Boccaccio the Philosopher: The Language of Knowledge in the Decameron

Description

The dissertation examines the philosophical implications of the Decameron in connection with Boccaccio's minor works and ascertains his attitudes towards philosophy, in order to evaluate how a theoretical reflection on the nature of rhetoric and poetic imagination can ultimately elicit a theory of knowledge. Organized according to different aspects of the nature of the medieval philosophical project, the dissertation argues that the Decameron has a significant philosophical dimension which is concealed in the language and that the philosophical implications of the narratives can be understood in an epistemological approach to the text. The first chapter ("Deified Men and Humanized Gods: The Genealogies and the Hermetic Veil of the Fabula") focuses on aspects of poetics and analyzes the language of literature as theorized in Boccaccio's Genealogie deorum gentilium and Trattatello in laude di Dante. Boccaccio's speculation on the nature of poetry is paramount for the understanding of how knowledge is produced by the text. Both the Genealogie and the Decameron explore the mechanisms of acquisition of knowledge through similar modalities of discourse. The intrinsic obscurity of poetry, as theorized in the context of the Genealogies, refers to the hermetic idea of covert discourse, that is, the kind of literature whose language hides its meanings and the truth without completely denying knowledge and understanding. As Boccaccio maintains, the hermetic nature of poetry originates in the 'womb of God' and is given as a gift to a selected few; moreover, poetic imagination appears to be a cognitive tool that takes advantage of the power of the mind. The second chapter ("Boccaccio's Mountain: The Voyage of the Soul and The Language of Literature") deals with psychology, intended, in the classical way, as the 'study of the soul.' The Decameron can be seen as a journey toward the acquisition of knowledge—be it moral, philosophical, or practical. In the Introduction to the Decameron, the famous simile comparing the interpretation of the text to the climbing of a mountain alludes to Dante's Commedia and justifies the necessity of the plague in eschatological terms, thereby defining the reader’s experience as a sort of intellectual and spiritual progression and ascent. The Second Day of the Decameron and the narrative parables of the Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine and the Amorosa visione share the same modality of an allegorical voyage of the soul for the apprehension of knowledge. The third chapter ("The Motto and the Enigma: Rhetoric and Knowledge in the Sixth Day") considers rhetoric as a form of knowledge analyzing the rhetorical devices of the Decameron and the many ways in which Boccaccio establishes a meaningful connection between rhetoric and knowledge. Rhetoric can be epistemic, and in this regard, the characteristics and formal features of the motto, or witty reply, in the Sixth Day of the Decameron show how this metaphorical tool can be considered not only a structuring device of Boccaccio’s discourse, but also a 'veil,' a poetical strategy which is able to both conceal and to reveal philosophical knowledge. Boccaccio's oeuvre engages with several aspects of the relationship between philosophical and literary discourse as they come to him from contemporary debates about literature. In particular, the possibilities offered by epistemology in medieval thought and the role of allegory and mythology as poetical devices of a latent philosophical discourse are critical means to understanding Boccaccio's theory of the nexus between rhetoric and knowledge. The fourth chapter ("The Variants of 'Honestum:' Practical Philosophy and Theory of Action in the Decameron") deals with ethics (the knowledge of the good; moral philosophy) in the Decameron. Here I argue that the characters of the Decameron experience cognitive journeys that embrace an ethical approach to the world. An attentive reading of the frame texts of the Decameron along with a proper understanding of the medieval concept of “honesty” suggests a well-defined model of life that can be traced back to the practical philosophy concerning which Boccaccio—as a reader of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas—had long meditated. The guiding principle of Natural Law evoked in the Introduction to the Decameron is most properly understood in relation to the Thomistic ethical system in which Nature and its earthly manifestations in human instincts are counterbalanced by the action of reason and free will, with the aim of achieving a practical knowledge that eventually leads to a new vision of the world. Finally, the possibilities offered by a reading of the Decameron as a journey toward the acquisition of knowledge elicit a theory of action that has significant implications for the transition from scholastic philosophy to humanism.