Spinoza’s Language

Abstract

In this article, I analyze Spinoza’s philosophical language use. Arguing against David Savan, according to whom Spinoza’s own conception of language sits so uncomfortably with his epistemology that he bars himself from putting his philosophy into words, I study the basic conditions under which Spinoza thinks that there can be any such thing as a successful philosophical language, what conceptual resources Spinoza’s philosophy make available to him for constructing such a language, and the systematic role the geometrical method has to play in this regard.