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Horst Steinke
234
the more we know the things according to this order, the better our ideas
themselves express the essence of God. All our knowledge expresses God
when it is guided by the common notions. […] Common means more general,
that is to say, applicable to more existing modes, or to all existing modes of a
certain kind. Common means univocal: the attribute is univocal, or common
to God where it constitutes the singular essence and to modes where it con-
tains the particular essences)» (
ibid.
, pp. 270, 271, 280). Similarly, M. D. Wil-
son: «Certain features of Spinoza’s conception of “what is common to all
things” are fairly easy to understand, at least as long as one stays within the
terms of his system. Obviously, he wants to contrast the shaky, superficial,
and shifting inferences and abstractions that we make imaginatively as a result
of our random encounters with various bodies, with direct intellectual insight
into the fundamental principles that cause things to be what they (essentially)
are» (Id.,
Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge
, in
The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza
, cit.,
pp. 89-141, p. 115; see also W. Röd,
Spinozas Idee der Scientia intuitiva und die
Spinozanische Wissenschaftskonzeption
, cit., pp. 142-144).
459
Zac explained: «De même que le savant, après avoir rattaché les don-
nées aux lois universelles inscrites, comme “dans un code” dans les modes
infinis et immédiats de Dieu […], de même l’exégète biblique poursuit son
enquête historique […] (Just as the scientist, after having related the facts to
universal laws, written, as “in a legal code”, in the infinite and immediate
modes of God […], so the biblical interpreter pursues his historical inquiry
[…])» (Id.,
Spinoza et l’interprétation de l’Écriture
, cit., p. 35). Deleuze, too, un-
derstands universality in a uniquely Spinozan sense: «On ne dira donc pas que
les notions plus universelles expriment Dieu mieux que les moins universelles.
On ne dira surtout pas que l’idée de Dieu soit elle-même une notion com-
mune, la plus universelle de toutes: en véreté, chaque notion nous y conduit,
chaque notion l’exprime, les moins universelles comme les plus universelles
(Therefore, it does not say that the more universal notions express God better
than the less universal ones. Above all, it does not say that the idea of God is
itself a common notion, the most universal of all: in fact, every notion leads us
to it, every notion expresses it, the less universal as well as the most universal
ones)» (Id.,
Spinoza et le problème de l’expression
,
cit., p. 278).
460
As suggested in S. B. Smith,
Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish
Identity,
cit., p. 79; see also T. Nyden-Bullock,
Spinoza’s Radical Cartesian Mind
,
London-New York, Continuum, 2007, pp. 126-128; D. Savan,
Spinoza: Scientist
and Theorist of Scientific Method
, cit., pp. 95-123, pp. 105-110.
461
TTP
, p. 90.
462
Ibid.
, p. 91; J. C. Morrison noted that «on the first superficial level the
teaching of Scripture is reduced to the empty platitude of “justice and chari-