Spinoza and the Claims of Meaning: "A Word to the Wise"

In the context of contemporary debates about methods of reading, this essay moves between the theory of biblical exegesis Spinoza articulates in his Theological-Political Treatise and the geometrical "style" of the Ethics in order to outline a properly Spinozist theory of reading, one centered on a tension between the immanence of a process of meaning and the transcendence of a despotically ordained truth. It considers the style of the Ethics in light of this tension, in particular the possibility that the language of the text can be read as allegorical. In conclusion, the essay returns to the Theological-Political Treatise to comment on the relationship between questions of textual interpretation and those of force and persuasion, pointing to the way authority is constructed in both textual and political matters.