ABSTRACT

I propose a new interpretation of Spinoza’s obscure but important concept of ‘expression’. Any account of Spinozistic expression must be able to fulfil two principal requirements. First, it must be able to accommodate all the relevant cases of ‘to express’ (exprimire) posited by Spinoza in the Ethics. Second, it must be able to deal with the fact that for Spinoza all instances of ‘to express’ are instances of ‘to involve’ (involvere). By taking both ‘to express’ and ‘to involve’ as coextensive with ‘to conceive’, contemporary accounts of Spinozistic expression satisfy the latter requirement, but they fail to satisfy the former. In this article, I dispute the claim that for Spinoza ‘to express’ is coextensive with ‘to conceive’. I argue instead that Spinoza understands exprimire as natural signification: for Spinoza, ‘to express’ is coextensive with ‘to be a natural sign of’. I show that this interpretation is not only able to successfully deal with both requirements of Spinozistic expression, but also offers a novel and textually supported insight to Spinoza’s understanding and use of the elusive concept of ‘expression’.

摘要

我对斯宾诺莎晦涩但重要的“表达”概念提出了一种新的解释。任何对斯宾诺莎式表达的解释都必须能够满足两个主要要求。首先，它必须能够容纳斯宾诺莎在《伦理学》中提出的所有“表达”（ exprimire ）的相关案例。其次，它必须能够处理这样一个事实，即对于斯宾诺莎来说，所有“表达”的实例都是“涉及”的实例（涉及）。通过将“表达”和“参与”都视为与“构思”同延，当代对斯宾诺莎式表达的解释满足了后者的要求，但未能满足前者。在这篇文章中，我对斯宾诺莎的“表达”与“构思”同延的说法提出异议。相反，我认为斯宾诺莎将 exprimire理解为自然意义：对斯宾诺莎来说，“表达”与“成为”的自然符号同延。我表明，这种解释不仅能够成功地处理斯宾诺莎式表达的两个要求，而且还为斯宾诺莎对难以捉摸的“表达”概念的理解和使用提供了一种新颖且有文本支持的洞察力。