Monday, January 21, 2019

Vico on three kinds of languages

"Three Kinds of Languages.

The first of these was a divine mental language by mute religious acts or divine ceremonies, from which there survived in Roman civil law the actus legitimi which accompanied all their civil transactions. This language belongs to religions by the eternal property that it concerns them more to be reverenced than to be reasoned, and it was necessary in the earliest times when men did not possess articulate speech.

The second was by heroic blazonings, with which arms are made to speak; this kind of speech survived in military discipline.

The third is articulate speech, which is used by all nations today."

-Giambattista Vico, The New Science


Extreme times

"Les extrémités se touchent."

Translation: "Extremes meet" or "Opposites touch"

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Part I, Art. VI, 26

Indebtedness and Freedom

" High levels of indebtedness cost you your freedom." -John Anderson, Australian politician and podcaster