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not attributable to language’s inadequacy; the expression of the
second and third kind of knowledge does not require a reconfig-
uration of Spinoza’s explicitly stated epistemology, nor is there a
performative contradiction.
With this thesis on Spinoza’s position on language in mind,
some answers can be given to the issue of language as totality vs.
controllable vehicle (“calculus”). First and foremost, Spinoza’s
choice
379
of deductive logic over “ordinary” language in express-
ing the sum and substance of his philosophy in
Ethics
demon-
strates that language for him is constitutionally incapable of deal-
ing with philosophical truth; it must, in a radical sense, be set
aside, left behind, which is merely a different way of thinking of
it as world unto itself within which no reflection on its relation
to reality is possible. Thoughts and ideas relating to the ultimate
reality (Spinoza’s unitary “God-Nature”) are ineffable, inexpress-
ible in words
380
. There is no sense or intimation that language can
be bent to our will, made to put in words any type or level of
thought, and, above all, that the relation of language itself to the
“world” can be redefined at will. It seems inescapable therefore
to conclude that for Spinoza language was a universal medium in
the sense intended here
381
.
It is against this background and problematics that Vico’s
elaborations on language(s) will be considered, especially by ref-
erence to Section II, “Poetic Logic” of Book II, and we can do
so relatively briskly since the “heavy (theoretical) lifting” has al-
ready been done in connection with Spinoza’s position on lan-
guage, interpreted as being by no means
ad hoc
but as integral to,
and integrative of, his epistemology. We left off above with Vi-
co’s apotheosis of «imaginative universals» in the context of
“iconicity”, such that it can be seen as its highest form and ex-
pression. Now, in the context of the problematics before us, im-
aginative universals take on another significance: since they are
freely invented or created, they can hardly be consigned to the
kind of hermetic realm associated with language as universal me-