Philosophy of Spinoza - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

One of the three great Rationalists

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

, Spinoza's

Baruch Spinoza

Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...

philosophy encompasses nearly every area of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

, epistemology, political philosophy

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

, ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...

and philosophy of science

Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

.

Samuel Shirley, who translated Spinoza's complete works into English, summed up the significance of Spinoza's philosophy as follows:
Spinoza's philosophy is largely contained in two books: the Theologico-Political Treatise
Theologico-Political Treatise
Written by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the Theologico-Political Treatise or Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously in 1670.It is an early criticism of religious intolerance and a defense of secular government...

, and the Ethics
Ethics (book)
Ethics is a philosophical book written by Benedict de Spinoza. It was written in Latin. Although it was published posthumously in 1677, it is his most famous work, and is considered his magnum opus....

. The former was published during his lifetime, but the latter, which contains the entirety of his philosophical system in its most rigorous form, was not published until after his death in 1677. The rest of the writings we have from Spinoza are either earlier, or incomplete, works expressing thoughts that were crystallized in the two aforementioned books (e.g., the Short Treatise and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect), or else they are not directly concerned with Spinoza's own philosophy (e.g., The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy and The Hebrew Grammar). He also left behind many letters that help to illuminate his ideas and provide some insight into what may have been motivating his views.

Philosophy of religion

Spinoza's philosophy of religion is largely contained in the Theologico-Political Treatise
Theologico-Political Treatise
Written by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the Theologico-Political Treatise or Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously in 1670.It is an early criticism of religious intolerance and a defense of secular government...

. In that work he argues for the view that we should interpret scripture solely on its own terms by carefully studying it, not with any concepts or doctrines that cannot themselves be derived from the text. If we do this, he thought, it would turn out that many things we believe or are told by religious authorities about God and the universe could be shown to be false (e.g., miracles).
Spinoza's view is exemplified in the following sentence from the Preface to the Theological Political Treatise:

Ontological argument

Spinoza has a version of the ontological argument

Ontological argument

The ontological argument for the existence of God is an a priori argument for the existence of God. The ontological argument was first proposed by the eleventh-century monk Anselm of Canterbury, who defined God as the greatest possible being we can conceive...

that takes place in the first eleven propositions of his Ethics, by which he purports to establish the necessary existence of an absolutely infinite substance.
This version of the argument differs somewhat from that of Anselm

Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...

. The most significant difference is that it is not a straightforward move from conceivability of 'the being than which no greater can be conceived' to the existence of the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

, but rather, it is a deductive argument from the definition of God as an absolutely infinite substance to the fact that such a substance must necessarily exist.

Political philosophy

Spinoza's political philosophy is deeply influenced by both the turbulent time period in which he lived, and by the fact that he happened to live in a comparatively liberal place in Europe, which allowed him freedoms he wished to preserve and defend, as he says in the Preface to the Theological Political Treatise:

For further reference, see Spinoza's Political Philosophy.

The human mind

Spinoza argues for a distinct conception of the human mind in Part Two of The Ethics. He says the following:

He then argues that it follows that "the human Mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God."(E2P11c) Further, Spinoza says: "Whatever happens in the object of the idea constituting the human Mind must be perceived by the human Mind"(E2P12) From this we get a clear rejection of Descartes' mind/body dualism: "The object of the idea constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode of Extension which actually exists, and nothing else."(E2P13)

The emotions

One thing which seems, on the surface, to distinguish Spinoza's view of the emotions from both Descartes'

René Descartes

René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...

and Hume's

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

pictures of them is that he takes the emotions to be cognitive

Cognition

In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

in some important respect. Jonathan Bennett claims that "Spinoza mainly saw emotions as caused by cognitions. [Though] he did not say this clearly enough and sometimes lost sight of it entirely."
Spinoza provides several demonstrations which purport to show truths about how human emotions work. The picture presented is, according to Bennett, "unflattering, coloured as it is by universal egoism

Egoism

* Egotism, an excessive or exaggerated sense of self-importance* Ethical egoism, the doctrine that holds that individuals ought to do what is in their self-interest...

"
Spinoza's treatment of the emotions in Part Three of The Ethics, "On the Origin and Nature of the Affects", utilizes a broad set of terminology, clearly intended to cover the whole of human experience. He tells us in the Preface:

Human freedom

Whether there is any meaningful kind of freedom which humans may genuinely have is, in Spinoza's picture, at least contentious. He certainly claims that there is a kind of freedom, namely, that which is arrived at through adequate knowledge of God, or, what is the same: the universe. But in the last two propositions of Part Two of The Ethics, P48 and P49, he explicitly rejects the traditional notion of free will

Free will

"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

. In E2P48, he claims:

So from this we get a strong sense of Spinoza's Naturalism

Naturalism (philosophy)

Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...

, that is, that the natural and human orders are contiguous. With that being the case, human freedom of a kind which would extricate us from the order of physical causes is impossible. However, Spinoza argues, we still ought to strive to understand the world around us, and in doing so, gain a greater degree of power, which will allow us to be more active than passive, and there is a sense in which this is a kind of freedom.
For more, see: Stanford.edu

Metaphysics

Spinoza's metaphysics

Metaphysics

consists of one thing, substance, and its modifications (modes). Early in The Ethics Spinoza argues that there is only one substance, which is absolutely infinite, self-caused, and eternal. He calls this substance "God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

", or "Nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

". In fact, he takes these two terms to be synonymous (in the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

the phrase he uses is "Deus sive Natura"). For Spinoza the whole of the natural

Natural

Natural is an adjective that refers to Nature.Natural may refer too:In science and mathematics:* Natural transformation, category theory in mathematics* Natural foods...

universe

Universe

The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...

is made of one substance, God, or, what's the same, Nature, and its modifications (modes).

Substance

Spinoza defines "substance" as follows:

This means, essentially, that substance is just whatever can be thought of without relating it to any other idea or thing. For example, if one thinks of a particular

Particular

In philosophy, particulars are concrete entities existing in space and time as opposed to abstractions. There are, however, theories of abstract particulars or tropes. For example, Socrates is a particular...

object

Object (philosophy)

An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...

, one thinks of it as a kind of thing, e.g., x is a cat. Substance, on the other hand, is to be conceived of by itself, without understanding it as a particular kind of thing (because it isn't a particular thing at all).

Attributes

Spinoza defines "attribute" as follows:

From this it can be seen that attributes are related to substance in some way. It is not clear, however, even from Spinoza's direct definition, whether, a) attributes are really the way(s) substance is, or b) attributes are simply ways to understand substance, but not necessarily the ways it really is.
Spinoza thinks that there are an infinite number of attributes, but there are two attributes for which Spinoza thinks we can have knowledge. Namely, thought and extension.

Thought

The attribute of thought is how substance can be understood to give rise to thoughts, or thinking things. When we understand a particular thing in the universe through the attribute of thought, we are understanding the mode as an idea of something (either another idea, or an object).

Extension

The attribute of extension is how substance can be understood to be physically extended in space. Particular things which have breadth and depth (that is, occupy space) are what is meant by extended. It follows from this that if substance and God are identical, on Spinoza's view, and contrary to the traditional conception, God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

has extension as one of his attributes.

Modes

Modes are particular modifications of substance, i.e., particular things in the world. Spinoza gives the following definition:

Substance monism

The argument for there only being one substance in the universe occurs in the first fourteen propositions of The Ethics. The following proposition expresses Spinoza's commitment to substance monism:

Spinoza takes this proposition to follow directly from everything he says prior to it. Spinoza's monism

Monism

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...

is contrasted with Descartes' dualism

Dualism (philosophy of mind)

In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....

and Leibniz's pluralism

Pluralism (philosophy)

Pluralism is a term used in philosophy, meaning "doctrine of multiplicity", often used in opposition to monism and dualism . The term has different connotations in metaphysics and epistemology...

. It allows Spinoza to avoid the problem of interaction between mind and body, which troubled Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

Causality and modality

The issue of causality

Causality

Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....

and modality

Modality

-Humanities:* In law: the basis of legal argumentation in United States constitutional law* In theology: Modality : the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations...

(possibility

Possibility

Possibility is the condition or fact of being possible. The Latin origins of the word hint at ability. Possibility also refers to something that "could happen", that is not precluded by the facts, but usually not probable...

and necessity

Necessity

In U.S. criminal law, necessity may be either a possible justification or an exculpation for breaking the law. Defendants seeking to rely on this defense argue that they should not be held liable for their actions as a crime because their conduct was necessary to prevent some greater harm and when...

) in Spinoza's philosophy is contentious. Spinoza's philosophy is, in one sense, thoroughly deterministic

Determinism

Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

(or necessitarian). This can be seen directly from Axiom 3 of The Ethics:

Yet Spinoza seems to make room for a kind of freedom, especially in the fifth and final section of The Ethics, "On the Power of the Intellect, or on Human Freedom":

So Spinoza certainly has a use for the word 'freedom', but he equates "Freedom of Mind" with "blessedness", a notion which is not traditionally associated with freedom of the will

Free will

at all.

The principle of sufficient reason (PSR)

Though the PSR

Principle of sufficient reason

The principle of sufficient reason states that anything that happens does so for a reason: no state of affairs can obtain, and no statement can be true unless there is sufficient reason why it should not be otherwise...

is most commonly associated with Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....

, it is arguably found in its strongest form in Spinoza's philosophy.
Within the context of Spinoza's philosophical system, the PSR can be understood to unify causation and explanation. What this means is that for Spinoza, questions regarding the reason why a given phenomenon is the way it is (or exists) are always answerable, and are always answerable in terms of the relevant cause(s). This constitutes a rejection of teleological

Teleology

A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...

, or final causation, except possibly in a more restricted sense for human beings. Given this, Spinoza's views regarding causality and modality begin to make much more sense.

Parallelism

Spinoza's philosophy contains as a key proposition the notion that mental and physical (thought and extension) phenomena occur in parallel, but without causal interaction between them. He expresses this proposition as follows:

His proof of this proposition is that:

The reason Spinoza thinks the parallelism follows from this axiom is that since the idea we have of each thing requires knowledge of its cause, and this cause must be understood under the same attribute. Further, there is only one substance, so whenever we understand some chain of ideas of things, we understand that the way the ideas are causally related must be the same as the way the things themselves are related, since the ideas and the things are the same modes understood under different attributes.

Epistemology

Spinoza's epistemology is deeply rationalist

Rationalism

. That is, unlike the empiricists

Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...

who rejected knowledge of things as they are in themselves (in favour of knowledge merely of what appears to the senses), Spinoza thinks we can have a priori knowledge, knowledge of a world external from our sense perceptions, and further, that this is tantamount to knowledge of God. The majority of Spinoza's epistemological claims come in Part Two of The Ethics.

Truth and falsity

Spinoza's notions of truth and falsity have to do with the relation between ideas and their objects. He thinks that:

Adequate and inadequate ideas

From this it is clear that the notions of adequate and inadequate ideas are important for understanding how Spinoza's view works. This may be explained in the following way. Spinoza argues that "All ideas, insofar as they are related to God, are true."(E2P32) Since by "God", he means the one substance which exists necessarily and absolutely infinitely, it follows that an idea (a particular mode under the attribute of thought) as it is without reference to knowledge a particular person has, is necessarily true, since it just is a particular instance of God's essence. That is, true ideas are true because they "agree entirely with their objects"(E2P32) These ideas are, then, perfectly adequate.

On the other hand, Spinoza argues: "All ideas are in God; and, insofar as they are related to God, are true, and adequate. And so there are no inadequate or confused ideas except insofar as they are related to the singular Mind of someone."(E2P36d) So inadequate ideas, or falsehoods, are a feature of finite beings. That is, even though ideas considered objectively as elements of the universe are always adequate (meaning their relation to their object is total), when a particular individual has an idea of something, such an idea is necessarily incomplete, and therefore, inadequate. This is the source of falsehood.

Three kinds of knowledge

Spinoza discusses the three kinds of knowledge in E2P40s2.All quotations in this section are from E2P40s2

The first kind of knowledge

Spinoza thinks there are two ways we can have the first kind of knowledge:

From random experience: "from singular things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way that is mutilated, confused, and without order for the intellect; for that reasons I have been accustomed to call such perceptions knowledge from random experience."
From imagination: "from signs, e.g., from the fact that, having heard or read certain words, we recollect things, and form certain ideas of them, which are like them, and through which we imagine the things."

He calls these two ways "knowledge of the first kind, opinion or imagination."

The second kind of knowledge

Spinoza argues that the second kind of knowledge arises:

He goes on to explain what this means in the propositions which immediately follow.

The third kind of knowledge

This can be referred to as Intuition
Intuition (knowledge)
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...

, but it means something rather technical for Spinoza. The third kind of knowledge is a particularly important part of Spinoza's philosophy because it is what he thinks allows us to have adequate knowledge, and therefore know things absolutely truly. As he says:

Ethics

Spinoza's ethical views are deeply tied to his metaphysical system. This is evident from the following claim:

It is also apparent from this that he is a kind of subjectivist about moral values. That is, he does not take good and evil to be real properties/facts in the objects we attribute them to, but rather, they are simply thoughts we have about the comparative value of one thing to another for a particular person.

"Good" and "Evil"

Spinoza gives the following definitions of "Good", and "Evil":
From this it is clear that Spinoza's view of moral value is in some sense instrumental. That is, the goodness or badness of a particular object or action is measured not by some intrinsic property, but by whether we "certainly know" it to be useful to us or not. The emphasis on "certain knowledge" is important, given Spinoza's view of what epistemic certainty amounts to, i.e., adequate knowledge of God (a notion which is briefly elaborated on in this article).

Blessedness

Spinoza's notion of blessedness figures centrally in his ethical philosophy.
Blessedness (or salvation or freedom), Spinoza thinks,

And this means, as Jonathan Bennett explains, that "Spinoza wants "blessedness" to stand for the most elevated and desirable state one could possibly be in." Here, understanding what is meant by 'most elevated and desirable state' requires understanding Spinoza's notion of conatus (read: striving, but not necessarily with any teleological

Teleology

baggage) and that "perfection" refers not to (moral) value, but to completeness. Given that individuals are identified as mere modifications of the infinite Substance, it follows that no individual can ever be fully complete, i.e., perfect, or blessed. Absolute perfection, is, as noted above, reserved solely for Substance. Nevertheless, mere modes can attain a lesser form of blessedness, namely, that of pure understanding of oneself as one really is, i.e., as a definite modification of Substance in a certain set of relationships with everything else in the universe. That this is what Spinoza has in mind can be seen at the end of the Ethics, in E5P24 and E5P25, wherein Spinoza makes two final key moves, unifying the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical propositions he has developed over the course of the work. In E5P24, he links the understanding of particular things to the understanding of God, or Substance; in E5P25, the conatus of the mind is linked to the third kind of knowledge (Intuition). From here, it is a short step to the connection of Blessedness with the amor dei intellectualis ("intellectual love of God").

Philosophy of religion

Ontological argument

Political philosophy

The human mind

The emotions

Human freedom

Metaphysics

Substance

Attributes

Thought

Extension

Modes

Substance monism

Causality and modality

The principle of sufficient reason (PSR)

Parallelism

Epistemology

Truth and falsity

Adequate and inadequate ideas

Three kinds of knowledge

The first kind of knowledge

The second kind of knowledge

The third kind of knowledge

Ethics

"Good" and "Evil"

Blessedness

See also

Further reading