«Parole est en mostrant ou pour monstrer quelle chose est conferente et utile et quelle chose est nuisible». Oresme e la parola dell’uomo civile

Abstract

This essay aims to shed light upon one of the

main relationships between two texts written by Oresme:

the De Moneta and Le Livre de politiques. The significance

of the word («parole») was examined in the latter: a

faculty belonging only to the man who lives, communicates

and trades in the civitas; the man that has to order

things and actions in the sphere of expediens, i.e. what is

useful, or in the sphere of the nocivum, what is detrimental.

In Oresmian texts, this discursive faculty, that was already

examined by Albertus Magnus and Thomas of

Aquin, becomes directly analytical, taxonomical and provides

the ethical dimension to things and actions. In Le

Livre, this triple faculty belongs to the «parole»: the elementary

brick of the human discourse. The « homme

civile » alone is able to seize the meaning and the value of

the utilitas: what can be considered, or proven, useful,

proper and profitable. He is able to distinguish, along a

scale of equivalencies and balances, things and actions

that can be defined just or unjust, but only as a result of

the previous analytical path made by the «parole». After

this analysis the political function of money, established

in his oldest text, De moneta, appears strictly connected

with the political function of the «parole» defined in Le

livre.