NEWTON AND SPINOZA: ON MOTION AND MATTER (AND GOD,OF COURSE)

This study explores several arguments against Spinoza's philosophy that were developed by Henry More, Samuel Clarke, and Colin Maclaurin. In the arguments on which I focus, More, Clarke, and Maclaurin aim to establish the existence of an immaterial and intelligent God precisely by showing that Spinoza does not have the resources to adequately explain the origin of motion. Attending to these criticisms grants us a deeper appreciation for how the authority derived from the empirical success of Newton's enterprise was used to settle debates within philosophy. What I emphasize is that in the progression from More to Clarke to Maclaurin, key Newtonian concepts from the Principia (1687), such as motion, atomism, and the vacuum, are introduced and exploited in order to challenge the account of matter and motion that is presented in Spinoza's Ethics (1677). Building on this treatment, I use the arguments from More and Clarke especially to help discern the anti‐Spinozism that can be detected in Newton's General Scholium (1713). Ultimately, the Newtonian criticisms that I detail offer us a more nuanced view of the problems that plague Spinoza's philosophy, and they also challenge the idea that Spinoza seamlessly fits into a progressive narrative about the scientific revolution.     

‘Disempowered by Nature’: Spinoza on The Political Capabilities of Women

This paper examines Spinoza's remarks on women in the Political Treatise in the context of his views in the Ethics about human community and similitude. Although these remarks appear to exclude women from democratic participation on the basis of essential incapacities, I aim to show that Spinoza intended these remarks not as true statements, but as prompts for critical consideration of the place of women in the progressive democratic polity. In common with other scholars, I argue that women, in Spinoza's system, are deprived of freedom and political participation not by their essential natures, but by their social and historical circumstances. I differ from other scholars, however, in basing this conclusion on the different critical functions of the Political Treatise and the Ethics. Following that critical comparison, I consider Spinoza's views on the `natural right' of women and their equal capacity for political participation in terms of his arguments for the compositional similarity of men and women. Finally, I argue that Spinoza offers an explanation for women's actual disempowerment through his account of economic dependence within marriage.     

Was Spinoza a Naturalist?

In this article I dispute the claim, made by several contemporary scholars, that Spinoza was a naturalist. ‘Naturalism’ here refers to two distinct but related positions in contemporary philosophy. The first, ontological naturalism, is the view that everything that exists possesses a certain character (variously defined) permitting it to be defined as natural and prohibiting it from being defined as supernatural. I argue that the only definition of ontological naturalism that could be legitimately applied to Spinoza's philosophy is so unrestrictive as to tell us nothing about the content of his ideas. The second, methodological naturalism, is the view that the natural sciences are the best means of finding out substantial truths about the concrete world. I present some historical research showing that Spinoza's way of positioning himself with respect to other philosophers in the Dutch Republic casts very serious doubt on the claim that he was a methodological naturalist. This adds further weight to arguments that have already been made against the naturalist reading of Spinoza.     

Spinoza on Composition,Causation, and the Mind's Eternity

Spinoza's doctrine of the eternity of the mind is often understood as the claim that the mind has a part that is eternal. I appeal to two principles that Spinoza takes to govern parthood and causation to raise a new problem for this reading. Spinoza takes the composition of one thing from many to require causal interaction among the many. Yet he also holds that eternal things cannot causally interact, without mediation, with things in duration. So the human mind, since it is the idea of a body existing in duration, cannot have an eternal part. In order to solve this problem, I propose an aspectual reading of Spinoza's doctrine of the eternity of the mind: the mind itself is eternal, under one of its aspects.     

Structural causality in Spinoza's Ethics

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza's claim at E1P15 that “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God” remains exegetically troubling. Briefly noting some unresolved difficulties with the two dominant interpretations of Spinoza's account of the relationship between finite modes and God (these being the inherence and causal dependence readings), I move to claim that there is a third, neglected reading available which deserves consideration. I argue that, perhaps surprisingly, Althusser's notion of “structural causality,” putatively derived from Spinoza himself, can be used to construct this reading. Althusser's original notion of “structural causality” is explained and clarified further, its advantages outlined over competing readings of Spinoza, and exegetical evidence for its applicability to Spinoza is then produced.     

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

My project in this paper is to fill a gap in Spinoza's theory of metaphysical individuation. In a few brief passages of the Ethics, Spinoza manages to explain his views on the nature of composition and the part-whole relation, the metaphysical facts which ground the individuation of simple bodies and the extended individuals they compose, and the persistence of one and the same individual through time and mereological change. Yet Spinoza nowhere presents a corresponding account of the individuation of simple ideas, or the minds such ideas compose. While it is initially tempting to locate the details of such an account in Spinoza's views on the relation between the mental and physical domains, I argue here that such approaches fail, in conflicting with Spinoza's insistence that the mental and the physical are conceptually and explanatorily independent. By contrast, I show that for Spinoza, each idea essentially possesses the property of affirming the existence of its object, and that such properties are well-suited to serve as the principle of ideal individuation Spinoza never explicitly provided.     

When Does Truth Matter? Spinoza on the Relation between Theology and Philosophy

One of the aims of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico‐Politicus is to vindicate the view that philosophy and theology are separate forms of enquiry, neither of which has any authority over the other. However, many commentators have objected that this aspect of his project fails. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Spinoza implicitly gives epistemological precedence to philosophy. I argue that this objection misunderstands the nature of Spinoza's position and wrongly charges him with inconsistency. To show how he can coherently allow both that theology and philosophy employ independent epistemological standards, and that philosophy is epistemologically superior to theology, we need to step back from the immediate disputes to which the Tractatus is a response and examine a Ciceronian distinction on which Spinoza indirectly draws. As well as enabling us to vindicate Spinoza's position, it places his alleged naturalism in a new light and portrays philosophizing as a form of piety.     

A Tale of Two Thinkers,One Meeting,and Three Degrees of Infinity: Leibniz and Spinoza (1675–8)

The article presents Leibniz's preoccupation (in 1675–6) with the difference between the notion of infinite number, which he regards as impossible, and that of the infinite being, which he regards as possible. I call this issue ‘Leibniz's Problem’ and examine Spinoza's solution to a similar problem that arises in the context of his philosophy. ‘Spinoza's solution’ is expounded in his letter on the infinite (Ep.12), which Leibniz read and annotated in April 1676. The gist of Spinoza's solution is to distinguish between three kinds of infinity and, in particular, between one that applies to substance, and one that applies to numbers, seen as auxiliaries of the imagination. The rest of the paper examines the extent to which Spinoza's solution solves Leibniz's problem. The main thesis I advance is that, when Spinoza and Leibniz say that the divine substance is infinite, in most contexts it is to be understood in non-numerical and non-quantitative terms. Instead, for Spinoza and Leibniz, a substance is said to be infinite in a qualitative sense stressing that it is complete, perfect and indivisible. I argue that this approach solves one strand of Leibniz's problem and leaves another unsolved.     

Two Kinds of Definition in Spinoza's Ethics

Spinoza scholars have claimed that we are faced with a dilemma: either Spinoza's definitions in his Ethics are real, in spite of indications to the contrary, or the definitions are nominal and the propositions derived from them are false. I argue that Spinoza did not recognize the distinction between real and nominal definitions. Rather, Spinoza classified definitions according to whether they require a priori or a posteriori justification, which is a classification distinct from either the real/nominal or the intensional/extensional classification. I argue that Spinoza uses both a priori and a posteriori definitions in the Ethics and that recognizing both types of definitions allows us to understand Spinoza's geometric method in a new way. We can now understand the geometric method as two methods, one resulting in propositions that Spinoza considers to be absolutely certain and another resulting in propositions that Spinoza does not consider certain. The latter method makes use of a posteriori definitions and postulates, whereas the former method uses only a priori definitions and axioms.     

CAUSALITY, INTENSIONALITY AND IDENTITY: MIND BODY INTERACTION IN SPINOZA

According to Spinoza mental events and physical events are identical. What makes Spinoza's identity theory tempting is that it solves the problem of mind body interaction rather elegantly: mental events and physical events can be causally related to each other because mental events are physical events. However, Spinoza seems to deny that there is any causal interaction between mental and physical events. My aim is to show that Spinoza's apparent denial of mind body interaction can be reconciled with the identity theory. I argue that Spinoza had both an extensional and an intensional concept of cause and when Spinoza seems to deny mind body interaction he is having in mind the intensional concept of cause. This intensional concept of cause corresponds to that of causal explanation. I will argue that Spinoza anticipated Donald Davidson's view that even though mental events cannot be explained by referring to physical events and vice versa, mental and physical events are causally related to each other.     

The Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms: Miracles,Monotheism, and Reason in Spinoza

Spinoza insists in the Theological Political Treatise that philosophy and theology are two separate kingdoms. I argue here that there is a basis in the psychology of the Ethics for one of the major components of the doctrine of the two kingdoms. Under the kingdom of theology, religion's principal function is to overcome the influence of harmful passion that prevents people from living life according to a fixed plan: people can live according to a fixed plan because they can obey. Through a series of arguments I show that Spinoza takes obedience to arise through devotion; devotion to associate with ideas of miracles and imaginative monotheism; and these ideas to be imaginative ideas of singular objects. On the psychology of the Ethics, ideas of this sort, although highly irrational, nevertheless give minds a power to resist harmful passion similar to that of ideas of reason. Although problems remain for the interpretation of the doctrine of the two kingdoms, this argument shows that Spinoza's psychology grounds his claim that theology, although different from philosophy, can help us to live well.     

Fixing Descartes: Ethical Intellectualism in Spinoza's Early Writings

This paper aims at reconstructing the ethical issues raised by Spinoza's early Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Specifically, I argue that Spinoza takes issue with Descartes’ epistemology in order to support a form of “ethical intellectualism” in which knowledge is envisaged as both necessary and sufficient to reach the supreme good. First, I reconstruct how Descartes exploits the distinction between truth and certainty in his Discourse on the Method. On the one hand, this distinction acts as the basis for Descartes’ epistemological rules while, on the other hand, it implies a “morale par provision” in which adequate knowledge is not strictly necessary to practice virtue. Second, I show that Spinoza rejects the distinction between truth and certainty and thus the methodological doubt. This move leads Spinoza to substitute the Cartesian Cogito with the idea of God as the only adequate standard of knowledge, through which the mind can attain the rules to reach the supreme good. Third, I demonstrate that in the Short Treatise Spinoza develops this view by equating intellect and will and thus maintaining that only adequate knowledge can help to contrast affects. However, I also insist that Spinoza's early epistemology is unable to explain why human beings drop conceive of the idea of God inadequately. Thus, I suggest that in his later writings Spinoza accounts for the insufficiency of adequate knowledge in opposing the power of the imagination and passions by reconnecting the nature of ideas with the mind's conatus.     

IDENTITY AND DISTINCTION IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS1

Abstract: In Ethics 1p5, Spinoza asserts that “In Nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute”. This claim serves as a crucial premise in Spinoza's argument for substance monism, yet Spinoza's demonstration of the 1p5 claim is surprisingly brief and appears to have obvious difficulties. This paper answers the principle difficulties that have been raised in response to Spinoza's argument for 1p5. The key to understanding the 1p5 argument lies in a proper understanding of the substance‐attribute relationship and the principles of metaphysical individuation that Spinoza accepts.     

On religious and cultural objects: Articulate and inarticulate bodies in Spinoza's philosophy of nature

Spinoza's philosophy is often overlooked when it comes to thinking about matters concerning art and culture. While recent work has done much to address this, his philosophy remains ambiguously related to the theorisation of things such as temples, poems, and paintings. This article argues that it is by turning to Spinoza's theorisation of the sacred in the Theological‐Political Treatise, that we can best derive his philosophical position on culture and its objects. I argue that Spinoza locates the sanctity of a religious object–what he calls its “articulateness”–in its particular use‐relation with a people. In a similar manner, Spinoza locates the “meaning” and articulateness of words in the use that people make of them, thereby secularising the sanctification process for cultural objects. I argue that this relation of “use” between cultural‐religious objects and human beings and their societies is the way in which we can best discern Spinoza's philosophical position regarding art and culture, as well as further develop his potential contribution to cultural and art theory.     

Spinoza on the Limits of Explanation

Commentators standardly ascribe to Spinoza a belief in an exceptionless conceptual closure of mental and physical realms: no intention can allow us to understand a bodily movement, no bodily injury can make intelligible a sensation of pain. This counterintuitive doctrine, most often now referred to as Spinoza's 'attribute barrier', has weighty repercussions for his views on intelligibility, nature of the mind, identity, and causality. I argue against the standard reading of the doctrine, by showing that it produces an inconsistent epistemological picture, contradicting Spinoza's theory of mind and his commitment to universal intelligibility. The alternative account I propose is also philosophically more compelling and plausible as an account of thought in its essential intentionality.     

Spinoza on Essences,Universals, and Beings of Reason

The article proposes a new solution to the long‐standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind‐dependent species‐essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities (‘agreements’) that obtain among the properties of formally‐real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's other metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The article offers new readings of how Spinoza understands not just the nature of essence, but also the nature of being, reason, striving, definitions, and different kinds of knowledge.     

Two Puzzles Concerning Spinoza's Conception of Belief

Spinoza's account of belief entails that if A has two ideas, p and q, with incompatible content, A believes that p (and not that q) if the idea of p is stronger than the idea of q. This seems to leave little space for dominant non‐beliefs, or cases in which there is discord between one's beliefs and one's affective‐behavioral responses. And yet Spinoza does allow for two classes of dominant non‐beliefs: efficacious fictions [fictiones] and ideas that conduce to akrasia. I show how Spinoza can account for dominant non‐beliefs within his model of cognition by distinguishing between the doxastic and the affective powers of ideas and by suggesting that doxastic power is best understood diachronically. While other scholars have stressed the elegance of Spinoza's account of ideas, this paper highlights the sophistication and flexibility of his account.     

Spinoza on Counterpossible Inferences

As part of his geometrical method, Spinoza uses inferences involving impossibilities: what would follow if some impossibility were true. This paper examines a puzzle surrounding his use of such ‘counterpossible’ inferences. The puzzle consists of Spinoza's apparent acceptance of the following three claims: that counterpossible inferences can produce knowledge; that inference‐making produces knowledge only on the basis of a transition between ideas; and that counterpossible inferences are unthinkable. I argue for a solution to this puzzle, which interprets Spinoza's geometrical method as a form of syntactical manipulation.     

The First Antinomy and Spinoza

Scholars commonly assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism. However, in his later writings Kant argues several times that Spinozism is the most consistent form of transcendental realism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the first Antinomy, debating the age and size of the world, already reflects Kant's confrontation with Spinozist metaphysics. Specifically, the position articulated in the Antithesis – according to which the world is infinite and uncreated – is Spinozist, not Leibnizian, as commonly assumed. In the second part of the paper, I raise the chief Spinozist challenge to the Antinomy, arising from Spinoza's reliance on a cosmological `totum analyticum' – an infinite whole which is prior to its parts. In conclusion, I begin to elaborate a defence of the Kantian position, confronting Spinoza's infinite whole with Kant's account of the absolutely infinite in his discussion of the sublime.