Long, Christopher P. “The Rhetoric of the Geometrical Method: Spinoza’s Double Strategy,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 34, 4 (2001).
Rather than adopting an uncritical conception of the geometrical method as optimal due to its inherent objectivity, this article delineates the rhetorical power of the geometrical method as it is deployed by Spinoza in the Ethics. Specifically, the article focuses on the first fourteen propositions of the Ethics in order to illustrate how they are strategically set forth in an attempt to draw someone well versed in Cartesian doctrine into an argument intent on undermining the basic premises of the Cartesian metaphysical position.
