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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formed by his epistemic commitments, that is, the tree-tiered
taxonomy of knowledge, which internally was made to cohere
with ultimate truth-preservation in the form of «scientia intui-
tiva». If our thesis is correct, a comparable state of affairs should
obtain and be observable in Spinoza’s approach to natural sci-
ence501. To that end we will examine certain Spinoza letters that
deal with physics, on the one hand, and chemistry, on the other
hand502 .
With respect to physics, our reading will focus on Letter 12 . In
it Spinoza performs a “thought experiment” of an (incompressi-
ble) fluid, such as water, flowing in a channel bounded by two
circles; the channel is formed, in plan view as shown in Spinoza’s
own diagram, by a large outer circle, and an inset smaller circle,
and the fluid flows parallel to the circles. However, the key fea-
ture of the channel is that the inner circle is eccentrically placed
so that the width of the channel is not constant but varies con-
tinuously503. The main point or argument of this “experiment” is
that the continuously variable size of the channel entails that as
«all the inequalities of the space lying between two circles […]
exceed any number, [so] do all the variations of the speed of
matter moving through that area», thus demonstrating the reality
of «infinity»504 . Letter 12 is also called the “Letter on the Infinite”,
of which this physical setup is given as the actual proof. How
then may Spinoza’s surrounding exposition of «the infinite»
throw light on his epistemic approach to the «interpretation of
Nature»? Spinoza sets the tone and agenda right from the begin-
ning of the letter in terms of his epistemic system, into which we
are merely inserting his nomenclature:
[…] there is the failure to distinguish between [3rd kind of knowledge:]
that which we can apprehend only by the intellect and not by the imag-
ination, and [1st kind:] that which can also be apprehended by the im-
agination. […] I answer that we conceive quantity in two ways: [3rd
kind:] abstractly or [1st kind:] superficially, as we have it [1st kind:] in