Ernesto Grassi

The general opinion … is that the humanist tradition is primarily of literary and aesthetical significance rather than of philosophical significance. This view has its origin in statements of Descartes.

— Ernesto Grassi

If Descartes’ main aspirations are directed towards a “first truth,” it follows necessarily that the sphere of pure possibilities, and with it the sphere of “probability,” is excluded from philosophy. Thus Descartes ignores, for example, both the art of rhetoric and history, as fields in which “the probable,” rather than the truth prevails.

— Ernesto Grassi

The art of eloquence belongs to the realm of probability because it constantly directs its glance at the specific, variable psychic state of the audience.

— Ernesto Grassi

Vico claims that the aim of philosophy is the problem of "finding," and he identifies the theory of "finding" with "topical philosophy.” …

— Ernesto Grassi

In Quintilian’s expositions there appears a note of melancholy when he discovers that toward the decline of life, the ratio sneaks in gradually, choking up insight into the original.

— Ernesto Grassi