Spinoza

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Anonymous Timed Writing

• 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.

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The Significance of Spinoza

• The first modern philosopher?
• Understanding the Emotions is central
• The Ethics of Love is central

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Background to Spinoza Descartes Philosophy

• Spinoza will criticize
• Cartesian dualism
• View of God
• View of humans
• The nature of error
• The understanding of emotions
• On God and Nature see p. 167-68

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Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza

• 1632 b. Amsterdam
• Rabbinical education
• 1656 excommunicated for unorthodoxy
• 1663 Descartes Principles of Philosophy
• 1670 Theologico-Political Treatise
• 1677 Death
• 1678 Publication of Ethics

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From the formal record of Spinozas
excommunication

• 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.

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Approaching the Ethics

• 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

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Why Demonstrated in Geometrical Order?

• 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

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Part One Concerning God (Metaphysics)

• Central definitions (Part I)
• Substance (Monism)
• Attributes (Property-Dualism)
• Modes (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?

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Central Propositions

• 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.

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Ontological Proofs of Gods Existence

• 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
  absurdassume the opposite of what you want to
  prove and derive a contradiction or absurdity,
  thus proving the affirmative)
• God doesnt exist.
• Therefore his essence doesnt 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 cant 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.

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Determinism e1p25-33

• Everything that happens is determined by two
  factorsthe 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

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Advantages of Determinism (E2p49sIV)

• 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 onebe content and help our neighbors
• 4. Society in general how citizens should be
  governednot as slaves, but as free men

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Part Two On the Nature and Origin of the Mind

• 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
• Spinozas 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.

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Part Two Central Propositions

• 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.

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Epistemology

• 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
  doesnt include knowledge of its cause is
  incomplete and partial.
• Examples Humans are free. The sun is 200 feet
  away.

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Three Kinds of Knowledge (E2p40s2)

• 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, ?