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OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
Imitation of Rigor
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
Imitation of Rigor
An Alternative History of Analytic Philosophy
MARK WILSON
1
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Mark Wilson 2022
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021943845
ISBN 978–0–19–289646–9
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192896469.001.0001
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for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
To my brother George
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
Contents
Synopsis ix
Foreword xvii
1. Ersatz Rigor 1
2. Prospectus 11
3. Inductive Warrant 30
Appendix: Historical Complexities 54
4. The Mystery of Physics 101 68
Appendix: Hertz’s Critique of the Third Law 82
5. Multiscalar Architectures 88
Appendix: Further Comments on Homogenization 114
6. Diversity in “Cause” 117
7. Dreams of a Final Theory T 146
8. Linguistic Scaffolding and Scientific Realism 158
9. Truth in a Multiscalar Landscape 191
Bibliography 201
Index 209
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
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Synopsis
Our discussion charts a methodological path that philosophy might have fol-
lowed, if it hadn’t become sidetracked by the faulty promises of a misconceived
standard of “rigor.” To diagnose what has gone wrong, we will first revisit a
critical, but nearly forgotten, episode within the prehistory of analytic philosophy.
It concerns a seemingly insignificant puzzle connected with the notion of “force”
that blocked the advance of physical knowledge in the late nineteenth century.
Perceptive philosopher/scientists of the time (notably Heinrich Hertz and Ernst
Mach) decided that conceptual clashes of this general character represent the
inevitable outcome of any descriptive practice that enlarges itself through the
gradual accretion of extended reasoning techniques. Often this increasing com-
plexity becomes ingrained within a linguistic usage without attracting the overt
attention of the speakers in question. When it eventually does, questions of the
form “what does a usage of this character actually tell us about the external
world?” often arise. The book categorizes such queries as “small metaphysics
concerns” because they directly ask how successful descriptive practices manage
to encode sound data with respect to objective reality in helpful ways.
Traditionally such questions have been either rejected as “meaningless” by anti-
metaphysicians or supplied with simple “Fido”/Fido answers by “realists” (but one
of this book’s projects is to introduce its readers to more sophisticated modes of
data registration in Chapter 5, as a helpful expansion of “small metaphysics”
possibility). Historically, the familiar systems of grander metaphysics often
sprouted from these modest seeds within mathematics and the philosophy of
language. In doing so, these inflated schemes frequently overshot their targets and
imposed unacceptable methodological restrictions upon the free development of
science.
These were the methodological circumstances that Hertz and Mach confronted.
They needed to somehow ameliorate the “small metaphysics” obstacles that they
encountered within mechanical practice without endorsing the strictures of any
overbearing philosophical scheme. In his 1894 Principles of Mechanics, Hertz
suggested that the impasse associated with “force” could be bridged if classical
mechanics could carve back the collection of doctrines it associates with the word
until a suitably pruned sub-selection assumes the self-consistent format of an
axiomatized theory. Through such reconstructions, skilled methodologists could
surmount the traditional inconsistences encountered within our evolved
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x
Chapter 2: Prospectus
The methodological lessons of this book are broadly intended, but they can be
effectively illustrated only through the consideration of concrete problems. To this
purpose, we will first revisit the specific “small metaphysics” puzzles that troubled
Hertz. In doing so, we can directly benefit from his profound insights into the
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
xi
linguistic processes that generate these difficulties. As noted previously, Hertz and
Mach regard the natural development of language as evolutionary in character,
acquiring fresh capacities and skills along the way without great concern for
conceptual unity. The eventual result is frequently a descriptive practice that
encodes physical data in effective but deviously complex ways. This diagnosis of
the origins of conceptual confusion strikes me as essentially correct, but the
axiomatic correctives that Hertz endorses do not. In Chapter 5, we’ll find that
more sophisticated forms of linguistic framework can retain all of the practical
advantages of the original practice while nonetheless subduing the internal con-
flicts that generate the problematic tensions.
Hertz and Mach approach the problems of linguistic usage in a strongly
pragmatist spirit, and this book hews to these same methodological guidelines
as well.
Before we consider Hertz’s diagnostic insights in detail, we must first review why
his underlying concerns seemed critical to the advance of classical mechanics in
the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately since that time a pervasive presump-
tion that “classical mechanics is simple” has constricted the intellectual horizons
of most observers who no longer actively participate in its continuing applications
to practical problems. As a result, Hertz’s motivating concerns disappear, not
because they have been resolved, but simply because they have been ignored. This
collective amnesia leads many contemporary philosophers to confidently assume
that they understand what “the worlds of classical mechanics are like,” although
these rash presumptions embody a significant degree of simplistic misrepresen-
tation. Accordingly, the present chapter outlines the forgotten background
required to appreciate Hertz’s intellectual puzzles as he confronted them. These
details are not required for the central argument of the book, but they nicely
illustrate the natural contexts from which “small metaphysics” puzzles character-
istically emerge within a gradually evolving discourse.
xii
Many of the recent advances in computing capacity have been facilitated by the
development of modeling architectures that implement a crucial division in
descriptive labor by asking various varieties of submodeling to work together
in cooperative harmony without engaging in a straightforward amalgamation of
their respective conclusions. To this purpose, the submodels are segregated by
characteristic scale length so that a submodeling that focuses exclusively upon
behaviors that normally emerge upon a macroscopic length scale (ΔH) will find
its predictions mollified later by corrective messages that originate within a
submodel that concentrates upon the local events that arise upon a shorter
scale length (ΔL). Typically, these submodels employ the same descriptive
vocabulary (e.g., “force”) but do so in variant manners that can generate prob-
lematic inconsistences if their specialized origins are not attended to. Multiscalar
schemes avoid these clashes by keeping their submodels carefully segregated
from one another and only allowing specialized corrective messages (called
“homogenizations”) to pass between them. The complete multiscalar scheme
then requires that its submodels reach an eventual descriptive accord with
respect to the corrective messages that they exchange amongst themselves, but
never asks them to agree upon the localized claims they advance with respect to
“force” per se. The efficiencies obtained through this simple expedient are truly
astonishing and have greatly expanded science’s capacities for modeling complex
systems in effective ways. If so, shouldn’t we anticipate that the descriptive
policies we follow in our everyday linguistic practices will avail themselves of
similar strategic advantages, even if we fail to notice the architectural arrange-
ments required to maintain the overall coherence of such discourses? Such
considerations point to a wider range of potential applications for our multi-
scalar constructions, although we shall largely confine our attention to scientific
exemplars in this book.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
xiii
This chapter extends the diagnostic lessons of the previous chapter to various
contemporary controversies with respect to causation, in which the word “cause”
appears to highlight different forms of physical consideration depending upon the
context in which it is employed. By carefully reviewing a standard treatment of
billiard ball behavior from a multiscalar point of view, it becomes easy to appre-
ciate the reasons why “cause” naturally adjusts its referential significance accord-
ing to context. Attempts to isolate a single underlying significance for “cause” are
bound to fail, for the same “division of linguistic labor” reasons that lead the word
“force” to its varied forms of referential attachment. In particular, recent attempts
to isolate the central “metaphysical” prerequisites of causation are likely to lead to
the same ill-advised strictures upon scientific thinking that Hertz and Mach
opposed. Instead, we should attend more closely to the “small metaphysics”
puzzles that originally generate these grander concerns, viz., questions of the
type “what does a usage of this character actually tell us about the external
world?” Here we have much to learn, for multiscalar architectures utilize cleverer
forms of data encoding than we are likely to have anticipated while lounging in
our exclusively “metaphysical” armchairs.
Generalizing upon these last remarks, the grander metaphysical schemes popular
in Hertz’s era frequently suppressed conceptual innovation in manifestly unhelp-
ful ways. In counterreaction, Hertz and his colleagues stressed the raw pragmatic
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xiv
Closely aligned with these last considerations are a variety of mistaken presump-
tions with respect to the evaluative utilities of the word “true’s in our linguistic
lives. These misconceptions likewise stem from a failure to recognize the tacit
architectures that commonly underpin effective discourse. These affinities suggest
an intriguing linkage between “true’s practical utilities and the “homogenization
message” evaluations that are central to the implementation of a multiscalar
architecture, for the latter requirements can be naturally captured in scale-length
sensitive locutions of the form “If condition S becomes true upon the lower scale
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xv
length ΔL, then condition S* will become true on the higher scale length ΔH.”
Overlooking these non-trivial relationships in the single-leveled manner charac-
teristic of theory T thinking encourages the popular “deflationist” doctrine that
maintains that “S is true” conveys no new information beyond what “S” itself says.
But the corrective feedback loops characteristic of our richer architectures assign
locutions like “S is true” the more substantive task of implementing the revision-
ary “homogenization messages” that are central to the operations of a multiscalar
scheme.
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Foreword
xviii
“an alternative history of analytic philosophy” because they illustrate how our
subject might have evolved if dubious methodological suppositions hadn’t inter-
vened along the way.¹
In this book I have utilized a number of examples (sometimes the very words!)
that have appeared in my other writings (especially Wilson (2017)), and
I apologize for the repetitions. But the exposition adopted here is more straight-
forwardly linear in its narrative, and I hope that its quasi-historical focus will
make it easier to follow my general lines of thought. On the other hand, this same
devotion to a single motivating example carries its own hazards, because the
conceptual landscapes characteristic of “classical mechanical thought” have been
severely distorted by latter day commentators who have strived to extract brisk
methodological morals from its allegedly simplistic failings. But this mythology of
the “illustrative lesson” does not render justice to the complex environments from
which the typical conundrums of philosophical concern spring. As a result, a fair
portion of Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to clearing away some of this accumulated
rubbish. I feel that an adequate coverage of my favored example demands that
we plow through some of these popular misunderstandings, but I also worry that
these same details may dissuade the non-specialist reader from reaching the
central behaviors that this book attempts to document, viz., the hidden tactics
whereby an evolving descriptive practice manages to rectify the inherited tensions
that would otherwise undermine its practical utilities. My central exemplar of an
insignificant-appearing “reasoning tension” will finally emerge in Chapter 4 (“The
Mystery of Physics 101”) and the compensating “hidden tactics” are introduced in
Chapter 5 (“Multiscalar Architectures”). I believe that this particular puzzle is
evocatively illustrative of the general factors that generate allied difficulties every-
where across the broad spectrum of human thought. At present, however, the “wet
blanket of philosophical rigorists” (Heaviside 1912, III 370) has greatly discour-
aged due attention to the conceptual behaviors of this type, so I am hoping that a
particularly clean instance of the root phenomena drawn from the real-life career
of classical physics may convince them of their oversight.
I am grateful to Gordon Belot, Laura Ruetsche, Tom Ryckman, Sheldon Smith,
Alexis Wellwood and Porter Williams for sundry symposium comments and to
Bob Batterman, Kathleen Cook, Josh Eisenthal, Anil Gupta, Jennifer Jhun, Juliette
Kennedy, Travis McKenna, Bob Pippin, and Jim Woodward for further helpful
advice. Penelope Maddy and a group of her students (Adam Chin, Charles Leitz,
Chris Mitsch, Jeffrey Schatz, and Evan Sommers) read an earlier version of the
manuscript at Irvine, an assistance which has proven very helpful here.
A substantial email correspondence with Pen has helped me sharpen my themes
further. I remain grateful to my accommodating editor, Peter Momtchiloff.
¹ This is also the reason why several otherwise extraneous appendices have been included to correct
the historical record.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 27/10/2021, SPi
1
Ersatz Rigor
Logic has nothing to do with it, either with the fact, the discovery,
or its use. At the very same time it must be said that a sufficiently
profound study of the subject would ultimately lead to the logic of its
laws, as a final result. What I do strongly object to is the idea that the
logic should come first, or else you prove nothing. Yet perhaps the
majority of academical mathematical books are written under this
idea. In reality the logic is the very last thing, and that is not final.
Oliver Heaviside (Heaviside 1912, III 370)
Even metaphysicians start small. Or, at least, the best of them have often done so.
Some puzzling disharmony arises within the development of an otherwise bene-
ficial descriptive practice that cries out for a satisfactory resolution and blocks
further advancement until the troublesome anomalies are identified and resolved.
These nagging complexities within practical reasoning may prompt a practitioner
to wonder, “What sort of external world can explain why it is wise to maintain
thesis X or to confidently claim that tenet Z follows from tenet Y?” From these initial
musings, philosophy of a wider-ranging character often emerges. Motivational
uncertainties of this stripe can arise within virtually any field of human endeavor,
but in this book we shall concentrate upon several significant exemplars drawn
from the historical development of physical science.
Why do these puzzles arise so frequently? One of the most salient features of
our improving intellectual economy lies in the fact that “our pencils often prove
wiser than ourselves,” as Euler is alleged to have said. By this, he meant that
otherwise errant doodling sometimes suggests pathways of reasoning that allow us
to capture natural phenomena within our linguistic nets in fashions that we could
not have anticipated. Even after we enter these enriched landscapes and avail
ourselves of the bounties they offer, their supportive geographies may still baffle
us, for we may have fancied that we’ve reached India when it is actually the
Bahamas. When a cogent elucidation of a practice is finally located, its resolution
often proves surprising and unexpected, for words, calculations, and the world can
entangle themselves in complicated patterns that we would have never noticed
save for the raw goad of improving advantage. There is no general or uniform
method for anticipating these difficulties, for their sources can prove as varied as
nature’s wide ranges of dissimilar behaviors.
Imitation of Rigor: An Alternative History of Analytic Philosophy. Mark Wilson, Oxford University Press. © Mark Wilson 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192896469.003.0001
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grande sforzo, vi sarete capacitati del vero stato e delle condizioni di
Pompei al momento della sua distruzione.
A me, sorretto dalla memoria delle antiche storie e de’ classici
scrittori e de’ poeti di Roma antica, percorrendo fra i più concitati
sussulti del cuore le vie dissepolte di Pompei, davanti le macerie e
gli avanzi solenni di questi pubblici edificj, quest’opera di
immaginosa ricostruzione riuscì agevole e spontanea. Fu per poco,
se nel varcar la soglia della Basilica, non udissi le arringhe degli
avvocati, nel rasentar le colonne del Foro non mi togliessi per
reverenza il cappello al passar delle maestose figure di Pansa e di
Olconio e non mi commovessi alla passione di questo giovane
innamorato, che lungi dall’aver guasto il cuore dalla general
corruzione, così io credessi vedere graffire sentimentalmente sulla
muraglia:
Dedica Pag. V
Intendimenti dell’Opera VII
Introduzione 1
Pag. lin.
4 17, vi morisse e Stazio e Silio
Italico e altri
illustri vi si
ispirassero
6 ultima linea: S’intromette il S’intromette il
Tirreno. Tirreno infuriato
13 19, mi do dovea mi dovea
28 12, dice chè dice che
41 17, horrendum, horrendum,
ingens informe, ingens
44 24, dovendo dovendo
poggiare appoggiarsi
71 5, soggetta ligia persona
persona
74 6, Lucio Lucio Cornelio
Cornelio congiunto
parente
76 11, non veridiche non sempre
veridiche
79 9, la dissenzione la dissensione
81 22, patrizii e i patrizii e i plebei
plebei
203 15, distici di distici che
Ovidio erroneamente
alcuni dissero di
Ovidio
325 in fine del La pena
sommario dell’adulterio —
Avvocati e
Causidici
NOTE:
3. Già Casina Reale, avente a lato sinistro il Castel dell’Ovo che si avanza
in mare, donata da Garibaldi dittatore ad Alessandro Dumas; ma
rivendicata poscia — non da Garibaldi — venne venduta e convertita
nell’attuale Albergo di Washington, tra i primarj della città.
14. Sono gli uomini di questo villaggio che vengono più specialmente
reclutati per la difficile e perigliosa pesca del corallo sulle coste di
Barberia, e così possono ricondursi di poi in patria con un bel gruzzolo
di danaro.
15. La misurazione dell’elevazione del Vesuvio sopra il livello del mare varia
nelle scritture dei dotti che la vollero fissare. Nollet nel 1749 la disse di
593 tese; Poli nel 1791 di 608 tese; il colonnello Visconti nel 1816 di
621; Humboldt dopo l’eruzione del 1822 la rinvenne di 607 tese, e nel
settembre 1831 l’altezza della punta più alta del cono risultò di tese 618.
La tesa, antica misura di Francia, era lunga sei piedi; la nuova tesa
francese si chiama doppio metro e per conseguenza contiene 6 piedi, 1
pollice, 10 linee. Siffatta varietà di misure non da altro procede che dagli
elevamenti e dalle depressioni, le quali si avvicendano secondo le
diverse eruzioni.
17. «Partito Ercole di poi dal Tevere, seguendo il lido italiano si condusse al
Campo Cumeo, nel quale è fama essere stati uomini assai forti, ed a
cagione di loro scelleratezze, appellati giganti. Lo stesso Campo del
resto, denominato Flegreo, dal colle che vomitando sovente fuoco a
guisa dell’Etna sicula, ora si chiama Vesuvio, e conserva molte vestigia
delle antiche arsioni.»
22. L’eguale fenomeno si avverò sul Vesuvio nella eruzione del 79. Ecco le
parole di Plinio: Nubes (incertum procul intuentibus ex quo monte;
Vesuvium fuisse postea cognitum est) oriebatur: cujus similitudinem et
formam non alia magis arbor, quam pinus expresserit. Nam longissimo
velut trunco elato in altum, quibusdam ramis diffundebatur, etc. Epist.
XVI. Lib. VI.
27. Sylv. 2
28. Satir. Lib. II. Sat. 1. v. 35. Così traduce Tommaso Gargallo:
29. Secondo Esiodo, Gerione era il più forte di tutti gli uomini nell’isola
d’Eritia presso Gade o Cadice sulla costa della Spagna. I poeti venuti di
poi ne hanno fatto un gigante con tre corpi, che Ercole combattendo
uccise, menandone seco i buoi. Coloro i quali ridur vorrebbero tutta la
scienza mitologica ad un solo principio, cioè, al culto antico della natura,
pretesero Ercole un essere allegorico e non significar altro che il Sole.
Questa impresa vinta su Gerione sarebbe il decimo segno che il sole
trascorre, vale a dire i benefizj d’esso che, giunto al segno equinoziale
del Toro, avviva tutta la natura e consola tutte le genti. Vedi Dizionario
della Mitologia di tutti i Popoli di Gio. Pozzoli e Felice Romani. Milano
presso Gio. Pirotta.
30. La Mitologia chiama i Dioscuri figliuoli di Giove e afferma essere il
soprannome di Castore e Polluce. Glauco fu il primo che così li chiamò,
quando apparve agli Argonauti nella Propontide (Filostr. Paus.). È stato
dato questo nome anche agli Anaci, ai Cabiri, e ai tre fratelli che
Cicerone (De Natura Deorum 3, c. 53) chiama Alcone, Melampo ed
Eumolo. Sanconiatone conserva l’identità dei Dioscuri coi Cabiri, che
Cicerone vuol figli di Proserpina. Ritornerò su tale argomento nel
capitolo I Templi.
33. Secondo la più probabile opinione, Caudio era situato dove ora il borgo
Arpaja, e le Forche Caudine in quell’angusto passo donde si discende
ad Arienzo, specialmente nel sito che si chiama pur oggi le Furchie.
34. Ora Lucera delli Pagani, nella Puglia Daunia, volgarmente Capitanata,
provincia di Foggia, nel già reame di Napoli.
36. Dante, Paradiso c. VII. 47. Qui parla il Poeta di Manlio Torquato che
comandò, come più sopra narrai, la morte del figliuolo per inobbedienza,
e parla di Quinzio Cincinnato.
43. Quid ergo indicat, aut quid affert, aut ipse Cornelius, aut vos, qui ab eo
hæc mandata defertis? Gladiatores emptos esse, Fausti simulatione, ad
cœdem, ac tumultum. Ita prorsus: interpositi sunt gladiatores, quos
testamento patris videmus deberi. Cic. Pro. P. Sulla cap. XIX.
47. In Toscana l’aveva alle falde degli Appennini e dalla regione in cui era
situata si dicea Tusci; in Romagna l’aveva sul litorale del Mediterraneo
fra le due città di Laurento e di Ostia, e per esser più vicina a quella città
chiamavala Laurentino e l’abitava nel verno; in Lombardia due ne
possedeva lungo le ridenti sponde del Lario una nel paesello di Villa e si
nomava Commedia, e l’Amoretti nel suo Viaggio ai tre laghi credette
riconoscerla nel luogo ove v’ha la villeggiatura dei signori Caroe,
pretendendosi persino di vederne tuttora i ruderi contro l’onde del lago;
l’altra, detta Tragedia, in altra località che forse fu presso Bellagio. Lo
che valga a rettifica dell’opinione volgare che crede la Commedia fosse
dove ora è la Pliniana, così detta unicamente perchè vi si trovi la fonte
da lui descritta nell’ultima Epistola del libro IV e dell’opinioni di taluni
scrittori che la assegnano in altra parte del lago. Alla Pliniana, venne
fabbricato da Giovanni Anguissola, altro degli uccisori di Pier Luigi
Farnese, nè prima di lui vi si riscontrarono ruderi che accusassero
antecedenti edificazioni. Della prima, in Toscana, fa una magnifica
descrizione nella lettera 6 del lib. V; della seconda in Romagna, nella
lettera 17 del lib. II.
52. Tacito nel libro XV degli Annali c. XVII non fa che accennare sotto
quest’anno un tanto disastro: «Un terremoto in Terra di Lavoro rovinò
gran parte di Pompeja, terra grossa.»
54. Aulo Gellio trova la etimologia del municipio a munere capessendo; più
propriamente forse il giureconsulto Paolo: quia munia civilia capiant. E
l’uno e l’altro accennano al diritto o dono conferito della cittadinanza, a
differenza di quelle altre località che erano solo fœderatæ, ricevute dopo
vinte e a condizione inferiore, che non acquistavano la podestà patria,
nè le nozze alla romana, nè la capacità di testare a pro’ d’un romano
cittadino, o d’ereditarne, nè l’inviolabilità della persona.
56. Il laticlavo era una striscia di porpora che orlava la toga di porpora,
scendendo dal petto fino a’ ginocchi. Essa era alquanto larga a
distinzione della striscia de’ cavalieri, che però dicevasi augusticlavo.
Come basterebbe oggi dire porporato per intendersi cardinale, allora
dicevasi laticlavius per senatore; onde leggesi in Svetonio (in August., c.
38): binos laticlavios præposuit, per dire due senatori.
59.
62. Vedi Plinio epistola 12 del lib. II: Implevi promissum, priorisque epistolæ
fidem exsolvi, quam ex spatio temporis jam recipisse te colligo. Nam et
festinanti et diligenti tabellario dedi. Vedi anche dello stesso Plinio
l’epistola 17 del lib. III e 12 del VII e la nota alla prima lettera del suo
volgarizzatore Pier Alessandro Paravia. Venezia Tip. del Commercio
1831.
66. Tra i papiri latini si conta un frammento di poema sulla guerra di Azio.
68. Ad retia sedebam: erant in proximo non venabulum aut lancea, sed
stilus et pugillares. Così Plin. loc. cit. Vedi anche Boldetti, Osserv. sopra
i Cimelii, l. 2, c. 2.
69.
74.
78.
79.
83. Ne’ possedimenti di Giulia Felice, figlia di Spurio, si affittano dalle prime
idi di agosto alle seste idi per cinque anni continui un bagno, un
venereo, e novecento botteghe colle pergole e co’ cenacoli. Se taluno
esercitasse in casa (o il condannato) lenocinio, non è ammesso alla
conduzione.
La formula invece, quale è ristabilita dal sen. Fiorelli, vorrebbe dire: se
trascorrerà il quinquennio, la locazione ai riterrà tacitamente rinnovata.
Altri poi, leggendo aggiunta alla iscrizione surriferita anche le parole
SMETTIVM . VERVM . ADE, pretendono interpretare le sigle in
questione nella seguente maniera: si quis dominum loci ejus non
cognoverit, — se alcuno non conosca il padrone di questo luogo, si
rivolga a Smettio Vero.
84. Veggasi: Della Patria dei due Plinii, Dissertazione di Pier Alessandro
Paravia indirizzata al cav. Ippolito Pindemonte, edita nell’appendice al
Volgarizzamento delle Lettere di Plinio il Giovane dello stesso Paravia,
già altre volte da noi citato. Il Paravia prova, a non più lasciar ombra di
dubbio, i Plinii essere stati di Como.
87. «Le mofete, scrive Giuseppe Maria Galanti, formano molti fenomeni
curiosi. Terminate le grandi eruzioni sogliono esse manifestarsi sotto le
antiche lave e ne’ sotterranei, e qualche volta hanno infettata tutta
l’atmosfera. Non sono che uno sviluppamento di acido carbonico. Circa
quaranta giorni dopo l’ultima grande eruzione del 1822 comparvero le
mofete nelle cantine ed altri luoghi sotterranei delle adiacenze del
Vulcano. L’aria mofetica cominciava all’altezza del suolo superiore, e
spesso infettava anche l’aria esterna. In alcuni sotterranei si
manifestarono rapidamente, in altri lentamente: dove durarono pochi
giorni e dove sino a due mesi. Dopo l’eruzione del 1794 molte persone
perirono per mancanza di precauzione contro queste mofete. Esse si
sviluppano più assai nei luoghi dove terminano le antiche lave, cioè nei
luoghi prossimi alla pedementina del Vulcano, forse perchè il gas acido
carbonico che si svolge in copia nell’interno del Vulcano, si fa strada
negli interstizi delle lave, le quali partono tutte dal focolare vulcanico.»
Napoli e Contorni, 1829. — Vedi anche La storia de’ fenomeni del
Vesuvio di Monticelli e Covelli. Napoli, 1843.