L'auteur, en suivant la voie d'une généalogie du signe, repense la théorie de l'imagination qui, selon Spinoza, s'enracine dans la puissance du corps, se révélant indissociable d'une herméneutique.

Instead of reading Spinoza's account of the imagination in an anthropocentric way, as dependent on the traditional doctrine of human faculties, the author considers it as a consequence of his physics and cosmology. Knowledge by signs, as Spinoza calls imagination, has to be rooted in his theory of marks and images, and concerns all beings (human and non human) that are capable of marking and being marked by other bodies in the infinite semiosis of nature.

Versé autant dans les arts libéraux que dans les arts mécaniques, Spinoza fut aussi tailleur de verre à Amsterdam, sans doute acteur de théâtre, probablement dessinateur. Il fréquenta la boutique d'antiquaire de Franciscus Van den Enden et fut proche de la société des arts Nil volentibus arduum ; il habitait non loin de Rembrandt et Potter et appréciait la compagnie de peintres et de décorateurs. Élaborée au coeur du siècle d'or de la peinture hollandaise, cette philosophie a souvent inspiré les (...) artistes. Comment expliquer un tel regard non philosophique sur une philosophie qui ne présente pas une pensée développée sur les arts? Comment expliquer qu'on ait tenté d'emprunter les voies de l'esthétique pour pénétrer une philosophie qui ne constitue pas ce champ de réflexion en un domaine autonome? (shrink)

The distinction between philosophical and prophetic revelation, the separation between philosophy and theology, the theory of truth and certainty, and the passages of the KV dedicated to divine revelation all depend on signs. The Platonic etymology that combines sema and soma links the philosophical destiny of the sign to that of the body, providing the fundamental opening to the long history of dualism between body and soul. Spinoza stresses the importance of distinguishing between imagination and intellection. To think of Spinoza's (...) epistemology means to insert correctly the infinite bodies modified in infinite ways into the ontological and cosmological framework. Spinoza's definition of images lies in the physical essence of the mark. Spinoza's semiotics will then appear perhaps less anomalous than it could have seemed at a first sight, even if, for this reason, no less original. (shrink)

God’s gesture. Nature and the origin of the sign in Spinoza. The Author provides the textual and conceptual elements to outline a thought of event in Spinoza’s philosophy. On the one hand necessitas and contingentia are known to exclude one another while, on the other, necessitas and contingere are not opposite. They are the same when seen in relation to the conception of libera necessitas and to the doctrine of the unity of intellect and will. Also, the unity of a (...) thought of concept and a thought of event appears in the definition of revelation, where the problem of the sign becomes crucial in separating philosophy from theology. A comparative study of the texts confirms the influence of Stoicism on the triadic model of the sign, showing that all interpreters give a pragmatic orientation to the sense of signs. The impossibility for any sign to be signum sui is not due to a defect in its nature. The idea of God, in fact, does not itself need any sign to be known, but it is also true that there is no lack of a sign for its linguistic communication. (shrink)