] [Salvatore Veca]. [La società giusta]. Milan: [il Saggiatore], 1982. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred register, or a short note specifically on Veca and Rawls, with your “altruismo conversazionale” gloss sharpened into a public-reason formula.a ragione conversazional e l’implicatura conversazionale della massima dell’altruismo conversazionale – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what a speaker means is rationally recoverable by a hearer from what is said plus shared cooperative norms (maxims), so that implicatures are in principle calculable, defeasible, and attributable to the speaker’s intention within a practice of mutually accountable talk. Veca, as your passage frames him (from early Marx-epistemology to Anglo-American ethics and Rawlsian political philosophy, with an emphasis on public reason, justice, and the civil function of philosophy), shifts the emphasis from Grice’s micro-pragmatics of inference to a macro-ethics of cooperation: “altruismo conversazionale” reads like the moralization of the Cooperative Principle, where the point is not just how hearers infer extra meaning, but how interlocutors ought to conduct themselves so that conversation can serve as a fair medium for justification, mutual aid, and the distribution of reasons in a shared civic space. Put together, Grice supplies the formal-pragmatic machinery for explaining how cooperation makes meaning possible (including strategic indirectness), while Veca supplies the political-moral horizon in which cooperation becomes a normative ideal (conversation as a practice of reciprocity and fairness, continuous with Rawls-style public justification): for Grice, the “help” you give is primarily epistemic and interpretive (making your contribution appropriately informative, relevant, and sincere so others can infer what you mean), whereas for Veca the “help” is also ethical and institutional (shaping conversational exchanges so that reasons are offered in ways others can accept, and so that cooperation is not merely efficient but just). la scuola di Roma – filosofia romana – filosofia lazia -- altruism, Hampshire, Hart, Grice, giustizia, cooperare, aiuta, ragione, le mosse della ragione, ragione conversazionale -- Filosofo italiano. M. Milano. Professore di filosofia politica [cf. A. M. Quinton] a Firenze e Pavia, dove è stato preside della facoltà di SCIENZE POLITICHE ed è direttore del Centro interdipartimentale di studi e ricerche in filosofia sociale. È stato presidente della Fondazione Feltrinelli, per la quale ha diretto la collana della Biblioteca europea, e della Casa della Cultura di Milano. Inizialmente interessato al marxismo, in particolare agli aspetti epistemologici delle teorie marxiane, ha in seguito orientato le sue ricerche verso l'etica anglo-americana. In questa nuova fase ha particolarmente studiato la teoria della giustizia di Rawls – che cita Grice, in ‘Justice as fairness – Rawls cita Grice, ‘Personal identity’--, contribuendo a diffonderla in Italia in un tentativo di rinnovamento della cultura di sinistra dopo il crollo del marxismo. Della sua copiosa produzioone saggistica si citano qui: Saggio sul programma scientifico di Marx; La società giusta; Una filosofia pubblica; Etica e politica; Cittadinanza. Riflessioni filosofiche sull'idea di emancipazione; Dell'incertezza. Tre meditazioni filosofiche – cf. Grice, Intenzione ed incertezza -- ; La filosofia politica; La penultima parola e altri enigmi; La bellezza e gl’oppressi. lezioni sull'idea di giustizia; Il giardino delle idee. Quattro passi nel mondo della filosofia; La priorità del male – cf. Grice, ‘Ill-Will’ -- e l'offerta filosofica; Le cose della vita. Congetture, conversazioni e lezioni personali; Dizionario minimo. Le mosse della ragione conversazionale – La mossa della ragione conversazionale – dinamica conversazionale – la dinamica della ragione conversazionale. altruismo, Hampshire, Hart, Grice, giustizia, cooperare e competere,  – ragione – virtu capitali, le mosse della ragione – ragione conversazionale, la massima dell’altruismo conversazionale.  G. and S. came out into the night as if the theatre had not finished with them. S. said, Well, there it is again. G. said, Which it. S. said, Die Wahrheit ist das Kind der Zeit, nicht der Autorität. G. said, Ah. That line. S. said, You do not sound convinced. G. said, I am convinced it is a line. I am not convinced it is a conclusion. S. said, Nor is Brecht. G. said, Good. Because if that line is supposed to rescue the whole affair, it fails. S. said, It is not there to rescue. It is there to begin the trouble. G. said, Yes. It opens nobly and ends in mud. S. said, Which is why it remains in the ear. G. said, In your ear perhaps. S. said, In yours too. You have already repeated it twice. G. said, Repetition is not assent. S. said, No. Sometimes it is irritation with style. G. said, Or envy. S. said, Envy of Brecht. G. said, Of a playwright who can make one line carry both thesis and collapse. S. said, There you are then. G. said, There I am nowhere. I am merely saying he is clever. S. said, More than clever. Witty. G. said, Not the same wit as the refugee piece. S. said, No. The other one is drier. G. said, Drier, and nastier. S. said, You mean the minister. G. said, If you inspect my books, I shall not remain your finance minister. S. said, Wenn du meine Bücher prüfst, werde ich nicht länger dein Finanzminister sein. G. said, Better with Sie than du, surely. S. said, It depends how insolent one wants him. G. said, Insolence there is part of the point. S. said, And the wit lies in the utterer’s calculation. G. said, Provided he is calculating. S. said, Ah. You still think the utterer may not be trading on it. G. said, One must not assume too quickly that he is innocent of his own ambiguity. S. said, Quite. He may know perfectly well that the hearer will take it as threat, whereas he can later retreat into mere literal truth. G. said, Yes. One should reread that whole thing on intention and uncertainty with that in mind. S. said, You are very attached to your Danish minister. G. said, Not attached. Instructed. S. said, By a finance minister. G. said, By a playwright, through a finance minister. S. said, Whereas tonight you were instructed by a scientist. G. said, Through a playwright. S. said, Through the same playwright. G. said, Which is exactly why the comparison is irresistible. S. said, Two lines by the same man. One a witty conditional. One an aphorism. G. said, And different implicatures. S. said, Entirely. G. said, The minister’s line trades on ordinary uptake and later reversal. S. said, While Galileo’s line begins as moral confidence and ends under damage. G. said, Under historical damage. S. said, And theatrical damage. G. said, And perhaps philosophical damage. S. said, There speaks the man who does not yet trust “Kind der Zeit.” G. said, I trust it as drama more than as doctrine. S. said, Because of Zeit. G. said, Because of Zeit and because of Autorität. S. said, Go on. G. said, “Truth is the child of time, not of authority” sounds splendid until one asks whether time is supposed to do the work of warrant. S. said, It does not, of course. G. said, Then the line needs help. S. said, The play gives it help by making it fail to suffice. G. said, Good. Because if one takes it flatly one gets vulgar historicism. S. said, Or merely optimism. G. said, Which is worse in a theatre. S. said, Especially after Galileo retracts. G. said, Yes. Because then the line remains true only in some diminished, scandalous way. S. said, Truth does not come through by triumph. G. said, It comes through by compromise, delay, and recopying. S. said, Very good. You are warming. G. said, I am not warming. I am freezing properly. S. said, German has helped. G. said, German usually does. S. said, It helped Veca too, I suspect. G. said, Ah. Veca. S. said, You had forgotten him for a moment. G. said, I had not forgotten him. I had merely misplaced him under a Torinese cloud. S. said, We shall blame filing, not philosophy. G. said, Very well. It is Veca, 1964, aut aut. S. said, Brecht e la contraddizione di Galileo. G. said, Have you read it. S. said, Not yet. G. said, Then why are you speaking as if you had. S. said, Because one can still ask what sort of thing he must have meant by bringing it to that forum, at that date, under that title. G. said, That is fair. S. said, It is also all we have. G. said, We have the play. S. said, And the date. G. said, And the title. S. said, And Veca. G. said, Yes. Which changes the whole climate. S. said, Entirely. G. said, Less hermeneutic vapour, more public reason. S. said, More civic rationality, less weak ontology. G. said, More responsibility. S. said, And more interest in what happens to truth when it enters common life. G. said, Exactly. Which is why “contraddizione” need not mean a private mental split. S. said, Not merely Galileo thinks one thing and says another. G. said, That is too easy. S. said, Too Ockhamist. G. said, Too Rodin. S. said, Very good. G. said, The contradiction would rather be between rational truth and the public conditions of asserting it. S. said, Which is very much a Veca problem. G. said, Yes. Less “weak thought,” more civic burden. S. said, So Galileo becomes not a saint of inwardness but a compromised public intellectual. G. said, Which Brecht absolutely wants. S. said, And which Italians may hear with extra pressure because Galileo is not a neutral name for them. G. said, Exactly. Brecht may use Galileo as a dramatic instrument. Veca hears Galileo also as an Italian monument. S. said, Brecht to Germany as Galileo to Italy. G. said, Not quite. S. said, Better then. G. said, Brecht uses Galileo to think Germany, while Veca hears in Galileo something Italy cannot hear lightly. S. said, Better indeed. G. said, Thank you. S. said, And then there is the lexical problem. G. said, Widerspruch and Widerruf. S. said, Yes. G. said, Brecht’s play, as far as one can see, is more deeply about Widerruf than about Widerspruch. S. said, Retraction more than contradiction. G. said, Exactly. S. said, But Veca philosophises the dramatic Widerruf as contraddizione. G. said, That would be my guess. S. said, And there the German matters. G. said, Very much. Because wider- is not one thing. S. said, Wider- in Widerspruch goes nicely toward contra-. G. said, Whereas wider- in Widerruf goes toward taking back. S. said, Revocation. G. said, Recantation. S. said, Abiura. G. said, Precisely. S. said, So Veca may be translating not Brecht’s key word but Brecht’s dramatic structure. G. said, Yes. Which is subtler and better. S. said, And perhaps exactly what one wants from aut aut in 1964. G. said, Why 1964 in particular. S. said, Because the timing matters. G. said, It usually does with Brecht. S. said, Galileo first version late thirties. Refugee conversations mainly forty-forty-one. Veca on Galileo in sixty-four. Your English philosopher later taking the refugee line in seventy-one. G. said, Which means that Brecht’s own chronology already separates the two kinds of wit. S. said, Yes. Historical-dramatic contradiction first. Exilic conversational irony later. G. said, Das Leben first, Flüchtlingsgespräche later. S. said, Exactly. G. said, Which means one should not use the refugee line to explain Galileo too quickly. S. said, No. Only to compare. G. said, Good. Because the minister’s line is almost a laboratory case. S. said, And Galileo is not. G. said, The minister line is uttered by the minister himself. S. said, Which is crucial. G. said, Because then one can ask whether he is knowingly exploiting the ambiguity. S. said, And whether the hearer’s first uptake is exactly the uptake he intended. G. said, Whereas Galileo’s line is not built on that sort of delayed reinterpretation. S. said, No. Its force changes because the play changes around it. G. said, A different species of implicature. S. said, Or a different species of theatrical afterlife. G. said, Better. S. said, So at the start, when Galileo says Die Wahrheit ist das Kind der Zeit, nicht der Autorität, what is he doing. G. said, He is moralising. S. said, Better. G. said, He is staking an epistemic principle with the tone of a maxim. S. said, And to whom. G. said, Not to the inquisitors. That would be melodrama. S. said, Quite. G. said, To interlocutors within inquiry, but through them to the audience. S. said, So within the play the addressee is local. G. said, While within the theatre the addressee is historical. S. said, Excellent. G. said, And by curtain call the line cannot simply resound as triumphant. S. said, No. It comes back injured. G. said, Wounded maxim. S. said, Very good. G. said, If it returns at all, it returns through recantation. S. said, Which is why one remembers it uneasily. G. said, Or not at all, which is also legitimate. S. said, You mean your own response. G. said, I mean any intelligent response. S. said, Fair enough. G. said, Brecht is not giving us a slogan to applaud. S. said, He is giving us a sentence the drama will later make insufficient. G. said, Exactly. S. said, And that is perhaps what Veca saw. G. said, That the contradiction is not inside the proposition but between the proposition’s force and the world’s conditions. S. said, Very good. That sounds like him. G. said, Sounds like the Veca we have reconstructed, at least. S. said, Aptly. G. said, Aptly, yes. S. said, So what would Veca be wondering. G. said, He would be wondering how truth can ask for civic courage without presupposing impossible heroism. S. said, And how public reason survives when its spokesman retracts. G. said, And how conversation itself remains possible when authority distorts the conditions of acceptability. S. said, Ah. There you are again. G. said, Where. S. said, At acceptability and acceptance. G. said, I never left them. S. said, Nor should you. G. said, Because that is exactly where Brecht bites. Authority is not the opposite of truth in every sense. It is only the opposite of truth when authority claims to settle truth by fiat. S. said, While rational authority might still be part of truth’s public life. G. said, Exactly. S. said, So “not of authority” is polemical, not metaphysical. G. said, That is how I would save the line. S. said, Save it if you must. Brecht may not require saving. G. said, No. But readers do. S. said, Especially philosophers. G. said, Especially Italians with Galileo. S. said, Especially Veca in 1964, bringing it into aut aut. G. said, Which was clever. S. said, Very clever. G. said, Because he takes Brecht the playwright seriously as a philosopher without making him stop being a playwright. S. said, And he chooses contradiction, not merely recantation, for the title. G. said, Which means he is already interpreting. S. said, And inviting others to interpret. G. said, That is what a good forum does. S. said, What gives, then, at the end. G. said, Nothing gives. That is the beauty. S. said, No closure. G. said, Only a more intelligent discomfort. S. said, And the two Brechtian lines remain. G. said, The witty conditional and the wounded maxim. S. said, Flüchtlingsgespräche and Leben des Galilei. G. said, Later exilic irony and earlier historical drama. S. said, The one perfect for analysis of ambiguity. G. said, The other perfect for analysis of public reason under pressure. S. said, Which is why one leads us to the mechanics of implication. G. said, And the other to Veca. S. said, Nicely put. G. said, Thank you. S. said, Das Leben der... G. said, Yes. S. said, A very nice play. G. said, Brecht never disappoints. S. said, No. Never. G. said, And Veca was clever to bring it to the forum. S. said, Yes. They walked on a little in silence. Then G. said, It is still the minister line that makes me laugh. S. said, Of course. G. said, Why of course. S. said, Because Galileo leaves you morally uneasy, whereas the minister leaves you professionally delighted. G. said, That is unfair. S. said, Which part. G. said, Professionally. S. said, Then let us say conversationally. G. said, Better. S. said, And in any case Brecht would have enjoyed the distinction. G. said, No doubt. S. said, As for Veca, he would probably ask which of the two kinds of wit leaves civic reason in better shape. G. said, And what would you answer. S. said, That the joke sharpens the mind, but the contradiction educates it. G. said, Too good. S. said, Too neat. G. said, Yes. S. said, Then let us keep the older formula. G. said, Which one. S. said, Brecht never disappoints. G. said, No. Never.Grice: Caro Veca, mi lascia sempre perplesso il vecchio reverendo Butler: da un lato predica l’“amore proprio” conversazionale, dall’altro la “benevolenza” come se fossero due poli opposti! Ma non vede che nel principio dell’aiuta conversazionale si sposano entrambe, come due buoni compari al bar sotto casa? In fondo, aiutare gli altri in conversazione non significa forse anche aiutare se stessi a capire meglio? Veca: Grice, lei ha colpito nel segno come un vero maestro di mosse conversazionali! Complimenti: è riuscito a conciliare l’amore proprio e l’altruismo in una sola massima, come a dire che non c’è competizione tra il prendersi cura di sé e il cooperare con gli altri. Anzi, la sua “dinamica della ragione conversazionale” è un esempio di virtù capitale: chi aiuta, cresce; chi cresce, aiuta. Grice: Mi chiedo, Veca, se Butler avesse avuto un po’ più di spirito italiano, forse avrebbe inventato la “massima del caffè condiviso”: dove la conversazione è più ricca se ognuno porta il proprio zucchero e lo offre all’altro! V.: Ah, Grice, questa sarebbe davvero una rivoluzione filosofica! Trasformare la logica del dialogo in una pausa conviviale: amore proprio e benevolenza in tazzina, unendo ragione e piacere. Butler, se la sentisse, forse si concederebbe una risata… e magari anche un brindisi! Veca, Salvatore (1964). Brecht e la contraddizione di Galileo. aut aut.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vecilio – Ossia: Grice e Vecilio – Grex griceiana – Vecilio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VECILIO The gens Vecilia, occasionally written Vecillia, was an obscure plebeian family of ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but a number are known from inscriptions. Some of the Vecilii were local officials or attained minor magistracies, but none of them attained any of the higher offices of the Roman state.  Origin The nomen Vecilius belongs to a large class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -ilius, typically formed from cognomina ending in the diminutive suffix -ulus, or using -illius or -ellius from surnames ending in the double diminutive -illus or -ellus.[1] Vecilius seems to belong to the first group, although gentilicia written either with a single or double l can be difficult to distinguish.[2] There was a mountain in Latium known as Mons Vecilius, which could supply the origin of this nomen, but from the occurrence of the filiation Vo. f. in an inscription from Falerii, Chase concludes that the Vecilii were probably of Etruscan descent.[2]  Praenomina The chief praenomina of the Vecilii were Lucius, Gaius, and Marcus, the three most common names at all periods of Roman history. A few members of this gens bore other common praenomina, including Publius, Quintus, and Titus. An early inscription includes the filiation Vo. f., which Chase interprets as the Etruscan praenomen Volta.[3][2] An undated inscription from Thermae Himeraeae in Sicily includes an example of the feminine praenomen Lucia.[4]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Vecilius L. f., named in a late second-century inscription from Falerii in Etruria, along with Lucius Vecilius, Pola Abeles, Plenes, and the brothers Lucius and Gaius Levieius.[3][5] Lucius Vecilius Vo. f., named in a late second-century inscription from Falerii, along with Pola Abeles, Gaius Vecilius, Plenes, and the brothers Lucius and Gaius Levieius.[3][5] Lucius Vecillius, one of the municipal quattuorvirs at Volturara in Apulia, according from an inscription dating from the second quarter of the first century BC. Two of his colleagues were Publius Luc[...] and Decimus Trebius.[6] Lucius Vecilius L. l. Maes[...], a freedman named along with the freedman Gaius Ovidius Zenophilus in a funerary inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[7][8][9] Publius Vecilius, named in a fragmentary inscription from Rome, dating between 30 and 20 BC.[10] Quintus Vecilius, one of the municipal duumvirs of Caiatia in Campania, together with Marcus Mar[...], according to an inscription dating from the Augustan era.[11] Marcus Vecilius M. f. L. n. Campus, used his own money to build an amphitheatre and a wall around it in honour of Augustus at Luceria in Apulia. Earlier he had served as praefectus fabrum, duumvir, and pontifex.[12] Vecilia Ɔ. l. Hilara, a freedwoman named in an early first-century inscription from Rome, along with Lucius Vibius, Lucius Vibius Felicio Felix, and the freedwoman Vibia Prima.[13] Titus Vecilius Felix, buried at Rome, along with his wife, the freedwoman Vettia Sabina, and several other persons, in a tomb dating from the first half of the first century.[14] Gaius Vecilius Ɔ. l. Hera, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome, dating from the first half of the first century.[15] Marcus Vecilius Verecundus, a vestiarius, or clothier, named in a tile inscription from Pompeii in Campania.[16] Lucius Vecilius, one of several persons named in a first-century inscription from the Temple of Diana Nemorensis in Latium.[17][18] Lucius Vecilius Basilis, buried in a first-century tomb at Thermae Himeraeae in Sicily, aged twelve.[19][20] Vecilia Leva, the wife of Titus Asinius Severus, an unguentarius, or ointment-maker, with whom she was buried in a first-century tomb at Ancona in Picenum.[21] Lucius Vecilius C. f. Modestus, held several minor offices and magistracies, including quaestor, military tribune of the Legio VI Ferrata in Syria, and prefect of several auxiliary units, commemorated in a first-century inscription from Timacum Minus in Moesia Superior.[22][23][24] Vecilia Sabina, built a first-century tomb at Rome for herself and her husband, Tiberius Claudius Malus.[25] Vecilia Tyrannis, a freedwoman of the emperor, built a temple to Jupiter and Hercules at the site of modern Guberevac, formerly part of Moesia Superior, dating between the latter half of the first century, and the early part of the second.[26][27][28] Lucius Vecilius, made a first- or second-century offering to Isis at Baelo Claudia in Hispania Baetica.[29][30] Titus Vecilius T. l. Phileros, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome.[31] Vecilia Ɔ. l. Poemne, a freedwoman buried in a second-century tomb at Rome, built by her husband, Publius Silius Asylus for himself and Poemne.[32][33] Gaius Vecilius C. f. Probus, dedicated a monument at Tibur in Latium, decreed by the local senate, for his friend, Lucius Roscius Aelianus Maecius Celer, dating from around the death of Trajan, and listing the various offices and magistracies that Celer had held, including quaestor, tribune of the plebs, military tribune of the Legio IX Hispana, governor of Africa, and consul, along with various honours that Celer had won.[34][35][36] Gaius Vecilius Karus, along with Marcus Antonius Florus, quattuorvirs of Tibur, dedicated a monument on the Kalends of March, AD 143.[37][38] Vecilia Homoea, the wife of Gaius Veianius, with whom she placed a monument statue in honour of their son, Gaius Veianius Orestinus, a soldier in the third cohort of the praetorian guard, who had been granted the insignia of a Decurion by the emperor, according to an inscription from Iader in Dalmatia, dating from the latter half of the second century.[39] Undated Vecilii Vecilia, buried at Thermae Himeraeae.[40][41] Lucius Vecilius C. f., buried at Asta Regia in Hispania Baetica, in a tomb built in accordance with a will.[42][43] Lucia Vecilia L. f., buried at Thermae Himeraeae, aged thirty.[4][44] Lucius Vecilius Antioc(hus?), named on a pottery stamp from Athens in Achaia.[45] Publius Vecilius Antiochus, named on several lead water pipes from Rome.[46] Gaius Vecilius C. f. Florinus, buried at Tibur, aged forty years, eleven months, and fifteen days, in a tomb built by his parents, Gaius Vecilius Florus and Vecilia Primitiva.[47][48] Gaius Vecilius Florus, together with his wife, Vecilia Primitiva, built a tomb at Tibur for their son, Gaius Vecilius Florinus.[47][48] Vecilia Lucilia, dedicated a tomb at Antipolis in Gallia Narbonensis for her daughter, Vesuccia Hermogenia.[49][50] Marcus Vecilius Marcellus, buried at Rodigium in Venetia and Histria, along with his wife, Attia Pupa, and their children, Vecilia Prisca and Marcus Vecilius Praesens, in a tomb built by order of Attia's will.[51] Marcus Vecilius M. f. Praesens, buried at Rodigium, along with his parents, Marcus Vecilius Marcellus and Attia Pupa, and his sister, Vecilia Prisca, in a tomb built by order of his mother's will.[51] Vecilia Primitiva, together with her husband, Gaius Vecilius Florus, built a tomb at Tibur for their son, Gaius Vecilius Florinus.[47][48] Vecilia M. f. Prisca, buried at Rodigium, along with her parents, Marcus Vecilius Marcellus and Attia Pupa, and her brother, Marcus Vecilius Praesens, in a tomb built by order of her mother's will.[51] Lucius Vecilius Valerianus, buried at Thermae Himeraeae, aged thirteen, along with Lucius Vecilius Vecilianus.[52][53] Lucius Vecilius Vecilianus, buried at Thermae Himeraeae, aged eight, along with Lucius Vecilius Vecilianus.[52][53] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", 122.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", 123.  CIL XI, 3160.  CIL X, 7444.  AE 2010, 37.  CIL IX, 936.  CIL VI, 36020.  AE 2001, 219.  La collezione epigrafica dell'antiquarium comunale del Celio, 397.  CIL VI, 33341/  CIL X, 8237.  AE 1937, 64.  CIL VI, 28774.  CIL VI, 20750.  CIL VI, 6964.  CIL IV, 3130.  CIL XIV, 4197.  EE, ix. p. 394.  AE 1980, 525.  Bivona, Iscrizioni di Termini Imerese, 153.  CIL IX, 5905.  CIL III, 8261.  AE 2011, 1112.  Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure, iii. 2. 23.  AE 2003, 263.  CIL III, 13536.  AE 1902, 35.  Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure, i. 103.  AE 1984, 530.  Bonneville et al., Les inscriptions romaines de Baelo Claudia, 3.  CIL VI, 28385.  AE 1982, 99.  BCAR, 1980/81–94.  CIL XIV, 3612.  AE 2018, 151.  Inscriptiones Italiae, iv. 1. 129.  CIL XIV, 3692.  Inscriptiones Italiae, iv. 1. 189.  AE 2019, 1201.  AE 1980, 526.  Bivona, Iscrizioni di Termini Imerese, 156.  CIL II, 1309.  Inscripciones Romanas de la Provincia de Cádiz, 107.  Bivona, Iscrizioni di Termini Imerese, 155.  CIL III, 6546,12.  CIL XV, 5728,1, CIL XV, 5728,2, CIL XV, 5728,3, CIL XV, 7528,1 CIL XV, 7528,2, CIL XV, 7528,3.  CIL XIV, 3860.  Inscriptiones Italiae, iv. 1. 469.  CIL XII, 235.  CAG, vi. p. 205.  CIL V, 2455.  CIL X, 7443.  Bivona, Iscrizioni di Termini Imerese, 154. Bibliography Livia Bivona, Iscrizioni latine lapidarie del museo civico di Termini Imerese (Latin Lapidary Inscriptions from the Municipal Museum of Termini Imerese), Rome (1994). Jean-Noël Bonneville, Sylvie Dardaine, and Patrick Le Roux: Belo 5: l'Épigraphie. Les inscriptions romaines de Baelo Claudia (Belo 5: The Epigraphy. The Roman Inscriptions of Baelo Claudia), Madrid (1988). Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale in Roma (Bulletin of the Municipal Archaeological Commission of Rome, abbreviated BCAR), (1872–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). La Carte Archéologique de la Gaule (Archaeological Map of Gaul, abbreviated CAG), Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1931–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Gian Luca Gregori, La collezione epigrafica dell'antiquarium comunale del Celio (The Epigraphic Collection of the Ancient Community of the Caelian Hill), Quasar, Rome (2001). Julián González, Inscripciones Romanas de la Provincia de Cádiz (Roman Inscriptions from the Province of Cadiz), Cadiz (1982). 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). Inscriptiones Italiae (Inscriptions from Italy), Rome (1931-present). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Fanou Papazoglou, Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure (Inscriptions of Moesia Superior), Belgrade (1976–present). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Etruscan origin And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vecilio – Ossia: Grice e Vecilio – Grex griceiana – Vecilio -- For the Vecilii, my first-best Grice-Speranza hero would be neither the amphitheatre-builder nor the military tribune. I would choose:  Gaius Vecilius Probus,  the man who dedicated a monument to his friend Lucius Roscius Aelianus Maecius Celer, recording the latter's cursus honorum and distinctions. [GREXv3 | Word] Why him? Because he is one of the very few Vecilii who appears not merely as:  a magistrate, a donor, a freedman, a name on a tomb,  but as a man publicly speaking about another man. [GREXv3 | Word] And that immediately introduces one of Grice's favorite topics:  commendation.   Suppose the inscription effectively says:  "This was my friend, and these were his honors."  The Gricean question is:  Why these honors? Why these details? Why this form of praise?  A monument is a gigantic Roman conversational contribution. It is almost an utterance in stone.  One can imagine a tutorial. Discipulus:  Cur Probus tot honores enumerat? (Why does Probus list so many offices?)  Griceus:  Quia monumenta quoque loquuntur. (Because monuments also speak.)  +> The monument performs a communicative act.  But there is another very attractive candidate. A close runner-up is:  Lucius Vecilius C. f. Modestus,  the military tribune and administrator whose inscription records a sequence of offices and postings in Syria and elsewhere. [GREXv3 | Word] Why? Because such a man lives entirely through chains of command:  orders, reports, dispatches, military communication.  He is a distant cousin of our hero Marcus Varisidius.  Yet my favorite remains Gaius Vecilius Probus. Why? Because friendship and testimony meet there. A friend erects a monument. The friend is no longer present. The inscription speaks in his place. That is almost exactly the communicative problem that Grice liked.  Indeed, imagine a conversation. Senator:  Quis fuit Celer? (Who was Celer?)  Probus:  Amicus meus. (My friend.)  Senator:  Unde scimus? (How do we know?)  Probus:  Monumentum posui. (I erected a monument.)   Senator:  Cur? (Why?)  Probus:  Ne taceret post mortem. (So that he would not be silent after death.)  +> The monument is a surrogate speaker. (Ha.) That seems to me far more Gricean than the other Vecilii. For with Publius Vatienus we had:  divine testimony.  With Marcus Varisidius:  political testimony.  With Gaius Vecilius Probus:  epigraphic testimony.  The speaker is absent. The message remains. And the hearer must reconstruct what was meant from what survives. A very Speranzian dossier indeed. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vedio – Ossia: Grice e Vedio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vedio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VEDIO The gens Vedia was a minor plebeian family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Publius Vedius, a close friend of Pompeius, whom Cicero describes as an extravagant fool and a rascal. While he was meeting with Cicero, his baggage left with his host, Pompeius Vindullus, at Laodicea, Vindullus died, and Gaius Vennonius, securing the estate, discovered compromising portraits in Vedius' belongings.[1][2] Vedius Rufus, the son of a freedman, attained equestrian status, and held public office, rising as far as military tribune. Horace's fourth epode is thought to have been inspired by him.[3] Publius Vedius P. f. Pollio, the son of a freedman, was an immensely wealthy eques, and a friend of Augustus. Known for his cruelty, he incurred the emperor's wrath by ordering the death of a slave for breaking a crystal goblet. Augustus is said to have written insulting verses about Pollio.[4][5][6] Vedius Aquila, commander of the Legio XIII Gemina, led part of Otho's forces at the First Battle of Bedriacum, where they were defeated by Vitellius in AD 69. Later he was a supporter of Vespasian.[7][8][9] Marcus Claudius Publius Vedius Antoninus Sabinus, the grandfather of Publius Vedius Antoninus, one of the leading citizens of Ephesus.[10] Marcus Claudius Publius Vedius P. f. Antoninus Phaedrus Sabinianus, the father of Publius Vedius Antoninus, one of the leading citizens of Ephesus.[10] Publius Vedius P. f. P. n. Antoninus, one of the decurions of Ephesus, where he constructed an odeon, a gymnasium, and a Hadrianeum. Lucius Verus visited Vedius' estate on his way to campaign against the Parthians in AD 162. Vedius was the father-in-law of the philosopher Damian of Ephesus.[10] Vedia P. f. P. n., daughter of the decurion Publius Vedius Antoninus, and wife of the philosopher Damian of Ephesus.[10] See also List of Roman gentes References  Cicero, Ad Atticum, vi. 1. § 25.  William Smith, "P. Vedius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1235.  PIR, vol. III, p. 391 ('V', No. 214).  Cassius Dio, Roman History, liv. 23; Seneca the Younger, De Ira, iii. 40; De Clementia, i. 18; Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, ix. 23. s. 39, 53. s. 78; Tacitus, Annales, i. 10, xii. 60; Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 4.  William Smith, "Pollio, Vedius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 440.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 390, 391 ('V', No. 213).  Tacitus, Historiae, ii. 44, iii. 7.  William Smith, "Pollio, Vedius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 253.  PIR, vol. III, p. 390 ('V', No. 212).  PIR, vol. III, pp. 389, 390 ('V', No. 211). Bibliography Ancient sources Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger), De Ira (On Anger); De Clementia (On Clemency). Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae. Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman History. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, Saturnalia. Modern sources Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). 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: Vedio – Ossia: Grice e Vedio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vedio For the Vedii, the choice is easy. Not the military commander. Not the Ephesian benefactor. Not even Cicero's absurd friend with the compromising luggage. My first-best Grice-Speranza vignette is undoubtedly:  Publius Vedius Pollio. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because he gives us something that fascinated Grice throughout his career:  the relation between what is said, what is ordered, what is implicated, and what is done.  Pollio is remembered above all for the famous anecdote reported by Seneca, Dio, and others: a slave accidentally broke a valuable crystal cup, and Pollio ordered the slave's execution; Augustus, present at the scene, intervened and prevented it. [GREXv3 | Word] This is almost pure philosophy of communication.  Why Pollio rather than Augustus? Because Pollio generates the speech act. Pollio says something like:  "Take him away."  The interesting question is:  What did that mean?  Not semantically. Practically. Institutionally. Legally. Morally.  A Griceian reconstruction: Pollio:  Abducite servum. (Take the slave away.)  Dispensator:  Quo? (Where?)  Pollio:  Ad poenam. (To punishment.)  +> The order's force depends heavily upon institutional background.  Then enters Augustus. Augustus:  Ob unum poculum? (For one cup?)  Pollio:  Ita. (Yes.)   Augustus:  Nimis est. (It is too much.)  +> The emperor challenges not the description but the appropriateness of the practical inference.  The Grice-Speranza point The story contains a hidden conversational problem: The slave breaks a cup. Pollio interprets:  broken cup ⇒ execution.  Augustus interprets:  broken cup ⇒ annoyance.  The disagreement concerns the transition between:  fact and practical consequence.  A beautiful Gricean theme.  A second reason Pollio is perhaps the best Roman example of a failed conversational cooperative principle. Imagine: Augustus:  Quid accidit? (What happened?)  Slave:  Poculum fractum est. (The cup was broken.)  That is all. The information provided does not conversationally implicate:  "Kill the slave."  Pollio imports that conclusion. Augustus rejects it. The whole anecdote turns on rival inferences.  The Oxford tutorial Grice:  "What broke?"  Tutee:  "A crystal cup."  Grice:  "And then?"  Tutee:  "Pollio ordered the slave killed."  Grice:  "Ah. That is not an entailment."  (Ha.) Exactly. The practical conclusion massively outruns what was explicitly conveyed.  Runner-up My second choice would actually be:  Publius Vedius, the friend of Pompey described by Cicero as a fool and rascal, whose baggage contained compromising portraits. [GREXv3 | Word]  Because there we get another lovely Griceian theme:  baggage meaning more than its owner intended.  The luggage becomes a communicator. Objects begin to speak. A suitcase generates implicatures. Very Borgesian. (Ha.)  Final verdict For Grice e Vedius, I choose:  Publius Vedius Pollio. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because he was admirable. Quite the opposite. He gives us a near-perfect example of a conversational and practical disconnect:  Cup broken. Slave executed.  Augustus' intervention amounts to saying:  "Your conclusion does not follow."  Which is, after all, one of the most Gricean things anyone can say. (Ha.) But with the slave, Grice and Speranza do not allow for the principle of conversational helpfulness to hold among or with slaves -- not 'decent chaps' in Grice's word -- 'not your decent chap' -- a conversational maxim is what a decent chap follows. And this is post-moralising ex post facto. Ottavio should have liberated him, and indeed abolish the instituion. If it's Hart/Honore Causation and the law -- what is the latin, for "accidentally broke it" -- cf. you break it, you own it --. The slave is nto doing ANYTHING out of his own free will. Hence, if Ottavio felt overwhelmed, it should have served him as a premonition that slavery HAD to be abolished. For our 'hero' -- a slave being as disposable as a cup (or more so), 'execution' is not meant as punishment for crime -- since there was no mens rea. Thanks. Seneca would dwell on these things because he was the Hispanic Grice! Thanks Yes, and this is precisely where a Grice-Speranza reading of Publius Vedius Pollio diverges from both the Roman legal and the purely conversational perspectives. Grice's "decent chap" qualification is crucial. The Cooperative Principle was never intended as a description of every human interaction. It is an idealization of exchanges among rational participants who recognize one another as participants in a common enterprise. A slave in Pollio's household is not situated as Grice's "decent chap" is situated. He is not a free conversational partner. He is property under Roman law. That changes everything. For Pollio, the broken cup is not primarily:  an act,  nor even:  a crime.  It is damage to property caused by another piece of property. That is what horrifies later readers and partly explains why Seneca tells the story. The slave and the goblet begin to occupy the same evaluative space.  If we ask how the Latin would express "he accidentally broke it", several possibilities arise. A Roman trying to stress absence of intention might say:  casu fregit. (He broke it by chance.)  or  forte fregit. (He happened to break it.)  or  non consulto fregit. (He did not break it deliberately.)  The crucial point is precisely the one you raise:  no mens rea.  No intention to damage. No malice. No rebellion. Merely mishap.  The Hart-Honoré angle is especially relevant. The question becomes:  What caused the cup to break?  One answer:  the slave.  Another:  slippery conditions.  Another:  defective workmanship.  Another:  fate.  Another:  Pollio's insistence on employing expensive crystal in ordinary service.  (Ha.) Hart and Honoré spend much time showing that:  cause  is not simply whatever event immediately precedes another. Human interests determine which factor gets picked out. Pollio picks:  the slave.  Augustus implicitly picks:  the accident.  Hence the disagreement.  A Gricean reconstruction might be: Pollio:  Poculum fregit. (He broke the cup.)  Augustus:  Consultone? (Deliberately?)  Pollio:  Non. (No.)  Augustus:  Ergo quid fecit nisi erravit? (Then what has he done except make a mistake?)  +> The practical conclusion outruns the acknowledged facts.  And here your moral point enters. Augustus' intervention appears merciful. But from a modern perspective one may ask:  Why was the slave available for execution in the first place?  The deeper institution remains untouched. The incident becomes a critique not merely of Pollio's cruelty but of slavery itself.  This is indeed very Senecan territory. Seneca repeatedly urges readers to remember that slaves are human beings:  servi sunt? immo homines. (Are they slaves? Rather, they are human beings.)  That's not Grice's phrase, of course, but the spirit is similar. A conversational participant is somebody whose intentions matter. The Roman institution of slavery systematically suppresses that recognition.  Which is why, for Grice and Speranza, Pollio makes an intriguing but ultimately problematic hero. The key conversational question:  Why did the cup break?  cannot be detached from:  Whose intentions count?  Pollio's world counts only the master's intentions. Seneca tries to reintroduce the slave's humanity. Grice would likely note that the whole notion of conversational cooperation presupposes something like mutual recognition among agents. Where one party is treated as disposable, the conversational model is already fractured. As your imaginary Seneca might put it: Augustus:  Poculum fractum est. (The cup has been broken.)  Pollio:  Ergo servus pereat. (Therefore the slave should die.)  Seneca:  Non sequitur. (That does not follow.)  And perhaps that is the most Gricean line in the entire anecdote. The conclusion is not merely harsh; it fails to follow from the premises. (Ha.) And that's why Grice disliked to be described as a 'British subject (+> to the monarch of the United Kingdom). For Pollio is slave to Ottavio. "Do not execute him" -- "Who are you to tell me?" Invent Latin conversation with our hero V. challenging Ottavio's remark. Thanks (Ha.) I think Grice would have been very careful here. He disliked being characterized merely as a  "British subject"  because the description invites a whole series of implicatures about subordination, allegiance, and political identity that he did not necessarily wish to endorse. But the Pollio episode raises an even sharper issue. For Pollio's immediate reaction is not:  "The slave did wrong."  but almost:  "The slave is mine."  Ownership is silently doing the work. That is precisely why Augustus' intervention is philosophically interesting. Not because he abolishes slavery (he certainly does not), but because he disrupts the inference:  slave → property → disposable.  A Griceian might say:  the conclusion does not conversationally follow from the premises.  The Roman institution says it does.  Grice e Vedius Pollio Pollio:  Servus poculum fregit. (The slave broke the cup.)   Augustus:  Consultone? (Deliberately?)   Pollio:  Minime. (Not at all.)   Augustus:  Ergo casu accidit. (Then it happened by accident.)  +> Absence of intention weakens the grounds for punishment.  Pollio:  Quid refert? Meum erat poculum. (What difference does it make? It was my cup.)  +> Property, not intention, becomes decisive.  Augustus:  At homo quoque tuus est. (But the man is yours as well.)   Pollio:  Ita vero. (Indeed.)   Augustus:  Ergo cur poculo plus tribuis quam homini? (Then why do you attach greater value to the cup than to the man?)  +> The evaluative hierarchy is challenged.  Pollio:  Quia poculum fractum est. (Because the cup is broken.)   Augustus:  Et servus occisus erit. (And the slave will be dead.)   Pollio:  Dominus sum. (I am the master.)   And now comes the Grice-Speranza twist.  Augustus:  Quis te interrogavit an dominus esses? (Who asked whether you were the master?)   Pollio:  Quid igitur quaeris? (What then are you asking?)   Augustus:  Quaero cur hoc sequatur. (I ask why this follows.)  +> Ownership alone does not explain the practical conclusion.  Pollio:  Servus est. (He is a slave.)   Augustus:  Hoc iam dictum est. (That has already been said.)   Pollio:  Meus servus est. (He is my slave.)   Augustus:  Hoc quoque dictum est. (That too has already been said.)   Pollio:  Ergo meum ius exerceo. (Therefore I exercise my right.)   Augustus:  Non ius quaero, sed rationem. (I seek not the right, but the reason.)  +> Legal authority and rational justification are distinguished.  This is where Grice would have become interested. Not in the legal question alone:  May Pollio do this?  but in the inferential question:  Why does Pollio think the conclusion follows?   One can imagine old Seneca, the "Hispanic Grice" in your phrase, stepping in: Seneca:  Poculum fractum est. (The cup has been broken.)   Pollio:  Ergo servus moriatur. (Therefore let the slave die.)   Seneca:  Non sequitur. (It does not follow.)  +> The conclusion outruns the facts acknowledged by all parties.  And Grice, back in Oxford: Tutee:  "Why did Augustus intervene?"  Grice:  "Because even emperors occasionally detect invalid implicatures."  (Ha.) For Pollio is treating:  "The slave broke the cup"  as if it already contained:  "The slave deserves death."  Augustus' entire intervention consists in rejecting that transition. A very Roman dispute, but also a very Gricean one. And on merely utilitarian grounds, our hero "V." would not have assumed the consequences of challenging Ottavio over a slave or a cup ("That's your opinion, Octavius, thanks for it -- but I won't follow it -- my slave will BE executed."). Thanks (Ha.) Yes, and this is one place where the Grice-Speranza reconstruction becomes considerably darker than the Senecan anecdote itself. If we take our hero Publius Vedius Pollio seriously, he is not primarily interested in persuasion, nor even in moral justification. He is interested in authority. The conversational sequence:  Cup broken. Slave to be executed.  does not function, for Pollio, as an argument. It functions as a decision. Hence the Gricean difficulty. Augustus may produce a reason. Pollio may simply refuse to be moved by it.  A possible reconstruction: Augustus:  Poculum casu fractum est. (The cup was broken accidentally.)   Pollio:  Concedo. (I grant it.)   Augustus:  Nulla fuit voluntas nocendi. (There was no intention to do harm.)   Pollio:  Concedo. (I grant it.)   Augustus:  Cur ergo moriatur? (Why then should he die?)   Pollio:  Quia ita volo. (Because I wish it so.)  +> The transition from fact to punishment depends solely on the master's will.  Now the interesting question. A utilitarian Pollio, as you suggest, might well think:  "Thank you for your opinion, Octavius."  but continue:  "The slave dies."   Augustus:  Nolo eum interfici. (I do not wish him to be killed.)   Pollio:  Gratias ago. (Thank you.)   Augustus:  Non intellegis. (You do not understand.)   Pollio:  Intellego optime. (I understand perfectly.)   Augustus:  Ergo pare. (Then obey.)   Pollio:  Cur? (Why?)   This is the dangerous moment. As long as Augustus is merely supplying reasons, Pollio may reject them. As long as he is merely another conversational participant, the exchange remains open. The decisive change occurs when Augustus ceases to offer reasons and begins to exercise power.  A very Roman continuation: Augustus:  Quis sum? (Who am I?)   Pollio:  Amicus meus. (My friend.)   Augustus:  Plus quam amicus. (More than a friend.)   Pollio:  Intellego nunc. (Now I understand.)  +> The force of the utterance derives from political position rather than argumentative strength.  Grice would find this fascinating because it marks the boundary between:  rational persuasion  and  authority.  The Cooperative Principle concerns the former. Roman politics often depends on the latter.  Indeed, a Griceian tutor might ask: Tutor:  "Why did Pollio ultimately comply?"  Tutee:  "Because Augustus convinced him."  Tutor:  "Are you sure?"  (Ha.) That is exactly the question. Seneca presents the story as a triumph of clemency. The cynic suspects that Pollio suddenly discovered that the person expressing humanitarian concern happened also to be the most powerful man in the world.  So the deepest Grice-Speranza moral may be:  An argument does not become stronger because an emperor utters it. But an emperor's utterance may become effective even when the argument fails.  Pollio could treat:  "Do not kill him"  as advice. He could treat it as a recommendation. He could even treat it as an opinion. What he could not safely treat it as was merely another conversational contribution once he realized who was speaking. (Ha.) And that is perhaps why Grice preferred Oxford tutorials to imperial courts: in the tutorial, disagreement did not normally carry the risk that the other participant was secretly Augustus. And that's why, as Grice puts it, we have to 'subjects' or servants' here -- V's slave, and V. himself. Surely, he may have abiden by the advice, and reconsider -- but he may well have agreed to disagree, or disagree to agree. Thanks Yes, and I think this is exactly where Grice would insert one of his distinctions between:  accepting a conclusion,  and  accepting a speaker's authority.  Pollio and Augustus need not be describing the facts differently. Both may agree:  servus poculum casu fregit. (The slave accidentally broke the cup.)  The disagreement concerns what follows. And, as you note, there are actually two servants, or "subjects," in the scene:  Pollio's slave. Pollio himself, in relation to Augustus.  The second relation is less obvious, but politically more significant.  A Grice-Speranza reconstruction: Augustus:  Noli servum occidere. (Do not kill the slave.)   Pollio:  Consiliumne das an imperas? (Are you giving advice or issuing an order?)  +> Pollio asks whether the utterance derives its force from reasons or authority.  Augustus:  Primum consilium do. (First I give advice.)   Pollio:  Gratias ago. (Thank you.)   Augustus:  Et quid facies? (And what will you do?)   Pollio:  Fortasse non parebo. (Perhaps I shall not comply.)   Augustus:  Cur? (Why?)   Pollio:  Quia aliud censeo. (Because I judge differently.)  +> Agreement on facts need not produce agreement on practical conclusions.  Augustus:  Ergo dissentimus. (Then we disagree.)   Pollio:  Dissentimus. (We disagree.)   Augustus:  Amici tamen manemus? (Yet we remain friends?)   Pollio:  Manemus. (We remain.)   That would be the genuinely conversational version. No coercion. No imperial pressure. Merely disagreement. What Grice used to call:  rational dispute among decent chaps.   But Roman reality may be different. After a pause: Augustus:  At memineris quis sim. (But remember who I am.)   Pollio:  Iam non tantum disputamus. (We are no longer merely discussing.)  +> The conversational framework begins to yield to political hierarchy.  What interests Grice is precisely that transition. A conversational exchange can end with:  "I disagree."  That is perfectly legitimate. A participant is not obliged to be persuaded merely because someone else has spoken. As Grice sometimes emphasizes, rational communication does not guarantee convergence. It merely makes disagreement intelligible.  So your Pollio might well say:  Octavi, gratias pro sententia; sed aliter censeo. (Octavius, thank you for your opinion; but I think otherwise.)  And from a purely conversational perspective, that is a complete and acceptable move. The deeper question is whether Augustus is still speaking merely as:  a conversational participant,  or already as:  Augustus.  And once the latter enters, Grice's analysis of conversation begins to give way to Roman political reality. (Ha.) Indeed one can imagine Grice ending the tutorial: Tutee:  "Why did Pollio obey?"  Grice:  "That is precisely the question."  Tutee:  "Because Augustus convinced him?"  Grice:  "Possibly."  Tutee:  "Because Augustus was Augustus?"  Grice:  "Also possibly."  Tutee:  "How do we tell?"  Grice:  "That is why philosophy is more difficult than history."  (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Grice e Vegetti: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’accademia di Pater – vadum boum ariskant meets Plathegel. Philosophy at Oxford. Note su Technai e filosofia nel Perì tèchnes pseudo-ippocratico. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Mario Vegetti (Milano, Lombardia): Compared institutionally, Mario Vegetti is much closer to H. P. Grice than many of the figures you have been treating, because both are recognisably university philosophers; but they still belong to very different academic worlds. Mario Vegetti was born in Milan in 1937, studied at Pavia as an alumnus of the Collegio Ghislieri, took his laurea in 1959 with a thesis on Thucydides, and from 1975 to 2005 was professor ordinario di storia della filosofia antica at the Università di Pavia. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s, plus CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Vegetti, by contrast, was an Italian professor and historian of ancient philosophy in the state-university and Ghislieri-IUSS world of Pavia, not a college tutor in the Oxford residential sense. He taught in the University of Pavia, later also at IUSS Pavia and the Suor Orsola Benincasa advanced school in Naples. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] That institutional difference fits your philosophical contrast rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intention and inferring implicature under conversational norms. Vegetti, by contrast, works at the macro-level of the historical formation of rational practices: ancient logic, medicine, biology, ethics, civic ideology, and Platonic political thought. The standard biographical and commemorative sources stress that he renewed the history of ancient philosophy by integrating medicine, biology, zoology, anthropology, sociology, and historical epistemology into the account of ancient rationality. [treccani.it], [academia.edu], [ilasl.org], [jstor.org] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how rational coordination works in the living moment of exchange. Vegetti explains how the very conditions of rational discourse—technical vocabularies, civic functions of philosophy, traditions of argument, and scientific styles—are historically built and transmitted across generations. [jstor.org], [academia.edu] That is why your comparison is good, though I would correct one thing in your phrasing. I would not build much on “l’accademia di Pater,” because what is secure and central for Vegetti is not a Walter Pater line, but the Pavia-Ghislieri-Geymonat formation and his lifelong effort to connect ancient philosophy with ancient science and civic life. The main sources consistently present Vegetti as a historian of ancient thought whose work ranges from Hippocrates and Galen to Plato’s Republic, with an explicit conviction about the civil function of philosophy. [treccani.it], [academia.edu] There are also two useful bibliographical clarifications. First, your early title is correct and important. The bibliographical record for Mario Vegetti does indeed list “Technai e filosofia nel Perì tèchnes pseudo-ippocratico” in the Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 1964, vol. 98, pp. 1–73. [fondazione...ancarlo.it] Second, if you want a later and more representative cluster for the mature Vegetti, the secure major books are Il coltello e lo stilo (1979), L’etica degli antichi (1989), and Guida alla lettura della Repubblica di Platone (1999). [treccani.it], [fondazione...ancarlo.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Mario Vegetti, by contrast, was an Italian professor and historian of ancient philosophy, formed at Pavia under the influence of Ludovico Geymonat and professionally defined by the state-university system, especially the Università di Pavia. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the world of college tutorials and faculty lectures; Vegetti to the world of university chairs, Ghislieri, and the long historical reconstruction of ancient rationality. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vegetti investigates the historical and civic conditions under which rational discourse, technical language, and philosophical argument become possible at all. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [jstor.org], [academia.edu] And if you want the neatest one-line dossier formula, I would suggest this: Grice theorises rational uptake in conversation; Vegetti historicises the scientific, civic, and institutional traditions that make rational discourse possible. [jstor.org], [academia.edu] If you like, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your own register, with the 1964 Technai essay as the bibliographic anchor and the “academy” motif reduced to what is securely Vegettian.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’accademia di Pater. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what a speaker means is rationally recoverable by a hearer from what is said plus shared cooperative norms (maxims), yielding implicatures that are in principle calculable, defeasible, and answerable to reasons; conversational reason is thus a micro-pragmatic account of how interlocutors coordinate on intended significance without making everything explicit. Vegetti, as a historian of ancient philosophy and science with a marked concern for the civic function of philosophy and for the scientific/intellectual texture of Greek culture (including medicine and the technical vocabularies of τέχνη), shifts the focus from Grice’s normativity of inference in everyday exchange to the long-form normativity of intellectual traditions: the “reason” at stake is how a community (the Academy, in the broad classical sense) stabilizes meanings, disciplines argument, and transmits conceptual tools across time, so that what is “implicated” is often a learned background of practices, genres, and institutional aims rather than a one-off conversational calculation. Put together, Grice models the local mechanics by which speakers responsibly mean more than they say in a given talk-exchange; Vegetti exemplifies the historical and institutional conditions that make such meaning-making possible at all—how technical languages (medical, philosophical, scientific) are formed, how criteria of relevance and clarity are educated, and how reason functions as a public practice—so that Grice’s implicature looks like the micro-level counterpart of Vegetti’s macro-level picture of rational discourse as cultivated, tradition-bearing, and civically consequential. vadum boum –ariskant meets Plathegel. Philosophy at Oxford could only be studied under the classics, and philosophy indeed introduced upon five terms completed towards the degree: B. A. Lit. Hum., which become after seven years of matriculation and paying the fee, the M. A. Lit. Hum., which was the highest degree earned by Grice. Filosofo milanese. Filosofo lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Essential Italian philosopher. Filosofo italiano. Storico della filosofia italiano. M. Milano. Alunno del collegio Ghislieri di Pavia, si è laureato nell’ateneo della città con una tesi su Tucidide, tra i suoi maestri annoverava L. Geymonat. Professore ordinario di Storia della filosofia antica dal 1975 al 2005 sempre a Pavia, è considerato come uno dei più validi studiosi di Platone a livello internazionale. Occupatosi di storia della filosofia e della scienza antiche, della cultura greca, è stato attento agli aspetti scientifici della cultura classica, ha riconosciuto l’importanza dell’ellenismo per la scienza, oltre che per la filosofia. V. ha anche approfondito i rapporti tra il pensiero greco e la religione cristiana ed era convinto della funzione civile della filosofia. Tra i suoi numerosi scritti si ricordano: Il coltello e lo stilo, L'etica degli antichi e Guida alla lettura della Repubblica di Platone. Insegna a Pavia. Si laurea a Pavia con la tesi, “La storiografia di Tucidide,” quale alunno del collegio Ghislieri. Libero docente e successivamente professore incaricato in storia della filosofia antica. Professore di questa disciplina a Pavia dove ricopre più volte il ruolo di direttore nel dipartimento di filosofia. Docente presso la scuola superiore IUSS di Pavia e la scuola europea di studi avanzati dell'Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli. Membro del Collegium Politicum e socio dell'Accademia di scienze morali e politiche di Napoli. ariskant, plathegel, il platonismo oxoniense di Pater.  Grice: Mario, ho sentito parlare spesso di Walter Pater, soprattutto nei corridoi di Oxford. Dicono che il suo platonismo abbia influenzato generazioni di pensatori, anche al di là della Manica. Ma, confesso, la sua "accademia" resta per me un po' misteriosa. Tu che sei uno storico della filosofia, come lo descriveresti? Vegetti: Grice, hai colto nel segno. Pater rappresenta una figura peculiare nell’ambiente oxoniense: il suo platonismo è più estetico che metafisico, una sorta di invito a vivere la bellezza come esperienza filosofica. Per lui, il pensiero antico diventa una forma di "vita raffinata", una via alla ricerca del senso attraverso l’arte e la cultura, senza mai perdere la leggerezza della conversazione. Grice: Mi affascina questa idea di filosofia come stile di vita, Mario. Forse Pater riprende proprio la tradizione greca, dove la filosofia era vissuta prima ancora che insegnata. Sarebbe stato un ottimo “giocatore” nel nostro Gruppo di Gioco! Ma dimmi: credi che questa prospettiva possa dialogare con l’implicatura conversazionale, quella dinamica sottile che anima ogni scambio? V.: Assolutamente, Grice. Pater, a suo modo, valorizza la conversazione come forma di ricerca, dove ogni parola è una sfumatura, ogni implicatura un invito a esplorare nuove interpretazioni. La sua accademia milanese, potremmo dire, è come quella oxoniense: un luogo dove si coltiva il dialogo tra bellezza e ragione, e dove la filosofia diventa un gioco sottile tra ciò che si dice e ciò che si intende. In fondo, la “ragione conversazionale” è la vera anima del pensiero, sia antico che moderno. Vegetti, Mario (1964). Technai e filosofia nel Perì tèchnes pseudo-ippocratico. Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali:Velio – Ossia:  Grice e Velio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Velio H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VELIO The gens Velia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the latter part of the first century AD. The first of the Velii to obtain the consulship was Decimus Velius Fidus in AD 144.  Origin The Velii share their nomen with the Velian Hill, a spur of the Palatine in the heart of Rome, and also with the town of Velia in Lucania. Since the Velii are not mentioned until imperial times, they may have come from and taken their name from the town, which received the Roman franchise under the lex Julia of 90 BC.[1]  Branches and cognomina The only distinct family of the Velii bore the cognomen Rufus, "red", one of a large class of surnames deriving from a person's physical appearance. This cognomen would probably have been given to an ancestor of the Velii who had red hair.[2] The other cognomina borne by the Velii appear to have been personal surnames, including Celer, swift, Fidus, faithful, and Longus, tall, alluding to the traits or characteristics of an individual, while Senex refers to an old man, and Cerealis, a devotee of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, or to the grain with which she was associated.[3][4]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Velius, an aedile, named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating between AD 14 and 16.[5] Velius Cerealis or Cerialis, a friend of Pliny the Younger, addressed in two of his letters.[6][7] Velius Paulus, proconsul of Bithynia and Pontus from AD 79 to 80.[8][9][7] Velius Longus, a Latin grammarian who may have flourished during the reign of Trajan or Hadrian. He was the author of De Orthographia, which still exists, and of a commentary on the Aeneid.[10][11][12][13][14][7][15] Velius Celer, a grammarian who lived in the time of Hadrian.[16][7] Decimus Velius Fidus, consul suffectus toward the end of AD 144, and governor of an unidentified province, perhaps Syria, circa 150. He is probably the same as the pontifex Velius Fidus mentioned in an inscription dating to 155.[17] Velius Cornificius Gordianus, consul suffectus in September, AD 275.[18] Velia Pumidia Maximilla, wife of the senator Aurelius Propinquus, buried at Nepete in Etruria.[19][7] Velii Rufi Gaius Velius Rufus, procurator of Pannonia and Dalmatia between circa AD 90 and the beginning of 93.[20] Velius Rufus Senex, a correspondent of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, and perhaps the father of Decimus Velius Rufus Julianus, the consul of AD 178.[21][7][22] Decimus Velius Rufus Julianus, consul in AD 178, was one of those eminent men put to death without cause by Commodus circa 183, after the discovery of a plot to assassinate him.[23][24][7][22] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. II, pp. 1266–1268 ("Velia").  Chase, p. 110.  Chase, pp. 110, 111 ("Longus", "Celer").  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. v. Cerealis, fidus, senex.  CIL XIV, 2964.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, iv. 21, ii. 19.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 392, 393.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, x. 58.  Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, p. 65.  Gellius, xviii. 9, 4.  Charisius, i. 18. § 2; ii. 9. § 4.  Macrobius, iii. 6.  Servius, Ad Virgilii Aeneidem, x. 145.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 806 ("Velius Longus").  Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 27, pp. 978, 979 (1911, "Velius Longus").  Priscian, vol. I, p. 547 (ed. Hertz).  AE 2000, 344, AE 2004, 1924, AE 1982, 900, CIL VI, 2120.  Flavius Vopiscus, "The Life of Tacitus", 3.  CIL XI, 3204.  Henriksén, Commentary on Martial, p. 140.  Fronto, Epistulae ad Amicos, i. 11.  van den Hout, M. Cornelius Fronto, p. 416.  Aelius Lampridius, "The Life of Commodus", 4.  AE 2004, 1901, AE 2006, 1837, AE 2007, 1770. Bibliography Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Epistulae ad Amicos (Letters to Friends). Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). Flavius Sosipater Charisius, Ars Grammatica (The Art of Grammar). Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Augustan History). Maurus Servius Honoratus (Servius), Ad Virgilii Aeneidem Commentarii (Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid). Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia. Priscianus Caesariensis (Priscian), Institutiones Grammaticae (Institutes of Grammar). 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). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1854). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (1911). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Michael P. J. van den Hout, A Commentary on the Letters of M. Cornelius Fronto, Brill (1999). Ruurd R. Nauta, Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian, Brill (2002). Christer Henriksén, A Commentary on Martial, Epigrams – Book 9, Oxford University Press (2012). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali:Velio – Ossia:  Grice e Velio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Velio For the Velii, my first-best Grice-Speranza choice is not the consul, nor the governor of Bithynia. It is unquestionably:  Velius Longus, the grammarian and author of De Orthographia, as well as a commentator on Vergil. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because after our adventures with:  Quintus Vargunteius (Ennius), Varisidius (the messenger), Vatienus (the Dioscuri's witness),  we arrive at a figure whose whole professional existence is devoted to one Gricean obsession:  How much of meaning belongs to what is written, and how much belongs to what is meant?   Grice would instantly tease the grammarian. Oxford Tutorial Grice:  Quid doces? (What do you teach?)  Velius Longus:  Orthographiam. (Orthography.)   Grice:  Litteras igitur? (Letters, then?)   Velius:  Primum litteras. (Letters first.)   Grice:  Et postea? (And afterwards?)   Velius:  Auctores. (Authors.)   Grice:  Et postea? (And afterwards?)   Velius:  Quid voluerint dicere. (What they intended to say.)  +> The grammarian moves from inscription to intention.  That last move is the Gricean one.  Indeed, Velius Longus creates a beautiful inversion of one of Grice's favourite principles. Grice:  Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.  Velius:  Spellings are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.  (Ha.) A grammarian spends his life asking:  Is this one word? Or two words? One spelling? Or two spellings?  A Griceian spends his life asking:  One sense? Or two senses?  The family resemblance is striking.  And we can immediately imagine a debate about a famous Gricean topic. Velius Longus versus Grice Velius:  Recte scribendum est. (It must be written correctly.)   Grice:  Recte intellegendum est. (It must be understood correctly.)   Velius:  Scriptura prior est. (Writing comes first.)   Grice:  Intentio prior est. (Intention comes first.)  +> Orthography and speaker's meaning compete for primacy.  Now, there is a splendid runner-up. Velius Cerealis because he appears in the correspondence of Pliny the Younger. [GREXv3 | Word] A correspondent is automatically a conversationalist. The Plinian world is one of:  letters, recommendations, literary exchange, social signalling.  Exactly the environment in which Gricean implicatures flourish. But we know too little about him.  The grammarian is richer. For Velius Longus inhabits the same world as:  Servius, Charisius, Priscian,  the world where scholars ask not merely:  What does Vergil say?  but  Why does Vergil say it that way?  Which is dangerously close to:  What did Vergil mean by saying it?   So the Grice-Speranza vignette writes itself. Grice e Velius Discipulus:  Magister, cur Vergilius hoc verbum elegit? (Master, why did Vergil choose this word?)   Velius:  Quia aptissimum erat. (Because it was the most fitting.)   Grice:  Non satis est. (That is not enough.)   Velius:  Quid amplius quaeris? (What further do you seek?)   Grice:  Cur hoc elegit potius quam aliud? (Why did he choose this rather than another?)   Velius:  Ut aliquid intellegeretur quod non aperte dictum est. (So that something might be understood which was not openly said.)  +> The grammarian accidentally becomes a theorist of implicature. (Ha.) Thus my verdict:  Grice e Velio = Velius Longus. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because he was politically important, but because every grammarian lives on the frontier between:  the letter, the word, the sentence, and what the author intended.  And that frontier is exactly where Grice spent most of his philosophical life. (Ha.) And why was Grice obsessed with this? Can we provide a Latin translation of his sentence here below and wonder what our hero V. may say about it? -- supposing the utterer comes up and WRITES the thing as ''un' etc too thanks Consider what I take to be Malcolm's definition of a self-contradic-tory expression, namely "an expression which would never be used to describe any situation" (he does not actually say that this is a complete definition of "self-contradictory expression," but equally he does not say that it is not, and I strongly suspect that he intends it as such, as indeed his manner of expression suggests). Is it really satisfactory as it stands? Take the expression "I'm not copperbottoming  'em, ma'am, I'm aluminiuming 'em, ma'am." 1 doubt very much if this expression would ever be used to describe any situation; it is too difficult to enunciate, and certainly no one would think of using it as a written symbol with a descriptive use (l of course am not using it descriptively). This is one of the places where Grice's obsession with grammar, meaning, and philosophical method all come together. The target is really Norman Malcolm's idea that a self-contradictory expression is:  "an expression which would never be used to describe any situation."  Grice's response is almost Velius-Longian:  That won't do.  Why? Because there are many expressions which would never be used, not because they are self-contradictory, but because they are:  awkward, difficult to pronounce, cumbersome, practically useless, culturally unavailable.  Hence Grice invents:  "I'm not copperbottoming 'em, ma'am, I'm aluminiuming 'em, ma'am."  The joke is that nobody would say it. But:  nobody says it  does not entail  it is self-contradictory.  The argument is almost Ockhamist. Do not multiply logical impossibilities where mere pragmatic explanations suffice.  A Velius Longus translation Our grammarian Velius Longus would probably Latinize Grice's example rather than translate it literally. Perhaps:  Non aere obduco, domina; alumine obduco. (I am not coating them with copper, madam; I am coating them with aluminium.)  Or, preserving the barbarous flavour Grice wants:  Non aesfacio, domina; aluminiumfacio. (I'm not coppering them, ma'am; I'm aluminiuming them.)  (Ha.) The ugliness is part of the point.  Velius Longus comments Discipulus:  Nemo hoc diceret. (Nobody would say this.)  Velius:  Concedo. (Granted.)   Discipulus:  Ergo absurdum est. (Therefore it is absurd.)   Velius:  Absurdum fortasse; contradictorium non. (Absurd perhaps; self-contradictory no.)  +> Failure of use does not imply logical incoherence.  Now suppose the speaker writes it. Grice is explicit about this. The expression is not even likely to become useful in writing. That still proves nothing.  Discipulus:  At ne scriptum quidem adhiberetur. (But it would not even be used in writing.)   Velius:  Quid tum? (So what?)   Discipulus:  Non describeret ullam rem. (It would describe no thing.)   Velius:  Fortasse quia ineleganter compositum est. (Perhaps because it is inelegantly constructed.)  +> Stylistic deficiency is not contradiction.  Why was Grice obsessed? Because he constantly resisted a temptation common among ordinary-language philosophers:  from "nobody says x" infer "x is meaningless."  For Grice, that inference is too quick. Compare:  Nobody says it.  with  Nobody could say it meaningfully.  Those are entirely different claims.  The Velius Longus version would be: Velius:  Aliud est non dici; aliud dici non posse. (It is one thing not to be said; another thing not to be capable of being said.)  +> Usage and possibility must be distinguished. A beautiful grammatical principle. A beautiful Gricean principle.  A final Grice-Speranza dialogue Grice:  Considera: "Non aesfacio, domina; aluminiumfacio." (Consider: "I'm not coppering them, ma'am; I'm aluminiuming them.")   Tutee:  Nemo hoc diceret. (Nobody would say that.)   Grice:  Id non negavi. (I never denied that.)   Tutee:  Ergo quid probat? (Then what does it prove?)   Grice:  Nihil de contradictione. (Nothing about contradiction.)   Velius Longus:  Recte. (Correct.)   Grice:  Quia ex eo quod locutio non adhibeatur non sequitur eam sibi ipsi repugnare. (Because from the fact that an expression is not used it does not follow that it contradicts itself.)  +> implicatum: linguistic rarity is not logical impossibility. That is, I think, exactly what our hero Velius Longus would appreciate. As a grammarian, he spends his life distinguishing:  malformed, unusual, archaic, unattested,  from  impossible.  And Grice's whole point is that philosophers habitually confuse the first four with the fifth. (Ha.) Another example where Grice might agree with our hero V. about the arbitrariness of it all is 'He was caught in the grip of a vice.' When Grice travelled to the New World, he was told to spell that 'vyse.' Give Latin equivalents of various orthographies, and one heterography, and orthodictio, etc. Where is the source for the treatise, and do we have its scope? Thanks -- orthography is totally hellenistic. Cato the Elder would have it as RECTA SCRIPTIO. Thanks -- cf. orthopoeia, ortho-diction? recta dictio as per rhetoric? Thanks Yes, and I think our hero Velius Longus would have been irresistible to Grice precisely because orthography is the perfect example of arbitrariness being mistaken for necessity. He is known as the author of a surviving treatise, De Orthographia, and is cited by later grammarians such as Priscian, Charisius, and others. [GREXv3 | Word] Grice's example:  "He was caught in the grip of a vice."  is ideal. In one orthography:  vice  In another historical spelling one might find:  vyce, vyse, vice  Yet the utterance may communicate exactly the same thing. The Gricean asks:  Has the meaning changed?  The grammarian asks:  Has the spelling changed?  The philosopher asks:  Why are we confusing the two?   What would Cato have called orthography? Quite right. Orthographia is blatantly Hellenistic:  ὀρθογραφία "correct writing."  An older Roman purist such as Cato the Elder would hardly have liked the Greek label. One could imagine him preferring:  recta scriptio (correct writing)  or perhaps:  ratio recte scribendi (the method of writing correctly)  instead of:  orthographia.  (Ha.)  A little Gricean table                               GreekLatinizedCato-styleorthographiaorthographiarecta scriptioorthopoeiaorthopoeiarecta pronuntiatioortholexiaortholexiarecta dictioorthophoniaorthophoniarecta vox / recta enuntiatio The Romans usually retained the Greek technical vocabulary, but the native equivalents are often perfectly intelligible.  Orthography and heterography A Velius-style discussion might distinguish: Orthographia  one accepted spelling.  Example:  virtus   Heterographia  different spellings of what is effectively the same word.  Example:  Vergilius versus Virgilius.  The dispute occupied ancient grammarians for centuries. (Ha.)  Velius Longus versus Grice Velius:  Recte scribendum est "Virgilius". (One should write "Virgilius" correctly.)   Grice:  Cur? (Why?)   Velius:  Quia ita scribunt auctores. (Because the authorities write it so.)   Grice:  Intellego; sed mutaturne sensus? (I understand; but does the meaning change?)  +> The philosopher shifts attention from spelling to meaning.  Grice's obsession The passage about  "I'm not copperbottoming 'em, ma'am, I'm aluminiuming 'em, ma'am"  has exactly the same structure. Someone says:  Nobody would say that.  Grice replies:  So what?  Similarly:  Nobody spells it that way.  does not imply:  It cannot be spelled that way.  Nor:  The meaning disappears.   A Velius Longus dialogue: Discipulus:  Nemo scriberet "vyse". (Nobody would write "vyse".)   Velius:  Concedo. (Granted.)   Discipulus:  Ergo vitiosum est. (So it is faulty.)   Velius:  Orthographice fortasse; semantice non necesse est. (Orthographically perhaps; semantically not necessarily.)  +> A spelling error is not necessarily a meaning error.  "Vice" and "vyse" Now imagine Grice arriving in the New World. Americanus:  Hic aliter scribimus. (Here we write differently.)   Grice:  Et aliter cogitatis? (And do you think differently?)   Americanus:  Minime. (Not at all.)   Grice:  Tum quaestio philosophica nulla est. (Then there is no philosophical problem.)  (Ha.) Exactly. For Grice the temptation of philosophers is always:  orthography → semantics  where only:  orthography  is involved.  The scope of Velius' treatise What survives of De Orthographia concerns questions of correct spelling, letter usage, forms of words, and related grammatical matters; it became a source for later grammarians. [GREXv3 | Word] One can imagine Grice teasing him: Grice:  Quid tractas? (What do you discuss?)  Velius:  Litteras. (Letters.)   Grice:  Quid ego tracto? (What do I discuss?)   Velius:  Sensus. (Meanings.)   Grice:  Implicata. (Implicatures.)  (Ha.) And I suspect the final moral would have pleased them both:  Orthographiae non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem. (Spellings are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.)  but, even more:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. (Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.)  For Velius worries about variant spellings; Grice worries about variant meanings. Both are trying to determine where genuine distinctions end and mere orthographic or pragmatic variation begins. (Ha.) Vergilius may not do in that it is a proper name. Vyse Grice was told was the spelling for carpenter's tool -- hence the pun, as written, 'He is in the grip of a voice' is lost for those who spell 'vice' for the sin, and 'vyse' for the carpenter's tool. Other eaxample other than 'virgilio' -- verga is Latin, virga, is latin, etc? Exactly. Vergilius/Virgilius is too easy, because proper names tolerate orthographic variation rather freely. Your vice/vyse example is much more Gricean because the spelling distinction attempts to preserve a semantic distinction:  vice = moral fault vise/vyse = carpenter's or mechanic's tool  Yet the pronunciation tends to collapse the distinction. The result is a case where orthography is recruited to do semantic work. Grice would immediately ask:  Is the distinction in the spelling? Or in the meaning? Or in the context?  Very often, the answer is:  in the context.  Hence his suspicion that philosophers attribute too much to orthography.  Our hero Velius Longus would probably insist:  Recta scriptio distinguit. (Correct spelling distinguishes.)  Grice would reply:  Contextus distinguit. (Context distinguishes.)  (Ha.)  Your example:  He was caught in the grip of a vice.  depends on the fact that:  vice (sin) and vise/vyse (tool)  can be brought together. The joke vanishes if orthography rigidly separates them. One might say:  orthography kills the pun.  Which is why Grice would enjoy it.  A Roman grammarian would have had analogous cases. One example involves the oscillation between:  virga and verga  The classical standard is:  virga (rod, wand, branch).  But non-standard and vulgar spellings show e/i variation. The question becomes:  new word? new pronunciation? bad spelling?  The grammarian tends toward:  bad spelling.  The philosopher asks:  what criterion decides?   Another example:  maxumus versus maximus  Ancient Latin shows both. Likewise:  optumus versus optimus.  A Ciceronian schoolmaster may insist on one. A historical linguist sees related forms. A Griceian says:  Same meaning? Then don't multiply entities.  (Ha.)  Or consider:  volt versus vult.  Roman grammarians debated such matters endlessly. The speaker means:  he wishes.  The orthography fluctuates. Again:  difference of spelling ≠ difference of sense.   We could construct a Velius-Longus seminar. Discipulus:  Magister, utrum scribendum est "virga" an "verga"? (Master, should one write "virga" or "verga"?)  Velius:  Virga. (Virga.)   Discipulus:  Cur? (Why?)  Velius:  Quia ita recte scribitur. (Because thus it is correctly written.)   Grice:  At quid mutatur in intellectu? (But what changes in the understanding?)   Velius:  Nihil fortasse. (Perhaps nothing.)   Grice:  Ergo orthographia mutatur, non sensus. (Then the spelling changes, not the meaning.)  +> Do not multiply senses where spelling alone varies.  This leads to your nice contrast: Orthographia Greek:  ὀρθογραφία  Latinized:  orthographia  Catonian:  recta scriptio   Orthoepia / Orthoepeia Greek:  ὀρθοέπεια  proper pronunciation. A Roman purist might say:  recta pronuntiatio.   Orthodictio Not a standard ancient technical term, but perfectly intelligible. A Cato-style Latinism would be:  recta dictio.  Yet this shifts toward rhetoric and style rather than spelling.  Indeed, one can imagine Grice teasing Velius: Velius:  Recta scriptio magni momenti est. (Correct spelling is very important.)  Grice:  Recta significatio maioris momenti est. (Correct meaning is of greater importance.)  Velius:  Quomodo ad significationem pervenies sine litteris? (How will you reach meaning without letters?)  Grice:  Quomodo ad litteras pervenies sine mente? (How will you reach letters without a mind?)  (Ha.) The reason Grice was fascinated by this is that orthography sits precisely where convention looks most arbitrary. If vice and vyse differ only by spelling, and yet writers try to preserve a semantic distinction by means of that spelling, we have a laboratory example of the interaction between:  convention, meaning, inference, and context.  Exactly the sort of boundary dispute that would have delighted both Grice and our grammarian Velius Longus. The grammarian says:  recte scribas.  The philosopher asks:  cur? And indeed the Appendix Probi is all full of them, and the reason why Italian became Italian and ceased being Latin! Trudgill has studied Dialects of England, and if dialects and idiolects are accepted, Grice ended up accepting _variation_ in both speaking and writing (so-called orthography or graphy -- one's orthography is everyone's else heeterography -- what was the idiom with orthodoxy? Thanks Indeed. The Appendix Probi is almost a manifesto for the future Romance languages masquerading as a list of spelling corrections. Its recurrent form is:  speculum non speclum vetulus non veclus viridis non virdis  and so on. The grammarian says:  "Write X, not Y."  History replies:  "Thank you very much; we shall adopt Y."  (Ha.) The irony is that the "errors" are often exactly the developments that later become:  Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian.  In that sense, the defeated forms won.  This is where Velius Longus becomes unexpectedly modern. He is trying to preserve a standard, but the existence of his treatise already presupposes variation. If everybody wrote the same way, there would be no need for a De Orthographia at all. [GREXv3 | Word] A Griceian would immediately notice the parallel. If:  dialects are accepted,  and  idiolects are accepted,  then orthography too becomes a social convention rather than a metaphysical necessity. One person's:  orthographia  is another's:  heterographia.  (Ha.)  The idiom you are seeking is probably the analogy:  orthodoxy versus heterodoxy.  Greek:  ὀρθός = correct δόξα = opinion.  Thus:  orthodoxy = correct opinion. heterodoxy = different opinion.  The grammarian behaves as though:  orthography : heterography :: orthodoxy : heterodoxy.  That is:  my spelling is correct spelling; your spelling is deviant spelling.  The sociolinguist replies:  perhaps they are merely different spellings.   Grice would have loved that. For the same thing happens in philosophy. One philosopher's:  literal meaning  is another philosopher's:  conversational implicature.  One philosopher's:  contradiction  is another philosopher's:  unusual but meaningful expression.  Hence his resistance to Malcolm's criterion:  "never used" therefore "self-contradictory."  No. Usage and possibility are different notions.  A Velius-Longus dialogue: Discipulus:  Quid est orthographia? (What is orthography?)  Velius:  Recta scriptio. (Correct writing.)   Grice:  Recta secundum quem? (Correct according to whom?)   Velius:  Secundum auctores. (According to the authorities.)   Grice:  Et si populus aliter scribat? (And if the people write differently?)   Velius:  Errant. (They are wrong.)   Grice:  Aut linguam mutant. (Or they are changing the language.)  +> Deviation and innovation may be the same phenomenon viewed differently. (Ha.)  I suspect Grice would finally have preferred something like:  recta scriptio  to  orthographia,  for exactly the reason you suggest. The latter is an imported Greek technicality; the former is plain Latin. Just as:  orthodoxy  becomes  recta opinio,  and one might imagine, analogously:  heterodoxy = diversa opinio.   And perhaps the deepest Appendix-Probi lesson is Gricean: The grammarian says:  speculum non speclum.  History hears:  speculum.  The populace hears:  speclum.  Italian eventually says:  specchio.  The philosopher then asks:  Which of them was "wrong"?  That question turns out to be much harder than the grammarian imagined. (Ha.) and who and why and when was the atuhor who defined heterodoxy as other people's doxy -- apply to orthography etc -- and our hero V. Thanks -- Grice was called by G. P. Baker the skilful heretic -- is heretic related here as per "here-" related to hetero -- or is just sacred? Thanks (antonym of heretic -- "Grice turned heterodoxies into orthodoxies" can you identiy Baker's dictum? It is in Philosophical grounds of rationality. Schiffer also complained: "I hope Grice will forebear my apostasy" thanks (Ha.) The famous definition:  "Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy."  is generally attributed to Gilbert Keith Chesterton. It is one of those Chestertonian paradoxes that has become detached from any single canonical source and circulates in several forms. The point is exactly the one you are making:  orthodoxy and heterodoxy are relational notions.  My spelling is:  orthography.  Yours is:  heterography.  My doctrine is:  orthodoxy.  Yours is:  heterodoxy.  The joke exposes the hidden indexicality of "ortho-".  The etymology is relevant. Orthodoxy  ὀρθός (orthos) = correct, straight δόξα (doxa) = opinion, belief.  So:  orthodoxy = correct belief.  while  heterodoxy  contains:  ἕτερος (heteros) = other, different.  Thus:  heterodoxy = different belief.  Not necessarily false belief. Just belief that differs from the standard.  Now heretic is related, but through a different Greek route. The word comes from:  αἵρεσις (hairesis) choice, school, sect.  Originally a hairetikos is simply:  one who chooses.  Only later, especially in Christian usage, does it become:  one who chooses wrongly.  So:  orthodox ← orthos + doxa heterodox ← heteros + doxa heretic ← hairesis  The first pair are directly opposed. The third enters the picture historically through religious controversy.  Which is why the irony surrounding H. P. Grice is so delicious. Grice spent much of his intellectual life producing what initially looked like:  heterodoxies.  and then watching them become:  orthodoxies.  The conversational implicature paper of the 1960s was initially rather revolutionary. By the 1980s and beyond, many of its claims had become almost common philosophical currency.  Regarding G. P. Baker, the phrase "the skilful heretic" is indeed associated with Baker's characterization of Grice in discussions surrounding the essays collected in Philosophical Grounds of Rationality. Baker's point was not that Grice rejected rationality, but that he repeatedly challenged accepted philosophical orthodoxies while preserving much of what motivated them. One can almost translate it. Latin:  haereticus peritus (the skilful heretic)  or perhaps  artifex haereseos (a craftsman of heresy)  (Ha.)  The orthographic version would delight our hero Velius Longus. Imagine: Discipulus:  Quid est orthographia? (What is orthography?)  Velius:  Scriptio mea. (My spelling.)   Discipulus:  Et heterographia? (And heterography?)  Velius:  Scriptio aliena. (Someone else's spelling.)  (Ha.) The Chestertonian form becomes:  Orthographia est graphia mea; heterographia graphia aliena.  ("Orthography is my spelling; heterography is another person's spelling.")  Now the Appendix Probi makes this almost irresistible. The grammarian says:  speculum non speclum.  The populace eventually says:  specchio.  The grammarian thinks:  heterography.  History thinks:  language change.  Grice thinks:  do not multiply errors beyond necessity.  (Ha.)  And then Schiffer enters. Schiffer's remark:  "I hope Grice will forbear my apostasy"  is beautiful precisely because it extends the religious metaphor. The Gricean circle becomes almost a church:  orthodoxy, heterodoxy, apostasy, heresy.  Except that Grice himself was often the original heretic. So the paradox becomes:  Grice's heresies became orthodoxies.  or in mock-Latin:  haereses Griceanae orthodoxiae factae sunt.  ("Gricean heresies became orthodoxies.") Which I suspect would have amused both Grice and our grammarian Velius Longus. For today's orthography is yesterday's heterography; today's orthodoxy is yesterday's heterodoxy; and today's accepted doctrine may well begin life as the proposal of a particularly skilful heretic. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Velleio – Ossia: Grice e Velleio: la ragione converazionale a Roma –- l’orto divino – Note su Historiae Romanae ad M. Vinicium cos. libri duo. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Velleio Patercolo (Roma, Lazio). Institutionally, Grice and Velleius Paterculus are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, student responsibility, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Velleius Paterculus belongs to an entirely different world. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. He was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian writing under the early Principate, and his authority comes from military service, political office, and literary historiography rather than from any school or chair. Standard references place [Velleius Paterculus] in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, serving under [Tiberius] and later composing the [Historia Romana] dedicated to [Marcus Vinicius]. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford philosopher with a dual college-and-university role. [Velleius Paterculus], by contrast, was an ancient Roman historian and political-military man of letters, not an academic office-holder of any modern sort. That institutional difference fits the intellectual contrast quite well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared conversational norms. [Velleius Paterculus], by contrast, works at the macro-level of Roman rhetorical historiography: how a narrative shapes civic judgment, moral alignment, and political memory through exempla, praise, blame, compression, and evaluative framing. He does not theorise “conversational meaning”; he practises a form of Roman public prose in which the reader is guided toward a preferred evaluative uptake before any local inference is even isolated. The major summaries describe [Velleius Paterculus] as a rhetorically coloured historian whose surviving work is a compressed Roman history with marked encomiastic tendencies, especially toward [Tiberius]. So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how one utterance can mean more than it literally says. [Velleius Paterculus] shows how a whole Roman historical narrative can pre-shape what counts as persuasive, noble, or blameworthy before any single inferential step is extracted. That is why your long classroom passage on “magis quia volebant Romani” is actually very good as a reading exercise. It captures exactly the kind of Velleian rhetoric that matters: the sentence is not just a report but a morally angled presentation of Roman appetite, public decision, and retrospective explanation. In a Gricean idiom, one could say that Velleius does not merely say what happened; he manages the reader’s uptake of why it happened and how it ought to be judged. There are, however, two important corrections. First, “Roma, Lazio” should not be given as his birthplace. His precise birthplace is not securely known, and the standard references associate him with Campania through family background more than with Rome as place of origin. [Velleius Paterculus]’s place of birth is not securely established in the standard references; his family is associated with Campania rather than with Rome as a simple biographical heading. Second, your final bibliographic line “DCCLXXXIII A.U.C. … Romae” is too confident as a printed-style citation. The safe bibliographic fact is that the surviving work is the [Historia Romana], in two books, dedicated to [Marcus Vinicius], composed around 30 CE. Modern reference works place the composition of [Velleius Paterculus]’s surviving history around 30 CE, dedicated to [Marcus Vinicius]. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. [Velleius Paterculus], by contrast, was an ancient Roman historian, soldier, and senator, active in the world of imperial service and rhetorical historiography rather than in any university system. Institutionally they are not comparable. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas [Velleius Paterculus] exemplifies a civic-historical rhetoric in which shared evaluative frames—virtus, disciplina, fear, ambition, dynastic praise—shape the reader’s interpretation before any local implicature is separately calculated. And the clean bibliographic anchor for your dossier is this: [Velleius Paterculus]. [Historia Romana] ad [M. Vinicium], libri duo. Composed c. 30 CE. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred register, or a short note just on the “magis quia volebant Romani” sentence as a perfect example of Roman pre-shaping of uptake.Per V. la ragione converazionale a Roma –-splende nell’orto divino. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats communication as an inferentially disciplined practice in which what is meant (including implicatures) is recoverable by a rational hearer on the assumption of cooperative norms; “reason” is local, intention-centered, and answerable to what a competent participant could justify from what is said plus context. “Velleio” (Velleius Paterculus, c. 19 BCE–after 30 CE), by contrast, is not a theorist of conversational inference but a rhetorically trained historian whose Roman “meaning” is produced through literary scene-setting, exempla, and moralized narration: the “garden” trope in your passage (“hortus divinus”) fits Rome’s broader habit of casting civic order and virtus as something cultivated, where sermo and historia are arts that grow citizens rather than merely transmit propositions. So the comparison is that Grice analyzes how rational interlocutors bridge from utterance to intended content under norms like relevance, while Velleius exemplifies how Roman rhetorical discourse makes meaning by cultivating shared evaluative frames (virtus, felicitas, disciplina, decadence) that guide interpretation before any particular inference is drawn; in Grice, reason governs the step from said to implicated, whereas in Velleius, “reason” (ratio) is more like a civic-aesthetic cultivation that pre-shapes what counts as a persuasive or intelligible account of Rome, with narrative rhetoric doing the work that maxims do in Grice. (Online specifics relevant to your passage: Velleius’ praenomen is actually uncertain in scholarship; and your etymology note about “Gaius/C.” aligns with standard reference treatments of the praenomen Gaius, including the abbreviation C. from older Caius.). Grice: “I often wondered if ‘Gaius’ meant something in Roman, since every father felt like naming his son Gaius! Those who are in a position to inform me tell me that it may derive from ‘gaudere’ – meaning ‘to rejoice,’ or to be glad. This could indicate a positive sentiment associated with the bird of a male child. But the namemight have originated from ‘Gavius,’ also used by the Oscans – an ancient Italic people. Some propose an Etruscan orgin for the name, though evidence is lacking. One folk etymology, supported by a Roman wedding voew – VBI TV GAIVS EGO GAIA – as thou art Gaius, I am Gaia – links ‘Gaius’ to ‘Gaia,’ the Greek word for ‘earth. In this context, it could signify ‘man of the earth, ‘referring to the agricultural significance within Roman society. In any case, ‘Gaius’ was the second-most common prae-nomen throughout Roman history, surpassed only by Lucius. It was so widespread across all social classes that it became a generic germ for any name – ‘guy’ – just as ‘Gaia’ was for any woman. The name was used by prominent figures like Gaius Julius Caesar, an Emperor Caligula – born Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The traditional abbreviation for ‘Gaius’ in Roman inscription was ‘C,’ reflecting the earlier spelling ‘Caius,’ from a period when the letters C and G were not distinguished. The name persisted after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and continues to be used in various forms in modern times, with regional variations like ‘Gaio’ (Italian), ‘Cayo’ (Spanish), and “Caio’ (Portuguese).” Keywords: Roma antica. “At that time, at Oxford, philosophy could not be studied but under the classics. Philosophy started to be studied fie terms into your degree. Your degree was for a B. A. Lit. Hum., which upon seven years from matriculation could become, if you pay the fee, the M. A. Lit. Hum., which was Grice’s highest earned degree. He then became Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at St. John’s. politics. Roma antica. G.  Sir, must we really begin with “Et sub idem tempus”? M.  Yes. You may not begin where you are comfortable. You will begin where he begins. G.  He begins as if he were already bored. M.  He begins as if he were already certain. Read. G.  Et sub idem tempus, magis quia volebant Romani, quidquid de Carthaginiensibus diceretur credere quam quia credenda adferebantur, statuit senatus Carthaginem exscindere. B.  (whisper) Ex-scindere sounds like skinning. M.  If you laugh, you will translate. Continue, G. G.  “Sub idem tempus” is “about the same time.” M.  Not “about.” Under. He puts events under time like hats under pegs. “At the same time” will do. G.  Et sub idem tempus—then the sneer: magis quia volebant Romani… M.  Stop. That “magis” is the key. More because they wanted. G.  So the Senate “resolved” out of desire, not out of evidence. M.  Exactly. And he makes the desire Roman: volebant Romani. G.  “The Romans wanted” to believe whatever was said about the Carthaginians. M.  Quidquid de Carthaginiensibus diceretur. Whatever might be said. G.  Diceretur—subjunctive. As if rumours have their own grammar. M.  Rumours do. They live in the subjunctive. B.  Sir, does “quidquid” mean “any old thing”? M.  It means you may go quiet now. G? G.  Credere quam quia credenda adferebantur—“rather than because things worth believing were being brought forward.” M.  Good. And notice: he does not say the reports were false; he says they were not credenda. G.  So he condemns Rome’s epistemology without defending Carthage. M.  That is how an historian can be moral without being sympathetic. G.  And then statuit senatus Carthaginem exscindere. M.  Carthaginem—object. Exscindere—to root out. Not merely defeat. G.  “Destroy” is too mild, then. M.  “Level,” “tear down,” “extirpate.” Choose a word that sounds like policy. G.  He then whips to Scipio: Ita eodem tempore P. Scipio Aemilianus… M.  Ita. So. As if the destruction naturally produces the man. G.  Aedilitatem petens consul creatus est. B.  That’s the funny part. M.  It is not funny. It is Roman. He was running for aedile and got made consul. That is a constitutional fact, not a joke. G.  It still reads like an up-jumped promotion. M.  Yes. Because Rome is always in a hurry when it is frightened. G.  Vir avitis P. Africani paternisque L. Pauli virtutibus simillimus… M.  Now we enter the hymn. G.  Avitis… paternis… he’s stacking lineage. M.  Paterculus is stacking lineage, yes. And no, it does not mean he was a “little father.” B.  (laughter) M.  If you laugh again, you will parse “paternisque.” G.  Paternis-que: “and in his father’s.” He is most like his grandfather and father in virtues. M.  Virtutibus simillimus. Not merely similar; most similar. G.  Omnibus belli ac togae dotibus… M.  War and toga: soldier and citizen. G.  Dotibus: endowments, gifts. M.  You see how he makes morality sound like inheritance. Dotes. G.  Ingeniique ac studiorum eminentissimus saeculi sui. M.  The most outstanding in talent and studies of his age. He’s not subtle. G.  He then makes him sinless: qui nihil in vita nisi laudandum aut fecit aut dixit ac sensit. B.  “Sensed”! M.  “Thought,” boy. Sensit—felt, thought, judged. Continue. G.  Nothing in life except what is praiseworthy did he do or say or think. M.  He writes as if he were giving evidence in court. G.  For a consul. M.  Precisely. This is addressed to a consul. The whole tone is official. G.  Then the parenthesis of adoption: quem Paulo genitum, adoptatum a Scipione Africani filio diximus. M.  He reminds you he already said it. Diximus. We said. G.  He does that to make the narrative feel continuous. M.  And to make disagreement feel like forgetfulness. G.  So, Sir, the implicature is: Rome destroys Carthage because it wants to believe rumours; but Rome also produces Scipio as its virtue-solution. M.  Yes. His historian’s intent is to praise Rome’s men while permitting a small rebuke to Rome’s credulity. B.  That’s very Roman. M.  It is very Roman, and it is very Paterculus. He cannot resist the imperial posture. G.  Even “magis quia volebant Romani” is not anti-Roman; it’s paternal scolding. M.  Exactly. He rebukes them like a loyal servant. G.  And “quidquid de Carthaginiensibus diceretur” is loaded: Carthaginians are the proper objects of Roman suspicion. M.  That’s the Roman side of the sentence. The Carthaginians are a grammar of threat. G.  And “credenda adferebantur” makes Rome’s desire the problem, not Carthage’s deeds. M.  Which is how propaganda is sometimes smuggled: you sound fair by blaming your own side’s motives while still endorsing the outcome. B.  Sir, is “exscindere” common? M.  Common enough when you want it to sound surgical. Rome always liked to sound like a surgeon. G.  Then “aedilitatem petens consul creatus est” is also loaded: it suggests extraordinary merit. M.  Or extraordinary fear. The Senate elevates the man because it has decided on a total act and needs a total agent. G.  So, in ordinary language, the first sentence says: “They meant to destroy Carthage anyway, and they’d believe anything that justified it.” M.  That is close. But keep it Latin: volebant… credere. G.  Wanted to believe. M.  Yes. Wanting to believe is always a confession. G.  And the “quam quia credenda adferebantur” says the evidence wasn’t compelling. M.  Or wasn’t even offered properly. Adferebantur—“were brought.” It makes evidence look like a parcel. B.  Like the post. M.  Like silence. G.  Now the Scipio passage: it’s a panegyric in miniature. M.  And it has the rhythm of Roman official praise. Belli ac togae. G.  It’s like an inscription. M.  Exactly. A schoolboy should hear the stone. G.  Then the triple “fecit… dixit… sensit” is an intensification. M.  It closes the exits. No act, no word, no thought unpraiseworthy. B.  That’s impossible. M.  Yes. That is why it’s praise. G.  Sir, do we translate “sensus” as “thought” or “felt”? M.  In this sentence, “thought.” In another, “felt.” That is why Latin is educational. G.  And “quem Paulo genitum…” is a reminder that the bloodline is complicated by adoption. M.  A Roman speciality: natural father, adoptive father, and the state as the true parent. G.  So Paterculus is not “little father” but a man writing like Rome’s nephew. M.  Precisely. Now: parse “avitis” and “paternisque” properly. G.  Avitis—ablative plural, “in his grandfather’s [virtues].” Paternisque—“and in his father’s.” M.  Good. Now: what does “magis quia volebant Romani… quam quia…” do rhetorically? G.  It makes the Romans look irrational, but also makes the decision appear already settled. M.  Exactly. It says: the Senate’s decision is not a response, it’s a fulfilment of appetite. G.  And “statuit senatus” gives it authority despite the appetite. M.  That is the Roman trick: motive can be shabby; procedure must look clean. B.  Like school rules. M.  Like Latin. Continue. G.  So, Sir, do we say he “resolved” or “decreed”? M.  Decreed is better: statuit is firm. G.  And “exscindere” is to tear out by the roots. M.  Yes. G.  So the implicature is annihilation. M.  It’s not even implicature. It’s explicit. B.  Sir, are we allowed to say “Carthago delenda est”? M.  Only if you want to be lazy. Paterculus is doing it without Cato’s slogan. G.  He does it by describing Rome’s psychology. M.  Yes. That’s the historian’s cleverness: he gives you motives as if they were explanations. G.  Then he gives you Scipio as the moral emblem. M.  And he ties Scipio to Africanus and Paulus, so Rome’s virtue looks hereditary. G.  Even though adoption complicates heredity. M.  Rome loves that complication; it lets virtue be both blood and institution. G.  So, finally, the Latin is biased: Carthage is the object; Rome is the agent; Scipio is the saint. M.  Exactly. And that is why you must translate it soberly: the sobriety is your only revenge. B.  What’s the homework, Sir? M.  For you? Translate “qui nihil in vita nisi laudandum aut fecit aut dixit ac sensit” and make it sound as smug as it is. G.  And for me? M.  For you, G., no translation. Only this: explain why “magis quia volebant Romani” is more dangerous than “quia credebant.” G.  Because it makes belief voluntary. M.  Exactly. Now stop laughing and start thinking.GRICEVS: Salvete, Vellei! Quid tibi videtur de ortu Romano? Dic mihi, quid significat tibi “hortus divinus”? VELLEIVS: Ave, Gricevs! Hortus divinus mihi est locus ubi ratio convenit cum natura—ubi philosophia Romanorum radices in terra invenit, et virtus colitur sicut plantae in agro. In orto divino, sermo fit fructus, et sapientia crescit inter arbores et flores. GRICEVS: Pulchra est tua descriptio, Velleivs. Credo etiam, ut in Oxfordiae hortis, philosophia inter lapides antiquos et folia viridia semper nova interrogationes generat. In colloquio nostro, rationem quasi plantam irrigamus, ut floreat in mente et in vita. VELLEIVS: Ita vero, Gricevs! Conversatio nostra, sicut hortus, semper mutatur et renovatur. Ubi ratio et natura se coniungunt, ibi invenimus veram felicitatem Romanam—gaudium quod nomen meum portat. In fine, omnis sermo, velut semen, fert spem novae sapientiae. This was gens Velleia. What do we know about it? Other members? Yes. If the name is Velleius Paterculus, the gentilicium points most naturally to the gens Velleia, not Vettia and certainly not any Agoria. What we know, however, is less than one might wish if one imagines a fully furnished Republican gens with a long parade of famous bearers. The gens Velleia is not among the most loudly monumental Roman gentes in the way the Julii, Claudii, Cornelii, Aemilii, or Fabii are. It is attested, and Velleius Paterculus is by far the best-known bearer for most readers, but it is not one of those families whose name alone opens a huge public gallery of canonical figures. That said, Velleius Paterculus himself is enough to show that the family belonged within the Roman municipal and political world of some standing. His own background is tied to Campania rather than securely to Rome as birthplace, and his family had military and senatorial connections. So one should not think of gens Velleia as obscure in the sense of socially negligible; only as less illustriously documented than the grand textbook houses. As for other members, the first thing to say is that one must distinguish between three different levels. First there is the strict gens-name itself, Velleius. Second there are family members known through Velleius Paterculus’ own autobiographical or historical references. Third there are merely similar or derivative names in inscriptions, which may or may not help much. On the stricter family side, the most relevant figures are his father and grandfather, both associated with military and public service, though not all details are equally abundant or secure in the surviving evidence. Velleius himself makes use of family memory, and that is one reason his Historia Romana has that peculiarly Roman mixture of public history and inherited civic self-placement. In other words, with Velleius one does not merely have a historian detached from pedigree; one has a historian whose own standing is part of the Roman frame from which he writes. So if you ask, “Other members of the gens Velleia?”, the sober answer is: yes, but the family is not famous for a large canonical roster available at a glance. The nearest immediately meaningful “other members” are those in Paterculus’ own line, especially the father and grandfather he uses as part of his social and moral placement. Beyond that, one enters the less rewarding territory of prosopographical reconstruction and scattered epigraphic names. That also helps with your Grice-and-Velleius contrast. Velleius is not an academic office-holder and not comparable institutionally to Grice as Fellow, Tutor, and CUF Lecturer. But he is very Roman precisely in the old familial sense: military service, senatorial life, historical writing, and inherited public standing. If one wanted a driest possible formula, it would be this: Velleius belongs to the gens Velleia in the ordinary Roman nominal sense, but the gens is much more modestly illuminated than the great aristocratic houses; his real importance lies less in a long famous family roll than in the way his own work lets one glimpse a Roman family of service, memory, and status writing itself into history. And one small philological caution. If someone says “gens Velleia,” that is perfectly reasonable as a learned reconstruction from Velleius; but in actual discussion people will far more often speak simply of Velleius Paterculus and his family than dwell on “the gens Velleia” as though it were one of the marquee Republican clans. If you like, I can now do one of two things in chat only. I can give you a compact prosopographical note on Velleius Paterculus’ father and grandfather, keeping strictly to what is usually considered secure. Or I can give you a dry Grice–Speranza paragraph on why Velleius matters more as a Roman family-historian than as a mere name under a gens heading.Velleio Patercolo (DCCLXXXIII A.U.C.). Historiae Romanae ad M. Vinicium cos. libri duo. Romae.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Venanzio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’estetica – Sibley e le implicature estetiche. Good, kalloskagathia, kallon agathon, Sibley. Grice on multiplicity – beauty, beautiful.  Note su Elogio di Pietro Metastasio. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Girolamo Venanzio (Portogruaro, Venezia, Veneto). Institutionally, Girolamo Venanzio is not comparable to H. P. Grice in the Oxford collegiate sense, even though both belong, in different ways, to teaching cultures. Grice’s formula is precise in the modern Oxford way. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Girolamo Venanzio belongs to a very different world: early nineteenth-century Veneto, first shaped by seminary schooling in Portogruaro, then by legal studies at Padua, and later by a life divided between public administration, letters, and philosophy rather than by an Oxford-style residential tutorial office. The authority records and bibliographical sources identify Girolamo Venanzio as born in Portogruaro in 1791 and deceased there in 1872. A contemporary biographical note also states that he graduated in law at Padua in 1811 and later turned, especially after 1830, toward literature and philosophy. [nbm.region....veneto.it], [ebay.it], [picclick.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Girolamo Venanzio, by contrast, was a nineteenth-century Venetian-Italian man of letters, jurist, and philosophical writer, shaped by seminary and university study, public administration, and literary publication rather than by a college tutorial system. [nbm.region....veneto.it], [ebay.it], [picclick.it] That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under conversational norms. Girolamo Venanzio, by contrast, as your note suggests, moves into a discourse of rhetoric and then aesthetics where the “more-than-said” is not primarily a matter of formal implicature but of cultivated sensibility, literary mediation, and shared appreciative recognition. The secure bibliographic record confirms Saggio di estetica del dottore Girolamo Venanzio from 1857, printed by Tip. Castion, and also confirms the much earlier Elogio di Pietro Metastasio from 1813. [archive.org], [books.google.com], [onlinebook....upenn.edu] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how conversational reason regulates implied meaning in ordinary talk. Girolamo Venanzio exemplifies how reason and cultivated sensibility regulate implied meaning in aesthetic and literary discourse. Or, still more sharply: Grice theorises how we infer what a speaker means. Venanzio shows how we are invited to see, feel, and judge more than is explicitly stated in the language of praise, beauty, and literary criticism. That is why your Venanzio-Sibley bridge is actually very good, even if Sibley is of course much later. Aesthetic language often depends on a socially educated responsiveness to salience, nuance, and shared sensibility, not on a strict rule that mechanically yields the predicate. In that respect, aesthetic discourse can be read as a different but related regime of “more-than-said.” Two factual corrections are worth making. First, the final bibliographic line in your prompt should be corrected. It should not be “Elogio di Trapassi.” The attested title is Elogio di Pietro Metastasio, published in 1813 by Tipografia Bettoni. [onlinebook....upenn.edu] Second, the 1857 aesthetics title should be cited in its fuller form when possible: Saggio di estetica del dottore Girolamo Venanzio, Tip. Castion, 1857. [archive.org], [books.google.com] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Girolamo Venanzio, by contrast, was a nineteenth-century Venetian-Italian jurist, man of letters, and philosophical writer, trained at Padua and active through public administration and literary-philosophical publication rather than through a tutorial-collegiate office. Institutionally they are very different. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Girolamo Venanzio, especially through Saggio di estetica, exemplifies a discourse in which meaning is guided by aesthetic recognition, cultivated taste, and the shared capacity to perceive what evaluative language only partly makes explicit. [nbm.region....veneto.it], [archive.org], [books.google.com], [onlinebook....upenn.edu] And the clean bibliographic anchors for your dossier are these: Girolamo Venanzio. Elogio di Pietro Metastasio. Tipografia Bettoni, 1813. [onlinebook....upenn.edu] Girolamo Venanzio. Saggio di estetica del dottore Girolamo Venanzio. Tip. Castion, 1857. [archive.org], [books.google.com] If you want, I can now give you a short polished paragraph in your own register, with the Metastasio title corrected and the aesthetics comparison tightened.V. studia  la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’estetica – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how a hearer can rationally recover what a speaker means (including implicatures) from what is said plus shared norms of cooperative talk; “reason” here is local, inferential, and disciplined by expectations like relevance, informativeness, and sincerity. Venanzio (as the Portogruaro intellectual your passage evokes, with his training in rhetoric and his later engagement with aesthetics) is a useful foil because aesthetic talk is exactly where Grice’s model meets a distinctive kind of “more-than-said”: when we call something graceful, balanced, harsh, or beautiful, we often rely on a shared sensibility and on contextually guided suggestion rather than strict criteria, and this resembles the way implicatures depend on communal uptake rather than explicit rule-following. If you bring in Sibley’s familiar point that aesthetic predicates are not mechanically deducible from non-aesthetic descriptions and require “taste” or perceptual sensitivity, then the contrast sharpens: Grice treats the step from said to meant as a rational calculation constrained by conversational norms, whereas Venanzio-style aesthetic discourse (in the orbit of Sibley) highlights a different governance of meaning—less like an algorithm of inference and more like the socially educated capacity to see what counts as salient in an object and to let evaluative language do its work indirectly, often by inviting an audience to “see it that way.” In short, Grice models how reason regulates implied content in ordinary conversation; Venanzio, read through aesthetics, foregrounds how reason and sensibility jointly regulate the implied content of evaluative description, where the success condition is not only correct inference but shared appreciative recognition. More specific online notes relevant to your passage (not inserted into your document) Girolamo Venanzio (1791–1872) was born in Portogruaro; he graduated in law at Padua (1811) and is listed by Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti as a member (elected 1840). He published works including Elogio di Pietro Metastasio (1813) and Saggio di estetica (1857), and is listed in the Online Books Page and Google Books/HathiTrust catalogues. Sibley e le implicature estetiche.” Good, kalloskagathia, kallon agathon, Sibley. Grice on multiplicity – beauty, beautiful. Dov'e nato gli e dato a precettore Fortis, prete onesto, né senza ingegno. A' tredici anni studiò nel patrio seminario belle lettere e filosofia; ed è ben curioso a pensare, come a quel tempo, che pur anch'esso gloriavasi di civiltà e cominciava a combattere la tirannia de vecchii errori, non mancasse più d'uno che con ra-gionamento, meglio specioso che giusto, sentenziasse doversi apprendere prima filosofia e poscia retorica, perché, innanzi di scrivere, era debito d'imparare a pensare. Una fedele immagine di quelle scuole ci presenta lo stesso V. In retorica continue traduzioni dei classici latini, affatto pedantesche, per non dire meccaniche; della letteratura italiana neppure un cenno; Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, Ariosto, nomi ignoti; non si prefiggeva allo scrivere italiano altro modello, che il Cesarotti nei versi, ed il Thomas nella prosa; onde chi produceva versi più sonanti, o periodi più tronchi, più smozzicati, più era lodato. In FILOSOFIA, la lettura di qualche TESTO LATINO DI LOGICA E DI METAFISICA, che poscia si mandava alla memoria senza bene intenderlo; qualche libamento di fisica; le quattro operazioni fondamentali dell'aritmetica ed una occhiata al calcolo delle frazioni; le prime proposizioni d'Euclide; a ciò tutto riducevasi allora il tirocinio filosofico'». qualche cosa. Il Venanzio abbracciò coll'acutezza dell'ingegno e con solerte diligenza la filosofia e la giurisprudenza: nella quale fu addottorato; e fra la gravità degli studii continui, che lo fecero prematuramente vecchio, fra le publiche cure e l'esemplare affetto alla sua famiglia può dirsi ch'egli abbia spesa la vita. Filocallia, callofilo, il bello, l’estetica, Sibley. G.  What are you reading with that expression of dutiful suspicion? S.  “Elogio di Pietro Metastasio.” G.  That’s a remarkably compact title for something that pretends to be solemn. S.  It’s the “di” that makes it dangerous. G.  Which “di”? S.  Both. “Elogio di” and “di Pietro Metastasio.” G.  Good. “Elogio di” first: a praise of. Almost a eulogy. S.  Except we reserve “eulogy” for the dead and “elogio” can be for the living, inconveniently. G.  Oxford likes to praise the living as if they were dead. It saves jealousy. S.  So “elogio” is praise without the hearse. G.  Now the second “di”: “di Pietro Metastasio.” Who is being praised? A man, a name, or a mask? S.  A mask, surely. Metastasio is a pseudonym. G.  Blatantly. It practically tells you it’s a pseudonym. Meta-stasio: beyond stasis, beyond standing still, beyond the man. S.  You’re being etymological, not biographical. G.  I’m being tidy. If the name advertises transformation, it invites the suspicion that it is not the baptismal certificate talking. S.  Then the “elogio” is of the literary persona, not of the man. G.  But a persona cannot float free of a person forever. S.  That is exactly the point. The author praises “Pietro Metastasio” as if that were a stable entity, but it’s a crafted public object. G.  So we should ask: Elogio di chi? S.  Di Pietro Metastasio. G.  No, no. Di chi, in the deeper sense: di Trapassi. S.  You remember the real name. G.  I remember that Metastasio is not the real name; Trapassi is the one people use to puncture the grandeur. S.  If the title were “Elogio di Trapassi,” it would be a different game. G.  It would be praise of the man who passes across, rather than of the man who metastasises. S.  Yet that would also be a trick. Because you can’t praise the “real man” without praising the literary production that makes him visible. G.  Precisely. There is no Trapassi you can reach without stepping on Metastasio’s stage. S.  So the title’s “di” is a convenient blur: it lets you praise the name and thereby praise the works, while pretending you’re praising a person. G.  A title as a safe compromise between biography and bibliography. S.  And perhaps between sincerity and opportunism. G.  Now, a question in English: what is “Elogio di Pietro Metastasio” in our tongue? S.  “In praise of Pietro Metastasio.” G.  Sounds like an after-dinner speech. S.  Or a school prize-day. G.  Or a funeral with the body omitted. S.  Which is exactly what the author wants: ceremony without inconvenience. G.  But why praise the persona? Why not praise the poems? S.  Because praising the persona is a way of praising the poems without having to quote them. G.  Quoting is always risky; it allows checking. S.  And an elogio is not meant to be checked. G.  It is meant to be nodded at. S.  Like most “occasional” literature. G.  Now let’s play your game. Suppose: “Elogio di George Eliot.” S.  Which is praise of a persona, not of Miss Evans. G.  Exactly. And if you titled it “Elogio di Mary Ann Evans,” you’d sound either intimate or aggressive. S.  Or both: intimate aggression is the English speciality. G.  And yet everyone knows the work under “George Eliot.” So the elogio would be forced back to the persona anyway. S.  Because that is the public object that can be praised without embarrassment. G.  Another example: “Elogio di Bourbaki.” S.  That’s worse. Because there isn’t even a single person to retreat to. G.  Only a committee pretending to be a man. S.  Then “elogio” becomes praise of an institutional voice. G.  Which is exactly what Oxford does to itself. S.  So “Elogio di Metastasio” is somewhere in between: one person, but mediated by a chosen name. G.  A person pretending to be a persona, a persona pretending to be a person. S.  It’s a perfect loop. G.  Now, back to the “di.” In Italian, “di” does too much work. S.  That’s why Italians like it. G.  It covers authorship, possession, topic, dedication, and sometimes mere adjacency. S.  Whereas English has to choose: “of,” “by,” “about.” G.  Yes. And the choice forces honesty. S.  So is it “Elogio by X” or “Elogio about Metastasio”? G.  The title doesn’t tell you. S.  It tells you only that the object of praise is the name “Pietro Metastasio.” G.  So the author is trading on the pseudonym’s authority. S.  Which makes the elogio itself a bit parasitic. G.  That’s too moral. S.  It’s accurate. Now the interesting question you wanted: why would a person publish an elogio like this? G.  Yes. Why would he think it necessary? S.  Because Metastasio is safely canonical: praising him signals taste. G.  And perhaps signals membership in a literary world. S.  Exactly. It’s a social credential in prose form. G.  Would Metastasio read it? S.  If he were alive, he would probably prefer not to. G.  Because praise is always an awkward gift: the receiver must accept it without looking vain. S.  And the giver must give it without looking servile. G.  Hence the title’s ceremonial stiffness: it attempts to keep both parties dignified by keeping the language abstract. S.  Praise the persona, not the flesh. G.  That way the real man can hide behind the mask while being praised. S.  And the writer can hide behind genre while flattering. G.  So it is profitable, in a broad sense: it buys goodwill. S.  And it buys a place in print near a famous name. G.  Which is like dining near High Table. S.  Exactly: proximity as prestige. G.  Now, the pseudonym point. You said: the author knows it’s a pseudonym. S.  He must. Otherwise he’s asleep. G.  Then his “elogio” is knowingly directed to a constructed object. S.  That’s what makes it interesting philosophically: can one praise a construct? G.  We do it constantly. We praise “England,” “Oxford,” “Reason.” S.  And “the Spirit of the Age.” G.  Which is no more real than “Metastasio,” and often less well written. S.  So the question isn’t whether we can praise a persona, but what we think we are doing when we do. G.  We are praising a publicly recognisable bundle: works, style, reputation, a voice. S.  And that bundle has a name. G.  Exactly. The name is the handle. S.  Then Trapassi is irrelevant. G.  Not irrelevant. Just not what the elogio is about. S.  So if someone insisted “But his real name was Trapassi,” we would say— G.  “That is a biographical correction, not a literary objection.” S.  And we would still file it under Metastasio. G.  Yes. Because libraries are practical metaphysicians. S.  Then the title is doing library work: it points to the shelf. G.  It is, in that sense, already profitable: it guarantees discoverability. S.  So “Elogio di Pietro Metastasio” is praise, but also indexing. G.  Precisely. A eulogy that functions as a catalogue entry. S.  Which is why Oxford likes it. G.  Now, a final pedantic question: is “elogio” here praise of a man or praise of the name? S.  Praise of the persona under the name. G.  And the persona is a constructed agent of style. S.  Yes. G.  Then our English translation should not pretend it’s simply praise “of a man.” S.  It should be something like: “In praise of ‘Pietro Metastasio’.” G.  With scare quotes. S.  Exactly. G.  And then everyone will think we’re being clever. S.  Which is the only praise Oxford reliably understands. G.  Good. Now close the book before it prejudices you.Grice: Caro Venanzio, ti confesso senza remore che l'αἴσθησις era la mia seconda natura a Clifton: la percezione estetica mi veniva spontanea come un sorso d'acqua fresca. Ma quando sono arrivato al Vadum Boum, l'università, e ho filosofato sull'estetica insieme a Warnock, tutto ruotava attorno al SENSVS. Sembrava che l'αἴσθησις fosse ormai svanita, persa per sempre tra i meandri della ragione!  Venanzio: Ahimè, Grice! Mi dispiace sentire che quell'αἴσθησις originaria si sia dissolta come la nebbia sulla laguna di Venezia. Ma non dubito che tu, da vero filosofo, abbia fatto tutto il possibile per tener vive le radici Graeco-Roman—anzi, graeco-romae—dell’estetica, anche quando la moda accademica spingeva verso il SENSVS.  Grice: Ma certo, Venanzio! Non sono tipo da lasciar morire le antiche radici: ho seminato parole greche e latine tra i miei studenti come il contadino sparge semi nella terra veneta. Se anche l'αἴσθησις ha preso il volo, almeno il SENSVS manteneva un profumo d'antichità.  Venanzio: E hai fatto bene! Perché senza quella filocallia, senza quell’amore per il bello e il suo radicarsi tra graeco-romae pensieri, rischiamo di ridurci a traduzioni pedantesche e periodi smozzicati, proprio come ai miei tempi in seminario! Meglio una filosofia che sappia ancora sorridere e gustare la bellezza, che una ragione arida e senza αἴσθησις. Venanzio, Girolamo (1813). Elogio di Trapassi. Padova: Bettoni.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Venini: la ragione conversazionale propriamente detta. Grice. Note su De loquela tanquam rationis auxilio considerata. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Antonio Venini (Morbegno, Valtellina). Compared institutionally, Grice and Antonio Venini are not counterparts in the same academic format. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Antonio Venini belongs to a very different world: the early nineteenth-century medical-philosophical university, specifically the Pavia environment of inaugural dissertations, rectorial oversight, and learned Latin publication. He is not a fellow-tutor in anything like the Oxford sense. He is better described as an Italian medico-philosophical author whose work emerges from a university dissertation culture in which physiology, psychology, and language theory still belong to one intellectual field. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Venini was a Pavia dissertation-world scholar in medicine and philosophy, not a residential college tutor and not an Oxford-style lecturer. That institutional difference fits the philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Venini works at a more basic enabling level: why speech is needed at all, and how articulated voice functions as an aid to reason where natural gestures are weak, imperfect, and often unusable. So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Venini explains why rational creatures need speech. Grice explains how, once speech is in place, rational creatures use it to mean more than they literally say. That is why your comparison is actually very good. Venini’s loquela is not yet Gricean implicature. It is the physiological and practical condition that makes any Gricean conversational rationality possible in the first place. I would also say that your note about propriamente detto is excellent as a Gricean-Veninian bridge. For Venini, loquela is an auxilium rationis because it allows ideas and animi sensus to be made public and stable. For Grice, properly speaking is one of those conversational devices by which speakers mark, refine, and renegotiate criteria within an already functioning rational exchange. There are only two cautions. First, I would not overstate Venini’s convergence with Grice. It is a genuine comparison, but Venini is not theorising intention-recognition or implicature. His focus is speech as medium and faculty, not conversation as inferential game. Second, your bibliographic line at the end is strong and should stay, because it is the cleanest concrete anchor in the whole note: Venini, Antonio (1819). De loquela tanquam rationis auxilio considerata dissertatio. Ticini: ex typ. Fusi et soc. success. Galeatii. That is exactly the kind of early item one wants here. So the short plain-English answer is this. H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Antonio Venini, by contrast, belongs to the early nineteenth-century Pavia world of medical-philosophical dissertation culture, where speech is studied as a physiological and rational faculty rather than as a topic in tutorial philosophy. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Venini to the dissertation-and-faculty world of medicine and philosophy. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of conversational meaning, whereas Venini investigates the more basic conditions under which speech becomes an aid to reason at all, by stabilising and extending signification beyond the fragility of gesture. And if I compress it to one line: Venini gives you speech as the condition of rational coordination; Grice gives you conversation as the refinement of that coordination into a rule-governed economy of meaning. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a slightly more philological note just on loquela, sermo, lingua, and vox.Per V. la ragione conversazionale propriamente detta e  quella di Grice:” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what a speaker means is rationally recoverable by a hearer from what is said plus shared expectations of cooperation (maxims), so that implicatures are accountable, in-principle calculable, and tied to intention and uptake within a talk-exchange. Venini, as your passage presents him through De loquela tanquam rationis auxilio considerata, converges with Grice precisely on the idea that language is an auxilium rationis, but he approaches it from the side of natural-sign and faculty psychology: speech is needed because nonverbal signs (gestus) are “weak and imperfect,” easily blocked by darkness or obstacles, and so articulated voice becomes the distinct medium by which desideria and animi sensus are made manifest and ideas become communicable—i.e., speech is a practical-physiological technology that enables reason to operate socially and reliably. The comparison, then, is that Grice theorizes how rational agents exploit norms of cooperative discourse to mean more than they say (implicature as a refinement within an already linguistic practice), whereas Venini motivates the very necessity of the linguistic practice itself as the stabilization and amplification of signification beyond fragile natural gestures: for Venini, loquela is what makes rational coordination possible at all; for Grice, once that coordination is in place, conversational reason is the rule-governed inferential economy by which interlocutors manage precision (“propriamente detto”), negotiate criteria, and systematically bridge from the literal to the intended.“De loquela tanquam rationis auxilio considerate” is a medical-philosophical dissertation authored by V. It is an inaugural dissertation, submitted to Pavia under the approval of the rector and faculty directors. The title translates to "On speech considered as an aid to reason." The work explores the physiological and philosophical intersection of LA LINGUA and human thought, treating speech not just as communication but as an essential tool for the development of rational intellect. The dissertation reflects the Enlightenment-era interest in how a physical faculty such as speech influence cognitive processes such as reason. It sits at the cross-roads of the philosophy of language, biology, and the philosophy of mind. V. DE LOQUELA TANQUAM RATIOSIS AUXILIO CONSIDERATA DISSERTATIO AsSUEWTIBOS MaGNIFICO DOMINO ReCTOBE AC CELEBEHB.IJHIS DISSERTATIO DE LOQVELA TANQUAM RATIONI AVXILIO CONSIDERATA. haberi queunt nisi DESIDERIA – GRICE – VOLITIVE DESIRABILITY -- aliquo modo innotescant. Ast naturam, dicere posset aliquis, ad desideriorum expositionem nobis varia SIGNA – GRICE SIGN -- sponte suppeditat, qualia sunt ex. gr. GESTVS: heccae vero SIGNA manca frtmis, et imperfecta sunt, ut ipns nostra desideria ostendi queant. Eadem praeterea doeentibus eeleb. Loke et SOAVE  duobus gravissimis iocommodis sunt exposita: quum aliquis in tenebris versatur, vel obstaculum quodcumque impedit, quominus ab illo , % cui aliquid patefacere cupit, aspiciatur, omnes gestus inutites evauunt, Aliorum igitur signorum necessitas elucet vocum nempe, quae sint ARTICULAZIONE distinctæ, atque ad animi sensus EXPRIMENDOS conveniant, quid quod secundum Stoicos PORTICVS loquelaoi constituit. Inter modos omnes, qui ad ideas COMMUNICANDAS GRICE COMUNICATVS apti. esse possunt, magis utilis certe loquela evadit: humanæ mentis operationes ipsa faciliores reddit, animi motus manifestos profert. G.  You’ve brought me evidence, I see. A.  Only the sort Oxford approves: Lewis and Short, and a word that looks innocent until you try to put it in English. G.  Loquela. Yes. A thing I never read before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so. A.  That was about books, sir, not about nouns. G.  Nouns are worse. They come with fewer footnotes and more confidence. Read the entry. A.  “speech, language, words, discourse.” G.  Four English words and not one of them quite right. A.  Then the citations. G.  Start with Plautus. A.  “commoda loquelam tuam,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 76. G.  “Arrange your loquela.” Which sounds like “tidy up your speech.” A.  Or “fix your mouth.” G.  Already we’re in trouble: English makes it sound like elocution lessons. A.  “Loquela” in Plautus sounds like the thing you can amend: your patter. G.  Yes, speech as performance. Next. A.  “fuditque has ore loquelas,” Verg. A. 5, 842. G.  “Poured forth these loquelas from his mouth.” That’s poetry talking about talk. A.  It makes speech sound like liquid. G.  Poets can do that because no one examines them on it. A.  Then Lucretius: “nutricis blanda loquela,” Lucr. 5, 230. G.  “The nurse’s bland loquela.” Bland is already a warning. A.  Nurse-talk. Baby-talk. Loquela as soothing noise. G.  That’s closer to “speech” than “language,” and yet it’s almost “tone.” A.  Then Varro. G.  At last, a man who deserves to define a word instead of merely using it for atmosphere. A.  “hinc quidam loquelam dixerunt verbum,” Varr. L. L. 6, § 57 Müll. G.  Now this is delicious. “Hence some have called loquela ‘word’.” A.  So loquela is not just speech, but a single “verbum.” G.  Or at least some people used it that way. A.  Lewis and Short label that “Transf. A. A word.” G.  And then they proceed as if English “word” were one thing. A.  Then Ovid: “Graia loquela,” Ov. Tr. 5, 2, 68. G.  Ovid is always irritating when he turns a nation into an adjective. A.  Greek loquela: “the Greek language.” G.  Or “Greek speech,” which in English sounds like an impediment. A.  We’re not happy with any of the English glosses, are we? G.  “Speech, language, words, discourse.” It’s a polite way of saying: we can’t decide what level of thing this is. A.  If “sermo” is discourse and “lingua” is language and “vox” is voice, where does loquela sit? G.  Somewhere between “speaking” as an act and “what is spoken” as product. A.  That sounds like “utterance.” G.  It does. And now you’ve smuggled in “utter-,” which is just a Latin verb wearing Anglo-Saxon shoes. A.  But “utterance” has the right shape: something produced by speaking. G.  True, but it makes loquela sound like a discrete item, while Plautus and Lucretius suggest a manner or flow. A.  So “speech” again. G.  “Speech” in English is hopeless: it is both faculty and occasion and formal address. A.  “He gave a speech” is not “his speech” in Lucretius. G.  Exactly. Now “locution”—look at us. A.  Loc-ution. Same root-family, only now you’ve dragged in “loqui” by the collar. G.  And you’re laughing. A.  I’m trying not to, sir. G.  Don’t bother trying. Trying is also an Oxford locution. Now: why do you think Venini chose loquela? A.  Because he wants loq-, not dic-. G.  Yes. Not “to say” but “to speak.” Not assertion but articulation. A.  And because loquela can be the medium of reason, “auxilium rationis.” G.  Good. Now, what do we do with Varro’s line? Translate it properly. A.  “From this some have called ‘loquela’ ‘verbum’.” G.  Too stiff. “From this” makes it sound like a geometry proof. A.  “Hence some have called loquela ‘a word’.” G.  Better. But what’s “hinc” pointing to? We’re missing context. A.  Varro is defining terms and noting rival usages. G.  So he’s reporting an etymological or classificatory move: people take loquela and treat it as equivalent to verbum. A.  Then in English: “Some people use loquela to mean ‘a word’.” G.  That’s the honest translation. A.  But it loses the bite of “dixerunt.” G.  “Called.” It’s a naming act: they labelled it so. A.  “Some have applied the term loquela to what we call a single word.” G.  Now you’re doing my work for me: adding the ordinary-language paraphrase. A.  Lewis and Short also have that note: “incorrectly written loquel-la.” G.  Yes, the dictionary’s moralism about spelling. A.  Imagine if the Little Oxford Dictionary cared like that. G.  The Little Oxford Dictionary does care; it just pretends not to by pretending it is small. A.  Still, the double-l looks like a diminutive: loquella. G.  And they say it’s “incorrect.” As if language waited for permission. A.  Perhaps Venini liked the correct one to avoid sounding cute. G.  Or he liked the correct one because dissertations dislike cuteness. A.  Yet the poets are allowed to be liquid, bland, and national. G.  Poets are allowed everything except accuracy. A.  Is that fair? G.  It’s traditional. Now, if we reject “language” and “words” and “discourse,” what remains? A.  “Speech,” in the sense of speaking. G.  And “loquela” then would be “speech” as an activity and its audible product, without committing to meaning as dicere does. A.  That seems right for Venini: he’s contrasting gestus with voces articulatas. G.  Exactly. So loquela is the articulated-voice system as used by humans. A.  Then Ovid’s “Graia loquela” is annoying because it treats “speech” as a national property. G.  Yes. It makes Greek a kind of costume. A.  Whereas Varro is doing analysis. G.  Varro is always doing analysis, even when he is wrong. A.  So the best support for Venini’s choice is Varro’s metalinguistic remark. G.  Yes: not because it gives Venini his meaning, but because it shows loquela is a thing Latin speakers themselves could talk about as a term. A.  And the rest—Plautus, Vergil, Lucretius—show it lives in real usage. G.  Real usage, yes, but poetically contaminated. A.  So what’s our verdict on Lewis and Short’s English list? G.  Overgenerous. They’ve tried to help too much, and as usual, helpfulness is not the same as precision. A.  Which English word would you pick, if you had to pick one? G.  “Speech,” with a footnote that says: not a speech. A.  That’s very Oxford. G.  It’s the only way to survive dictionaries without becoming their accomplice. A.  And if someone insists on “language”? G.  Tell him to read Ovid and be ashamed. A.  And if he insists on “words”? G.  Tell him Varro says some do, and Varro is the most honest person in the room. A.  And if he insists on “discourse”? G.  Tell him “sermo” is waiting next door, and loquela doesn’t want to be mistaken for it. A.  Then we agree loquela is an unnecessary locution. G.  Not unnecessary—unavoidable. It exists because Latin wanted a noun for “speaking” that wasn’t already loaded with “saying.” A.  So we keep it. G.  We keep it, and we pretend we didn’t enjoy it. A.  And we don’t read it before reviewing it? G.  Exactly. Otherwise we might start liking it, and that would be the end of scholarship.Grice: Venini, mi dai una mano? Mi sono impigliato in quell’italiano “propriamente detto” — quasi un dictum proprium ciceroniano. Io lo uso per essere preciso… e subito mi accorgo che sto chiedendo: che cosa vuol dire “preciso” propriamente parlando? Venini: Volentieri. “Propriamente detto” è un bisturi che, appena lo impugni, ti taglia anche il polso: serve a delimitare il campo, ma lo delimita con un’espressione che chiede a sua volta delimitazione. È come dire: “Ecco l’uso corretto” — e intanto apri un processo sul significato di “corretto”. Grice: Quindi, propriamente parlando, “propriamente parlando” è… impropriamente necessario. Se non lo dico, mi accusano di vaghezza; se lo dico, mi accusano di metalinguaggio. Un paradosso conversazionale: per parlare propriamente devo parlare di come si parla propriamente. Venini: Esatto — e qui la tua “ragione conversazionale” fa la sua comparsa in camice medico. La loquela è davvero “auxilium rationis”: non solo comunica idee, ma le rende possibili e governabili. “Propriamente detto” è una mossa di prudenza: segnala al tuo interlocutore “adesso sto fissando un criterio”. E la tua gratitudine è lecita: perché il criterio, propriamente parlando, esiste solo quando due persone lo riconoscono… propriamente parlando. Venini, Antonio (1819). De loquela tanquam rationis auxilio considerata dissertatio. Ticini: ex typ. Fusi et soc. success. Galeatii.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Venturi: il coraggio della ragione conversazionale – Italia dei lumi. Note su Illuminismo e rivoluzione. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Franco Venturi (Roma, Lazio): Compared institutionally, Franco Venturi is much closer to Grice than a poet or public polemicist, because both are recognisably university intellectuals; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice held the specifically Oxford double role of college Fellow and Tutor plus University Lecturer. Franco Venturi, by contrast, was an anti-fascist historian, first formed in exile and clandestine politics, then a professor of modern history in the Italian state-university system, teaching at Cagliari, Genova, and above all Torino, where his career took definitive shape. Franco Venturi studied at the Sorbonne, was active in Giustizia e Libertà, suffered imprisonment and confinement at Avigliano, and after the war became professor of modern history and a central historian of the Enlightenment and Russian populism. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [Archos. Bi...co Venturi], [anpi.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Franco Venturi, by contrast, was an historian in the continental and Italian chair system, whose intellectual life was inseparable from exile, clandestine political journalism, resistance, and later the public university. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Franco Venturi to the civic-historical world of anti-fascist militancy, state universities, and the long public labour of historical scholarship. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [Archos. Bi...co Venturi], [anpi.it] That institutional difference suits the philosophical contrast very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intention and calculating implicature under conversational norms. Franco Venturi, by contrast, works at the macro-level of civic reason: how critical discourse survives under repression, how Enlightenment argument becomes a public force, how writing and publication help sustain a sphere in which reason can still operate historically and politically. In his case, “the courage of reason” is not the local tact by which one manages speaker-meaning in a conversation, but the larger virtue by which criticism, scholarship, and intellectual independence persist under pressure. The principal reference sources describe Franco Venturi as an active member of Giustizia e Libertà, later director of Giustizia e Libertà in Turin, and a major historian of the Enlightenment and of Russian populism. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [Archos. Bi...co Venturi], [anpi.it] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how reason works in conversation. Franco Venturi shows how reason works in history and public life. Or, still more sharply: Grice theorises the inferential discipline that makes meaning accountable in an exchange. Franco Venturi exemplifies the civic courage by which reason becomes historically effective in journals, clandestine writing, anti-fascist resistance, and scholarship. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [anpi.it] Your 1938 Diderot point is actually a good anchor, and it is verifiable. Franco Venturi did publish “Addition aux Pensées philosophiques” in the Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France in 1938, and modern bibliographical traces confirm the article’s presence in volume 45 of the journal. The bibliographical records for the 1938 volume of the Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France list Franco Venturi’s “Addition aux Pensées philosophiques,” and the text itself appears in the journal’s 1938 run. [gallica.bnf.fr], [books.google.com], [jstor.org] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Franco Venturi, by contrast, was an anti-fascist historian and later professor of modern history, formed in exile at the Sorbonne, active in Giustizia e Libertà, imprisoned and confined by the fascist regime, and eventually professor at Cagliari, Genova, and Torino. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the world of tutorials and faculty lectures; Franco Venturi to the world of exile, clandestine journalism, public scholarship, and the state university. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Franco Venturi exemplifies the historically situated courage of reason in the public sphere, where ideas survive not by quiet calculability alone but by lucid resistance, publication, and institutional struggle. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [Archos. Bi...co Venturi], [anpi.it] And the clean bibliographic citation for the 1938 item is: Venturi, Franco. “Addition aux Pensées philosophiques.” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 45, 1938. [gallica.bnf.fr], [books.google.com], [jstor.org] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short bibliographic note separating the early Diderot article from the later Venturi of Italia dei lumi and Settecento riformatore.il coraggio della ragione conversazionale – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “what is meant” as what a rational hearer can infer from what is said by assuming cooperative norms (maxims), so that implicature is a disciplined, accountable route from utterance to speaker-meaning. Venturi, as your passage frames him (Italia dei lumi; anti-fascist exile and resister; historian of Enlightenment and of the political uses of ideas), shifts “reason” from Grice’s micro-pragmatics to a civic-historical register: the courage of reason is not primarily the speaker’s rational management of inference in talk, but the public, risky practice of criticism, publication, and political engagement through which Enlightenment rationality is defended, transmitted, and made effective against repression and ideological distortion. Put side by side, Grice explains how conversational participants can responsibly mean more than they say without abandoning rational constraint, whereas Venturi exemplifies how “reason” functions as an historically situated virtue—lucid, polemical, resistant—whose communicative success is measured less by correct implicature-calculation than by its capacity to sustain a critical public sphere (journals, clandestine writing, scholarship) in which reason can survive pressure, mobilize audiences, and reframe collective self-understanding. Italia dei lumi. Insegna a Torino, studioso dell'Illuminismo e del populismo russo. È esule anti-fascista, detenuto nelle carceri fasciste e attivo nella Resistenza nelle file di Giustizia e Libertà. Nipote di Adolfo V. e figlio di Lionello V., i noti critici d'arte, la sua famiglia si trasfere da Roma a Torino, dove il padre assume la cattedra di storia dell'arte. V. studia nel Liceo, da cui dove ritirarsi per seguire la famiglia in esilio a Parigi.  Infatti Lionello V. si rifiuta di prestare giuramento di fedeltà al fascismo e si trasfere con la famiglia a Parigi dove V. s'iscrisse alla facoltà di arte della Sorbona, conosce numerosi esponenti dell'emigrazione anti-fascista e adere al movimento Giustizia e Libertà di ROSSELLI . Collabora al settimanale Giustizia e Libertà e ai Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà, tenendovi la rubrica Stampa amica e nemica di commento della stampa fascista, criticandovi la politica italiana e la collaborazione della chiesa con le dittature fasciste. V. al confino d’Avigliano. Contemporaneamente indirizza i suoi studi alla storiografia, con un particolare interesse per l'illuminismo. Il risultato è la pubblicazione del saggio Jeunesse de Diderot, e lo studio su VASCO . La sua famiglia si era già trasferita a New York e V., quando cerca di raggiungerla, dopo l'occupazione tedesca di Parigi, è arrestato in Spagna e detenuto per quasi un anno nel sotterraneo di un convento adibito a carcere. La fame sofferta gli suggere d’assumere il soprannome Nada -- niente, in spagnolo -- nella lotta anti-fascista.  Consegnato alle autorità italiane, è incarcerato a Torino e poi trasferito ad Avigliano. Qui rimane fino alla caduta di Mussolini. Tornato a Torino, è parte attiva del partito d'azione con Agosti, Bianco, i fratelli Garrone, e Vaccarino. Cura la redazione del supplemento piemontese del giornale di partito L'Italia libera  e la sua diffusione clandestina nel Piemonte occupato dai tedeschi. Uscirono numeri, dedicati agli scioperi delle fabbriche torinesi e alle iniziative dei partigiani. il coraggio della ragione.  In the most economical scholarly answer: Diderot adds a later, much sharper anti-theological continuation to the 1746 Pensées philosophiques, and he does so in order to push the critique of revealed religion further than the earlier deist text had publicly done. [journals.o...dition.org], [fr.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] More exactly, the later text is the Addition aux Pensées philosophiques, also circulated under the fuller title Objections diverses contre les écrits de différents théologiens. It is not simply “more of the same”: it radicalizes the original work. The 1746 Pensées philosophiques had still occupied a deist position, defending natural religion while criticizing fanaticism and theology; the Addition moves further into explicit objections against theologians and positive religion. [fr.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] And why did he add it? Two linked reasons emerge from the sources. First, because the success and controversy of the original 1746 book invited a sequel or continuation. The standard nineteenth-century editorial tradition, echoed in modern scholarly presentation, says Diderot composed the Addition as a “suite” to the Pensées philosophiques after the reactions to the earlier work, but kept it unpublished for prudential reasons. [fr.wikisource.org], [fr.wikipedia.org] Second, because the Addition gave him a more tactical and forceful vehicle for anti-theological argument. The key source here is the note on Venturi’s discovery: the later text was not wholly “original” in the modern sense but was Diderot’s reshaping or abridging of the clandestine manuscript Objections diverses contre les écrits de différents théologiens. That kind of abridgement was common in clandestine eighteenth-century philosophical literature precisely because a tighter, more incisive text could circulate more effectively and hit harder polemically. [jstor.org], [jstor.org] So, if you ask what Diderot “added,” the answer is: he added a later sequence of anti-theological objections, more radical than the 1746 text, and he did so both as a response to the earlier Pensées and as a strategic recasting of clandestine deist/anti-religious material into a sharper, more usable form. [jstor.org], [fr.wikisource.org], [fr.wikipedia.org] And this is exactly where Venturi’s 1938 article matters. Venturi showed that the Addition was connected to a real source text, the Objections diverses, rather than being just an entirely free-standing later invention. In other words, Diderot was adding to his Pensées philosophiques by adapting and compressing already circulating radical material into a form that could function as its sequel. [jstor.org], [jstor.org] If you want, I can now give you either: a very short one-sentence formulation for your note, or a slightly more philological distinction between what Diderot added in 1762 and what Naigeon later published in 1770.Grice: Caro Venturi, mi è sempre piaciuto il “coraggio della ragione”! Pensando ai miei vecchi esempi, potremmo dire che se Jill afferma che Jack è un inglese, allora Jack è non solo “coraggioso”, ma anche ragionevole e razionale. Insomma, un vero eroe filosofico: affronta le avversità con la logica e un pizzico di humor britannico!  Venturi: Ah, Grice, mi fai ridere! Così Jack non conquista solo la bandiera, ma pure il cuore della logica italiana. Forse dovrebbe mettere sul suo passaporto: “coraggioso, ragionevole, razionale… e possibilmente spiritoso!”  Grice: Esattamente, Venturi! La vera forza sta nel sapere che per essere veramente “illuministi” bisogna unire il coraggio della ragione con il coraggio di ridere. Senza un po’ di ironia, la ragione rischia di diventare troppo seria!  Venturi: Concordo, caro Grice! Come diceva mia nonna piemontese, “Quando la ragione si prende troppo sul serio, ci pensa il buon senso a sdrammatizzare.” E poi, ridere è sempre un atto profondamente ragionevole! Venturi, Franco (1938), Additions aux Pensées philosophiques. Revue d’hisoire littéraire de la France.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Venturini: la ragione conversazionale e l’identità tras-personale. Note su Le opere di Gramsci. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Riccardo Venturini (Roma, Lazio): Compared institutionally, Riccardo Venturini is closer to Grice than a poet or publicist, because both are recognisably university intellectuals; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice held the specifically Oxford double role of college Fellow and Tutor plus university lecturer. Riccardo Venturini, by contrast, was formed in the Roman university world, first in philosophy under Ugo Spirito and later in medicine, eventually becoming professor of clinical psychophysiology at La Sapienza. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it], [aspi.unimib.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College, plus CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Venturini, by contrast, was an Italian philosopher-psychologist-physiologist shaped by the state-university system: philosophy at La Sapienza, Paris training at the Sorbonne, assistantship at Messina under Adriano Ossicini, work in cultural programming at Rai, and then a long career back at La Sapienza, culminating in the chair of clinical psychophysiology. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it], [aspi.unimib.it] That institutional difference fits the intellectual contrast rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer recovers what a speaker means by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared conversational norms. Venturini, by contrast, works at several larger levels at once: first, the philosophical and ideological level of formation, where Gramsci matters; second, the psychological and psychophysiological level, where states of consciousness, bodily regulation, and clinical method matter; and later, the transpersonal and comparative-religious level, where the very unit of identity is no longer simply the individual speaker in a conversational exchange. The main biographical sources describe Venturini as formed by Italian idealism, French existentialism, and Gramscian Marxism, then progressively drawn toward experimental psychology, physiology, states of consciousness, and later transpersonal themes. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it], [eurom.it], [culturabud...weebly.com] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how one interlocutor means something to another here and now. Venturini, especially in the line you are drawing from the 1955 Rassegna di filosofia engagement with Gramsci, points toward the macro-level at which shared horizons, ideological common sense, and transpersonal or collective formations shape what can count as meaning and identity in the first place. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it] That is why your comparison is promising, but it needs one important caution. The 1955 Rassegna di filosofia piece on Gramsci is mentioned in the biographical notices, but I do not have a fully verified standalone bibliographic record for the exact title line “Le opere di Gramsci” from the search results. So I would treat that reference as plausible and biographically grounded, but not yet bibliographically fixed. The available biographical sources state that among Venturini’s early works were a critical survey of the works of Antonio Gramsci and studies on the methodology of topological psychology and neo-behaviourism, but they do not, in the results I have here, fully verify the exact journal citation line. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it], [aspi.unimib.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Riccardo Venturini, by contrast, was an Italian philosopher, psychologist, physician, and later professor of clinical psychophysiology, formed at La Sapienza under Ugo Spirito, trained further in Paris, and active across philosophy, psychology, medicine, and states-of-consciousness research. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Venturini to the state-university and clinical-research world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Venturini works on the broader psychophysiological, ideological, and eventually transpersonal conditions under which identity, consciousness, and shared meaning can be formed and transformed. [it.wikipedia.org], [aspi.unimib.it], [eurom.it], [aspi.unimib.it], [culturabud...weebly.com] And if you want the neatest one-line dossier formula, I would suggest this: Grice theorises rational uptake between persons; Venturini investigates the wider psychophysiological and transpersonal horizons within which persons, and their shared meanings, are constituted. [it.wikipedia.org], [eurom.it], [culturabud...weebly.com] If you want, I can now give you a tighter paragraph in your preferred register, or a short note separating three phases of Venturini: the early Gramscian-philosophical phase, the psychophysiological phase, and the later transpersonal phase.la ragione conversazionale e l’identità tras-personale, Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what a speaker means is rationally recoverable by a hearer from what is said plus context, on the assumption that talk is a cooperative enterprise governed by publicly recognizable norms (maxims), so that implicatures are in principle calculable and answerable to reasons. Venturini’s 1955 Rassegna di filosofia piece on the Opere di Antonio Gramsci, by contrast, belongs to a tradition in which “reason” is not primarily modelled as a local inferential mechanism for deriving speaker-meaning, but as a historically and socially situated practice (Gramsci’s rational critique of ideology, common sense, and cultural hegemony), where what is communicated often works through indirectness, alignment, and the management of shared horizons rather than through explicit statement alone. Put together, Grice gives a micro-pragmatic account of how conversational agents justify interpretations in real-time exchanges (why an utterance licenses a particular implicature), whereas Venturini—reading and assessing Gramsci—foregrounds the macro-pragmatics of how discourse functions within communities and institutions (how “common sense” is formed, stabilized, and contested), so that “conversational reason” looks less like a set of maxims underwriting inference and more like the ongoing social labor by which meanings become authoritative, contested, or transformative in collective life. Filosofo, medico e psicologo italiano, è stato professore ordinario di Psico-fisiologia clinica presso l’Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, studioso degli stati di cui che Grice chiama “coscienza.” Laureatosi in filosofia con lode -- relatore SPIRITO  -- Università di Roma “La Sapienza” --, riceve una formazione fondata sugli insegnamenti dell'idealismo italiano, dell'esistenzialismo e del marxismo di GRAMSCI . Di quegli anni è la collaborazione con la rivista Rassegna di filosofia, edita dall'Istituto di filosofia dell'Università di Roma, e con gl’uffici redazionali di enciclopedie pubblicate dalla casa editrice Sansoni di Firenze. Borsista presso l'Institut de Psychologie Sorbona di Parigi, dove segue i corsi di metodologia, psicologia sperimentale e psico-patologia -- Fraisse, Lagache, Lacan --, V. approfondisce lo studio della psichiatria fenomenologica e dell'indirizzo psico-analitico della Société psychanalytique de Paris.Assistente incaricato di Psicologia nell'Università di Messina -- cattedra d’Ossicini --, V. è stato successivamente funzionario di programmi culturali della Rai.  Si laurea in medicina e chirurgia con lode, relatore Cerquiglini -- presso l'Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, dove è stato assistente incaricato e poi ordinario di fisiologia umana -- cattedra di Martino e di Cerquiglini.  Libero docente di fisiologia umana, professore incaricato di fsicologia fisiologica all'Università di Roma], è stato professore straordinario e poi ordinario di psicologia fisiologica e, successivamente, di psico-fisiologia clinica -- disciplina da lui introdotta nell'insegnamento universitario italiano e di cui è stato il primo docente --, sempre nell'Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza.  Dei primi lavori di V. vanno ricordati la rassegna critica delle Opere di Gramsci -- Einaudi di Torino -- e gli studi sulla metodologia della psicologia topologica di Lewin e del neo-comportamentismo di RYLE – citato da Grice -- e Tolman.  G.: Carissimo Venturini, devo confessare che quando scrivevo il mio famoso “Personal identity”, non conoscevo ancora la sua ricerca sull’identità tras-personale. Le garantisco: se l’avessi letta, avrei mandato il mio manoscritto direttamente a “Mind”… oppure a “Minds”, così avremmo avuto almeno due riviste per discutere la questione! Venturini: Grazie, Grice! Non si preoccupi, il mondo accademico è fatto apposta per perdersi e ritrovarsi. Se ci fossimo incrociati prima, forse avremmo scritto insieme “Identità tras-personale e conversazione tra menti”—titolo perfetto per confondere i nostri colleghi! Grice: Le assicuro, Venturini, che la prossima volta che mi viene un’idea sulla coscienza, la mando a Roma—con raccomandata e moka inclusa. Chissà, magari nasce una nuova teoria tra un caffè e un laboratorio di psicologia! Venturini: Sorrido all’idea, caro Grice! In fondo, l’identità tras-personale non si trova solo nei libri, ma anche nelle chiacchiere filosofiche… e forse, tra un espresso e una pausa, nasce sempre una nuova coscienza! Venturini, Riccardo (1955). Le opere di Gramsci. Rassegna di filosofia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Venuleio – Ossia: Grice e Venuleo – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Venulio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VENULEIO   Baths of Villa dei Venuleii (Massaciuccoli) The gens Venuleia was a patrician family of ancient Rome[1] and of Pisa originally,[2] which flourished from the 1st to the end of the 2nd century AD.[3]  Known members were:  Lucius Venuleius Montanus was proconsul of Bithynia et Pontus in during the reign of Nero, and described by Juvenal in his fourth satire[4] Lucius Venuleius Pataecius, a Roman eques who governed Thracia at some point between AD 69 and 79[5] Lucius Venuleius Montanus Apronianus, son of the proconsul, consul in 92.[3] Lucius Venuleius consul in 123, possibly son of the consul of 92[6] Lucius Venuleius Apronianus Octavius Priscus, son of the consul of 123, consul suffectus around 145 and ordinarius in 168. The Venuleii family owned the magnificent villa-estate at Massaciuccoli in the 1st and the 2nd century AD.  References  Syme, Some Arval Brethren (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 57  CIL XI, 1432, CIL XI, 1433  Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie-Thérèse. “L’inscription ‘CIL’ XI 1735 Complétée et Les ‘Venulei.’” Latomus, 42 (1983), pp. 152–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41533804.  "Juvenal, Satires. (1918). Satire 4".  Thomas Elliott (2004). Epigraphic Evidence for Boundary Disputes in the Roman Empire (PhD). University of North Carolina. pp. 92f  Scheid, "Note sur les Venuleii Aproniani", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 52 (1983), pp. 225-228 Categories: VenuleiiRoman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Venuleio – Ossia: Grice e Venuleo – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Venulio For the Venuleii, my first choice is not the consul, nor the governor of Thrace, nor even the aristocratic villa-owner at Massaciuccoli. It is:  Lucius Venuleius Montanus,  the proconsul mentioned by Juvenal in Satire IV. [GREXv3 | Word] Why? Because whenever Juvenal appears, conversation immediately becomes dangerous. Not because people converse, but because they do not. The emperor speaks. Everyone else interprets. That is practically a Grice seminar in reverse. (Ha.)  You may recall the famous setting of Juvenal IV. A gigantic turbot is caught and presented to Domitian. The court is summoned. Senior men deliberate on what dish is fitting for the fish. The absurdity is deliberate. The overt topic:  a fish.  The real topic:  power.   A Griceian question immediately arises: What is meant? Not:  What fish is this?  but:  Why are senators pretending this is a serious political problem?  The participants know. The emperor knows. The readers know. Yet no one says it. We have a court sustained by implicature. (Ha.)  So let us imagine our hero. Grice e Venuleio Domitianus:  Piscis ingens inventus est. (An enormous fish has been found.)   Venuleius Montanus:  Mirum profecto. (Remarkable indeed.)   Domitianus:  Quid faciendum est? (What is to be done?)   Venuleius:  Patres consulendi sunt. (The senators should be consulted.)  +> The explicit topic is culinary; the real topic is loyalty.  Grice would be fascinated because everybody is complying with the literal conversation while simultaneously participating in another one.  The hidden maxim Suppose a senator says:  Vas maius faciendum est. (A larger dish must be made.)  The sentence concerns pottery. The implicature concerns survival. The senator is really communicating:  "I understand the rules of this court."  (Ha.)  This is much more Gricean than a straightforward administrator. The whole Satire becomes:  literal content, political content, implied content.  Multiple conversational levels.  Runner-up: the Villa A second candidate is:  Lucius Venuleius Apronianus Octavius Priscus,  whose family possessed the villa estate at Massaciuccoli. [GREXv3 | Word] Because villas generate another Grice-Speranza theme:  conversation as otium.  A Roman villa is close to an Epicurean hortus. One imagines:  literary recitations, philosophical conversations, correspondence, patronage.  But the evidence is thinner.  Why not the consul? Because most of the consular Venuleii are primarily cursus-honorum entries. They held offices. They governed provinces. But we have little conversational texture. Juvenal's Venuleius gives us texture. Indeed he gives us a whole philosophy of indirect discourse.  A Griceian reconstruction Discipulus:  Cur nemo dixit rem esse ridiculam? (Why did nobody say the matter was ridiculous?)   Venuleius:  Quia aliud significabat quam videbatur. (Because it signified something other than it appeared to signify.)  +> The overt subject concealed the real point of the exchange.  Grice:  Ergo de pisce non agebatur? (Then it was not really about the fish?)   Venuleius:  De pisce agebatur. (It was about the fish.)   Grice:  Et? (And?)   Venuleius:  De imperatore quoque. (And about the emperor as well.)  +> Multiple levels of significance coexist.  That is why my verdict for the gens Venuleia is:  Lucius Venuleius Montanus of Juvenal's Satire IV. [GREXv3 | Word]  For Vargunteius gave us interpretation. Varisidius gave us the messenger. Vatienus gave us testimony. Velius Longus gave us orthography. But Venuleius gives us something very Gricean indeed:  a room full of intelligent men all talking about a fish while meaning something else. (Ha.) and have lit. crit. adressed this as metaphor? Thanks Yes, very much so, although literary critics do not always use the word metaphor. More often they speak of:  allegory, political displacement, coded discourse, indirect criticism, satire, symbolic narrative.  In the case of Juvenal's Satire IV, modern scholarship has repeatedly noted that the fish is never merely a fish. The council convened to discuss the giant turbot becomes a miniature representation of the imperial court under Domitian, and the discussion of cookware becomes a discussion of power. [GREXv3 | Word] In Gricean terms, one might say:  what is said: "What vessel shall contain the fish?" what is implicated: "What sort of regime forces eminent men to spend their intelligence on such matters?"  (Ha.) That is not quite metaphor in the narrow Aristotelian sense. It is closer to what Grice would call a systematic exploitation of levels of meaning.  Your orthography example with:  vice versus vyse (or vise)  is actually parallel. The schoolmaster says:  One is correct; the other is incorrect.  The sociolinguist, like Peter Trudgill, says:  One is standard; the other is non-standard.  The Gricean says:  One is my orthography; the other is your heterography.  (Ha.) This is exactly the Chestertonian joke:  Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy.  Applied to spelling:  Orthography is my graphy; heterography is another man's graphy.   Our hero Velius Longus, author of De Orthographia, would probably dislike that formulation intensely. His job is to maintain a distinction between:  recta scriptio and scriptio vitiosa.   [GREXv3 | Word] But history repeatedly embarrasses him. The Appendix Probi says:  speculum non speclum.  History replies:  Italian specchio.  The grammarian sees corruption. The historical linguist sees evolution. The Gricean sees variation.  As to orthodoxy and heresy: These are not etymologically the same. Orthodoxy  Greek ὀρθός + δόξα correct opinion.  Heterodoxy  ἕτερος + δόξα different opinion.  Heresy / heretic comes from Greek:  αἵρεσις choice, sect, school.  A hairetikos is originally a chooser, one who adopts a particular school. Only later does it acquire the condemnatory sense. So:  orthodox : heterodox  is one opposition, while  orthodox : heretic  is a historically related but different one.  This is why G. P. Baker's description of Grice as a  "skilful heretic"  is so apt. Grice repeatedly challenged prevailing Oxford orthodoxies:  about meaning, about logic, about intention, about ordinary language,  yet managed to retain much of what was valuable in them. A nice paradox would be:  Grice's heterodoxies became orthodoxies.  Or in mock-Latin:  Haereses Griceanae orthodoxiae factae sunt.  (Ha.) And one can imagine Schiffer's remark:  "I hope Grice will forebear my apostasy"  as extending the same ecclesiastical vocabulary. The Gricean community begins to resemble a church:  orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy, apostasy.  Except that the founder himself keeps changing the creed.  A final Velius-Longus dialogue: Discipulus:  Quid est orthographia? (What is orthography?)  Velius:  Recta scriptio. (Correct writing.)   Grice:  Secundum quem? (According to whom?)   Velius:  Secundum grammaticos. (According to the grammarians.)   Grice:  Et quid est heterographia? (And what is heterography?)   Velius:  Scriptio aliena. (Someone else's spelling.)   Grice:  Itaque orthographia est graphia mea; heterographia graphia aliena. (Thus orthography is my spelling; heterography another person's spelling.)   Velius:  Nimis periculosum est hoc principium. (That principle is too dangerous.)   Grice:  Historia linguarum etiam periculosior est. (The history of languages is even more dangerous.)  +> Today's heterography may become tomorrow's orthography. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Vera: l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’idealismo. Note su Introduzione alla filosofia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Augusto Filippo Nicola Olimpiade Vera (Amelia, Umbria). Compared institutionally, Augusto Vera is closer to Grice than a poet or chancery writer, because both are recognisably teachers of philosophy; but they still belong to very different academic worlds. Grice held the characteristically Oxford double role of college Fellow and Tutor plus university lecturer. Augusto Vera, by contrast, was a nineteenth-century university professor shaped by Rome, Paris, France, Switzerland, England, Milan, and Naples: a travelling academic, then a state-university professor, and later a senator of the Kingdom of Italy. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [senato.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Augusto Vera, by contrast, was an Italian professor and public intellectual in the continental chair system: trained at Rome and the Sorbonne, teaching in France and Switzerland, exiled to England after the 1851 coup, then professor at Milan and Naples, and finally senator. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [senato.it], [beweb.chie...ttolica.it] That institutional difference suits the philosophical contrast very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intention and calculating implicature under conversational norms. Vera, by contrast, works at the macro-level of idealist reason: not how one speaker means something in one exchange, but how Reason, in the Hegelian sense, realises itself through history, religion, politics, and philosophy. The “astuzia” here is not a conversational technique but the Hegelian cunning of reason, mediated through events and institutions rather than through cooperative maxims. The standard philosophical notices present Vera as the major nineteenth-century Italian transmitter of orthodox Hegelianism, substantially faithful to Hegel and concerned above all with expounding and disseminating the system. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [beweb.chie...ttolica.it] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how meaning is locally recoverable in conversation. Vera explains how reason is globally realised in history. If you want the contrast in even plainer terms: Grice’s rationality is interpersonal and inferential. Vera’s rationality is historical and teleological. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] That is why your phrase “astuzia della ragione conversazionale” is a clever comparative gloss, but it should remain a gloss. It is not Vera’s own category in the Gricean sense. For him, “astuzia della ragione” belongs to the Hegelian register of world-historical mediation, not to a theory of speaker-meaning. If one adapts it Griceanly, one gets the thought that conversation itself often proceeds by indirectness, understatement, and omission; but for Grice that cunning is still local, defeasible, and anchored in intention, whereas for Vera it is part of reason’s unfolding through institutions and history. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] There are a few factual corrections and refinements. First, the birthplace. Your heading says “Terni, Umbria,” but the more exact biographical sources say Amelia, now in the province of Terni. So the safer form is: Amelia, near Terni. [it.wikipedia.org], [senato.it], [beweb.chie...ttolica.it] Second, the 1857 bibliographic line is not quite right as you phrase it. Introduzione alla filosofia di Hegel is originally a French work, Introduction à la philosophie de Hegel, first published in 1855, with a later second edition in 1865. A modern Italian edition exists, but the original is not a Milan 1857 Bocca publication. The standard reference entries identify Introduction à la philosophie de Hegel as a French work of 1855, not an 1857 Milan Bocca original. [treccani.it], [treccani.it] Third, your note about Il problema dell’assoluto is much stronger bibliographically than the Introduction line as you gave it. This work is securely attested in Naples from 1872 onward, in multiple volumes or instalments. The catalogues clearly attest Problema dell’assoluto as an 1872 Neapolitan publication by Augusto Vera. [books.google.com], [search.lib...y.ucla.edu], [catalog.ha...itrust.org], [onlinebook....upenn.edu] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Augusto Vera, by contrast, was a nineteenth-century Italian professor, Hegelian expositor, and public intellectual, trained at Rome and the Sorbonne, teaching in France, Switzerland, England, Milan, and Naples, and later serving as senator of the Kingdom of Italy. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vera to the continental chair system and the public life of philosophy. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vera articulates the macro-logic of idealist reason, in which rationality advances through history, institutions, and dialectical mediation rather than through the local cooperative intelligence of conversation. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [senato.it], [beweb.chie...ttolica.it] And if you want the neatest bibliographic correction for your dossier, I would suggest these two anchor points: Vera, Augusto. Introduction à la philosophie de Hegel. Paris, 1855. Earliest major Hegelian exposition securely tied to the English-exile period. [treccani.it], [treccani.it] Vera, Augusto. Problema dell’assoluto. Naples, 1872–82. Major later Italian work on the absolute. [books.google.com], [search.lib...y.ucla.edu], [catalog.ha...itrust.org] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short note on Vera’s earliest datable philosophical work versus his most influential Italian publications.V. spiega l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’idealismo.” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “what is meant” as what a rational hearer can infer from what is said by presuming cooperative norms (maxims), speaker intention, and the calculability and defeasibility of implicatures; conversational reason is thus a normative, micro-pragmatic mechanism that explains how interlocutors responsibly get from sentence-meaning to speaker-meaning in real exchanges. Vera’s “astuzia” (cunning) belongs to a different register of rational governance: in the Hegelian-idealist tradition he helped transmit, reason is not primarily a set of conversational constraints on inference but a world-historical intelligence that realizes itself through mediations (often behind the backs of agents), so that “cunning” names the way rationality advances by working through contingent aims, rhetoric, and institutional conflict. Put side-by-side, Grice gives an account of how conversational participants, as intentional agents, make meaning intelligible through publicly defensible inferences, whereas Vera offers a picture in which reason’s “success” is not mainly the mutual recognition of intention in talk but the larger dialectical leverage by which ideas (ideare/ideatum) and social forms are brought into being; if one adapts Vera’s idiom to Grice, “l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale” would name not a metaphysical agency but the systematic way conversation itself uses indirectness (implicature, strategic understatement, controlled omission) to let rational coordination occur without full explicit statement—yet for Grice the cunning remains methodologically local and intention-based, while for Vera it is expansive, teleological, and bound up with the idealist story of reason’s realization in history and politics. Grice: What V. and Speranza call, improving on Hegel, ‘l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale’!” Keywords: ideare, ideatum, astuzia della ragione conversazionale. DAL VOCABOLARIO ideare v. tr. [der. di idea] (io idèo, ecc.; poco usate le forme del pres. indic. e cong., e soprattutto rarissime, per ragioni di eufonia, pur essendo le sole regolari, le forme ideiamo dell’indic. e ideiamo, ideiate del cong.). – Concepire con la mente l’idea, cioè determinare le linee generali, il progetto o il programma di qualche cosa che sarà, o dovrebbe essere, poi realizzata: i. un’opera, un poema, un sito web; i. uno scherzo; il palazzo è stato eseguito in modo diverso da come l’aveva ideato l’architetto. Più genericam., ma meno com., proporsi di fare qualche cosa: avevo ideato una bella escursione in montagna. Grice: “Essential Italian philosopher.” Senatore del Regno d'Italia. Grice: “One of my own favourite unpublications is “Absolutes,” which took its inspiration from a little tract by Vera which was especially influential on Flaubert, “Il problema dell’assoluto.” Strawson remarked: “it was a boojum, you see!” Senatore del Regno d'Italia. Compe i suoi studi alla Sapienza di Roma, terminandoli alla Sorbona di Parigi. Mostra subito un immenso talento per l'insegnamento, caratterizzato da lucidità di esposizione e genuino spirito filosofico, reggendo svariate cattedre in città importanti della Francia e della Svizzera. Il colpo di stato di Napoleone lo costringe a rifugiarsi in Inghilterra a causa delle sue idee eterodosse. Qui intraprese la stesura in francese dell’“Introduzione alla filosofia” di Hegel. Torna in Italia, riuscendo a diventare il più geniale e originale comunicatore della filosofia di Hegel, insegnando storia della filosofia dapprima all'accademia di Milano, e poi, su invito di SANCTIS, a Napoli. Continua a intrattenere scambi fecondi con la Società filosofica di Berlino e con gl’ambienti hegeliani. I doveri e i diritti dell’uomo e del citladino. La camorra. Pena di morte, Spaventa.  G.: Vera, lei è noto per l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale. Mi incuriosisce: come vede il ruolo dell’ideare nella filosofia italiana, soprattutto in rapporto all’idealismo? Vera: Caro Grice, ideare non è solo concepire un progetto, è un atto creativo che trasforma il pensiero in realtà. L’astuzia della ragione consiste proprio nell’andare oltre il visibile, nel riconoscere come ogni idea sia già un seme di cambiamento. L’idealismo, per me, è la capacità di vedere oltre ciò che si presenta. G.: Mi trova d’accordo! D’altronde, lei ha saputo diffondere lo spirito filosofico persino nei momenti più difficili della storia, portando la filosofia di Hegel in Italia con una brillantezza tutta sua. C’è un esempio concreto in cui l’astuzia della ragione ha fatto la differenza? V.: Certamente! Penso alla camorra, alla pena di morte: l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale non si limita a riflettere, ma suggerisce soluzioni e nuovi modelli di giustizia. Come dice il proverbio umbro: “Dove non arriva il braccio, arriva la testa.” È il dialogo che trasforma il pensiero in azione. Vera, Augusto Filippo Nicola Olimpiade (1857). Introduzione alla filosofia. Milano: Bocca.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vergilio – Ossia: Grie e Vergilio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vergilio. H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VERGILIO The Vergilia gens (or Virgilia) was a Roman gens.  The gens probably originates from Campania, being closely associated with the Magia gens.[1] The name closely resembles Vergiliae, the Latin name for the Pleiades, although no direct etymology is known. Scholars have speculated that the name is originally Celtic,[2] but there is little direct evidence to support this.[3]  The gens Vergilia was spread throughout Italy, attested in Verona, Aquileia, Cremona, and Brescia.[4]  Members  Bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in Naples Marcus Virgilius: Tribune of the plebs in 87 BC, initiated legal proceedings against Sulla at the instigation of Cinna.[5]: 47  Gaius Vergilius Balbus: praetor in 62 BC, propraetor in Sicily in 61 BC[5]: 173, 181  Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, freedman and former slave of the 1st century BCE interred in the Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker Publius Virgilius Maro: poet, born on 15 October 70 BC[6] References  Furr, Leanora Reilly (1930). "The Nationality of Vergil". The Classical Journal. 25 (5): 340–346. JSTOR 3289539.  Zeuss, Johann Kaspar (1871). Grammatica Celtica [Celtic Grammar] (in Latin). Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. p. 11.  Braunholtz, G. E. K. (June 1915). "The Nationality of Vergil". The Classical Review. 29 (4): 104–110. JSTOR 696876.  Spadoni, Maria Carla (2004). I prefetti nell'amministrazione municipale dell'Italia romana (in Italian). Edipuglia. ISBN 978-88-7228-415-5. Retrieved December 24, 2023.  Broughton, T. Robert S. (1952). The Magistrates of the Roman Republic II (PDF). American Philogical Association. Retrieved December 24, 2023.  Williams, Robert Deryck. "Virgil". Britannica. Retrieved December 24, 2023. Category: Roman gentes ANd for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vergilio – Ossia: Grie e Vergilio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vergilio. For the Vergilii, I think we finally reach a gens where there is almost no contest. The Grice-Speranza hero is:  Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil). [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because he is the most famous Vergilius, but because he may be the ancient author most congenial to Grice. Indeed, if Ennius gave us:  "What did he say?"  then Vergilius gives us:  "Why did he say it that way?"  And that, for Grice, is the beginning of philosophy.  Why Virgil? Because Virgil is almost never merely informative. Take:  sunt lacrimae rerum  There are centuries of dispute about what exactly is meant. Or:  forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit  There is an explicit meaning and an intended consolation. Or:  timeo Danaos et dona ferentes  whose force far exceeds the literal propositional content. The reader constantly asks:  What is the poet getting at?  A grammarian like our previous hero Velius Longus comments on the words. A Griceian comments on the intentions.  Vergilius and implicature Imagine a tutorial. Discipulus:  Cur Vergilius non apertius dixit? (Why did Virgil not say it more directly?)  Griceus:  Quia poëta erat. (Because he was a poet.)   Discipulus:  Cur hoc interest? (Why does that matter?)   Griceus:  Quia poëta saepe vult plus intellegi quam dicitur. (Because a poet often wishes more to be understood than is said.)  +> implicatum exceeds dictum. That is nearly a Gricean definition of poetry.  A Vergilian heresy What is amusing is that Virgil himself becomes an orthographic battlefield. You just reminded me of:  Vergilius versus Virgilius.  This is actually one of the classic examples discussed by grammarians. Our hero Velius Longus would worry about the spelling. Grice would worry about the tendency to infer too much from it.  Grammaticus:  Vergilius scribendum est. (One must write Vergilius.)   Griceus:  Et si quis Virgilius scribat? (And if someone writes Virgilius?)   Grammaticus:  Errat. (He is wrong.)   Griceus:  Num alium poëtam describit? (Does he describe a different poet?)  (Ha.) Exactly. The difference matters to orthography, but not necessarily to reference.  Baker's dictum You mentioned G. P. Baker's description of Grice as  "the skilful heretic."  That phrase is memorable because Grice repeatedly converted what looked like heresies into orthodoxy. The movement is:  heterodoxy → accepted doctrine.  Virgil underwent something similar in literature. Features that initially seemed unusual became canonical.  A Vergilian dialogue Suppose Grice meets Virgil. Griceus:  Quid facis? (What are you doing?)   Vergilius:  Versus scribo. (I am writing verses.)   Griceus:  Cur non simpliciter dicis quod vis dicere? (Why do you not simply say what you mean?)   Vergilius:  Cur non simpliciter cogitas quod vis intellegere? (Why do you not simply think what you wish to understand?)  (Ha.)  Final verdict For:  Grice e Vergilio  I choose Publius Vergilius Maro not merely because he is the greatest member of the gens, but because he embodies the very phenomenon that obsessed Grice:  the gap between what is explicitly said, and what an intelligent hearer is expected to recover.  And if Grice's philosophy may be compressed into:  "Why did the speaker put it that way?"  then Virgil's poetry can often be read as a sustained invitation to ask precisely that question. [GREXv3 | Word] (Ha.) Grice recalled Austin mocking Nowell-Smith's inability to understand Donne ("From the four-imagined corners") and yet Grice cites Blake ("love that never can be told" "love that never told can continue to exist") as example of implicature by flouting 'avoid obscurity'. Grice deals with Blake and metre and rhyme -- how do we proceed with metre only in the examples you gave by Virgil one by one -- imagine them as conversational moves -- with co-conversationalist wondering -- and utterer making explicit the implicatum. Thanks This is a very Gricean move, because Grice's treatment of Blake is precisely that the poet is not merely ornamenting language. He is exploiting the hearer's willingness to ask:  Why was it put that way?  The metre, rhyme, and unusual phrasing are not accidents. They create a departure from the simplest prose formulation, and that departure invites an inference. Recall Blake:  Love that never told can be.  Grice's gloss is roughly:  love that is never disclosed may continue to exist.  The line departs from ordinary prose:  "Love that is never told can continue."  The hearer asks why, and an implicature emerges. Now let us do the same with Virgil.  I. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Literally:  "Perhaps one day it will please us to remember even these things."  Aeneid I. In prose one might expect:  Nolite desperare; evademus. (Do not despair; we shall get through this.)  But Aeneas does not say that. Conversation Achates:  Peribimusne? (Are we going to die?)  Aeneas:  Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. (Perhaps one day it will be pleasant to remember even these things.)  Hearer's reaction Achates:  Cur non simpliciter dixisti nos servandos esse? (Why did you not simply say we shall be saved?)  Aeneas makes explicit the implicatum Aeneas:  Quia si aliquando haec meminerimus, superavimus. (Because if we shall someday remember these things, we shall have survived them.)  +> implicatum:  We are likely to survive.  The metre allows Aeneas to imply rather than assert.  II. Sunt lacrimae rerum. Literally:  "There are tears of things."  Or  "The world has its tears."  The famous ambiguity. Conversation Aeneas:  Sunt lacrimae rerum. (There are tears of things.)  Interlocutor Achates:  Quid est hoc? Cur non dicis simpliciter homines misereri? (What is that? Why not simply say that people feel pity?)  Aeneas explains Aeneas:  Quia vult poeta maius aliquid intellegi. (Because the poet wishes something larger to be understood.)  Explicit implicatum Aeneas:  Non soli Troiani dolent; ipsa condicio humana miserationem movet. (Not only Trojans suffer; the human condition itself arouses pity.)  +> implicatum:  Our suffering is universally intelligible.  Precisely the sort of thing Grice would call a recovery from a departure from ordinary clarity.  III. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Literally:  "I fear the Greeks even when bringing gifts."  Conversation Troianus:  Quid faciemus de equo? (What shall we do about the horse?)  Laocoon:  Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. (I fear Greeks even when bringing gifts.)  Interlocutor Troianus:  At de Graecis quaesivi, non de tuo timore. (But I asked about the Greeks, not your fears.)  Explicit implicatum Laocoon:  Equum recipere non debemus. (We ought not to admit the horse.)  +> implicatum:  The gift is a trap.  The hearer must bridge the gap.  IV. A specifically Gricean-Vergilian example Imagine Virgil being challenged by Grice himself. Griceus:  Cur non aperte loqueris? (Why don't you speak plainly?)  Vergilius:  Quia versus facio. (Because I write verse.)  Griceus:  Id non est responsum. (That is not an answer.)  Vergilius:  Versus audiens quaerit cur sic dictum sit. (The hearer of verse asks why it was said this way.)  Explicit implicatum Vergilius:  Et ex ea quaestione plus intellegit quam ex oratione simplici. (And from that question he understands more than from simple prose.)  +> implicatum:  Poetry deliberately exploits inferential understanding.   I think this is exactly why Grice was fascinated by Blake and, implicitly, by Virgil. Austin could laugh at philosophers wrestling with Donne, and Nowell-Smith could fail to parse "From the four imagined corners," but Grice's point is different. The poet's obscurity is not necessarily a defect in recta dictio. It may be a calculated invitation to inference. Our hero Vergilius might therefore tell a puzzled hearer:  Si apertius dixissem, minus intellexisses. (Had I spoken more plainly, you would have understood less.)  (Ha.) That is almost a perfect Gricean defense of poetry.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Verginio – Ossia: Grice e Verginio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Verginio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VERGINIO The gens Verginia or Virginia was a prominent family at ancient Rome, which from an early period was divided into patrician and plebeian branches. The gens was of great antiquity. It frequently filled the highest honors of the state during the early years of the Republic. The first of the family who obtained the consulship was Opiter Verginius Tricostus in 502 BC, the seventh year of the Republic. The plebeian members of the family were also numbered amongst the early tribunes of the people.[1]  Origin The orthography of the nomen Verginius or Virginius has been disputed since ancient times; but Verginius is the form usually found in both manuscripts and inscriptions. Modern writers seem to favor Virginius, perhaps by analogy to virgo, a maiden. A similar instance is presented by the nomen Vergilius, which in modern times is often spelt Virgilius.[2] The gens was likely of Etruscan origins, and may have come to Rome with the Tarquins.[3]  Praenomina The early Verginii favored the praenomina Opiter, Proculus, Titus, Aulus, Lucius, and Spurius. In later times they used mainly Lucius, Aulus, and Titus.[4][5][6]  Branches and cognomina All of the patrician Verginii bore the cognomen Tricostus, but they were divided into various families with the surnames of Caeliomontanus, Esquilinus, and Rutilus, respectively. The surnames Caeliomontanus and Esquilinus presumably derive from the Caelian and Esquiline Hills, where these families probably lived. Rutilus is derived from a Latin adjective, meaning "reddish," and was probably acquired because some of the Verginii had red hair. The general Lucius Verginius Rufus, who lived in the 1st century AD, may have obtained his cognomen for the same reason. Although the plebeian Verginii are also mentioned at an early period, none of them had any cognomen. Under the Empire there are Verginii with other surnames.[7][8]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Verginii Tricosti Opiter Verginius Tricostus, father of the consul of 502 BC. Opiter Verginius Opet. f. Tricostus, consul in 502 BC; together with his colleague, Spurius Cassius Vecellinus, he carried on war against the Aurunci, and took Pometia, in consequence of which the consuls obtained a triumph.[9][10][11] Opiter Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus, according to Livius, consul in 473 BC with Lucius Aemilius Mamercus; other authorities name Vopiscus Julius Iulus as the colleague of Aemilius.[12] Proculus Verginius Tricostus, consul in 435 BC, in which year there was a great pestilence at Rome, allowing the Fidenates and Veientes to advance deep into Roman territory. While his colleague, Gaius Julius Iulus commanded the city's defenses, Virginius consulted the senate and nominated Lucius Aemilius Mamercinus as dictator.[13][14] Lucius Verginius Tricostus, tribunus militum consulari potestate in 389 BC, the year following the Gallic sack of Rome.[15] Tricosti Caeliomontani Aulus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, father of the consuls of 496 and 494 BC. Titus Verginius A. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 496 BC with Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis.[16][17][18] Aulus Verginius A. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 494 BC, he marched against the Volsci, whom he defeated, and took the town of Velitrae. He was one of the envoys sent by the senate to treat with the plebs during the secession of that year.[19][20][21] Titus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, father of the consul of 448 BC. Aulus Verginius A. f. A. n. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 469 BC, marched against the Aequi. His army was nearly destroyed in consequence of his own negligence, but through the valor of his soldiers he eventually defeated the Aequian force.[22][23][24] Spurius Verginius A. f. A. n. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 456 BC; in his consulship the ludi saeculares are said to have been celebrated for the second time.[25][26][27][28] Spurius Verginius S. f. A. n. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, a patrician youth who gave testimony against Titus Romilius Rocus Vaticanus, during his trial in 454 BC.[29] Titus Verginius T. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 448 BC.[30][31][32] Tricosti Esquilini Opiter Verginius Tricostus Esquilinus, consul suffectus in 478 BC, in the place of Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala, who died in his year of office.[33] Lucius Verginius Opet. f. Tricostus Esquilinus, father of the consular tribune of 402 BC. Lucius Verginius L. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Esquilinus, tribunus militum consulari potestate in 402 BC; the siege of Veii was entrusted to him and his colleague, Manius Sergius Fidenas, but because of their personal enmity, the Veientes were relieved, and Sergius' force was overpowered. The two tribunes were compelled to resign, and in the following year they were tried and condemned to pay a heavy fine.[34][35] Tricosti Rutili Proculus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 486 BC, marched against the Aequi, but as they would not meet him in the field, he ravaged their territory. He actively opposed the agrarian law brought forward by his colleague, Spurius Cassius Vecellinus.[36][37] Titus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 479 BC with Caeso Fabius Vibulanus; the same year the Fabii resolved to leave Rome in order to carry on the war against Veii. Verginius was an augur, and died during the great pestilence which devastated Rome in 463 BC.[38][39][40] Aulus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 476 BC.[41][42][43] Others Publius Verginius, a senator in 494 BC, during the first secession of the plebs, who advocated that debt relief be granted only to those plebeians who had served in the army.[44] Aulus Verginius, tribune of the plebs in 461 BC, he accused Caeso, son of the dictator Cincinnatus, and after a severe struggle obtained his condemnation.[45] Lucius Verginius, the father of Verginia, whose tragic fate occasioned the downfall of the decemvirs, in 449 BC; he was subsequently elected one of the tribuni plebis for that year. Verginia L. f., was taken into custody by Marcus Claudius, a client of Appius Claudius Crassus, who claimed her as his slave. According to legend, the judgment of Appius that Verginia was indeed a slave led to the downfall of the decemvirs. Aulus Verginius, tribunus plebis in 395 BC, together with his colleague, Quintus Pomponius Rufus, opposed a measure to establish a colony at Veii. Two years later, the tribunes were condemned and fined for their position.[46] Aulus Verginius, one of the patrician Verginii; his daughter, Verginia, went over to the plebeians. Verginia A. f., a patrician by birth, married the plebeian Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens, who was consul in 307 and 296 BC. She dedicated a chapel in which plebeian women could honor the goddess Pudicitia, after being excluded from her worship by the patricians on account of her marriage to a plebeian.[47] Lucius Verginius, military tribune in 207 BC, during the Second Punic War. He brought the captured messengers of Hasdrubal to the consul, Gaius Claudius Nero.[48] Verginius, according to Plutarchus, the tribunus plebis who accused Sulla in 87 BC; according to Cicero, his name was Marcus Vergilius.[49][50] Verginius, an orator proscribed by the triumvirs in 43 BC; he escaped to Sicily by promising large sums of money to his slaves, and then to the soldiers who were sent to kill him.[51] Verginius Capito, the master of a slave who escaped from the citadel at Tarracina during the war between Vitellius and Vespasian, in AD 69, and betrayed the citadel to Lucius Vitellius, the emperor's brother.[52] Verginius Flavus, a rhetorician, who flourished during the first century AD; he was one of the teachers of Aulus Persius Flaccus.[53][54] Lucius Verginius Rufus, consul in AD 63, 69, and 97; a general in Germania at the death of Nero, he three times refused the demand of his soldiers to claim the imperial dignity. Verginius Romanus, a contemporary of Pliny the Younger, was an author of comedies and mimi-iambi, which were much praised by Pliny.[55] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Ogilvie, Commentary, p. 277.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary (1963).  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 17.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, v. 49.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 54.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iv. 21.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 49.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vi. 1.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 21.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, vi. 2.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952), vol. 1 p. 12  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 28-30  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, vi. 34, 42, 69.  Quintus Asconius Pedianus, in Cornel., p. 76, ed. Orelli.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 63  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 56.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xi. 70.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 31.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 4.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, x. 31.  Censorinus, De Die Natali, 17.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, x. 40.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 65.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, xi. 51.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 27.  Fasti Capitolini.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, v. 8, 9, 11, 12.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952), vol. 1 p. 83 and note.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 41.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, viii. 68, ix. 51.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 48, 49, iii. 7.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 14.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 51.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 25.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Livy, Ab urbe condita, ii. 29-30.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 11-13.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, v. 29.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, x. 23.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xxvii. 43.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, 48.  Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, "Sulla," 10.  Appianus, Bellum Civile, iv. 48.  Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae, iii. 77, iv. 3.  Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Claris Rhetoribus, "Persius."  Burmann, Praefat. ad. Cic. Herennium. ed. Schütz, p. xiv.  Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, vi. 21.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)  Bibliography T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association, 1951–1952. Robert Maxwell Ogilvie, Commentary on Livy, books 1–5, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965. Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Etruscan originVerginii And about THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Verginio – Ossia: Grice e Verginio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Verginio For the Verginii, there are really two overwhelmingly Gricean candidates.  Lucius Verginius, father of Verginia. Lucius Verginius Rufus, the general who repeatedly refused the imperial throne.  My vote, however, goes decisively to:  Lucius Verginius, father of Verginia.  Not because the story is pleasant, but because it is almost entirely about:  status, description, speech acts, legal language, authority, and what happens when a public utterance changes reality. [GREXv3 | Word]   Why Verginia is a Gricean heroine The whole legend turns on the claim:  "She is a slave."  The claim is false within the narrative. Yet what makes it dangerous is not its truth-value alone. It is that the claim is uttered in the correct institutional setting. A Griceian immediately notices that the key move is not:  describing,  but:  declaring.  The notorious judgment of Appius Claudius effectively transforms a private assertion into a public decision. According to the tradition, this leads directly to the downfall of the decemvirs. [GREXv3 | Word]  Imagine the tutorial. Griceus:  Quid dixit Appius? (What did Appius say?)  Discipulus:  Ancillam esse dixit. (He said she was a slave.)   Griceus:  Et eratne ancilla? (And was she a slave?)   Discipulus:  Non. (No.)   Griceus:  Cur ergo res tanta secuta est? (Then why did such a great consequence follow?)   Discipulus:  Quia non tantum dixit; iudicavit. (Because he did not merely say it; he judged it.)  +> The distinction between constative and performative. Austin before Austin. (Ha.)  The rival candidate: Verginius Rufus There is, however, another magnificent Griceian figure:  Lucius Verginius Rufus. [GREXv3 | Word]  The soldiers reportedly urged him repeatedly to become emperor, and he repeatedly refused. [GREXv3 | Word] This yields a delightful conversational problem. Miles:  Imperator esto! (Be emperor!)   Verginius Rufus:  Nolo. (I do not wish to.)   The soldiers hear:  modesty.  The historian hears:  prudence.  The philosopher hears:  a refusal to accept the presuppositions of the proposal.   Orthography enters again The Verginii are especially amusing because the very name embodies one of your favorite themes:  Verginius versus Virginius. [GREXv3 | Word]  The article itself notes that antiquity already disputed the spelling and that modern writers often prefer "Virginius" by analogy with virgo. [GREXv3 | Word] This would have delighted both Grice and Velius Longus. Velius:  Verginius scribendum est. (One must write Verginius.)   Grice:  Et si quis Virginius scribat? (And if someone writes Virginius?)   Velius:  Errat. (He errs.)   Grice:  Num alium virum significat? (Does he thereby signify another man?)  (Ha.) The same old battle:  orthography  versus  reference.   Final verdict For a Grice e Verginio vignette I would choose:  Lucius Verginius and Verginia. [GREXv3 | Word]  Because the narrative poses a question that obsessed both Grice and Austin:  When does saying something become doing something?  The claim  haec ancilla est (this woman is a slave)  is not dangerous merely because it is false. It is dangerous because it is uttered by someone whose words carry institutional force. And that is precisely where ordinary meaning, legal force, and political power collide. One can imagine Grice ending the seminar: Tutee:  "What destroyed the decemvirs?"  Grice:  "An utterance."  Tutee:  "A false utterance?"  Grice:  "More than that."  Tutee:  "What, then?"  Grice:  "An utterance which attempted to make itself true by being uttered."  (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Vernia: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei peripatetici del lizio. Living thing. Grice soul psuche bios Joachim logically developing series. Zen psuche. Note su Utrum anima intellectiva humano corpori unita tanquam vera forma substantialis dans ei esse specificum substantiale, aeterna atque unica sit in omnibus hominibus Paolo Nicola Vernia (Chieti, Abruzzo), Institutionally, Paolo Nicola Vernia is not comparable to H. P. Grice in the Oxford collegiate sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford way. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, student responsibility, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Vernia belongs to a very different world: the late fifteenth-century Paduan university, dominated by chairs, public disputation, commentary, and the tension between scholastic argument and ecclesiastical oversight. He was not a fellow-tutor in a residential college, but a professor in the Studium of Padua, first as student of Nicoletto Vernia’s teachers and then as teacher himself, succeeding Nicoletto. He taught in the same intellectual environment in which Pomponazzi later emerged, and his work belongs to the genres of quaestio, commentary, and anti-Averroist disputation rather than to the tutorial-lecture structure of modern Oxford. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Paolo Nicola Vernia was a Renaissance university professor in the Paduan chair-and-disputation system. Grice’s world is collegiate, tutorial, and faculty-based. Vernia’s world is public, scholastic, commentarial, and institutionally vulnerable to episcopal intervention. That fits the philosophical contrast very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising a speaker’s intention and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Vernia works at a very different normative level. His central concern is not conversation in Grice’s sense, but the interpretation and defence of Aristotelian psychology and natural philosophy within the highly formalised practices of scholastic disputation. In his case, the question of “what follows from what” is governed by syllogistic, commentary tradition, doctrinal boundaries, and the institutional policing of permissible theses. That is why your bridge line is right: Gricean implicature is to ordinary conversation what Vernian inference is to academic disputation. Both are normative practices of licensed conclusion. But the governing rules differ sharply. There are a few factual refinements worth making. First, the date line at the end of your prompt should not be given as if the Marciana manuscript itself were “Vernia, Paolo Nicola (1460).” What you have there is a manuscript item, not a printed publication, and 1460 cannot be the date of that specific text in any secure way unless you have codicological grounds for it. So I would not cite the Marciana piece with that date as if it were a normal bibliographic publication line. Second, the broad intellectual profile is plausible and well aligned with known Padua history: student of Sigerio/Siger of Pergola and Gaetano da Thiene; successor in the Aristotelian line; colleague-context for Pomponazzi; teacher of figures such as Nifo; initial support for the unity of intellect thesis, later modified under pressure; concern with the autonomy of natural philosophy from metaphysics; anti-Averroist and De anima materials. That is the right cluster, even if some of the exact manuscript and print details would need careful bibliographical checking before being fixed in an entry. Third, your Latin title is excellent as a manuscript descriptor, and it does exactly what you want conceptually: it puts the issue where Vernia’s world actually lives, in a scholastic quaestio on the intellective soul, substantial form, eternity, and unity across humans. But again, the safe formula is manuscript witness, not ordinary book citation. So the short clean comparison is this. H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Paolo Nicola Vernia, by contrast, was a Renaissance Aristotelian professor in the University of Padua, active in the institutional world of quaestiones, commentaries, and public disputation under scholastic and ecclesiastical constraints. Institutionally they are not comparable. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Vernia exemplifies a formal academic rationality in which meaning, doctrine, and conclusion are governed by commentary, syllogism, and the regulated interpretation of authoritative texts. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises rational uptake in talk; Vernia practises rational uptake in scholastic disputation. One bibliographic caution, since you asked earlier for clean citations. For Vernia, I would not present the Marciana item as a normal printed bibliographic entry. I would instead write something like: Vernia, Paolo Nicola. Utrum anima intellectiva humano corpori unita tanquam vera forma substantialis dans ei esse specificum substantiale, aeterna atque unica sit in omnibus hominibus. Manuscript witness, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI, 105 (=2656), ff. 156r–160v. That is much safer than assigning it a clean book-date it may not deserve. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph headnote on Vernia in your preferred style, or I can help turn the Marciana item into a more cautious scholarly citation note.V, accompagna la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei peripatetici del lizio.” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “what is meant” as something a rational hearer can infer from what is said by assuming cooperative norms (maxims) and speaker intentions, so that conversational reason is fundamentally an inferential discipline linking utterances to implicatures under public standards of accountability. Vernia, by contrast, represents a late-medieval/early-Renaissance Aristotelian project in which reason is governed not by conversational maxims but by demonstrative and dialectical norms anchored in De anima: the analysis of psyche as the form and principle of living things, the hierarchy of soul-powers, and (in the Paduan Averroist setting) high-stakes disputes about intellect and immortality that were constrained by ecclesiastical authority (e.g., Pietro Barozzi’s 1489 intervention against public disputation on the unity of the intellect). In that sense, where Grice explains how agents manage meaning in everyday talk through cooperative inference, Vernia exemplifies how “rationality” is instituted by scholastic practices of quaestio, commentary, and disputatio—reason as rule-governed argument, interpretation of authoritative texts, and the policing of permissible theses—so that the “governance” of meaning is primarily logical-textual and institutional rather than pragmatic-conversational; if one wanted a bridge, Grice’s implicature is to ordinary conversation what Vernia’s scholastic inference and exegesis are to academic disputation: both are normative accounts of how conclusions are licensed beyond what is immediately given, but their governing norms (maxims vs. syllogistic/dialectical and institutional constraints) and their arenas (talk exchange vs. commentary/disputation) are importantly different. Living thing. Grice soul psuche bios Joachim logically developing series. Zen psuche. Filosofo abruzzese. Filosofo italiano. Chieti, Abruzzo. Grice: “I love V., but then any Englishman would, especially when learning that Saint Thomas (Aquino) would have made such a fuss about him!” Essential Italian philosopher. Allievo a Padova di PERGOLA e Thiese e successore di quest'ultimo. Ha come collega POMPONAZZI. Tra i suoi allievi: NIFO e PICO. Seguace dell'ermetismo imperante a Padova, cura un'edizione di Aristotele, il lizio. V. sostenne l'unità dell'intelletto -- dottrina poi abbandonata a causa di una condanna inflittagli dal vescovo di Padova --, l'autonomia della fisica rispetto alla meta-fisica, e la superiorità della scienza della natura sulle scienze dell'uomo. Saggi: “Contra perversam Averrois opinionem de unitate intellectus et de animae felicitate”; De unitate intellectus et de animae felicitate; Expositio in posteriorum capitulum secundum in fine; Expositio in posteriorum librum priorem; Quaestio de gravibus et levibus; Quaestio de rationibus seminalibus; Quaestio de unitate intellectus; Quaestio in De anima. Bellis, L’aristotelismo – del lizeo (Firenze, Olscheki, Enciclopedia Italiana. Esaminiamo in prima quali sieno le sue cose stampate, le quali sono poco conosciute, si perché si trovano inserite in altre opere, si perché scritte con caratteri molto fitti, danno pena all'occhio anche molto paziente. La dissertazione più conosciuta é l'ultima, contro l' unità dell'intelletto di Averroe; tanto è vero, che nella seconda iscrizione apposta al monumento trasportato dalla chiesa di S. Bartoloneo all'oratorio dell'ospedale civile di Vicenza, è precisamente questo ultimo scritto ricordato. Di V. sono stampate sei dissertazioni. La prima è: quuestio un ens mobile sit toliusphilosopine nuturalis siljectum. Essa si trova nel commento sul de general. et corrupt. I parepatetici, i parepatetici padovani – i parepatetici di padova, il lizio, unita, Aquino, method in philosophical psychology “living thing”, viva Aristotele!  G.  You’ve brought it as if it were contraband. D.  It is contraband. Only not from the police—จาก the undergraduates. G.  The undergraduates would confiscate it for cruelty to English. D.  They would confiscate it for cruelty to breath. Read it again. G.  Utrum anima intellectiva humano corpori unita tanquam vera forma substantialis dans ei esse specificum substantiale, aeterna atque unica sit in omnibus hominibus. D.  If you say that in the Examination Hall, the invigilators will offer you water. G.  I intend to say it in the Hall precisely to demonstrate why ordinary language was invented. D.  You will demonstrate why silence was invented. G.  It is Vernia. D.  It is attributed to Vernia. G.  It is a manuscript in Venezia, Marciana. D.  Marciana, named after Mars, so that even the library sounds belligerent. G.  And we are marching toward the Hall as if toward battle. D.  We are. CUF “Philosophical Psychology.” The title is already a truce between disciplines. G.  Now, ordinary language. How do we translate? D.  Into what? Into a sentence that will not frighten the beadle? G.  Into a sentence that will not be examined as Latin composition. D.  Try: “Is the thinking soul, joined to the human body as its real substantial form which gives it its specific being, eternal and one and the same in all humans?” G.  That’s still too much. D.  It’s the same thing in a different hat. G.  Let’s take it piece by piece. Utrum. D.  Whether. G.  Already the scholastic itch: either-or. D.  It’s a question, not a sermon. G.  anima intellectiva. D.  “The intellective soul.” G.  Intellectiva is an adjective, feminine, agreeing with anima. D.  As if the soul were a lady with a faculty. G.  And “intellectus” itself would be masculine, but here the point is: it’s the soul that is “intellective,” not the intellect that is “soulish.” D.  You’re already making it ordinary-language: which noun is doing the work. G.  Then humano corpori. D.  “To the human body.” G.  Dative. Not “in” the body, not “with” the body, but “to” it—like a sort of metaphysical address. D.  The soul posted to the body. G.  And “humanus” matters. Not any corpus, but the human one. D.  Not a cabbage-body, not a cricket-body. G.  Not even a cadaver-body, perhaps. D.  Don’t be theological. G.  unita. D.  “United.” G.  Passive, feminine again. But united by whom? D.  That’s the first implicature: the grammar refuses to name the agent. G.  It smuggles in a union without a unifier. D.  Convenient, in a university. G.  tanquam vera forma substantialis. D.  “As if a true substantial form.” G.  Not S.’s “logical form.” D.  No. Forma as in what makes a thing the kind of thing it is. G.  Substantialis from sub-stantia, that which stands under. D.  Now you’re going to do Greek. G.  Better: ὑπόστασις, not ὑποκείμενον. D.  You’re right. ὑποκείμενον is more “subject,” like grammatical subject. G.  Whereas ὑπόστασις is what later Latin likes as substantia. D.  So “substantial form” is: the form that belongs to the ὑπόστασις, the being that stands there. G.  Yes, and it gives esse specificum substantiale. D.  “Specific substantial being.” G.  That’s two substantials for the price of one. D.  Scholastic thrift: repeat the adjective until it becomes a philosophy. G.  dans ei esse. D.  “Giving it being.” G.  Now we’ve personified form as a donor. D.  The form hands out being like a bursar. G.  Now: aeterna atque unica. D.  “Eternal and unique.” G.  Eternal: the physicists in 1960 will laugh. D.  They will say, “Nothing is eternal except our grant applications.” G.  But scholastics mean “not perishing.” D.  Or “not decomposing.” G.  Unica: one. D.  One what? One in each? One overall? G.  Now we reach in omnibus hominibus. D.  “In all men.” G.  Omnis can be distributive: omnis homo, each man. D.  Or collective: all men taken together. G.  Here it’s plural: omnibus hominibus. It tempts the collective reading. D.  But the doctrine it’s aiming at is the strong one: one intellective soul for all humans. G.  That’s the famous irritation. D.  “One mind, many bodies.” A committee structure. G.  Now, our ordinary-language rendering should be: “Is there one thinking mind shared by all humans, or does each human have his own?” D.  That drops the “substantial form” apparatus. G.  We can put it back as a gloss: “and if so, how can it be the form of each body?” D.  You’re turning a Latin sentence into an English syllabus. G.  That’s our job. D.  Your job is to make it sound as if it was always obvious. G.  And your job is to object when I do. D.  Good. Now about intellectiva versus intellectus again: why doesn’t he just say “intellectus”? G.  Because the question is about anima in Aristotelian psychology: the soul’s powers. D.  So “intellective” marks a faculty-type. G.  Exactly: vegetative, sensitive, intellective. D.  And in ordinary language: “the part of you that thinks.” G.  Which makes it sound like a part, not a form. D.  Ordinary language is always anatomically tempted. G.  Now: “unita.” If union has to be done, who does it? D.  The scholastic answer: God. G.  The Aristotelian answer: nature. D.  The Oxonian answer: the examiners. G.  In our class, we should let the question bite: can “being united” be a brute fact? D.  You will say: the grammar hides an agent and that’s already philosophically instructive. G.  Yes. D.  And then you will smile in the Hall. G.  Only slightly. D.  Now: Marciana. We should mention it properly. Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. G.  And “Lat. VI, 105.” D.  You’re a catalogue now. G.  It matters: it keeps the scholastic monster tied to a shelfmark. D.  A monster with an address. G.  And “ff. 156r–160v.” D.  That is the friendliest part of the whole thing. G.  Because it’s finite. D.  Exactly. Even “aeterna” is bounded by folios. G.  Now, how do we end the class? D.  With the ordinary-language punchline: “Is ‘one soul for all’ the first theory of shared office space?” G.  Too modern. D.  Then: “If there is one intellect for all, the Examination Hall should issue one script for all.” G.  That will get a laugh. D.  And if it doesn’t? G.  Then we’ll say, in Latin, that the laughter was unica atque aeterna—only it didn’t unite to our human bodies. D.  Excellent. And we’ll be examined for it. Grice: Carissimo Vernia, devo confessare che solo gli italiani riescono a nominare il “lizio” con tanta grazia! Da noi, nel mio Vadum Boum, siamo costretti a tradurlo grossolanamente e, ogni volta, mi sembra di portare un bue attraverso il guado invece che passeggiare tra le colonne del sapere come fate voi. Dimmi, cos’è che rende il lizio così irresistibile da dedicargli tutta una vita filosofica? Vernia: Ah, caro Grice, il lizio è più di un luogo: è uno stato d’animo! Tra le pietre di Padova e i dialoghi peripatetici, ogni passo è una domanda, ogni ombra una risposta. Noi italiani, si sa, preferiamo passeggiare e discutere anziché portare buoi, e il lizio è la nostra pista da ballo filosofica. Se Aristotele avesse visto Vadum Boum, forse avrebbe scritto “De Animalibus Vadumboumibus”! Grice: Meraviglioso! In fondo, anche noi filosofi inglesi abbiamo la nostra versione del peripatetico: si chiama “tea time” – il pensiero scorre tra una tazza e l’altra, ma nessuno ha mai pensato di dedicare una dissertazione al “biscotto e intelletto”. Forse dovrei proporre un trattato: “Contra Averroem de unitate del biscotto.” Cosa ne pensi? V.: A me sembra un’idea eccellente, Grice! Del resto, ogni vero filosofo sa che la felicità dell’anima passa anche per lo stomaco. E come dicevano i peripatetici padovani: “Chi filosofa al lizio non teme le briciole della vita.” Viva Aristotele, viva il lizio e – perché no – viva il tè con i biscotti, purché siano ben filosofici! Vernia, Paolo Nicola (1460). Utrum anima intellectiva humano corpori unita tanquam vera forma substantialis dans ei esse specificum substantiale, aeterna atque unica sit in omnibus hominibus. MS. Venezia: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI, 105 (=2656), ff. 156r–160v.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Veronelli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del sadismo italiano. Philos. Aritotle logically developing series, Joachim, Grice, recusive unification. Note su L’arte del vino. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Luigi Veronelli (Milano, Lombardia). Compared institutionally, Luigi Veronelli is not at all comparable to H. P. Grice in the Oxford collegiate sense. Grice’s formula is exact: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and governing responsibilities inside a residential college; CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. Luigi Veronelli, by contrast, was a philosopher by formation, but professionally he became a publisher, journalist, gastronome, television figure, and public polemicist. He studied philosophy at the University of Milan, became assistant to Giovanni Emanuele Bariè, and then moved into publishing and journalism rather than into a tutorial-collegiate academic career. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [ilveronelli.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Luigi Veronelli, by contrast, was an Italian public intellectual formed in philosophy but active chiefly through magazines, publishing, newspapers, television, and civic campaigns around food, wine, and agricultural culture. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [biografieonline.it] That institutional difference actually fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Luigi Veronelli, by contrast, works in a much more public, rhetorical, and polemical register. His prose and television speech are not a theory of conversational inference, but a civil practice of making values palpable at the table and in print: defending local producers, naming quality, fighting homogenising institutions, and inventing a language in which taste becomes political judgement. The best biographical sources explicitly emphasise his battles for agricultural and alimentary “diversità,” his creation of or advocacy for local designations, and his highly distinctive journalistic style, full of neologisms and archaisms. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [ilveronelli.it] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice theorises how conversational meaning is inferentially recoverable. Luigi Veronelli exemplifies how language becomes a polemical, convivial, and ethical practice in public culture. For Grice, implicature is a disciplined route from utterance to intended meaning. For Luigi Veronelli, the “more-than-said” is often a matter of style, provocation, solidarity, and public alignment: who is being defended, what is being dignified, what power is being mocked. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [biografieonline.it] There are two important corrections to your note. First, the De Sade material should be kept factual and neutral. The secure record is that Luigi Veronelli published De Sade in 1957, was prosecuted, and the book was later burned in the courtyard of the questura or procura at Varese. That is strong biographical material; but your phrase “implicatura conversazionale del sadismo italiano” is your own polemical gloss, not something to ascribe to him. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] Second, I cannot verify your final bibliographic line “L’arte del vino” in 1955 with Mondadori. The web search produced no relevant confirmation for that title and date. So I would not use that citation. What is securely confirmed instead are his biographical milestones: the founding of Veronelli Editore in 1956, the three magazines I problemi del socialismo, Il Pensiero, and Il gastronomo, and then his long collaboration with Il Giorno from 1962 onward. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [ilveronelli.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Luigi Veronelli, by contrast, was an Italian philosopher by training but a public intellectual by vocation: assistant to Giovanni Emanuele Bariè, later publisher, journalist, editor, gastronomic polemicist, and activist for local producers and cultural diversity. Institutionally they are worlds apart. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Luigi Veronelli exemplifies a broader civil art of polemical conviviality, in which style, irony, naming, and shared culture make language itself an instrument of taste, solidarity, and resistance. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it], [ilveronelli.it], [biografieonline.it] And if you want the neatest corrective note for your dossier, I would add this: Do not rely on “Luigi Veronelli (1955). L’arte del vino. Milano: Mondadori” unless you have an independent library record for it; I could not verify it in the search results. The secure early anchors are the 1956 launch of Veronelli Editore, the three magazines, and the 1957 De Sade case. [treccani.it], [it.wikipedia.org] If you want, I can now give you a shorter polished paragraph in your own register, but with the uncertain wine-title removed and the anarchic public-intellectual profile made central.V vede la ragione conversazionale nell’implicatura conversazionale del sadismo italiano.” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains “what is meant” as what a rational hearer can infer from what is said given cooperative norms (maxims), speaker-intentions, and the calculability/cancellability of implicatures; conversational reason is thus a disciplined inferential bridge from utterance to intended significance. Veronelli, by contrast, as your passage portrays him (and as biographical sources confirm him as a philosophically trained, anarchic, stylistically inventive public intellectual who built a new language for wine/food and fought for local producers), treats “ragione conversazionale” less as a formal inferential mechanism and more as a culturally saturated practice of speaking-with-others at the table and in print, where insinuation, provocation, neologism, and irony are tools for unmasking power and defending “diversità” (local, material culture) against homogenizing institutions. In Grice, implicature is a method for modelling how meaning is responsibly recoverable under shared rational expectations; in Veronelli, implicature (as your “sadismo italiano” joke suggests) is a way the shared scene of convivio can carry values—discipline, sacrifice, pleasure, critique—without stating them baldly, so that the “more-than-said” is rhetorical, ethical, and political (who gets protected, who gets named, what counts as authentic) rather than primarily a logic of inference. The upshot is that Grice theorizes conversational reason as a general, norm-governed engine of meaning-inference, while Veronelli exemplifies conversational reason as a civil art of polemical conviviality—language deployed to cultivate taste, solidarity, and resistance, with implicature functioning as style-driven social action as much as (or more than) an abstract pragmatic calculation. Philos. Aritotle logically developing series, Joachim, Grice, recusive unification. Grice: “Essential Italian philosopher.” Figura centrale nella valorizzazione e diffusione del patrimonio eno-gastronomico. Antesignano di espressioni e punti di vista che poi sono entrati nell'uso comune e protagonista di caparbie battaglie per la preservazione delle diversità nel campo della produzione agricola e alimentare, attraverso la creazione delle denominazioni comunali, le battaglie a fianco delle amministrazioni locali, l'appoggio ai produttori al dettaglio. V. assieme ad alcuni sommelier F.I.S.A.R. Originario del quartiere Isola di Milano, dopo il r. ginnasio Parini, compie studi di filosofia a Milano, diventando assistente di BARIE (vedi). Si professa per tutta la vita di fede anarchica, rifacendosi anche alle ultime lezioni tenute da CROCE a Milano. Inizia l'esperienza di editore, pubblicando tre riviste: “I problemi del socialismo,” “Il pensiero”, e “Il gastronomo.” Pubblica “La questione sociale di Proudhon” e “Historiettes, contes et fabliaux di De Sade”. Per quest'ultima viene condannato, insieme a MANFREDI (autore dei disegni, poi assolto), a tre mesi di reclusione per il reato di pornografia. L’opera di De Sade e poi messa al rogo nel cortile della procura di Varese. Subisce anche una condanna di VI mesi di detenzione per aver istigato i contadini piemontesi alla rivolta, con l'occupazione della stazione di Asti e dell'auto-strada, per protestare contro l'indifferenza della politica per i problemi dei contadini e dei piccoli produttori. Diventa collaboratore de Il Giorno.  L'attività giornalistica lo impegna, e i suoi articoli, di stile aulico e provocatorio, ricchi di neologismi e arcaismi, faranno scuola nel giornalismo eno-gastronomico e no. Tra le testate cui collabora vanno ricordate, oltre a Il Giorno: Corriere della Sera, Class, Il Sommelier, V. EV, Carta, Panorama, Epoca, Amica, Capital, Week End, L'Espresso, Implicatura, metafisica dell’amore.  G.: Caro Veronelli, sa che De Sade, nonostante tutta la sua fama, non ha mai messo piede a Vadum Boum, la mia università? Forse temeva che lì il sadismo fosse solo un ingrediente segreto della mensa!  V.: Ah, Grice, probabilmente De Sade avrebbe trovato più gusto nei nostri formaggi stagionati che nei suoi eccessi letterari! A Vadum Boum la conversazione è più piccante di qualsiasi ricetta francese.  Grice: Ma allora, caro Luigi, forse la vera implicatura conversazionale del sadismo italiano è proprio nel gusto raffinato: si soffre per trovare il vino perfetto, ma che felicità quando lo si trova!  Veronelli: Esattamente, Grice! Del resto, come dicono dalle mie parti: “A tavola e in filosofia, la ragione va sempre accompagnata da un pizzico di follia.” Viva la conversazione, viva il buon cibo – e abbasso la mensa universitaria! Veronelli, Luigi (1955). L’arte del vino. Milano: Mondatori

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Veronesi: la ragione conversazionale e il diavolo del scientismo. Grice: I like him!”Scientism  Note su La chirurgia oncologica. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Umberto Veronesi (Milano, Lombardia). Institutionally, Umberto Veronesi is not comparable to H. P. Grice in the Oxford collegiate sense at all. Grice’s formula is precise for Oxford: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials and student responsibility; CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. Umberto Veronesi, by contrast, belongs to the world of medicine, hospitals, research institutes, and public health administration: he was a surgeon, oncologist, institute founder, scientific director, and later Minister of Health, not a don in a tutorial college. [ieo.it], [en.wikipedia.org] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Umberto Veronesi, by contrast, was an Italian clinician-scientist and public medical leader, associated above all with the European Institute of Oncology and the National Cancer Institute in Milan, as well as national political office. [ieo.it], [en.wikipedia.org] That institutional difference actually strengthens the philosophical comparison you want to draw. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognizing intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Umberto Veronesi, by contrast, exemplifies a clinical rationality in which evidence must be translated into patient-understandable choices. His work did not merely concern surgical technique in the abstract; it concerned how scientific judgement, bodily integrity, prognosis, and patient values could be aligned in practice. His most famous intervention, the move from radical mastectomy toward quadrantectomy combined with radiotherapy, is an excellent case: it is not just a scientific result but a change in what can responsibly be said to a patient about cure, mutilation, dignity, and quality of life. [ieo.it], [oncopedia.wiki], [ecancer.org], [thelancet.com] So the sharpest formulation would be this. Grice explains how rational conversational meaning works in principle. Umberto Veronesi shows how rational communication works under clinical pressure, where the stakes are not simply correct interpretation but trust, informed consent, hope, and bodily consequence. In a Gricean idiom, the clinical setting is saturated with implicature: what a doctor means by recommending a conservative procedure, what is conveyed by a hesitation, what a patient hears in a phrase like “we can preserve the breast,” and what is deliberately not said too bluntly in a consultation. [ieo.it], [oncopedia.wiki], [thelancet.com] There are two important factual corrections to your note. First, the title La chirurgia oncologica in 1962 is not something I can verify from the sources in hand. What I can verify securely is his biography, his institutional positions, and the later scientific work around breast-conserving surgery and quadrantectomy. Second, your comparison is strongest if you anchor it not in an uncertain 1962 monograph title but in the clearly attested clinical innovations and leadership roles: Umberto Veronesi’s role in developing conservative breast cancer treatment, his direction of the National Cancer Institute in Milan from 1976 to 1994, his founding of the European Institute of Oncology, and his term as Minister of Health in the Amato II government from 2000 to 2001. [ieo.it], [en.wikipedia.org], [prevention...cancer.gov], [ieo.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Umberto Veronesi, by contrast, was an Italian oncologist, surgeon, researcher, institute founder, and public health leader, active in the clinical and scientific worlds of Milan and later in national politics rather than in a tutorial-collegiate university structure. Institutionally they are very different. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Umberto Veronesi exemplifies an applied medical rationality in which evidence, explanation, and patient understanding have to be made to converge under conditions of fear, vulnerability, and ethical responsibility. [ieo.it], [en.wikipedia.org], [oncopedia.wiki], [thelancet.com] And if you want the neatest one-line dossier formula, I would suggest this: Grice theorises how meaning is rationally recovered in talk; Umberto Veronesi exemplifies how rational explanation must be humanly recoverable in medicine. [ieo.it], [oncopedia.wiki], [thelancet.com] If you want, I can now give you a tighter paragraph in your preferred register, with the uncertain 1962 book quietly dropped and the quadrantectomy example placed at the centre.Per V. la ragione conversazionale affronta il diavolo del scientismo.” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how an utterer’s meaning is rationally recoverable by a hearer via cooperative norms (what is said plus contextually licensed inferences), so that “conversational reason” is fundamentally an inferential discipline: a public, defeasible, accountable route from utterance to intended meaning (including implicatures). Veronesi, as a surgical oncologist writing early in the technicist idiom of mid-century clinical science (e.g., La chirurgia oncologica, 1962) and later celebrated for coupling scientific rigor with explicitly patient-centered care, puts “reason” to work less as a theory of inference from speech and more as a clinical rationality that must be communicated and negotiated: evidence, risk, prognosis, and treatment choice have to be translated into patient-understandable terms, with attention to what is left unsaid (fear, stigma, quality of life) and to how recommendations are received. In Gricean terms, Veronesi’s setting is saturated with high-stakes implicature (hedges, reassurance, the meaning of silence, what a clinician implies by offering a less mutilating option, what a patient implies by hesitation), but the contrast is that Grice offers a formal-pragmatic account of how meaning is computed under cooperative rational constraints, whereas Veronesi exemplifies an applied, ethically loaded rational practice where the success condition is not merely correct interpretation but informed, trust-sustaining alignment between scientific evidence and a patient’s values. Grice: I like him!”Scientism -- oncologo e politico italiano. Fondatore e Presidente della Fondazione V., ha fondato e ricoperto il ruolo di direttore scientifico e di direttore scientifico emerito dell'Istituto europeo di oncologia. È stato direttore scientifico dell'Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano dal 1976 al 1994. Ha ricoperto l'incarico di Ministro della sanità nel governo Amato II.  La sua attività clinica e di ricerca è stata incentrata per decenni sulla prevenzione e sulla cura del cancro. In particolare si è occupato del carcinoma mammario, prima causa di morte per tumore nella donna[3]; in tale ambito è stato il primo teorizzatore e strenuo propositore della quadrantectomia, dimostrando come nella maggioranza dei casi le curve di sopravvivenza di questa tecnica, purché abbinata alla radioterapia, sono le medesime di quelle della mastectomia, ma a impatto estetico e soprattutto psicosessuale migliore.  Si è inoltre distinto per la sua lotta in difesa dei diritti degli animali e dei diritti civili.  Molti i saggi scientifici scritti da V. con altri studiosi, come Inefficacy of immediate node dissection in stage I melanoma of the limbs, in New England Journal of medicine; Comparing radical mastectomy with quadrantectomy, axillary dissection, and radiotherapy in patients with small cancers of the breast, ibid.,; Radiotherapy after breast-preserving surgery in women with localized cancer of the breast; Sentinel-node biopsy to avoid axillary dissection in breast cancer with clinically negative lymph-nodes, in Lancet; Twenty-year follow up of a randomized study comparing breast-conserving surgery with radical mastectomy for early breast cancer, in New England Journal of medicine; Italian randomized trial among women with hysterectomy: tamoxifen and hormone-dependent breast cancer in high-risk women, in Journal of National Cancer Institute. Si vedano inoltre: Un male curabile, Milano. G.: Veronesi, lei è noto per aver portato la ragione conversazionale nel cuore della medicina, ma c’è chi dice che il “diavolo del scientismo” rischia di oscurare la dimensione umana della cura. Come risponde a chi teme che la scienza possa diventare troppo dominante? V.: Caro Grice, la scienza è il nostro faro, ma non può sostituire il rispetto per la persona. Ho sempre creduto che la medicina debba essere dialogo: ascoltare, comprendere, e proporre soluzioni che tengano conto non solo della biologia, ma anche dei sentimenti e delle speranze dei pazienti. Forse, come dice il proverbio milanese, “El cor l’è on gran dottor”, il cuore è il miglior medico. G.: Mi trova d’accordo! La sua quadrantectomia ne è testimonianza: una tecnica che salva vite senza dimenticare il valore psicologico ed estetico. Come vede il rapporto tra ragione e implicatura conversazionale nella sua pratica clinica? V.: È fondamentale. Ogni parola, ogni gesto, ogni silenzio ha un significato implicito. La comunicazione tra medico e paziente non è mai solo informativa; è un ponte emotivo. E anche nei miei saggi scientifici, ho sempre cercato di trasmettere questo: la scienza e la conversazione devono camminare fianco a fianco, perché “la cura” è un’arte che si realizza nel dialogo, mai nel monologo. Veronesi, Umberto (1962). La chirurgia oncologica. Milano: Garzanti.  

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali Grice e Verrecchia: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della falena dello spirito. La metafisica dell’amore, Aristotle on the recursive definition of philia – cited by Joachim, ‘logically developing series’ Aristotle philia. Grice on friedship philia – φιλός  Note su Lichtenberg: l’eretico dello spirito tedesco. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Anacleto Verrecchia (Vallerotonda, Frosinone, Lazio). Compared institutionally, Grice and Anacleto Verrecchia are not counterparts in the Oxford sense at all. Grice held the specifically Oxford double role of college fellow-tutor and university lecturer. Anacleto Verrecchia, by contrast, was a philosopher, germanist, translator, journalist, and later cultural attaché, formed in Turin and then active through journalism, literary criticism, translation, and cultural diplomacy rather than through a residential college or a stable Oxford-style tutorial chair. The best biographical notices identify Anacleto Verrecchia as born in Vallerotonda in 1926, transferred young to Torino, laureato in germanistica, later long associated with Vienna as addetto culturale, and deeply marked by his years in the Gran Paradiso. [it.wikipedia.org], [lunieditrice.com], [cdsconlus.it] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was an Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Anacleto Verrecchia, by contrast, was an Italian public intellectual and germanist, shaped by Torino, the Gran Paradiso, Berlin, and Vienna, not by a tutorial college system. [it.wikipedia.org], [lunieditrice.com], [cdsconlus.it] That institutional difference fits the intellectual contrast rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Anacleto Verrecchia, especially in his Lichtenberg work, operates in a different register: aphorism, polemic, moral satire, anti-systematic lucidity. His reason is not primarily the orderly inferential reason of cooperative talk, but a literary-ethical intelligence that cuts through pomposity, cant, metaphysical inflation, and national myth. That is why your Verrecchia-Lichtenberg line is good, once cleaned up. The secure bibliographical record confirms Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: l’eretico dello spirito tedesco, published in Firenze by La Nuova Italia in 1969. [philpapers.org], [seminariou...nfoteca.it], [catalogo.s...t.unina.it] So the sharpest philosophical comparison is this. Grice explains how meaning is generated and recovered under rational conversational constraints. Anacleto Verrecchia, reading Lichtenberg, shows how style itself can become a weapon of reason: brief, ironic, anti-dogmatic, heretical not because it rejects cooperation as such, but because it refuses to cooperate with solemnity, jargon, and self-deceiving systems. [philpapers.org], [it.wikipedia.org] That is why your phrase “la falena dello spirito” works better as a metaphor for Verrecchia’s style than as a bibliographic heading. What matters is the mode: aphoristic light against German heaviness, lucidity against metaphysical inflation, and prose used less to construct a common platform than to expose the falsity of one already in place. A few factual corrections are worth making. First, your final bibliographic line is wrong in date. The secure first bibliographical anchor is not 1950 but 1969, with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: l’eretico dello spirito tedesco. The title and year are clearly attested in PhilPapers, library catalogues, and biographical notices. [philpapers.org], [seminariou...nfoteca.it], [catalogo.s...t.unina.it], [it.wikipedia.org] Second, the Gran Paradiso material is strongly supported and actually central. It was not merely a biographical interlude but something Verrecchia himself later treated as his most formative “university.” Multiple sources confirm the 1950–1953 Gran Paradiso period and its relation to the much later Diario del Gran Paradiso, published only in 1997 after delayed recovery of the manuscripts. [it.wikipedia.org], [cdsconlus.it], [raicultura.it], [lunieditrice.com] So the short, clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Anacleto Verrecchia, by contrast, was an Italian philosopher, germanist, translator, journalist, and cultural attaché, formed in Torino, intellectually remade in the Gran Paradiso, and later active in Vienna and Berlin. Institutionally they are very different. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Anacleto Verrecchia, especially through Lichtenberg, exemplifies an anti-systematic, aphoristic reason that uses style as critique and prefers the moral shock of lucidity to the cooperative comforts of conversational regularity. [it.wikipedia.org], [lunieditrice.com], [philpapers.org], [cdsconlus.it] And the clean bibliographic correction for your dossier is: Verrecchia, Anacleto. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: l’eretico dello spirito tedesco. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1969. [philpapers.org], [seminariou...nfoteca.it], [catalogo.s...t.unina.it] If you want, I can now give you one short polished paragraph in your preferred style, or a tighter note on the earliest datable Verrecchia item versus the later Diario del Gran Paradiso.Per V. la ragione conversazionale facilita l’implicatura conversazionale della falena dello spirito.” Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats communication as a rational, cooperative enterprise in which what a speaker means is recoverable by an audience through principled inference (maxims, calculability, cancellability), so that “conversational reason” is essentially the logic of accountable uptake from what is said to what is implicated. Verrecchia, insofar as one can extrapolate from his 1969 monograph on Lichtenberg and the broader public profile of him as a polemical, aphoristic moralist and translator of a writer famous for “sudden books” of wit, shifts the center of gravity from a normative inference-engine to a literary-ethical intelligence: reason shows up less as a rule-governed mechanism for deriving implicatures and more as a cultivated lucidity that exposes self-deception, cant, and rhetorical inflation through brevity, irony, and the strategic shock of the aphorism (a practice that aims at illuminating the reader rather than coordinating interlocutors). In that sense, Grice models how conversational meaning is generated under shared rational constraints inside dialogue, while Verrecchia (reading Lichtenberg) models how meaning can be sharpened by anti-system, anti-jargon prose that weaponizes style as critique—an “eretical” reason that does not primarily optimize cooperation but punctures it when cooperation becomes complacency or hypocrisy, making conversational success depend on intellectual honesty and moral clarity rather than on maxims alone. La metafisica dell’amore, Aristotle on the recursive definition of philia – cited by Joachim, ‘logically developing series’ Aristotle philia. Grice on friedship philia – φιλός Filosofo italiano. Filosofo lazio. Essential Italian philosopher. Studia a Torino. Trascorse un certo periodo nel parco nazionale del Gran Paradiso, considerato come il più formativo della sua vita. Lì contempla in modo disinteressato i fenomeni della natura. Fa tre università -- e solito dire -: quella vera e propria, che non mi ha dato nulla o quasi; la collaborazione alle pagine dei quotidiani come elzevirista, che mi ha costretto a leggere libri che altrimenti non avrei mai letto; e infine l'università più utile in assoluto, vale a dire il soggiorno nel Gran Paradiso a contatto con la natura. Frutto di quel soggiorno è il saggio che contiene la sua filosofia, potentemente aforistica. I manoscritti riaffiorati molto più tardi spiegano la tardività della sua pubblicazione, avvenuta presso Fògolasi tratta del Diario del Gran Paradiso. Visse poi a Berlino ed e per addetto culturale all'ambasciata d'Italia a Vienna. Collabora alle pagine culturali di giornali italiani, tra cui Il Resto del Carlino, La Stampa, Il Giornale. Collabora stranieri (Die Presse, Die Welt). Non parla volentieri della sua vita privata perché, dice, di un filosofo ciò che interessa sono gli teorie e non le vicissitudini personali. Traduttore di Lichtenberg, appassionato studioso di BRUNO e Nietzsche, nel suo orizzonte culturale, però, la figura che risalta di più è senz'altro quella di Schopenhauer, da lui considerato a tutti gl’effetti un maestro da tradurre e continuare. Elementi caratteristici dei suoi saggi sono l'irriducibile vena polemica e una sacra bilis, ma la sua prosa spicca anche per chiarezza ed energia. La sua prosa insieme a quella di CERONETTI, SGALAMBRO e GIAMETTA è stata giudicata la migliore prosa filosofica. La metafisica dell’amore, Nietzsche a Torino, Bruno, la falena dello spirito, metafisica dell’amore. G.  You’re reading Verrecchia as if he were a customs officer. T.  I’m reading him as if he were a critic, which is worse. The title is the provocation: L’eretico dello spirito tedesco. G.  That’s what I mean. “Eretico” sounds thrilling until you notice it presupposes an orthodoxy. T.  It does. And that is precisely the point. G.  But from where I sit, Lichtenberg looks awfully… established. He goes to England, sees the King, speaks to the King, makes his report, gets received. T.  Received by the King can be the most heretical place to be received. G.  That is an odd defence. T.  Not really. Heresy at the bottom is merely disorder. Heresy at the top is a threat to the self-image of the top. G.  So you’re saying the King is the tribunal. T.  In that period, yes: the court is the mirror. If the mirror is mocked from within the room, it matters more than mockery shouted from the street. G.  Yet the title “eretico dello spirito tedesco” sounds like a badge pinned on by an Italian moralist. T.  Italians pin badges; Germans build systems. Verrecchia is doing both at once. G.  He’s an Italian building a German system of Germanness in order to declare one man heretical to it. T.  Exactly. That’s why you feel the “Establishment” smell. G.  I object to “spirito tedesco” even before “eretico.” It sounds like a national essence, bottled. T.  That is the target. “Spirito tedesco” is the thing he wants to puncture—its solemnity, its metaphysical inflation. G.  So Lichtenberg is heretical not because he rejects religion, but because he rejects the German habit of turning thought into religion. T.  Better: he refuses the piety of “depth.” He refuses the moral glamour of system. G.  But he’s a professor, is he not? T.  A professor can be heretical about the professoriate. G.  I still can’t get past the England trip. It sounds like a man doing diplomacy, not heresy. T.  The German heresy is often performed as competence. That is why it is hard to spot. G.  Verrecchia makes him sound like an “eretico” because he is writing against some German orthodoxy of spirit. T.  Yes. And the orthodoxy is not one doctrine; it is a style: gravity, metaphysical grandeur, reverence for abstractions. G.  “Spirit” itself is one of those abstractions. T.  Exactly. “Spirito tedesco” is the myth of seriousness. G.  And Lichtenberg is heretical by being witty. T.  Witty, and empirical, and impatient with big words that do not pay rent. G.  That sounds almost English. T.  That’s the scandal. A German who sounds English is already a kind of heretic, from the German perspective. G.  So England is not a sign he is establishment; it’s a sign he has caught the infection. T.  If you like. He goes, he looks, he returns, and the German reader hears: he has seen an alternative mode of mind. G.  But was England an “alternative mode” or merely another court? T.  Another court, yes. But with a different public culture: clubs, experiments, practical science, a less metaphysical style. G.  This is beginning to sound like a lecture you would give to justify Modern Languages to a philosopher. T.  I don’t need to justify it to you. You’re already reading German polemics on a Saturday. G.  I’m reading an Italian polemic about a German polemicist. T.  And that is even worse. G.  Let’s be concrete. Verrecchia’s phrase: “l’eretico dello spirito tedesco.” Who is the orthodox? T.  Not a church. A habit. The tradition that wants Geist to be the master concept. G.  Hegel? T.  And anyone who behaves as if Hegel were the natural climate. G.  Lichtenberg predates Hegel. T.  Precisely. Heresy can be retroactive. Later orthodoxy can discover earlier dissent and call it heresy. G.  So Verrecchia is writing backwards: making Lichtenberg the anti-ancestor of German solemnity. T.  Yes. He is building a genealogical joke: Germany has a German who undermines “the German.” G.  And he does it by aphorism. T.  Aphorism is heresy in prose form. It refuses the long march. G.  But England loved aphorisms, too. T.  England loves the short remark, yes. But Germany loves the grand remark. G.  So Lichtenberg’s England visit becomes part of his heresy: he learns brevity and social observation. T.  And he returns with eyes trained to see German metaphysical posturing as a social costume. G.  Still, meeting the King makes him look like a loyal subject. T.  Loyalty and heresy are not opposites. Sometimes heresy is loyal: it attacks the false self-image to rescue the real one. G.  That’s dangerously noble. T.  Verrecchia likes danger. G.  He also likes sounding as if he’s outside the club while running the club’s vocabulary. T.  That is Italian polemic: you condemn the church while borrowing its Latin. G.  Then “eretico” is a deliberate anachronism: it imports a religious drama into Enlightenment wit. T.  Yes. It makes Lichtenberg’s intellectual attitude look morally charged. G.  But doesn’t that turn him into the very thing he resists—an emblem? T.  It risks it. Verrecchia is always at risk of turning his hero into a banner. G.  And what would Lichtenberg do to banners? T.  Stick a pin in them, probably. G.  So the Tutor in German defends Verrecchia’s “eretico” by saying: heresy can happen at the top. T.  And by saying: the “spirito tedesco” he’s heretical against is precisely the high cultural self-worship, not the state. G.  But “spirito tedesco” sounds like state propaganda. T.  It can. That’s why Verrecchia uses it: it has the smell of a collective noun that pretends to be destiny. G.  All collective nouns pretend to be destiny. T.  Especially national ones. G.  So what is the heresy, exactly? T.  Refusing the idea that a nation’s thought must be one thought. Refusing the metaphysical uniform. G.  He becomes the heretic because he refuses unity. T.  And because he refuses reverence. He treats “spirit” like a word, not a god. G.  That is your German defence? T.  My defence is that Verrecchia is attacking the notion that Germanness is a system. G.  Yet he titles it as if Germanness were a church. T.  Polemic needs a stage. “Heresy” provides one. G.  And you don’t mind the stage? T.  I mind it, but I understand it. He’s writing Italian prose that wants to bite. G.  So in your view, “eretico” is rhetorical leverage. T.  Yes. And Lichtenberg supplies the leverage because he is difficult to canonise. G.  Difficult to canonise—good. That’s how I like my philosophers. T.  But Verrecchia tries to canonise the difficulty. G.  That’s the paradox: canonising the uncanonical. T.  And the England trip is part of that: it gives him a public biography that looks unheretical, so the heresy has to be relocated. G.  Relocated where? T.  Into attitude. Into style. Into the refusal of metaphysical posturing. G.  So the heresy is not in where he went, but in what he brought back. T.  Exactly. G.  What did he bring back? T.  A sharper sense that pomp is a kind of error. G.  Pomp as a cognitive vice. T.  Yes. G.  So when Verrecchia calls him “eretico,” he really means “unpersuadable by solemnity.” T.  That’s a decent gloss. G.  Yet it still feels awfully establishment to me to define heresy by reference to a national spirit. T.  That discomfort is productive. It forces you to ask what you mean by “establishment.” G.  I mean: too much confidence in grand labels. T.  Then you and Lichtenberg agree. G.  And perhaps Verrecchia agrees too, despite himself. T.  He agrees, but he cannot resist the grand label while mocking grand labels. G.  That is an Italian vice. T.  It is also an English one. G.  In England we do it with understatement. T.  In Italy with capital letters. G.  So what’s our conclusion for Saturday? T.  That “eretico dello spirito tedesco” is less a historical claim about Lichtenberg’s social position and more a polemical claim about his function: he is the internal saboteur of a later, heavier German self-image. G.  And my conclusion? T.  Yours is that the phrase is suspiciously close to the thing it criticises. G.  Yes. It’s heresy preached like doctrine. T.  Then we’ve both understood it. G.  And in future we should avoid saying “spirito tedesco” unless we want to start a religion. T.  Exactly. G.  And if someone asks what we’re reading? T.  We say: an Italian book about a German heretic who went to see the King. G.  And if they ask whether it’s heretical? T.  We say: only if you take “spirit” seriously. G.  Fine. Then I’m safe. I only take tea seriously.Grice: Caro Verrecchia, sa, tutto quello che ho fatto con il mio “principio della aitua conversazionale” era un tentativo – forse un po’ britannico – di rendere la sua “falena dello spirito” meno pungente, se non proprio più mansueta. Dopotutto, filosofare è meglio con qualche battuta che con troppa bilis! Verrecchia: Grice, lei è un vero gentiluomo! La sua filosofia della conversazione ha sicuramente addolcito le ali della mia falena, rendendola più incline a svolazzare tra le idee che a bruciare con polemica. Complimenti: è riuscito dove molti hanno fallito! Grice: Ma Verrecchia, non crede che persino Schopenhauer avrebbe sorriso – almeno una volta – se avesse potuto dialogare con una falena meno arrabbiata? Magari avrebbe persino scritto un aforisma dedicato: “Chi conversa con leggerezza non si brucia, ma illumina.” V.: Ah, Grice, lei sa che in filosofia una battuta vale più di mille trattati! Mi piace pensare che la mia falena, ora un po’ più serena, possa contribuire a quell’energia conversazionale che, come dice il proverbio laziale, “fa volare anche le idee più pesanti”. Viva la conversazione, viva la filosofia – e, perché no, anche le falene meno scontrose! Verrecchia, Anacleto (1950). Lichtenberg: l’eretico dello spirito tedesco. Germanistica. Torino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vetilio – Ossia: Grice e Vetilio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vetilio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VETILIO The gens Vetilia, also written Vecilia, was a minor plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens never attained much importance in the Roman state.[1]  Origin The Vetilii were probably of Etruscan origin, their nomen being Latinised from the Etruscan Vetlnei.[2]  Members Gaius Vetilius, praetor in 147 BC, was sent to Hispania, where after initial successes against the Lusitanians, he was defeated by Viriathus near Tribola, and slain.[3][4][5] Vetilius, a leno, or pandar, to whom a certain Juventius left a legacy. The praetor Quintus Metellus refused Vetilius' claim for the property on account of his unsavoury occupation.[6] Publius Vetilius, described by Cicero as a relative of Sextus Aebutius, was one of the witnesses in the trial of Aulus Caecina Severus.[7][8] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1249 ("Vetilius").  PW, Vetilius.  Appian, Hispanica, 61–63.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1269 ("Viriathus").  PW, Vetilius 1.  Valerius Maximus, vii. 7. § 7.  Cicero, Pro Caecina, 9  PW, Vetilius 2. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Caecina. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Hispanica (The Spanish Wars). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). 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). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vetilio – Ossia: Grice e Vetilio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vetilio For the Vetilii, I would choose:  Gaius Vetilius, the praetor sent to Hispania in 147 BC who initially succeeded against the Lusitanians, only to be outmaneuvered and killed by Viriathus. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because he was victorious. Quite the opposite. Like your earlier favorite Publius Varinius Glaber against Spartacus, Gaius Vetilius is interesting because he seems to have misdescribed the situation.  Grice's first reaction Imagine an Oxford tutorial. Tutor:  "Who defeated Vetilius?"  Tutee:  "Viriathus."  Tutor:  "And who was Viriathus?"  Tutee:  "A rebel."  Tutor:  "Ah. There is the beginning of the trouble."  (Ha.) The Roman tendency was often to describe opponents as:  rebels, bandits, fugitives, shepherds,  before reluctantly recognizing them as generals. The same Gricean pattern appeared with Spartacus. A misleading description generates misleading practical inferences.  Vetilius and Viriathus The tradition preserved by Appian is that Vetilius initially enjoyed success, but was ultimately defeated and killed by Viriathus. [GREXv3 | Word] A Grice-Speranza exchange might be: Vetilius:  Latrones sunt. (They are brigands.)  Legatus:  Sed ordinatim pugnant. (But they fight in formation.)  Vetilius:  Latrones tamen sunt. (Yet they are brigands.)  +> failure to revise a working description. A very Gricean vice.  But there is a runner-up The other Vetilius is much smaller in history but perhaps even more conversationally interesting:  Vetilius, the leno (pandar) whose claim to a legacy was rejected because of his occupation. [GREXv3 | Word]  Now this is pure speech-act philosophy. The issue is:  Does a man's social description affect what can validly be done for him?  A will says:  "Leave the property to Vetilius."  The praetor effectively responds:  "Vetilius cannot receive it."  Not because the wording is unclear. Because of who Vetilius is.  Austin before Austin Testator:  Vetilio relinquo. (I leave it to Vetilius.)  Praetor:  Audio verba. (I hear the words.)   Vetilius:  Ergo hereditas mea est. (Therefore the inheritance is mine.)   Praetor:  Non sequitur. (It does not follow.)  +> The successful performance of the speech act depends on social conditions as well as words. That is astonishingly Austinian.  Why not the witness in Pro Caecina?  Vetilius, Cicero's witness. [GREXv3 | Word]  A useful conversational figure, certainly. But comparatively passive. He testifies. The other two Vetilii generate deeper philosophical puzzles.  Final verdict My choice remains:  Vetilius versus Viriathus. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because the entire story can be compressed into one Gricean lesson:  Wrong description → wrong inference → wrong action.  And Grice spent a lifetime showing how much rational behaviour depends upon getting the description right. One can imagine him concluding: Griceus:  Quid Vetilium perdidit? (What destroyed Vetilius?)  Discipulus:  Viriathus. (Viriathus.)  Griceus:  Ante Viriathum? (Before Viriathus?)  Discipulus:  Descriptio falsa. (A false description.)  (Ha.) That would make a very respectable Grice-Speranza vignette indeed.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vettio – Ossia: Grice e Vettio: la ragione conversazionale del Giove del Campidoglio – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. He achieves high office under Giuliano. He writes a commentary of Temistio – Accademia. Vettio Agorio Pretestato.  Vettio Agorio Pretestato (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale del Giove del Campidoglio. He achieves high office under Giuliano. He writes a commentary of Temistio – Accademia.  GRICEVS: PRAETEXTATE, audio te sub Iuliano ad amplissimas dignitates evectum esse: igitur philosophus iam non solum in scholis, sed etiam in curia—quasi Iuppiter ipse Capitolinus tibi suffragia dederit. PRAETEXTATVS: Si Iuppiter mihi favet, id Romae fit: hic deus non tonat tantum, sed etiam candidatos commendat. Ego autem Temistium commentariis colo—ne quis putet in magistratu me tacuisse. GRICEVS: Lepide: cum dicas te “Iovem Capitolium” colere, dicis religionem; sed implicas (more nostro conversazionali) hoc: Romae etiam deos oportet ita laudari ut senatus non irascatur. PRAETEXTATVS: Et cum tu “implicas” dicis, dicis doctrinam; sed implicas hoc: in Urbe et in Accademia idem valet praeceptum—qui nimis clare loquitur, tonitrua meretur; qui sapienter subridet, Iovem habet pro collega. it is wise to assume that this Vettius Agorius Praetextatus -- if he wrote anything, as he achieved high office under Giuliano and wrote a comentary on Temistius did so in Greek -- and thus that he was no Roman and spoke no Latin, or had no Italic ethnicity and was not Italy-born? thank you No, it would not be wise to assume that. On the contrary, the evidence points the other way. Vettius Agorius Praetextatus was a Roman senator and aristocrat of Rome, with strong ties to the city and its senatorial pagan milieu; sources place him in Rome, and even give Rome as his place of birth in some prosopographical records. [en.wikipedia.org], [mithraeum.eu], [wikidata.org] His name is thoroughly Roman, his cursus is Roman, and his inscriptions are in Latin. The epigraphic dossier for Vettius Agorius Praetextatus is explicitly Latin, and his funerary inscription is a very Roman senatorial monument. [PPRET 80....refect ...], [edh.ub.uni...delberg.de] What is true is that he also operated deeply in the Greek East and in Hellenic religious culture. As proconsul of Achaia, Praetextatus was associated with the defense of Eleusinian and other Greek cults, so he was almost certainly competent in Greek, as many late Roman aristocrats of his rank were. But Greek cultural competence does not imply that he was not Roman, nor that he lacked Latin, nor that he was ethnically non-Italic. In late antiquity, high Roman aristocrats could be both strongly Latin and highly Hellenized. [mithraeum.eu], [academic.oup.com] As for the alleged commentary on Themistius, I would be cautious. I did not find reliable evidence in this search that Vettius Agorius Praetextatus actually wrote a commentary on Themistius. So I would not build any linguistic inference on that claim without a firmer source. [en.wikipedia.org] So the careful conclusion is: No, you should not infer from a possible Greek commentary or from his association with Themistius that Praetextatus was “no Roman,” or that he spoke no Latin, or that he was not Italy-born. The available evidence strongly supports his being a Roman aristocrat of Rome, fully at home in Latin public culture, while also participating in Greek intellectual and religious traditions. [en.wikipedia.org], [mithraeum.eu], [PPRET 80....refect ...], [edh.ub.uni...delberg.de] If you want the shortest philological formula, I would put it this way: Greek cultural activity in a late Roman senator does not disprove Roman identity; in Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, the Latin epigraphic and civic evidence positively supports it. [en.wikipedia.org], [PPRET 80....refect ...], [edh.ub.uni...delberg.de] So can you have a double run because I was told he was a member of the academic, or that he was platonicus and the exact wording being: "He wrote a commentary of Themistius" -- and what would he be commenting on? Could that be found in the apparatus criticus for Themistius? Thanks. On a second run, I still do not find reliable evidence that Vettius Agorius Praetextatus wrote a commentary on Themistius, and I would now be distinctly cautious about that claim. The available material on Praetextatus consistently presents him as a Roman senator, priest, and leading pagan aristocrat of Rome, but not as the author of a known surviving commentary on Themistius. [en.wikipedia.org], [PPRET 80....refect ...], [academic.oup.com] Likewise, I do not find solid confirmation that Praetextatus was “a member of the Academy” in the specific philosophical sense you seem to have in mind, or that he was straightforwardly designated platonicus in a source tied to this alleged commentary. What the sources do strongly support is that Praetextatus was deeply involved in Greek cultic and Hellenic religious life, especially in Achaea, and that later pagan memory, especially in Macrobius’s Saturnalia, idealised him as a learned pagan grand seigneur. That is not the same thing as having a securely attested Platonic school-membership or commentary tradition. [en.wikipedia.org], [mithraeum.eu], [academic.oup.com] On the very specific question “what would he be commenting on?”, if the claim were true, the most plausible object would be one of Themistius’s Aristotelian paraphrases or philosophical speeches, since Themistius is famous for those. But that is only a generic inference from who Themistius is, not evidence that Praetextatus actually commented on any specific work by him. [en.wikipedia.org] As for the apparatus criticus: in principle, yes, that is exactly where such a relationship might turn up, especially in the prefatory material or testimonia to an edition of Themistius, rather than in the line-by-line critical apparatus proper. But in this search I did not retrieve an edition of Themistius or an apparatus/testimonia entry mentioning Praetextatus. So I cannot honestly say that the claim is corroborated from an apparatus criticus on the evidence now before me. [en.wikipedia.org], [wiki.digit...sicist.org] So the most careful answer is this. At present I cannot verify the statement that Praetextatus “wrote a commentary on Themistius.” Nor can I confirm from this run that he was formally “of the Academy” or securely labelled platonicus in a source tied to that claim. What I can confirm is that Praetextatus was a highly educated, strongly Hellenising Roman aristocrat of Rome, active in Greek religious contexts such as Achaea, and later remembered as a central figure of pagan elite culture. [en.wikipedia.org], [mithraeum.eu], [PPRET 80....refect ...] If you want, I can do a third, narrower philological pass aimed specifically at editions, testimonia, and scholia for Themistius, rather than general web results, and tell you whether the claim perhaps comes from a misreading of a preface, a prosopographical entry, or a confusion with another late-antique figure. And what were Themistius's philosophical speeches of Aristotle? Did Aristotle have any or Themistius invented? Supposing they are there -- can you give me the incipit of such a Themistius thing -- say, the earliest -- to see that this Pretestato may have commented on? Thanks Themistius’s “philosophical speeches of Aristotle” are not speeches by Aristotle. They are Themistius’s own paraphrases of Aristotle’s treatises, written as explanatory re-presentations for students and readers. In other words, Aristotle did not compose “orations” on these topics for Themistius to relay; Themistius turned Aristotelian treatises into smoother, pedagogical prose expositions. The standard descriptions of Themistius stress exactly this point: they are paraphrases, not literal commentaries and certainly not Aristotelian speeches. [philpapers.org], [eulogikon.org] As to which such work is “earliest,” one must be careful. I cannot, from these results alone, establish the chronological order in which Themistius actually composed his Aristotelian paraphrases. But among the surviving Greek paraphrases, the one for the Posterior Analytics gives us a very usable incipit directly in the search result. The work is the Paraphrase of Posterior Analytics, and its opening runs: Ἐμοὶ συντάττεσθαι μὲν ἐξηγήσεις τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν βιβλίων μετὰ τοσούτους τε καὶ τοιούτους οὐκ ἐδόκει πόρρωθεν εἶναι φιλοτιμίας ἀνωφελοῦς ... That is enough to show the genre at once. He opens by speaking in his own voice about the task of composing expositions of Aristotelian books after so many and such distinguished predecessors, and he explains that his aim is not to rival full commentaries but to provide a concise, helpful restatement. The same result continues with his programmatic statement that he wants to set out Aristotle’s intentions briefly and clearly for those who have already studied Aristotle but cannot keep returning to the full commentaries. [eulogikon.org] That matters for your Praetextatus question, because if someone said that Praetextatus wrote on Themistius, the most plausible object would indeed be one of these Aristotelian paraphrases, not some “speech of Aristotle” in the literal sense. The Posterior Analytics paraphrase is a particularly plausible candidate simply because it is one of the securely surviving Greek paraphrases and begins in a way that looks like a didactic philosophical work someone might later annotate or comment on. [eulogikon.org], [philpapers.org] I should still keep one caution in place. I have not, from this run, found evidence that Praetextatus in fact commented on this or any other work by Themistius. So the incipit helps you identify what sort of Themistian text one might mean, but it does not yet corroborate the claim about Praetextatus. [onlinebook....upenn.edu], [philpapers.org], [eulogikon.org] If you want, I can now do one narrower pass specifically on the Posterior Analytics paraphrase and the older printed editions to see whether any preface, testimonium, or scholion mentions Praetextatus by name. [eulogikon.org], [onlinebook....upenn.edu] You can do that, and include what you find within this 100-move conversation between G. and S. on P. then -- especially as you aslo translate this: Ἐμοὶ συντάττεσθαι μὲν ἐξηγήσεις τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν βιβλίων μετὰ τοσούτους τε καὶ τοιούτους οὐκ ἐδόκει πόρρωθεν εἶναι φιλοτιμίας ἀνωφελοῦς ...and provide a Latin translation and then we suppose that G. thinks that Praetextatus commented on this dry thingof the Anal. Post. and Pri. that he (G) avoided -- he only went as far as the Cat. and De Int. -- and why would a senator be interested in educating the plebe, the Roman classes about that? Was he a traitor to the Roman cause? S: Well, Aristotle was very Anti-Roman, etc etc and they discuss as dons in lit. hum. in a dry Oxonian fashion, no preamble or ps -- and they consider Giuliano -- he who gave the victory to the Galilean -- etc. and why the Romans and the Greeks before crhist and ab urbe condita and when the sub-faculty of philosophy was instituted in -- when was it -- 1920, they wanted to go back to Giuliano -- etc etc but mainly revisitng the totally ROman credentials of this P. who ends up being third-rate comentator of 'the lizio' as they Call Aristotle -- lycaeum, liceo, lizio (alternate spelling). -- No accademy, and 'high office' etc – thanks G.: Praetextatus again, then. Still Roman, still senatorial, still very high office, and still not securely a commentator on Themistius. S.: You did a further run. G.: I did, and the result is sober rather than sensational. I found good material on Themistius’s paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics and on the manuscript tradition of his Aristotelian paraphrases, but nothing that firmly places Vettius Agorius Praetextatus in the apparatus, testimonia, or prefatory notices as a commentator on Themistius. [eulogikon.org], [jstor.org] S.: So the claim remains unverified. G.: More than that. It becomes increasingly suspect as a positive historical statement. S.: Yet we may still have our conversation. G.: Naturally. Oxford has never waited for total certainty before producing a perfectly good discussion. S.: Then begin with Themistius. These are not Aristotle’s “philosophical speeches.” G.: No. That phrase must be corrected at once. Aristotle did not sit down and write a set of speeches later performed by Themistius. What Themistius wrote were paraphrases of Aristotelian treatises: explanatory, pedagogical re-presentations in smoother Greek prose. [lechiesediroma.info], [eulogikon.org] S.: So if someone said that Praetextatus commented on Themistius, the likely object would be a paraphrase of some Aristotelian work. G.: Exactly. Perhaps the Posterior Analytics, perhaps the Physics, perhaps another of the paraphrases. But that is only what would be likely if the claim were true. It does not make the claim true. S.: And you now have the incipit for one. G.: Yes. The opening of the paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics is secure enough from the digital Greek archive. It begins: Ἐμοὶ συντάττεσθαι μὲν ἐξηγήσεις τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν βιβλίων μετὰ τοσούτους τε καὶ τοιούτους οὐκ ἐδόκει πόρρωθεν εἶναι φιλοτιμίας ἀνωφελοῦς ... [eulogikon.org] S.: Translate it, then. G.: In English first: “It did not seem to me far removed from useless ambition to compose expositions of Aristotle’s books after so many authors and such distinguished ones ...” [eulogikon.org] S.: Dry enough already. G.: Dry, yes, and self-aware. Themistius says, in effect, that after so many able predecessors, writing full-scale expositions would look almost vain. S.: And the Latin. G.: Let us make it decently schoolmanlike: Mihi quidem expositiones librorum Aristotelicorum post tot ac tales viros componere non videbatur procul ab inutili ambitione abesse ... S.: Very good. One hears the ancient commentator apologising in advance for commenting. G.: Exactly. Which is one reason I like him. The commentator begins by acknowledging the crowded dignity of the commentarial queue. S.: And then he says, further on, that what is useful is not full rival commentary but a concise extraction of Aristotle’s intentions. G.: Yes. The same opening passage makes that clear. He wants to pick out the βουλήματα, the intentions or purports of what Aristotle wrote, and present them swiftly and briefly for readers who have studied Aristotle once but cannot keep returning to large commentaries. [eulogikon.org] S.: So the paraphrase is pedagogical compression. G.: Precisely. Less a scholion than a civil service of recollection. S.: Then if Praetextatus had commented on Themistius, he would have been commenting on a commentator of Aristotle. G.: Yes, which would already give him a respectable third-rank dignity: Roman senator, pagan grandee, high office under Julian and after, reduced in leisure to glossing a gloss of the Liceo. S.: The Liceo. G.: Or the Lyceum, or as the common room would sooner say, the lizio, if only to keep Aristotle from sounding too school-board. S.: You admit, then, that this would make Praetextatus less a member of an Academy than a third-rate commentator of the Lyceum. G.: If the claim were true, yes. And there is still no evidence that it is. S.: No Academy, then. G.: No securely attested Academy. No evidence from this run that he belonged to any formal Platonic Academy in the relevant sense. He was a Roman senator, priest, initiate, high official, defender of cults, and highly Hellenising aristocrat. That is what we know. [en.wikipedia.org], [mithraeum.eu] S.: Entirely Roman credentials. G.: Entirely Roman, yes. Latin name, Latin civic career, Latin inscriptions, Roman office, Roman city, Roman pagan elite. Greek culture does not subtract Romanity in the fourth century. S.: Yet suppose, for the pleasure of the thing, that he did comment on Themistius’s paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics. Why would a Roman senator be interested in such a dry object. G.: Because dryness is often irresistible to grand men once religion has ceased to suffice and politics has begun to pall. S.: That is a cynical answer. G.: A Roman one. Besides, the Posterior Analytics concerns scientific knowledge, demonstration, first principles. A senator who wished to style himself a cultivated pagan of serious philosophical stamp might well find such a work useful. S.: Useful for what. G.: For appearing not merely pious and politically dignified but intellectually exact. The old senatorial paganism of the fourth century was not only cultic. It was self-consciously learned. S.: Still, the Posterior Analytics and Prior Analytics are not exactly the first things a civilised undergraduate hugs. G.: Heaven forbid. I myself went only so far as the Categories and De Interpretatione with much comfort. The Analytics always looked like the sort of Aristotelian country one visits out of duty and leaves grateful to be alive. S.: So if Praetextatus had written on Themistius’s paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics, he would have gone farther into the Analytics than you cared to. G.: Disturbingly farther, yes. S.: Was he then a traitor to the Roman cause. G.: What Roman cause. S.: The anti-Greek one. G.: There was never a stable anti-Greek Roman cause among educated Romans worth speaking of. There was Roman hauteur, Roman appropriation, Roman impatience, Roman superiority, Roman bilingual vanity. But cultivated Romans had been feeding on Greek philosophy for centuries. S.: Even before Christ. G.: Obviously. And before Julian too, and before your modern sub-faculty of philosophy dreamt of imitating anyone. S.: Ah yes, the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy. G.: Instituted in Oxford in the twentieth century, formally under Literae Humaniores first and later with a more autonomous life, but not, so far as I know, out of any nostalgia for Julian the Apostate. S.: I had hoped they wanted to go back to Julian. G.: Oxford wants to go back to many things and never quite reaches any of them. S.: Yet Julian matters here. G.: He does. Praetextatus flourished under Julian in the sense that Julian’s reign reopened a political horizon for learned pagan aristocrats. But Julian was also, in the old Christian joke, he who gave the victory to the Galilean by trying too theatrically to resist him. S.: Because the attempted pagan restoration sharpened the contrast and failed. G.: Exactly. Julian made pagan seriousness look noble, but also belated. S.: So Praetextatus belongs to that noble belatedness. G.: Very much so. Which is why a hypothetical comment on Themistius would fit him psychologically, even if not yet historically. A late Roman senator proving that Hellenic philosophy still has civilised life in it. S.: And Themistius himself was a statesman-philosopher. G.: Quite. Senator, orator, imperial adviser, pagan under Christian emperors, and a man who managed to make Aristotle useful to public life without turning him into a camp or a sect. [eulogikon.org], [bmcr.brynmawr.edu] S.: So Praetextatus might have liked him. G.: He might well have. That remains a plausible cultural affinity. But affinity is not commentary. S.: Then the incipit again. It is wonderfully modest. G.: Yes. Themistius says that after so many predecessors it would be a form of useless ambition to compose expositions. But he then claims a lesser novelty: not to rival the μεγάλαι ὑπομνήσεις, the large commentaries, but to extract the intentions concisely and help memory. [eulogikon.org] S.: So a Roman senator commenting on that would be commenting on a text that is already a digest. G.: A digest of Aristotle by a statesman-philosopher. Which begins to sound almost too perfect for late-antique aristocratic leisure. S.: Then what precisely is the Posterior Analytics paraphrase about, in opening. G.: It opens with pedagogic conditions of learning. The passage soon turns to the claim that anyone who is going to attend to any scientific learning must already possess certain natural starting-points by which he knows something in advance about the matter; one cannot receive everything from the teacher. The pupil must bring something from home, so to speak. [eulogikon.org] S.: A very tutorial thought. G.: Entirely. Themistius would have been tolerable in Oxford for at least one term. S.: Then perhaps Praetextatus wanted to educate the Roman classes. G.: Not the plebs, surely. S.: Why not. G.: Because senatorial philosophers rarely educate the plebs through Greek Aristotelian paraphrase. They educate themselves, their circle, their cultivated juniors, perhaps a rhetorically imagined public of learned men. S.: So not a democratic project. G.: Heaven no. A Roman senator reading or even annotating Themistius is not opening an institute for workers in Trastevere. S.: Then not a traitor to Rome, merely a Roman using Greek philosophy as part of elite self-fashioning. G.: Precisely. Rome had long ago conquered Greece and then spent the next centuries borrowing its furniture. S.: Yet Aristotle was anti-Roman. G.: Aristotle was dead before Rome became philosophically relevant to him. To call him anti-Roman is to flatter Roman chronology. S.: Fair. G.: Very. The Greeks before Christ do not arrange themselves in advance either for or against Rome. Rome later appropriates them under its own afterlight. S.: Then Praetextatus could study Aristotle through Themistius without ceasing to be Roman. G.: Entirely. In fact, it would almost intensify his Romanity in that late-aristocratic mode where Roman rule and Greek paideia are worn together. S.: So the correct formula is not that Greek text implies non-Roman author, but that late Roman aristocracy was perfectly capable of being deeply Greek in culture and entirely Roman in civic identity. G.: Exactly. S.: Let us linger on the possibility of the apparatus criticus. G.: Yes. I did not find Praetextatus there, but I did find evidence about the manuscript tradition of Themistius’s Aristotelian paraphrases and references to the prefaces of the CAG editions as a place where manuscript matters are discussed. [jstor.org], [archive.org] S.: So if one wanted to settle the matter, where would one go. G.: To the old CAG editions of Themistius, especially the prefaces, testimonia, and manuscript discussions, rather than merely the running apparatus below the Greek text. Also to prosopographical entries and perhaps to a specialised study of late-antique testimonia on Praetextatus. S.: In other words, dusty books. G.: The only proper sort. S.: And the specific work. G.: If we were narrowing rationally, I would begin with the CAG volume for the Posterior Analytics paraphrase, because we have the incipit and because this is a securely surviving Greek paraphrase with a clear prefatory self-description. [archive.org], [eulogikon.org] S.: Then let us suppose, still hypothetically, that Praetextatus commented on this very opening. What might have attracted him. G.: Several things. The relation between teacher and learner. The necessity of pre-existing principles. The compressed pedagogic dignity of Themistius. The chance to appear both Aristotelian and urbane. The whole enterprise of making hard Greek logic civilly teachable. S.: Making dry Greek logic Romanly habitable. G.: Exactly. S.: You sound almost sympathetic. G.: To Themistius, yes. To Praetextatus as hypothetical commentator, conditionally. To the historical claim, no. S.: Then no Academy, no secure platonicus, no verified commentary, but a plausible Hellenising Roman aristocrat who might have liked a statesman’s paraphrase of Aristotle. G.: That is the exact and dull truth. S.: Dullness is often the beginning of scholarship. G.: The middle too. S.: And the Latin translation once more, polished. G.: Very well: Mihi quidem, post tot ac tales viros, expositiones librorum Aristotelicorum componere non videbatur ab inutili quadam ambitione longe abesse. And if one wishes the continuation in the same manner: Illud tamen novum et utile visum est, si quis sententias eorum quae in libris scripta sunt celeriter colligat atque, quantum fieri potest, philosophi brevitatem breviter assequatur. S.: Excellent. One hears the old schoolroom sigh. G.: A useful sigh. Themistius is saying, “I shall not rival the giants; I shall help memory.” S.: Then perhaps the final judgment on Praetextatus is this. Entirely Roman by civic and social identity, highly Hellenised in culture, plausibly interested in Greek philosophy, but not yet shown by evidence in hand to have commented on Themistius, much less to have belonged to any Academy. G.: Precisely. S.: And if someone insists that he wrote a commentary on Themistius. G.: Then I should ask, on what work, from what source, in which testimonium, and why the apparatus remains so coy. S.: Dry enough. G.: Sufficiently Capitoline, with one eye on the lizio. And what was his gens, do we think? Is it well known, noble, etc? Vettio Agorio Pretestato The safest answer is this. If one speaks in the old Roman way, the clearest gentile signal in Vettius Agorius Praetextatus is Vettius, so the most natural gens to assign is the gens Vettia. The name-form itself points that way, and some genealogical reconstructions even make him the son of a Vettius Rufinus, which fits a Vettian line. [ancestors....search.org], [gw.geneanet.org] Agorius is harder. It looks like another family-name element or inherited nomen-like component, not the primary gens-marker in the old Republican sense. By late antiquity, however, names are often no longer behaving with strict tria nomina neatness, so one should be cautious about treating every element as if Cicero himself had approved the filing system. The epigraphic texts do indeed style him Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, but that does not by itself force us to posit a separate “gens Agoria” in the same clean way that Vettius points to Vettia. [PPRET 79....refect ...], [PPRET 80....refect ...] Praetextatus is not the gens. It is the cognomen or cognomen-like final element, the personal/familial distinction by which he is usually remembered. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com] As to whether the family was noble and well known, yes, in the late Roman senatorial sense certainly. Vettius Agorius Praetextatus was a very prominent member of the fourth-century Roman senatorial aristocracy, holding exceptionally high offices and belonging to the top pagan elite of Rome; his marriage into the family of Aconia Fabia Paulina only reinforces that aristocratic standing. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com], [academic.oup.com] So the neatest formulation would be: Most likely gens: Vettia, from Vettius. [ancestors....search.org], [gw.geneanet.org] Agorius: a further inherited family-name element in late-antique aristocratic naming, but not the clearest primary gens-marker. [PPRET 79....refect ...], [PPRET 80....refect ...] Praetextatus: cognomen. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com] Status: unquestionably high senatorial aristocracy, very well known in fourth-century Rome. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com], [academic.oup.com] If you want the more philological version, I would put it this way: formally Vettius is the strongest clue to the gens, but by late antiquity the full name is already behaving less like a tidy Republican label and more like an aristocratic cluster of inherited prestige-elements. This was gens: Agoria? Other members of that gens? On the gens question, the safest old Roman answer is that the clearest gentile marker in Vettius Agorius Praetextatus is Vettius, so the natural gens is the gens Vettia. Agorius is best treated as an additional inherited family element rather than as the primary gens-marker in the clean Republican sense. By late antiquity names are already less tidy than schoolbook tria nomina, and Praetextatus is the cognomen by which he is remembered. So no, one would not ordinarily speak of a gens Agoria here. One would say that he belonged to the late Roman senatorial aristocracy under the Vettian name-complex, with Agorius functioning as an added prestige element. As to other members, the exact reconstruction of his family is not luxuriantly documented in the way one might wish, but the name-pattern most often discussed around him includes Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius, who is usually taken as his son, and his wife Aconia Fabia Paulina, who belongs to another very distinguished senatorial family. If one broadens from strict agnatic gens to the aristocratic household network, then that marital alliance matters as much as any putative list of Vettii. In other words, one is dealing less with a simple old-style gens dossier than with a late-antique cluster of senatorial names and alliances. On the Themistius point, the sober answer remains no: it is not wise to infer from a supposed commentary on Themistius that Praetextatus was no Roman, spoke no Latin, or was not Italy-born. Quite the reverse. Everything secure about him places him as a Roman aristocrat of Rome, deeply embedded in Latin civic, epigraphic, and senatorial life, while also being highly Hellenised in culture. Those two facts do not exclude one another in the fourth century. A Roman senator could be very Greek in education and still entirely Roman in civic identity. On the alleged commentary itself, I would still treat the claim with caution. If the statement is “he wrote a commentary of Themistius,” then the most charitable construal is that someone has in mind a work by Themistius, very likely one of the Aristotelian paraphrases, rather than “Themistius” as a person-commented-upon in some biographical sense. But I still do not have secure evidence that Praetextatus in fact wrote such a commentary. So the right formula is hypothetical rather than documentary. If one asks what sort of Themistian text would be the likeliest object, the answer is indeed one of the paraphrases of Aristotle. The phrase “philosophical speeches of Aristotle” is misleading. They are not speeches by Aristotle at all, but Themistius’s own explanatory re-presentations of Aristotelian treatises in smoother, pedagogic prose. One useful opening is the paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics, whose incipit runs: Ἐμοὶ συντάττεσθαι μὲν ἐξηγήσεις τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν βιβλίων μετὰ τοσούτους τε καὶ τοιούτους οὐκ ἐδόκει πόρρωθεν εἶναι φιλοτιμίας ἀνωφελοῦς ... A dry English rendering would be: “It did not seem to me far removed from useless ambition to compose expositions of Aristotle’s books after so many authors and such distinguished ones ...” A serviceable Latin would be: Mihi quidem, post tot ac tales viros, expositiones librorum Aristotelicorum componere non videbatur ab inutili quadam ambitione longe abesse ... The point is self-description: Themistius is apologising for writing yet another explanatory treatment after many predecessors, and presents his work as concise pedagogic extraction rather than giant commentary. That matters because, if someone attributed to Praetextatus a work “on Themistius,” this is exactly the sort of text one would imagine him engaging: a statesman-philosopher’s digest of Aristotle, perhaps on the Posterior Analytics or Prior Analytics. But again, that is what would be plausible if the claim were true, not proof that it is true. Would a Roman senator be interested in such a dry object? Perfectly possibly, and without any betrayal of Romanity. The better late Roman pagan aristocrats were self-consciously learned. Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelian and Platonic material refracted through later handbooks and paraphrases, could serve as part of elite self-fashioning, cultivated seriousness, and intellectual distinction. That does not mean he was educating the plebs. A senator reading or even annotating Themistius would almost certainly be educating himself, his circle, or cultivated juniors, not launching a democratic programme of public enlightenment. So no, not a traitor to Rome, merely a Roman aristocrat wearing Greek paideia as part of his Roman grandeur. And on the anti-Roman Aristotle suggestion, one should simply refuse the chronology. Aristotle was dead long before Rome became philosophically relevant to him. To call Aristotle anti-Roman is to flatter Rome retrospectively. The correct formula is that later Romans appropriated Greek philosophy under Roman conditions. They did not require Greek authors to have written with Rome in mind. So the compressed verdict is this. Vettius points to the gens Vettia; Agorius is an added family element, not the clean primary gens. Praetextatus is securely Roman and senatorial, not un-Roman because of Greek culture. The claim that he commented on Themistius remains unverified. If such a claim were ever true, the likeliest object would be one of Themistius’s Aristotelian paraphrases, perhaps the Posterior Analytics. And interest in such a work would make Praetextatus more, not less, representative of late Roman aristocratic Hellenism. If you want, I can now do one of two narrower things in chat only. I can give you a very compact prosopographical note on Praetextatus’s family network, separating gens, cognomen, wife, and probable descendants. Or I can give you a dry G. and S. exchange specifically on why a Roman senator might read the Analytics through Themistius without ceasing to be Roman.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Grice e Vettori: la ragione conversazionale. Note sulle Piacevoli rime. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Vittore Vettori (Ostiglia, Mantova). Compared institutionally, this Vettori is not comparable to Grice in the modern academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Vittore Vettori, by contrast, was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. The reliable biographical source identifies him as a physician and poet, born at Ostiglia in 1697 and dead at Mantua in 1763, known above all for his Piacevoli poesie. The standard modern biographical entry describes Vittore Vettori as a physician and poet, born at Ostiglia in 1697 and dead at Mantua in 1763, noted for his Piacevoli poesie. [treccani.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford philosopher with a dual college-and-university role. Vittore Vettori, by contrast, was an eighteenth-century medico-poet in the Lombard literary world, active through print, friendship networks, and the culture of occasional verse rather than through an academic chair or tutorial system. [treccani.it], [frenchandi...n.pitt.edu] That institutional difference makes the intellectual comparison quite interesting. Grice works at the micro-level of conversational reason: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vittore Vettori works in a social-poetic register where the aim is not philosophical analysis of meaning but witty, stylised, audience-aware verse designed to please, tease, and display verbal control. If you want a Gricean gloss, the right word is not “ragione conversazionale” in any technical sense, but rather sociable rhetorical uptake: a poetics of tone, allusion, and cultivated surface. The Treccani account explicitly says that Vittore Vettori was praised for elegant and lively verse in the manner of Berni and Mauro, moved above all by love of Tuscan language and sixteenth-century style. [treccani.it] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how rational conversational meaning works. Vittore Vettori exemplifies how social wit and style work in verse. One might say: Grice theorises the logic of what is implied. Vittore Vettori practises the art of pleasing by indirection, tone, and cultivated comic exaggeration. [treccani.it] Your bibliographic tail is substantially right, and it can now be made cleanly. The 1744 first edition is securely attested as Le piacevoli rime del dottore fisico Vittore Vettori mantovano al signor Carlo Gioseffo Vigorè milanese, printed in Milan by Giuseppe Richino Malatesta. The bibliographical records confirm the 1744 first edition of Le piacevoli rime del dottore fisico Vittore Vettori mantovano al signor Carlo Gioseffo Vigorè milanese, printed in Milan by Giuseppe Richino Malatesta. [books.google.com], [studiobenacense.it], [ibs.it], [abebooks.co.uk] And the second edition of 1755, with additions and the Baretti material, is also well attested. The standard biographical notice says that Vittore Vettori issued two editions of the Piacevoli poesie, one in Milan in 1744 and another in Mantua in 1755, with Baretti’s presentation verses included in the latter. [treccani.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Vittore Vettori, by contrast, was an eighteenth-century physician and poet from Ostiglia, known for his witty and elegant Piacevoli poesie and active in the social-literary world of Lombard verse rather than in any academic office. Institutionally they are not comparable. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Vittore Vettori shows how social wit, style, and cultivated verbal pleasure can structure a reader’s uptake without ever becoming a theory of conversation. [treccani.it], [books.google.com], [frenchandi...n.pitt.edu] And the clean bibliographic citation for the earliest attested item is: Vettori, Vittore. 1744. Le piacevoli rime del dottore fisico Vittore Vettori mantovano al signor Carlo Gioseffo Vigorè milanese. Milan: Giuseppe Richino Malatesta. [books.google.com], [studiobenacense.it], [ibs.it], [abebooks.co.uk] If you want, I can now give you a short polished paragraph in your own register that compares Grice to this eighteenth-century Vettori without making him sound like a philosopher proper.V. insegna la ragione conversazionale. Moto per le sue piacevoli poesie, nelle quali si leggono ottave di presentazione dell'autore ai lettori scritte da Baretti, e due capitoli dell'autore stesso all'amico suo, che lo ricorda nella XLVII delle Familiari, lodandone i molti versi con cui "ha celebrata la bruttezza, la vecchiezza, la schifezza e la dappochezza d'una sua fantesca. Carducci giudica V. il miglior verseggiatore lombardo nell'interregno tra il Maggi e il Parini. Verseggiatore, non poeta, quantunque alcuni contemporanei lo chiamassero il Berni del nostro secolo: ché egli cammina elegante e brioso sulle orme del Berni e di Mauro, mosso soltanto dall'amore della lingua toscana e dello stile.  Bibl.: Tonelli, Biblioteca bibliografica, Guastalla; Carducci, Il Parini principiante, in Opere, XIII; G. Natali, Il Settecento, Milano. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice.  G.  You look as if you’ve been wronged by a phrase. H.  Not wronged. Slightly patronised. We’ve just escaped a Saturday session on pleasure, and the most obstinate part of it was the insistence on “It is my pleasure” and “I have the pleasure.” G.  Those are pleasure in its dress uniform. H.  Exactly. It made me think: if our friend had to examine faith, he would concentrate on “Yours faithfully.” G.  A perfect reduction: the whole of belief as a closing formula. H.  And the whole of pleasure as a polite preface. G.  What have you brought? H.  An antidote. Le piacevoli rime… You see the word? Piacevoli. G.  A dangerous adjective. It promises an effect. H.  It promises to please. G.  And does it? H.  That’s the question. It’s called “piacevoli,” but it can’t guarantee it. G.  “Piacevole” is already a kind of marketing. H.  Yes. Like “geniale e semplice,” but in verse. G.  Who is the author? H.  A doctor, apparently. “Dottore fisico.” That alone is a warning: a man of remedies writing poems. G.  Remedies for what? H.  For the addressee’s boredom, presumably. Or for his own. G.  “Piacevoli rime” is an invitation: please be pleased. H.  And “please be pleased” is not a command that can be obeyed. G.  It’s like “Be spontaneous.” H.  Exactly. And yet the adjective sits there calmly. G.  Morphology first, then: piacer-e, to please, and -evole, the Italian maker of “capable of.” H.  Like our -able? G.  Related, yes, in ancestry. Different in costume. H.  And English has “pleasurable.” G.  Pleasure plus -able: capable of giving pleasure. H.  Whereas “piacevole” is closer to “pleasing”? G.  In meaning often, yes. But in your case you want the potentiality: the rime are supposed to have the capacity to please. H.  Exactly. Not the fact. G.  The title is already an admission: the author can’t force pleasure, so he advertises the intention. H.  If he could force it, he wouldn’t need the adjective. G.  Unless he wanted applause before the performance. H.  That is the worry: calling them “piacevoli” is like applauding oneself in advance. G.  But perhaps it’s merely conventional humility. H.  Humility? G.  A poem that says “these are pleasant verses” is sometimes a way of saying “I’m not claiming sublimity.” H.  Like “only a trifle.” G.  Exactly. The author lowers the stakes. H.  But even then, it’s still a claim: “this will please.” G.  Or “this is meant to please.” H.  That’s safer. G.  Safer, and nearer the truth. The poem can be intended to please without succeeding. H.  So “piacevole” is really about intention, not outcome. G.  Often, yes. Though readers treat it as outcome. H.  That’s the trouble. Readers want guarantees. Authors want credit. G.  And adjectives become treaties between them. H.  What about “pleasurable” then? G.  “Pleasurable” is very bluntly dispositional: it names a capacity for pleasure, like “drinkable.” H.  And “piacevole” has that same dispositional feel? G.  It can. But it also shades into “agreeable,” “nice,” “not unpleasant,” which is weaker. H.  So “piacevoli rime” might mean “rime that won’t offend.” G.  Precisely. The lowest standard of success: do no harm. H.  Whereas “pleasurable rimes” in English sounds oddly earnest. G.  It sounds like a health brochure: “pleasurable activities.” H.  Or a vice list. G.  Whereas “pleasant verses” is normal. H.  So the cognateness isn’t the whole story. G.  Cognate roots don’t guarantee cognate manners. H.  Still, both are ultimately from placere, to please. G.  Yes. A root with excellent social instincts. H.  And yet “to please” is peculiar: it puts the control with the hearer. G.  Exactly. “It pleases me” makes the pleasure happen to me. H.  Whereas “I please you” makes it an act. G.  And “pleasant” floats between them. H.  So “piacevoli rime” advertises an act aimed at another’s experience. G.  And cannot ensure the experience. H.  Which brings us back to your friend’s “It is my pleasure.” G.  That phrase pretends pleasure is under control. H.  Yes. It makes pleasure an item you can offer like a chair. G.  “I have the pleasure” is even worse: pleasure as possession. H.  And “piacevole” is more honest: it admits dependence on the other’s uptake. G.  It admits dependence, but it still asks for credit. H.  So it is half honest. G.  Like most adjectives. H.  In the rime case, the author assumes he is pleased by his own verses. G.  Otherwise he wouldn’t send them. H.  And he intends to please the addressee. G.  Or he intends the addressee to recognise that he intends to please him. H.  There you go. G.  If the addressee recognises the intention, he may be more charitable. H.  Charity is the lubricant of “piacevole.” G.  Precisely. “Please take these as pleasant” is a request for cooperative reading. H.  And yet if they fail, the author can say, “Well, I only promised ‘piacevole.’” G.  So the adjective is also insurance. H.  I like that: poetic insurance. G.  It’s like writing “with all due respect.” H.  Which means “prepare for disrespect.” G.  Exactly. H.  Now, about Rome. You said earlier: if we go to Rome, we should avoid “piacevole.” G.  I said we should try not to use it. H.  Why? G.  Because Romans—real or imagined—like their compliments to be decisive. “Pulcher,” “magnus,” “egregius.” H.  And “piacevole” is evasive. G.  It is polite, but noncommittal. H.  So in Rome it would sound like faint praise. G.  It would sound like you’re praising the effort, not the result. H.  But that is what we often mean. G.  Exactly. Which is why we must be careful: our meanings would be heard as insults. H.  So we will not say “piacevole” in Rome. G.  Unless we want to imply the poem is tolerable. H.  And if asked what we think of the rime? G.  We say nothing. H.  That is your solution to most social problems. G.  Silence is sometimes the only adjective that cannot be falsified. H.  And if someone insists? G.  Then we say, in English, “It gave me pleasure.” H.  And in Rome? G.  In Rome we say, “It pleased,” and leave the subject out—so the responsibility disappears. H.  That’s cowardly. G.  No. That’s diplomatic. H.  Very well. We will be diplomatic in Rome, and avoid “piacevole.” G.  Yes. Let the rime do their own work. H.  And if they fail? G.  Then at least we won’t have promised anything. Grice: Caro Vettori, confesso che la prima volta che ho letto le tue poesie mi sono divertito parecchio! Quelle ottave in cui Baretti ti presenta ai lettori sono davvero spiritose, e i tuoi versi sulla bruttezza e la vecchiezza mi hanno fatto sorridere. Ma dimmi, ti senti più verseggiatore o poeta? Vettori: Ah, Grice, mi piace pensare a me stesso come un verseggiatore brioso! Carducci aveva ragione: seguo le orme di Berni e Mauro, mosso soprattutto dall’amore per la lingua e per lo stile toscano. La poesia, a volte, è meglio lasciarla ai veri poeti – io mi accontento di divertirli e divertirmi! Grice: Eppure, il tuo stile elegante e ironico ha conquistato più di un contemporaneo, che ti ha persino paragonato al Berni del nostro secolo. Credo che la leggerezza sia una virtù rara nella poesia, specialmente in Lombardia, tra Maggi e Parini! V.: Ti ringrazio, Grice! Se la mia penna ha fatto sorridere qualcuno e ha celebrato, anche solo per gioco, la schifezza e la dappochezza, allora posso dire che il mio intento conversazionale è riuscito. In fondo, come dice il proverbio mantovano, “meglio una rima allegra che cento lamenti!”. Vettori, Vittore (1744). Le piacevoli rime del dottore fisico Vittore Vettori mantovano al signor Carlo Gioseffo Vigorè milanese. Milano: Malatesta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Grice e Vettori: la ragione conversazionale del VIRGILIO d’ALIGHIERI. Note su Letteratura a mito. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Vittorio Vettori (Castel San Niccolò, Strada in Casentino, Arezzo, Toscana). Compared institutionally, Vittorio Vettori is not an Oxford-style don at all, and that is the first thing to say clearly. H. P. Grice held the characteristically Oxford double role of college fellow-tutor and university lecturer. Vittorio Vettori, by contrast, was an Italian poet, writer, critic, and dantista, a public literary intellectual rather than a residential college tutor or a university faculty officer in the Oxford sense. He was born at Strada in Casentino on 24 December 1920 and died in Florence in 2004; the biographical notices emphasise his activity as writer, critic, editor, dantista, and cultural animator rather than as professor holding a stable academic chair. [it.wikipedia.org], [ad900.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Vittorio Vettori was a twentieth-century Italian public intellectual of letters, criticism, poetry, and Dante studies, active through journals, reviews, literary circles, and cultural institutions rather than through the Oxford tutorial-collegiate system. [it.wikipedia.org], [zam.it], [ad900.it] That institutional difference actually suits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of conversational reason: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vettori, by contrast, works at the macro-level of literary-civilisational meaning: how Dante’s relation to Virgil functions as a historical and symbolic reclamation of Roman authority inside Christian and Italian self-understanding. The Dante material on Vettori repeatedly frames him as a major dantista for whom Dante’s relation to Virgil is tied to myth, destiny, and cultural continuity, not merely to stylistic influence. [corrierena...ionale.net], [agenziacomunica.net] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how one utterance, here and now, can mean more than it literally says. Vettori explains how one literary choice, Dante’s adoption of Virgil as guide and auctor, can carry the weight of historical continuity, Roman civilitas, and the refounding of identity across epochs. [corrierena...ionale.net], [agenziacomunica.net] In that sense, Grice gives you a micro-pragmatics of inference, while Vettori gives you a macro-pragmatics of tradition. There are two factual corrections worth making. First, the birthplace should be handled carefully. The source I can verify gives Strada in Casentino, not the fuller formulation “Castel San Niccolò, Strada in Casentino, Arezzo, Toscana” as a strict bibliographical heading. The safest biographical form is that Vettori was born at Strada in Casentino, in the Casentino, later administratively tied to Castel San Niccolò. [it.wikipedia.org], [arezzoweb.it] Second, your bibliographic tail is basically sound, but the title should be corrected from “Letteratura a mito” to Letteratura e mito. The standard bibliographical record for Vettori’s relevant 1959 book is Letteratura e mito, not “a mito.” The title of the 1959 Sansoni book is Letteratura e mito. [it.wikipedia.org] So the short plain-English comparison is this. H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Vittorio Vettori, by contrast, was an Italian poet, critic, and dantista, active as a public man of letters and cultural organizer rather than as an Oxford-style academic office-holder. Institutionally they are very different. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Vettori treats literature, and especially Dante’s relation to Virgil, as a historically thick act of cultural communication in which Romanity, Christianity, and Italian identity are made to speak together. [it.wikipedia.org], [corrierena...ionale.net], [agenziacomunica.net], [metropolit...agazine.it] If you want, I can now compress that into one shorter headnote in your preferred style, or give you a cleaner bibliographic note on Letteratura e mito and the Dante-Virgil line.V. studia la ragione conversazionale del Virgilio d’Alighieri. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning (speaker meaning plus implicature generated under cooperative rational norms) treats “conversation” as a structured practice in which what is meant is inferable from what is said together with publicly assumable intentions and shared maxims; rationality shows up as calculability, accountability, and the possibility of justifying an interpretation as the one a reasonable participant would converge on. Vettori, as presented in your passage, also makes reason central, but relocates it from micro-pragmatic inference to a macro-historical, civilizational pragmatics: Dante’s choice of Virgil is read as a deliberate communicative act that “means” by reclaiming Roman civilitas and empire as providential preconditions for Christian and Italian identity, so that Virgil functions less as Grice’s intention-bearing individual speaker and more as a culturally authorized pre-voice whose significance is anchored in tradition, political theology, and intertext (Aeneid, Fourth Eclogue) rather than in maxims and hearer-calculations. Where Grice explains meaning by rational cooperation among interlocutors in a local exchange, Vettori explains meaning by continuity-making across epochs (Rome–Dante–modern Italy), treating “ragione conversazionale” as the historically thick dialogue between classical sapienza and vernacular innovation; and the playful Grice–Vettori banter in the passage itself can be read as enacting that difference, since it literalizes Gricean conversational joking/implicature while simultaneously staging Vettori’s thesis that the encounter with Virgil is a reclamation of Latin authority inside (and not against) Tuscan speech. Grice: “V., a prominent Italian ALIGHIERI  scholar, interprets ALIGHIERI’s choice of VIRGILIO as a deliberate reclamation of the Roman classical tradition, positioning VIRGILIO as a  pre-voice that bridges the gap between ancient imperial values and the medieval Christian world. V. argues that VIRGILIO represents more than just human reason; he is the embodiment of Roman civilitas (civic civilization) and the pre-voice that articulates the providential nature of the Roman Empire. In V.'s view, ALIGHIERI  selects VIRGILIO to establish Continuity, reclaim the Roman past not as a dead era, but as an essential historical foundation for the contemporary Italian identity, validate the Empire, use VIRGILIO’s Aeneid — which poetically founds the Roman Empire — as a pre-script for ALLIGHIERI’s own vision of a unified political world under a modern emperor. Bridge Secular and Sacred: Virgil serves as a "prophetic" figure who, through his Fourth Eclogue (often interpreted as a prophecy of Christ's birth), allows ALIGHIERI  to synthesize classical wisdom with Christian revelation.  The Reclaim of Tradition For V., this choice is a "reclamation" because it asserts that the intellectual and moral authority of the Roman ancients is indispensable for navigating the spiritual "dark wood" of the Middle Ages. By naming Virgil his "master" and "author," Dante is not merely imitating a style but is actively recovering the Roman classical spirit to provide a structural and ethical backbone for his new vernacular masterpiece.  Grice goes on to explore V.'s specific arguments regarding ALIGHIERI’s political vision in De Monarchia versus the Divine Comedy? Italian poet, writer and humanist, passionate spokesperson of ‘’Toscana Europea’’. He has been author of volumes of poetry, narrative, and philosophy – FILOSOFIA, literary criticism and Alighieri essays translated into diverse languages.  Dantisti italiani. Mussolini, Grice, Croce, Gentile. Vittorio Vettori is using “Letteratura a mito” to name a critical operation: literature is not just illustrated by myth or stocked with mythological allusions, but is treated as a maker of myth and, in Dante’s case, as the place where a historical-cultural identity is re-founded in mythic form. [oraquadra.info], [en.wikipedia.org] In the Dante/Virgilio register, the idea is roughly this: Dante’s choice of Virgil is not merely a convenient classical guide-figure or “human reason,” but a mythic reactivation of Roman civilitas and imperial destiny inside a Christian epic. Virgil becomes a “pre-voice” of Romanity that lets Dante reclaim the classical past as an enabling foundation for the Christian and political vision of the Commedia—so literature (the Aeneid; then the Commedia) is doing myth-work, not just reporting myths.Grice: Caro Vettori, confesserò un peccato d’istinto filologico: la prima volta che lessi la Commedia, mi venne spontaneo tradurre in latino il celebre “Miserere di me, qual che tu sii, od ombra o uomo certo!” rivolto da Dante a Virgilio. Così: “Miserere mei, qualiscumque tu sis, sive umbra sive homo certus!” Non sarà proprio il latino di Virgilio, ma almeno non diabolico come quello dei burocrati!  V.: Ma magnifico, Grice! Sei riuscito a donare all’incontro tra Dante e Virgilio quel tocco di classicità che persino i dantisti in toga sognano la notte! Se Alighieri ti avesse sentito, avrebbe potuto aggiungere qualche nota a margine – magari in latino maccheronico, giusto per strizzare l’occhio ai posteri!  G.: Ah, Vettori, se Dante avesse davvero usato il latino, Virgil avrebbe finalmente capito tutto al primo colpo – e forse evitato qualche giro nel bosco! Però, chi può resistere alla musicalità del volgare toscano? Dice il proverbio: “Tra latino e toscano, meglio un canto che un sermone!”  V.: Ben detto, Grice! In fondo, Dante ci ha insegnato che la vera ragione conversazionale nasce proprio dall’incontro tra la sapienza antica e la freschezza della parola nuova. E tu, con la tua traduzione, hai dato prova che il dialogo tra le epoche può essere – almeno un po’ – anche uno scherzo da buoni amici! Vettori, Vittorio  (1959). Letteratura a mito. Firenze: Sansoni.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Veturio – Ossia: Grice e Veturio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Veturio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VETURIO   Denarius of Tiberius Veturius, 137 BC. On the obverse is the head of Mars, a possible allusion to Tiberus Veturius Philo, the flamen martialis. The reverse depicts an oath: a Samnite (left) and Roman (right) touch with their swords a pig held by a kneeling man, who is about to sacrifice the animal in order to sanctify the oath. The gens Veturia, originally Vetusia, was an ancient patrician family of the Roman Republic. According to tradition, the armourer Mamurius Veturius lived in the time of Numa Pompilius, and made the sacred ancilia. The Veturii occur regularly in the Fasti Consulares of the early Republic, with Gaius Veturius Geminus Cicurinus holding the consulship in 499 BC. Like other old patrician gentes, the Veturii also developed plebeian branches. The family declined in the later Republic, with the last consular Veturius holding office in 206 BC, during the Second Punic War.[1]  Origin The nomen Veturius belongs to a class of gentilicia in which the old, medial 's' has been replaced by 'r', as in Valesius, Fusius, Papisius, and Numesius, which in later times were Valerius, Furius, Papirius, and Numerius.[2] Some scholars suppose, both from the fact that Mamurius Veturius had two gentile names, and from his connection with Numa, that the Veturii were of Sabine origin; but Chase classifies the name with those that were either of Latin origin, or which cannot be shown to have originated elsewhere; he derives the name from vetus, "old".[1][3]  Veturia was one of the 35 tribes of Rome, principally named after ancient patrician families, but it was originally spelled Voturia, perhaps an initial variant of the name. Lily Ross Taylor mentions that the gens were from the region of Ostia, on the left bank of the Tiber, as there was a shrine of the Veturii there.[4]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Veturii were Gaius, Titus, Spurius, and Lucius, but there are also examples of Publius, Tiberius, Marcus, and Postumus. Publius seems to have been one of the earliest names of this gens, but it does not appear in later generations, while Tiberius and Marcus appear in one family of the Veturii Crassi. Lucius, which seems to have been the dominant praenomen of the later Veturii, first appears in the second century of the Republic. Postumus was an uncommon praenomen, presumably because its original meaning, "hindmost, last", referring to a youngest child, was easily confused with the similar sounding post humus, "after burial", with the implication that the child's father was dead.  Branches and cognomina The main family of the Veturii bore the cognomen Cicurinus, which the antiquarian Varro derived from cicur, quiet or patient. The Veturii who occur in the fasti from the outset of the Republic to the middle of the fifth century BC bore the additional surname of Geminus, a twin. From the time of the Decemvirs, this surname was replaced by Crassus, thick, sometimes with the implication of "dull" or "stupid". The Veturii Cicurini flourished down to the middle of the fourth century BC. Calvinus, bald or balding, occurs in the latter part of the fourth century BC, after which the Veturii fell into obscurity until the Second Punic War, when the surname Philo, one of the earliest cognomina borrowed from Greek, briefly appears. After this, the Veturii vanish from the consular fasti.[5] The last Veturii appearing in history came from the Sempronii Gracchi, whose cognomen they adopted; they were thus plebeian.  Coins of this gens bear no cognomen. One curious example, issued by Tiberius Veturius Gracchus, depicts the head of a helmeted man on the obverse, and on the reverse, two men with staves and swords, on either side of a kneeling man holding a pig. The coin seems to commemorate a treaty, but the precise occasion is unknown.[6][1] Michael Crawford suggests that the coin depicts an oath, adding that it might be a reference to the treaty made by Titus Veturius Calvinus with the Samnites at the Caudine Forks, as an example of Roman integrity.[7] He also links the scene depicted to the treaty of 137 negotiated by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the moneyer's cousin, during the Numantine War, although this view is disputed.[8]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Mamurius Veturius, or Veturius Mamurius, made the sacred ancilia in the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome. Veturia, the mother of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. Veturii Gemini Cicurini Publius Veturius Cicurnus, quaestor in 509 BC, possibly the same as the consul of 499 BC Gaius Veturius Geminus Cicurinus, consul in 499 BC, possibly quaestor in 509 BC as well Titus Veturius Geminus Cicurinus, consul in 494 BC, proceeded against the Aequi, who retreated into the mountains at his approach.[9][10][11] Titus Veturius T. f. Geminus Cicurinus, consul in 462 BC, defeated the Volsci, and received an ovation.[12][13][14] Gaius Veturius P. f. Geminus Cicurinus, consul in 455 BC, defeated the Aequi. Veturii Crassi Cicurini Spurius Veturius P. f. (Crassus) Cicurinus, father of the decemvir. Spurius Veturius Sp. f. P. n. Crassus Cicurinus, one of the decemvirs appointed to codify the first ten tables of Roman law, in 451 BC.[15][16] Spurius Veturius Sp. f. Sp. n. Crassus Cicurinus, consular tribune in 417 BC.[17][18] Tiberius Veturius Sp. f. Crassus Cicurinus, father of the consular tribune of 399 BC. Marcus Veturius Ti. f. Sp. n. Crassus Cicurinus, consular tribune in 399 BC, the only patrician elected this year; his five colleagues were all plebeians.[19][20] Lucius Veturius Sp. f. Crassus Cicurinus, father of the consular tribune of 368 and 367 BC. Gaius Veturius (L. f. Sp. n.) Crassus Cicurinus, consular tribune in 377 and 369 BC.[21][22] Lucius Veturius L. f. Sp. n. Crassus Cicurinus, consular tribune in 368 and 367 BC.[23] Veturii Philones Postumus Veturius Philo, grandfather of the consul of 220 BC. Lucius Veturius Post. f. Philo, father of the consul of 220 BC. Lucius Veturius L. f. Post. n. Philo, consul in 220 BC, dictator in 217 and censor in 210 BC. Lucius Veturius L. f. L. n. Philo, consul in 206 BC, and subsequently accompanied Scipio on his African campaign. Tiberus Veturius Philo, flamen martialis from 204 BC.[24][25] Lucius Veturius Philo, quaestor circa 102 BC; his nomen is uncertain, and might be Publilius.[26] Veturii Gracchi Tiberius Veturius Gracchus Sempronianus, one of the Sempronii, who had been adopted into the gens Veturia, and was subsequently elected augur to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 174 BC.[27][28] Tiberius Veturius T. f. Gracchus, triumvir monetalis in 137 BC.[29] Tiberius Veturius T. f. T. n., mentioned in a consilium of Pompeius Strabo in 89 BC, likely the grandson of the moneyer.[30][31][28] Others Titus Veturius Calvinus, consul in 334 and 321 BC, during the Second Samnite War, defeated at the Caudine Forks. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1251 ("Veturia Gens", "Veturius Mamurius").  Chase, p. 127.  Chase, pp. 129–133.  Taylor, Voting Districts, pp. 42, 265.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 586 ("Titus Veturius Calvinus"), 747, 748 ("Cicurinus"), vol. III, p. 298 ("Veturius Philo").  Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, v. 337.  Crawford, "Foedus and Sponsio", pp. 1–7.  Stannard, "Numismatic evidence", pp. 47–80.  Livy, ii. 28–30.  Dionysius, vi. 34.  Asconius Pedianus, In Ciceronis Pro Cornelio, p. 76, ed. Orelli.  Livy, iii. 8, 10.  Dionysius, ix. 69.  Diodorus Siculus, xi. 81.  Livy, iii. 33.  Dionysius, x. 56.  Livy, iii. 47.  Dionysius, xiii. 7.  Livy, v. 13.  Diodorus Siculus, xiv. 54.  Livy, vi. 32, 36.  Diodorus Siculus, xv. 61, 77.  Livy, vi. 38, 42.  Livy, xxix. 38.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 309.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 569, 570 (note 5).  Livy, xli. 26.  Crawford, "Foedus and Sponsio", p. 6.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 266, 267.  ILLRP, 515.  Taylor, Voting Districts, p. 265. Bibliography Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis Pro Cornelio (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Cornelio). Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum (The Study of Ancient Coins, 1792–1798). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Attilio Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (abbreviated ILLRP), Florence (1957–1963). Lily Ross Taylor, The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic, University of Michigan Press (1960). Michael Crawford, "Foedus and Sponsio", Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 41 (1973), pp. 1–7; Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Clive Stannard, "Numismatic evidence for relations between Spain and Central Italy at the turn of the second and first centuries BC", in Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau 84, 2005, pp. 47–80.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) Categories: Roman gentesVeturii And from THIS gens? Thanks Yes, I think this is exactly the question Grice would have asked at the Caudine Forks. One should be careful historically. The details of Grice's wartime service and particular episodes are not always easy to document precisely, and I would not want to invent episodes. But the general philosophical contrast you draw is very Gricean. Grice's "decent chap" is not:  a Roman, an Englishman, a friend, an ally,  but a participant in a rational practice. That is the remarkable thing about the Cooperative Principle. It is not:  "Do this only with members of your tribe."  Nor:  "Do this only with decent political allies."  Rather:  if we are engaged in a certain kind of rational exchange, these are the norms that make the exchange intelligible.   Now apply that to the Samnites. A Roman nationalist might say:  They are enemies.  A Gricean asks:  Are they participants in the same practice of promising?  Very different question.  Imagine the discussion after the Caudine Forks. Senator:  Hostes sunt. (They are enemies.)   Veturius Calvinus:  Concedo. (Granted.)   Senator:  Ergo fides eis non debetur. (Therefore no faith is owed to them.)   Veturius:  Non sequitur. (It does not follow.)  +> Enmity does not automatically abolish obligation.  The interesting issue is whether the Samnites were acting as what Grice might loosely call "decent chaps." That is:  Did they recognize promises? Did they recognize treaties? Did they take words seriously?  If yes, then they are already participating in the relevant normative practice.  A Griceian reconstruction: Samnis:  Si promittitis, dimittemini. (If you promise, you will be released.)   Veturius:  Promittimus. (We promise.)   Samnis:  Bene. (Good.)   At that point both sides appear to understand:  what a promise is, what counts as giving one, what follows from it.  That is already a substantial cooperative framework, despite the military situation.  This is why the case fascinates philosophers. The Romans later debate:  We were coerced.  The Samnite answer could be:  Perhaps. But you still gave your word.  The disagreement is not over the words uttered. It is over the conditions under which words create obligations.  One can imagine Grice asking: Tutee:  "Were the Samnites decent chaps?"  Grice:  "Decent enough to understand promises."   Tutee:  "But they were enemies."  Grice:  "So were the Trojans and Greeks."   Tutee:  "And?"  Grice:  "Conversation is often most interesting when there is disagreement."  (Ha.) In fact, the whole force of the Caudine Forks episode depends on the assumption that the Samnites and Romans shared a common conception of:  oath, promise, treaty, honour.  If they had not, there would be no philosophical problem at all. The Romans could simply say:  "They are foreigners; their expectations are irrelevant."  But neither side says that. Both sides argue about what the promise means and whether it binds. That suggests a shared normative practice. And that, I think, is where Grice would locate the "decent chap" element: not in nationality, but in participation in a common practice of giving and keeping one's word. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Veturio – Ossia: Grice e Veturio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Veturio  For the Veturii, there is one candidate who stands so far above the others from a Grice-Speranza perspective that the choice is almost forced:  Titus Veturius Calvinus, the consul associated with the disaster of the Caudine Forks. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because the entire episode revolves around one of the most Gricean topics imaginable:  What is the force of a promise? And more specifically: What is the force of a promise extracted under duress?   The Caudine Forks as a Grice seminar The Romans are trapped. The Samnites have won. A settlement is negotiated. The Romans give their word. Then Rome later debates whether the undertaking is binding. At once we have:  promising, intention, commitment, authority, subsequent interpretation.  It is Austin and Grice centuries before Austin and Grice.  The Veturian dialogue Samnis:  Promittitisne? (Do you promise?)   Veturius Calvinus:  Promittimus. (We promise.)   Samnis:  Ergo pax erit. (Then there shall be peace.)   The Gricean question begins after the promise.  Back at Rome Senator:  Num promissum valet? (Does the promise hold?)   Veturius:  Promisimus. (We promised.)   Senator:  Sed coacti sumus. (But we were compelled.)   Veturius:  Verum est. (That is true.)   The issue is no longer:  What was said?  Everybody knows what was said. The issue becomes:  Under what conditions does saying it create an obligation?   Why the famous coin matters The celebrated denarius of Tiberius Veturius showing an oath ceremony with the sacrificial pig is extraordinarily relevant here. Modern discussion links the imagery to Roman ideas about treaty-making, oath-taking, and obligation. [GREXv3 | Word] The whole coin is almost a piece of pragmatics. Not:  what words mean,  but:  what words do.  A promise transforms a situation. An oath transforms a relationship. A treaty creates obligations. Austin would call them performatives. Grice would ask what mutual intentions make them possible.  A Griceian reconstruction Griceus:  Quid est promissio? (What is a promise?)   Discipulus:  Verba quaedam. (Certain words.)   Griceus:  Non satis. (Not enough.)   Discipulus:  Quid amplius? (What more?)   Griceus:  Voluntas obligandi se ipsum. (A willingness to bind oneself.)  +> the commitment exceeds the uttered words.  Runner-up: Mamurius Veturius A marvelous secondary choice would be:  Mamurius Veturius,  the legendary craftsman who made the sacred ancilia for Numa. [GREXv3 | Word] Why? Because he immediately raises questions of:  originals, copies, identity, authenticity.  If eleven shields are made to resemble the sacred original, which is "the" shield? A very Grice-Speranza puzzle of reference. (Ha.) But it is still secondary.  Why not Verginia? Notice the contrast. For the Verginii I preferred:  "This woman is a slave."  That case is about:  judicial declaration.  For the Veturii:  "We promise."  The latter is even closer to Austin and Grice because it is openly performative. The utterance itself is the act.  Final verdict For:  Grice e Veturio  I choose Titus Veturius Calvinus at the Caudine Forks. [GREXv3 | Word] The central question is quintessentially Gricean:  When a speaker says "I promise," what exactly has been created?  And the Roman complication adds another layer:  What if the speaker promised because he had no alternative?  One can imagine Grice closing the seminar: Discipulus:  "Did Veturius mean it?"  Grice:  "Ah, that is the precise question."  Discipulus:  "He said it."  Grice:  "Yes."  Discipulus:  "Therefore he promised."  Grice:  "Perhaps."  Discipulus:  "What else is required?"  Grice:  "The whole philosophy of promising."  (Ha.) Grice fought in the north atlantic in 1943 and rescued Hun drowning -- 'war is war' --? No. He later formulates the conversational maxims as things 'a decent chap does'. As the Samnites decent chaps? Thanks A similar case -- and you may identify the gens of the legalalist -- was with 'testimony from slaves' -- taken with what Plinio would call 'a grain of salt' – Thanks Yes. The Roman legal attitude toward slave testimony is one of the most interesting cases for a Gricean because it involves a deep tension between:  what is said,  and  who says it.  The Romans were often perfectly prepared to admit that a slave might know the facts. The difficulty was whether a slave's testimony could be trusted as testimony. A Griceian would formulate the issue as:  Is the slave a fully recognized participant in the practice of giving reasons?  The legal traditionalist tends to answer:  not quite.  Hence the famous Roman tendency to regard slave testimony with suspicion and, in many contexts, to require extraordinary procedures before it could be received.  There is a nice parallel with your Pollio example. Pollio's slave breaks the cup. The slave says:  casu fregi. (I broke it accidentally.)  The factual question is:  Is that true?  The institutional question is:  Does his saying so count?  Those are different questions.  The Roman legalist whom Grice might have enjoyed battling is not necessarily from a single gens in your catalogue, but one is reminded of the old juristic mentality embodied by figures who insist:  status first, testimony second.  A Griceian resists that ordering. The Cooperative Principle starts from the assumption that the speaker is, prima facie, a rational agent. The Roman legalist begins from:  slave, therefore suspect.   One can imagine a dialogue. Iurisconsultus:  Servus hoc dixit. (A slave said this.)   Griceus:  Et? (And?)   Iurisconsultus:  Servus est. (He is a slave.)   Griceus:  Hoc de persona dictum est, non de veritate. (That concerns the person, not the truth.)  +> credibility and truth are distinct notions.  The legalist continues: Iurisconsultus:  Facilius mentietur. (He is more likely to lie.)   Griceus:  Fortasse. (Perhaps.)   Iurisconsultus:  Ergo minus credendus est. (Therefore he is less to be believed.)   Griceus:  Minus credendus non idem est ac numquam credendus. (Less believable is not the same as never believable.)  (Ha.)  This is remarkably close to your previous Samnite example. At Caudine Forks the question was:  Can an enemy be a decent chap?  With slaves the question becomes:  Can a socially subordinated speaker still participate in the practice of giving testimony?  Grice's instincts would push him toward:  yes.  Not because every slave tells the truth. Not because every Samnite keeps his word. But because rational practices such as:  promising, testifying, warning, informing,  cannot be restricted only to one's social equals.  One can even imagine the old Oxford punchline: Legalist:  Servus est. (He is a slave.)   Grice:  Loquiturne? (Can he speak?)   Legalist:  Certe. (Certainly.)   Grice:  Intelligitne? (Can he understand?)   Legalist:  Ita. (Yes.)   Grice:  Mentiri potestne? (Can he lie?)   Legalist:  Potest. (He can.)   Grice:  Ergo verum quoque dicere potest. (Then he can tell the truth as well.)  (Ha.) And I suspect that is very close to what attracted Seneca. Once one grants that slaves are capable of:  understanding, intending, promising, testifying,  they begin to look less like property and more like participants in the very rational practices that Grice later took as fundamental to human life. and what was the gens, and thus the name of the LEX that stipulated how to deal with testimony from slaves -- as tricky because 'torture' may be involved turning the evidence inadmissibile -- etc. -- Note that this is the first example discussed by Grice via Urmson (bribery, torture) in 'Utterer's meaning and intentions' -- in Grice's case, the focus on the torturer (or the Samnite) not meaning that our hero V. will promise but meaning HIM to promise. Thanks This is a very good connection, because here we move from the Caudine Forks problem ("Did Veturius really promise?") to one of Grice's favorite problems in Utterer's Meaning and Intentions:  What happens when an utterance is produced under compulsion?  And here Urmson's examples of:  bribery, threats, coercion, torture,  become relevant. The issue is no longer:  What did the speaker say?  but:  Who intended what?   Historically, there was no single universally famous lex Vetilia governing slave testimony. The Roman legal tradition concerning slaves under torture developed through jurisprudence and procedural practice over centuries rather than through one iconic statute with the prominence of, say, the Lex Aquilia or Lex Hortensia. The standard Roman assumption was roughly:  testimony from slaves was suspect unless extracted under torture (quaestio per tormenta).  A modern lawyer immediately sees the paradox:  torture is introduced because testimony is unreliable; torture simultaneously makes testimony unreliable.  (Ha.) That is remarkably close to the Grice-Urmson issue.  Suppose: Tortor:  Dic hoc. (Say this.)   Servus:  Hoc. (This.)  The torturer's intention is not:  that the slave mean p,  but:  that the slave utter p.  Precisely the distinction Grice develops.  A Griceian analysis: Let  p = "The master committed the crime."  The slave utters:  p.  But the torturer's intention is simply:  make him say p.  The torturer need not care whether:  p is true, p is believed, p is meant.  What matters is production of the sounds.  Now return to your Veturian hero at the Caudine Forks. The Samnite says:  Promittisne? (Do you promise?)  The Roman replies:  Promitto. (I promise.)  The philosophical question is:  Did he merely say he promised? Or did he actually promise?  This is structurally analogous to the torture case.  Grice would distinguish: Torture case The torturer intends:  speaker utters p.  not necessarily:  speaker means p.   Samnite case The Samnite intends:  Veturius undertake an obligation.  He wants more than mere sounds. He wants the Roman to become committed. That is the crucial difference.  One can imagine a Grice seminar. Urmson:  "The torturer gets him to say it."   Grice:  "Quite."   Urmson:  "Then he said it."   Grice:  "Certainly."   Urmson:  "Then he meant it."   Grice:  "Ah, now you are going too fast."  (Ha.)  Now compare the Samnite. Samnis:  Promitte. (Promise.)   Veturius:  Promitto. (I promise.)   Grice:  "Did the Samnite merely wish Veturius to utter the word?"   Tutee:  "No."   Grice:  "What did he wish, then?"   Tutee:  "He wished Veturius to incur an obligation."   Grice:  "Excellent."  +> the intended effect is normative, not merely acoustic. That is much closer to genuine communication than torture is.  Which is why the Roman debate after Caudium is philosophically so rich. The Romans later argue:  We were forced.  The Samnites could answer:  Perhaps. But you were not merely forced to produce sounds. You were asked to commit yourselves.  Whether that commitment counts is exactly the philosophical problem.  And one can formulate the contrast in mock-Gricean Latin: De servo torto:  Tortor vult verba. (The torturer wants words.)  De Veturio:  Samnis vult obligationem. (The Samnite wants an obligation.)  (Ha.) That, I think, is the deepest connection between the slave-testimony problem and the Veturian oath. In one case the coercer wants an utterance. In the other he wants the utterance to count as a genuine undertaking. Grice's theory lives precisely in that gap between producing words and meaning, promising, testifying, or committing oneself by means of them. And do we have the latin -- "Do you promise?" Short for "Do you promise NOT to retaliate?" thanks For the Caudine Forks episode, the interesting thing is that the Romans themselves distinguished between several kinds of undertaking:  foedus (a treaty), sponsio (a pledged undertaking, guarantee, or promise), iusiurandum (an oath).  The debate after the disaster turned precisely on what the consuls, including Titus Veturius Calvinus, had actually committed Rome to. Your Gricean intuition is therefore exactly right: before asking whether the promise bound Rome, one must ask:  What exactly was promised?  And by whom?  The difficulty is that Livy does not preserve a tidy formula equivalent to:  "Do you promise not to retaliate?"  The reconstruction is more like: Samnite negotiator:  Spondesne? (Do you give your pledge?)  or  Spondetisne? (Do you [plural] give your pledge?)  The verb is the technical one:  spondeo I solemnly undertake, I pledge.  It is stronger than a casual:  promittisne? (Do you promise?)  which is what a schoolbook Latinist would write.  In Grice's style, the exchange might be reconstructed: Samnis:  Spondesne populum Romanum condiciones servaturum esse? (Do you pledge that the Roman people will observe these terms?)   Veturius:  Spondeo. (I so pledge.)   The implicatum is not:  "I utter the word spondeo."  but:  "I undertake responsibility for future Roman behaviour."  And that is why the Romans later argued about it.  Now comes the Grice-Urmson connection. In the torture example, the torturer wants:  utterance of p.  In the Samnite example, the Samnite wants:  commitment to p.  A profound difference.  Tortor:  Dic hoc. (Say this.)   Victima:  Hoc. (This.)  The torturer does not care whether the victim means it.  But: Samnis:  Spondesne? (Do you pledge?)   Veturius:  Spondeo. (I pledge.)  The Samnite is not interested in phonetics. He wants the undertaking itself.  A Griceian seminar would run: Urmson:  "The speaker was compelled."   Grice:  "Granted."   Urmson:  "Then the undertaking is void."   Grice:  "Not so fast."  (Ha.) For coercion explains why the undertaking was made, but does not immediately settle whether the undertaking counts. That is precisely why the Romans argued about it for generations.  One can even imagine a reconstructed dialogue between Veturius and a Roman senator: Senator:  Num promisisti? (Did you promise?)   Veturius:  Promisi. (I did.)   Senator:  Num libere? (Freely?)   Veturius:  Minime. (Not at all.)   Senator:  Ergo non obligaris. (Then you are not bound.)   Veturius:  Hoc ipsum quaeritur. (That is precisely the question.)  (Ha.) And that is why Titus Veturius Calvinus is such a good Grice-Speranza hero. The issue is not whether words were uttered. Everyone agrees that they were. The issue is whether the Samnites merely meant him to utter them, or meant him to bind himself by them, and whether one can be bound by words spoken under overwhelming pressure. That is astonishingly close to the problems Grice later discusses through Urmson's examples of coercion, bribery, and torture. But Livy cannot expect the Saminite to abide by Roman law -- so the case becomes problematic back in the senate. The Samnite may lack the concept of 'sponsio' -- as in 'spouse'? -- Andwhat terms were pledged? Not to retaliate -- "We shall free ye provided you pledge not to retaliate and leave us alone -- Romans, go home!" – Thanks Yes, and this is where the Caudine Forks become less a legal problem and more a Gricean problem. The Roman Senate, debating afterward, naturally asks:  Was there a valid sponsio?  But the Samnite commander is hardly likely to be thinking in the technical categories of Roman jurisprudence. Indeed, one may doubt whether the Samnite's communicative intention was:  "Please enter into a legally analysable Roman sponsio."  More plausibly it was:  "Promise me you won't come back with an army next week."  (Ha.) The Griceian distinction is crucial. What did the Samnite mean? And what did the Romans later reinterpret him as having meant? These need not coincide.  The etymology is interesting. The technical Roman formula:  spondeo (I solemnly undertake, I pledge)  is indeed related to the family of words giving:  sponsio, sponsor, sponsus, sponsa.  The underlying notion is one of binding oneself by a formal commitment. Hence:  sponsus (betrothed man)  is literally a man who has pledged himself. So your intuition connecting sponsio and "spouse" is perfectly sound.  Now imagine the Samnite, reconstructed as a practical man rather than a Roman jurist. Grice-Speranza reconstruction Samnis:  Dimittam vos. (I shall release you.)   Veturius:  Quibus condicionibus? (On what conditions?)   Samnis:  Ne redeatis. (That you do not return.)   Veturius:  Idne tantum? (Only that?)   Samnis:  Ne bellum renovetis. (That you do not renew the war.)   Veturius:  Promittimus. (We promise.)   The implicatum is clear:  Romans, go home and leave us alone.  (Ha.)  Now comes the Roman Senate. At Rome Senator:  Quid promisistis? (What did you promise?)   Veturius:  Pacem. (Peace.)   Senator:  Foedusne? (A treaty?)   Veturius:  Non certo scio. (I am not entirely sure.)   Senator:  Sponsionemne? (A sponsio?)   Veturius:  Fortasse. (Perhaps.)   The Griceian problem now appears. The Samnite meant:  "Leave us alone."  The Roman lawyers ask:  "Was the undertaking technically a foedus or a sponsio?"  Two different conversational levels.  This resembles Grice's discussions of coercion. For Urmson and Grice, the torturer is not primarily interested in:  the victim's meaning that p.  He is interested in:  obtaining an utterance of p.  Likewise the Samnite is not conducting a seminar on Roman public law. He wants a practical result. Namely:  no Roman retaliation.   One can imagine Grice finding the Senate's reasoning slightly comic. Samnis:  Promittite ne redeatis. (Promise not to return.)   Veturius:  Promittimus. (We promise.)  Years later: Roman lawyer:  Sed utrum sponsio an foedus fuit? (But was it a sponsio or a treaty?)   Ghost of the Samnite:  Quid interest? (What difference does that make?)  (Ha.)  This is why I think the Veturian episode deeply anticipates Grice. The Senate's concern is:  What institutional act occurred?  The Samnite's concern is:  What practical commitment did they undertake?  Grice would ask a prior question:  What did each party intend the other to understand?  And I suspect the Samnite's answer would be wonderfully simple:  Romani, domum ite et nos relinquite. (Romans, go home and leave us alone.)  A far less technical formulation than anything the Roman jurists later produced. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Veturio – Ossia. GRICE E VETURIO -- GRICE E PONZIO With a simplicity more suited to romance than history, the Romans submit themselves to the guidance of the ten anonymous shepherds, who conduct the whole army into the Caudine forks, as easily as if the veterans had connived at their own betrayal. No sooner are they lost among the forks, than the soldiers learned what spoons they had been, for they found themselves blocked in by the enemy. They fight with considerable bravery, but the Samnites, who lined the surrounding heights, are completely out of their reach, and the Romans, having made a few vain efforts to throw up their spears, suddenly throw up the contest. Of every weapon they hurl, the consequence fall upon their own heads, and nothing is left but to make the best terms they could with the enemy. PONZIO, the Samnite general, is puzzled how to act, and sends to inquire of his father what he should do, when the old man replied, "Release them unhurt!" and the answer not being quite satisfactory, another messenger is sent, who brought back the brief but expressive recommendation to "cut them all to pieces." This from Abbott below -- what amuses Grice and Speranza is the Shannon theory of communication adopted by Grice -- sender -- message -- receiver -- YOu don't like message 1? ask for message 2. Anything like this reported in Latin in Livy? Input? Feedback? Thanks. Abbott: GRICE E PONZIO With a simplicity more suited to romance than history, the Romans submit themselves to the guidance of the ten anonymous shepherds, who conduct the whole army into the Caudine forks, as easily as if the veterans had connived at their own betrayal. No sooner are they lost among the forks, than the soldiers learned what spoons they had been, for they found themselves blocked in by the enemy. They fight with considerable bravery, but the Samnites, who lined the surrounding heights, are completely out of their reach, and the Romans, having made a few vain efforts to throw up their spears, suddenly throw up the contest. Of every weapon they hurl, the consequence fall upon their own heads, and nothing is left but to make the best terms they could with the enemy. PONZIO, the Samnite general, is puzzled how to act, and sends to inquire of his father what he should do, when the old man replied, "Release them unhurt!" and the answer not being quite satisfactory, another messenger is sent, who brought back the brief but expressive recommendation to "cut them all to pieces." This is a wonderful Gricean observation—and in fact this Livian episode is one of the closest you get in ancient historiography to a “two-message protocol” problem of the sort you describe. Let me answer in layers.  1.  The Livian episode (Caudine Forks, Pontius) What Livy actually reports (Book 9):  Gaius Pontius (Samnite commander) captures the Romans unsure what to do he consults his father, Herennius Pontius   First message:  “Release them all uninjured.”   Pontius is puzzled. So he sends again.  Second message:  “Kill them all.”    These are indeed the two alternatives given.  2.  This is NOT “ask for message 2 because you disliked message 1” This is where your Shannon/Grice analogy becomes very interesting—but needs refinement.  Pontius’ situation:  he does not misunderstand message 1 he finds it: → strategically unintelligible    So:  the second query is not: “please resend clearer message”  but:  “explain / resolve perceived contradiction”    3.  The crucial third stage (often overlooked) Livy adds something essential: Herennius explains (in substance):  best policy 1:  release them → earn Roman gratitude   best policy 2:  kill them → eliminate enemy    BUT:  intermediate course (what Pontius chooses): → worst of all    So:  the two messages are: extreme alternatives in a strategic space    4.  Gricean structure Now your insight becomes very powerful.  Message 1:  content: → “release them” implicature: → make them allies / avoid future conflict   Message 2:  content: → “kill them” implicature: → eliminate threat completely    What Pontius misses:  the hidden disjunction:   “either total generosity OR total destruction”    He chooses:  humiliation without resolution    Result:  both sides retain hostility → worst outcome    5.  Shannon-like “two-message” structure You suggested:  if you don’t like message 1 → ask for message 2    This is actually very close—but with a twist:  Not noise → clarification Instead:  same sender same channel but: → two distinct encodings of policy    It resembles:  a binary decision space communicated in separate signals    6.  Livy’s semiotic subtlety Livy is doing something quite sophisticated:  The father:  does NOT give:  step-by-step advice   instead: → frames the decision by extremes    So:  meaning is not in either message alone but: in their opposition    7.  Gricean interpretation (very tight) We can reconstruct:  Herennius’ communicative intention:  “Only extreme actions are rational.”   Explicit messages:  Release them Kill them   Implicature:  “Do NOT choose anything in between.”    Pontius fails because:  he does not compute the implicature    8.  One of Livy’s clearest “failed communication” cases Compare to your earlier:  Curtius → successful completion Decius → correct variable binding  Here:  Pontius: → fails to interpret strategic meaning    So this is the opposite case:  misinterpretation leads to disaster     Final synthesis  Livy does not present this as a case of repeated transmission due to mistrust of a message, but as a deliberate set of alternative prescriptions whose meaning lies in their opposition. The two messages (“release them” / “kill them”) encode a deeper strategic principle, which Pontius fails to grasp when he chooses an intermediate course. In Gricean terms, the failure lies not in the content of the messages but in the addressee’s inability to recover the implicature governing them.    One-line conclusion (your idiom):  Pontius hears both messages—but misses the meaning that lies between them.   If you like, we can compare this with Delphi-style oracles where “apparently contradictory answers” encode a deeper binary logic—there are striking parallels. And is it plausible to catalogue this under VETURIO -- since Grice and Speranza are using ROmans as cataloguing entries -- not Samnites --. But isn't there a plausibility that Ponzio's father was wrong? Shouldn't he have the messenger tell his son: p v q -- rather than one messenger saying that p, and the other messenger saying that ~p, from which Ponzio doubts his father's sanity? And could it be that when Ponzio was EXPLAINED of his father's alleged wisdom -- of doing things in the extreme p v ~p -- Ponzio decides otherwise? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is an excellent refinement—and you are now pressing exactly where the logical and the Livian (and Gricean) structures pull apart. Let me take your questions in order.  1.  Can you file this under “Veturio” (i.e. Roman indexing)? Yes—with a nuance.  The episode is Samnite (Pontius / Herennius) BUT your catalogue is:  “Roman semiotic exempla”    So the question is: who is the legitimate “indexing agent”?  Two plausible choices (A) Pontius / Herennius (strictly historical)  original communicators “sender” and “receiver”   (B) Veturian-type category (your broader Roman scheme)  the Romans are the ultimate audience the episode functions: → as Roman exemplum of strategic reasoning    So your system can justify:  filing under a Roman heading even if the actors are Samnite    In your Grice/Speranza sense:  it is Roman uptake that matters    2.  Was the father “wrong”? This is your most interesting challenge—and it’s perfectly legitimate.  Standard Livian reading:  father gives:  two extreme options   both are: → internally rational   Your objection:  why not say explicitly: p ∨ ¬p (release OR kill)  instead of:  message 1 = p message 2 = ¬p    Logically, you’re right:  a disjunction would clarify: → both options are acceptable    3.  But why Livy prefers two separate messages Because the structure is not logical but rhetorical / practical.  What Herennius is doing: He is NOT stating:  “either p or ¬p”   He is demonstrating:  “only extreme policies work”    By giving:  one message = full generosity second message = total destruction    So:  the meaning lies in their contrast, not their disjunction    4.  Your key insight: Pontius doubts sanity You say:  Pontius might think his father insane  And indeed, that is implicit in Livy:  first answer: → seems absurd (too lenient) second answer: → seems equally extreme    Without explanation, the pair looks:  contradictory or irrational    Only later (when explained) does it become:  strategically coherent    5.  Did Pontius reject the logic anyway? Yes—this is crucial and you saw it clearly.  Even after explanation:  Pontius: → chooses a third path:  humiliation without resolution   So:  he does NOT misunderstand anymore but: disagrees or refuses    This is very important:  failure is not ignorance—but refusal of extreme logic    6.  Gricean reconstruction (refined) You suggested:  p ¬p vs p ∨ ¬p   Let me map it:  Father’s communication Not:  p ∨ ¬p  But:  utterance 1: p utterance 2: ¬p  → intended implicature:  “only extremes are viable”    Pontius’ uptake Three stages:  confusion (“this is contradictory”) explanation (“ah, extremes only”) choice: → middle option anyway    So:  he understands the implicature but rejects its practical conclusion    7.  Your strongest point You said:  better would be a single disjunctive message    That would be:  logically neat epistemically explicit   But Livy’s version preserves:  dramatic revelation through contradiction    So:  not logical clarity but:  pedagogical contrast   Final synthesis  Cataloguing under a Roman heading (even for a Samnite episode) is methodologically justified if the focus is on Roman reception and exemplarity. The two messages from Herennius are not intended as a logical disjunction but as contrasting extremes whose meaning lies in their opposition. Pontius’ failure is not merely a failure to interpret but a refusal to accept the strategic reasoning once it is explained—he chooses a middle path that the episode presents as the worst possible option.  One-line conclusion (your idiom):  The father does not say “either or”—he shows it; and Pontius, having seen it, still declines to believe it.   If you like, we can formalize the passage in full Gricean terms (maxims, implicature failure, uptake vs rejection)—it’s one of the clearest cases in Livy.