2

I have seen this quote attributed second-hand and I wonder if anyone can document its source. Greatly appreciated.

Dagwood
  • 21
  • 2
  • 3
    sounds almost like something form the tao te ching. sorry, i am dumb –  Sep 30 '23 at 22:56
  • 2
    No, you're absolutely right -- I'm struck by the same similarity – Dagwood Oct 01 '23 at 00:17
  • hahah. it appears on this site but the section on "beneath abstraction" of the tao te ching superposes being nameless ("the way") with being limtless. at least in some translations –  Oct 01 '23 at 00:33
  • klein-hass, one of more than 175 translations here, says: "that which is named is that which is limited" –  Oct 01 '23 at 00:38
  • 1
    No, he did not. The closest is his determinatio est negatio (determination is negation) mentioned in passing in a letter to a friend and made into a quip by Hegel. In liberal translation, it could be "to define is to limit", but the "naming" is not there, and Spinoza is too precise with his language to go for loose Tao-style metaphors. – Conifold Oct 01 '23 at 03:38
  • Thank you so much, Conifold – Dagwood Oct 01 '23 at 12:44

1 Answers1

1

Did Spinoza say,"to name it is to limit it"?

Probably. If he didn’t, he missed the boat, because a Google search pulls up attributions to everyone, everywhere, with the possible exception of Donald Trump. And that is about as specific as I can be.

Mark Andrews
  • 6,240
  • 5
  • 22
  • 40