Narrare per approssimazioni: Pareto e l'interpretazione dei fatti sociali

The essay focuses on the relationship between literature and sociology in line with the tenet of narration as an «approximative representation of facts», as defined by Vilfredo Pareto in the Treatise of General Sociology (1916) through the recourse to historians, writers and judiciary reports. Pareto describes the cognitive process determining the representation of real facts, as narrated by writers and reporters from memory and through rhetorical practices that are sometimes spontaneous. The reproduction of speeches, tales, thoughts and announcements is always approximate, especially when recordings and images are exploited: «In practice, before courts of justice, such approximate reproduction is usually adequate for ordinary purposes. If it seems insufficient in some respect, the court can ask the witness to make himself more clear» . Narrating entails remembering and expressing, in line with the oscillations between orality and writing. Hence follows the principle of «the approximate representation of facts» highlighted by Pareto also in reference to the dichotomy of «residues and derivations». His epistemological approach seems to recall the dialectics of «combinations and fermentations» elaborated by Scipio Sighele, who exploited the literary production of his time in order to investigate collective psycho-pathologies, at a time when literature achieved a relevant sociological and gnoseological connotations. Ahead of the technical reproducibility of the work of art, sociology investigates the complexity of narrative paths linked to the truthfulness of tales and adherence to sources, without neglecting the cognitive power of metaphorizations. In the background is the rise of electric media and the innovation of narrative techniques, at the dawn of the mainstream cultural industry.