Spinoza

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Spinoza

• PHI 185

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Substance

• A technical term in metaphysics
• A logical subject referred to in judgments
• The bearer of properties
• Persists through changes
• An independent thing
• Something indestructable

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Descartes Substance

• Does not apply univocally to God and his
  creatures.
• By substance we can understand nothing other
  than a thing which exists in such a way as to
  depend on no other thing for its existence.
  (Principles I, 51)
• Only one depends on no otherGod.

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Descartes Substance

• In the case of all other substances, we perceive
  that they exist only with the help of Gods
  concurrence. (Principles I, 51)
• In the case of created things, some are of such
  a nature that they cannot exist without other
  things, while some need only the ordinary
  concurrence of God in order to exist.
• Former are substances latter are qualities

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Descartes Substance

• The term substance applies univocally to mind
  and body
• Corporeal substance and created thinking
  substance need only the concurrence of God to
  exist.
• We come to know a substance through its attributes

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Questions for Descartes

• What is the relation between God and created
  substances?
• God is a thinking substance, but not extended.
• How does God interact with the corporeal world?
• In what sense is God omnipresent but not extended?

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Questions for Descartes

• What is the relation between corporeal substance
  and created thinking substance?
• Immaterial things have no mass, location,
  surface, size.
• How could an immaterial thing interact with a
  material thing?

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Spinoza and Substance

• How does Spinoza understand the relation between
  God and creations?
• How does Spinoza understand the relation between
  mind and body?

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Method

• Both Descartes and Spinoza interested in the
  improvement of the intellect.
• Both Descartes and Spinoza reduce certainty to
  that found in logical necessity.
• Both Descartes and Spinoza emphasize the
  Geometric method
• Meditations synthetic presentation
• Ethics analytic presentation

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Method

• Descartes reduces our beliefs to certainty
  through the method of doubt
• Spinoza starts with axioms and definition and
  deduces the rest of the theory.

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Rationality

• Descartes God is a rational thinking substance
  and God
• Creates the world to be rationally ordered
• Creates rational minds with intellectual
  abilities to come to understand the world
• Spinoza How do we explain Gods intentions? Why
  this world and not some other?

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Definitions

• Self-caused
• Finite in its own kind
• Substance
• Attribute
• Mode
• God
• Free
• Eternity

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Axioms

• a1. in themselves or in something else.
• a2. conceived in themselves or through something
  else.
• a3. Cause and effect
• a4. Knowledge of an effect
• a5. not understood through each other
• a6. A true idea
• a7. Essence and existence

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There Is At Least One Substance

• Suppose God does not exist. (assumption)
• If a thing can be conceived as not existing its
  essence does not involve existence. (a7)
• So, Gods essence does not include existence.
• Existence belongs to the nature of substance.
  (p7)
• So, Gods essence does not include existence.
• (3) contradicts (5) and assumption (1) is false.
• So, God necessarily exists. (p11)

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There Is At Most One Substance

• If God exists, then God has infinite (i.e.,
  every) attribute. (d6)
• God necessarily exists. (p11)
• No two substances can have the same attributes.
  (p5)
• So, there can be no other substance but God. (p14)

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p4 Required for p5

• All things are either in themselves or in
  something else. (a1)
• Those which are in themselves are substances.
  (d3)
• Those which are in something else are affections
  of substances. (d5)
• So, all things are either substances or
  affections of substance.
• So, the only way to distinguish things is by
  attribute or affection.
• So, two or more things are distinguished from one
  another either (a) by difference of attributes or
  (b) by difference of affections. (p4)

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Argument for p5

• Distinct things are distinguished either by
  attribute or affection. (p4)
• Difference in attribute is irrelevant to p5.
  (Could two substances have the same attribute?)
• Suppose two substance have same attribute and
  different affections.
• A substance is that which is in itself and is
  conceived through itself. (d3)
• A true idea must agree with its object. (a6)
• So, substance must be considered apart from their
  affections.
• Then the substances have the same nature and are
  indistinguishable.
• Then there cannot be two substances.
• But (9) contradicts (3) and assumption (3) is
  false.
• So, no two substances can have the same
  attribute. (p5)

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Could Two Substances Have the Same Attribute?

• Consider two substances.
• If they have the same attributes and same
  affections, there arent really two, but one
  substance.
• If they have the same attributes and different
  affections, then there is no necessary difference
  between them and there arent really two, but one
  substance.

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Only One substance?

• To say that God is absolutely infinite (d6) is to
  say that God is without limits.
• Another substance with the same attribute would
  be indistinguishable from God, even if it had
  different affections.
• Another substance with different attributes would
  limit God.
• So there couldnt be another substance.

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Two Traditional Arguments

• The Causal Argument for Gods existence
• There must have been a first cause, i.e., God
• But if God can have no beginning or cause why
  couldnt the universe?
• What could a first (uncaused) event be like? Was
  it motivated? How do we understand the
  psychology of a creator who acts to create
  something?

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Two Traditional Arguments

• The Contingency Argument for Gods existence
• There must be an ultimate explanation sufficient
  for the state of the universe right now.
• That explanation must itself be self-explanatory
  and also serve to explain everything else.

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Two Traditional Arguments

• The Contingency Argument for Gods existence
• Principle of Sufficient Reason for every fact
  there is a sufficient explanation
  (self-explanatory and necessary, or explained by
  something else and contingent).

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Spinozas View

• As in the Contingency Argument the ultimate
  explanation is God
• A necessary being
• A self-explanatory being
• Everything depends (logically, not
  psychologically or causally) on God
• What depends on God is also necessary

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God and the World

• Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be
  conceived without God. (p15)
• Particular things are nothing but affections of
  the attributes of God. (p25c)

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Gods Relation to the World

• God acts solely from the laws of his own nature,
  constrained by none. (p17)
• God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of
  all things. (p18)

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Necessity

• Nothing in nature is contingent, but all things
  are from the necessity of the divine nature
  determined to exist and to act in a definite way.
  (p29)
• Things could not have been produced by God in any
  other way or in any other order than is the case.
  (p33)

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Free Will

• God alone is a free cause. For God alone exists
  solely from the necessity of his own nature.
  (p17c2)
• Will cannot be called a free cause, but only a
  necessary cause. (p32)

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God and Nature

• God is not a personal being.
• God does not act through intentions or for
  reasons.
• There are no final causes.

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Questions for Descartes

• What is the relation between God and created
  substances?
• God is a thinking substance, but not extended.
• How does God interact with the corporeal world?
• In what sense is God omnipresent but not
  extended?
• How does Spinoza understand the relation between
  God and creations?

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Rationality

• Descartes God is a rational thinking substance
  and God
• Creates the world to be rationally ordered
• Creates rational minds with intellectual
  abilities to come to understand the world
• Spinoza How do we explain Gods intentions? Why
  this world and not some other?

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DescartesDualism

• Material things
• Extension is the attribute or essence
• Can imagine/understand a material object without
  thinking
• Divisible
• Can explain every physical property in terms of
  smaller extended parts
• Impact mechanics no attractive forces

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DescartesDualism

• Mind
• Thinking is the attribute or essence
• Can imagine/understand a mind without extension

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DescartesDualism

• What is the relation between corporeal substance
  and created thinking substance?
• Not like a sailor in a ship
• A commingling
• A minds special relationship with one body
• I and my body constitute one single thing.

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DescartesDualism

• What is the relation between corporeal substance
  and created thinking substance?
• Immaterial things have no mass, location,
  surface, size.
• How could an immaterial thing interact with a
  material thing?
• The pineal gland and animal spirits

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Spinoza

• One substance with infinite attributes
• Mind and body are attributes of the one substance
• Conceptually distinct attributes
• Two ways to understand the same thing

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Mind and Body

• Body - a mode that expresses in a definite and
  determinate way Gods essence insofar as he is
  considered as an extended thing. (IId1)
• Idea - a conception of the Mind which the Mind
  forms because it is a thinking thing. (IId3)

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Parallelism

• The order and connection of ideas is the same as
  the order and connection of things. (IIp7)
• For every idea there is an object.
• For every object there is an idea.
• Is there a one-to-one correspondence?

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Mind and Body

• Ideas are representations
• That which constitutes the actual being of the
  human mind is basically nothing else but the idea
  of an individual actually existing thing. (IIp11)
• The object of the idea constituting the human
  mind is the body (IIp13)

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Double Aspect Theory

• mind and body--are one and the same individual
  thing, conceived now under the attribute of
  Thought and now under the attribute of
  Extension. (IIp21s)

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Beyond Parallelism

• For every object there is an idea of that object.
  
• Omniscience, no gaps in Gods knowledge
• For every idea there is an object.
• Infallibility, no errors in Gods thought

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Dualism or Materialism?

• Is Spinoza a conceptual dualist rather than a
  substance dualist?
• Does Spinoza give priority to the material?
• The essence of the mind is to represent the body.
• More discussion of how mind reflects the
  affections of the body than of the opposite.
• Greater priority to knowledge of the body.

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Ethics

• How could Spinoza both commit to determinism
  without free will and also attempt to formulate
  an ethical system?
• Naturalism and Morality
• Determinism and normativity
• Can psychology and biology (etc.) explain
  morality?

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Descartes

• Controlling the passions by reason
• Avoid misuse find usefulness of passions
• Contentment of mind and inner satisfaction the
  Stoic goal by which we should guide our conduct.
• What about ones relationship with others, with
  society?

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Hobbes

• Self-interest (egoism) and people in the state of
  nature
• The good is what we desire Whatsoever is
  voluntarily done, is done for the good to him
  that wills it.

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Hobbes

• Mans natural condition is like war the notions
  of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no
  place.
• Self-interest (self-preservation) motivates one
  to subordinate individual desires to those of
  society (social contract).

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Spinoza Conatus

• The striving for self-preservation found in all
  nature
• Each thing, as far as it can by its own power,
  strives to persevere in its being. (IIIp6)
• Compare with a tendency of bodies to remain in
  state of rest or uniform motion (Descartes)
• Compare with Hobbes natural striving for
  self-preservation

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The Good

• we neither strive for, nor will, neither want
  nor desire, anything because we judge it to be
  good on the contrary, we judge something to be
  good because we strive for it, will it, want it,
  desire it. (IIIp9s)
• The subjectivity of good and evil

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Shift to Objectivity

• Perfection originally meant finished according
  to a plan
• but there is no maker or plan
• still we must retain these words. Forwe desire
  to form an idea of man, as a model of human
  nature, which we may look to.
• Good known means to approach model
• Evil known means preventing us

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Acting from Ones Essence

• Joy increase in perfection or the capacity to
  be active
• Sadness decrease in perfection or the capacity
  to be active
• Free to the degree one is determined to action by
  its own nature.
• Bondage is mans lack of power to moderate and
  restrain the affects.

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Virtue

• By virtue and power I understand the same thing,
  i.e., virtue, insofar as it is related to man, is
  the very essence, or nature, of man, insofar as
  he has the power of bringing about certain
  things, which can be understood through the laws
  of his nature alone. (IVd8)

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Knowledge of God/Nature

• The Greatest Good Knowledge and Love of God
• We shall determine, by the minds knowledge
  alone, the remedies for the affects. (V preface)

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Knowledge as Therapy

• Knowledge shows us how little we know about what
  affected us.
• Knowledge shows us the necessity of all things.

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Exam 1

• Write a two page essay for (each of) two of the
  following
• In what ways (what concepts, issues, methods,
  assumptions) can we say that Spinozas views are
  extensions of Descartes?
• Compare the philosophical role that God plays in
  both Descartes and Spinozas thought.
• What does each philosopher take substance to be
  and how does that concept figure into their
  theories about the mind and the physical world.
• What common views do the two philosophers
  maintain about the nature and scope of knowledge?
• Demonstrate your understanding the relevant
  issues, arguments, objections, and positions that
  we discussed in class.