247 / 298
Vico’s Ring
247
to understand the workings of Nature […] perpetrating the grossest absurdi-
ties», «many people, confusing these three concepts [Number, Measure, Time]
with reality, because of their ignorance of the true nature of reality».
509
TTP
, Chapter 7, p. 91.
510
While they are outside the scope of our essay, the relations between
English and Dutch intellectuals and scientists during our period are of great
historical interest, for which see e.g. L. Jardine,
Going Dutch: How England Plun-
dered Holland’s Glory
, New York, Harper Collins, 2008, pp. 263-318.
511
Both letters are discussed in: N. Maull,
Spinoza in the Century of Science
,
cit., pp. 5-7; A. Gabbey,
Spinoza’s natural science and methodology
, cit., pp. 177-
180, and more extensively, L. Simonutti,
Dalle “sensate esperienze” all’ermeneutica
biblica. Spinoza e la nuova scienza: Galilei e Boyle
, in
Spinoza. Ricerche e prospettive per
una storia dello spinozismo in Italia. Atti delle Giornate di studio in ricordo di Emilia
Giancotti, Urbino, 2-4 ottobre 2002,
ed. by D. Bostrenghi and C. Santinelli, intro.
by C. Santinelli, Naples, Bibliopolis, 2007, pp. 299-327, pp. 313-323; these pa-
pers also provide extensive further relevant references. On Spinoza’s wide-
ranging disputes with Boyle, see also Ch. E. Lewis,
Baruch Spinoza, a Critic of
Robert Boyle: On Matter,
in
Spinoza: Critical Assessments
, Vol. 1, cit., pp. 236-253,
on the issue of experimentation, pp. 244-249.
512
The complexity of the argument(s) is described by Simonutti as: «il
confronto fra due diverse concezioni epistemologiche e filosofiche: quella ra-
zionalistico-meccanicistica e quella corpuscolarista e sperimentale (the con-
frontation between two different epistemological and philosophical concep-
tions: rationalist-mechanistic, on the one hand, and corpuscularist and exper-
imental, on the other hand)» (Id.,
Dalle “sensate esperienze” all’ermeneutica biblica
,
cit., p. 317). Here we are mainly focusing on the “rationalist” and “experimen-
talist” aspects of the positions taken; this is not to say, however, that, for an
in-depth treatment of the issues, the other aspects could be ignored.
513
If “summing up” is the appropriate term for something that is placed at
the beginning, with the rhetorical effect of immediately framing the debate in
terms defined by Spinoza, rather than at the end of the argument, as logical or
necessary consequences.
514
Lewis also noted: «Spinoza assigned experimentation to the first type of
knowledge. Experimentation is not accorded the certainty of reason much less
intuition. Experimentation is only knowledge “from symbols”, that is, “opin-
ion or “imagination”» (Id.,
Baruch Spinoza
, cit., p. 248).
515
For Spinoza’s metaphysical grounding of «homogeneity» of matter in
«Substance», see
ibid.
, p. 250.
516
In
Letter 13,
Spinoza is even more pointed: «[…] we can quite easily ex-
plain all the phenomena of Nitre […], while regarding Nitre as a homogene-