Horst Steinke, Vico’s Ring. Notes on the“Scienza nuova”, its Structure, and the Hermeneutics of Homer’s Works

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Vico’s Ring
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considered language as universal medium or as calculus, but Spi-
noza’s handling of language may serve as a stepping stone to an-
swering our initial question. Savan forcefully argues from Spino-
za’s definition of the first kind of knowledge that words being
nothing more than bodily motions, makes them fundamentally
inadequate as a vehicle for philosophical truths359. However,
since Ethics obviously is all about philosophical truths, Savan ar-
gues also that Spinoza may have been fully aware of the prob-
lematic, and gave, indirectly, expression to it by engaging in con-
tradictory assertions on a number of key concepts360, however,
without addressing the issue explicitly. To use words/language is
like dreaming in which what is relatively real or pure fantasy is
mixed together, and from which dream-like state361 one has be
awakened by philosophical truth. In Parkinson’s interpretation,
on the other hand, the nexus of body, imagination, and words in
the first kind of knowledge is anything but “iron-clad”, in man-
ner of speaking, but that imagination and language are simply
context-dependent, so that Spinoza’s criticism of language does
not have to do with language per se, or is applicable in principle,
but concerns itself with certain (isolated) misuses only362. Parkin-
son then proposes that Ethics is primarily an exposition of the
second kind of knowledge363 since it is defined as «reason»364, and
«reason», strictly speaking, consists of deductive logic and its re-
sults365. At the same time, Parkinson allows for some examples
of «intuitive knowledge», the third kind of knowledge, to be pre-
sent in the work366 . Fløistad engages less with Savan’s exposition
of language within the framework of the first kind of knowledge
than with Parkinson’s counterargument, agreeing with the latter,
contra Savan, on the key point that «language may adequately ex-
press true knowledge»367. Fløistad’s starting point, and guiding
premise, is that given that both the second and third kinds of
knowledge are unquestionably found in Ethics, this fact presup-
poses that such elevated forms of knowledge, including ultimate
levels of insight368, be expressible in words, or, stated differently,