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Horst Steinke
230
435
Preus described the commonality between Bacon and Spinoza as fol-
lows: «Like Bacon, Spinoza takes a bottoms-up approach that begins with the
data, in this case all relevant factual information needed as a foundation for
understanding the Bible – its language, its authors and their context; the histo-
ry of its composition, editing, reception, text transmission, etc.» (Id.,
Spinoza
and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority
, cit., p. 164). As we are trying to point out,
the «bottoms-up approach» as such, attributed both to Bacon and Spinoza, is
more complex than the term might suggest, on the one hand, and, more sig-
nificantly, is motivated by, and implemented in, non-comparable philosophi-
cal/scientific frameworks, on the other hand.
436
Theory-ladenness is the subject of J. Hintikka,
Inquiry as Inquiry: A Logic
of Scientific Discovery,
Dordrecht-Boston-London, Kluwer Academic, 1999, pp.
241-250.
437
The pointedness of this statement, and others, is reflective of his radi-
cal disagreement with Lodewijk Meyer on the fundamental relation of Scrip-
ture and philosophy, notwithstanding their agreement on secondary aspects.
438
We will have to keep on reading Chapter 7 to realize that under «mean-
ing», Spinoza subsumes a specific characterization, and well-defined content,
as discussed below.
439
This seems to be the position of Preus: «[…] Spinoza distinguishes the
question of truth from that of meaning. That distinction and the dialectical
relation between the two operations (
interpreting texts
and
making truth judgments
)
is the most fundamental principle of his whole method, and is inseparable
from his claim that his method is historical, not philosophical» (Id.,
Spinoza
and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority
, cit., p. 200; italics added).
440
Reventlow explained: «By “meaning” is understood solely the state-
ments set down by the authors in the texts, […], while the absolute truth
alone is to be transmitted through philosophical speculation […]» (Id.,
History
of Biblical Interpretation
, vol. 4, cit., p. 100). Legaspi, also, sees Spinoza’s refer-
ences to «truth» as imbued with philosophical value, by way of contrast with
the content of Scripture: «The discovery of what is “true” is a crucial element
of Spinoza’s biblical criticism. The quest to discover what is true in and of the
Bible is not, for Spinoza, a metaphysical one. He does not seek, by his philo-
logical inquiries, to discover the sense in which the Bible itself contains Truth
or offers metaphysical precepts that are ratified by reason and experience»
(Id.,
The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies
, cit., p. 24).
441
For this “model-theoretic” perspective, see W. Hodges,
Model Theory
, in
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Fall 2013 Edition), ed. by W. N. Zalta,
online at
<www.plato.stanford.edu>.