Saturday, February 22, 2020

MoneyWisdom #458

"Vico's [Giambattista Vico 1668-1744] view of human authority as linked to the reality of divine authority, or divine providence, means that, paradoxically, humans are only free insofar as they acknowledge the potential guidance of divine will, figured first in divination practices.

[...]

What Vico is claiming here is that any view of human institutions that is not grounded on something like a paradoxical conjunction of free will and divine providence is incoherent. This position is, of course, contestable but it reflects Vico's commitment to something like divination as the original basis for the paradoxical character of culture as both received and enacted, and also has the advantage of explaining rather than presuming the existence of sovereign power."

Joshua Ramey The Politics of Divination (2016) p.25