Cicero: the most important dead Italian philosopher, according to Grice

Speranza

--- "Italians" were not called so, but remind that what they speak in Italy IS "Latin"!

Anyway, the problem with Cicero is boredom.

HIS son was sent to Athens, which was possibly where all the fun was going on.

One loves Rome, but one reads about these Roman types (Cicero, etc.) and it's all about 'villas' with them.

They cannot STAND Rome.

It's like current types at NYC who it's Tuesday and they are already thinking of taking the airplane for the Hamptons on Thursday -- and then Monday is golf tournament and it's only back in Tuesday that they have to make it to the "Big Apple"!

But seriously, CICERO was the most important Italian philosopher for Grice.

There are a couple of points of comparison.

Notably, we may need to add "ARISTOTLE".

For Aristotle, the distinction is between 'ta legomena' -- the sayings (or 'opinions', as Grice prefers) of 'hoi polloi' (the many) versus the wise.

Aristotle was known to coin a few neologisms as Plato had done.

A SIMILAR situation CICERO finds himself in, and he would refer to precisely the complexities of the issues.

In Grice's parlance, the topic becomes more subtle when he starts to consider the 'learned' versus the 'vulgar' -- notably in his unpublished work.