Anonymous Timed Writing
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Consider this statement:
“I am satisfied with the course so far.”
• 1. Strongly agree
• 2. Agree
• 3. Neutral
• 4. Disagree
• 5. Strongly disagree
Write the number and briefly explain what
you like most and least about the course or
any comments and suggestions you may
have.
The Significance of Spinoza
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The first modern
philosopher?
Understanding
the Emotions is
central
The Ethics of
Love is central
Background to Spinoza:
Descartes’ Philosophy
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Spinoza will
criticize:
• Cartesian dualism
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View of God
View of humans
• The nature of error
• The understanding
of emotions
• On God and Nature
see p. 167-68
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza
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1632: b. Amsterdam
Rabbinical education
1656:
excommunicated for
unorthodoxy
1663: Descartes’
Principles of
Philosophy
1670: TheologicoPolitical Treatise
1677: Death
1678: Publication of
Ethics
From the formal record of
Spinoza’s excommunication:
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“Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be
he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up;
cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be
he
when he comes in. The Lord will not pardon him; the anger
and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring
upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the
Law, and the Lord will destroy his name from under the
Heavens.”
• From: A. Wolf, ed., The Oldest Biography of Spinoza (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1927), 146.
Approaching the Ethics
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“To be a philosopher you must first be a
Spinozist: if you have no Spinozism, you
have no philosophy.” Hegel
“Indisputable masterpiece” J. Bennett
“One of the major and most influential
works in philosophy” E. Curley
“All things excellent are as difficult as
they are rare.” Spinoza
Why Demonstrated in
Geometrical Order?
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“It is the nature of reason to
perceive things under a certain
species of eternity.” e2p44c2
“For the eyes of the mind, by
which it sees and observes
things, are demonstrations.”
e5p23s
Part One: Concerning God
(Metaphysics)
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Central definitions (Part I):
Substance
Attributes
Modes
(Monism)
(Property-Dualism)
(Pantheism)
Deus sive Natura (God, or in other words
Nature): Nature is a unified whole, and we
must grasp the nature of this whole before
we can understand the parts.
Self-caused, existing, necessarily infinite,
indivisible, extended (corporeal),
immutable, infinitely powerful, without
freedom of will, immanent cause
Which are most controversial?
Central Propositions
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Prop. 5: In the universe there
cannot be two or more substances of
the same nature or attribute.
Why?
Because then nothing could possibly
distinguish them.
Prop. 7: It belongs to the nature of
substance to exist.
Ontological Proofs of God’s
Existence
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Prop. 11: God, or substance consisting of
infinite attributes, each of which expresses
eternal and infinite essence, necessarily
exists.
Reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to the
absurd”—assume the opposite of what you
want to prove and derive a contradiction or
absurdity, thus proving the affirmative)
God doesn’t exist.
Therefore his essence doesn’t involve
existence. (contra. Prop. 7)
Thus, God exists.
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An a posteriori proof:
Axiom: to be able not to exist is a weakness; to be
able to exist is a power.
If what necessarily exists is only finite entities, then
they are more powerful than an absolutely infinite
entity, which is absurd.
Thus, since we exist, so must an absolutely infinite
entity.
Prop. 14: There can be, or be conceived, no other
substance but God.
A perfect substance possesses all attributes. (def. 6)
There can’t be more than one substance possessing
an attribute. (prop. 5)
Thus, only one perfect substance exists, since there
are no attributes left over for another substance.
Determinism: e1p25-33
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Everything that happens is determined by
two factors—the standing nature of God (i.e.
the laws of nature) and previous conditions
likewise determined back through infinite
time
Central propositions: 25 & 29 & 33
A problem? Props. 23 & 28
Appendix on Human Prejudices: Against the
Doctrine of Final Causes, i.e., that Nature
has an end (or that God has a will)—this
doctrine negates the perfection of God
Advantages of Determinism
(E2p49sIV)
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1. Teaches us to act solely in
accordance with the command of God
and participate in divine nature
Also, calmness of mind and
blessedness
2. Proper attitude towards fortune
3. Social life: teaches us to hate no
one, despise no one…be content and
help our neighbors
4. Society in general: how citizens
should be governed—not as slaves,
but as free men
Part Two: On the Nature and Origin
of the Mind
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Philosophy of Mind, Theory of Knowledge
(Epistemology), Philosophy of Science
What are the two known attributes of God?
Thought and Extension
Descartes and the Mind/Body Problem
Spinoza’s solution: mind-body identity theory and
psychophysical parallelism
The mind is just the idea of the body, i.e., a
mode of thought that is identical with the body
and has the body as its object.
Because each is causally self-contained, there is
no question of bodily events causing mental ones
or vice versa.
Part Two: Central Propositions
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Prop. 7: The order and connection of ideas is the
same as the order and connection of things.
Prop. 11: The first thing that constitutes the
actual being of the human mind is simply the
idea of some particular thing which actually
exists.
Corollary: The human mind is part of the infinite
intellect of God.
Prop. 13: the object of the idea constituting the
human mind is the body, or, a certain actually
existing mode of extension, and nothing else.
Epistemology
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Criterion of truth: an adequate idea: Def. 4
Nature of Falsity (error, sin):
Prop. 35: Falsity consists in the privation of
knowledge which inadequate, i.e. mutilated and
confused, ideas involve.
Falsity is not a positive characteristic of ideas,
but rather a kind of privation or mutilation.
Because things must be understood through their
causes, an idea of a thing that doesn’t include
knowledge of its cause is incomplete and partial.
Examples: “Humans are free.” “The sun is 200
feet away.”
Three Kinds of Knowledge
(E2p40s2)
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First, Opinion or Imagination
Disorganized, confused knowledge from senses
and experience. (Only source of falsity)
Second, Reason
Understand essential properties of things clearly
and distinctly; understand causal process and
how things follow deductively.
Third, Intuition
To “see” self-evident truths without explicit
conscious processes of reasoning.
An example: A common property of proportionals
1, 2, 3, …?