Spinoza: Modes

One of the most peculiar features of Spinoza’s philosophy is his radical interpretation of the notion of freedom. Even though it plays a significant role in his metaethics and political philosophy, freedom is, for Spinoza, a deeply metaphysical notion, rooted in the most fundamental features of his ontology. In this paper, I analyze the internal structure that identifies a being as “free” within Spinoza’s metaphysics. I argue that this structure leads to an internal paradox, entailing that the very component that (...) allows a being its freedom – its essence or nature – is itself externally determined. I further proceed to resolve this issue indicating how Spinoza’s metaphysics of freedom can accommodate this paradox. I conclude by presenting possible solutions for both Natura naturans and Natura naturata, attempting to integrate the notion of metaphysical freedom with more familiar images of ethical and epistemological freedom. (shrink)

In this essay, I suggest that Spinoza acknowledges a distinction between formal reality that is infinite and timelessly eternal and formal reality that is non-infinite (i. e., finite or indefinite) and non-eternal (i. e., enduring). I also argue that if, in Spinoza’s system, only intelligible causation is genuine causation, then infinite, timelessly eternal formal reality cannot cause non-infinite, non-eternal formal reality. A denial of eternal-durational causation generates a puzzle, however: if no enduring thing – not even the sempiternal, indefinite individual (...) composed of all finite, enduring things – is caused by the infinite, eternal substance, then how can Spinoza consistently hold that the one infinite, eternal substance is the cause of all things and that all things are modes of that substance? At the end of this essay, I sketch how Spinoza could deny eternal-durational causation while still holding that an infinite, eternal God is the cause of all things and that all things are modes. I develop the interpretation more in the companion essay. (shrink)

An old question in Spinoza scholarship is how finite, non-eternal things transitively caused by other finite, non-eternal things (i. e., the entities described in propositions like E1p28) are caused by the infinite, eternal substance, given that what follows either directly or indirectly from the divine nature is infinite and eternal (E1p21–23). In “Spinoza’s Monism I,” I pointed out that most commentators answer this question by invoking entities that are indefinite and sempiternal, but argued that perhaps we should not be so (...) quick to assume that in Spinoza’s system, an infinite and eternal substance could cause such indefinite, sempiternal entities. But if such eternal-durational causation is denied, then it seems harder to see how Spinoza’s system could be coherent: if Spinoza holds that the infinite, eternal substance cannot cause anything that is not infinite and not eternal, then how can he also hold that all things are modes immanently caused by substance (E1p15, E1p18, E1p25)? In this essay, I explain how Spinoza’s system could be understood in light of a denial of eternal-durational causation. On the interpretation I offer, God is the cause of all things and all things are modes because the essences of all things follow from the divine nature and all essences enjoy infinite, eternal reality as modes immanently caused by the infinite, eternal substance. The same non-substantial essences can also be conceived as enjoying non-infinite, non-eternal reality, but so conceived, they are enduring, finite (or sempiternal, indefinite) entities that cannot be conceived as modes caused by and inhering in the one infinite, eternal substance. I conclude by pointing out that if we take this interpretive route, we do have to understand Spinoza as committed to acosmism, or a denial of the reality of the world – at least the world of enduring, finite things. (shrink)

What does Spinoza mean when he claims, as he does several times in the Ethics, that particular things are expressions of God’s nature or attributes? This article interprets these claims as a version of what is called theophany in the Neoplatonist tradition. Theophany is the process by which particular things come to exist as determinate manifestations of a divine nature that is in itself not determinate. Spinoza’s understanding of theophany diverges significantly from that of the Neoplatonist John Scottus Eriugena, largely (...) because he understands the non-determinateness of the divine nature in a very different way. His view is more similar, I argue, to what is presented in the work of Ibn ‘Arabī, under the name “tajallī”. (shrink)

It is obvious that both Spinoza and Leibniz attach importance to the notion of expression in their philosophical writings and that both do so in a similar fashion: They agree, for example, that the mind expresses the body (although this claim has rather different meanings for each of them). Another – albeit related – use of ‘expression’ that appears in both thinkers provides a deeper insight into some metaphysical similarity as well as difference: The idea that expression is closely connected (...) with the perfection and action of individual things. While this relation is explicit in Leibniz, I will show that it is also in a less straightforward way found in Spinoza and, furthermore, that the relation of expression in regards to perfection is similar in Spinoza and Leibniz as both of them regard individuals as perfect insofar as they express the world and God. But one crucial difference in their accounts lies in the claim that, for Spinoza, what is being expressed and gives rise to perfection can be privative in nature, while such a thing cannot be the object of an expression for Leibniz. As I will argue, this not based merely on their different metaphysical views, but also on a difference in what can serve as content of an expression. (shrink)

Recent literature on Spinoza has emphasized his commitment to universal intelligibility, understood as the claim that there are no brute facts. We draw attention to an important but overlooked element of Spinoza's commitment to intelligibility, and thereby question its most prominent interpretation, on which this commitment results in the priority of conceptual relations. We argue that such readings are both incomplete in their account of Spinozistic intelligibility and mistaken in their identification of the most fundamental relation. We argue that Spinoza (...) is one of the first moderns to address the problem of conditions of intelligibility, and show that, in his metaphysics, expressive relations are best understood as relations of dependence for intelligibility: what a thing ‘expresses’ is its condition of intelligibility, that which determines how, through what concepts, it can be conceived. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Ethics includes versions of the views about sensation and its role in the production of knowledge that are present in the TIE and the KV. ‘Idea of an affection’ replaces the earlier terms for sensation. A sensation is a modification of the mind closely associated with a modification of body and explained in terms of the mind-body relation. In the KV, Spinoza continues to treat sensation as the immediate perception of corporeal modification and continues to (...) take the inference from sensation to the union of mind and body as a valid one. The KV is the earliest source of Spinoza's view that the idea-object model accounts for the mind-body relation. The only occurrence of sensatio in the CM might seem to tell against an account of sensation as something different from imagination. Accounts of reason and imagination in the Ethics considerably advance Spinoza's theory of knowledge. (shrink)

In this article I critically assess Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza’s metaphysics of modes. I argue that the conception of modal essence that Deleuze attributes to Spinoza is untenable in terms of Spinoza’s metaphysics. I further show that the idea that modal essences are eternally static degrees of power is incompatible with Spinoza’s ethics, wherein modes strive to increase their power by means of positive interactions with others. I suggest that Deleuze’s interpretation of this crucial aspect of Spinozism runs the risk (...) of reinstating Platonic idealist and moralistic themes, of the kind that both Spinoza and Deleuze are committed to overcoming. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza holds a perspectivalist view of mereological composition, a form of anti-realism. The paper has two parts: In the first half of the paper, I introduce interpretive puzzles for the standard realist reading of Spinoza’s mereology. In the second half of the paper, I discuss Spinoza’s positive view on mereological composition and present a perspectivalist reading that avoids the interpretive puzzles.

L'article vise à placer les rapports entre affectio et affectus au centre de l ’unité architectonique de l'Éthique. La définition d’affectus permet de connaître la vraie nature de l'affection, montrant que ce concept ne peut pas signifier un état mais doit désigner une disposition, ou une variation de la puissance. Ainsi le couple affectio/affectus articule toutes les parties de l'Éthique, en régissant non seulement la construction du problème éthique, mais aussi sa solution chez Spinoza.

In Spinoza’s metaphysics, we encounter many puzzling doctrines that appear to entangle metaphysical notions with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. According to him, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, are defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. He defines an attribute as that which an intellect perceives as constituting the essence of a substance. Intellectual (...) perception, something cognitive, is used to define an attribute, something metaphysical. And he claims that if something exists there is a reason why it exists and if something doesn’t exist there is also a reason why it doesn’t. Thus, a reason, something cognitive or epistemic, is necessary for existence or nonexistence. What are we to make of the intimate connections that Spinoza sees between metaphysical, cognitive, logical, and epistemic notions? Between being and reason? In this book, I argue for what might be called a realist interpretation: although Spinoza is confident that the order of being mirrors the order of reason, he believes that they are two orders, not one. There is inherence over and above conceptual dependence; there is causation in addition to causal explanation; the world has a nature that we can grasp and that our way of grasping it does not interpose an impenetrable conceptual veil between it and us. (shrink)

My two principal aims in this essay are interconnected. One aim is to provide a new interpretation of the ‘infinite modes’ in Spinoza’s Ethics. I argue that for Spinoza, God, conceived as the one infinite and eternal substance, is not to be understood as causing two kinds of modes, some infinite and eternal and the rest finite and non-eternal. That there cannot be such a bifurcation of divine effects is what I take the ‘infinite mode’ propositions, E1p21–23, to establish; E1p21–23 (...) show that each and every one of the immanent effects of an infinite and eternal God is an infinite and eternal mode. The other aim is to show that these propositions can be understood as part of an extended critical response to Descartes’s infamous doctrine that God creates eternal truths and true and immutable natures. If we have the correct (Spinozan) conceptions of what God is and how God works, we see that an eternal and infinite God can only be understood to cause ‘eternal truths,’ and that these eternal truths are infinite and eternal modes of God. (shrink)

In chapter IX of the Principles, Anne Conway claims that her metaphysics is diametrically opposed to those of Descartes and Spinoza. Scholars have analyzed her rejection of Cartesianism, but not her critique of Spinoza. This paper proposes that two central points of Conway’s metaphysics can be understood as direct responses to Spinoza: (1) the relation between God, Christ, and the creatures in the tripartite division of being, and (2) the individuation of beings in the lowest species. I will argue that (...) Conway, in criticizing Spinoza’s identification between God and nature, defends a paradoxical monism, and that her concept of individuation is a reductio ad absurdum of Spinoza’s criterion of identity in the individuation of finite modes. (shrink)

Contributors: Steven Barbone, Laurent Bove, Edwin Curley, Valérie Debuiche, Michael Della Rocca, Simon B. Duffy, Daniel Garber, Pascale Gillot, Céline Hervet, Jonathan Israel, Chantal Jaquet, Mogens Lærke, Jacqueline Lagrée, Martin Lin, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Pierre-François Moreau, Steven Nadler, Knox Peden, Alison Peterman, Charles Ramond, Michael A. Rosenthal, Pascal Sévérac, Hasana Sharp, Jack Stetter, Ariel Suhamy, Lorenzo Vinciguerra.

In the history of philosophy, two standard critiques of the reality of modes in Spinoza’s philosophy come from Pierre Bayle and Georg Wilhelm Hegel. Both philosophers in some way assume that attributes and relations among modes constitute a shared reality in which modes participate. As a result, they assert that Spinoza’s monism leads either to an over-identification of God with contingent modes or to a limited God. In this paper, I will show how attributes and relations among modes in Spinoza’s (...) work simply explain an active modal reality; modes do not depend upon or participate in ideal relations and attributes for their existence. The result is that in Spinoza’s philosophy attributes must be seen as unreal and modal reality must be understood as primary. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the sense of the odd expression that occurs in the explanation of the definition of desire, at the end of the third part of the Ethics: causa conscientiae, the cause of consciousness. I intend to show that the sense and the limits of the conception of consciousness that can be inferred from the analysis of this definition and its explanation can shed a new light on the reasons why Spinoza refuses the Cartesian thesis on the (...) right order of Philosophy: self-consciousness shall not be the point of departure of philosophy, not because it would be dependent on knowledge of the external world, but because it is a derivative concept in the sense that the qualification of thinking things as conscious beings supposes some ontological conditions that are not always met: finitude and duration. To establish that I will claim that the aim of the text where the expression arises is to elucidate the conditions under which the concept of consciousness applies, and not to express differently the same thesis of E2P23 and E3P9sc. We will see that Spinoza's point there is not that the human mind – or the human body – must be determined by an external cause in order to be conscious of itself, but that it has to be determined by any affection, regardless of its origin. Therefore, the inside-outside approach must be replaced by the consideration of the duplication of the determination. This twofold structure is the conceptual element that must be added to the definition of appetite in order to account for the cause of consciousness, and its analysis will show that for Spinoza only finite modes of thought that exists in the duration can be conceived as conscious beings. (shrink)

The article examines the relation between two kinds of ontological relations that hold together the building blocks of Spinoza’s metaphysics: “being in” and “affection of.” It argues that in order to speak of existence in a single sense, Spinoza equivocates on the notion of affection. On the one hand, substance is in itself in the same sense that every other existing thing is in substance. On the other hand, substance is not the affections of itself, affections of substance are not (...) related to substance in the same sense that affections of modes are related to modes, and affections of modes, which are affections of affections of substance, cannot, at least in some cases, be regarded as affections of substance. Thus, although “God is without passions,” the passions themselves exist in the same sense that God, human beings, and other modes exist, that is, in the sense that they are all in nature; but while the meaning of “being” remains the same, the meaning of “being affected,” or “feeling,” necessarily changes as the Ethics unfolds. (shrink)

Clarke attacks Spinoza's monism on the grounds that it cannot explain how a multiplicity of things follows from one substance, God. This article argues that Clarke assumes that Spinoza's God is countable. It then sketches a way in which multiplicity can follow from God's uncountable nature.

The paper argues that it is essential for modes in Spinoza's metaphyics to both, to inhere in and to be caused by the substance.

In this chapter I explain Spinoza's concept of "infinite modes". After some brief background on Spinoza's thoughts on infinity, I provide reasons to think that Immediate Infinite Modes are identical to the attributes, and that Mediate Infinite Modes are merely totalities of finite modes. I conclude with some considerations against the alternative view that infinite modes are laws of nature.

Ce travail s'attache à montrer qu'il existe, chez Spinoza, une critique de l'atomisme dont les enjeux sont aussi bien théoriques que pratiques, et qui joue un rôle décisif dans la redéfinition du rapport entre les choses singulières comme un "concours" entre les "parties de la nature".

The article includes the French to English translation of a seminal article by Alexandre Koyré (“Le chien, constellation céleste, et le chien animal aboyant”, in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 55e Année, N° 1, Jan-Mar 1950, pp. 50-59), accompanied by an explanatory introduction. Koyré's French text provides an illuminating commentary of E1p17s, where Spinoza exposes at length his account of the relationship existing between God's intellect and the human intellect. The lack of an English translation of this article has (...) led to some misunderstanding within the English-speaking Spinoza scholarship. This publication aims to correct this lack and improve worldwide understanding of Spinoza’s philosophy. (shrink)

The main thesis of Michael Della Rocca’s outstanding Spinoza book (Della Rocca 2008a) is that at the very center of Spinoza’s philosophy stands the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR): the stipulation that everything must be explainable or, in other words, the rejection of any brute facts. Della Rocca rightly ascribes to Spinoza a strong version of the PSR. It is not only that the actual existence and features of all things must be explicable, but even the inexistence – as well (...) as the absence of any feature of any thing – demands an explanation. Della Rocca does not stop here, however. He feeds his PSR monster with some more powerful steroids and suggests that Spinoza advocates what he terms “the twofold use of the PSR.” It is not only that everything must be explained and made intelligible, but it must ultimately be explained in terms of explainability or intelligibility itself. This twofold use of the PSR is the key to the entire book. Della Roca’s strategy throughout the book is to argue that any key feature of Spinoza’s system – be it causality, inherence, essence, consciousness, existence, rejection of teleology, goodness or political right – must be explained, and ultimately it must be explained in terms of intelligibility. “Spinoza single-mindedly digs and digs until we find that the phenomenon in question is nothing but some form of intelligibility itself, of explicability itself” (Della Rocca 2008a: 2). Della Rocca’s book came out together with a cluster of articles in which he develops in detail his new reading of Spinoza. In one of these articles, he warns the reader: “Don’t let me start” (Dell Rocca 2010: 1). The train that is about to embark leads to very bizarre terrain, and thus one should think twice before embarking on the “PSR Express.” In this paper I argue that the train was hijacked. This was a perfect crime: without anyone noticing it, the engine driver diverted the train to a new route, and as with other perfect crimes, it is none but the criminal himself who is capable of, and indeed will, bring about his own demise. As I will later argue, Della Rocca’s “PSR-on-steroids” will eventually cripple reason itself. But let us not run too fast, and start at the very beginning. I happily – or at least, so I think - board the “PSR Express.” I believe Spinoza is strongly committed to the PSR and makes very significant use of this principle, but, unlike Della Rocca, I do not think the PSR is the key to all mysteries Spinozist, nor do I believe Spinoza was committed to the reductionist program of explaining all things through intelligibility (i.e., the second use of the PSR). (shrink)

This essay considers Spinoza’s responses to two questions: what is responsible for the variety in the physical world and by what mechanism do finite bodies causally interact? I begin by elucidating Spinoza’s solution to the problem of variety by considering his comments on Cartesian physics in an epistolary exchange with Tschirnhaus late in Spinoza’s life. I go on to reconstruct Spinoza’s unique account of causation among finite bodies by considering Leibniz’s attack on the Spinozist explanation of variety. It turns out (...) that Spinoza’s explanations of the variety of bodies, on the one hand, and of causation among finite bodies, on the other, generate a tension in his system that can only be resolved by taking Spinoza to employ two notions of “existence.” I conclude by offering evidence that this is in fact what Spinoza does. (shrink)

Le mémoire de Master 2. Soutenu en 2012 à Paris VIII sous la direction de Ch. Ramond. A study of Spinoza's account of "singular things" in the Ethics along with the classic French literature on the subject. -/- TABLE DES MATIÈRES: INTRODUCTION GENERALE (p. 3 – 4) PREMIERE PARTIE : DE LA NATURE DE DIEU AUX CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 5 – 97) INTRODUCTION (p. 5 – 16) : DU RAPPORT DE L’INFINIMENT INFINI ET DU FINI. Pourquoi l’Éthique commence par l’infiniment (...) infini (Dieu). De l’immanentisme spinoziste. Abrégé de la réalité des choses singulières. Que celles-ci sont « en autre chose » et que cet autre est Dieu. Rôle important de la « cause de soi » dans l’ontologie spinoziste. Description de la démarche à suivre. PREMIER PAS (p. 17 – 39) : DE LA « CAUSE DE SOI ». Sur la définition de la « cause de soi ». De la méthode géométrique, et de la raison pour laquelle l’Éthique commence avec cette définition d’un Ens causa sui. Comment la notion de la « cause de soi » fonde l’idée de Dieu. Du monisme intégral chez Spinoza. De « l’esprit » du spinozisme et du déterminisme absolu. Du dédoublement de Dieu. INTERMEDE (p. 40– 60) : DE LA PROPOSITION 16 ET DES MODES INFINIS. Derechef, du dédoublement de Dieu, et en particulier, du renversement de la situation théorique du qualitatif et du quantitatif dans le système. Rôle de la Proposition 16 dans le système. Comment celle-ci scelle le passage de l’Ens causa sui à l’Ens effectus sui. Pourquoi I 16 est controversé. Comment I 16 nous apprend que Dieu ne produit nécessairement tout qu’à condition de produire de l’intelligible. De l’intellect de Dieu. Des modes, et des modes infinis en particulier. À propos du souci néoplatonicien. SECOND PAS (p. 61 – 91) : DE L’ESSENCE ET L’EXISTENCE DES CHOSES EN ÉI. Les Propositions 24 et 25. Comment Dieu scinde les essences des existences. Que toute chose finie est par essence dans un rapport intime avec sa cause infinie et verticale. Le Scolie de la Proposition 25. Sur la démonstration de la définition des « choses particulières ». Sur la controverse de l’attribut. Les Proposition 26 et 28. Comment les choses existent. De la causalité horizontale et de l’indéfini. Analyse de la notion de l’infini. De l’impossibilité de comprendre totalement l’existence d’une chose. Ce qui veut dire « Deus quatenus ». FIN DE LA PREMIERE PARTIE (p. 92 – 97) : DE LA NATURE NATURANTE ET LA NATURE NATUREE. Analyse du Scolie de la Proposition 29. De l’asymétrie du dédoublement de la Nature. Du salut spinoziste. DEUXIEME PARTIE : DE L’UNITE DES CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 98 – 153) INTRODUCTION (p. 98 – 102) : DU RAPPORT DE L’ESSENCE A L’EXISTENCE. Ce qui se passe lorsqu’on quitte une Partie de l’Éthique. De ce qu’on a vu dans notre Première Partie. De la causalité verticale et de la causalité horizontale. Comment les essences peuvent-elles retrouver les existences, et vice versa. Description de la démarche à suivre. PREMIER PAS (p. 103 – 127) : DE L’ESSENCE Sur la définition d’une « essence ». De sa positivité. Que ce qu’un individu est par essence n’est que ce qu’il peut comprendre. De la Proposition 8, de son Corollaire et de son Scolie. Que l’existence de l’essence d’une chose ne se confond pas avec l’existence de la chose elle-même. Contre l’idée que les essences sont des choses « possibles ». Sur la notion des « grandeurs intensives » et sur la notion du « profondeur » chez Spinoza. SECOND PAS (p. 128 – 149) : DU CONATUS A LA PHYSIQUE Sur le concept du conatus. Du fait qu’il est l’essence actuelle d’une chose. Qu’on ne peut pas distinguer entre notre puissance ou effort pour persévérer dans l’être et l’être dans lequel nous nous persévérons. Du dynamisme introduit par le biais du conatus. Du rapport du quantitatif et du qualitatif, de l’idée des instants d’éternité, et du problème des essences qui sont instantanées. De la « petite physique » dans la Deuxième Partie de l’Éthique. Sur ses enjeux théoriques. Sur le matérialisme de Spinoza. De la définition de l’Individu comme rapport fixe de mouvement et de repos. Des corps simples, et que pour toute chose existante il n’est pas donné une essence. De la définition des choses singulières, et encore de la mutabilité ontologique de celles-ci. FIN DE LA DEUXIEME PARTIE (p. 150 – 153) : DE LA FINITUDE Sur l’Axiome de la Quatrième Partie de l’Éthique. Que certains rapports de mouvement et de repos en remplacent d’autres. Sur la raison pour laquelle tout rapport ne peut pas coexister. Que la destructibilité vient du biais de l’Étendue, et en particulier, du problème de l’espace. Que la chose singulière véhicule une tension entre la partie et le tout, et encore, du salut spinoziste. CONCLUSION GENERALE (p. 154 – 157) ENGLISH SUMMARY (p. 158 – 159) BIBLIOGRAPHIE (p. 160 – 165) TABLE DES MATIERES (p. 166 – 169). (shrink)

This work examines the unique way in which Benedict de Spinoza combines two significant philosophical principles: that real existence requires causal power and that geometrical objects display exceptionally clearly how things have properties in virtue of their essences. Valtteri Viljanen argues that underlying Spinoza's psychology and ethics is a compelling metaphysical theory according to which each and every genuine thing is an entity of power endowed with an internal structure akin to that of geometrical objects. This allows Spinoza to offer (...) a theory of existence and of action - human and non-human alike - as dynamic striving that takes place with the same kind of necessity and intelligibility that pertain to geometry. This fresh and original study will interest a wide range of readers in Spinoza studies and early modern philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This paper examines some aspects of Spinoza's metaphysics of the essences of modes.2 I situate Spinoza's use of the notion of essence as a response to traditional, Aristotelian, ways of thinking about essence. I argue that, although Spinoza rejects part of the Aristotelian conception of essence, according to which it is in virtue of its essence that a thing is a member of a kind, he nevertheless retains a different part of such a conception, according to which an essence is (...) some structural feature of a thing which causally explains other, non-essential features. I go on to develop an account of Spinoza's metaphysics of essence, according to which essences, what he sometimes calls formal essences, are produced by the divine essence prior to and independent of the creation of finite modes, and according to which essences are the formal or exemplar causes of finite modes. I then argue that finite modes, in virtue of the formal essences which they actualize, are genuine causal relata. Finally, I offer some speculations about Spinoza's answer to the question, "Why, in a necessitarian cosmos filled with formal essences, should there be temporal finite modes at all?". (shrink)

L'article avance l'hypothèse selon laquelle la distinction entre les conceptions cartésienne et spinoziste des rapports esprit/corps se situe dans le niveau plus profond des différents diagnostiques que ces doctrines supposent concernant les conditions d'emergence du problème éthique por l'être humain.

In Spinoza’s system, the identity of mental modes and extended modes is suggested, but a formal argument for its truth is difficult to extract. One prima facie difficulty for the claim that mental and extended modes are identical is that substitution of co-referential terms in contexts which are specific to thought or extension fails to preserve truth value. Della Rocca has answered this challenge by claiming that Spinoza relies upon referentially opaque contexts. In this essay, I defend this solution by (...) analyzing what is required to establish that Spinoza recognizes referentially opaque contexts as part of his system One objection that has been made to Della Rocca’s account is that he only establishes the intelligibility, not the actuality, of such mode-identity. In this essay, I argue that the intelligibility of mode-identity is sufficient to establish the existence of opaque attribute-specific contexts. (shrink)

(2008). The Framework of Essences in Spinoza's Ethics. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 489-509. doi: 10.1080/09608780802200489.

Spinoza studies have seen a renaissance of interest in his views on modality, from which considerable disagreement has emerged about Spinoza's modal commitments. Much of this disagreement stems from larger interpretive disagreements about Spinoza's metaphysics. After a brief introduction, this SEP article begins with Spinoza's views on the distribution of modal properties, which quickly leads the heart of Spinoza's metaphysics, intersecting his views on causation, inherence, God, ontological plenitude and the principle of sufficient reason. Although the question of whether Spinoza (...) was a necessitarian is the predominant topic of discussion in the recent secondary literature on Spinoza's modal views, Spinoza also sketches interesting accounts of the nature of modality and the ground of modality that shed fresh light on his modal commitments. Though understudied by recent interpreters, these latter topics were of interest to Spinoza's peers and remain vibrant research questions in contemporary metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

Spinoza ' s understanding and understanding Spinoza -- Spinoza ' s understanding -- Understanding Spinoza -- The metaphysics of substance -- Descartes and substance -- Spinoza contra Descartes on substance -- Modes -- Necessitarianism -- The purpose of it all -- The human mind -- Parallelism and representation -- Essence and representation -- Parallelism and mind - body identity -- The idea of the human body -- The pancreas problem, the pan problem, and panpsychism -- Nothing but representation -- Representation, (...) will, and belief -- Skepticism -- Psychology : striving and self - preservation -- Conatus -- Desire, joy, and sadness -- Love, hate, and all that -- The ethics of the ethics -- The good notion of the good -- The right notion of the right -- Knowledge and morality -- Freedom and morality -- Helping others -- Lies and degrees of freedom -- The state, religion, and scripture -- Rights and power -- Religion and the state -- Scripture -- Prophecy and the truth of the Bible -- From PSR to eternity -- The aftermath of Spinoza -- Leibniz -- Bayle and Hume -- The pantheism controversy -- Hegel -- Nietzsche -- Prospects of spinozistic rationalism. (shrink)

Some of Spinoza's most well‐known doctrines concern what kinds of beings there are and how they are related to each other. For example, he claims that: (1) there is only one substance; (2) this substance has infinitely many attributes; (3) this substance is God or nature; (4) each of these attributes express the divine essence; and (5) all else is a mode of the one substance. These claims have so astonished many of his readers that some of them have surely (...) concluded that they must not know what Spinoza means by “substance,”“attribute,” and “mode.” In this article I shall try to explain how Spinoza understands the basic ontological categories denoted by these expressions. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)