God and Nature Spinoza's Metaphysics: Spinoza's Metaphysics : Papers Presented at the First Jerusalem Conference (Ethica I (Spinoza By 2000, Vol. 1)

Spinoza by 2000 THE JERUSALEM CONFERENCES

Editor: Yirmiyahu Yovel Professor of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Chairman, The Jerusalem Spinoza Institute

God and Nature: Spinoza's Metaphysics (Ethica I) Spinoza on Mind and Human Knowledge (Ethica II) Desire and Affect: Spinoza as Psychologist (Ethica III) Spinoza on Reason and the "Free Man" (Ethica IV) Amor Dei Intellectualis:

Spinoza on Intuitive Knowledge and Beatitude (Ethica V) Spinoza as a Social and Political Thinker Spinoza's Life and Sources

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I~.;~~;~] the jerusalem spinoza institute the spinoza research program. the hebrew university of Jerusalem

Spinoza by 2000 THE JERUSALEM CONFERENCES

Volume I

God and Nature Spinoza's Metaphysics Papers Presented at The First Jerusalem Conference (Ethica I)

edited by

Yirmiyahu Yavel

E.J. BRILL LEIDEN • NEW YORK. K0BENHAVN • KOLN 1991

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Assistant Editor: Gideon Segal Text Editor: Norma Schneider Translations from the French: David ~1aisel

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data God and nature: Spinoza's metaphysics: papers presented at the first Jerusalem conference (Ethica Ii I edited by Yirmiyahu Yovel. p. cm. - (Spinoza by 2000: v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004094849 l. Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677. Ethica-Congresses. 2. Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677-Congresses. 3. Ethics-Congresses. 4. Philosophy-Congresses. 1. Yo vel , Yirmiyahu. II. Series. B3998.S 728 1991 vol. [B3974] 199'.492 s-dc20 91-32446 [llO'.92] CIP

ISBN

90 04 09484 9

© Copyright 1991 by E.]. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

Contents

Preface Abbreviations and Bibliographical Information Alan Donagan:

IX Xlll

Substance, Essence and Attribute in Spinoza, Ethics I

Alexandre Matheron: Essence, Existence and Power in Ethics I: The Foundations of Proposition 16

23

On Bennett's Interpretation of Spinoza's Monism

35

Jonathan Bennett:

Spinoza's Monism: A Reply to Curley

53

Jean-Luc Marion:

The Coherence of Spinoza's Definitions of God in Ethics I, Proposition 11

61

The Infinite Mode and Natural Laws in Spinoza

79

Emilia Giancotti:

On the Problem of Infinite Modes

97

Herman De Dijn:

Metaphysics as Ethics

119

Margaret D. Wilson: Spinoza's Causal Axiom (Ethics I, Axiom 4)

133

Edwin Curley:

Yirmiyahu Yovel:

Pierre Macherey:

From Action to Production of Effects: Observations on the Ethical Significance of Ethics I

161

From External Compulsion to Liberating Cooperation: A Reply to Macherey

181

Don Garrett:

Spinoza's Necessitarianism

191

Yosef Ben-Shlomo:

Substance and Attributes in the Short Treatise and in the Ethics: an Attempt at an "Existentialist" Interpretation

219

On the Idea of Creation in Spinoza's Philosophy

231

Jacqueline Lagree:

Sylvain Zac:

Notes on Contributors

243

Index

247

Preface

The final quarter of this century has witnessed a renewed interest in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. New studies, translations, symposia and scholarly societies reexamine Spinoza's ideas both in themselves and in relation to contemporary issues and interests. Beyond his "geometrical" style and his somewhat remote terminology, the freshness and boldness of Spinoza's essential thought still shine through today. Furthermore, the debate over modernity and "post-modernity" may also, inadvertently, stimulate interest in Spinoza as a major proponent of modernity. A Jewish heretic of Marrano descent, Spinoza was born and worked in the Netherlands; his family origins go back to Iberia; his ideas began to exert covert influence in France before the Revolution; and he burst into worldwide recognition through German intellectuals from Goethe to Hegel. Later, Spinoza's philosophy of immanence left its mark on thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche and Sartre, Freud and (in moral philosophy) Bertrand Russell, among others. I have analyzed part of this process in Spinoza and Other Heretics, Vol. II: The Adventures of Immanence (Princeton 1988). Spinoza's presence in modern thought is thus as cosmopolitan as his thought was universal. And yet his growth and impact have always been linked to a specific historical group and situation. Therefore, one shouldn't wonder that, following the veteran Het Spinozahuis in the Netherlands, the first contemporary centers for Spinoza studies were established in Paris (1977) and in Jerusalem (1984); more recently, Spinoza societies have been created in Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan. In the English-speaking world, several major studies appeared on Spinoza during the 1980s, and a retranslation of his complete opus into both English and French is under way. Other significant work is being done in France and elsewhere in continental Europe, as well as in Israel, Latin America and North Africa. A multi-lingual scholarly annual - Studia Spinozana - has been published since the mid eighties, and numerous translations and introductory studies keep appearing in many languages. Written in contemporary vein, they illustrate the diversity of philosophical styles in which Spinoza's ideas are being approached in different cultural milieus. Jerusalem has long been a meeting place for a variety of philosophical approaches. Since 1974, the Jerusalem Philosophical Encounters have provided a forum in which Anglo-American philosophers have been

meeting with colleagues from France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Israel and other countries to debate a particular central philosophical problem. Since Leon Roth and the early days of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem has also had a constant tradition of Spinoza scholarship. To consolidate that tradition, in 1984, the Hebrew University created the Spinoza Research Program. On that occasion, Edwin Curley delivered the first series of Jerusalem Spinoza Lectures, later published in his book, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics (Princeton 1988). The next lecturer was Stuart Hampshire. Activities within and outside of academia were expanded in 1986, when The Jerusalem Spinoza Institute was created; among other things, it initiated a community-oriented program to promote tolerance and a pluralistic society among the public at large. At the same time, using the Philosophical Encounters as model, a new scholarly project was announced: Spinoza by 2000 - The Jerusalem Conferences. This was planned as a series of seven biennial conferences, each devoted to a single theme in Spinoza's system, and seven volumes of essays based upon them. The first five conferences and volumes follow the successive parts of Spinoza's main work (Ethica I-V); the sixth will center on Spinoza's social and political philosophy; and the seventh will sum up the state of research on Spinoza's life and milieu during the twentieth century. It is our hope that the complete series will offer a contemporary reassessment of Spinoza's philosophy as a whole, and will represent the state and varieties of Spinoza scholarship by the end of the twentieth century. This first volume is based on the First Jerusalem Spinoza Conference, held in April 1987 under the title Ethica I: God and Nature - Spinoza's Metaphysics. The decision to focus each conference around one central theme helped make it an intense intellectual experience which we hope this volume will convey. I wish to thank all the scholars who participated in the conference and who spared no effort to make both it and this volume a success. Though papers were originally delivered either in English or French, the French papers have been translated into English for this publication. Thanks are due to David Maisel, who translated the papers, to text editor Norma Schneider, to Ettel Weingarten who prepared the index and especially to my assistant, Gideon Segal of the Spinoza Institute, who reviewed the manuscripts with knowledge and meticulous attention and gave this volume its final form. To our greatest regret, the paper of Professor Yoshitomo Takeuchi of Japan, who participated in the conference, could not be prepared for publication as he fell gravely ill.

The conference series Spinoza by 2000 - The Jerusalem Conferences is organized by The Spinoza Research Program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem Spinoza Institute, in conjunction with the biennial Jerusalem International Book Fair. The first conference was also sponsored by the Jerusalem Foundation and Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the city guest-house for visiting intellectuals and artists. I am grateful to Mayor Teddy Kollek, a lover of learning and member of the board of the Spinoza Institute; to Mrs. Ruth Cheshin, president of the Jerusalem Foundation; and to Mr. Ze'ev Birger, the resourceful chairman of the Jerusalem International Book Fair. Staff members who helped run the conference on which this volume is based are Dr. Elhanan Yakira, Sigal Galil, Linda Futterman, Katrin Kojman-Appel, Eva Shorr and Karin Moses. All of them contributed to making the conference an event to remember. Just as this volume was about to go to press, we learned to our greatest grief about the sudden death of Professor Alan Donagan, a great Spinoza Scholar and a personal friend. Alan Donagan was a rare philosopher, one who combined profundity with acute analysis, who respected the historical dimension of philosophy and its need for precise, logical explication, taking this to be a matter of life and not merely of scholarship. His recent book on Spinoza is a landmark in Spinoza scholarship, one for which he will be remembered along with his other achievements. Among the points we have argued about was immortality. I deeply hope that he was right and I was wrong. I dedicate this volume to his memory. Yirmiyahu Y ovel

Jerusalem 1991

Abbreviations and Bibliographical Information The following abbreviations pertaining to the Ethics and to Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy" are used throughout this book: EI (H ... IV)

Ethics, Part I

DPP

Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy"

app ax c def def.aff. d exp lemma

Appendix Axiom Corollary Definition Definition of Affect Demonstration Explanation Lemma Proposition Postulate Preface Scholium

p post pref s

Note: A"," within a citation from the Ethics or from Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy" means "and"; e.g., The abbreviation EIIp40d,s2 indicates that both the demonstration and the second scholium of proposition 40 of the Ethics Part IL are being cited. The following abbreviations are used for works other than the Ethics and the DPP: CM

Metaphysical Thoughts (Cogitata metaphysica)

G

Carl Gebhardt. ed., Spinoza opera. im Auftrag der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitatsverlag, 1972), vols. I-IV.

KV

Short Treatise on God. Man and His Well-Being (Korte Verhandeling)

TIE

Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect

TP

Political Treatise

TTP

Theologico-Political Treatise

Unless otherwise noted, all of Spinoza's writings, except for his Letters, the Theologico-Political Treatise and the Political Treatise. are quoted from: Edwin Curley, ed., The Collected Works of Spinoza (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), vol. I. Citations from the Political Treatise and the Theologico-Political Treatise are usually quoted from: R. H. Elwes, The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (New York: Dover, 1951), vol. II. Citations from Spinoza's Letters, all of which are not yet included in Curley's edition, are quoted from A. Wolf, The Correspondence of Spinoza (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928). On occasion, the Gebhardt edition - abbreviated as, e.g., G2771l0-14 (p.277, lines 10-14) - is cited in addition to the reference to the English edition.

Alan Donagan

Substance, Essence and Attribute in Spinoza, Ethics I

1. Substance Supernaturalized: The Medieval Aristotelians and Spinoza Spinoza's "first philosophy," like Aristotle's, is a theory of substance. To the question, "What exists?" Aristotle had, in effect, answered: First of all, individual substances - which are numerous and of various kinds; then, non-substantial independently existing material stuffs like earth, water, air and fire; and finally, dependent existents or accidents. To the same question, Spinoza in effect answers: If you mean "What exists independently?" the answer is "Substance" - but there is only one substance, although there are also individual beings that depend on it, which may be called "modes" to distinguish them from Aristotle's accidents. While these answers differ radically, they are of the same form. Both divide existents into those that are independent and those that are dependent; and both recognize substances as the primary independent existents. Aristotle and Spinoza also agree in not treating the existence of individual things as problematic. Neither asks why there is a world at all. Both accept without question that there is a world inhabited by human beings, themselves among them, and that it is intelligible: that if it is investigated intelligently, its general nature can be ascertained, along with the place of human beings in it. In doing so, some truths will be discovered that will need no further explanation, and the rest will turn out to be explicable by reference to them. Spinoza and Aristotle do not, it is true, agree about what the general nature of the world they inhabit is. Aristotle, for example, believed that the sphere of the moon and the world above it are composed of a stuff entirely different from anything found in the sublunary world; that the motions of the spheres are guided by "separate" substances that are pure Intelligences, and not material at all; and finally, that above these separate substances

Y. Yo vel, ed., God and Nature: Spinoza's Metaphysics, 1-21. © 1991, E.J. Brill, Leiden-New York-Kobenhavn-Koln

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Alan Donagan

there is a first substance, also a pure Intelligence, which alone deserves to be recognized as divine. By thus distinguishing immaterial separate substances from those whose substantial forms exist only in matter, Aristotle invited speculation as to whether their existence is intelligible in a way in which that of "hylemorphic" (that is, "matter-form") substances is not. The medieval Aristotelians - Muslim, Jewish and Christian - accepted the invitation, and in doing so transformed Aristotle's metaphysics. Substances, they concluded, constitute an ontological hierarchy only the first two levels of which were recognized by Aristotle. Its lowest level is that of substances composed of matter and a substantial form. All such substances are living things that come into existence from others of the same kind by a natural process of generation - for example, in sexual generation, the male imposes his form on matter provided by the female. All substances composed of matter and form are ephemera!, for the matter on which a substantial form has been imposed by natural generation naturally tends to corrupt - that is, to revert to its earlier state; and when it does, the substance dies, and so ceases to exist. The second level of the hierarchy of substances is that of pure Intelligences. Such substances, since they are not composites of matter and form, but pure forms, are neither generable nor corruptible. At this point, the medievals broke with Aristotle by maintaining that pure Intelligences would not exist at all unless an external cause brought them into existence. If so, the first substance cannot be merely the highest of the pure Intelligences. Pure Intelligences, Maimonides and Aquinas both inferred, are composites of essence (their substantial form) and existence, and their essences are merely potential with respect to existence. There is a level of substance above theirs: that of substance that is pure actuality, and not potential even with respect to existence. Since such a substance must be infinite and omnipotent, it can only be unique; and Maimonides and Aquinas agreed in identifying it with the God of Genesis, who created the natural world out of nothing. Philosophy cannot be confined, as Aristotle confined it, to exploring the character of a natural world the existence of which is simply accepted; for the natural world, taken by itself, is intrinsically unintelligible. Its existence depends on that of a first substance whose essence transcends all natural essences: a supernatural creator. The makers of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution - Galileo and Descartes before Spinoza, Leibniz and Newton after him - while rejecting the medievals' Aristotelian physics, did not dream of rejecting this transformation of Aristotelian metaphysics into a creationist natural

Substance. Essence and Attribute in Ethics I

3

theology. And, since the language of Ethics I is largely that of medieval philosophy as modified by Descartes, it is tempting to interpret Spinoza's metaphysics as a radical variation on this common theme, in which Nature is supernaturalized by identifying God with it. So read, Spinoza transfers to Nature the metaphysical intelligibility of the supernatural immaterial God of medieval tradition; and he says of the natural world, now conceived as a single substance, most of what Maimonides and Aquinas said about God. He becomes the last of the medievals. The principles of supernaturalized metaphysics purport to be about being considered solely as being: that is, not to be confined to anyone species of being, such as the being of material things. And, since they purport to explain why it is that whatever exists does exist, they do not apply merely to the things that actually exist. Although as far as I know no medieval Aristotelian spoke so, Muslim, Jewish and Christian Aristotelians were all committed to acknowledging the principles of their metaphysics as true of being in all logically possible worlds. It was considered of no importance that such principles cannot be ascertained empirically by studying the beings in the possible world we actually inhabit. Philosophers from Aristotle to Descartes had agreed that the fundamental principles of metaphysics are per se nota, that is, self-evident to any finite mind that thinks about them clearly; and Descartes had explained why that is so by crediting all human beings with a lumen naturale which, if their attention is properly directed, makes such principles too clear for doubt to be possible. Since Spinoza's first publication was a restatement, in geometrical form, of the first two parts of Descartes' Principia, there is a prima facie reason to suppose him to have followed Descartes in this. Does he in fact do so? Well, he implicitly accepts the rule that nothing is to be deduced except from principles per se nota. for he censures Descartes himself for departing from it in his theory of the union of the human mind with the human body (EVpre£). Yet, does he understand what is it for a principle to be "per se notum" as Descartes, or the Aristotelians, did?

2. The Mechanical Principles of Philosophy in Spinoza Although the sense in which Spinoza thought his axioms to be per se nota can be finally established only by an accurate study of his whole theory of cognition, the result of such a study can to some extent be anticipated by following the example of Sir Frederick Pollock in the last century and Edwin Curley in this, I and taking Spinoza's treatment of what he calls "the Mechanical principles of Philosophy" (Letter 13) as a guide. Such a

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procedure would be invalid for both Aristotle and Descartes, who deny that the principles of physics hold for everything there is; but it is not invalid for Spinoza, who asserts it. First of all, however, it is necessary to get rid of an assumption that is prevalent in the anglophone world, despite Curley's vigorous polemics: namely, that Spinoza is what Jonathan Bennett calls "a causal rationalist." A causal rationalist is one who "does not distinguish causal from logical necessity," as Hume has taught us to do, and who "thinks that a cause relates to its effect as a premise does to a conclusion that follows from it. "2 On this assumption, Spinoza conceives causal laws themselves as truths that are per se nota in whatever way the laws of logical implication are: he has little or nothing to say about this. Yet none of the evidence Bennett offers for it is stronger 3 than the comment he makes on a phrase in Ethics IV, preface - "the reason ... or cause why ... Nature acts" - namely, that Spinoza "thinks he is talking of one relation, not two. "4 Now the use of "ratio" in Latin to stand for a cause must be as common as the related use of "reason" in English to do so; neither use implies that a cause is related to its effect as a premise is to a conclusion that follows from it. The texts to which Bennett appears to attach most importance are the "many ... turns of phrase"5 in Spinoza like the comparison he draws in commenting on the effects of despondency on behavior: These things follow from this affect [i.e. despondency] as necessarily as it follows from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles (EIVp57s).

Why Bennett interprets this comparison as implying causal rationalism is not clear. Since despondency, like all affects, is ultimately defined by reference to the effects of external causes on human beings, and of ideas of those effects, that certain effects logically follow from despondency so defined does not show that the laws according to which those causes have those effects are self-evident in whatever way the laws of logical implication are. 6 The greatest single innovation of seventeenth-century science was to recognize motion as well as rest as inertial, according to Descartes' law: Each and every thing, in so far as it can, always continues in the same state: and thus what is once in motion always continues to move (Prine. Phil.. AT VIII, p.62).7

Yet worlds can certainly be conceived in which the Aristotelian alternative to Descartes' law would be true: that everything continues in a state of rest, or returns to it, unless some cause keeps it in motion. In a terminology

--Substance, Essence and Artriburc in Ethics I

5

Spinoza does not use, but to which he could not have objected, Descartes' law is not true of all possible worlds, and neither it nor Aristotle's can be perceived to be true of the actual world without considering how it differs from others that are possible. What, then, does Spinoza think were "the reasonings of ... Descartes" by which he established his law (cf. Letter 13)? According to his own restatement more geometrico of the first two parts of Descartes' Principia. these reasons are to be found in Part II, ~~ 37-38 (DPP IIpI4cd). Descartes begins by asserting generally that "each thing, in so far as it is simple and undivided, always remains in the same state, as far as it can, and never changes except as a res ul t of external ca uses" (AT VII I, p. 62/ 10- 13). This, of course, does not tell us what properties are states of things, and what not: for example, it entails that if, as Aristotle held. a thing's position at an instant is among its states, then its motion from one position to another must have an external cause. Descartes therefore proceeds to imply that motion is a state ("nor is there any ... reason, if [a thing] moves, to think that it will ever lose its motion of its own accord" - AT VIII, p. 62/17-20); but he at once acknowledges that "we tend to believe what we have apparently experienced in many cases holds good in all cases - namely that it is of the very nature of motion to come to an end" (AT VIII, p. 62127-63/ I). To show that what we thus tend to believe is false, Descartes first briefly argues that what we experience cannot be more than apparent, because nothing can by its own nature tend toward its opposite (AT VIII, p. 63/3- 5). But that assumes what it purports to prove; for if a thing's state with respect to place is to be in the place in which it is, then its apparent tendency to stop moving would not be toward its opposite. 8 Finally. however, Descartes gives the reason which in fact persuaded physicists of the truth of his law: [OJur everyday experience of projectiles completely confirms this [law] ... For there is no other reason why a projectile should persist in motion for some time after it leaves the hand that throws it. except that what is once in motion continues to move until it is slowed down by bodies that are in its way (AT VIII, p. 63/6-11).

What confirms the law. in short, is that, on the one hand, it is consistent with the complex idea of motion that is formed when ideas of its varieties. such as projectile motion, are not overlooked. and that on the other. alternative laws, like Aristotle's, are not consistent with that complex idea. That motion is a state is considered by Spinoza to be per se nota, because it will be perceived to be true of the actual world by anybody who reflects on

•

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Alan Donagan

his idea of motion generally, as he actually encounters it (an idea, inter alia, of the motions of projectiles he tries to stop). Of course, he must take care not to confuse that idea with an idea of some specific motion (like that of a heavy trunk dragged across the floor). And he must not think of a law so established as per se nota in the sense of being self-evidently true in all possible worlds. Once scientists have established the law of inertial motion and the other "Mechanical principles of Philosophy" by reflecting on their complex ideas of motion and rest as they experience them, they can proceed, by planned observation and experiment, to ascertain what, to use Newton's phrase, "the system of the world" is, so far as it is mechanical (cf. Letter 13). Unfortunately, however, Spinoza's exchange with Boyle through the mediation of Oldenburg reveals that the methodology of the more speculative founders of the mechanical school, like Descartes, leaves room for an obstacle to experimental research which they failed to perceive (Letters 1-7,11,13-14). Boyle claimed that when a glowing coal is dropped into melted nitre (potassium nitrate), the nitre is decomposed into a volatile component (spirit of nitre, or nitric acid) and a fixed one (fixed nitre); and that it can be recomposed. Against this, Spinoza propounds a hypothesis about how the different observed properties of what Boyle took to be the volatile and fixed components of nitre may be explained on the supposition that they are two forms of the same substance, as water and ice are. He then proceeds to object that, in interpreting Boyle's experiment, it cannot be assumed that nitre is decomposed by the coal: a further experiment is needed to show that the two alleged components are not two forms of the same substance (Letters 6,13). Like Descartes before him, Spinoza did not notice that the freedom of hypothesizing he allowed himself in interpreting Boyle's experiment would be an obstacle to establishing anything by any experiment. As Rupert and Marie Hall have pointed out, Spinoza's position seems to be that if two or more equally rational accounts of a phenomenon can be proposed, there is no reason to choose one as true rather than another. To him, it was all one whether Boyle's experiments were explained by supposing nitre and its spirit to be the same, or by supposing (as he thought Boyle did) that they are different. It did not. apparently, strike him as worthy of consideration that Boyle's "supposition" was supported by qualitative evidence, while his own ran counter to that evidence. Or that if an infinite range of supposing is allowed, no certainty is ever attainable. 9

Experimental method in science, as the Halls observe, requires a rule like that proposed by Newton in his Principia:

--Substance, Essence and Attribute in Ethics I

7

In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions,l0

Without such a rule, virtually no mechanical explanation of a phenomenon can be even provisionally established. Although Spinoza does not perceive the need, within the mechanical conception of physics, for a methodological rule like Newton's, nothing in his system forbids him to accept one. What matters for our present purpose is that, like Newton, he distinguishes experimentally testable hypotheses about what the specific mechanical structure of the world is from the principles of the mechanical conception, which, while dependent on experience generally, are not normally treated as open to revision in view of empirical findings. While he does not explicitly formulate the view of science he works with, it appears to be holistic, like Quine's. Any idea of how things are is a complex whole, in which some parts are relatively more theoretical and others relatively more empirical, the more theoretical parts being less readily revised than the more empirical parts in response to the addition of new more empirical parts. The most theoretical parts can reasonably be described as per se nota, in that virtually no new ideas will be considered sufficient reason for modifying them. But the more theoretical parts of any complex idea of how things are have the same kind of ground as the more empirical: a ground which Spinoza states in his theorem that "There is nothing positive in ideas on account of which they are called false" (EIIp33). The theoretical ideas expressed in the axioms of metaphysics and the mechanical conception of nature are wholly positive, because they negate nothing positive in our more empirical ideas. 3. Spinoza's Naturalization of Metaphysics If this view of what Spinoza took the axioms of metaphysics to be is true, then, far from supernaturalizing nature, he naturalizes God. And so, unlike Descartes before him and Leibniz after him, he does not use the language of traditional theology in its traditional sense when describing the infinite substance he calls "Deus sive Natura" in terms of it. The new, naturalized, senses Spinoza gives to theological terms appear again and again in the first philosophical book he published to express his own ideas: the Theologico-Political Treatise. In it, he repeatedly contrasts the imaginative character of prophetic utterances about God, as exemplified in

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the Jewish and Christian scriptures and in popular religious speech, with whatever non-imaginative equivalents they have. Now we can therefore assert without scruple that the prophets did not perceive things revealed by God except bv the help of imagination. that is. by mediating words or images, some of them true, others imaginary .... I could. it is true, say like others that it was brought about by the power of God; but then I would be seen to babble. For it would be the same as if I were to offer to explicate the form of some individual thing by some transcendental term. For all things come about through the power of God; more precisely. because the power of Nature is nothing but the power of God itself. it is certain that we do not understand the power of God to just the extent that we are ignorant of natural causes; and so it is foolish to run back to that same power of God, when we do not know the natural cause of something, that is, that power of God itself. '" And so, since the prophets perceived things revealed by God by the help of imagination, it is beyond doubt that they were able to perceive many things beyond the limits of the intellect; for many more ideas can be put together from words and images than from those principles and notions alone on which all our natural cognition is built up (TTP 1; my trans!.).

And in what he says about the special revelation to the Jews, Spinoza never deviates from saying that, to the extent that their imaginations go beyond the limits of the intellect, what prophets (Jewish and non-Jewish) reveal is practical, not theoretical. [I]f anybody skims through [the Jewish scriptures], he will see clearly that the Hebrews excelled the rest of the nations in this alone, that they conducted those affairs which pertained to the security of life prosperously. and overcame great perils. and that for the most part solely by the external help of God; in all else, however. they were equal to the rest, and God was equally propitious to al!. For it is established (as I have shown in the preceding chapter) that, with respect to the intellect they held very crude ideas about God and nature, and so were not chosen by God above the rest with respect to intellect ... (TTP 3; my trans!.).

4. Spinoza's Metaphysics (/): Fundamental Concepts We may now at last turn to Spinoza's theory of substance itself, as set out in Ethics I. Its fundamental concepts are expressed by four words: the verbs "to be," "to conceive" and "to cause." and the noun "essence." Throughout the Ethics Spinoza treats a thing as being or existing if and only if it is an individual, independent or dependent, in the world we inhabit. He recognizes no transcendent or supernatural beings. However, since the world is constantly changing, human beings often must and do refer to

Substance, Essence and A ttribute in Ethics I

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individuals the actual existence of which they do not assert; and when he himself does so Spinoza often uses the Latin Aristotelian term" essentia," and speaks of himself as thinking of the essences of those individuals. This usage is sufficiently exemplified in the contrasts he draws between, on the one hand, essence and existence in God, which he holds to be identical, and on the other, essence and existence in things "produced by God," which are not identical (Elp20, p24). A being whose existence is identical with its essence is simply one that, according to the laws of nature, can neither be created nor destroyed. To think of it is to think of an eternal necessary existent. Such a being, of course, is no more supernatural than one of Epicurus' atoms would be, if there were such things. By contrast, a being whose essence is not identical with its existence is one whose conservation is neither excluded nor required by the laws of nature. Sometimes, it must be acknowledged, Spinoza speaks of certain "natures" (i.e., essences) as involving self-contradiction, and so as being the reason why nothing exists of which they are the essences (e.g., Elplld). However, his normal usage appears in his theorem that God or Nature is the cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence. The sense of that theorem is that the laws of nature determine whether the existence of a certain finite individual is possible within nature (whether there is such an essence), and that what other finite things exist in nature determines whether that essence exists, and, if so, when (Elp25). Existents and their essences are both individual. Spinoza sometimes speaks of essences of kinds (e.g., ElpI7s); but the essence of an individual, say Socrates, is not the essence of his kind (the essence of man): it is as individual as he is.11 To conceive, as Spinoza understands it, is to form an idea of something. What is conceived is always a possible existent, whether actual or not; and the idea by which something is conceived is an intellectual representation of it by virtue of which it can be said to "exist objectively." The concept of an idea or intellectual representation was introduced into philosophy by Descartes. Spinoza, like his up-to-date European contemporaries, treats it as a working concept common to all who think clearly. The so-called Port Royal Logic is a good source for those who today seek a better grasp of that concept. 12 The error to which students of Spinoza today are most prone is that of treating ideas as propositions or as their constituents (according to either Aristotelian or post-Fregean logic). Both Spinoza and Descartes disparaged logic as a discipline the rules of which have at best limited practical

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significance. Cognizing something, whether adequately or inadequately, is having an idea of it. A logician is someone who is not deterred, by the fogginess of his insights into how ideas are related, from formulating them as rules for operating with putative mental equivalents of sentences. Finally, Spinoza conceives causation as a generic relation having two species: immanent (immanens) and transient (transiens) (EI p 18d). It is the relation by virtue of which the existence of an individual depends upon itself or upon another. Since, unlike Aristotle, Spinoza dismisses as superstitious the possibility that an existent in nature might normally have the power to produce another but fail to do so because of the recalcitrance of matter to form, he recognizes no causal relation that is not necessary. In Elp8s2 he lays down two axioms that hold for it generically: "that there must be, for each existing thing, a certain cause on account of which it exists"; and "that this cause, on account of which a thing exists, either must be contained in the very nature and definition of the existing thing ... or must be outside it." Immanent causation is the relation between an independent existent and an existent dependent on it: an individual has this relation either to itself or to another. Transient causation, by contrast, is the relation between two finite dura tiona I modes, one of which depends for its existence on the other. Nothing can be the transient cause of itself.

5. Spinoza's Metaphysics (II): Fundamental Principles The first axiom in Ethics I is, "Whatever is, is either in itself or in another" (Elaxl). Since its sense is not obvious, neither is its truth or falsity. I regret that I must baldly assert what I believe its sense to be, hoping that at least some of my reasons will be clarified in what follows. I] Spinoza's concept of "being in" has a dual ancestry. On the one side, it descends from the still numerous family springing from Aristotle's concept of the relation an individual accident has to the substance it is present in. On the other, it descends from the now shrunken family of concepts of the relation of a cause of being (as distinct from a cause of becoming) to its effect. Its ancestry in the first line explains why Spinoza takes it for granted that a being in which another is cannot itself be in yet another, as he does in demonstrating his fourth theorem, when he says: Whatever is, is either in itself or in another (by AI), i.e. (by D3 and DS), outside the intellect there is nothing except substances [= whatever are in themselves] and their affections [= whatever are in substances] (Elp4d; my emphasis).

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If beings could be in beings that were themselves in something else, there could be affections that are not affections of substances. Here Spinoza shows that his conception of "being in" excludes this. In the same way, Aristotle's conception of "present in" excludes the possibility that accidents be present in other accidents. The linkage of this line of ancestry with the second, that being in something is being immanently caused by it, is the source of Spinoza's characteristic doctrines that no substance can be produced by another (EIp6) and that every substance necessarily exists (EIp7d). But it has even more radical consequences. Spinoza's contemporaries, whether Aristotelians or advocates of the new mechanical principles, did not question that the natural world is made up of substances and their affections; in this, he was a man of his time. But if natural substances are all independent necessary existents, there is no need to assert the existence of any supernatural ones. Either God is a natural substance, or there is no God at ali. The identification of the relation of "being in" with that of "being immanently caused by" yields an alternative version of the axiom that Whatever is, is either in itself or in another [which is in itself]

(EIaxl), namely, the unformulated axiom that Whatever is, is either immanently caused by itself or is immanently caused by another [which is immanently caused by itself].

And, in view of that identification, the fourth axiom of Ethics I, Cognition of an effect depends on, and involves, cognition of its cause

yields two characteristic Spinozist doctrines that are assumed in his formal definitions of substance and mode. According to those formal definitions, a substance is something that is in itself and is conceived through itself (EIdef3); and a mode (the word, and the second part of the definition, derive from Descartes 14) is an affection of a substance: that is, something that is in another which is in itself, through which it is conceived (EIdefS). If whatever is in something is an immanent effect of that thing (as it must be if it is immanently caused by it), and if cognition of an effect involves cognition of its cause, then whatever is in something must be conceived through it. So, whatever is in itself must be a substance according to Spinoza's definition, and whatever is in another which is in itself must be a mode. Hence the three pairs of relational properties that are fundamental to Spinoza's metaphysics, namely,

•

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Alan Donagan in itself and in another (which is in itself], immanently caused by itself and immanently caused by another (which immanently causes itself], and (iii) conceived through itself and conceived through another, (i) (ii)

are such that whatever has the first member of any of them must also have the first member of each of the others, and whatever has the second member of any of them must also have the second member of each of the others. IS The connections thus established between these three relational properties constitute all but one of the fundamental principles ofSpinoza's metaphysics. And that metaphysics recognizes nothing as existent except natural substances and their affections or modes. Natural substances, however, are not what they are commonly believed to be. Every substance, being immanently caused by itself, necessarily exists; that is, its essence involves existence. And since Spinoza defines eternity as "existence itself, in so far as it is conceived to follow necessarily from the definition alone of an eternal thing" (Eldef8), every substance is eternal. Again, every substance is infinite in its nature or essence. This can be shown in several ways. The most direct is that, Since being finite is really, in part, a negation, and being infinite is an absolute affirmation of the existence of some nature, it follows from P7 [the theorem that it pertains to the nature of substance to exist] alone that every substance must be infinite (Elp8s1; cf. Elp8d).

The finite things in nature that are commonly taken to be substances can therefore (by Elaxl) only be things that are in the true infinite substances, that is, can only be their affections or modes.

6. Spinoza's Pluralism: The Real Distinction of Nature's Attributes What are the infinite substances which, with their modes, are all there is? Well, what essences involve existence, and so are eternal and infinite? Since Spinoza defines an attribute as "what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence" (Eldef4), prima facie, this question can be answered by ascertaining what attributes constitute such essences. 16 Since substances are conceived through themselves, the attributes that are perceived as constituting their essences will be really distinct if they can each be conceived through themselves, that is, each "without the help of" any other (cf. ElplOs). One of Spinoza's earliest metaphysical conclusions was that Descartes' identification of the two attributes that constitute the essences of substances in the natural world, namely, extension and thought,

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had a significance which had been overlooked. By directing their attention to what is said of God in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures, the supernaturalizing medieval theologians (he seems to have had Maimonides particularly in mind) had prematurely concluded that God can be conceived only negatively or figuratively, and hence that nothing positive expressing the divine essence - no divine attribute - is within human comprehension (cf. KV 1:7). Not even Descartes had been able to shake off the prejudice that nothing natural can be eternal and infinite. Thus it was left for Spinoza to point out that extension and thought express eternal and infinite essences (cf. KV I: 2). Anything extended or thinking, if it really is a substance, must be eternal and infinite. Extension and thought, however, are really distinct, as Descartes had perceived, for each can be conceived without the help of the other. Must it not then be concluded that the natural world, as human beings conceive it, consists of at least two substances, one extended and one thinking? To any Cartesian who followed Spinoza to this point, that inference would have been inevitable. And it was pressed upon him as early as February 1663 by Simon de Vries, a young friend and benefactor, writing on behalf of a group meeting in Amsterdam to discuss an early version of the Ethics. Apart from special assumptions such as that implicit in Spinoza's definition of God, de Vries wrote: [1][ I may say that each substance has only one attribute and if I had the idea of two attributes, I could rightly conclude that, where there are two different attributes there are two different substances (Letter 8).

And if really distinct attributes each constitute the essence of a substance, how can the substances whose essences they constitute be fewer than they? That is, how can any substance have more than one attribute?

7. Substance Monism and Attribute Pluralism: Spinoza's Replies to de Vries

In effect, de Vries proposes a principle for determining what substances there are, namely, that: [E]ach attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence constitutes the essence of a really distinct substance.

Let us call this "de Vries' Principle." Its ground is easily discerned. An attribute, by definition, "constitutes" the essence of the substance which has it. What "constitutes" means in this connection is not clear: presumably something less than "is identical with." However, lacking any indication

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that Spinoza understands "constitute" In any way in which his contemporaries would not have, it would be natural to infer that essences "constituted" by two really distinct attributes are also really distinct. De Vries had reason to claim that, prima facie, his principle is per se natum. And if it is in fact true, there are at least two eternal and infinite substances. Spinoza's definition of God as a being "consisting of an infinity of attributes [that is, all the attributes there are l7 ], of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence" (Eldef6), presupposes a principle contrary to de Vries', namely, that: [E]very attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence can constitute the essence of one and the same substance.

Let us call this "Spinoza's Principle."l8 The objection Spinoza must meet is that, prima facie, de Vries' contrary principle is per se natum. Unfortunately, his replies to de Vries beg the question, expressly in correspondence (Letter 9), and implicitly in the Ethics (ElpIOs, plls). In the former, he claims that he had demonstrated that "substance ... can have more attributes than one" in two ways. The first was that, since "the more reality or being an entity has the more attributes there must be attributed to it," it follows that a being absolutely infinite must have every attribute that expresses an eternal and infinite essence. The second was that, "the more attributes I attribute to any entity the more I am compelled to attribute existence to it, that is, the more do I conceive it as true. Quite the contrary would happen if I had imagined [finxeram] a Chimaera, or something similar." Even in later versions of the Ethics than that about which de Vries was writing, Spinoza continued to repeat both these arguments (ElplOs, plls). To both de Vries might have objected that nothing can be defined as having more attributes than anything can have. If his principle is true, then nothing can have more than one attribute, and, hence, if there are more attributes than one, no true idea can agree with Spinoza's definition of God as an absolutely infinite substance. Although Spinoza insists that defining God as he does is not like forming the idea of a Chimaera, de Vries implicitly replies that it is. Moreover, if nothing can have more than one attribute, attributing more than one attribute to a thing, far from compelling us to affirm its existence, would compel us to deny it. Spinoza's treatment of de Vries' difficulty is therefore perplexing. Although it is formulated almost wholly in terms of traditional natural theology, both the conclusions he draws and the principle he presupposes in drawing them are revolutionary. Hence he can be defended only by finding

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some new interpretation of what he says. If his new wine would not burst the old bottles in which he appears to offer it, it would not be worth drinking. In arguing that "the more attributes I attribute to any entity the more I am compelled to attribute existence to it" (Letter 9), Spinoza anticipates an idea Leibniz was to restate in terms of possible beings. All possibilia, or [things] expressing essence or possible reality, tend toward existence with a right Uure] proportional to [their] quantity of essence or reality, or to the grade of perfection they involve; for perfection is nothing but quantity of essence. 19

About such passages, Benson Mates has warned us that, it would be absurd to take literally Leibniz's oft-repeated principle that all the possibles "strive for existence" ... In the context of his philosophy this obviously means that whatever is compossible with what exists, exists - i.e. that if God could create x, then he would do so unless the existence of other things prevents it. 2o

Leibniz speaks of possible beings as "tending toward existence" more or less strongly, as though possible beings can tend or strive, even though he does not believe for a moment that anything but actual beings can do so. And so, when he describes worlds less good than the best possible as tending to exist less strongly than the best possible one, all he means is that, since the best possible world is the one God has created, nothing except what is in that world can exist. I have already argued that, like those who developed the mechanical conception of physics, Spinoza holds that the task of philosophy is to ascertain what composes the natural world as it is, and what laws explain the processes that go on in it. No more than Leibniz, as Mates interprets him, could Spinoza literally have believed that beings with fewer attributes than his God lack existence because, although they have some tendency to exist, it is weaker than God's. The struggle for existence between possible beings is no more than a metaphor for the more prosaic truth that, given the natural world as it actually is, it is self-contradictory to ascribe existence to logically possible beings that are not in it. If this is so, then Spinoza's a priori argument for God's existence, which appears to go from God's nature, presented as a mere possibility, to his actual existence (EIplls), cannot be as it appears. What then is it?

8. The Naturalist Foundation of Spinoza's Replies to de Vries According to Spinoza's naturalization of metaphysics, the question which principle about what a single attribute constitutes is true, de Vries' or his

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own, is not about what is logically possible, but about how the natural world in fact is. It can be answered a priori only in the sense in which the question which of the laws of inertia is true, Aristotle's or Descartes', can be answered a priori: that is, by reflecting on the complex ideas we have of what the rival principles are about. Human beings have ideas of only two attributes: Extension and Thought. But their ideas of extended things and thinking things are as rich as their idea of motion, and furnish sufficient material for reflection. Curiously, the only passage I h;lVe found which unambiguously shows that Spinoza did reflect in this way is in the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. Having formulated the question, "[W]hy ... have [we] said that all these attributes which are in Nature [and of which human beings know two] are only one, single being, and by no means different ones (though we can clearly and distinctly understand the one without the other)[?]" (KV I: 2/17), he sandwiches the following answer between two question-begging considerations of the kind he resorted to in replying to de Vries. We say this: "Because of the unity which we see everywhere in Nature; if there were different beings in Nature, the one could not possibly unite with the other" (ibid). To conceive the substances which attributes constitute in terms of de Vries' principle would be as absurd as to conceive motion in terms of Aristotle's law of inertia: it would make it impossible to incorporate into our conceptions of extended substance and of thinking substance ideas of them which we actually have and cannot get rid of. The parallel is close. Just as we see motions coming to an end with no apparent cause, so we encounter finite extended objects that do not appear to also be finite thoughts. In the former case, we correct the false idea that what we see tempts us to form by bringing it into conformity with our ideas of other motions, such as those of projectiles we try to stop. In the same way, Spinoza proposes to correct the false idea which our encounters with non-animal external objects tempt us to form by bringing it into conformity with the ideas we each have of the only thoughts we immediately cognizeour own: as each of us can verify, ideas of the extended world as it acts upon our bodies and as our bodies react to it, are the foundation of all our other ideas. But if that is so, then the infinite thinking substance of which our minds are finite modes cannot exist independently of the infinite extended substance of which our bodies are finite modes. That there are extended modes that are not also thinking modes is as much an appearance as that there are motions that cease of their own accord.

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9. Elucidating Spinoza's Monism: What "Constituting" the Essence of a Substance Is

In arguing that really distinct attributes can constitute the essence of one and the same substance, Spinoza's use of the metaphor of possible beings struggling for existence was excusable, given the theological situation in which he wrote. Yet it was as misleading then as it is now out of date. Now that the sort of reason he would have given, if only he had denied himself that metaphor, has been revealed by the passage to which I have referred in the Short Treatise, I submit that we should deny ourselves the use of that metaphor in interpreting him. If we do, we can begin to construct the answer to de Vries that Spinoza might have made, but did not. The principle which de Vries invoked, that each really distinct attribute constitutes the essence of a really distinct substance, rests on the assumption that "constitutes" implies "is identical with." That assumption is natural if it is also assumed, with Spinoza's contemporaries and most of his successors, that to state what constitutes the essence of something is to define it. Some years ago, I ventured to suggest that Spinoza rejected this whole line of thought: Why not think of the essence of ... a substance [as Spinoza conceives it] as standing in a unique relation to each of its attributes: a relation neither of definitional identity nor of causality; a relation, moreover. which might reasonably be signified by speaking of each attribute as "constituting" ("constituens") or "expressing" ("exprimens") that essence~ A fundamental formal property of this relation would be that two attributes might on the one hand be really distinct, and on the other constitute or express the same essence. 21

Unfortunately, as Bennett justly comments, [this] proposal tells us nothing about the actual content of Spinoza's doctrines. It says only that his substance monism means something consistent with his property dualism: we are not given a glimmering of what doctrine the monism might be . ..

.n

Nevertheless, I hope that what has been said herein may yield a glimmering of it. Spinoza's argument in the Short Treatise presupposes that two really distinct attributes constitute the same essence if it is a law of nature that the finite modes of a substance conceived as constituted by one correspond to the finite modes of a substance conceived as constituted by the other. And the finite modes conceived by two really distinct attributes will correspond

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if, in the language of Ethics II, proposition 7, they have "the same order and connection." What I have called "Spinoza's principle," that every attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence can constitute the essence of one and the same substance, amounts to this: it is logically possible that it is a law of nature that the finite modes of a substance conceived as constituted by any attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence have the same order and connection as the finite modes of the substance whose essence is conceived as constituted by any other. There seems to be no reason why it could not be a law of nature that the finite modes of the substance conceived as constituted by extension have the same order and connection as the finite modes of the substance conceived as constituted by thought. And if this is a law of nature, as Spinoza believed, then, according to his argument in the Short Treatise, the substances conceived as constituted by extension and thought are one and the same, with one and the same essence; and their corresponding modes are also one and the same (cf. EIIp7s). The theorem that God, a being consisting of every attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence (EIpll), necessarily exists, simply means that this is a law of nature. The obvious and strong objection to this interpretation is that, if it is true, the demonstrations Spinoza offers of both theorem and principle, taken literally, are not merely unsound but question-begging and misleading; and that nobody as aware of what he was doing as he was could have offered them. To this, the best reply is that nobody who naturalizes metaphysics as Spinoza does throughout his writings could intend perceptive readers to take those demonstrations literally. His theorems, I submit, are coherent only if they are understood in terms of his naturalization of metaphysics. True, some of his demonstrations cannot be so understood, particularly those of propositions 10 and 11 in Ethics I. But, in context, those demonstrations are incoherent. That, however, is excusable. Pollock said what needs saying over a century ago: The task Spinoza took upon himself ... was [not] altogether a possible one; and it is at least doubtful if Spinoza himself was aware of its magnitude. I do not think he realized the extent of the revolution which was really involved in his use of philosophical terms ... He thought he was correcting erroneous interpretations, when he was in truth abrogating the text. Thus we find almost everywhere in his world scientific and essentially modern thought clothed in the semblance of scholastic forms; and this creates for the modern reader an illusion which it is extremely difficult to shake off.'l

I t is not a discredit to Spinoza that he now and then lost sight of what he was

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doing, and fell back into familiar and accepted ways of thinking. What matters is that the structure of his thought is clear enough to reveal his lapses from it.

Notes 1. Pollock describes "the task Spinoza took upon himself" as breathing new life into traditional philosophy "through the new [scientific] conception of things." See Frederick Pollock. Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy (London: C. Kegan Paul: 1880), p. 156 and chap. 5 passim; And Curley has worked out the theme Pollock sketched: see Edwin M. Curley, Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 49 and chap. 2, "The Causality of God" passim). 2. Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp.29-30, esp. p.30. I pass over Bennett's view that Spinoza's causal rationalism is virtually forced on him by his explanatory rationalism, because I see no good reason to believe that he was an explanatory rationalist. 3. Bennett himself disposes of one bad reason for doing so: namely, that Spinoza sometimes uses the language of causality in discussing logico-mathematical topics. For example, Wolf, in his edition and translation of Spinoza's correspondence, cites a passage from Letter 60 in which the word "cause" is used to refer to a method of geometrical construction that would necessarily exist even if nobody implemented it. See Abraham Wolf. The Correspondence of Spinoza (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928), pp. 60-61. Bennett rightly insists that such uses of the word "cause" do not implicitly identify causality with logical necessity (Bennett. p.30). 4. Bennett. p. 30. 5. loco cit. 6. Despondency is defined as "thinking less highly of oneself than is just. out of Sadness" (EIIIdef.aff.29); and sadness as "man's passage from a greater to a lesser perfection" (ElIIdef.aff.3) - a passage which. on Spinoza's causal principles. is a change in both bodily and mental state, which has the effect of both reduced capacity to act and reduced power to form adequate ideas. Given such concepts of despondency and sadness, it logically follows that. if somebody is despondent. he must be more prone to affects arising from ignorance and weakness. such as envy. than somebody who is not despondent (EIVp57s). However. it does so because reference to certain causal laws is built into the concepts of despondency, sadness and envy: and that it does so implies nothing whatever about the nature of causal necessity. My argument here owes much to Curley. pp. 64- 74. 7. Quotes from Descartes are taken from Rene Descartes. Oeuvres de Descartes. ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Nouvelle Presentation en Co-Edition avec CNRS (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964-1975). 11 vols., abbreviated as AT. (For the most part, I follow the good translations from AT in John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch. eds. and transl., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19851.)

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8. Spinoza himself, in Ethics II, employs a question-begging a priori argument like Descartes' (ElIpI3Iemma3c). But his use of bad a priori arguments in conjunction with good a posteriori ones (as here) does not show that they are primary in his thought. 9. Rupert A. Hall and Marie Boas Hall, "Philosophy and Natural Philosophy: Boyle and Spinoza," in Melanges Alexandre Koyre II: rAventure de f'Esprit (Paris: Hermann, 1964) pp.241-256. 10. Isaac Newton, transl. Andrew Motte, rev. Florian Cajori, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and System of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), as cited in Hall and Hall, p.254. 11. Spinoza's concept of essence is found elusive by most of those who write about it in English. The best treatments of it I have found are in Martial Gueroult, Spinoza (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968-1974), vol. I, pp. 548-549, and Alexandre Matheron, /ndividu et Communaute chez Spinoza (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1969), esp. pp. 10, 12, 18-22. 12. Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, La Logique ou rAn de Penser (Paris: Flammarion, 1970; based on the 1683 edition), Part I, esp. chaps. 1-2. The opening sentence of chap. I, "Le mot d'/dee est du nombre de ceux qui sont si clairs qu'on ne les peut expliquer par d'autres, parce qu'il n'y en a point de plus clairs et de plus simples" (p. 66), should be kept in mind. 13. Since this paper was written, and partly because of discussions in Jerusalem, I now think a simpler treatment is possible. "Being in" is the same relation as "being immanently caused by"; but, whereas transient causation is a transitive relation, immanent causation is not. Topographically, one finite moving thing can "be in" another; but moving things that are "in" moving things in this sense are not "in" them in the sense of EIaxl: that is, they are not immanently caused by them. The only immanent cause of all movement, and hence of all moving things distinguishable by virtue of any movement within itself, is the infinite plenum itself - i.e., God or nature as extended. See Alan Donagan, Spinoza (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1988), pp. 61-64, 6S. 14. R. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, AT VIII-I, p. 261 19-22; p. 291 IS-22. 15. A complication should be mentioned, although I have no space to explore it. If all modes are in another, caused by another, and conceived through another, then all modes are finite. But Spinoza allows himself to speak of some infinite and eternal individuals as "modes": namely, those that follow from the absolute nature of any of God's attributes (EIp21). Spinoza's definition of eternity confirms what is obvious from what he writes about these individuals: that the existence of each of them is conceived to follow necessarily from its definition alone (EIdefS). From which it follows that each of them is in itself and is immanently caused by itself. Yet there is a sense in which each is not conceived through itself: namely, that an adequate idea of it is distinguishable from an adequate idea of the attribute from the absolute nature of which it follows. Of course, there is a sense in which each is conceived through itself: namely, that its existence follows necessarily from what is represented by the adequate idea formulated in its definition. Here as elsewhere, Spinoza implicitly recognizes that, although the ordo et connexio of ideas of finite things is identical with that of those finite things (cf. EIIp7), the internal structure of adequate ideas of an infinite thing may not be that of the thing itself. Deus sive Natura and its eternal

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modes are one and the same existent; but the adequate ideas by which we cognize it are not one and the same. 16. Whether intellect is taken to refer to intellect generally. to infinite intellect. or to finite intellects. nonsense results from taking the phrase "what intellect perceives" as anything but an ellipsis for "what intellect truly perceives." Hence an attribute is not merely perceived to constitute the essence of a substance, but in fact constitutes it: and, since a thing and its essence are not really distinct, Spinoza does not scruple to speak of attributes as constituting substances themselves (e.g .. EIp lOs). On the whole "Controverse sur I' Attribut." see Gueroult, vol. 1. pp.428-468. 17. Cf. George L. Kline, "On the Infinity of Spinoza's Attributes." in Siegfried Hessing, ed., Speculum Spinozanum 1677-1977 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 341-347, 351-356. Kline acknowledges debts to H.H. Joachim, [A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza (Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1907), p. 23] and to Wolf. p. 26; and he has useful notes on their critics, e.g .. in his notes on Hallett and Savan. 18. Martial Gueroult has offered an alternative reading: that each really distinct attribute constitutes the essence of a really distinct substance of one attribute, infinite in its kind; and that God, the absolutely infinite substance, is the necessary union of these really distinct substances. And so he takes Spinoza's God to be, like each of Descartes' human beings, a union of really distinct substances, although unlike them, a necessary union (cf. Gueroult, vol. I, pp. 230-232). The textual evidence is surprisingly indecisive. On Gueroult's side, Spinoza's definition of God leaves it open whether each of his attributes constitutes a distinct essence or not; and in asserting that a substance may have many attributes. he describes those attributes as constituting it, not its essence (EIdef6 and EIplOs). Against Gueroult, although Spinoza once speaks of a substance of one attribute (EIp8d). he nowhere does so in a context in which he asserts that such substances exist. My own greatest difficulty with Gueroult's interpretation is that it excludes every possible explanation of how the union of the really distinct substances of one attribute into an indivisible absolutely infinite being can be necessary. It cannot be necessary by virtue of an external cause. because God is causa sui. Nor can it be necessary by virtue of an internal cause. if both the attributes and the essences they constitute are really distinct: for God is nothing but his attributes. On the other hand. if each of the attributes constitutes the same essence as the others, the explanation is obvious. 19. "De Rerum Origine Radicali." Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Die Philosophischen Schriften. ed. c.r. Gerhardt (Berlin: Weidmann. 1857-1890). vol. VII. p. 303. It is difficult to believe that Leibniz did not have in mind Ethics Iplld.s (esp. G52/31-53/2; 53/29-31: 54/5-9). 20. Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language (New York: Oxford University Press. 1986), p. 73. 21. Alan Donagan, "Essence and the Distinction of Attributes in Spinoza's Metaphysics," in Marjorie Grene. ed., Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1973). p. 180. 22. Bennett, p. 144. 23. Pollock. pp. 156-157. Curley quotes a related passage as the epigraph to chap. 3 of Spinoza' s Metaphysics.

Alexandre Matheron

Essence, Existence and Power in Ethics I: The Foundations of Proposition 16

As Tschirnhaus wrote in Letter 82, proposition 16 is perhaps the most important proposition in the whole of Part I of the Ethics. But it is also the most paradoxical. Spinoza says that, insofar as God is an absolutely infinite being, an absolute infinity of properties must be deducible from his essence; and he concludes from this that God must produce an absolute infinity of effects within himself. But why does Spinoza put properties in the same category as effects? For the fact that they are both species of the genus "consequence" does not prove anything. The extension of geometricians, for example, has an infinite number of properties - all the properties of all conceivable figures - but it does not produce any effect! One may therefore ask how we can justify this identification, which Spinoza presents ex abrupto as something perfectly obvious, when nothing seems to have prepared us for it. But, in fact, many things have prepared us for this identification, not always formal demonstrations, but a series of indications the key to which is a common principle: the total intelligibility of all reality. This principle dominates all the axiomatics of Ethics I and, if taken further, entails the necessity of a complete realization of all that is intelligible. I shall elaborate on the following four points below: (1) Significant suggestions in the first eight propositions have already led us toward this identification. These eight propositions are devoted to the deduction of the properties of "substances with one attribute" (l accept Gueroult's expression, provided it is understood to mean "substances considered under a single attribute.") Especially important in this connection are proposition 7 and the two scholia to proposition 8. (2) Still another indication can be found in Elp9-10, where Spinoza establishes the conceivability of his conception of God. (3) From there, the demonstrations of God's existence take us further and further, in an orderly progression. (4) Finally, EI p 11 s brings us to a fundamental intuition which renders proposition 16 self-evident.

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I. As is well-known, proposition 7 can be gIven a strong or a weak interpretation. On the strong interpretation, it proves the necessary existence of any conceivable substance. On the weak interpretation, however, it merely states that the existence of a substance can only be due to the fact that existence is involved in its essence. If understood according to the weak interpretation, it must be admitted that this proposition follows strictly from what precedes it, even if the two axioms on which it is based are not explicitly mentioned in its demonstration. Thus, according to EIax3, if a substance exists, it must have a cause; according to Elax4, its existence must be deducible from the nature of its cause; and, according to EIp6c, a substance cannot be produced by anything other than itself. Hence, if a substance exists, it must be its own ca use and, consequently, its existence must be deducible from its essence. As this clearly follows from the definition of the substance itself and from two axioms regarded as self-evident, it must be a necessary truth whose negation would imply a contradiction. It can thus be formulated as follows: (p7-1)

It is necessary that, if a substance exists, its essence implies existence. In other words, it is impossible to conceive (without contradiction) that a substance could exist without its existence being implied in its essence.

If, however, one gives proposition 7 the strong interpretation, further intellectual effort is required. On the one hand, it must be understood that the only substances referred to in the text - as the word "nature" indicates-are substances which really have a nature, i.e., an essence which can be clearly and distinctly conceived, whose definition does not conceal any internal contradiction. On the other hand, it is necessary to introduce an implicit axiom, but one which no reader of Spinoza would refuse to allow him, and which Spinoza himself would surely consider a trivial variant of his axiom 6 ("A true idea must agree with its object"). As there can be no true idea without an object that is at least possible, one must say that:

(a)

Anything whose essence is conceivable can be conceived as existing without any contradiction; thus its essence does not preclude existence.

This being assumed, the deduction, again, becomes rigorous. For, if a clearly and distinctly conceivable substance had an essence which did not

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imply existence, one could deduce from its essence alone that, according to Elax3-4 it would only exist if produced by an external cause, and that, according to EIp6 its production by an external cause is impossible. One could thus deduce from its essence alone that it does not exist; and consequently, its essence would preclude existence. Therefore, if axiom (a) is true, the strong interpretation of proposition 7 is also true and can be formulated as follows: (p7-2)

Any conceivable substance has an essence which implies existence.

Spinoza himself clearly gave the proposition the strong interpretation. But, at this point in his argument, he did not care which way his readers understood it. For, as we shall see, it is always possible to move from the weaker to the stronger interpretation, and it becomes easier to do this if the conceivability of the substance "God" has been demonstrated beforehand. Nevertheless, in a scholium on a far higher level than the propositions themselves, Spinoza provides another, far more intuitive demonstration of the necessary existence of every conceivable substance. And in so doing he takes a significant step in preparing us for the most intuitive of the four proofs of God's existence. Spinoza, in fact, takes two steps here. The first is as early as EIp8sl, in which he attempts to provide a second proof of the infinity of substance, one which is more intuitive than the ad absurdum argument just given. This proof states that "being finite is really, in part, a negation" while "being infinite is an absolute affirmation of existence." However, a partial negation is also a partial affirmation; in other words, in contrast to the unconditional character of the absolute, it is a conditional affirmation. Leaving aside for the moment the somewhat cryptic notion that the thing itself contains an inherent affirmation of its own existence, what is certain since every idea affirms its own content according to Spinoza - is that such an affirmation is involved in the true idea of the thing. Quite apart from the question of the infinite, Spinoza thus acknowledges that, when we conceive of a thing whose essence does not preclude its existence, our true idea of that thing does not generally represent it to us simply as equally able to exist or not to exist; other things being equal, our true idea gives preference to existence: it affirms either that its object exists unrestrictedly, or that it exists unless some specific obstacles prevent it from doing so. And since, according to Elax6, a true idea must agree with its

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object. another variant of this aXIom might be: (b)

Anything which can be conceived as existing exists if no external obstacle prevents it from so doing.

The second step is in EIp8s2. where we find a third variant of axiom 6. In once again proving the necessary existence of every conceivable substance. Spinola in effect makes the following points. According to axiom 6. (although not specifically stated). every true idea must have a real object outside the intellect, either an existing thing or at least a true essence. But an essence would not. strictly speaking. have any reality - would not be anything - if it were not itself contained in the nature of some truly existing thing through which it can be conceived and in which it can eventually actualize itself. And this existing thing, if not a substance itself, is contained and conceived through a substance. It is therefore evident that: (c)

For any conceivable thing. there necessarily exists a substance through which this thing can be conceived.

And. as a substance can only be conceived through itself. it follows that any substance of which we have a clear and distinct idea necessarily exists. With this wonderfully simple proof, we have obtained all that we could expect from the mere consideration of substances "with one attribute." Therefore, all that remains to establish the existence of the God of EIdef6 is to prove his conceivability as defined therein.

2. This conceivability is demonstrated by EIp9-10. But proposition 9 can also be given two interpretations, which. far from contradicting each other. complement one another. For. Spinoza says: "The more reality or being each thing [and not merely each substance] has. the more attributes belong to [or are in keeping with] it." And when he declares an astonishing proposition "evident." this is usually an invitation to give the matter further thought. It is quite true that proposition 9 applies. above alL to substances. From this point of view, Gueroult is correct. again providing we take into account the qualification noted above. We have a "given true idea": the idea of an absolutely infinite being, whose internal structure Spinoza must bring to light. As this idea clearly represents a substance rather than a mode, and as the substance which it represents has infinitely more reality than a substance "of one attribute" (or "considered under a single attribute," which amounts

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to the same thing here), the only way of reproducing its richness conceptually is to endow its essence with an infinity of attributes. After this is done, when this substance is considered under anyone attribute, all that the first eight propositions have already established can continue to be asserted of it. But, this having been said, it must be pointed out that the word "thing" also applies to things in general, including modes. Indeed, because we have the idea of God, we also have some intuition of what could be called the "ontological density" of things: we know with absolute certainty that there is much more to a thing than its actualized eSSence as we would grasp it if our knowledge were complete. For instance, we know that there is infinitely more to a body than a simple combination of motion and rest in extension, even if geometrical physics could provide us with total knowledge of everything that occurs there. And how can we reconcile this intuition with the total intelligibility of the real, except by acknowledging that one and the same thing (a man, an animal, a table, etc.) exists in an infinity of ways, under an infinity of attributes, and that the "infinitely more" concealed behind the essence of this thing as we can conceive it is none other than the infinity of its manifestations under all these unknown attributes? It is true, however, that this use of the word "thing" is no more than a simple and very cautious suggestion, raised only to pave the way for the final intuition toward which the chain of demonstration is leading us. What is most important, as far as this chain is concerned, is the ascription of an infinity of attributes to a single substance. However, it is for this very reason that we remain unsatisfied: we are only convinced because "it must be so, since it cannot be otherwise." We are compelled to acknowledge that the absolutely infinite being can be nothing but a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, but we do not yet see how these attributes can form a unity. This is why Spinoza is obliged to demonstrate in proposition 10, strengthened by its scholium, the internal non-contradiction of his definition of God, which really should be self-evident.

3. The existence of God can now be proved. In fact, if one adds the demonstration in the scholium to proposition II to the three demonstrations of that proposition, it is proved four times. And we find the same pattern here that we encountered before: the four proofs, though logically independent of each other, succeed one another in a sort of gradual initiation scheme. Each proof prepares us for comprehension of the next, and owing to his use of stronger and stronger variants of axiom 6 _

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themselves obtained from axioms (a), (b) and (c) - Spinoza's reasoning becomes more and more intuitive. Explicitly, the first proof of God's existence presupposes nothing other than EIax7 and EIp7, even on its weak interpretation (p7-1). Implicitly, it presupposes axiom (a) as well as another axiom which can also be considered a particular application of axiom 6 (for the agreement of idea and idea tum demands that any possible ideatum can be the object of a true idea). This additional axiom would be as follows: (d)

If p ("p" designating any proposition), it is possible to conceive that p. Or, what amounts to the same thing, if it is not possible to conceive that p, then not-po

But, if we take proposition 7 in its weak sense, we will now have to expend the slight intellectual effort which we previously avoided. Indeed, Spinoza argues as follows: Suppose it were possible to conceive of God as not existing; then, by axiom 7, his essence would not involve existence; but, according to proposition 7, this is absurd. Although the absurdity is less immediately obvious on (p7-1) than on (p7-2), it is still there. For, if the essence of God did not involve existence, it would be impossible to conceive it as involving existence: even an infinite intellect would be unable to do so. And it would then be impossible to conceive of God's existence as implied in his essence. But, since the conceivability of God's essence has been established, consequently, by (a), God can be conceived as existing. So one would have to admit that it is possible to conceive God as existing without his existence being implied by his essence, which contradicts (p7 -I). Hence it is not possible to conceive of God as not existing; hence, according to Cd), he exists. If, on the other hand, we give proposition 7 its strong interpretation (p7-2), there is no need to elaborate on Spinoza's demonstration; it is selfevident. So, here, recourse to an argument from the absurd appears somewhat unnecessary. And, yet, this is not the case, for it answers to a very real difficulty. We know from (p7-2) that the essence of any conceivable substance involves existence. But, since we now know the essence of God and are well able to conceive it, we would expect to be able to see the necessity of his existence in his very essence. However, at this point we are unable to do so. Once again, we must acknowledge that God's existence should be deducible from his essence, but we are unable to see how this can be done. The logical constraint of EIax7 and of axiom (d) was therefore

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necessary to keep us on the right track while we waited for this difficulty to be resolved. The second proof of God's existence begins to resolve this difficulty, at least negatively. This second proof requires, this time explicitly, the introduction of an axiom which is a much stronger variant of EIax6, one arrived at through a combination of axioms (a) and (b): (e)

Anything whose essence is conceivable (i.e., non-contradictory) exists if no external obstacle prevents it from so doing.

In other words, for something to not exist, it is not sufficient for there to be no reasons why it should exist; there have to be positive reasons, either inherent in or external to its essence, why it should not exist. We have to rid ourselves of the bad habit of asking "Why is there something rather than nothing?", as if nothingness were more intelligible than being. The question that should be asked is: "Why are there only certain things rather than everything?" And the correct answer, as we know, is that everything does indeed end up existing. Through this, the demonstration is immediately at hand. For, if there were any substance other than God, its nature - as must always be the case with two supposedly distinct substances - would be entirely different from that of God. Thus, one could not deduce anything from it concerning God - neither his existence nor his non-existence. Consequently, it could neither cause God to exist (as we already know), nor prevent him from existing. And, as we know from elsewhere that God's essence contains no internal contradiction, God must exist. He exists quite simply because there is no reason why he should not exist. But, exactly how can it be that the absence of a reason for not existing is ipso facto a reason for existing? We understand that this is the case, but why is it so? If we try to uncover the basis for this truth, another axiom is revealed, one which gives us the key to the answer and thereby readies us for the last two proofs of the existence of God. This axiom, an even stronger variant of EIax6, is obtained by combining axioms (c) and (e). From this combination one obtains the result that, for any conceivable thing, a substance exists through which this thing is conceived and in which it will exist as soon as the obstacles which prevent it from existing have disappeared. But this means that there is, within the substance itself, a tendency or an endea vor to cause the thing to exist, as well

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as a power of actualization capable of making it exist. According to Elax4, this tendency can only be explained by the very essence of this substance, since nothing acts upon it from the outside. From this we obtain a very strong axiom which this time remains implicit: (f)

For any conceivable thing, a substance exists by means of which this thing can be conceived, and, due to its own essence, this substance tends to bring the thing into existence in itself.

If one replaces "thing" with "substance" and inverts the order of the two propositions in (f). it follows that, due to its essence, any conceivable substance tends to exist and does in fact exist. And the latter is the consequence of the former: through its essence, any conceivable substance eternally exerts a certain power in order to exist and eternally succeeds in so doing, its success being strictly co-eternal with its effort. But it also follows from axiom (f) that, to the degree that it tends to and does exist, any conceivable substance tends to and does produce all the modes which are conceived through it. Such, then. finally, is that "affirmation of existence" which Elp8s1 presents as being, in the thing itself, the extra intellectum correlate of the existential affirmation contained in the true idea of it. This is what is explicated, for the unique case of the only truly conceivable substance, in the last two proofs of the existence of God, which should now be understandable. 4. The last two proofs rest on one explicit principle and two implicit assimilations. The explicit principle is, basically, a distillation of everything we have examined thus far: "To be able not to exist is to lack power, and, conversely, to be able to exist is to have power." Spinoza says this is selfevident. And, in fact, the progression from axiom (a) to axiom (f) has shown us how the simple logical possibility of existing, which has to be granted to anything whose essence can be conceived, really implies a tendency to exist and consequently a certain power of existence in the thing itself. But it should be noted that, conversely, the logical possibility of not existing means that this tendency is not by nature totally invincible in the thing itself, and thus is accompanied by a certain inability to exist. To what degree is this so? The two implicit assimilations provide an answer to this question. The first is the assimilation of the causal power of a thing to the degree of reality or perfection of its essence. Since, according to Elax4, all effects are deduced from their causes, and since the more content a principle possesses the

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broader are the consequences deduced from it, it can be assumed that, other things being equal, if two things produce effects, the one which produces more effects has the richer essence. The second is the assimilation of the power of existence to causal power in general, and the consequent assimilation of existence itself to the production of effects. It can be assumed that, other things being equal, a thing which produces no effect - not even the minimal effect which would consist of preserving itself in the same state as previously - does not have the means to exist for a single moment, and that, conversely, those things which produce the most effects have the most resources for persevering in their being. It is true that, in the case of modes, all other things are not equal. As they are produced and maintained in existence through external causes, it is not immediately evident that, for them, existing is synonymous with producing effects (this remains to be proved in Elp36). And, as external causes can prevent them from producing their effects, or destroy them, nor is there any relationship determined once and for all between their essence and their power. But Spinoza makes it quite clear that, here, he is only comparing substances, things which external causes can neither produce nor destroy, and which exist necessarily through themselves or not at all, eternally or never. For substances, to exist is to produce effects without being subject to any other thing; there is thus a strict correlation between their power of existence, their causal power and the degree of perfection of their essence, quite simply because no other factor is capable of intervening. But we can see the objection which Spinoza has to counter here: even supposing that a substance has an essence which gives it sufficient power to continue existing when it does exist, it also has to exist to begin with, an existence that has nothing to do with the production of effects as it constitutes the precondition for such production. As Spinoza points out. this objection always relies on the absurd assumption that a substance can achieve existence, in the same way as a mode. To this, Spinoza could have countered that, if one takes this objection seriously, the objection negates itself. Suppose that a substance exists at instant I. Two hypotheses are then possible: either its essence provides it with the power to continue existing until the following instant t+ I, or else it does not. In the former case, as its power will remain the same at t+I, t+2 and so on, it will never cease to exist after instant I. But, as it would not have been able to exist at I if it had not already existed at the previous instant I-I, one can at the same time understand the reason for its existence at I: the causal power of its essence already actualized at t-I. And this holds for all previous instants ad infinitum, without there having been any inexplicable initial instant. Thus,

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this substance has always existed, and one can fully understand why: it is entirely due to its power, which it derives from its essence alone. Consequently, since the extent of this power is deduced solely from its essence, it follows that, in reality, the existence of the substance is independent of time: it exists eternally due to the power which its essence eternally imparts to it. But, if so, it cannot be conceived of as not existing: given that whatever is deduced from an essence is deduced from it under any hypothesis, if we suppose that the substance does not exist, we must still conclude that it exists. As for the opposite hypothesis, it too is self-defeating: if the substance which exists at t does not have the power to continue existing at t+ 1, it could never have existed at any time; its existence would be eternally impossible per se; and its essence would be certain to contain an internal contradiction. It remains to determine which substances have an essence which reaches the threshold of power necessary for it to exist. The last two proofs determine this with regard to God and, at the same time, with regard to all the other substances. The third proof, which is both a posteriori and an argument ad absurdum, and which does not assume anything beyond (p7-l), is intended, as expected, to pave the way for the fourth. Since its causal power, in proportion to the richness of its essence, is sufficient reason for the existence of any substance, it would be absurd if the only things that existed necessarily were "finite" substances (finite in relation to the absolutely infinite). For, God, who has an essence infinitely richer than theirs and consequently infinitely stronger power, has infinitely many more reasons to exist than they do. Thus, either no substance has sufficient power to exist and so nothing exists, or else God has sufficient power and therefore exists. But we exist, and consequently there exists at least one substance (ourselves, or the substance of which we are a mode) which, by (p7-1), must necessarily exist. Therefore, a fortiori, God necessarily exists. As for the a priori proof, it beckons us to an ultimate intellectual experience. Consider a substance conceived under a single attribute. In a sense, its essence gives the substance an infinite causal power, which, if it allowed the substance to exist, would at the same time cause it to produce an infinity of things. But, since its power is infinitesimal compared to that of an infinitely infinite substance, it therefore has only one reason to exist and an infinity of reasons not to exist. And, in fact, the modes it gives rise to would have no ontological consistency. The modes of a purely extended substance, for example, would be purely geometrical entities, hardly more than beings of reason - which is to say, virtually nothing; and, as nothing cannot be produced, its separate existence would actually be contradictory. So let us

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attempt, by an act of thought, to increase the power of this substance by making it produce, not other things - as it would already produce all things if it could - but the same things with greater force, in order to amplify their consistency. Producing them with greater force is producing them in another way, that is, under a different attribute. But the addition of a new attribute will never yield anything but an infinitesimal accretion of power: one new reason to exist and, once again, an infinity of reasons not to exist. It is thus possible, in thought, to cause the productive activity of the substance to grow continuously, with each infinitesimal increase corresponding to the appearance of a radically new way of producing the same infinity of things; and the reasons for affirming the substance's existence increase proportionately. The absolutely infinite substance then becomes, as it were, the integral of the process: an absolute causal power which produces the same infinity of things in all conceivable ways, thereby giving each one the infinite ontological density it needs to truly be a thing. God has an "absolutely infinite power of existing," and as we now have every reason to affirm his existence, and we no longer have any reason to deny it, God therefore exists.

Starting from this point, as Spinoza wished, proposition 16 becomes selfevident. It may even give us the true definition of God, which Eldef6, although perfectly rigorous, only outlines. God, by definition, necessarily produces within himself infinitely many things, each of them in infinitely many ways: all conceivable things, in all conceivable ways. God, as a substance, is thus the productive activity immanent to all things, producing in itself all possible logical structures. Each of the structures which it produces is a mode. Each of the absolutely determined ways in which it produces them (by extending them, by thinking them, etc.) is a substantial attribute. The totality of attributes is thus strictly equivalent to the substance and renders it totally intelligible, without any residue; for a productive activity considered independently of any manner of producing would be strictly nothing. But it is the unity of a single productive activity throughout all these attributes which welds them into a single continuous entity, making it into one unique substance. The subsequent propositions merely develop what this implies: an immediate infinite mode constituted by the totality of all conceivable individual essences, the essence of each thing in nature being the property, eternally possessed by God, of necessarily having to produce this thing at some time; a mediate infinite mode constituted by the eternal laws according to which these essences are effectively actualized - laws sufficiently broad to

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enable all, without exception, to actualize themselves; and, within this mediate infinite mode, an infinite causal series of finite modes which cause each other to be actualized in accordance with these laws. Proposition 34 of Ethics I summarizes all this by expressly identifying God's power with his essence, without teaching us anything new. And proposition 36 states in conclusion that - to the degree that it is God himself, self-structured in some determinate way - each particular thing necessarily produces effects within the framework of that structure. In short, for all things, to exist is to produce effects. Which brings us directly to the theory of the conatus, for which Ethics I as a whole provides a rigorous foundation.

Edwin Curley

On Bennett's Interpretation of Spinoza's Monism

Jonathan Bennett has written what I think is a fascinating book on Spinoza.* I know his book will irritate many lovers of Spinoza, because Bennett does not believe in treating any philosopher with reverence, and because he can be very brusque - perhaps too brusque - in his dismissal of ideas in which he sees no merit, even when they are propounded by philosophers whom he believes to be great. Indeed, Bennett applies enough unflattering adjectives to various parts of Spinoza's work that it is not always easy to credit his expressions of respect for Spinoza as a philosopher.! Nevertheless, I think the iconoclastic spirit in which Bennett approaches Spinoza - what Hampshire 2 has called his "show-me" attitude, his determination not to be cowed by Spinoza's reputation - is much needed in Spinoza studies. Bennett asks a lot of hard questions about the text of the Ethics, and he is not satisfied with easy answers. That's a spirit we need more of, not only in Spinoza studies, but in the history of philosophy generally. More importantly, I think Bennett has propounded an interpretation of Spinoza which deserves to be taken seriously, even if, in the end, I reject it as offering too partial an explanation of the texts. Bennett's book has interesting and important things to say about virtually the whole of the Ethics. Nevertheless, in this paper I propose to concentrate on those aspects of his interpretation of Spinoza's metaphysics which directly confront the interpretation I offer in my own book on that topic. Indeed, I shall limit myself to the conflict between us over Part I of the Ethics, since I fear that the criticisms he makes of my interpretation of Part II are probably justified. At any rate, I am not, for now, interested in defending what I said in my book about the relation between Thought and Extension. So I shall concentrate mainly on Bennett's treatment of the

* A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984).

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concepts of substance, attribute and mode, and of the relations between substance and mode, and between substance and attribute. For I think there are things to be said in defense of my interpretation which I ought to have said before, and would have said before, if I had had as clear a grip on them as I feel I now have, as a result of Bennett's criticism. One way of looking at Bennett's book is as an attempt to reinstate the interpretation Joachim expounded in the book whose title Bennett echoes in the title of his own book. Joachim held that the antithesis of substance and its modes was a more precise formulation of the popular antithesis of thing and properties, the metaphysical .. , correlate of the logical antithesis of subject and predicate. J

If we conjoin this way of understanding the contrast between substance and mode with Spinoza's doctrines that there is only one substance (ElpI4c), and that everything that is, is in the one substance (Elp 15), we get the view that ultimately there is only one thing, one subject of all true predication, and that everything which is not identical with that one subject is a property of it; is, as it were, adjectival on the one thing. Since Spinoza says that particular things are modes which express in a certain way the attributes of the one substance (Elp2S), we must say that particular things are not really things at all, in the sense of being ultimate subjects of predication, but properties of the one thing. This is essentially the interpretation I once called "the Bayle-Joachim interpretation," on the ground that it goes back to the earliest days of Spinoza interpretation, i.e., to Bayle's Dictionary, and that it was wellarticulated by the great idealist interpreter, Joachim. I might now call it "the Bayle-Joachim-Bennett interpretation," as a way of emphasizing not only that it is a very natural interpretation, but also that it is a very persistent one, capable of appealing even to tough-minded analytic philosophers of the present day. On Bennett's version of this interpretation, at least, it is clear that the one thing on which everything else is adjectival may be referred to as either God or the whole of reality. In Spinoza's Metaphysics I raised a variety of difficulties about this way of reading Spinoza. First, and most importantly, I argued that it makes dubious sense to speak of particular things as properties of God. On the face of it, I said, Spinoza's modes are ... of the wrong logical type to be related to substance in the same way Descartes' modes are related to substance, for they are [or at any rate, include] particular things, [which are] not qualities. And it is difficult to know what it would mean to say that particular things inhere in substance. When qualities are said to inhere in substance, this may be viewed as a way of

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saying that they are predicated of it. What it would mean to say that one thing is predicated of another is a mystery that needs solving 4

By tacitly taking the proposition that finite things are properties of God to mean that the properties of finite things are properties of God, Bayle responded to this difficulty. And he complained that this led to manifest absurdities: that we would have to predicate properties of God which are unworthy of him (we would have to ascribe directly to God every odious action that man performs); that we would have to predicate contradictory properties of God (since, to take only one of many examples, one man may want what another man does not want); and that we would have to think of God as changeable (since every time a man changes his mind, it would be God who was changing his mind). So a system of thought motivated very strongly by a rejection of anthropomorphism would turn out to be the ultimate expression of anthropomorphism. This seemed to me a sufficiently perverse result to condemn the interpretation which led to it. And this was one reason why I urged a very different interpretation of the relation between substance and mode, arguing that the contrast between substance and mode in Spinoza has little or nothing to do with the contrast between a thing and its properties, that substance, for Spinoza, is what is causally self-sufficient, that a mode is something which is not causally self-sufficient and that the relation of mode to substance is one of causal dependence, not one of inherence in a subject. That seemed to me to have as good a precedent in the tradition as the BayleJoachim interpretation had, since Descartes, Spinoza's most influential predecessor, was as apt to define substance in terms of causal independence as he was to define it as an ultimate subject of predication, presumably on the assumption that there is some logical connection between these two ways of conceiving substance. I thought it not obvious that there was any such logical connection, and that if we read Spinoza as emphasizing the concept of substance as the causally self-sufficient, we would get an interesting and coherent interpretation of the metaphysics. Bennett has a less radical way of trying to solve the mystery. Basically, his idea is that, when we say of a finite thing that it has a certain property, what we are really saying is that the universe has a certain property, but not the same property which we attribute to the finite thing. To see how this works in detail, we need to focus on the relation of modes of Extension to extended substance, for Bennett's interpretation is worked out much more fully for the attribute of Extension than it is for the attribute of Thought. j On Bennett's model metaphysic, the world considered under the attribute of Extension is not the totality of physical objects in space, but space itself.

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Space has different regions which may be differently qualified, but what we think of as things in space are best thought of as differently qualified regions of the one space. To say that one region of space is differently qualified than another is to say that space has different qualities in one region than it does in others. Particular finite things in the spatial world - bodies - are logical constructions out of regions of space. As a first approximation, when we say of a particular body that it has a certain property, we are saying that some region of space has some other property or, more accurately, that space has that other property in that region. But if we are to take proper account of properties which involve temporal change, like motion, what we really need to do is to identify bodies with spatio-temporally continuous sets of placetimes. If there is a string of spatio-temporally continuous place-times such that each place in the string is like its temporal neighbors and unlike its spatial neighbors, then that string defines the path through time of what we would call an object in space. Bennett compares the motion of an object through space to the movement of a thaw across a countryside: When a thaw moves across a countryside, as we say, nothing reaHy moves; there are just progressive changes in which bits of the countryside are frozen and which are melted. Analogously, Spinoza's view is that the movement of things or stuff is, deep down, the passing along of something qualitative - a change in which regions [of space] are F and which are no!' for suitable values of F (pp. 89-90).

Bennett calls this "the field metaphysic," emphasizing the fact, as he takes it to be, that something like the metaphysic he attributes to Spinoza is "considerably in vogue" among contemporary physicists influenced by quantum theory (p. 92). But he also holds that ideas like this can be found in Kant (p. 91), Newton (p. 89) and Plat0 6 So the field metaphysic is supposed to have some inherent plausibility, whatever attractions it takes to appeal successively to Plato, Newton, Kant and contemporary quantum physicists. I'm not sure I understand adequately what those attractions are,7 but I'm not interested at the moment in pursuing that line of questioning. Let's concentrate on the way the field metaphysic is supposed to overcome the difficulties I had found in interpreting substance as the ultimate subject of all true predications. And let's take first the contention that this line of interpretation ascribes to God properties which are unworthy of God. Here the answer seems to be fairly clear-cut. Bennett takes as an example the proposition that the puddle in my driveway is slimy. Suppose that's true. Does it follow, on the field metaphysic, that God is slimy, or even that the universe is slimy? No, because when you analyze one predication in terms of others which underlie

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it, the properties which enter into the analysans will not, in general, be the same as the properties which enter into the analysandum: a fight [is] a relation among the men, and to predicate "protracted" of the fight is to say something about the men, but not that they were protracted. To say that the puddle is slimy is to say that a certain region of space is slimy* i.e., has that property of regions which we conceptualize by saying that there are slimy things in them. And to say that there is a slimy* region is to say that space is slimy* locally - where "locally" is just my place holder for whatever adverb would do the required job (p. 96).

What blocks the inference that God has objectionable properties is the idea that the properties which God really does have and which underlie our ordinary predications may be quite different from those properties we commonsensically attribute to bodies. What blocks the inference that God has contradictory properties, on the other hand, is the idea that predicating a property of a region of space is to be analyzed as predicating a locationally qualified property of space itself: If at this moment my pencil is yellow and my desk top is not yellow. the Spinozist does not have to say [that] space is yellow* and is not yellow* ... Just as temporal adverbs can turn a contradiction into a report of an alteration (yellow then, not yellow now), so spatial adverbs can turn a contradiction into a report of synchronic variety (yellow there, not yellow here ).8

It will be clear from these quotations that there are two levels of analysis: one in which we get rid of bodies in favor of regions of space, and one in which we get rid of regions of space in favor of space itself. The second level of analysis is necessary if we are going to preserve the idea that ultimately there is only one subject of predication. For we cannot allow regions of space to pass as ultimate subjects of predication. But the locational adverbs which are necessary for that reason also serve to remove the threat that space, or God, might turn out to have contradictory properties. Careful readers of my book might remember that I stressed one other problem in the Bayle-Joachim interpretation: that it appeared to make God changeable, and that this was an unacceptable result, since Spinoza clearly thinks that God is immutable (Elp20c2), Bennett does not deal with this explicitly as a potential objection to the field-metaphysic interpretation of Spinoza; but from remarks he makes later on in his book, when he deals with the problem of time (specifically, in §49.3), I take it that he would deny that Spinoza's God is immutable. There are predicates, Bennett holds, which are true of the one substance at one time, but not true of it at another. Spinoza may have had some tendency to deny this fact, but he does not do so consistently, and his most explicit statement on the subject regards the

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whole of nature as an organic individual which is changeless only in the sense that it retains its numerical identity in spite of the fact that change is constantly going on within it. Bennett's reference here, of course, is to the scholium to lemma 7 of Part II. Now I think Bennett's denial of God's immutability is a symptom of trouble, a sign that there is something wrong with the line of thought he is pursuing. I think one of the most central themes of Part I of the Ethics is to establish an austerely impersonal conception of God. according to which God will have nothing in common with man, but will have enough in common with the God of the philosophers to justifiably be called God. The demonstration of God's immutability seems to me to be an integral step in that argument, not something to be readily sacrificed. But it would be nai"ve to suppose that any systematic interpretation of the kind Bennett is proposing can be disproven simply by adverting to one awkward consequence. No interpretation I know of can do full justice to the textual data, including my own. What Bennett says in connection with the relation between substance and attribute seems to me to be true quite generally of this part of the Ethics: [T]he textual situation '" is difficult. forcing us to take some passages more literally than others: the disagreement concerns which to give most literal weight to (~16.7 ad fin.).

When I wrote Spinoza's Metaphysics, some eighteen years ago, I felt that the most awkward passages for me were EIp12-13 and the scholium to EIp15. 9 I find it striking that those are precisely the passages which support Bennett's reading of Spinoza most strongly. And I think there are other passages that support Bennett's reading which he doesen't even mention.1O I wish I could simply graft his account of those passages on to my own and treat the two interpretations as providing a more comprehensive account of the whole than either would in isolation, but I'm afraid I can't see how to do that. I'm afraid, in fact, that his interpretation and mine are just incompatible with one another, and that, to the extent that each has textual support, there is reason to fear an incoherence in the system they are designed to interpret. However that may be, I think there are a number of problems with Bennett's interpretation, enough to make me feel that in the long run it's not going to be the most attractive alternative. Let me give four examples, beginning with a question I have about the treatment of finite particulars in Bennett's version of the field metaphysic. In expounding Bennett I have stressed that there are two levels of analysis

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in the move from the common sense metaphysic, which treats bodies as subjects of predication, to the field metaphysic, which treats space as the subject of predication. At the first level, claims about particular bodies are analyzed as claims about the qualities possessed by regions of space. To say that the puddle in my driveway is slimy is to say that a certain region of space has that other property, sliminess *, which leads us to conceptualize certain regions of space as containing slimy objects. At the second level, claims about regions of space are analyzed as claims about some properties that space has "locally." To say that there is a region of space which is slimy* is to say that space is slimy* locally, where "locally" is, as Bennett puts it, "just [a] place holder for whatever adverb would do the required job" (p. 96). I think it's symptomatic of trouble here that the statement about regions of space at the first level of analysis is a singular statement about some particular region of space, whereas the statement about regions of space at the second level of analysis is a general statement about some region of space or other. If a statement about regions of space is to be plausible as an analysis of a statement about a particular object in space - say, "The puddle in my driveway is slimy" - then it had better be a statement about a particular region of space. I I But the statement which is being analyzed at the second level of analysis is not a statement about any particular region of space, just a statement about regions of space in general, viz. that some of them are slimy*. Now there seems to be a reason why we get this slide from singular statements to general statements, and it is that general statements are a good deal easier for Bennett to handle within the constraints he imposes on himself. Statements about regions of space in general can more readily be analyzed through the use of locational adverbs which do not involve tacit reference to any particulars. "Some regions of space are slimy*" goes over easily enough into "Space is slimy* somewhere," and I suppose more complex generalizations can be handled in a way which is not too unnatural. But statements about particular regions of space seem less readily analyzable. Bennett writes that: A complete Spinozist account of the world would have to provide replacements not only for quantifications over regions but also for mentions of individua: regions. But we have adverbs for that too, for we can replace 'Region R is F' by 'Space is F there' while pointing to R, or by 'Space is F here' while occupying R. Those adverbs are indexical- i.e., they are essentially tied to oneself and to the present - but that is no drawback. There are good reasons for thinking that any reference to a particular ... does involve an indexical element, something logically on a par with pointing to the particular

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Edwin Curler and saying 'the thing I am now pointing at'. Spinola's hostility to the I-now viewpoint might disincline him to let indexical adverbs into his metaphysic. but then he must pay the price of not being able to cope with facts of the form Fa. as distinct from one, of the form 'For some x, Fx'. (~23.4. par. 4)

Bennett conclude,; his discussion of this problem with the comment that [T Jhis is a general issue about indexicality and individual reference. which carries through unchanged into the context of the field metaphysic. So it is irrelevant to my present Cllncerns.

But I think the problem is more serious than Bennett seems prepared to allow. The problem about the use of indexical adverbs is not so much that they are indexical. that they imply an I-now viewpoint to which Spinoza might be hostile, but that they implicitly make reference to things other than the one thing which is supposed, on the field metaphysic, to be the only thing to which reference is ultimately made, the only thing there is to refer to. It looks as though the full analysis of "Region R is F" is going to be something like "space is F at such and such a distance from the speaker." or perhaps, "space is F at such and such a distance from this event of utterance." If this is right. then the field metaphysic can analyze statements about particular regions of space only by allowing reference to be made to other finite particulars. If we exclude that reference by our commitment to having only one thing in our ontology, infinite space - as I think Bennett does, when he writes that "a complete Spinozist account of the world would have to provide replacements ... for mentions of individual regions" - then we cannot analyze statements about particular regions of space, or statements about bodies which, on the common sense metaphysic, those regions contain. When Bennett suggests that perhaps Spinoza cannot cope with facts of the form 'Fa', we get an insight into why Joachim might have been led to deny the reality of finite particulars. Bennett has little sympathy with the tendency of idealist interpreters to deny the reality of the finite (cf. 99.1 ad fin. with §49.4). But I think he needs to ask himself how he can claim that ultimately there is only one thing, without being led down that uncomfortable path. The admission that Spinoza may not be able to cope with statements about finite particulars seems to me more damaging than he imagines. This is a problem which I think arises only when we carry the field metaphysic to the second level of analysis. So long as the field metaphysic limits itself to saying that statements about objects in space can be analyzed in terms of the properties of regions of space, without attempting any further analysis of the latter statements, the difficulty does not seem to arise.

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The passages in Newton, Kant and contemporary quantum physics which Bennett refers to as illustrations of the field metaphysic seem to go no further than the first level of analysis. This suggests that they represent only very partial expressions of the metaphysic Bennett wants to ascribe to Spinoza, and that the plausibility of that version of the field metaphysic does not do very much to make Spinoza's monism, as Bennett construes it, acceptable. My second difficulty concerns the properties which the universe is supposed to have in its various regions, the properties in terms of which predications of finite things are to be analyzed. To make the field metaphysic work, Bennett says, that is, to see how the field metaphysic might account for the existence of bodies in space and their motion from one part of space to another, we need some non-relational property which is possessed from time to time by some regions and not others. Suppose that at various times some spherical regions of space are F - red, if you like, or warm - while the rest of space is not. Suppose further that whenever a spherical region of space is F at a certain time, that place-time belongs to a temporally lengthy string each member RiTi of which satisfies the condition: Ri is Fat Ti. This gives us the beginnings of a space full of spherical atoms - little globules of redness or warmth or whatever - which are our first stab at constructing physical objects (p. 90).

Now Bennett knows perfectly well, of course, that on Spinoza's view of the world the fundamental properties of space which we conceptualize as things in space couldn't be anything like redness or warmth. He knows that Spinoza is a mechanist who thinks that properties like redness and warmth are what some mechanists called secondary properties of things, properties whose presence in things is to be explained in terms of their possessing more basic properties. For a seventeenth-century mechanist properties like color and heat are supposed to be explained by primary properties like the size, shape and motion of unobservable particles. So the non-relational property whose variations in space we conceptualize as objects in space has to be a something - we-know-not-what - whatever property will do the job. Bennett seems to me to vacillate about the extent to which we are entitled to read Spinoza as an exponent of the field metaphysic. In one place he writes: Spinoza attributes to the extended world something he calls "motion and rest." If this is asserted at his most basic metaphysical level, as it seems to be, he cannot mean by "motion" and "rest" what we mean by them. Only things in space can move; and at Spinoza's basic level there are no occupants but only space, its different regions altering in orderly ways (p. 106).

So what Spinoza must mean by Motion and Rest is "those alterations in

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space which can be conceptualized, one level up, as movements of things in space." I suppose Bennett's idea is that these alterations in space which we conceptualize in this way are alterations in whatever property physics will ultimately use to explain motion, which in present day physics might be the presence of a field, or the presence of some level of energy. But within a page of this Bennett is writing that Spinoza was a "child of his time" (p. 107), whose metaphysic revealed glorious vistas of worlds whose physics is not exclusively the science of how matter moves in space; but it seems not to have occurred to him that the actual world might be other than a "movement of matter" one.

If this means that Spinoza thought that the concept of bodies in motion was the most basic concept of physics, not to be explained in terms of any further concept, but capable of serving to explain all other physical concepts, then it seems to me right. But it seems to me also to constitute an admission that Spinoza's mechanism is incompatible with his acceptance of the field metaphysic. 12 The field metaphysic seems to require Spinoza to hold that physics will ultimately be based on concepts which seventeenth-century philosopherscientists could not grasp in any but a misleading way, whereas I would have thought that Spinoza held that the foundations of physics could not be radically different from what he took them to beY No doubt he was wrong about that. But attributing the field metaphysic to Spinoza seems to me to require us to regard Spinoza as skeptical about the fundamental adequacy of the physics of his time in a way which I think is quite foreign to his temperament. Propositions about finite particulars are to be analyzed in terms of propositions about space, propositions which attribute to space properties which we conceptualize as the motion of bodies in space, but we do not grasp as they are in themselves. In this respect Bennett seems to me to be engaging in speCUlative reinterpretation rather than in interpretation. My third objection is this: Bennett assumes, in common with many interpreters, that Spinoza's substance is to be identified with the whole of nature. The whole project of trying to explain how it might be that particular things are "adjectival" on the universe, how particular bodies, for example. are properties of space, has a point only on the assumption that substance is the universe. And so we find Bennett writing that "the only thing which meets the strictest conditions for being a substance, or absolutely thing-like thing, is the whole of reality" (n.3), or that Spinoza was a pantheist, in that he identified God with the whole of reality. Thus he agreed with the atheist that reality cannot be divided into a portion

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which is God and one which is not. Although pantheist and atheist may seem to be poles apart, with one saying that everything is God and the other that nothing is, in the absence of an effective contrast between God and not-God we should not be quickly confident that there is any substantive disagreement at all (§9.1). It seems to be because Bennett makes this identification that he is prepared to accept that consequence of his interpretation according to which God is mutable. For he appeals to EIIlemma7s as showing that the whole of nature can alter without undergoing a change of form (~49.3), and lemma7s will be

relevant to the question whether God can change only on the assumption that God is the whole of nature. But we might draw a very different moral from lemma7s. If that scholium shows that the whole of nature changes (without undergoing that radical kind of change which would imply that it ceased to exist), and if God is immutable, then we might take this as evidence that God is not to be identified with the whole of nature. If pantheism simply is the view that God is the whole of nature, then this would amount to saying that Spinoza is not a pantheist. Now, in Spinoza's Metaphysics, I had argued that Spinoza was not, in this sense, a pantheist (p. 42).14 I did not put the matter in those terms, but I did question the identification of God with the whole of nature, on the strength, for example, of passages like the following: Here, before we proceed to anything else, we shall briefly divide the whole of Nature into Natura naturans and Natura naturata. By Natura naturans we understand a being that we conceive clearly and distinctly through itself, without needing anything other than itself (like all the attributes which we have so far described), i.e., God .... We shall divide Natura naturata in two: a universal ... [consisting of] all those modes which depend on God immediately ... [and a particular, consisting of] all those singular things which are produced by the universal modes (KV I: 8). That comes from the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. But there are other, analogous passages, both in the Short Treatise lS and in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. For example, in the latter treatise Spinoza identifies the "source and origin of Nature," which can hardly be anything less than substance, with "the first elements of the whole of Nature" (§75), which I would in turn identify with the "fixed and eternal things" Spinoza later contrasts with singular mutable things (§§ 100-103). Now I'm sure Bennett, as a careful reader of my book, is aware of the existence of passages like these. But I don't know how he would handle them. To the extent that the evidence I want to appeal to comes from Spinoza's earliest works, I suppose he might simply dismiss it as not illuminating Spinoza's thought in the Ethics. He is certainly very dismissive

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of both the Short Treatise and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Of the former he writes: I shall not attend much to the Short Treatise. The manuscript of this, written in Dutch by a hand other than Spinoza's, came to light only in the nineteenth century. It seems clear that it stems from Spinoza somehow; but its status is dubious, its content confused, [and] its fit with the rest of his work uncomfortable. These factors and its probable early date make this work a feeble aid to understanding Spinoza's mature thought (§1.2).

Of the latter he says: The Emendation is a risky guide to the thought in the Ethics - not because it is merely a start, but because it is a false start. Let us remember that Spinoza dropped it and started afresh (§ 1.2).

In some ways I have a lot of sympathy with this. I think it's clear that Spinoza never got the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect into a form that he was satisfied with, and I think there are good reasons why he left it unfinished. The central epistemological project of the work involves difficulties he was never able to see his way through, perhaps because they are insoluble. Similarly, because we don't know enough about the process by which our manuscripts of the Short Treatise were transmitted, and because those manuscripts frequently do seem confused, we can't be sure just how far they represent Spinoza's thought at the time at which they were written. But I would protest against the idea that the early date of these works diminishes their value for the understanding of Spinoza's mature thought. If we were to discover an early draft of the Ethics - say a complete copy of the sketch of Part I which Spinoza sent to Oldenburg, a document which we can already partially reconstruct from their correspondence - surely it would be legitimate to use that to try to see how Spinoza's thought developed. We would, of course, always need to be alive to the differences between the early thought and the later thought, for part of the point of the study, after all, would be to see how the later thought might represent a natural development of the earlier thought, and we could not do that without attending carefully to both similarities and differences. But surely we could learn things from this which we might not be able to learn just by focusing all of our attention on the detail of the argument of the Ethics. And I don't see why the Short Treatise, and to a lesser extent, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. should not be treated in this way. On the matter at issue here. I think there is essential continuity between the early works and the later one, and that that continuity is illuminating. In

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Spinoza's Metaphysics I cited a passage in which he divided the whole of nature into Natura naturans and Natura naturata. But isn't that what he is doing in the first axiom of Part I of the Ethics when he says that whatever is either is in itself or is in another? One of the things which is implicit in the passages I cited from the Short Treatise is an identification of substance and attribute. Spinoza actually says of the attributes in the Short Treatise that they satisfy the definition of substance, that they exist in themselves and are conceived through themselves (KV I: 8). He says the same thing of them in the Ethics, where he is again explaining the distinction between Natura naturans and Natura naturata (EIp29s). Commentators on Spinoza frequently describe this distinction as a distinction between different "aspects" of nature, but if we stick to Spinoza's own language, we will regard the distinction between substance or its attributes, on the one hand, and modes, on the other, as marking a division within nature. We find Spinoza making this same division in the Ethics when he writes that "there is nothing outside the intellect through which a number of things can be distinguished from one another except substances, or what is the same (by D4), their attributes, and their affections" (EIp4d). Bennett is well aware of the passages in the Ethics which identify substance and attribute. He sees clearly that that identification permeates Spinoza's proof of his monism, what Bennett calls his "official argument" for monism. And it is partly because he cannot make any sense of that identification, cannot see it as an element in a useful way of looking at the world, that Bennett feels compelled to distinguish between the official argument and an implicit argument to be constructed out of EIp12-13 and EIplSs. One contribution the Short Treatise makes to our understanding of the Ethics is to make it clear that the passages in the Ethics which seem to identify substance and attribute are not isolated, casual misstatements of Spinoza's view, but a persistent theme in his thought, which ought to be preserved in our final explanation of the thought. It is in connection with this issue that Bennett comments that "the textual situation ... is difficult, forcing us to take some passages more literally than others: the disagreement concerns which to give most literal weight to" (§16.7). But the more passages we have in which Spinoza makes the identification, the more difficult it will be to say that they should be given little weight. So Bennett's rather casual dismissal of Spinoza's earlier works makes his job seem easier than it is. Another contribution the Short Treatise makes is that it prepares us, more clearly than any passage I know of in the Ethics, for Spinoza's repudiation of the view that the universe is God. I'm referring here to the exchange between

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Velthuysen and Spinoza in Letters 42 and 43. Velthuysen had accused Spinoza of being committed to the view that the universe is God, on the strength of his holding that all things emanate from God by inevitable necessity. The two propositions are either the same or "not much different." Spinoza protested that he could not see why these two propositions were supposed to be the same or not much different, and that he found their identification "offensive." Velthuysen, he says, falls in that class of readers whom he wished would not read his book because, if they did, they would only interpret it perversely.!6 Since Bennett, like Velthuysen, is committed to reading Spinoza as being, in this straightforward sense, a pantheist, I think we need to see how he would deal with this exchange, as well as the other passages in which Spinoza rejects the identification of God with the whole of nature. There is one final point I'd like to make, and I'll try to make it briefly. In his account of the concept of substance in the rationalists (§I5), Bennett acknowledges that there are two strains in that concept, one of which sees substances as subjects of predication, the other of which defines them as items which are causally self-sufficient and indestructible. My interpretation emphasizes the latter of these strains, Bennett's the former. If I'm right, the former has little or no importance for Spinoza. If Bennett is right, the concept of substance as a subject of predication is very important. Nevertheless, I don't think Bennett means to deny that it is, for Spinoza, implicit in the definition of substance that it should be causally selfsufficient. He certainly shouldn't deny this, since Spinoza does gloss his definition of substance in terms of causal self-sufficiency.!7 Now if a substance is, by definition, something causally self-sufficient, and a mode is, by definition, something causally dependent on something else, ultimately on a substance, we need some explanation of just how it is that substance is the cause of its modes. I don't think it's very helpful, in trying to deal with this problem, to think of substance as the whole of reality and a subject on which particular finite things are "adjectival." And I think it is symptomatic of the unhelpfulness of this way of looking at things that Bennett has very little to say about the causal relations between substance and its modes. One thing every interpreter of Spinoza agrees on is that Spinoza connects the causal relation with the relation of logical consequence, and it is not easy to see how the properties of a thing could be thought to follow from the thing itself, conceived simply as a subject of predication. In what way do the properties space has in its various regions follow from space itself?

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If, on the other hand, we identify substance with its attributes, thinking of the attributes as general structural features of the universe,l~ as fixed and eternal things which have laws of nature very closely associated with them ("inscribed in" them, as the Treatise on the Emendation o{the Intellect says), then it's very clear how we should proceed, The attributes are those most general structural features of the universe which are captured by the most general laws of nature - the most general laws of physics, in the case of the attribute of extension, The infinite modes are those less general structural features of the universe which are captured by the lower level laws of nature which a unified science would deduce from the most general laws, They follow, as Spinoza says, "from the absolute nature of God's attributes" (EIp21). We know that the ideal of a unified science was integral to the new Cartesian view of the world, and all the evidence is that Spinoza shared this aspect of the Cartesian view. Finite modes will follow, not from the absolute nature of the attributes and infinite modes, but from those entities in conjunction with the natures of other finite modes. The causal dependence of finite modes of Extension on the one substance will turn out to be an expression of the adequacy of physics to explain what happens in the physical world, subject, of course, to the condition that laws alone are not enough, and that a proper explanation must appeal as well to antecedent conditions if it is to account for any phenomenon. Now my impression is that Bennett would like to simply graft this account of the causal relations among attributes, infinite modes and finite modes onto his own story about the relation of substance to mode. 19 But I don't see how this can consistently be done, given that the one interpretation identifies substance with a particular, the whole of nature, and says that the relation of mode to substance is one of inherence in a subject, whereas the other identifies substance with general features of the whole of nature, and says that the relation of mode to substance is the causal relation of logical consequence. It seems to me that to consistently tell my story about the causal relations between substance and its modes Bennett would have to accept other aspects of my interpretation which he has strongly resisted. such as the identification of substance with its attributes. Let me close with one more comment. Bennett believes his interpretation of Part I of the Ethics to be strongly confirmed by the fact that it opens the way to the solution of various problems in Part II. Insofar as I have paid no attention here to the connections he draws between these aspects of his reading, I have necessarily not done it justice. Since I don't, in fact, find his reading of Part II plausible, I don't really think it helps the plausibility of

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what he has to say about Part 1. But I've done nothing here to justify that judgment, and justifying it would require a lot of argument. There is clearly a good deal more which would need to be said before we could pronounce a final verdict on Bennett's interpretation of Spinoza's concepts of substance, attribute and mode.

Notes I. Klever's review of Bennett's book in Studia Spinozana catalogs a number of passages which contribute to this impression. 2. In his review in the TLS, 16 November 1984. 3. H.H. Joachim, A Study of The Ethics of Spinoza (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1901), p. IS. 4. Spinoza's Metaphysics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 18, cited in Bennett, p. 94. 5. I don't say this as an objection to Bennett's interpretation, since it seems to me equally true of my own interpretation, and I suspect it will be true of any serious interpretation. Bennett writes (a propos the doctrine that finite thoughts are "limited" by other finite thoughts) that "this is one of the places where Spinoza says something that he has worked out for Extension, then optimistically extrapolates it, hoping to cover Thought as well, without working out the details" (p. 88, cf. p. 94). I would agree that there are many places in the Ethics where that comment seems appropriate. 6. Bennett claims Platonic ancestry for this metaphysic in personal correspondence, referring, I take it, to the Timaeus. 7. If I were to pursue this, I suppose that the place to do it would be in &25, titled "What good is the field metaphysic?" 8. Bennett, p. 96. I read "that" for "the" before "space" in 1. 2 of the quote. 9. Cf. Spinoza's Metaphysics, p. 78. 10. I'm thinking here of the passage in the Synopsis of the Meditations, in which Descartes contends that, although body taken in general is a substance, particular bodies are not substances (Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannerey, 12 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1897-1913; reprinted Vrin 1957-1958), vol. VII. p. 14). Descartes is maddeningly inexplicit about his reasons for this claim, which is a startling one, since he is normally content to cite particular bodies as examples of corporeal substances. But I assume that this "anticipation" of Spinoza is connected in some way with the analysis of the piece of wax in the Second Meditation, and with the conclusion of that analysis, that the only properties essential to any body are extension and changeability (ibid., p. 31). Bennett seems to allude to this passage in 915.2, but only to comment that he will not discuss "Descartes' indecisive handling" of questions about which particular items are substances in the weak sense that they depend causally on nothing except God. II. This requirement is not met in 923.4 par. 2, when Bennett proposes "There are regions which are G" as a first stage analysis of "The pebble is spherical." The

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analysis of a singular statement as general makes the second stage of analysis easier, but at the cost of not capturing the meaning of the original statement. In ~23.5 par. 1 ad fin. the first stage of analysis goes from a singular statement about a physical object to a singular statement about a region of space all right. but the second stage of analysis goes from a general statement about regions of space to a singular statement about space. I think this slide makes the argument seem more plausible than it is. 12. I think this comes out particularly clearly in ~26.3. 13. The only evidence against this that I can think of is in Letter 81, G 3321 1Sff'. But the passage is a rather cryptic one. which may be why Bennett doesn't try to build anything on it. 14. I realize, of course, that this way of putting the matter is highly paradoxical, since histories of pantheism frequently take Spinoza as paradigmatic of the doctrine. Here all I would say is that, if we are going to continue to treat Spinoza as a pantheist, we need to seek a different account of what pantheism is than the simple one assumed in the text. 15. E.g., in KV I: 7 Spinoza proposes new laws of definition, "guided by the division of Nature we make." So definitions are to be of two kinds: those of attributes ("or as others call them, substances") and those of modes. Cf. TIE 96~97. 16. Ironically. in his Spinoza (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985, p. 125), R.l. Delahunty appeals to this exchange as supporting his contention that Spinoza is a pantheist. But so far as I can see this reading depends on completely neglecting the context in which the words "the Universe is God" occur. 17. A nice passage. which I hadn't noticed when I wrote Spinoza's Metaphysics, is in TIE 92: "If the thing is in itself. or, as is commonly said is the cause of itself, then it must be understood through itself alone; but if it is not in itself. but requires a cause to exist. then it must be understood through its proximate cause." 18. In Spinoza's Metaphysics I used the vocabulary of logical atomism (in that Russellian variety of logical atomism which allows for general facts) to articulate this idea. Since logical atomism is anathema to many readers of Spinoza. and since it is a twentieth-century invention anyway. this was probably bad strategy. But I think the central idea can be explained without using that vocabulary. I try to do that in Behind the Geometrical Method (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1988). 19. I think this is what's going on in ~27. although Bennett's main focus there is not on explaining the causality of God. but on dealing with the question whether Spinoza allows for any contingency.

Jonathan Bennett

Spinoza's Monism: A Reply to Curley

From Aristotle until today, the core or kernel of the distinction between "substance" and "mode" or between pairs of terms that are conventionally translated that way - has been the distinction between things and their properties. Somewhere along the way this kernel meaning had added to it an outer shell of further meaning. namely, the idea that substances are independent of everything else, and that modes are dependent on something else, for their existence. I am not a scholar of these matters, and don't know how the shell got itself fixed around the kernel; but I follow William Kneale's lead in conjecturing that it was through the belief that the kernel implies the shell, i.e., that the properties of things, just because they are properties, depend on the things in a way in which the things themselves don't depend upon anything else. l Curley isn't convinced that there is any "logical connection" between kernel and shell, and I agree with him: there is no clear sense in which properties qua properties are dependent whereas things qua things are not. But I still think that Kneale was probably right about how the shell came to be formed around the kernel: namely, through the mistaken belief that it follows. Whatever the explanation, the shell is there in the use of "substance" and "mode" by Descartes and Spinoza and Leibniz. although not by all their contemporaries. For example, although Locke used "substance" and "mode" for the thing/ quality distinction, with an extra wrinkle that is not relevant here, he did not emphasize independence and dependence. Now, Curley has advanced the hypothesis, as bold as it is initially implausible, that Spinoza silently omitted the kernel meanings of the terms from his use of "substance" and "mode" and gave them only their latterday, mistakenly inferred shell of meaning. For Curley's Spinoza, to say that there is only one substance is to say that there is only one thing that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence; and that is all that is said. Curley does not offer to explain why Spinoza should adopt this strange semantic practice, and he adduces no direct evidence that he did indeed do

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so. In his book Spinoza's Metaphysics 2 his whole case for this conjecture comes down to one thing: on no other sane interpretation of "substance" and "mode" could he make sense of Spinoza's doctrine that there is only one substance and that ordinary particulars are modes of it. On Curley's interpretation, of course, the doctrine makes perfect sense: it is the eminently sensible thesis that any proper part of the universe, i.e., anything less than the whole universe, can be acted upon from the outside. When Curley challenged the interpretation of Spinoza in terms of the kernel meanings of "substance" and "mode," and demanded to know what it means to say that shoes and ships and cabbages are properties of the universe or adjectival on the only really thingish thing there is, he did us a great service. It was time Spinoza's readers stopped assuming that Spinoza gave his one-substance doctrine the meaning it would get from the kernel meanings of the words used in it, if this assumption made the doctrine something we couldn't make sense of; especially if there is a possible alternative reading which would let us make sense of the statement that there is only one substance and that shoes and ships are modes of it. What I did in my book] was to meet the challenge. and explain at length and in depth what I took Spinoza's doctrine to be: I shan't expound this again now, because Curley has done it for me, with exemplary fairness and accuracy. It attributes to Spinoza a really exciting metaphysical idea. I'm sorry if the discussion of it in my book hasn't convinced Curley of its virtues, but there's no time to try again here. I can't forbear to remark, though, that it seems obvious to me that the doctrine I attribute to Spinoza is much more interesting. because it is much less bland and safe, than the one Curley attributes to him. Never mind that. The maID point is that I have offered a prima facie possible metaphysical position that could reasonably be expressed by saying "There is only one substance, and the so-called particulars of everyday life are modes of it." using "substance" and "mode" in their kernel meanings. The extra shell of meaning - the bit about independence and dependence is also there. of course. I am disputing only Curley's conjecture that Spinoza retained the shell and threw away the kernel, that is, that he silently dropped from the meanings of "substance" and "mode" the whole of their original. basic content. So my "field metaphysic" interpretation of Spinoza meets Curley's challenge, and I think Curley agrees that it does so. But he still prefers his own interpretation of Spinoza's substance monism because of difficulties he finds in the field metaphysic itself, difficulties that make it a less "attractive" alternative than the one he attributes to Spinoza. Let us think for a moment about what makes an interpretation

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"attractive." Curley seems to be attracted by mere, safe, sensible truth. I agree, of course, that Spinoza wanted to say only true things: but I see him also as wonderfully original and bold and deep - and as having a kind of recklessness. This shows in his panpsychism, in his view that the human condition can be fully described without using teleological explanations, in his view that animal selfishness is a substitution instance in an absolutely general metaphysical truth. These and others of his doctrines ha ve a feeling about them of "Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes," which seems to me characteristic of Spinoza's work. So I don't count it against my interpretation of the substance monism that it is like that. I suppose that Spinoza also held some beliefs that are as tamely, safely sensible as the one that Curley identifies with the substance monism; so I don't hold it against that interpretation that it adds nothing to the depth, the excitement, the dashingness of Spinoza's philosophy - crediting him only with boldness in his misuse of words, and creating excitement only in its clash with other interpretations of him. But I do say that the presence of difficulties in the position that I attribute to him is not much of an argument against the attribution. I would say all that, even if the difficulties that Curley alleges in the field metaphysic were genuine. But are they? Let us look at them in turn.

1. I agree with Curley that it is a serious defect in Spinoza's position that he cannot account for genuine reference to particulars. Spinoza's metaphysical scheme, as developed by me, enables him only to analyze statements of the form "There is an F particular which stands in relation Rn to particulars, of which one is G 1 , the second is G 2 , •.. " and so on, with each Gi standing for a predicate, a description. The materials that he allows. himself do not enable him to make proper sense of statements that pick out particulars and say something about them in particular. But the reason he cannot do this is the reason that Leibniz couldn't do it either, namely, because he rejects indexicality. Unlike Spinoza (who wasn't a logician), Leibniz(who was one) saw the problem and tried to overcome it by supposing that a particular can be referred to by a complete definite description of it. If the identity of indiscernibles is necessarily true, then a complete description is indeed guaranteed not to fit more than one thing; but that still wouldn't enable it genuinely to refer to a thing that it fitted. This is a terribly hard problem for the rationalists, one that I am sure - encouraged by Strawson's great "Monads" chapter in his book Individuals 4 - is insoluble without recourse to indexicality. Curley says that the field metaphysic is in trouble on this score for some reason over and above the lack of indexicality, but I'm afraid

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that I don't see what else there is. Until I do, I shall feel free to stand by my claim that what we have here is just the indexicality problem, which confronts Spinoza on any interpretation of his substance monism and is therefore quite irrelevant to the issue between Curley's interpretation and mine. It is true that my interpretation makes one conscious of Spinoza's difficulty over individual reference, whereas Curley's doesn't. But if that is relevant to our disagreement, it counts in favor of my interpretation. Since the indexicality problem is there anyway, the fact that my interpretation exposes it is evidence that the interpretation gets us down to where the real action is in Spinoza's metaphysics. 2. Curley writes: "Bennett seems to me to vacillate about the extent to which we are entitled to read Spinoza as an exponent of the field metaphysic."5 I deny this, and I am puzzled that Curley should think that I vacillate, given that most of the time he seems to grasp quite firmly the suggestion - which is crucial to the field metaphysic - that Spinoza has a ground floor where the extended world is described in monadic predications on space, and a second storey where it is described in a language in which things other than the whole of space are quantified over and made subjects of predication. A theory about space with particles of matter moving in it is one possible second-storey upshot of a ground-floor account of the world; it is the theory that Spinoza believes to be correct, and he seems not even to have considered any alternative to it. That is perfectly consistent with his holding the field metaphysic about what fundamental reality underlies these rather shallow truths about material particles in space. What Curley calls "vacillation" in my interpretation is just a consistent pair of things, each of which I unvacillatingly assert. One is that Spinoza's ground-floor metaphysic makes it prima facie possible for the second storey to take any one of countless different forms. The second is that, in his thinking about the second storey, Spinoza did not avail himself of the potential riches that are provided for on the ground floor. This is neither vacillation on my part nor misconduct on Spinoza's. Plenty of people today accept the field metaphysic, but I'll bet that few of them have managed to think up, as an unrefuted possibility, any second-storey account of the world other than the one endorsed by contemporary physics. According to me, does Spinoza hold that the concept of particles moving in space is basic in physics? He holds that it is the most basic kind of thing that can be said on the second storey, so he holds that it is as basic as physics needs to get. But he also holds that that is the second storey, not the ground floor; which implies that the concept of particles moving in space is not basic

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as a matter of metaphysics. What are the ground-floor properties of the whole of space that yield, on the second storey, the motion and rest of particles in space? I don't know, and nor does Spinoza. I hope Curley is not holding that against my interpretation - that would show a strange misunderstanding of what kind of activity metaphysics is. 3. Curley rightly says that my interpretation relies on the view - which is shared by most commentators on Spinoza's work - that Spinoza identified God with the whole of reality. He is right in saying that there are difficulties about that, most of them coming from troubles in Spinoza's handling of temporal concepts. These troubles, like the trouble about indexicality, are patently there in Spinoza's thought on any interpretation of his theology and/ or his substance monism. I think they have led Curley grievously astray; but I freely acknowledge that, if all the texts are taken into account, Curley and I are both in trouble, because the texts are inconsistent. Curley leaves an impression that my "rather casual dismissal ofSpinoza's earlier works"6 involves me in ignoring relevant evidence. I hope that the word "casual" was addressed to how I said what I did about the earlier works, and is not meant to imply that I didn't study them before deciding that they wouldn't help me much. I have in fact made more use of one of the earlier works than (I believe) any previous writer on the Ethics has done, namely Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy" and the associated Metaphysical Thoughts. My case for attributing the field metaphysic to Spinoza rests to a considerable extent on the fact that that interpretation at last lets us make full sense of the astonishingly rich but deeply puzzling scholium to Elp15; that scholium contains a cross-reference that goes outside the Ethics - this is where Spinoza writes "Since there is no vacuum in nature (a subject I discuss elsewhere) ... " - de quo alias - and that has to be a reference to his Descartes' "Principles." (The only other such outside reference in the Ethics is in Elp19s.) When the reference is followed up, and properly understood, Elp15s falls beautifully into place as Spinoza's most extended and profound exposition of the field metaphysic. I know of no other reading of it that does as well. But that is a little by the way. I wanted to mention Descartes' "Principles" for another reason, namely, because it contains an argument for the thesis that God is the whole of reality. The announced conclusion of the argument is that there cannot be a god and another god; but, if it is valid as an argument for that conclusion, then it is equally valid as an argument for the conclusion that there cannot be a god and something else that is real. Check it out for yourself; it is in DPP Ip II. Of course, a lot of the content of that work is

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Cartesian doctrine, and not accepted by Spinoza, but not this argument, which has no parallel in Descartes' Principles or, so far as I can discover, anywhere else in Descartes' works. lowe to Curley the knowledge that Descartes addresses himself to polytheism briefly in the Conversation with Burman: but what he says about it there is not remotely like this argument of Spinoza's - which establishes monotheism only if it establishes pantheism. And there is evidence tha t Spi noza saw it in tha t wa y, for in CM II: 7, which was published as an Appendix to the Cartesian work, he says in successive sections that God knoll'S everything and that God does not know anything outside God. It's true that the Metaphysicai Thoughts contain a lot of stuff that ought to be handled warily; but this pair of assertions seems to connect up very cleanly with the earlier demonstration of pantheism, and to help make a case for saying that, at a quite early stage in his thinking, Spinoza came to the conclusion that the best candidate he could find for the title "God," according to the Christian tradition about God, was the whole of reality. 4. Curley's fourth point amounts to this: The kernel meanings of "substance" and "mode" don't fit very well with their shell meanings; if we give enough weight to the latter, while also insisting that we attribute to Spinoza something coherent, then we must throwaway the kernel. As one might expect, I would rather throwaway the shell. But, actually, it's more complicated than that. It is true, as Curley remarks, that Spinoza does not distinguish logical from causal dependence. But just what that non-distinction comes down to is an extremely obscure matter. It does not come down to Spinoza's saying to us: "You take your favorite examples of causal connection, and I'll say that they are cases of logical connection." Or, therefore, to his saying: "Whenever I say that x (logically) depends on y, you will find this a plausible example of x's causing y." Spinoza has many, many claims about dependence and following-from that we couldn't interpret as causal according to our notions of what causality is. For example, when he says that the infinite and eternal modes follow from the absolute nature of the attributes (El p22), we cannot take him to mean that the universe's extension caused it to involve motion and rest. Now the field metaphysic does in fact make perfectly good sense of the claim that there is a logical dependence between the modes and the one substance. Here is why: Each statement asserting the existence of a finite mode is fundamentally of the form "The one substance is F" for some very complex F; so the existence of any finite mode logically requires the existence of the one substance.

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If instead of thinking of particular things immediately in terms of predications on the universe, we allow ourselves the illicit luxury of quantifying over regions of space as a helpful ledge between the real ground floor and the first storey, the dependence is still there: Each finite mode is a sequence of spatial regions, and Spinoza thinks it is absolutely impossible that a region should exist unless there is an infinite space of which it is a region. So each finite mode depends logically on the one substance.

That this particular dependence claim looks bad when interpreted causally is just par for the Spinozistic course. Anyway, in respect of this matter Curley is living in a glass house. His own interpretation provides for a causal dependence of particular things on the one substance, but not for the logical or absolute dependence. If he continues to press this point, he must say that in Spinoza's thought what is central is causal dependence, and that logical or absolute dependence is a dispensable extra; I hope he wouldn't say that, though, because it strikes me as patently false. I have addressed myself to the part I understand of Curley's fourth objection. He goes on to say that I am not entitled to combine my attribution to Spinoza of the field metaphysic with the view - which Curley expounds beautifully in his book - that in Spinoza's philosophy there are causal relations running between particular events by virtue of causal laws which hold at all places and times. If I can't graft this onto the rest of my account, then I am indeed in trouble; but I'm afraid that I don't at all see what the difficulty about that grafting is supposed to be.

Notes 1. W.e. Kneale, "The Notion of a Substance," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 40 (1939-1940). 2. Edwin M. Curley, Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969). 3. Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 4. P.F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen, 1959). 5. Edwin Curley, "On Bennett's Interpretation of Spinoza's Monism," These Proceedings, p. 43. 6. Ibid., p. 47.

Jean-Luc Marion

The Coherence of Spinoza's Definitions of God in Ethics I, Proposition 11

1. God's Late Appearance Spinoza did not begin - even in Ethics I - with God. In that work, God's essence leads neither to his existence nor to his acts. Indeed, in the definitions Spinoza introduces five essences, which he no doubt found more essential, before he defines the essence of God. Moreover, he does not attribute existence to God until the end of a discursive exposition in which he calls up no less than eleven propositions. Thus, the Ethics does not begin with God, who, far from governing it, merely results from its geometrical order. One might ask whether this is one of those inversions of priority that of logic overriding the divine whose necessity is readily acknowledged by metaphysicians. According to Hegel: "If ... in the expression of the absolute, or eternal, or God (and God has the absolutely undisputed right that the beginning be made with him) - if in the intuition or thought of these there is implied more than pure being - then this more must make its appearance in our knowing only as something thought, not as something imagined or figurately conceived."! But one must ask whether Hegel's argument here, which is that of Descartes, can also be Spinoza's. For, how can one maintain that Spinoza upholds the priority of thought if there is nothing more in thought than in being, and if, on the contrary, truth in thought consists in modeling itself on and exhausting itself within being? In short, should Spinoza not have been the exceptional case in the philosophical enterprise, the one who finally banishes the digressions of fantasizing thought and begins with the beginning - or with that which is at the beginning - God? Or, shall we say that, by calling the first part of the Ethics "On God," Spinoza was declaring this intention, in contrast to Descartes, who acknowledged that he was beginning at the end, i.e., with thought, yet without any certain object? And, if so, what was the theoretical motive that caused him to fail in carrying out

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his own intention? The delayed appearance of the definition and proof of God (that is, of his essence and existence) is the outstanding difficulty of Ethics J.2 A remarkable symptom of this general difficulty is the multiple enigma of Erp!!. First, because the delayed appearance of this demonstration of God's existence ("God ... necessarily exists") is even more striking since, while ten demonstrations are needed in order to finally arrive at this principle, Erpl! nevertheless uses the same definition of the divine essence ("God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence") given in Erdef6. Here the late appearance of existence in relation to essence is all the more apparent since existence can only take place on the basis of the very definition of essence; thus, God's appearance is delayed in relation to himself. The second enigma that Erp!! faces US with is that the canonical definition of the divine essence (taken from EIdef6) doesn't play any role and is not even mentioned in the subsequent demonstration. This leads to the third cause of our surprise: not only does the demonstration of Erpl! never use the definition of God, whose existence it specifies as that to be demonstrated, but it provides no less than three different demonstrations, perhaps even a fourth if one incl udes the scholium. Moreover, each of these concurrent or convergent demonstrations utilizes a new definition of the divine essence. One must ask whether it is logically correct to try and demonstrate the same proposition in three different ways, and whether it is logically coherent to omit the formulation of God's essence that, according to EIp!!, is to be established in existence in these demonstrations. J The breaking down of the demonstration of a single proposition is particularly noteworthy because this is the only case of it in Ethics I and there are very few in the Ethics as a whole,4 and because the other cases never have more than two demonstrations. It is as though the delay in providing for God's existence provoked, in reaction, an "explosion" of his essence, each determination of the latter providing a starting point for another demonstration of God's existence. Thus. before risking an interpretation of this divergence that would determine Spinoza's metaphysical (or other) theology, one should confirm that it is in fact a divergence, by examining each of the parallel and rival demonstrations.

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2. The Divergence of Proofs The first demonstration* - which, as we have seen, does not take up the terms of the definition of God's essence given in EIpl1 (following definition 6) - argues the impossibility of conceiving God as not existing. For the latter hypotheses would imply that God's essence does not involve his existence (this is how the nonexistent is defined in axiom 7). But, as God is defined as a substance, and substances by their nature exist (EIp7), it is clearly absurd to conceive of God as nonexistent. The question that immediately comes to mind is why Spinoza did not reason directly, simply repeating proposition 7. It would have been enough to say: "It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist" (EIp7); God is a substance according to EIdef6 and EIpll; hence, God exists. Why did Spinoza resort to an inverted ad absurdum argument rendered redundant by proposition 7? The answer to this question is that he must have used here another argument in addition to the one we have reconstructed in accordance with his indications. What this argument was comes to light if one makes a single inversion in the absurd statement that "". [God's] essence does not involve existence." Spinoza discovered the expression "an essence that involves existence" by taking up what is known as Descartes' "ontological" argument: " ... existence pertains to the nature of God, or ... the concept of God involves necessary existence, as the concept of a triangle involves that its three angles are equal to two right angles" (DPP Ip5s) and by reference, on the one hand, to its resume. in geometrical order, in the Reply to the Second Set of Objections: " ... necessary existence is contained in the concept of God .... Hence it is true to affirm of God that necessary existence exists in Him, or that God Himself exists,"5 and, on the other hand, to Meditations V: "It is certain that I no less find the idea of God, that is to say, the idea of a supremely perfect Being, in me, than that of any figure or number whatever it is; and I do not know any less clearly and distinctly that an [actual and] eternal existence pertains to this nature than I know that all which I am able to demonstrate of some figure or number truly pertains to the nature of this figure or number," or "". existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than can its having its three angles equal to two right angles be separated from the essence of a [rectilinear] triangle."6 • Most translations follow Gebhardt in separating the three demonstrations of EIp II by placing them in three clearly separated sections, each of which with its own title. In the Curley edition, which is used herein, this is not the case. Hence the need to refer here to the demonstrations as "the first, second and third demonstrations of EIp II" (and not as "EIp lId I, EIplld2 and EIplld3") (the editors).

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In his first demonstration, in an implicit but nevertheless recognizable borrowing from Descartes, Spinoza takes up the full range of the argument developed in Meditations V: an a priori proof (and, since a priori, it is the first in the geometrical order), and the analogy between the divine essence and that of a triangle (the same necessary inherency of the properties to the essence).7 Although we have no text to confirm this, it is reasonable to suppose that, in his first proof, Spinoza reutilizes Descartes' description of God given in Meditations V in connection with the "ontological" argument: ens summe perfectum, (the most perfect being).8 Spinoza's second demonstration to proposition II is remarkable for two reasons: it redundantly uses the phrase "cause or [sive] reason," nine times, and it is based on a principle that is stated from the start: "For each thing there must be assigned a cause, as much for its existence as for its nonexistence." These two features allow us to reconstruct a derivation for this proof, since the formula "cause or [sive] reason," although rare in Descartes, does appear in the statement of a similar principle in the appendix in geometrical order of the Reply to the Second Set of Objections, a Cartesian text with which Spinoza was familiar. Descartes postulates there, previous to Spinoza, that "Nothing exists concerning which the question may not be raised - 'What is the cause of its existence?' For this question may be asked even concerning God."9 Clearly, this is the same as Spinoza's principle that existence is only established by means of causality, which thus accounts for it. This principle applies to all existence, without any exception, induding that of God. But Spinoza undoubtedly introduced a modification: that causality accounts for nonexistence as well as for existence. Even if Spinoza's modification weakens rather than strengthens the implication of this principle, it does not affect its essentially formal nature. Like Descartes, Spinoza does not hesitate to submit even divine existence to the causality that accounts for it. And also like Descartes, he applies causality to the case of God, distinguishing between the cause that follows from the nature of a thing and an external cause. Descartes distinguishes between an efficient (external) cause, on the one hand, and a formal cause (the essence) that takes the place of the efficient cause in order to account for existence, on the other. What, then, is implied by this Cartesian origin? It involves here a definition of God. Indeed, the Cartesian principle that appears in the beginning of Spinoza's second demonstration appears in two other places in Descartes in similar formulations - once in the Reply to the First Set of Objections: "Moreover, the light of nature certainly tells us that nothing exists about which the question, why it exists, cannot be asked, whether we inquire for its efficient cause, or, if it does not possess one, demand why it

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does not have one,"IO and again in the Reply to the Fourth Set o/Objections: "But 1 think that it is manifest to all, that to consider the efficient cause is the primary and principal, not to say the only means of proving the existence of God. We shall not be able to pursue this proof with accuracy, if we do not grant our mind the liberty of asking for an efficient cause in every case, even in that of God; for with what right should we exclude God, before we have proved that He exists?"ll In both these cases, the principle of subjecting existence to causality, as its sufficient reason, leads to a definition of God as causa sui: "[I]t seems possible to call Him without undue impropriety the cause 0/ His own existence. "12 "God is, in a sense, His own cause. "13 Thus, if causa sui, as it is found at the beginning of Ethics I, were to support one of the proofs of God's existence and thus, perhaps, be reconciled with the divine essence of EIdef6 (or some other one), it would be in taking up the second demonstration of EIpll. Conversely, one might say that, in his second proof, Spinoza readopts the description of God that Descartes used in the first and fourth Replies, the one that leads to causa sui. 14 The third demonstration of proposition II is unique in that it is the only one that has a commentary in the form of a scholium. The latter also determines its status, for, taken by itself, this demonstration might appear to be a commentary on the second one. It interprets existence - possible or impossible - as "having power" or "lacking power," so that it seems to extend and even radicalize the subjection of existence to causality, by interpreting existence as power. Although this reasoning is acceptable, the scholium immediately demands a quite different interpretation of the demonstration, for Spinoza says that: "In this last demonstration I wanted to show God's existence a posteriori." It is an "a posteriori" proof: on the basis of the statement that not to be able to exist is to lack power, it is observed that finite beings exist, and that they are therefore more perfect than the infinite Being would be if it did not exist. This is certainly an "a posteriori" proof, as it proceeds from the finite to the infinite. Can it be compared to the Cartesian proof known as "a posteriori?" Certainly, as, in addition to having the same starting-point, it ends with the same description of God; for Spinoza says "an absolutely infinite Being" three times, and Descartes said "a supreme God, ... infinite," "a substance that is infinite" and "the notion of the infinite ... to wit, the notion of God." 15 The description of God as infinite is so important to Spinoza that he upholds it even in an a priori formulation: the scholium attempts to show that, "from the same foundation," the existence of God can also follow a priori. This is no doubt speculative naivete, since, according to Descartes and to the thing itself, the infinite is by definition accessible to finite minds

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only a posteriori. 16 At least it provides an opportunity to bring several occurrences of the infinite in God to light: .. An absolutely infinite Being, or God"; "the existence of an absolutely infinite, or perfect, Being - i.e" God." The difference between the third demonstration ofElpl1 and its scholium is not in the concept of God used - i.e., the infinite being - but in a modification of order. At first, following the Cartesian order, Spinoza repeats (even including the term potentia, power) the a posteriori argument of Meditations III. But in order to return immediately to the order of the Ethics, he immediately re-forms and reformulates the argument through the idea of infinity, by subjecting it to the rigorous (or at any rate apparently so) a priori argument. Thus, it is confirmed that, in the third proof of God's existence as well as in its scholium, Spinoza reutilizes the description of God that Descartes used in Meditations III: "I understand God to be actually infinite."17 Like the addition of a scholium, the breaking down of the demonstration of the unique proposition II permits at least one explanation: each of the resultant demonstrations repeats, on behalf of a unique and strictly Spinozist thesis, one of the principal proofs of God's existence put forward by Descartes. The clearest indication of this repetition is Spinoza's utilization of the three descriptions of God given by Descartes: the "most perfect Being" (demonstration I, following Meditations V); causa sui (demonstration 2 - here, it is true, only implied, although it is explicitly specified earlier in Ethics I, following the first and fourth Replies); and, finally, the "infinite Being" (demonstration 3 and the scholium, following Meditations III). But the divergence between Spinoza's proofs is reinforced and confirmed by that between the descriptions of God according to Descartes. And, as these provide clearly unsurmounted obstacles to a coherent system, one wonders how Spinoza could utilize them as the basis for reestablishing the systematic unity that he aimed at as his first objective from the start. 18 Does the open and almost naive proposition II later give way to a systematic conciliation?

3. The Plurality of Definitions Although the divergence between the three demonstrations of Ethics I, proposi tion 11, has now been es tablished, one cannot infer any idea of Spinoza's conception of God from it, unless this limited divergence makes us aware of a more general tension: the tension between definitions that are incompatible though coexistent in Ethics 1. But - assuming that they are

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organized elsewhere as they are in the argument of proposition II - why should these definitions be mutually incompatible? Why can they not coexist without tension or conflict? Moreover, is it not true that one of the last demonstrations in the Ethics is concerned with linking the three definitions upon which the three supposedly conflicting proofs of EIpll are based? Thus, one reads the curious sequence: "God is absolutely infinite ... , i.e .... , the nature of God enjoys infinite perfection, accompanied ... by the idea of himself, i.e .... , by the idea of his cause" (EVp35d). This demonstration links the third, first and second proofs of God's existence put forward in proposition II, as if their divergence does not imply any contradiction or incompatibility. In order to interpret the divergence visible in proposition II as either a real plurality of reasons or a distinction of reason within a single demonstration, one must first examine Ethics I as a whole to discover the function (if any) of such a plurality. The thesis I uphold is that there are three determinations* of God in all of Ethics I, and that they pertain to an equal number of descriptions of God. These descriptions correspond - albeit in a disorderly manner - to the three demonstratons of proposition II, i.e., to the three proofs of God's existence that Spinoza construes on the basis of the three main Cartesian proofs. I have interpreted the first demonstration of proposition II as a revival of the ontological argument; and, because Descartes uses the definition of God as ens summe perfectum therein, we have inferred that, despite the absence of this expression from the text of the first demonstration, Spinoza had to employ this term or something similar. In fact, he does call God ens summe perfectum; but, curiously enough, it is in the second demonstration and in the scholium of the third, rather than in the first demonstration, as might have been expected. Yet, elsewhere Spinoza clearly acknowledges his utilization of the Cartesian formula. First, he deliberately speaks of perfection as a concept that was known before and is open to examination: "Their second argument is also drawn from God's supreme perfection. For God, they say. since he is a supremely perfect being, cannot be acted on" (EIpI5s).19 Here Spinoza utilizes perfection as it was used against his thesis (that God is extension) by other authors before him. We can therefore maintain that he was referring here to Descartes. Later, he assumes God's • Determination is the term used by the author in the original French to denote the three aspects of Spinoza's conception of God. whom he describes as causa sui. ens summe perJectum and ens absolute infinitum. respectively. We have retained this term in the English version in order to distinguish between it and the "description" (nom divine). definition. etc .. of God (the editors).

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perfection (which, in Elpl5s, was his opponents' assumption) in the formulations "God's supreme perfection" (Elp33s2, same as in Elp 15s); "God's perfection" (EIapp, G80/22); "God's most perfect nature" (EIapp, G83/18), etc. 20 Indeed, "perfection" may simply be a synonym for the reality of a thing, as the formula "reality, or perfection" indicates. 21 Thus, perfection in nature is said to embrace the distinctive characteristic of substance in general, i.e., existence (Elp7); "[W]hatever perfection substance has is not owed to any external cause .... Perfection, therefore, does not take away the existence of a thing, but on the contrary asserts it" (Elplls). Perfection therefore implies substance, inasmuch as one of the most important determining properties of the latter is existence. Moreover, when he repeats the "ontological" argument, Spinoza very logically presents God's determination as perfection par excellence. This may also be the reason why Spinoza does not mention the concept of perfection before his presentation of the "ontological" argument, i.e., before Elplld. I have interpreted the second demonstration of proposition II as Spinoza's revival of the Cartesian proof of God's existence through (efficient) causality, that is, through the description of God as causa sui. This hypothesis is strengthened by the convergent occurrences of causa sui in Ethics I, which reiterates the principal points of the Cartesian thesis: (1) In order to exist, God must submit to the requirements of the principle of reason: "For each thing there must be assigned a cause, or reason, as much for its existence as for its nonexistence" (the second demonstration of proposition 11). (2) If every existing thing must have a cause, only in the case of God can the essence take on the role of an efficient quasi-cause: "By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence" (Eldefl); or "A substance cannot be produced by anything else ... ; therefore it will be the cause of itself, i.e. ... its essence necessarily involves existence" (Elp7d).22 (3) But Spinoza's originality becomes apparent with the third characteristic of causa sui: unlike Descartes, who took the risk of positing causa sui as an extreme, never-to-be-repeated extension of the common requirement of causality, Spinoza conceives (or attempts to conceive) any causality, of any existence, on the basis of the single causa sui. Instead of the circularity of the cause relating to itself (without a distinct effect) remaining a unique borderline case, it renders all existence, even that of modes, intelligible: "God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause of himself' (EIp25s); "from the necessity alone of God's essence it follows that God is the cause of himself (by PII) and ... of all things" (EIp34d). Spinoza not only follows Descartes in recognizing that God is the cause of the essences as well as the existence of things21; he

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also bridges the gap between cause and effect in an "immanent, not transitive, cause of all things" (ElpI8), thereby reducing all efficiency to the self-identity of substance. While causa sui undoubtedly ensures the existence of substance, as essence it obliterates any real difference between cause and effect, between substance and modes. Thus, far from being an exception to efficient causality, it determines its universal law: modes - even finite ones-are absorbed into infinite substance. The extension of causa sui (Eldefl) to causam essendi rerum (the cause of the being of things; Elp24c) brings the Cartesian endeavor that runs through and operates within the whole of Ethics I to completion. I have interpreted the third demonstration of proposition II as a revival of the Cartesian a posteriori proof of God's existence. In this regard, I have already pointed out that Spinoza has adopted Descartes' description of God as "infinite" for his own use. First, he does so directly: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite" (Eldef6); "God is an absolutely infinite being" (ElpI4d); "of God, viz. of a being absolutely infinite" (ElpISs). These formulations lead to the equation of God and the infinite in the third demonstration of proposition II: "an absolutely infinite Being i.e .... , God," followed (in Elplls) by "an absolutely infinite Being, or God" and "of the existence of an absolutely infinite, or perfect, Being - i.e., God." Then he adopts the description of God as "infinite" indirectly, either through substance or through the divine essence. God is substance, he says, but substance is infinite: "Every substance is necessarily infinite" (Elp8; cf. ElpI3s). Moreover, God can only be considered as substance if one ascribes infinity to the latter: "a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence" (Eldef6; cf. ElplOs, Elpll). Here, the infinity of the number of attributes rises, so to speak, to the infinite power of each of the essences expressed by them. God also manifests his infinity through the properties of his attributes: "[T]he divine nature has absolutely infinite attributes" (ElpI6d). This ascription of infinity to God would not present any difficulty if the attributes, in God, had not been said to claim it as well as substance; moreover, certain modes also claim it. For, wouldn't such manifold applications of "infinity" cause an ambiguity as to its meaning? And what would be the relationship between the "infinite" in the strict meaning given it by Descartes and the "infinite" multiplied in this way by Spinoza? Further, can one speak, within Spinozist terminology, of God's infinity, when - apart from its mathematical use in ElplSs - Spinoza uses "infinite" only as an adjective, to qualify more essential things such as being, essence or substance? At the very least. the decline of the determining term

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"infinite" is confirmed by Spinoza's assigning the a posteriori proof the lowest place (demonstration 3 and scholium to proposition II), whereas Descartes placed it in the highest category in his Meditations. Thus, we reach a conclusion and are faced with a question. First, the conclusion: The three demonstrations of proposition 11 not only correspond to the three main Cartesian proofs of God's existence, from which they take (in different order) the three corresponding definitions of God (the descriptions of God as ens [summe] perfectum, causa sui and ens [absolute] infinitum); they also provide models of the three determinations of God, which - interconnected and yet distinct - run through Ethics I from the definitions to the appendix. Here, proposition 11 is no exception. Indeed, through the interconnection of its three demonstrations, it indicates with exceptional clarity that God can be reached by three paths and thus through three titles that run through the whole of Ethics I - and perhaps through other parts of the Ethics as well. This brings us to the question, which I have left until now out of caution, but which can no longer be postponed: Does the heterogeneity of the demonstrations of proposition 11, strengthened and confirmed as it is by both internal and historical arguments, not produce an incoherence in proposition 11 itself - and, therefore, in Spinoza's entire doctrine of God? In other words, as the demonstrations of God's existence are characterized by a real heterogeneity of vocabulary and origins, can one maintain that the doctrine of the definition of God, developed in proposition 11 and in Ethics I generally, remains consistent and coherent? In short, are Spinoza's three definitions and descriptions of God compatible and consistent?

4. Perfection and Cause It is pertinent to ask here whether Spinoza ever acknowledged that there is a tension between - if not a distortion among - the different determinations that he ascribes to God in Ethics I. He does at least seem to make a conceptual distinction - and not only a distinction of reason - between God as cause and God as perfection. This is suggested in at least two texts:

a. In Metaphysical Thoughts, he defines God mainly as a cause: "the cause of all things" (eM I: 2); "their cause, God. the creator of all things" (CM I: 3); "the cause who creates all things, namely God" (ibid.). However. Spinoza also presents another definition of God in this work, one in which God is defined in terms of his perfection: "God has infinite perfection, that is, infinite essence or infinite being" (CM I: 6). Here God's perfection entails

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his infinity, as is confirmed by such other formulas as: "God is a supremely perfect being" (eM II: 2) and "God, as the supremely perfect being, must lack no perfection" (eM II: 7). The essential point here is that these two determinations of God cannot be identified with one another. Indeed, from "only God is to be called absolutely infinite, insofar as we find that he really consists of infinite perfection" (eM II: 3), we see that God's infinity derives from his absolute perfection: "for we call him infinite insofar as we are attending to his essence, or supreme perfection" (ibid.). The same does not, however, apply to God's immensity, which neither constitutes perfection nor derives from the perfection of his essence. God's immensity can only be established by demonstrating that there is no being (other than God) that can limit God's power, and by going back to the consideration of his power, and hence his causality: "Immensity is only ascribed to God in a certain respect. For it does not pertain to God insofar as he is considered absolutely, as a most perfect being, but only insofar as he is considered as the first cause, which, even if it were only most perfect in respect to secondary beings, would still be no less immense" (eM II: 3). Immensity implies the absence of a limit to the divine power, and thus that God's causality does not encounter any second or opposing cause. It exists, then. in a relationship between God himself (in his perfection) and other possible powers - a relationship that cannot be inferred from God's absolute and autonomous perfection alone. In short, there is a genuine distinction between God's definition as perfection and his definition as cause (or as causa sui). And, indeed, the first demonstration of proposition 11 (which presupposes perfection) defines God by himself, while the second demonstration (based on the principle of "cause, or reason") speaks of his relationship to a cause "outside him, i.e., in another substance of another nature." There is a real difference between these two demonstrations: the one remains absolute, while the other involves a relation. b. Spinoza confirms this difference in a second text. In Letter 60 to Tschirnhaus, he explains the difference between true idea (idea vera) and adequate idea (idea adaequata): the former involves a relationship (respectus) with its ideatum, while the latter is absolute in that it is true in and through itself. Only the adequate idea permits one to arrive at and reveal the essence of the thing to be defined. For example, an adequate idea of a circle would be one that brings forth a generic definition: the space which is described by a line of which one point is fixed and the other is movable. On the basis of this absolute and autonomous definition. all the properties of the circle can be inferred. The same is true with regard to God:

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the definition of him through perfection does not express all his properties, and, although it is true, it is nevertheless inadequate. One must therefore seek a definition of God that is not only true but adequate - one from which it is possible to infer all his conceivable properties: "So also, when I define God as the supremely perfect Being [ens summe perfectumJ, since this definition does not express the efficient cause (for I conceive that an efficient cause can be internal as well as external) I shall not be able to discover all the properties of God from it; but when I define God as a Being, etc. (see Definition VI, Part I of the Ethics)." There are several points in this sta tement of Spinoza's that should be noted: (1) Above all, that although the definition of God as ens summe perfectum (the first demonstration of proposition 11 - the ontological argument, following Meditations V) is accurate, it does not express "all the properties of God." (2) That, over and above this definition, one must "express the efficient cause" if one wishes to reveal all the other properties of God (hence the second demonstration of proposition 11). (3) Letter 60 follows the same logic as CM II: 3; moreover, this logic is what renders the passage from the first to the second demonstration of proposition 11 intelligible: ens summe perfectum provides a true but still inadequate idea of God. The latter is attained by means of causality, both internal and external. 24 (4) To the definition of God in terms of perfection, Spinoza opposes not that by means of causa sui, which seems to be called for, but EIdef6, which does not even mention causality: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite ... " Where should this last formulation be placed within the triptych of proposition II? Does the superseding of perfection by causality allow us to define the role of infinity? Or, does infinity differ from the other two determinations to the same extent that these determinations are distinguished from one another?

5. Perfection and the Infinite We already know one essential characteristic of the position that Spinoza assigns to infinity: he subordinates it to perfection, since "we call him infinite, insofar as we are attending to his essence, or supreme perfection" (CM II: 3). Spinoza ascribes infinity to God as a result of his perfection, or rather as one of his essential perfections, inasmuch as he is "the supremely perfect Being." One might point out here that the definition of God in Eldef6 mentions not "perfection," but, on the contrary, "infinity." This difficulty requires that we return to the origin of Spinoza's conception of

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substance, as he defines it in Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy": "The substance which we understand to be through itself supremely perfect, and in which we conceive nothing which involves any defect or limitation of perfection, is called God" (OPP Idef8). Although this is an exact replication of the Cartesian formulation (Reply to the Second Set of Objections, definition 8), its Cartesian origin does not mean that the primacy of perfection implied by Spinoza should not be considered an authentic Spinozist position, since it reappears many times in the same text: "The nature of the most perfect being" (OPP I prolegomenon, Curley, p. 235); "a most perfect being" (ibid.); "Necessary existence [is contained] in the concept of God, or of a supremely perfect being" (OPP Iax6, Curley, p. 243); "a supremely perfect being, or God" (OPP Ip7Iemmalc); "it will be something supremely perfect, and therefore ... God" (OPP IpJOd). In effect, Spinoza lays down the rule that "whatever perfection is found in God, is from God" (OPP Ipl0). However, this supposed primacy of perfection over the infinite is open to criticism: if one looks at the Ethics, one has to admit that the term "perfection" does not appear in Eldef6, of God. It appears only in proposition 11 and its demonstrations, where, moreover, it is given the same position as infinity: "a Being absolutely infinite and supremely perfect" (the second demonstration). How is one to explain not only the late appearance of perfection, but also Spinoza's failure to define it clearly? How is one to explain the fact that Eldef6 hinges on the concept of infinity, while the definition in opp is based on perfection? In short, doesn't the definition of God in Ethics I really demonstrate my contention that exactly the opposite occurs? If it is infinity that defines God, it defines him because he is constituted of attributes that are themselves infinite in their respective kinds. Unlike his attributes, each of which is infinite in its own kind, God is not merely infinite, but absolutely infinite: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite" (EIdef6), and the explanation immediately adds: "I say absolutely infinite, not infinite in its own kind" (Eldef6exp). Unlike God, who, as substance. is absolutely infinite, the attributes are infinite only in their kind: "a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence" (Eldef6). Letter 2 removes all ambiguity: "each of which is infinite, or supremely perfect in its kind." The idea that the attribute is itself infinite in its kind can be found throughout Ethics I: "infinite attributes, each of which expresses a certain eternal and infinite essence" (EIpIOs, EIp 11); "that attribute is conceived to express infinity and necessity of

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existence" (Elp23dJ: "God, not insofar as he is an absolutely infinite substance. but insofar as he has an attribute that expresses the infinite and eternal essence of thought" (Elp32d). God is not infinite as such (i.e .. as a substance), but his attributes are. Spinoza therefore multiplies infinity by declaring God to be absolutely infinite. This is precisely why Descartes' ascription of direct and simple infinity to God becomes unacceptable. since it really applies to the attributes alone. If a substance is defined as "consisting of infinite attributes," this formula must be understood in its irreducible ambiguity. For. infinity has already been ascribed to the attribute and expropriated from the Cartesian God. This process was already obvious in the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being: "Every attribute. or substance. is by its nature infinite. and supremely perfect in its kind" (KV II:applp3)2< One can therefore understand why Spinoza uses "infinity" rather than "perfection" in definition 6 of Ethics I: it is because that definition is less concerned with God as such than with God as a substance expressed by attributes. Thus, the infinity with which Eldef6 is imbued relates only to the attributes and not to God. God, as such, receives the (perhaps derived and inaccurate) title "absolutely infinite" in order to distinguish him from the attribute, which is infinite in the true sense. Conversely, the fact that the idea of perfection does not appear until proposition II is not due to its being secondary or derived: it is because the only reason for its appearance at all is to confirm the overtaking of the simple infinity (of the attribute) by the absolute infinity (of a substance with an infinity of infinite attributes). Since the multiplication of infinity through substance can only be established with the aid of proposition 10 (and, above all. its scholium), it is not until proposition II that Spinoza corrects the Cartesian determination of God as infinite by replacing simple infinity with absolute infinity. The primacy of perfection over infinity in the designation of God thus rests on a dual argument: (1) Spinoza gives precedence to perfection over all the Cartesian designations of God: in DPP he takes up the definition given in the Reply to the Second Set of Objections. (2) The concept of the attribute that is infinite in itself rules out a definition of God based on simple infinity; this leads to supreme perfection being preferred over the ambiguous "absolute infinity": "a being absolutely infinite and supremely perfect" (the second demonstration of proposition 11). We are thus able to understand why the infinite requires an a posteriori demonstration for Spinoza: his reasoning is based on the attributes rather than directly on substance. It is clear that the diversity of determinations of God, each of which dominates one of the three demonstrations of God's existence that Spinoza

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provides in proposition 11, is not a matter of chance. Spinoza adopts these three determinations from Descartes, but - unlike Descartes - he is not content to utilize them successively; instead, he attempts their systematic unification. It was this ambitious project that brought Spinoza face-to-face with a difficulty that was also encountered by Descartes - who did not consider it as such or mention it: that of the compatibility of the different designations of God that support the demonstrations of his existence. Spinoza achieved a clear resolution of the problem by subordinating infinity to perfection. This simplified the difficulty because it left only two denominations of God in the picture: ens summe perfectum and causa sui, i.e., the designations of perfection and of causality. Did Spinoza succeed in reconciling these two possible determinations of God's essence? Or, did he merely juxtapose them? Did he, like Malebranche, anticipate the Leibnizian duality of the two principles, that of identity and that of "sufficient reason?" The answer to these questions is beyond our scope; let it suffice that we have reached the point where we can ask them.

Notes 1. Hegel. The Science of Lqgic, in Hegel, The Essential Writings, ed. and trans!' Frederick G. Weiss (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 112-113. 2. Cf., for example, F, Alquie, Le rationalisme de Spinoza (Paris: Presses universitaires de France [PUF], 1981). p, 107, 3, Cf. Alquie's observation: "One may be surprised that Spinoza proposes different definitions", to describe a single reality. Do not the laws of logic as well as those of mathematics require that a definition should suit that which is defined, all that is defined and only that which is defined? In our opinion. this is all due to the fact that Spinoza wished to unite through his system ideas that meet a variety of requirements" (ibid .. p, 132; transl. by D. Maisel), 4, With the assistance of the remarkable concordance Spinoza-Ethica, compiled by M, Gueret, A. Robinet and p, Tombeur (Louvain - la-Neuve: Cetedoc. 1977), we can indicate EIVp37, EIVp51 and EIVp59. but no more; each of these provides two proofs for each proposition. 5, The Philosophical Works of Descartes (hereafter: Descartes, Works), trans!' E,S, Haldane and G,R,T, Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). vol. II, p, 57, 6, Ibid .. vol. 1. pp, 180- 181. 7, Cf. DPP Ip5s, See also the Prolegomenon to DPP I (Curley, pp, 237-238), Ens perfectissimum appears in the same context. 8, See, e,g .. Descartes, Works, vol. 1. pp, 180, 181. 182. See also the Appendix to the second Reply, Axiom X, ibid., vol. II, p, 57, For ens summe perreetum, see Harry

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A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), vol. I, pp. 179-184,212. Wolfson, too, connects the first demonstration of proposition 11 with the "ontological" argument of Meditations V. 9. Descartes, Works, vol. II, p.55. 10. Ibid., p. 14. 11. Ibid., p. 109. 12. Ibid., p. 14. 13. Ibid., p. 112. 14. It is surprising that even Wolfson does not think of connecting this second demonstration with the causa sui of the Replies or with the principle of causality underlying it, viewing it only as a "modification of Descartes' ontological proof in Meditations V" (ibid., pp. 185, 212). On causa sui, cf., among other sources, my Sur la theologie blanche de Descartes (Paris: PUF, 1981), proposition 18. 15. Meditations III, in Descartes, Works, vol. I, pp. 162, 165 and 166, respectively. One can add: "the idea of an infinite substance" and "infinite substance" (ibid., p. 166 and passim: e.g., axiom 6 in the appendix in geometrical order to the Reply to the Second Set of Objections, ibid., vol. II, p. 56; The Third Set of Objections, reply to the ninth objection, ibid., vol. II, p. 71). 16. When Descartes passes from an a posteriori to an a priori prooL he is careful to start from a description of God that can be understood a priori (i.e., as perfection). and to leave aside infinity, which is incomprehensible on the basis of the finite. In short, in Cartesian terms, since the infinite can only be approached a posteriori. Spinoza's a priori use of infinity is absurd. Wolfson draws attention to the connection between this argument and that of Meditations III (pp. 200 If.. 212). 17. Descartes. Works, vol. I, p. 167, with a parallel in the Preface: "provided only we remember that we must consider our minds as things which are finite and limited. and God as a Being who is incomprehensible and infinite," ibid .. p. 138. 18. Here I am assuming an acquaintance with my analysis of the three determinations of God according to Descartes, in Sur Ie prisme meraphysique de Descartes (Paris: PUF, 1986), Chap. 4, propositions 16-20. Spinoza would thus depend even more closely on Descartes, who, in return. would have found that the divergences between the Spinozist descriptions of God corroborate the contrasts in his own argument. 19. Similarly. Elp 17s: "[T]hey say they know nothing they can ascribe to God more perfect than what is the highest perfection in us." 20. Similarly, Letter 19: "[TJhe more perfection anything has. the more does it participate also in Deity, and the more does it express the perfection of God." 21. Cf. EIIpls, EIIp43s, EIIp49s, etc. 22. Cf. also EIp 17d and Elp24d. The theme of causa sui goes back to The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, 92; but. introduced by the phrase "as is commonly said," it immediately refers one to its elaboration by Descartes - which is presupposed and which is the only one that is innovative. Moreover, Spinoza never attempts an examination of the logical difficulties inherent in the concept of causa sui: on the contrary, he immediately extends its model of causality to the production of modes (Elp25s). 23. Elp25 ("God is the efficient cause, not only of the existence of things. but also of their essence") can also be considered a citation from Descartes: "For it is certain

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that [God] is the Author both of the essence and of the existence of creatures" (letter to Mersenne, 27 May 1630, in Rene Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Nouvelle Presentation en Co-Edition avec CNRS (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964~1975), vol. I, p. 152 (transl. by D. Maisel). 24. This pair enables one to recapture the fluctuation of divine causality between prima causa on the one hand and causa sui on the other (TIE 9t note); or causa omnium rerum on the one hand and causa sui on the other (Elp25s). 25. It should be added that infinity also qualifies certain modes, namely, the infinite modes, which is another reason why it cannot be considered a property of God, and even less so as a determination of his essence.

Yirmiyahu Yovel

The Infinite Mode and Natural Laws in Spinoza

Spinoza was very parsimonious in discussing some of the key concepts of his system. One of these concepts, the infinite mode, plays a decisive role in his metaphysics since it mediates between God as substance and particular things. Although Spinoza does not say so explicitly, we shall have to attribute to him a plurality of infinite modes (of the mediated kind), issuing from one another in a growing order of specificity; these are the universal features of the universe-God, spelled out in the laws of nature that govern all things. The laws of nature are supposed to express God's omnipresence and transmit his necessity and indwelling causality to all there is. And the infinite mode underlies all laws as their metaphysical locus, the slot or basic category into which they are to fit in Spinoza's system. This is the apparatus through which God-as-one is to be equated with God-as-many, that Natura naturata is to express and be identical with Natura naturans. Hence it is here, at this crucial juncture of his system, that Spinoza's metaphysical monism can best be diagnosed. Strictly speaking, the infinite mode is a more fundamental and broader concept than the law of nature; but for the sake of convenience, when the distinction does not matter or the risk of confusion is minimal, I shall use them interchangeably.

Natural

VS.

Biblical Laws

The dictum that "God has no decrees other than the laws of nature" seems to have been tacitly accepted among religious skeptics and deists in the young Spinoza's milieu, particularly among heterodox ex-Marranos like Juan de Prado, Spinoza's elder colleague and one-time friend. l Later, Spinoza reiterated this idea in successive works, especially in the TheologieoPolitical Treatise (TTP 6), written when most of his mature metaphysics

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already existed. Here we see a pervasive theme, one which preoccupied him from early on, before he was banned by the Jewish community, and one which probably contributed to provoking the ban. If, as many believe, the TTP incorporates ideas from the lost Apology in which the young Spinoza is said to have defended himself against his Jewish accusers, then a likely place to find such early ideas would be TTP 6, where, allegedly on the Bible's own authority, Spinoza identifies God's decrees and providence with the laws of nature. In this chapter, the Bible itself is made to testify, implicitly yet unmistakably, that it does not express God's will or manifest his essence, but that the laws of nature do this. Nothing could be more offensive to established religion. The Holy Scripture, along with the various ecclesiastical and rabbinical traditions based upon it, are thereby undermined as the source of divine knowledge and authority. God cannot be known by Revelation, stories or miracles, only by the rational study of nature. His commands are as immutable and eternal as God himself; and neither prayer nor faith nor religious cult can change or affect his will. Jews, whose religion is dominated by hundreds of commands deemed to ensue from God's revealed will, were particularly prone to take offense at this heterodox stand, especially in a community like Spinoza's Amsterdam, where ex-Marrano members anxious to restore the Jewish life lost by their ancestors were struggling to reeducate themselves in precisely the same commands whose divinity Spinoza was undermining. Catholics too, and of course the leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church, had almost equal grounds for grievance. There was, however, a major difference between Spinoza and all the others who held this pre-Enlightenment view. Deists like Prado kept on distinguishing God from his creation. But, although they reduced God to an impersonal first cause which had created the world and then left it to run by natural laws alone, the deists still conceived him as a creator transcendent to his creation. In this major respect they therefore remained attached to the ruling paradigm in metaphysics and theology. Only Spinoza, in his immanent revolution, shattered the paradigm itself by abolishing the creator / creation dualism and viewing God as the indwelling cause of the universe. Since God is identical with nature, the law-like patterns of nature are modes - infinite modes - in which God himself exists and manifests his essence; these patterns express and lay bare God's own essence, which, to the deists, remained unknowable and infinitely remote. Natural knowledge is therefore a kind of gnosis in Spinoza: By knowing the laws of nature and, even better, by using them to know particular things, we extend our knowledge of God himself. We do not approach him through

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something else (his external creation, as scientists of the "physicotheological" approach believed), but grasp him directly and immanently if still partially - as the natural totality that he is. To Spinoza, the term "natural laws" is, strictly speaking, no less metaphorical than its popular equivalent, "God's decrees." Laws exist literally only in politics and religion; they are man-made and can be broken. Natural "laws," however, cannot be broken - which is to Spinoza the sure sign of their divinity ("all [and only] laws which cannot be transgressed are divine laws," he says in the Short Treatise on God. Man and His Well-Being (KV II: 24; cf. TTP 6). What actually exists in nature is a set of immutable causal and logical patterns, "according to which all things come to be and endure"; but, says Spinoza, "if we want to call them laws" we may do so in a manner of speaking. Spinoza himself does so at times, as when he calls them "the rules that God has established in Nature" (ibid.). This explains why Spinoza abstains from the term "natural laws" in the Ethics. his most literal philosophical discourse, although he uses it freely in his other works. The issue itself is, however, certainly present in the Ethics as well. Natural laws are implied in the crucial propositions Elp28 and EIIp7, which discuss, respectively, the causal chains connecting particular modes and the ordo et connexio rerum (and idearum), which governs the whole universe. Natural laws are also implied, as their ontological objects, by the "common notions" discussed in Ethics II; and specific examples of natural laws are given in EIIpl3 lemmas (for physical laws) and throughout Ethics III (for psychological laws). Above alL however, the metaphysical role and definition of natural laws are laid down in Elp21-24, which discuss the infinite mode. Spinoza is faced with the following problem: God is the immanent cause of all there is. He dwells in every particular thing as cause of its existence as well as its essence. Yet God is infinite and his essence involves existence; particular things are finite and their essence does not involve existence. How do these two aspects of the same universe-God relate to each other? More specifically, what is the systematic link mediating between the One (totality) and the Many (particulars), between God as cause and God as his own particularized effect? Spinoza's answer is given in his theory of the infinite mode and the laws of nature that ensue from it. Some entities, he argues, must derive immediately from God's nature so as to serve as mediation for all the rest (EI28s). These entities belong to Natura naturata. the domain of dependent or (metaphorically speaking) "created" things whose essence does not involve existence; yet they are infinite because they derive directly from God's

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nature. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect Spinoza calls them "the fixed and eternal things" (res fixae et aeternae), in which laws are "inscribed ... as in their true codes" (TIE 101). In the KV he refers to them as "things which are infinite and immutable" (KV I: 3) or modes or creatures which immediately depend ... on God" (KV I: 9), calling them the "sons" of God (and naming two, "Motion in matter, and Intellect in the thinking thing"; KV I: 9). And the Ethics, avoiding such Christian metaphors, speaks simply (if parsimoniously) of "a mode which exists necessarily and is infinite" (EIp23). Accepting, even if tentatively, that the infinite mode provides natural laws with their metaphysical place, a number of further questions arise concerning these laws. (I) Are they real aspects of the world or empty abstractions, as unreal as universals are considered to be in Spinoza's metaphysics? (2) What is meant by their "infinity" and "necessity"? (3) What is materially contained in them? (4) How do they relate to the attributes "above" them? And, finally, (5) How do they relate to the particular things "below" them?

(I) Are natural laws mere abstractions?

This question concerns Spinoza's alleged "nominalism." Spinoza rejects generic universals as entia rationia, fictions to which nothing corresponds in reality. This has sometimes been interpreted as if only finite particulars exist in his world. Laws, however, are universal structures; hence it would seem that they too are fictions. The same conclusion is sometimes reached by considering that, according to Spinoza, there exist only substance and its modes. A law, it is said, is neither one nor the other. This argument is the weakest one, since natural laws may (and, I suggest, do) count as infinite modes. Modes are defined as dependent things, entities whose essence does not involve existence; as such, they constitute Natura naturata and are divided into two kinds: finite and infinite. (The K V also calls them the "particular" and the "universal" sides of Natura naturata). An infinite mode is a real if dependent thing, even (as we shall see later) a kind of singular universal; as such, it serves as the metaphysical category and form of being underlying natural laws. Spinoza is often called a nominalist although in fact he only denies universals in the generic sense, but does not dismiss all universal patterns q.s unreal. On the contrary, the characteristic move through which Spinoza's system provided a metaphysical framework for the new scientific revolution, rejecting the medieval model of science, consisted in substituting the

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uniform laws of nature for genus and species as the truly universal and only valid structure by which science proceeds. Any rational endeavor. natural science included, must refer particular items to some relevant universal as a condition of their intelligibility - and even, as Spinoza also agrees, in order to consider them as real. So far Spinoza concurs with Aristotelian science and even with Plato. But, whereas Greek and medieval science used qualitative generic forms as the explanatory universal. Spinoza breaks away from this tradition by replacing generic forms with the uniform laws of nature; and the infinite mode is the instrument by which he accommodates these laws in his metaphysics. I therefore agree with Bennett and others who strongly qualify Spinoza's so-called "nominalism. "2 Natural laws are valid universal structures in Spinoza's system, representing real aspects of the world and not abstract fictions. And his attack on generic universals is designed to abolish teleology and establish natural determinism by uniform laws in its place. Let us look at a few quotations: (I-a)

[A]bove all it is necessary for us always to deduce all our ideas from Physical things, or [sive] from the real beings. proceeding as far as possible. according to the series of causes. from one real being to another real being, in such a way that we do not pass over to abstractions and universals, neither inferring something real from them, nor inferring them from something real (TIE 99: my emphasis).

Spinoza continues: (I-b)

But note that by the series of causes and of real beings I do not here understand the series of singUlar. changeable things. but only the series of fixed and eternal things [res/ixarum aeternarumque]. For it would be impossible for human weakness to grasp the series of singular, changeable things ... (TIE 100).

And further: (I-c)

This

IS

But there is also no need for us to understand their series. The essence of singular. changeable things are not to be drawn from thei r series, or [sive] order of existing. since it offers us nothing but extrinsic denominations, relations. or at most, circumstances, all of which are far from the inmost essence of things. Thai essence is 10 be sought only from the fixed and eternal things. and at the samc time from the laws inscribed in these things, as in their true codes, according to which all singular things come to be, and are ordered (TIE 101: my emphasis).

a small treasure of information, which calls for a few comments.

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(a) In speaking of the "fixed and eternal things" and the "laws which are inscribed in them" Spinoza offers an account of how laws relate to the infinite mode. The infinite mode, as res fixa et aeterna, provides the metaphysical category, the source and paradigm of natural laws. Natural laws are "inscribed" in the infinite mode as their metaphysical locus; they are likewise infinite and universal, but also less general, for they spell out the supreme law of nature in a series of ever more specific laws. In so doing they transmit God's presence, power and necessity to the most remote realms of being. (b) Quote (I-a) emphasizes that true knowledge, in order to avoid empty abstractions like generic universals, should use causal links to pass from one real singular thing to another; but we soon learn that, to do this, it must be made to follow quite another kind of universal: the "fixed and eternal things" (= infinite modes) and the laws of nature "inscribed" in them. Causal links, in other words, are nomological. They fall under their own kind of universal, the uniform law of nature, which acts "like" a universal (see quote I-d below) in making nature intelligible, yet is a real aspect of the world and a singular infinite entity. As such, natural laws replace generic forms in providing the universal pattern by which science should proceed; this is a major point where Spinoza's metaphysics works concordantly with the New Science and lays the ground for it. We can put this in another way. Spinoza's nominalism places reality not merely in simple particulars but in individuals; and an individual may well be a global entity with certain features that characterize it overall, that is, are universally present in it. This non-generic universality does not reside in classes but belongs to (and helps to constitute) singular entities known as totalities. Spinoza, of course, was the philosopher of totality par excellence; even without using the term, he introduced the idea of totality as a singular entity with universal features, each of which, as sub-totality. is again a singular entity - as are the attributes, and also, I suggest, the infinite modes. The example of the attributes helps us realize that global individuals need not be absolutely comprehensive in Spinoza. They may express only certain aspects of the substance (they may be infinite in some qualified way rather than being "infinitely infinite") and yet count as real singular entities or subtotalities of substance. The same should hold true for even narrower aspects of substance, which are nevertheless global and infinite, such as the infinite modes and the laws of nature "inscribed in them. "1

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Spinoza's paradigmatic idea of totality was later worked out by other philosophers, especially Kant and Hegel, who analyzed totality as the union of universality and particularity, yielding a singular entity endowed with universal features. That Spinoza himself, though less explicit, was groping for the same concept when discussing natural laws, can be seen from another, consecutive, passage of the TIE: (I-d)

So although these fixed and eternal things [the infinite modes and the laws inscribed in them] are singular, nevertheless, because of their presence everywhere, and most extensive power. they will be to us like universals, or [sive] genera of the definitions of singular, changeable things, and the proximate causes of all things (TIE 10 I).

Clearly, Spinoza describes infinite modes as singular entities that perform a universal function. As singular, they are real; but they are "like" universals in exercising infinite power and necessity.4

(2) How should the "infinity" and "necessity" of these entities be construed? Infinity: In the first place, the "infinity" of infinite modes (and therefore of natural laws) signifies their omnipresence in some range of relevant phenomena, over which they extend their power endlessly and uniformly (as do the attributes under which they fali). This, again, presupposes the universal power of a law rather than a class (genus). Just as the attribute of Extension is present in all extended bodies, so also the laws of motion are present in all these bodies, from the supreme law of Motion and Rest (the immediate infinite mode in the extended universe) down to the lower, more specific laws of mechanics that depend upon it. This system of laws determines the behavior of all bodies, regardless of their qualitative differences and of the genera to which they are said to belong; ra ther, the qualitative differences are themselves constituted by a cross-section of these laws. In this respect, the infinity of natural laws is similar to that of the attributes. In a second sense, however, there is crucial difference between them. Attributes are infinite in the sense of eternity, which means timelessness in Spinoza; but the infinite mode has only indefinite duration. In the words of EIp21: "All things which follow from the absolute nature of any of God's attributes have always had to exist and be infinite, or [sive] are, through the same attribute, eternal and infinite" (my emphasis). The word "eternal" is here confusing, since the term sive equates it with "being always," although eternity in Spinoza is not defined by indefinite duration (Eld8,exp).

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This cannot. however, be a simple oversight. Spinoza seems to consciously leap from eternity to sempiternity only, and from a higher to a lower form of infinity, because he needs to go down the scale of being. But this leap is problematical. If, as Spinoza says in EIp21, infinite modes receive their infinity "through the attribute" (because they derive immediately from it), then they must be as infinite as the attribute - their infinity having the same sense of timelessness. To put it differently: the force of the argument that runs throughout the sequence EI p21-24 creates a kind of logical trap or "imprisonment," whereby God's infinity cannot but be transmitted onward as it is - intactwith nothing to depreciate it from the timeless to the durational. Yet Spinoza performs this depreciation in the concept of infinity, which allows him to move on, rather unaccountably, from Natura naturans, the timeless substance and its attributes, to duration and Natura naturata, the world of "created" or dependent things.

Necessity: A similar leap occurs with regard to necessity. In the sense in which it is attributed to God's nature, necessity signifies self-caused existence, the kind of existence that flows from a thing's own essence. But modes do not have an essence involving existence, and this applies to infinite no less than to finite modes. Spinoza invariably insists, as he must, that infinite modes are not self-sustaining entities, but require something else God and his attribute - in order to exist and be what they are; in other words, they exist in alio and not in se. The infinite mode does not therefore share in the same kind of necessity as the attribute, although it derives immediately from it. In the passage from the one to the other. a degradation again takes place. The necessity of the infinite mode is inferior to that of God; it is borrowed necessity, which has lost an essential characteristic in the process of being transmitted "downward." This produces an undesirable effect for Spinoza. For, although natural laws are not made contingent in Descartes' sense - the sense that God could have devised them differently (on the contrary, God in Spinoza could not have made different "decisions" for nature) - they still suffer from contingency in another. Spinozist, sense, because they do not exist by virtue of their own essence alone. Both their essence and their existence are caused by something else and transmitted to them in a chain of derivation. And this transmitted necessity, although carried forth by a logical principle, is the source (and, indeed, the definition) of contingency in Spinoza.

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This is not the place to discuss contingency per se in Spinoza, but I would like to work out the ambiguity we seem to have encountered. In one sense nothing is contingent in Spinoza's world because everything is necessary, not only in a factual sense but in a logical sense as well. What laws transmit to particulars, and what singular essences transmit to one another, Spinoza conceives as a logical line of necessity deriving from the idea of God. Also, for him, mechanical causes and logical grounds are equivalent faces of the same process of universal particularization (as I shall elaborate later).5 Clearly, therefore, Spinoza cannot subscribe to the dualism of "factual" versus "logical" necessity that Leibniz later made prominent. All necessity is inherently logical, as is also made clear by the demonstration to the crucial Elp16, where Spinoza construes cosmic particularization as a chain of logical inferences based on the intellect. Yet the same particular modes that are thus determined by logical necessity are also contingent in the sense that their essence does not involve existence. Although logically necessary, they are not self-sustained entities. Denying their existence will produce a contradiction, not because their existence derives from their essence per se, but because their non-existence is incompatible with the logical make-up of the rest of nature. To conceive of an actual particular as non-existing is perfectly compatible with the thing's own essence, although it breaks the coherence of the overall system of nature, its laws and the chains of transmitted necessity within it. In a word, transmitted necessity in Spinoza is both logical and the ground for there being contingent entities; these entities, called modes, encompass the finite as well as the infinite modes; and all are contingent in the virtually definitory sense that their existence, while logically derived, is merely derived and not primary or self-sustained existence; it is not causa sui. I do not propose to delve here into the difficulties of Spinoza's modal theory; my point is that, given Spinoza's modal claims as they are, and using his own terms, we must notice, in passing over from the attribute to the infinite mode, a leap in the status of necessity parallel to that in infinity and due to similar reasons.

(3) What does the domain of infinite modes contain materially? On two occasions, Spinoza identifies the immediate infinite modes as Motion in the attribute of Extension and Intellect in the attribute of Thought. By Motion he means the supreme principle (or proportion) of motion and rest governing the universe and conserved in it forever. This

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constant dynamic proportion shapes the whole physical world as a single, indestructible individual (Ellp l3lemma 75); it also involves other high-level physical laws considered essential to the scientific revolution of the time, which Spinoza explicitly deduced and accommodated in his system, e.g., the principle of inertia, which abolished inherent movement and made all motion (and rest) depend on external coercing forces, or the law of conservation just alluded to. The constant proportion of motion and rest in the universe is maintained through incessant variations, controlled by other laws of motion. Following these laws, quanta of motion are redistributed among particular physical configurations, or individual bodies, whose essence and individuality consist in their own dynamic proportion (the ratio of their moving to their resting particles) and in the drive to preserve it. Thus, individual bodies owe their essence and existence to the laws that govern the exchange of motion in the world, for by this exchange everything in the extended world is generated and destroyed, including, as in Descartes, living organisms and the most delicate neurophysiological processes. These laws, although universal, spell out the supreme law of motion - the immediate infinite mode - in ever more specific ways. But, even as they become narrower and less general, they remain infinite and necessary, just like the infinite mode and in the same sense. Moreover, the system of these laws taken as a whole is considered a special infinite mode,facies totius universi ("the face of the whole Universe"; Letter 64). On the text and logic of Spinoza's position, I think what the "face" signifies is, strictly speaking, the system of all laws governing the universe, rather than the series of all particulars falling under them. These laws, in the metaphor of the TIE, are "inscribed" in the immediate infinite mode which serves as their metaphysical locus and first principle and which they serve to spell out. The metaphor of a "face" seems appropriate, considering that: (a) it refers to the immutable features of the physical world, and (b) it takes these features holistically, as a single Gestalt. 6 We should add that natural laws include logical and metaphysical laws no less than physical and mathematical ones. The examples that Spinoza gives in TIE are indeed logical and metaphysical - the same kind (if not exactly the same items) of clear and distinct ideas that Descartes had used as general axioms about the world - for example, "that no cause can produce more than it has in itself" or that "the weakest must yield to the strongest" (KV II: 24; a law of nature that also serves as the basis for politics in

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Spinoza). And all these laws are considered necessary in the same logical sense discussed above. In the attribute of Thought. the immediate infinite mode is the Infinite Intellect, which can be understood as the totality of adequate ideas in the world. including all true propositions and theories and their interconnections. Sometimes Spinoza also speaks of the idea of God as the underlying and most comprehensive idea, from which all other ideas issue as its explication. He is less explicit about the laws of psychology, but I think a plausible candidate for a high position among the infinite modes in the attribute of Thought is the psychological law of association. This law is so fundamental in Spinoza's account of how the mind works, both in perception and when it has affects, that association may actually function for him as the supreme law in psychology,? just as Motion-and-Rest is the supreme law in physics. Continuing this line of thought, we may expect that parallel to the infinite mode, which hosts the laws of the physical world. there will be an infinite mode in the attribute of Thought to host the laws of psychology as distinct from those of logic, though all of them affect the process called "thought." Spinoza tended to avoid distinguishing between these two dimensions of the attribute of Thought, perhaps because he wanted to avoid the outright dualistic interpretation that has sometimes been given to his theory; nevertheless, he frequently calls for specifying which of the twin dimensions should prevail when dealing with such key concepts as "idea" and "thought," which may be read in either a logical or a psychological vein. And the same need is reflected in the claim of psychological laws, falling under the law of association. for a high place in the metaphysical slot afforded by the infinite mode. 8

(4) How does the infinite mode relate to the attribute "above" it? Part of the answer to this question has been given above: the infinity and necessity of the attribute are unaccountably depreciated in status as we pass to the infinite mode. In addition, a special problem concerns the alleged derivation of motion from Extension, a move that is essential to Spinoza's monism, although he was unable to explain it satisfactorily either in the Ethics or in his correspondence with Tschirnhaus. When Descartes had to account for the origin of motion (by which everything in the extended universe must be explained), he postulated a separate act of God. Extension is both matter and space, but it is not self-moving (which would impair the

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fundamental principle of inertia. the cornerstone of the New Science). Hence God had to set the world in motion in a special act. as original as the act of creation. In so doing. God invested Extension with a fixed amount of motion. which is conserved eternally in the universe. accounting for the physical law of conservation. and at the same time is redistributed among -;pecific sub-systems and particulars. so as to engender the whole variety of physical na ture. Spinoza accepts a similar picture of the physical universe under a radically different metaphysics. whereby no act of creation is possible and the distinction between God and nature is abolished. Hence he must be able to derive motion from Extension in an immanent way. with no external help;9 yet he was unable to do so to the satisfaction of either his contemporary or his modern critics. Motion and Extension are two distinct concepts, and while motion certainly presupposes matter, it is not analytically implied in it. Furthermore. in the Cartesian school, matter loses its physical import and is mathematicized and reduced to extension. Therefore, the conceptual gap between motion and extension should be greater for a Cartesian (which Spinoza is on that issue) than ordinarily. Perhaps Spinoza could have closed this gap by a redefinition linking Extension to motion explicitly and analytically. After all, he was no foreigner to such bold redefinitions. which sometimes produced semantic revolutions in his system. However, in this case I think he would be required to pay a price that he could not afford. by violating the principle of inertia. Spinoza's goal was not to derive any concept of motion but the new, antiAristotelian. concept that accommodates and actually established the new mechanistic science. Now, this concept puts forth the principle of inertia, according to which motion and rest are always externally induced. that is, can only be imposed upon material things from without; and this implies that matter cannot have inherent motion. External coercion is the sole source of movement. 10 Spinoza's dilemma is, therefore. that the same infinite mode that he wants to derive from the attribute of extension contains a principle that prevents this derivation. Three ways were, in principle, open to Spinoza; yet none of them could really work. (I) Matter itself is inherently in motion: but this kind of "hylozoism" is excluded by the law of inertia. which the infinite mode itself must lay down. (2) Matter moves by striving toward God as prime mover (Aristotle; Maimonides): but this teleological principle is equally excluded by the New Science (and thus by the desirable content of the infinite mode). (3) God has given an initial "push" to the world (Descartes): this theory is immune to the former objections and compatible with mechanism. yet (a) it

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is incompatible with Spinoza's doctrine that God is the immanent cause of all things, and (b) it provides a deus ex machina solution, one which has no root in the system but is imposed upon it as a kind of miracle. Hence Tschirnhaus' question stands unanswered. (5) How do the infinite mode (and natural laws) relate to particular things?

Herein lies one of the most controversial of Spinoza's problems, sometimes known as the "derivation of the particular" or the "relation of finite to infinite." Spinoza has been variously charged with, despite himself, being unable to derive the finite particular from God as infinite, and therefore allowing his system to end with a Parmenidean result, the particulars being mere products of the imagination. Two groups of arguments are forwarded in support of this charge. One of them follows the line of derivation in Ethics I: everything that issues from the absolute nature of God's attribute must be infinite and exist necessarily and always (EIp21), and whatever issues from the latter must also exist infinitely and necessarily (EIp22), and so on indefinitely (EIp23): thus we are imprisoned, so to speak, in the domain of infinite modes and can never reach the finite particular. The second group of arguments (started by Hegel) does not focus on Spinoza's deductive move but on the metaphysical premises behind it. Particularization, they say, implies negation: this had already been clear to the Greeks and recognized by Spinoza himself (determinatio negatio est). A negative principle must therefore be available in God to affect his positive nature in order for the particular thing to ensue (and in order to account for any kind of specificity in the world, even that of the attributes). If we take the concept of God as the absolute totality seriously, then negation, too, cannot originate in anything but God himself; yet God's nature is defined by Spinoza as infinitely positive, involving no negation (EId6exp). Hence no principle of negation is allowed in him, and particularization cannot be accounted for in Spinoza's system. Extremists have concluded that, EIpl6 notwithstanding, particular things are fictions in Spinoza; but this is evidently untenable. Whether or not Spinoza is able in the final analysis to maintain the reality of particular modes, he certainly attempted to do so; and he built his system on the idea, perhaps an axiom (for this is the true nature of EIp16), that finite modes are necessary and real items, and that each of them has a singular individuality (through its conatus) - and even an eternal essence. II Critics may challenge the grounds for this view, but they cannot dismiss its fundamental role in Spinoza's metaphysics.

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The line of causality that we ha ve called vertical should not be understood as "creation" or even "emanation," but as ontological dependence. Finite things are as eternal as the substance from which they derive. Seen sub specie aeternitatis through their essence, finite things are as eternal and primordial as their sustaining substance. The difference between the two is that the essence of finite things does not involve existence but requires the substance in order to exist. Yet this dependence, too, is eternal; it is a timeless logical relation by which the modes, seen as particular essence, presuppose God. They inhere in God as their ontological support; they are implications of God's essence; but they are there primordially like God himself. Thus the eternity (and sempiternity) of the world of particulars can be interpreted in two ways: (1) the sub-system of Natura naturata with its laws and universal patterns is eternal, although particular things within it are generated and destroyed; (2) particular things, too, are eternal when seen through their essences, although their span within duration is necessarily limited. Both aspects of God, Natura naturans and Natura naturata, are simultaneously eternal systems existing without beginning or end. Substance and the attributes, through the infinite modes, provide the finite things with ontological support and with their nature and laws; this does not so much engender them (in time) as it constitutes them (timelessly),12 For such a thing, entering into time translates the vertical relation into a horizontal one conceived as another facet of the same system (see next section). Thus, eternity and duration are also, eventually, a twin pair understood in terms of the logic of equivalence. If so, the problem as Spinoza must have seen it is not so much to "derive" the particular modes as to explain how they refer to God's unity. Natural laws, infinite modes and the attributes are the equipment of Spinoza's explanation.

The Two Faces of Cosmic Particularization This issue is related to the string of propositions that discuss infinite modes (Elp21-24), and to the latter's position between Elp16 and Elp28, the two major propositions that define the process of cosmic particularization. Proposition 16 and its dependent propositions describe the downward or vertical line, by which particular things issue immanently from God through the attributes, the infinite modes and the specific laws of nature, in a process of logical derivation. Proposition 28 describes how the same particular thing

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is engendered under these natural laws by an endless chain of other particular things, each affecting the other as external, mechanical causes. This horizontal line exhibits the universe under the perspective of finitude and externality, whereas the immanent vertical line exhibits the universe from the standpoint of its absolute ground and logical interior. As I have argued elsewhere,13 Spinoza views the two lines as equivalent expressions of the same process, cosmic particularization. They manifest two faces, logical and mechanically causal, of one and the same metaphysical reality. Horizontal causality realizes the vertical one by translating its mner logical character into external mechanistic terms. This realization applies especially to the crucial step that interests us here: passing from the natural law to the finite particular determined by it. As Spinoza sees it, the law determines the finite mode vertically in that it determines how other finite modes, which exist and act under that law, will act upon that thing and determine it horizontally. Applying this to an example from Bennett,14 we would say that when a clap of thunder occurs, it is determined vertically by a system of mechanical laws anchored in the infinite mode of motion and spelled out in more specific laws affecting meteorology. These laws, or a cross-section of them, also determine the occurrence of clap of thunder, not by mechanical impact, of course, but in that they determine, both generally and with respect to this particular instance, how winds move, electrical charges react and audio waves are generated and diffused, that is, how the horizontal factors must behave in order to actually engender the thunder and produce its roar. This implies that the laws of nature not only describe how particulars behave but make them behave in these ways, although the type of causality they exercise is logical rather than mechanical. This may sound a strange view to contemporary ears, but I think Spinoza was committed to it because of his monism, that is, because natural laws spell out God's necessity to be and to operate in certain modes, and transmit it down to particular thjngs. In other words, if God himself is the immanent cause of particulars, and if he plays this role through the infinite mode (the law), then the law must likewise be considered the immanent cause of particular things and not only an external description of their behavior. At the same time, one must distinguish between what causes a law to exist and what causes a particular thing to exist under that law. The law is generated in nature by immanent logical derivation. But the particular thing is produced under that law by other particular things, transmitting external causality to each other in endless chains.

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In conclusion, natural laws are causal with respect to the particular things falling under them, just as God is, and in a similar, immanent and logical sense. If, by inherent necessity, God must become particularized and exist in a variety of modes, then natural laws spell out the immutable side of God's variety, whereas the particular things obeying these laws express the same modal variety in the law-governed realm of change. Laws are thereby the intermediary entities that embody God's power, presence and immanent causality in the world, and that transmit his necessity to all there is. At the same time, they step down to the level of the necessity (and infinity) pertaining to Natura naturata: eternity is replaced by indefinite duration, and instead of the inherent necessity of a causa sui, a thing whose essence involves existence, we get the borrowed and transmitted necessity of an effectus alii. This stepping down is distinctive to the metaphysical category "infinite mode," which allows Spinoza's system to account for a whole hierarchy and network of natural laws and, through it, for the particularized aspect of the universe; it also defines a delicate and vulnerable juncture in Spinoza's monistic metaphysics. What makes God express his logical necessity in lesser forms? Where does the negativity come from by which God affects himself in this way and makes the stepping-down involved in the infinite mode possible? If the negativity comes from God himself, have we not come closer to a dialectical view of monism than Spinoza accepted or cared to admit? In other words, is some version of Hegelian dialectics necessary to make metaphysical monism work - and if so, should the price be paid? Spinoza's infinite mode provokes the question, but does not seem to answer it.

Notes I. See Carl Gebhardt. Spinoza (Leipzig: Reclam, 1932), and Yirmiyahu Yovel. Spinoza and Other Heretics. vol. I: The Marrano of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989: henceforth Heretics L chap. 3. Gebhardt even sees Prado as Spinoza's "mentor," which I take to be a mistake. 2. Jonathan Bennett, A Stud)" of Spinoza's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 39, 40. 302. 3. An easy case to include here is the infinite mode known as "the face of the whole universe." But my claim is stronger: each of the specific laws of nature, because it expresses a globaL if restricted, facet of the individual called "attribute," should also be construed as a singular item, just as the attribute itself is so construed, although it too expresses only a restricted (if far wider) global feature of the individual called

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"substance." Individual subtotalities can reside in larger totalities without contradiction. 4. Spinoza's hesitation to call them outright universals (even with a qualifier) must have been partly due to the linguistic convention behind his polemics: it did not sound right to call the new, real entities by the same name that for centuries had been used for the old fictitious ones. However, Spinoza makes clear that, from a crucial viewpoint, the new entities perform the same job as the old ones: providing the moment of universality by which particulars are linked and explained. 5. See also Heretics I, chap. 6. 6. Incidentally, I believe that the metaphor of "face" is borrowed from the Kabbalah. which gives cosmic significance to the mystical facial features of "primordial man" (Adam Kadmon); see Heretics I, p. 229, n. 5. 7. Or at least as one of the two supreme psychological laws, the other being the mind's capacity to directly perceive common notions. Under this view, association will be the supreme law only for the realm of imaginatio. both in perception and affect. However, the acquisition of common notions, by which one starts to pass from imagination to reason, is also subject to the same mental mechanism that obeys the law of association; yet, in this special case, all possible associations yield one and the same result, so the distortive effect of association is neutralized and may be disregarded. Under this reading, association is more fundamental than reason as a psychological mechanism. (See also n.8). 8. Granting that this is a somewhat speculative suggestion, let me elaborate a little on it (and on the former note). An interpreter wishing to avoid an outright logical/psychological dualism, and recognizing that rational thinking in Spinoza is at the same time a causally generated psychological fact, may well have to place the psychological mechanism of association over and above the laws of logic in the hierarchy of the infinite modes. For, logical thinking is the product of so-called "common notions," and these are supposed to have a perfectly naturalistic, that is, psychological genesis in the mind. As such, they are no less subject to the law of association than the confused notions of memory and imagination, except that, in their case, association loses its distinct features (and thereby its misleading effects), and becomes uniform throughout the whole field of perception (it produces results that are "equal in the part and in the whole"). This intake of uniformities - indeed, of "infinite" features abiding in the content of experience - sets the ground and provides the material for the mind to form rational concepts, neither by induction nor out of the void, but by a special power of reflection which, at a glance, perceives the uniform features of the mind's own accumulated experiences. Association has not disappeared altogether, but has become indistinct, or universal in its outcome. This point is essential because Spinoza, unlike Descartes, refuses to let rational concepts emerge mysteriously from the "natural light, " but insists that, if this "light" is to be truly natural, then common notions must be anchored in the same perceptual field that causally dominates the formation of our ideas through the body and its necessary residence in the world. (I shall elaborate on some of these points in a paper on common notions and error forthcoming in the next volume of the present series: Y. Yovel, ed., Spinoza on Mind and Human Knowledge). Now, the mechanism of association underlies all of these processes; however, in those types of perception that refer to what is "equal in the part and in the whole," and therefore produce

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uniform results, the mind can find a springboard for liberating itself from the dominion of false, particular associations and following universal ones, which are the basis for rational thinking. Under this interpretation, the law of association can claim the uppermost position in the hierarchy of infinite modes in the attribute of Thought. 9. Ideally, he must even maintain that the specific ratio of motion to rest conserved in the world is an inherent feature of Extension and likewise an immanent feature of substance. But he could hold this in principle without actually deriving (or knowing) this ratio itself - a rather stringent requirement! 10. The principle of inertia is sometimes described without reference to the origin of motion, as stating that a body in rest or in uniform motion will remain in the same state unless affected by an external agent. But the latter clause ("unless affected by an external agent") already indicates that dynamic changes in bodies can only occur by external coercion. In seventeenth-century use, inertia was not only a law of physical phenomena, but also a metaphysical redefinition of the nature and origin of motion. 11. Particular things in Spinoza have eternal essences that are logically (and thus simultaneously) implied in God's essence. The essence of a particular thing is the unique place it occupies in reality; it is, so to speak, the logical or metaphysical "point" that belongs exclusively to it in the overall map of being. Of course, this specific point is determined by other items and coordinates of the map, that is, by everything which determines the thing to exist and to act in the way proper to it. And this establishes a logical link - to Spinoza, even an equivalence - between what the thing is and the causal network that makes it be what it is. In other words, a thing's particular essence is ontologically equivalent to the process by which it is determined. (Spinoza entertained this idea already in TIE 96, when discussing the "generative" definition). For more on particular essences, see Heretics I, chap. 6, pp.162-164. 12. Strictly speaking, it is they who engender one another under the infinite laws of Natura naturans. But, indirectly, these laws are also considered as the "vertical" causes of particulars because they cause the entire process of "horizontal" causation to take place in the way it does. 13. Heretics I, chap. 6. 14. Bennett, p. 113.

Emilia Giancotti

On the Problem of Infinite Modes

The theory of infinite modes is not only one of the most controversial in Spinozist philosophy but also a kind of intersection of concepts upon whose clarification or interpretation the ultimate meaning of this philosophy depends. Interpreted in a certain way, it can present an insurmountable barrier to the secular reading of Spinozist thought which seems to me to be closest to its letter and spirit. The point of view from which I shall examine the argument is that of an immanent criticism. This approach has been dictated not by the conviction that it is useless to seek its sources - many of which have, in fact, been identified - but rather by the realization that such reconstruction - in the historical form which it has taken! - is not sufficient to resolve the internal problems: it neither explains the function of the infinite modes within the system nor determines the possible significance which Spinoza attributed to them. Although I do not claim to have been successful in explaining the first or in having determined the second, this has been the direction of my research. The function and significance of the infinite modes are basic to the system of Spinozist thought since, whatever their historic antecedents, they only come to light in relation to other elements of the theory to which they belong. Therefore I shall not evaluate the plausibility of the Platonic, NeoPlatonic (which appears most probable), cabalistic, scholastic, Renaissance or Cartesian origins of the theory of modes. Nor will I speculate as to other hypothetical or probable origins of the theory, as this has been sufficiently worked over. What I propose to attempt here is an internal reconstruction of the theory - through a precise analysis of the relevant texts - in order to establish the extent of the difficulties which many have already pointed out, and to try to resolve them or to confirm their irreducible persistence. A great problem in Spinozism seems to be the lack of the "deduction" of the finite from the infinite. From this perspective, the definition of the nature and function of the infinite modes takes on a particular significance. Although

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the salient terms are familiar. it is worthwhile reproducing them here synthetically to provide a stable point of reference for my discussion. The first point concerns terminology: the commonly used expressions "immediate infinite modes" and "mediate infinite modes" are not, in this specific form, original Spinozist terms; they seem to have been constructed from the canonical texts of this theory (in particular from KV I: 9 and Elp23d). But they are indicative of Spinozist concepts. The texts on which my analysis is based can be divided into two groups: those in which the theory is explicitly stated, and those which, in one way or another, contribute to the determination of its conceptual field. The first group includes: KV 1: 2 (Dialogue 1); KV 1: 8; KV I: 9; KV II: 2214 note; Elp21-23; Elp28s; Elp29s; EIp30; EIp31; EIp32c2; EIIp4,d; EIIpllc; EIIp43s; EIVp68s; EVp40s; Letter 9; Letter 54; Letter 64; TTP7 (GI02121-24). The second group includes: KVI:2; KVI:3; KVIIpref, §7 of note (G52/4-6); KVII:4; KVII:5/5 (G62127ff.), 9,10; KVII:19/6-8, 15 note; KVII:20; KVIl:26; KVapplax3; KVapplp4,d; KVapp2/11,13,14; TIE98-103; CMIl:7 (G263-264); ElpI6d,cl; EIp28; Elapp (G80/16-17, 83/26-32); EIIp7s; Letter 6; Letter 32; Letter 73; Letter 81; Letter 83. 2 These two groups will be examined ei ther in succession or in relation to each other. Although not every passage indicated is subjected to direct analysis, their content is presupposed. The first formulation of the theory occurs in the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. It is preceded by the discussion between Erasmus and Theophilus on divine causality (KV I: 2, Dialogue 2; Curley, pp. 76ff.). The argument is confronted from three different points of view: the compatibility of immanent and remote causality; the possibility that God is the immanent cause of things without there being any change in his essence; and, finally, the possibility that God is the immanent cause of things which perish although the cause continues to exist. Dealing with this last question one distinguishes between "effects he has produced immediately, through his attributes alone without any further circumstances" (Curley, p. 78) and "effects whose existence does not depend immediately on him but which have come to be from some other thing" (ibid.). Of the first it is said that God is "properly a cause." And of the second, it is said that God is "an internal cause ... (except insofar as their causes neither do nor can act without God or outside him)." Since the problem which arises here is that of the relationship between the immanent causality of God and effects which can be destroyed, the distinction between effects which God has immediately produced and effects whose existence does not immediately depend on him

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but have their ongm m other things anticipates the twofold distinction between immediate infinite modes and finite modes, and between proximate and remote causality (cf. KV I: 3/8; EIp28s). Of the mediate infinite modes there is no mention. The canonical text of the theory, however, is that made up of two passages from KVI:8-9. In KVI:8, after having divided Nature into Natura naturans and Natura naturata, the latter is further divided into universal and particular Natura naturata. Of the universal it is said that it "consists of all those modes which depend on God immediately" (Curley. p. 91). And of the particular it is said that it "consists in all those singular things which are produced by the universal modes" (ibid.). It should be noted that, even here, as in Dialogue 2 quoted above, there is no reference to the mediate infinite modes: universal Natura naturata is made up only of the "modes which depend on God immediately." In the second passage (KV I: 9), after having reconfirmed the identification of the universal Natura naturata with "those modes or creatures which immediately depend on, or have been created by God," their content is specified by saying: "we know only two of these: Motion in matter and Intellect in the thinking thing, '" these have been from all eternity, and will remain to all eternity, immutable, a work truly as great as the greatness of the workman" (Curley, p. 91). Apart from the rhetorical emphasis of this last expression. the place attributed by Spinoza to the "modes or creatures which immediately depend on, or have been created by God" in the comprehensive architecture of reality is of primary importance, because it is primarily in them that infinite power expresses itself. 3 Regarding motion, Spinoza specifies: With regard particularly to Motion, it belongs more properly to a treatise on Natural sciences than here, [to show] that it has been from all eternity. and will remain to all eternity, immutable, that it is infinite in its kind. that it can neither exist nor be understood through itself, but only through Extension. So we shall not treat any of these things here, but shall say only that it is a Son. product or effect. created immediately by God (Curley, pp.91-92).4

What is said in this passage is completed by a note to the passage quoted above: "What is said here of Motion in matter is not said seriously. For the Author still intends to discover its cause,s as he has already done, to some extent, a posteriori. But it can stand as it is here, because nothing is built on it, or depends on it" (Curley, p. 91). Even though he indicates the ontological status of movement, Spinoza delegates the task of explaining the cause of this status to the science of nature and, exercising caution, specifies

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that what is said here (that is, throughout the Short Treatise) about motion is not said with certainty since it is only a result of an a posteriori knowledge. Of the Intellect6 Spinoza says: "this, too, is a Son, product or immediate creature of God, also created by him from all eternity and remaining immutable to all eternity. Its sole property is to understand everything clearly and distinctly at all times. From this arises immutably a satisfaction infinite, or most perfect .... " (Curley, p.92). This "son of God" - here defined as "infinite intellect" - is referred to again in a note to KV II :22, dedicated to a treatment "Of true Knowledge, Rebirth, etc.," where, in dealing with the immediate character of the knowledge of God, the union with God and its effects, with reference to the concept of the mind as an idea of the body, he says: "This explains what we said in the first part, viz. that the infinite intellect must exist in Nature from all eternity and why we called it the son of God. For since God has existed from eternity, so also must his Idea in the thinking thing, i.e., exist in itself from eternity; this Idea agrees objectively with him."7 Taking these passages together we observe that: • modes or creatures exist which depend on or are created immediately by God (immediate infinite modes); • these modes are eternal because they are created by or dependent on God from all eternity. (Infinity is not mentioned here, but it is, evidently, implicit, and in any case is anticipated by the passage in KV I: 3 in which it is affirmed: "God is the proximate cause of those things that are infinite and immutable, and which we say that he has created immediately; but he is, in a sense, the remote cause of all particular things." [Curley, p. 81]); • God is the proximate cause of the infinite modes, whereas for those things which do not immediately depend on him he is the remote cause; • the infinite modes are movement in Extension, and the understanding or infinite intellect 1 idea of God in Thought (KV II: 2214 note). What has been said about movement must be integrated with what follows from the passages in which rest, in addition to motion, is described as a mode of Extension, and the complementary nature of both is emphasized. The passages to which I refer are: KV 1: 2/26 (preceding the passages quoted thus far), where it is affirmed that "it is clear that there is motion and rest in Nature" (Curley, p.72).

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The Preface to KV II (no. 7 in note; Curley. p. 95). which ascribes the constitution of bodies to the action of motion and rest: "Each and every particular thing that comes to exist becomes such through motion and rest. The same is true of all modes in the substantial extension we call body." KV II: 19/6, which considers motion and rest, on the one hand, as "effects which we see depend necessarily on extension," and KVII:19/8, which, on the other hand, considers them as being themselves the cause of all effects which derive from extension: "When we consider extension alone, we perceive nothing else in it except motion and rest, from which we find that all its effects derive" (p. 131). KVapp2/14-16, where motion and rest are designated the sole modifications of Extension ("there is no other mode in extension than motion and rest" [po 155]); from their proportions the constitution of every single corporeal thing depends. so that "the human body ... is nothing but a certain proportion of motion and rest." (ibid.), whose corresponding objective essence in the thinking attribute is the mind of the body in which variations occur in correspondence with the variations produced in it by the changing proportion of motion and rest. KV II : 19/15 note and KV II: 2012 note 2, which point to motion and rest as the cause of sensations. In concluding our examination of these passages from the Short Treatise, we can confirm that at this stage Spinoza places only one kind of infinite mode between God-attributes and particular things, the immediate ones: infinite intellect or the idea of God in thought, Motion and Rest in extension. This is usually neglected. Curley notes it in passing (p. 72).8 The mediate infinite modes first appear in the Ethics. Here, more precisely than in the Short Treatise, the formal determinations of the derivation (the modes sequuntur) from God of both the immediate infinite modes and the mediate infinite modes (EIp21-23) are put forward. 9 However. we do not find any explicit specification of their content, i.e., there is no identification of these modes with the infinite intellect, movement and rest. As in the Short Treatise, the infinite modes are referred to the Natura naturata (EI p3J) and equated (EIp32c2) in their relationship with the nature of God. In comparison with the Short Treatise, the property of infinity is made explicit:

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"All the things which follow from the absolute nature of any of God's attributes have always had to exist and be infinite, or are, through the same attribute, eternal and infinite." (Elp21); "Whatever follows from some attribute of God insofar as it is modified by a modification which, through the same attribute, exists necessarily and is infinite, must also exist necessarily and be infinite" (Elp22). A suggestion as to what these modes are - which is missing in the Ethics-is present, as is generally known, in Letter 64. Here, in response to Schuller (who is also speaking on behalf of Tschirnhaus), Spinoza states: "Lastly, the examples for which you ask are, of the first kind, in Thought, absolutely infinite understanding, but in Extension, motion and rest; of the second kind, the face of the whole Universe, which, although it varies in infinite modes, yet remains always the same; on this subject see the Scholium to lemma 7 before Proposition XIV, Part II."IO It should be noted that this is the only case in which that something which "follows from some attribute of God insofar as it is modified by a modification which, through the same attribute, exists necessarily and is infinite" (Elp22), is given a precise content. As already observed, in the Short Treatise, only that which depends on God or is immediately produced by him is mentioned, i.e., immediate infinite modes; whereas in the Ethics, the scholium to which Spinoza's answer refers speaks of "the whole of nature" as "an Individual, whose parts, i.e., all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change of the whole Individual," without identifying the mediate infinite mode. The question Spinoza is answering in Letter 64 had been posed by Schuller as follows: "Fourthly, I should like examples of those things which are immediately produced by God, and of those which are produced by some infinite mediate modification" (Letter 63). The presence in this formulation of concepts like "immediate production" and "mediation" through an "infinite modification" shows that the texts of the Ethics which Schuller has in mind here are Elp22-23 and Elp28s. The interpretation of the latter text (the subject of which is similar to that of KV I: 2 Dialogue 2 and of KV I: 3), as is well-known, is controversiaPl even though Gueroult has judged it to be "tres simple et tres clair" (Gueroult, p. 342). It deserves to be quoted in its entirety: Since certain things had to be produced by God immediately, viz. those which follow necessarily from his absolute nature, and others (which nevertheless can neither be nor be conceived without God) had to be produced by the mediation of these first things, it follows: I. That God is absolutely the proximate cause of things produced immediately by him, and not [a proximate cause] in his own kind, as they say. For God's effects can neither be nor be conceived without their cause (by PIS and P24C). II. That God cannot

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properly be called the remote cause of singular things, except perhaps so that we may distinguish them from those things that he has produced immediately, or rather, that follow from his absolute nature. For by a remote cause we understand one which is not conjoined in any way with its effect. But all things that are, are in God, and so depend on God that they can neither be nor be . conceived without him (Elp2Ss).

The doubt in its interpretation concerns two points: (1) are the alia mediantibus his primis (others [that had to be produced] by the mediation of these first things) "mediate infinite modes" or finite modes? and (2) the kind of causality through which God produces the single categories of the modes: Is God absolutely the proximate cause of all infinite modes (both immediate and mediate) and the proximate cause in his kind of the finite modes (Gueroult, p. 343); or is he absolutely the proximate cause of infinite immediate modes, proximate cause in his kind of the mediate infinite modes (Wolfson, p. 390, note 2) and, in this case, remote cause of the finite modes? Or even proximate cause of all infinite modes and remote cause of finite modes (Robinson, Curley)? The text seems to offer justification for each of these interpretations. It is, in fact, true that that alia mediantibus his primis recalls the mediante alia modificatione of the conclusion in Elp23d, which, formulated as it is, could give rise to the misunderstanding which Gueroult fell into, that all infinite modes should follow from the absolute nature of an attribute of God (Gueroult, p. 342). The final passage of the demonstration in fact states that "Therefore, the mode, which exists necessarily and is infinite, has had to follow from the absolute nature of some attribute of God - either immediately (see P 21), or by some mediating modification, which follows from its absolute nature, i.e. (by P22), which exists necessarily and is infinite, q.e.d." (my emphasis). The reference to "the absolute nature of some attribute of God," which precedes the distinction between that which follows immediately and that which follows with modifications, could, in fact, lead one to think that all infinite modes follow from the absolute nature of an attribute of God. But this conclusion cannot be isolated from the proposition which it demonstrates, Elp23, which distinguishes, without a shadow of doubt, between two types of modes: "Every mode which exists necessarily and is infinite has necessarily had to follow either from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, or from some attribute, modified by a modification which exists necessarily and is infinite" (my emphasis). The position of the disjunctive in the demonstration is different-and this creates the misunderstanding which Gueroult felI into - but this only seems to change the meaning. The meaning remains that of the proposition, the text of which logically follows from the two preceding propositions: in the

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first (EI p21), Spinoza deals with that which follows from the absolute nature of an attribute of God, whereas in the second (Elp22), he deals with that which follows from an attribute of God inasmuch as it is modified by a modification which, in virtue of the attribute, necessarily exists and is infinite. There is no mention here of the absolute nature of the attribute of God. Nor could there be. Moving on to the problem of the different kinds of divine causality. the distinction between proximate causality in absolute proxima and proxima in suo genere could be referred, with a little effort, to two different effects: the first to all infinite modes, the second to finite modes; or the first to immediate infinite modes, the second to mediate infinite modes. But it can - and in fact I think it should - also be understood in the sense of exclusion, i.e., as a specification, with respect to the scholastic tradition,12 that the causality under discussion here is absolutely proximate and not in its kind. I now put forward my own point of view. The passage as a whole has the clear nature of a summary of what has been said beginning with EIp21. It seems that Spinoza anticipated the difficulties his readers would have when attempting to follow him from EIp21 (the derivation of immediate infinite modes from the absolute nature of an attribute of God), to EIp28 (determination of every singular thing from another singular thing), through EIp26-27 (necessary determination of all things on the part of God), and that he hoped to make things easier by providing a description, apparently free of any problematic points. of the productivity of God: productivity immediate of some things (quaedam) and mediate of others (et alia), both of which. however. are in God. because without God they can neither be nor be conceived. all being modes of God even though only some are infinite. (Incidentally - with respect to the question of the deduction of the finite from the infinite - it is not insignificant that here, as in other places, Spinoza uses the verbs produci and sequi, which indicate different kinds of relations between God and modes, indifferently. These relations are, however, assimilated to and placed in apposition to the one indicated by the in esse).]J The effects of immediate productivity, as in the Short Treatise, are listed as being of only one kind (quaedam). with the difference that in the Short Treatise the second kind of infinite modes, the mediated ones, had not yet been introduced. 14 Here, however, Spinoza - having introduced mediate infinite modes at Elp22 - should have been more precise. How can we explain his lack of precision? If we reread propositions 21 and 22, we confirm - as I have stressed above - that only immediate infinite modes are derived from the absolute nature of an attribute of God, whereas the

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mediate ones derive from an attribute of God inasmuch as they are derived from the immediate ones ("quatenus modificatum est tali modificatione, quae et necessario, et infinita per idem existit"). Otherwise, what could the difference between the two kinds of modes consist of? The "ex absoluta [Dei] natura" of EIp28s and the "ex absoluta natura alicujus Dei attributi" of EIp23d cannot, then, refer to the two kinds of infinite modes,ls but must instead refer to the immediate infinite modes. If this is true, the fact that the mediate infinite modes are part of the alia produced mediantibus his primis is only a hypothesis, whereas on my view it is certain that the finite modes are contained in them, and that none of them - though not immediately produced by God - can either be or be conceived without God. But from this premise, which seems clear, Spinoza draws a consequence (hinc sequitur) which again creates obscurity. He distinguishes two kinds of causality, the absolutely proximate and the remote, the first referring to things which are immediately produced by God (thus, to immediate infinite modes), and the second to singular things. He specifies that one speaks of remote causality only relatively, i.e., to distinguish the causality of singular things from that of things which God has produced immediately, because if it were intended absolutely (i.e., as a cause which is not conjoined with its effect) it could not refer to singular things, which - like everything that exists - are in God and depend on God in such a way that they can neither be nor be conceived without him. The mediate infinite modes are not included in this classification. Nor does it seem to me possible for proximate causality in its kind to refer to them: the specification non vero in suo genera, as we have seen, signifies exclusion and is made as further clarification of the concept causa absolute proxima. Moreover, the identification of things which are immediately produced by God and things which follow from his absolute nature is reconfirmed, excluding the possibility that absolutely proximate causality could produce as effects the mediate infinite modes as well. Therefore, the conclusion which the texts, considered in themselves without conjecture, allows us to draw is that in EIp28s the so-called mediate infinite modes are not mentioned at all. just as they are not mentioned in the Short Treatise. This observation will be taken up again after I examine the problem of identifying the mediate infinite modes which derive from the attribute of Thought. But, for the time being, let us put it aside and move on to an examination of what these infinite modes are. As we have seen, Letter 64 is the text which contains most of the evidence on this point, because to the infinite intellect and Motion and Rest it adds the Jacies totius universi as a unique example of an infinite mode of the

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second kind (i.e" mediate). To clarify: as we have seen (p. 102, above), Spinoza refers to lemma 7. which concludes the short treatise on physics (in which. however. only the physical universe is discussed). This has given rise to a problem with which interpreters are still struggling: that of finding within the attribute of Thought the mediate infinite mode corresponding to the mediate infinite mode within the attribute of the Extension. I too have dedicated a great deal of time to analyzing the various solutions proposed, and have come to the conclusion that this is a useless effort. The question is whether it is possible that Spinoza left it out. It seems improbable. But if he was aware of this lacuna there must be a reason. If one excludes, as I think one should, a breach in the so-called parallelism, the reason why Spinoza gives only one example for the mediate infinite modes is because he felt that this was sufficient. In fact. since "The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things" (EIIp7) and "God's ... power of thinking is equal to his actual power of acting" (EIIp7c), one can deduce that Spinoza intended thefacies totius universi to include the mediate infinite modifications of Extension and Thought. 16 The fact that Letter 64 refers back to lemma 7, which deals only with physical nature, is not proof to the contrary, as might appear at first glance. The reference to lemma 7 serves to explain. by means of an example drawn from the physical world, the composite and unitary structure of these modes. whose infinity is the result, the product, the effect of the unfolding (regulated by the necessary la ws) of infinite divine power in the infinite series of his finite expressions. But we know that Spinoza's universe is not simply the corporeal universe but includes all the forms of the infinite power of Nature. 17 Therefore. the expression facies totius universi can legitimately be considered to include the immediate infinite mode of the attribute of Thought as well. And since facies has the meaning of "exterior form," "aspect." "image." and thus designates that which one sees and which is the object of experience. these mediate infinite modes are identified with the infinite and external totality of finite bodies and the ideas / minds which correspond to them - infinite and eternal whole because its cause is infinite and eternal. If the mediate infinite modes are made up of the totality of finite bodies (as the explanation of the expression facies totius universi with its reference to lemma 7 attests), and of the totality of the ideas / minds of these bodies (as the theory of the identity of the order of ideas and things a uthorizes us to hold), perhaps it is not wrong to draw from it the following conclusion for the interpretation of Elp28s. As we have seen, this text poses the twofold problem of providing a content for the alia mediantibus his primis and

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identifying the effects of God's proximate causality, assuming the existence of two kinds of infinite modes, immediate and mediate. The analysis I have suggested herein has led to the observation that the mediate infinite modes do not appear in that text, just as they do not appear in the Short Treatise. But, if mediate infinite modes are nothing but the infinite whole of finite modes, it is also possible to hold that: (l) the alia mediantibus his primis of EIp28s include the mediate infinite modes and the finite modes, because the former are identified with the latter as a whole, and (2) God is causa absolute proxima of things which are immediately produced by him, that is, of immediate infinite modes and - assuming a distinction between these effects of immediate divine productivity and other effects - remote cause of singular things. If it is true that mediate infinite modes are made up of finite modes as a whole, it is not necessary to isolate a particular aspect of divine causality to produce them. Two related objections to my hypothesis could be raised. The first is that these mediate infinite modes are spoken of as being something which necessarily exists and is infinite, whereas the finite modes are necessarily determined to exist but do not necessarily exist and are, in fact, finite. That necessary existence could be the result of a sum of existences necessarily determined (and hence compulsory, but not necessary), and that the infinite could be the result of the sum of an infinite series of finite modes, are theoretical hypotheses which seem paradoxical. The second objection is that, from the way the formal determination of the derivation of mediate infinite modes from an attribute of God is formulated, it seems possible to deduce that they are individuals and not a group of individuals. For the sake of simplicity, I shall reply to this hypothetical objection by referring the reader back to the facies totius universi and to its explanation in terms of the image of corporeal Nature as a compound individual made up of an infinity of bodies. The first objection leads us to the problem of the deduction of the finite from the infinite. First of all, it could - and has been - said that, when related to the modes, eternity or necessary existence and infinity cannot have the same meaning as when related to substance and its attributes. The attributes, as the substance which they constitute, are by their very nature infinite and eternal. In the case of modes, however, both eternity or necessary existence (Spinoza ascribes the former to immediate infinite modes and the latter to mediate infinite modes), as well as infinity, are only the effects of the eternity and infinity of the attributes of substance. This is true in both kinds of infinite modes, which - though infinite - belong to Natura naturata and

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are effects of the causality of Natura naturans. They are eternal or exist necessarily and are infinite by virtue of the attributes of which they are modes. But, if the necessary existence of infinite modes is not the existence, implicit in the essence, of substance and of its attributes, but rather the necessary existence which the infinite modes enjoy because of their being effects of the necessary productivity of substance, from the point of view of quality, there is no difference between the necessary existence of the infinite modes and the necessary existence of the finite modes. In both cases, it is an ab alio and not an a se necessity. The difference is between the existence of substance, which is implicit in its essence, and the existence of the modes, which is necessary in virtue of their cause: for infinite modes, in virtue of the attributes of God, and for finite modes, in virtue of, or rather through the action of, a finite mode of the infinite series. But, even in this case, as Elp26-27 tell us, the cause which determines the existence of the finite modes is also God himself. Thus, even finite modes exist necessarily (contingens non datur), are necessary effects of divine causality, just as infinite modes are. It is impossible to clarify this without mentioning the concept of essence, even if the importance of this subject demands wider treatment. As is well known, this concept is defined by EIIdef2, which establishes a reciprocal relationship between the essence of a thing and the fact that the thing, of which it is the essence, exists. This definition - the motivations of which are made clear by EIIplOs2 - seems to conflict with Ellaxl, which denies the implication of man's existence by his essence, and EIIp8, which establishes a correspondence between the way in which "the ideas of singular things, or of modes, that do not exist [are] comprehended in God's infinite idea" and the way in which "the formal essences of the singular things, or modes, are contained in God's attributes." There is an anticipation of this correspondence in Elp8s2, where the possibility of having "true ideas of modifications which do not exist" is stated, "for though they do not actually exist outside the intellect, nevertheless these essences are comprehended in another in such a way that they can be conceived through it." These texts clearly refer to the essences of non-existent modifications, and this fact, at least apparently, contradicts EIldef2. The solution lies in the distinctionwhich is discussed in EIIp8c, EIIp4Ss and EVp29s - between two forms of existence or actuality of singular things. One form of existence is that whereby they "do not exist, except insofar as they are comprehended in God's attributes, [and] their objective being, or ideas, do not exist except insofar as God's infinite idea exists" (EIIp8c), in which case, "we conceive them to be contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine

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nature," and therefore "we conceive them under a species of eternity" (EVp29s), "insofar as they are in God," and "the force by which each one perseveres in existing follows from the eternal necessity of God's nature" (EIIp45s). Another form of existence or actuality of singular things is that whereby "they are said to have duration, [and] their ideas also involve the existence through which they are said to have duration" (EIIpSc), in which case, "we conceive them to exist in relation to a certain time and place" (EVp29s), because "each one is determined by another singular thing to exist In a certain way" (EIIp45s). In light of this distinction - maintained consistently from the first through the fifth parts of the Ethics - we obtain two results. The first is that the contradiction which seemed to arise between EIIdef2 and EIIaxl or EIIpS disappears, because the reciprocity between the essence and the existence of the singular things in EIIdef2 remains both in the case that things exist inasmuch as they have a duration in time and are located in one place, and in the case that things exist inasmuch as they are in God before any temporal or spatial determination. The second result is that the difference between the necessary existence of substance and the existence of modes (infinite or finite) - also necessary but as an effect of the necessity of substance - reproduces the distinction between Natura naturans and Natura naturata, between substance as cause and substance as effect, and therefore reveals itself as a distinction within the sole necessity of substance, which, as intrinsic necessity (implication of essence and existence) produces itself and pluralizes itself in an infinity of infinite and finite modes, which are the modes of its very being. 18 The problem, then, shifts to the plane of the relationship between finite and infinite. Thus it is not a question of explaining how an infinite mode which exists necessarily can be made up of an infinite number of modes whose existence is limited, and hence finite, but also necessary. Rather, it is a matter of explaining how an infinite mode can be identified with the infinite series of the finite modes. The question can be considered from the point of view of the finite or from that of the infinite. In the former case, it would be necessary to explain how, by summing finite and finite, one could arrive at the infinite. Given that the Spinozist infinite is positive and has a qualitative value, one can only conclude that the passage from the finite to the infinite is impossible to achieve. And not only that; it would not even help to explain the deduction of the finite from the infinite. Thus, the infinite mode cannot be thought of as a "result." If we begin from the infinite, we must explain the passage from the infinite

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to the finite, i.e., we come up against the central problem of the theory of modes. It has been said that the deduction of the finite from the infinite and of the many from the one is impossible in Spinoza's system. 19 The theory of infinite modes, elaborated in order to join the infinity of the substance with the finiteness of the modes, i.e., singular things, would seem to have failed. It appears that Spinoza himself justified these conclusions by asserting (in KV I: 9 note) that he still had to find the cause of motion, by referring (in Ell lemma 7 to the opportunity for further explanation and demonstration of the structure of the corporeal universe, and by declaring (Letter 83) - a year before his death - the impossibility of providing an a priori demonstration of the variety of things starting only from the concept of extension. I shall begin with an examination of these passages to see if Spinoza was right in seeking a cause of motion and in expressing the need for an a priori demonstration of bodily mUltiplicity. My negative response to these questions may come as a surprise. But I believe there is evidence that, while he was right in considering a wider explanation of physics necessary, he was wrong in believing 20 that he had to look for a cause of motion or an a priori demonstration of bodily mUltiplicity. In fact, Spinoza already had the cause of motion in the attribute of Extension-matter, which, unlike Descartes, he conceived not as a mass in a state of rest (Letter 81) - from which, therefore, it was impossible to demonstrate the existence of bodies - but rather as an attribute, i.e., as the substance's own power to act. In the attribute of Extension-matter. Spinoza already had the principle from which to deduce the variety of bodies; Letter 83 seems to me to be very clear on this. After having repeated what he said in Letter 81 - i.e., that it is not possible to demonstrate the variety of things simply from the (Cartesian) concept of extension - he concludes (Letter 83) that "[matter] must necessarily be defined by an attribute which expresses eternal and infinite essence." His reference to the concept of Extension-matter as an attribute has precise significance. The attribute expresses the essence of the substance. But essence equals power: "God's power is nothing except God's active essence [actuosa essential And so it is as impossible for us to conceive that God does not act as it is to conceive that he does not exist" (ElIp3s). God acts simply because he is. Substance is a dynamic principle which, starting from the constituent forms of its being (the attributes), transmits and continues itself in an infinity of forms which together make up the universe. Multiplicity is at the heart of substance, because it includes infinite qualitative determinations. The problem of the deduction of the many from the one does not exist. The process of "finitization" (excuse the neologism)

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takes place already within the essence of the substance, because each of the attributes of which substance consists, expresses its essence in a certain form, it is infinitum in suo genere, not absolute. The passage from the attributes to the modes does not entail the deterioration or loss of power of being, but rather the articulation and infinite pluralization of the modes of the being, as a spontaneous explication of its power. Within this process which is an expression of the essence / power of the substance - all the modes occur: immediate infinite, mediate infinite, and finite. Spinoza's insistence on the concept "being in God" (the concept with which EIIp45s indicates the existence of things insofar as they follow from the eternal necessity of the nature of God) cannot be without significance. Although it is said that some things are produced immediately by God and others through these, i.e., that God is the absolutely proximate cause of some things and the remote cause of others, it must be stressed that all are in God because God is the immanent cause of all. More precisely, "God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause of himself" (Elp25s). Hence "particular things are nothing but affections of God's attributes, or modes by which God's attributes are expressed in a certain and determinate way" (Elp25c). It is only an error of the imagination to conceive the modes of substance, i.e., the many, as separate from substance itself (Letter 12). But the intellect comprehends them in their concrete unity. The concept of the indivisibility of substance, even of corporeal substance, is a sign of the presence of the multiplicity of finite things in the infinite unity of substance. 21 Some clarification of "what" these infinite modes are is still needed. The task is made easier by the clues Spinoza gives us as to their identity: as noted above, motion in matter, understanding in the thinking thing, according to the text in which they are spoken of for the first time as "modes or creatures which immediately depend on, or have been created by God" (KV I: 9). The contents of Letter 6 and the Theologico-Political Treatise must be added to what has already been said about movement. Both these texts are important. Letter 6 - one of Spinoza's few texts dealing with a scientific argument - contains (as is well known and as its subtitle indicates) annotations to Boyle's book De Nitro, Fluiditate, et Firmitate. In section I of the second part ("On Fluidity"), Spinoza distinguishes between the "notions which are derived from popular usage, or which explain Nature not as it is in itself, but as it appears to human sense," which must not be counted among the highest generic terms, or "chief kinds," and those which are defined with a remarkably evocative expression as "pure" notions, "which explain Nature as it is in itself." Motion, rest and their laws are cited as notions of

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this latter kind. This means that the "pure" notions (those not altered by random experience?) of motion, rest and the laws according to which motion and rest develop, provide scientific knowledge of physical nature, allowing us to recognize it as it is in itself, and express its essence. Analogously, in TTP 7, Spinoza states that: "In the examination of natural phenomena we try first to investigate what is most universal and common to all nature - such, for instance, as motion and rest, and their laws and rules, which nature always observes, and through which she continually works and then we proceed to what is less universal." Motion and rest are brought forward here as real entities, universally present in physical nature; their laws and rules brought forward as laws followed by physical nature without any exception, hence, as laws according to which all natural phenomena occur. 22 The origin of the Jacies totius universi lies in the development of motion and rest according to particular laws, and therefore appears as a system of finite modes (bodies and ideas) related to one another. To understand the true meaning of the notion "infinite intellect" one must fulfill two conditions: (1) one must not lose sight of Spinoza's polemic against the attribution of intellect and will to the nature of God (EIpI7s, EIp33s2, Letter 5423 ), their reduction to the sphere of Natura naturata (Letter 9, EIp31, EIp32c2),24 and their having the same relationship to God as do all natural things, and (2) one must refuse every hypothesis as to the permanence of traces of positive Christian religion. With respect to this hypothesis, suggested by the use of the expression "son of God" and by the identification of Christ, son of God, with the sapienta Dei, it must be noted 25 that the extension of the expression "son of God" to movement indicates an attempt to bring the sacred back to the sphere of the natural, while the identification of Christ with the sapientia Dei attests not only to the esteem Spinoza had for Christ, but also to his intention to humanize him. This intention is demonstrated by the conviction, expressed in Letter 73 to Oldenburg, that the eternal wisdom of God manifested itself to the maximum level in Christ, but manifests itself in all things and above all in the human mind. 26 This interpretation is supported by the theory that the human mind - insofar as it understands and perceives things according to the truth - is part of the infinite intellect of God (EIIpllc, EIIp43s, EVp40s; Letter 32),27 or, conversely, that the infinite intellect of God expresses itself in human minds and is none other than the true knowledge of everything that is. Spinoza's theory of infinite intellect is a direct confutation of the theory of a divine creative intellect. Even the analogies with concepts from the Neo-Platonic tradition which certainly hold great interest from the point of view of reconstructing a

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possible historical picture to refer to - are to be considered deviant insofar as understanding the relationship between substance and modes, infinite and finite. As noted above, in addition to terms and concepts such as sequi = "to derive from" or "to follow," terms and concepts such as producere, determinare, in esse are also used frequently. The derivation of the modes (both finite and infinite) from the infinite substance is the same as their being produced and determined by the substance and their "being within" the substance. 28 The causality with which the substance produces its modes and expresses itself in them is immanent causality. None of these, then, are comparable to the process of Neo-Platonic emanation. 29

I think the elements which have emerged so far allow us to draw the following conclusions. The problem of the identification of the mediate infinite modes in the attribute of Thought does not exist. The explanation (in Letter 64) of the facies totius universi with its reference to Ell lemma 7, and the principle of the identity of the order of ideas with the order of things, authorize the hypothesis that, in response to Schuller, Spinoza intended infinite modes of the "second kind" to indicate the infinite totality of all the finite bodies which make up the physical universe and the infinite totality of the minds of these bodies. I believe, therefore, that this idea is not a conjecture made by us in reading and trying to interpret Spinoza's text, but rather that it was already present in Spinoza's reply to Schuller. However, due to their constitution, mediate infinite modes represent the most advanced point of the process of pluralization of the modes of being, with respect to which the immediate infinite modes serve as regulating and propelling principles. 30 This explains why Spinoza says so little about mediate infinite modes. The problem of the deduction of the finite from the infinite is a spurious problem, which Spinoza himself contributed to with his statements on motion and on the need to study the argument further. But this problem is partly due to our misunderstanding of the text of Letter 83. By opposing the Cartesian concept of extension to his own, Spinoza confirms in this text his original conception of substance and its attributes as a dynamic principle which, though it remains one, is realized by pluralizing itself to infinity. This structure makes the moment of mediation superfluous, since it is already within substance itself.

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1. I limit myself to mentioning a few of the classical texts and a selection of contemporary literature on the subject: E. Schmitt, "Die unendlichen Modi bei Spinoza." Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 140 (Leipzig. 1910); G. T. Richter. Spinozas philosophische Terminologie (Leipzig: Barth, 1913): 90-111; G. Huan. Le dieu de Spinoza (Arras: Schoutheer. 1913); C. Gebhardt, "Spinoza und der Platonismus," Chronicon Spinozanum I (1921): 178-234; E. Schmitt, "Zur Problematik der unendlichen Modi," Chronicon Spinozanum, 2 (1922), pp. 155-173; J. Freudenthal, Spinoza, Leben und Lehre, Zweiter Teile: Die Lehre Spinozas, (Heidelberg: Curis Societatis Spinozanae. 1927), particularly Ontologie und Metaphysik, pp.108-145; L. Robinson, Kommentar zu Spinoza Ethik (Leipzig: Verlag von Felix Meiner, 1928), particularly pp.196-207, 213-215, 217-219, 308-312; H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols. (New York: Meridian Books, 1960), pp. 370 If. M. Gueroult, Spinoza, Dieu (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), particularly pp. 308 If.; A. Matheron, Individu et communaute chez Spinoza (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1969); E. M. Curley, Spinoza's Metaphysics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), particularly pp. 58-74; J. G. Lennox, "The Causality of Finite Modes in Spinoza's Ethics." Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 4 (1976), pp.479-500; C. E. Jarrett, "The Concepts of Substance and Mode in Spinoza," Philosophia 7 (1977), pp.83-105; P. Macherey, Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris: Maspero, 1979), particularly pp.180-198. 2. I have used the following editions: Spinoza. Opera, ed. C. Gebhardt, 4 vols. (Heidelberg: Winter, 1924); The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and transl. Edwin Curley, vol. I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985; henceforth cited as Curley. and page number); The Correspondence of Spinoza, translated and edited by A. Wolf (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928). 3. I deliberately use the concept "expression," which I consider as much part of Spinoza's conceptual inheritance as the concepts "dependence," "derivation," "determination" and "inherence." The concept "creation," still present in the Short Treatise, disappears in the Ethics. 4. On the use of the expression "son of God," cf. the observation of M. Frances in note 67 of her translation of the text: "The choice of traditional religious terms, here, is more than a simple concession to the language habits of the listeners. In fact, it is nothing less than the desacralization of an idea recognized by several Christian sects." (Spinoza, Oeuvres completes [Paris: Bibliotheque de la PIeiade, 1954], pp. 1378-1379; transl. by D. Maisel). With respect to this interpretative hypothesis - with which r tend to agree - F. Mignini's observations are not necessarily to be considered alternatives (Spinoza, Korte Verhandeling, Breve Trattato, [L'Aquila: Japadre Editore, 1986), n. 20. pp. 564-565). Adoption of terminology from the oldand neo-testamentary literature does not imply - as the passage from TTP quoted by Mignini shows - acceptance of the significance linked to it; nor does it exclude desecrating intent on the part of Spinoza with respect to Christian dogmatics. It is surprising that Gebhardt (I, p. 471), should refer the expression to the attribute rather than to the infinite modes of God. 5. Mignini adds here. in square brackets, "a priori."

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6. The Dutch text. though. has Verstaan here and not Verstand as the English "intellect" would lead us to expect, as Mignini observes in n. 17 of p. 564 of his commentary (and as we can see from the Lexicon Spinozanum, vol. 2, s. v. Verstaan, p.1302). 7. In KV I: 2 ("What God is")' the infinite intellect of God is mentioned several times without including the concept within the theory of infinite modes or, indeed. specifying its relationship with God's nature. In this text Spinoza discusses the concept of God, engaging in polemics with the traditional theory of the pluralism of substances and of creationism, using the concept of God's infinite intellect to sustain his argumentation. 8. According to a line of interpretation which Y ovel propounds as well, the jlxae atque aeternae res which are treated in the Treatise on the Emendation o(the Intellect (Curley. pp. 39-42) are also intended as infinite immediate modes. I would like to put forward some doubts as to the solidity of this hypothesis, even if in a problematic and synthetic manner, by drawing attention to a specific passage. Although we are given to understand that sufficient knowledge. of the resfixae et aeternae has not yet been attained (Curley. p. 42), it is said of them that: (I) without them singular, changeable things "can neither be nor be conceived"; (2) "although these fixed and eternal things are singular. nevertheless, because of their presence everywhere and most extensive power, they will be to us like universals or genera of the definitions of singular, changeable things. and the proximate causes of all things" (Curley, p. 41). The first aspect is typical of the relationship between substance and modes. Therefore it does not seem to be a possible relationship between immediate infinite modes and changeable. singular things, that is, finite modes. It seems that even omnipresence (ubique praesentia) and omnipower (fatissima potentia) cannot be ascribed to infinite modes, whereas - also taking into account the fact that these res fixae et aeternae are designated "singular" - they could perhaps be ascribed to the attributes of substance. The function Spinoza ascribes to them. as "genera of the definitions of singular changeable things, and the proximate causes of all things." might appear more convincing. But is that sufficient for identifying the res fixae et aeternae with the immediate infinite modes as a stable point of the theory of infinite modes? I think this is doubtful because - although a passage of the Short Treatise (KV l: 19/8) points to motion and rest as that from which all the effects of extension derive (cf. p. 101, above) - the concept of proximate causality is used by Spinoza to indicate the relationship between substance and immediate infinite modes rather than to indicate the relationship between the latter and changeable, singular things. finite modes. 9. See Richter. pp.90-91. 10. The kabbalistic origins of the expressionjacies totius universi have been stressed by Wolfson, vol. 1. pp. 244-247. S. Zac also drew attention to these origins during the discussion which followed the presentation of my paper. 11. For the various positions see: Robinson. p. 215; Wolfson. p. 390, n. 2; Gueroult. p.342; Curley. Spinoza's Metaphysics, p.71. 12. On the definition of causa absolute proxima, causa proxima in suo genere and causa remota, see Heereboord (also quoted by Robinson, pp.213-214) in Meletemata philosophica II, d.22 and in the Syntagma logicae, I. c.17. 13. I believe Richter is right when he calls attention to the category of inherence as

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well in his examination of the relationship between substance and modes. 14. Curley's reference to the Short Treatise (Spinoza's Metaphysics, pp. 71- 72) is correct as long as one does not forget this. 15. Gueroult (pp. 312, 342) - with whom it seems to me that Curley agrees - takes this hypothesis for granted, completely annulling the very clear distinction which Spinoza makes in Elp21 and Elp22, and repeats in Elp23. On this point see also the observations of Gebhardt (II, p.353). 16. On this particular point, I believe Freudenthal was right; see Freudenthal, pp.138-140. 17. Everyone is familiar with the passage in the Theologico-Political Treatise: "Nothing, then, comes to pass in nature in contravention to her universal laws (N.B. I do not mean here by "nature," merely matter and its modifications, but infinite other things besides matter") (TTP 6). 18. I consider what is said here about the concept of essence a preliminary treatment of the argument, which merits a thorough examination. 19. The most authoritative supporter of this impossibility was Hegel, with his interpretation of Spinozism as acosmism. An eminent representative of Italian neoidealism, G. Gentile - author, among other things, of an important set of notes appended to the Italian edition of the Ethics (Florence: Sansoni, 1963) - shows in a note to Elpl3c that he agrees with this interpretation. Gentile affirms that "in Spinoza's system there is no place for multiplicity; as there is not, in general, in the Neo-Platonic intuition which Spinoza shares" (pp.695-696). 20. If, that is, the note is actually his; see in this connection Mignini, p. 563, n. 13. 21. An analogous concept is found in the following passage from Macherey's Hegel ou Spinoza: "He must conclude that there is an absolute identity between the infinite and the finite. These are not like two separate orders, between which there can be only a relationship of correspondence or submission; one can say that one is nothing without the other, and that one is nothing outside the other, if not from the abstract perspective of the imagination which divides them" (p. 198: transl. by D. Maisel). 22. The universality of these laws is limited to the physical world; therefore, strictly speaking, they cannot be identified with the "universal laws of nature." which are equated "with decrees of God following from the necessity and perfection of the Divine nature," dealt with in TTP 6 (G 82-83). The latter are the laws of the nature of God itself, which as a whole constitute the fixed and unchangeable order which regulates the unfolding of substance in all the modes of its infinite attributes: thus. they include not just the laws which are the object of natural sciences, but also those according to which the infinita cogitandi potentia unfolds through the infinite series of its finite modes and according to which all the infinite attributes of God must unfold in the infinite series of their finite modes. Yovel suggests that we consider the infinite modes the metaphysical place of natural laws, and he tends to consider the two notions interchangeable. I believe that, on a logical and analytical plane, both the distinction between leges naturae universales = decreta Dei (which regulate all reality) and the laws which regulate motion (i.e., the laws of physical nature), and that between infinite modes and natural laws, must be firmly maintained. The infinite (immediate) modes are metaphysical or real entities - in which the attributes of substance immediately

On the Problem of Infinite Modes

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express themselves - which unfold according to laws. For Motion and Rest, these laws are natural laws, and for the Intellect. they can even be found. as Yovel suggests, in the laws of association. 23. "I shall show later ... that neither intellect nor will pertain to God's nature" (EIpI7s); "I too, in order not to confuse the Divine with human nature, do not assign to God human attributes, such as Will, Understanding, attention, hearing, etc. Therefore, I say, as I have said just now. that the world is a necessary effect of the Divine Nature, and was not made by chance" (Letter 54). 24. "I think I have demonstrated clearly and evidently enough that the intellect. though infinite, pertains to Natura naturata, not to Natura naturans" (Letter 9: Curley, p. 195). "The actual intellect, whether finite or infinite, like will. desire,love, etc., must be referred to Natura naturata, not to Natura naturans" (EIp31); "It follows. secondly, that will and intellect are related to God's nature as motion and rest are, and as are absolutely all natural things. which (by P29) must be determined by God to exist and produce an effect in a certain way" (EIp32c2). 25. See M. Frances' observations referred to in n.4, above. 26. "Lastly, to open my mind more clearly on the third head, I say, that it is not entirely necessary to salvation to know Christ according to the flesh: but we must think far otherwise of the eternal son of God, that is, the eternal wisdom of God. which has manifested itself in all things, more especially in the human mind, and most of all in Christ Jesus" (Letter 73). On Christ, see Zac's analyses in his Spinoza et l'interpretation de !'ecriture (Paris: PUF. 1965) and A. Matheron. Le Christ et Ie salut des ignorants chez Spinoza (Paris: Editions Aubier Montaigne, 1971). 27. "From this it follows that the human Mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God. Therefore, when we say that the human Mind perceives this or that. we are saying nothing but that God, not insofar as he is infinite. but insofar as he is explained [explicatur] through the nature of the human Mind, or insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human Mind, has this or that idea" (Ellp II c); "Add to this that our Mind, insofar as it perceives things truly, is part of the infinite intellect of God (by P II C); hence, it is as necessary that the mind's clear and distinct ideas are true as that God's ideas are" (ElIp43s): "These are the things I have decided to show concerning the Mind, insofar as it is considered without relation to the Body's existence. From them - and at the same time from IP21 and other things - it is clear that our Mind. insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking, which is determined by another eternal mode of thinking, and this again by another. and so on, to infinity: so that together. they all constitute God's eternal and infinite intellect" (EVp40s); "You see. then. in what way and why I think that the human Body is a part of Nature. As regards the human Mind I think it too is a part of Nature: since I state that there exists in Nature an infinite power of thought. which in so far as it is infinite, contains in itself subjectively the whole of Nature. and its thoughts proceed in the same way as nature, which, to be sure, is its ideatum. Then I declare that the human mind is this same power. not in so far as it is infInite, and perceives the whole of nature, but in so far as it is finite and perceives only the human Body, and in this way I declare that the human Mind is a part of a certain infinite intellect" (Letter 32).

28. In KV I: 3, on divine causality, Spinoza also uses the term uytvloejende oorzaak ~ "emanative cause," but he equates it to the daarstellende oorzaak ~ "productive cause 29. "The main property of Plotinus' God is transcendence. It is a serious mistake, in interpreting Spinoza, to attribute this property to Spinoza's substance ... Whereas Plotinus' One is beyond the psychic and the physical, beyond all qualities, Spinoza's substance is entirely psychic, entirely physical, and has all- i.e" infinite - qualities. Although the actions of the One are tightly attached to it, they are outside it and far away from it, whereas all the actions of the substance always remain within it. Whereas generation and degeneration do not touch upon the perfect being of the One, Spinoza's substance lives through what happens in Nature. Thus, any variation in the regularity of Nature means a variation in the substance-God. Were it possible to eliminate the smallest part of a body, the entire substance would be taken away with it. Whereas Plotinus' One is beyond all knowledge, knowledge of Spinoza's substance grows with each finite thing known. For, not only is every finite thing in the substance, but the substance is also in every finite action; every single thing is substance itself under a defined condition. This is why Spinoza can say 'Deus sive Natura,' while this idea would be unthinkable for Plotinus" (Richter, pp. 108-109; transl. from the German). 30. As principia individuationis. See E. Schmitt, Zur Problematik der unendlichen Modi, p.157.

Herman De Dijn

Metaphysics as Ethics

1. Spinoza's fundamental preoccupation is with ethics. This is immediately clear from the opening paragraphs of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, as well as from the titles of both the Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being and the Ethics. For Spinoza, philosophy originates in the practical domain, but resolution of the problems of this domain seems to require an intellectual search for the truth, a preoccupation with theoretical insight, in short, the construction of a metaphysics. In opposition to other forms of modern metaphysics, Spinoza's search for truth is not meant to construct a justification for already existing ethico-religious beliefs and practices; to the contrary, these are exposed as illusory in his relentless search for the truth. Paradoxically, it is in this a-ethical endeavor that the solution to the ethico-religious problem of meaning is to be found. Victor Delbos put this well: "The most audacious aspect of [Spinoza's] system, and no doubt the most debatable, is that, by eliminating in principle from truth and being all that bears the mark of human subjectivity, it claims to satisfy man's most basic desire: the desire to live and to live in happiness. "I Yet, it is not metaphysics as such that yields the solution, but rather a contemplative insight closely related to it. A consequence of all this is that a proper understanding of Spinoza's thought, especially in Ethics I, requires investigation into the relationship between the metaphysics of Ethics I and the original "ethical" problematic, on the one hand, and between metaphysics and contemplative insight, on the other. Spinoza's basic position is in accord with the view that the path to wisdom requires not only discovery of, but also "penetration" of and "reconciliation" with the truth. (This position differs from the view that some ethico-religious practice, somehow related to religious teachings, will lead to salvation.) Specifically, Spinoza's position is that the truth is to be attained in and through a scientia naturalis,2 which - as is typical of the early modern era - takes the form of a metaphysics closely linked to a physics.

Y. Yo vel, ed.. God and Nature: Spinoza's Metaphysics. 119-131. © 1991. £.1. Brill. Leiden-New York-KlJbenhavn-Koln

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Thus, Spinoza's metaphysics is, to say the least, a paradoxical affair: though it seems to be a purely cognitive search for the truth, it is, in fact. embedded in an ethico-religious problematic: at the same time, it provides a solution to this problematic only insofar as it gives rise to an intuitive insight. 2. The origin of Spinoza's philosophizing, as is clear from the beginning of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, ) is an "ethical" dissatisfaction with ordinary life and values (pleasure, riches, honor). Spinoza expresses doubt as to the worth of these values comparable to the doubt as to the value of what is ordinarily considered knowledge, which Descartes expresses at the beginning of the Meditations. Not only is the pursuit of these values always related to some unhappiness, but, upon a closer look, the life consisting in this pursuit is revealed as the opposite of a worthwhile life, as "a sickness unto death."4 In principle, everyone can discover this, because everyone lives this sort of life and is sooner or later taught by reality that he has been deluding himself. But it is only when the despair has become very serious, and the capacity for reflection, for observing himself from a distance, is sufficiently developed, that a person can discover the truth about himself, can see his life as it really is. Spinoza accepts that every person, insofar as he or she is a rational being, possesses this capacity, though frequently it is not exercised because human beings are bewitched by the complex of ordinary emotions and illusions. Seeing one's life as it really is in the face of this "sickness unto death" leads to a dramatic search for consolation,5 for an alternative. The person going through the experience Spinoza describes may find a strange consolation precisely while distancing himself and reflecting on his situation 6 : could it be that the very activity of thinking is the solution? At this crucial point in the introduction to the TIE (or Spinoza's "Introducton into Philosophy,"7) the perspective changes drastically.8 The person talking to us in the Introduction no longer relates the everyday experiences described above; he is now replaced by the philosopher who is beyond these common experiences and who has found a solution to the "sickness unto death" in and through a life dedicated to knowledge, ultimately knowledge of our union with the whole of Nature. The one now speaking is the master who tells us to push forward in the same realm that has already provided us with some consolation: that of knowledge. 9 In the TIE this push forward requires some preliminary exercises, including the discovery of "logic" or discourse on the "right way" of thinking (the real topic of the TIE), which will introduce us to the truth.lo In

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the Ethics the pedagogy of the master is different: a direct confrontation with the truth. But the aim remains the same in both works, namely, to acquire "another nature," or to become one's full self - a mode of substance capable of real, adequate knowledge - while discovering one's real element. 11 In both the TIE and the Ethics. metaphysics or the acquisition of truth precedes the elaboration of ethics proper and of such practices as technical innovation or medicine. 12 But the ultimate aim is a kind of penetration of the truth, which is not simply reducible to the possession of truth, and which is somehow equally "beyond good and evil." Here, Spinoza seems to give new life to the old Greek theory of three ends: pathos, ethos and logosl] "I. The knowledge of things through their primary causes. 2. The government of the passions, or the acquirement of the habit of virtue. 3. Secure and healthy life" (TTP 3, G46/28-31). Pathos and ethos ultimately serve logos, which finally takes the form of contemplation or intuitive knowledge, and which, as salvation, is the summum bonum. 14 The relationship between ethos and logos in Spinoza is complex. Ethics has to do with dominating the passions and acquiring the habits of a virtuous life, with striving toward an ideal (freedom from bondage),IS and with acquiring the means to reach that end. 16 Since this ideal is a reaL objective human possibility (which is part of the subject matter of metaphysics), and since one can objectively determine the conditions for this sort of life, a scientific ethic is possibleY Among the means of mastering the passions are knowing and penetrating the truth, i.e., knowing the truth about the passions and acquiring the third kind of knowledge (EVp20s). However, logos (the truth) is not a means toward an end, but the end itself. an end one should desire for its own sake - and which will then, by itself. eliminate the passions (TIE 13; EVp20s). This leads to an intricate and paradoxical relationship between logos and ethos: as mastering the passions and acquisition of good habits, ethos (especially guided by "scientific ethics") is meant to produce a virtuous sort of life; but it is logos that turns out to be the ideal way of life, the virtue for which we are striving. Yet, while from the point of view of ethos. logos can be seen as a means for mastering the passions, it can only be obtained when we "forget" our daily struggle, when we "distance" ourselves from it in a genuine search for the truth. It is in this distancing and forgetting that the remedy lies. These paradoxes in the logos-ethos relationship are inescapable. When one tries to escape one's old way of life which has led to despair, and when one unexpectedly discovers a solution in thinking, in logos. it is inevitable to

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desire logos as a means of escaping even further. But it is only through seriously engaging in thinking - forgetting. as it were. the original desirethat one really finds a solution. So the desire for logos should be a patient wait for "the spirit of logos" to move us and make us forget. thereby producing the originally wi,hed-for result. 3. It is typical of Spinoza that. in his conception. the search for salvation through wisdom is not reducible to a particular ethico-religious practice or to contact with esoteric knowledge transmitted by some religious sect. but is closely linked with the scientific renaissance that began in the early seventeenth century. In some way. Spinoza must have linked the consolation provided by distanced reflection on ordinary life as "sickness unto death" with the enthusiastic pursuit of real knowledge of the world that was all around him. The budding scientia naturalis revealed a world totally different from that of our ordinary anthropomorphic categories (sweet and sour. light and heavy. near and far - but also beautiful and ugly. harmonious and chaotic. good and evil). just as distanced reflection discloses a disparate view of our ordinary life as leading inexorably from illusion to disillusion and despair. These wonderful new insights are made possible by our capacity to develop a rationaL objective. non-anthropocentric perspective. Paradoxically. adopting this perspective proves a great consolation. or. better (because "consolation" still somehow belongs to the sphere of the old way of life). proves to be a way of life unexpectedly rewarding in itself and devoid of the drawbacks of the old way of life. The key to a proper understanding of Ethics I for the contemporary reader seems to be its Appendix.li As Spinoza explains therein, human beings spontaneously form an anthropocentric view about their place in the scheme of things: we naturally see ourselves as the center of our world. This inevitable vanity goes hand-in-hand with an equally inevitable indulgence in illusions. But reality hits back, and we respond by constructing a more-orless explicitly anthropocentric view. in which we are at least specially elected by the (mysterious) master(s) of the world: religion and / or metaphysics are developed. their function being to allow us to maintain our anthropocentric view in spite of experience. Yet despair may grow so deep (as at the beginning of the TIE). and the harsh truth (related to the mathematico-scientiflc view of reality mentioned in Elapp) may shine with such overwhelming clarity. that we must seek a solution completely devoid of the old anthropocentric consolations. Paradoxically, the solution proves to be related to the knowledge of truth

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itself, to the acquisition of a non-anthropocentric view of things and of ourselves that is in close agreement with the new scientific insights. An antianthropocentric metaphysical position proves essential to the right solution for our inevitably anthropocentric problem of salvation. From the Appendix, we learn how the metaphysics of Ethics I strengthens the disenchanting effect of the new sciences on anthropocentric conceptions. It does so by barring the route of a flight into an anthropomorphic conception of God as Person and Creator and of thought and will as escaping the laws of Nature. It is certainly no accident that the fundamental doctrines of SpinOla's metaphysics are meant as deadly blows to the traditional anthropocentric views, including those in philosophy. The affirmation of Deus sive Natura means the denial of a free, personal Creator. That God is constituted by an infinity of attributes (which are all equally valid expressions of God's essence) constitutes a denial of the superiority of mind over body, and of the exceptional place of mind in the order of things. The affirmation of determinism, of the necessity of this world, and of the unity of intellect and will, is the negation of ordinary conceptions of freedom. The equation of reality and perfection nullifies all ordinary ethical and religious views concerning good and evil. Affirmation of the exclusive substantiality of God-Nature, and of the modality of all other "things," invalidates the spontaneous view of the self as a free agent, as a creative self-consciousness capable, in principle, of being transparent to itself and in full command of itself, in accordance with the fundamental vanity of all anthropocentric views. Spinola's fundamentally anti-anthropocentric metaphysics can be and often has been compared with anti-anthropocentric religious doctrines. 19 Such comparison is, in a sense, misconceived. Spinola's metaphysics should be understood as a cognitive project, closely related to the scientific revolution of the early modern era. It is a typically "Western" cognitive project, in which the subject engages for the sake of knowledge, but which paradoxically proves to have an enormous impact on the ethico-religious problem of salvation. With the new scientia naturalis. SpinOla discovered that the pursuit of truth was the unexpected answer to ethico-religious despair. This was surely what made knowledge so important to him: "knowledge saves." At the same time, one has the feeling that SpinOla was genuinely interested in the truth as disclosed by the nascent scientia naturalis. Far from conflicting. interest in salvation and in truth go hand in hand; if the interest in truth is totally divorced from interest in salvation. why we have this interest becomes

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unintelligible; and if the interest in truth is not genuine, but pursued as a mere therapeutic pastime, out of curiosity or to enable the domination of nature, it will not lead to salvation. On the other hand, discovery of the truth seems to provide a check against those solutions to the ethico-religious problem based on self-deception and illusion, for these would-be solutions invariably generate anthropocentric worldviews. The test of the authenticity of any solution may be its capacity to accept the truth, namely, an anti-anthropocentric worldview, worked out in a metaphysics. A genuine ethico-religious life should be in agreement with the truth about ourselves as part of nature, whether subconsciously, as in the case of those who find salvation in the practice of obedience and charity within purified Judeo-Christian religion, or in a conscious "agreement," as in the case of Spinoza's philosopher / sage. Such agreement means that, in the ethico-religious sphere, we adhere to a kind of existential acceptance of the truth, theoretically expressed in the anti-anthropocentric metaphysical insight, that we are not the center of the world but only a mode of substance. This is not to say that the value of the right way of life requires metaphysical justification: this way of life justifies itself in the experience of its value. This is also clear from the fact that Spinoza does not think Judeo-Christian religion needs any justification through philosophy. 4. Again and again, we have encountered the paradox that salvation requires knowledge of the objective truth, but this truth must be developed in such a way that it has relevance for salvation. It is this paradox that is responsible for truth taking on the form of a metaphysics. 20 For Spinoza, logos means scientia naturalis. a formidable project of seventeenth-century thinking in which rigorous development of the fundamental truths provides the context not only for physics, but also for the human sciences, ethics and politics. 21 This scientia naturalis put the fundamental categories of ancient and medieval metaphysics, with their long history of rationalistic debate and argumentation (albeit within the context of medieval theology), to new use. At the beginning of the Modern Age. these categories were used to lay the foundations for the new physical sciences; they became part of an attempt to adopt a strictly objective stance toward things. Functioning within this new context, metaphysics, as part of scientia naturalis, became a formidable force in Spinoza's fight against anthropocentrism. But scientia naturalis. whether early-modern or contemporary. always seems to involve adopting an impersonal and objectifying stance, which

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disregards distinctions and attitudes essential to our ordinary dealings with things and people. From the point of view of the Lebenswelt, such a scientific attitude seems inevitably anti-anthropocentric. Since science does not operate in total isolation from the Lebenswelt, one is compelled to confront the anti-anthropocentrism of science; and in the attempt to formulate the truth about this anti-anthropocentrism, one inevitably develops a metaphysics, whether strictly rationalistic, like Spinoza's, or romantic and literary, like Santayana's.22 To work out a metaphysics is always to develop a worldview wherein the concepts used and insights linked are not found in the scientific expositions themselves or in common sense. If one develops a Spinozist metaphysics, one will oppose anthropocentrism, both ordinary and metaphysical, and endeavor to explain its origin in illusion. In Spinoza's physics, the fundamental categories are the "common notions" and the general laws they imply concerning the nature and interrelations of parts. At most, one gets insight into the space-time continuum of all the parts and the la w of the conservation of energyY In his metaphysics, however, the whole is identified as an infinite, sempiternal Whole, which is but an infinite mode of the divine substance. The whole, studied in physics by examining its parts, is interpreted in metaphysics as having not only a "surface" dimension (the whole constituted by the parts), but also a dimension of "depth," the infinite substance which underlies each of the individual parts as well as the whole. As Natura naturata, the whole can thus be seen to depend radically on substance or Natura naturans, God or substance being at the same time immanent and transcendent. 24 What is affirmed of God in Spinoza's rationalistic metaphysics is basically that only God or Nature deserves to be called substance, causa sui, free and eternal - all names which we undeservedly give to ourselves in our anthropocentric conceit. In applying these names to Nature as a substantive whole, Spinoza somehow "individualizes" the whole of things in which we live; this proves to be very important in the relationship between metaphysics and intuitive knowledge. In his metaphysical treatises, Spinoza shows - in the light of the objectifying insights of metaphysics and physics-how to reinterpret the old ethico-religious and metaphysical notions and problems such as God, Providence, mind and body, intellect and will, rationality, freedom, immortality.25 There interpretation should ensure that all traces of anthropocentrism disappear. Yet, Spinoza was well aware that metaphysics, though for him a strictly cognitive project using the one scientific method, mos geometric us, 26 had to be relevant to the search for salvation. As the continuation and the explication of the antianthropocentrism already present in the scientific attitude, this cognitive

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project was of direct relevance to the problem of salvation. Spinoza was aware that a kind of pedagogical steering of the cognitive project was necessary to arrive at the ultimate aim - salvation through contemplation _ as quickly as possible: "1 pass now to explaining those things which must necessarily follow from the essence of God, or the infinite and eternal Being - not, indeed, all of them ... , but only those that can lead us, by the hand, as it were, to the knowledge of the human Mind and its highest blessedness" (Ellpref). This guidance of the project leads to the development of a human science in which man objectively understands himself as truly a mode of substance, and to the elaboration of a scientific ethics. According to Kolakowski,27 Spinoza's metaphysics is a continuation of Greek metaphysics, more particularly of Parmenides, in which talk of the Infinite and the Absolute, the finite and the empirical, is mixed together, leading to all sorts of absurdities - the absurdities of a rationalistic religion. The inextricable difficulties of Spinoza 's metaphysics (derivation of the finite from the infinite; the impossibility of finding a principium individuationis for the modes; the absence of a proper notion of subjectivity; the unintelligibility of the relation between eternity and time) demonstrate the inherent inconsistency of such a project. Whatever one's views on these (real) difficulties in Spinoza's metaphysics, it seems that Kolakowski does not fully appreciate the unique position of Spinoza in Western metaphysics. It is of course true that Spinoza's philosophy is a characteristically "metaphysical" reaction to a fundamentally ethico-religious problematic. It is equally true that, since Hume, the ethico-religious problem of the good life IS not considered a cognItIve problem. "Anti-metaphysical" philosophical reactions can be formulated: it may, for example, be affirmed that the solution to the ethico-religious problematic cannot be found at the level of reason but only in the realm of the heart (Hume, Wittgenstein, Heidegger). Nevertheless, a metaphysics can be developed as a scientia naturalis, in close connection with the other natural sciences (and following their methods as far as possible), while still providing a solution that does not consist in rational insight but is obtained through rational insight. This position has particular appeal to contemporary scientific thinkers.28 Far from being a rationalistic religion. Spinoza's philosophy is the "bouleversement de l'onto-theologie traditionnelle,"29 an upheaval foreshadowed in the new science of the Modern Age. 30 Paradoxically. this harsh rationalistic philosophy provides an unexpected solution to the challenge to religiosity implied by the new situation: a new contemplation mediated by reason.

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5. A crux interpretationis regularly resurfacing in the Spinoza literature is the difficulty of assigning to Ethics I a precise status as knowledge of the second or the third kind. It is indeed difficult to interpret, for example, knowledge of God as the application of reason based on "common notions." On the other hand, it is also difficult to maintain that talk about God in Ethics I is knowledge of the third kind: it is at best a condition for intuitive knowledge. Significant in this respect is what Spinoza has to say about a fundamental proposition of Ethics I: "[A]lthough I have shown generally in Part I that all things (and consequently the human Mind also) depend on God both for their essence and their existence, nevertheless, that demonstration, though legitimate and put beyond all chance of doubt, still does not affect our Mind as much as when this is inferred from the very essence of any singular thing which we say depends on God" (EVp36s). Once one understands the special nature of metaphysics, one can grasp the quasi-inevitability of its being "in-between" reason and intuition. It is not scientific knowledge in the sense of nomological explanation of the interrelations of parts, or speculation about the whole and its characteristics in order to gain an understanding of the interrelations of the parts. It rather concentrates on a kind of "individualized" relationship between the whole as principle and man as effect. Therefore, metaphysics cannot be reduced to reasoning with common notions. Nor is it in itself knowledge of the third kind. The third kind of knowledge should not be construed as general insight into the relation between God and the modes, even as applied to man himself. This insight should not be applied ("externally," as it were) to oneself; one should be able to see directly (and "internally," as it were) that one belongs to God. This may be the reason why Spinoza, who is usually quite explicit, never explicitly stated what kind of knowledge Ethics I belongs to: it belongs to neither. ll Metaphysics participates in both reason and intuition: it is full-blown rational knowledge - albeit of "strange" categories like substanceattribute-mode, God as Thought or Extension, and so on - but it is geared toward the production of something else - intuitive knowledge. In this way, one can understand the "obscure"32 relationship between the demonstrations as "the eyes of the mind, by which it sees and observes things" (EVp23s) and the feeling and experiencing of our own eternity. An "unfeeling" deduction of insights about our own essence as part of GodNature somehow produces an intuitive insight, characterized by an intellectual love of God.

T I

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6. It is now time to investigate In more detail the relationship between metaphysics (basically, Ethics I) and intuitive knowledge, the culmination of logos. which leads to the real solution of the problem of salvation. Generally speaking, this problem is the opposite of the one encountered above (in anthropocentric metaphysics): Somehow our anthropocentric way of life (which is an attitude or set of attitudes - "knowledge of") changes into anthropocentric "knowledge that," even into an anthropocentric metaphysics with complicated and very abstract concepts (like "Being") and sophisticated arguments that can be investigated and discussed by somebody who does not fully realize its origin and function. Here the problem is quite the reverse: How can "knowledge that," i.e., a set of antianthropocentric metaphysical concepts and proofs, evolve into "knowledge of" - into a deep awareness of our individual union with Nature and an intellectual love? The only way to understand this transition from "knowledge that" to "knowledge of' is to see the latter as the unpredictable effect of the metaphysical insights which obtain when this metaphysical knowledge succeeds in penetrating the knower's awareness. When this occurs, "knowledge that" suddenly produces a new kind of insight, which affects the individual's mind deeply ("Mentem nostram afficit"; EVp36s). On the level of "knowledge that" - as "information" known - intuitive knowledge can only be described (and Spinoza describes it this way) as knowlege of particular essences in the light of an attribute expressing God's innermost nature. Spinoza stresses that it must be knowledge of the particular essence (EIIp40s2), and that, furthermore, there can be no knowledge of the third kind except on the basis of an understanding of our own particular essence as involved in God (EVp29, EVp39s). This stress on knowledge of the particular essence (e.g., the idea that expresses the essence of this or that body, at EVp22) can only be understood in relation to the transition from a metaphysical to an intuitive insight about ourselves. The "knowledge that" about the relation between God and all the modes, and each mode in particular, including oneself, produces an effect on the knower who is a selfconscious, dynamic-emotional center: the effect of experientially seeing his own being and activity as a part of the Whole produced by God as Thought. We are able not only to know, but also to experience our being as a modal expression of God-Nature. This effect is not reducible to "knowledge that," or to having information, though it somehow depends on it. Two conditions appear to work together in this change from "knowledge that" (anti-anthropocentric metaphysics) to "knowledge of": (1) experience of ourselves as knowers, in which (2) there is room for the "knowledge that"

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to produce a kind of contemplation in which the information becomes a "lived truth." The life-experience in which contemplation is produced can be none other than the activity of metaphysical reasoning itself, combined with the ethical pursuit of the fight against the passions, especially by trying to understand them as parts of Nature. In this life-experience, the rational man is motivated by the search for truth, and is thereby "free from the shackles of selfish desire"JJ and (subconsciously?) aware of being something other than an ordinary self. In such an experience, there is room for the full contemplative realization of truth. This truth can be none other than the anti-anthropocentric metaphysical truth, which, as applied to our experience, can produce the contemplative realization "that we are nothing but clay in the hand of the potter."J4 The production of intuitive insight has everything to do with a kind of estrangement from ourselves, with an experience of "the otherness of the Other" of which we are nevertheless the modes, the expressions. For this "Other," which he calls "God," Spinoza also uses the "cool" names "Nature" and "the Substance."J5 It is essential for this Other to have proper names, not to personify it, but so that we, as particular entities, can relate to it and love it, even though it is, as the names indicate, beyond all reappropriation. We as individuals can relate to it, experience it as the absolutely transcendent origin of our own being, the radically different (Natura naturans) "depth" of our being. And once we do so, we can experience particular things as manifestations of the same substance, which diffuses itself in them, in their endless diversity, which mirrors the otherness of the substance. In the contemplative experience, we experience both the "otherness of the Other" and, in the estrangement from ourselves, the "truth" about ourselves (even as active, our activity is the activity of "Another"). Strangely enough, we can love this "Other" with a love that asks nothing in return (EVpI9), an intellectual love (EVp35-36): a kind of reconciliation with "the truth about ourselves," as well as a kind of "celebration" (gloria: EVp36s), in which our real salvation or blessedness consists (EVp36s). Santayana, in obvious reference to Spinoza, speaks in this context about cosmic piety toward our substance. J6 Just as intuitive experience is a direct manifestation of God in our experience, a kind of open breakthrough in which God becomes aware of himself in us, so in our intellectual love God loves himself in us as part of the Infinite Intellect (EVp36c). So the first and last words of the Ethics are causa sui, or God. Although they negate our almost ineradicable vision of oursel ves as causa sui, for Spinoza, they spell salvation. J7

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1. V. Delbos, Le Spinozisme (Paris: Vnn. 1983), p. 173 (transl. by D. Maisel). 2. For the term scientia naturalis, see TTP 4. G68 / 2-3. 3. For a beautiful analysis of the "ethical" introduction of the TIE, on which I rely heavily, see T.H. Zweerman. Spinoza's lnleiding tot de Filosofie. Een vertaling en structuur-analyse van de lnleiding der Tractatus de lntellectus Emendatione; benevens een commentaar bi) deze tekst, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte. Louvain (Leuven). 1983. 4. "Like a man suffering from a fatal illness" (TIE 7). 5. "A great comfort [solatio]" (TIE 11). 6. Loc. cit. 7. As Zweerman rightly calls it; for the formal title, see n. 3. 8. TIE 12; cf. Zweerman. pp. 174 ff. 9. Zweerman, p. 180. 10. For Spinoza's conception of "logic." see H. De Dijn, "Conceptions of Philosophical Method in Spinoza: Logica and Mos Geometricus," Review of Metaphysics 40(1986):55-78. 11. The acquisition of another nature is like moving into a new house whose hearth links us with the totality of reality. See Zweerman. pp. 143, 292-297. 12. TIE 16; cf. EVpref. 13. Zweerman, pp. 280 ff. 14. In the TIE. Spinoza distinguishes the highest good (summum bonum) from the true good (verum bonum), which is the means to salvation, as ethics teach us (TIE 13). Here it should be noted that, in the TTP, Spinoza clearly accepts a kind of nonphilosophical salvation for believers of the purified Judeo-Christian religion. 15. TIE 13; cf. EIVpref. 16. TIE 13; EIVpref (where Spinoza defines "good" and "evil"; Curley p.54:;). 17. "[AJfter we have come to the understanding of things. and have tasted the excellence of knowledge, [natural knowledge] teaches us ethics and true virtue" (TTP 4. G68 / 2-5). His "scientific" ethics is developed in Ethics, Parts III-V. On "scientific" ethics, see A. Heinekamp, "Metaethik und Moral bei Spinoza," in Theoria cum Praxi: Zum Verhiiltnis von Theorie und Praxis im 17. und 18. lh., Studia Leibnitiana, suppl. vol. 20 (1981): 62-92. Concerning the problem of the compatibility of this ethics with determinism, see H. De Dijn, "The Possibility of an Ethic in a Deterministic System Like Spinoza's," in J. Wetlesen, ed., Spinoza's Philosophy of Man: Proceedings of the Scandinavian Spinoza Symposium, 1977 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1977). pp. 27-35; P.F. Strawson, "Liberty and Necessity," in N. Rotenstreich and N. Schneider. eds., Spinoza: His Thought and Work (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1983), pp. 120-121. 18. Interpreting Spinoza's philosophy as a self-contained "monument," in a kind of quasi-esthetic way, as M. Gueroult does, is no longer satisfactory to me, and seems to lead to difficulties and failures in the interpretation. 19. See, e.g .. the famous study by J. Wetlesen, The Sage and the Way (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1979). 20. Here, the title that E. Curley gives to the Ethics in his translation - The Metaphysical Moralist - is significant.

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21. TTP 4, G68/2fT. (see n. 17 J. Compare Hobbes' famous E1ementa Philosophiae: De Corpore. De Homine. De Cive. 22. G. Santayana, Reason in Religion (Volume 3 of The Life of Reason), (New York: Dover, 1982). pp. 190-192. 23. For Spinoza's sketch of a physics, see EIlpl3s if. 24. For an attempt to show some sort of transcendence in Spinoza's conception of God, see my "Conceptions of Philosophical Method .... " pp. 73-77; and my "The Articulation of Nature or the Relation God-Modes in Spinoza." Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana. Quarta Serie, 8 (1977): 337-344. 25. This reinterpretation of traditional Christian concepts is particularly obvious in the Short Treatise. 26. On Spinoza's geometrical method, see my "Conceptions of Philosophical Method in Spinoza." pp.61-77. 27. L. Kolakowski, "Spinoza: Selbstmord oder Selbsterhaltungsmetaphysik?" in N. Rotenstreich and N. Schneider, eds., pp. 176-187. 28. E.g., Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Wallace Matson. See A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Dell, 1981); K. Blackwell, The Spinozistic Ethics of Bertrand Russell (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985); W. Matson, "Steps towards Spinozism," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 31 (1977): 69-83. 29. A. Tosel, "Quelques remarques pour une interpretation de l'Ethique." in E. Giancotti, ed., Proceedings of the First Italian International Congress on Spinoza (Naples: Bibliopolis. 1985). p. 146. 30. M. Horkheimer. "Der neueste Angriff auf die Metaphysik" (1937). quoted in: C. Brunner, Het fiktieve Denken (.A.ssen: Van Gorcum, 1984), pp.81, 188. 31. Even Ethics V (both parts) is not knowledge of the third kind; it is a metaphysical discussion about such knowledge, presupposing more or less experience of it. If one is not familiar with it. what is said is in great danger of being rejected out of hand or being misunderstood. 32. Cf. F. Alquie. Le rationalisme de Spinoza (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1981). p. 230: "It is awkward to unite and confuse a sense of enjoyment with the intellectual understanding of a demonstration. and to regard all this as an intuition" (trans!. by D. Maisel). 33. Einstein. p.53 (see n. 28. above). 34. "They are in God's power. as clay in the hands of the potter" (Letter 75). 35. One author goes so far as to say that Spinozist religiosity is characterized by a reverence for "the terrifying side of Nature"; see T.L.S. Sprigge, Theories of Existence (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984). p. 15R. 36. Cf. Santayana: "The universe. so far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine; its extent. its order. its beauty. its cruelty. makes it alike impressive . ... Why should we not look on the universe with piety? Is it not our substance" Are we made of other clay?" (p. 191). 37. I would like to thank my colleague Arnold Burms. without whose help this paper would not have been written, and Brad Gregory and Philip Buckley. for their help in writing it in English.

Margaret D. Wilson

Spinoza's Causal Axiom (Ethics I, Axiom 4)

Treatments of causality in seventeenth-century philosophy present the interpreter with a peculiar problem. On the one hand, the notion of causality is central to the period's major positions and disputes in metaphysics and epistemology. On the other hand, few of the most prominent figures of the period enter into detailed or precise accounts of the relation of causal dependence or causal connection. As a result, one is often left with only the most exiguous materials for dealing with some of the most important and far-reaching interpretive issues. Spinoza is an interesting case in point. Most of the best-known, most characteristic features of his system - the conception of substance as causa sui, the thorough-going determinism, the distinction between Natura naturans and Natura naturata, the denial of mind-body interaction, the doctrine of thought-matter parallelism, the theories of perception and knowledge, the doctrine of the passions and the account of freedom - are all firmly centered on notions of causal order and dependence. Yet Spinoza says very little to elucidate directly the concept or concepts of causality he relies on. The treatments of Spinoza's conception of causality that appear in the literature - most of them quite brief - typically focus on his use of geometrical analogies to indicate that causal necessity is truly ineluctable, and in some manner essential, as in the following, often-cited passage: ... from God's supreme power or infinite nature ... all [things] have necessarily flowed forth [effiuxisse]. or always follow with the same necessity, in the same way, as from eternity and to eternity it follows from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles (ElpI7sl. 1

According to a number of commentators, such passages indicate that Spinoza assimilates or conflates the causal relation with the relation of logical entailment, or of "ground" and "consequent. "2 There are plenty of objections that might be made to this interpretive claim. beginning with the observation that its meaning isn't very clear. One thing it might mean is that

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Spinoza holds that the conjunction of the assertion of the cause and the denial of the effect, under some sort of canonical descriptions of each, will yield a formal contradiction. Or it might mean that. on Spinoza's view, physical things or facts somehow literally logically entail each other. Or perhaps some combination of these two notions is intended. Each of these readings goes well beyond anything actually present in the text, however, and all of them involve formidable conceptual difficulties. 3 In the passages quoted (and elsewhere) Spinoza himself offers no direct clarification of the notion of essential consequence involved in the triangle analogy - or the "necessity" that it exemplifies. 4 In the present essay I wish to widen interpretive discussion of causality in Spinoza's system by turning from the geometrical analogies and the issues they bring to mind to systematic consideration of an axiom that has been characterized as a "definition of cause," axiom 4, Ethics 1,5 which reads: Effectus cognitio a cognitione causae dependet, & eandem involvit.

"Cognitio" is normally translated "knowledge." Although some have raised objections to this practice, I propose to continue it here, but with the understanding that the concept in question may be only loosely connected with the normal connotations of "knowledge" in modern English. 6 So I translate this axiom as: Knowledge of an effect depends on knowledge of the cause, and involves it.'

This axiom plays a key role in the development of a number of the central Spinozist doctrines mentioned above, and others as well. Axiom 4 has not been wholly neglected by Spinoza scholars. For example, among recent and relatively recent commentators, Martial Gueroult, Louis Loeb and Jonathan Bennett have each devoted a few pages to it; and Harold Zellner has published a short article focusing on the axiom. 8 The variety of views and suggestions about the axiom advanced in just these few brief treatments is rather astonishing. Unfortunately, however, little of what has been proposed really stands up to scrutiny when one looks closely enough at a range of actual applications of the axiom. Although I will not attempt here to discuss in detail all the argumentative uses of Elax4 in the Ethics, I will discuss several important applications. These include, first, its intimate connection with the mode-attribute relation in the early parts of the Ethics; second, Spinoza's exploitation of this connection in setting up his case against Cartesian interactionism; third, his use of the axiom at the beginning of Ethics II to establish the proposition that the modes under the different

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attributes are "connected" in the same way; and, finally, its role in Spinoza's remarkable and peculiar theory of perception of external bodies. Each of these contexts, as I will try to show, contributes elements and constraints to the interpretation of the axiom. In light of them I will argue that various proposals found in the literature are either utterly untenable or (in some cases) at least highly misleading. I will be particularly concerned to show that "cognitio" in axiom 4 cannot be restricted to adequate knowledge, as Gueroult insists. I shall also dispute certain other readings, connected with the sense of "cugnitio," proposed by Loeb and Bennett. I will try to show that - contrary to a suggestion found in Bennett - the axiom is not a straightforward expression of "causal rationalism," of an assimilation of the cause-effect relation to that of logical ground and consequence. I will present a reason for rejecting Zellner's thesis that the axiom should be read as the expression of a "transmission" view of causality. I will argue that the axiom must be sharply distinguished from Descartes' causal principles. (Bennett and Zellner touch on the possible relation of these to Spinoza, though without definite commitment.) And I will question the reasoning behind Bennett's claim that Spinoza moves from a "logical" to a "psychological" interpretation of the axiom when he draws on it to establish the Thought-Extension "parallelism" thesis at EIIp7. Besides addressing specific misconceptions, my discussion will provide support for the view that the significance of the particular terms of the axiom, and of the whole proposition, cannot really be understood in isolation from the actual contexts in which it plays a role and the highly original doctrines which it is used to develop. Not only "cognitio, " but also "causa" - and perhaps "dependet" and "involvit" as well - take on peculiar technical significance as the axiom becomes entwined with the unfolding of Spinoza's system. Having noted the importance of contextual factors in interpreting the axiom, one is still confronted with problems of intelligibility and consistency in its various uses in the Ethics. I will briefly address one of these toward the end of the paper. (I will not otherwise be very much concerned here to assess the cogency of demonstrations that rely on the axiom, however.) Before proceeding to direct consideration of Spinoza's arguments, I will sketch a little more fully some of the claims or suggestions about axiom 4 with which I will later take issue. On first acquaintance, axiom 4 presents an appearance of paradox. For it appears incompatible with both common sense and ordinary forms of scientific inquiry. Surely we often know what's happened without at all knowing what brought it about; and it certainly seems that scientific

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research customarily begins with known effects and attempts to discover their initially unknown causes. Such reflections already suggest that the terms in Spinoza's axiom need to be interpreted with care, if the axiom is not to be regarded as denying the obvious. At the very least one would like to have a reading that would make it possible to understand its appeal for Spinoza. The range of readings that have been proposed at least partly reflects such systematic and philosophical concerns. One reading, versions of which have been proposed by several commentators, renders the axiom virtually tautologous in Spinoza's system, by imposing an extremely restrictive reading on "cognitio." Probably the most uncompromising version of the restrictive approach is found in Gueroult. He writes: "I'Axiome 4 et Ie paralIelisme qu'il implique entre l'ordre des idees et l'ordre des causes ne sauraient valoir pour les idees inadequates ... , L'Axiome 4 ne concerne ... que les idees vraies."9 And as he also explains, no true knowledge will be acquired as long as "all the causes are not known," that is as long as [tant que] the idea of the thing is not total or adequate, the adequate idea being that which includes in itself the integral knowledge of the causes of its object. In other words. since any singular thing is such only through the infinity of causes which it envelops, an idea which does not include this infinity in itself only knows the thing partially, mutilates it, does not conform to it, and, consequently, is false. 1o

Loeb's account of the axiom, while expressed in less peculiarly Spinozist terminology, has elements in common with Gueroult's. Loeb claims that in axiom 4 Spinoza is employing a special technical sense of "knowledge" such that one doesn't have knowledge of something unless one knows about its causal history. I I (It is thus his view that axiom 4 is not intended generally to rule out the possibility of knowledge of an effect say "by acquaintance" - which does not include knowledge of the cause.) He further explains that one will lack perfect knowledge in the sense at issue as long as one fails to know "the entire or complete causal history of the entity."12 It is not entirely clear whether Loeb ultimately means to hold that the "cognitio" of axiom 4 must be interpreted as perfect causal knowledge. It seems that this probably is what he means, though: for he goes on at once to stipulate that he will use the expression "SP-knowledge" just to mean perfect knowledge in the sense defined; and he subsequently discusses EIax4 in terms of this expression. Similarly, it is not entirely clear whether Loeb's "perfect causal knowledge" is to be understood as something like

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Gueroult's "adequate idea." The use of the term "perfect," and Loeb's indication that this knowledge is a special sort of knowledge, do seem to suggest such a restrictive notion, however. 13 The most decisive evidence against taking axiom 4 to concern only adequate knowledge of a thing, or knowledge of its whole causal history, is found in Spinoza's use of the axiom to develop his theory of sense perception in Ethics II. But the development of other implications of the axiom, from the very beginning of Ethics I, also shows the untenability of any such restrictive reading. It turns out, in fact, that all forms of "knowledge," all "ideas," are taken to satisfy the axiom. At one point, Bennett, too, entertains the possibility that, in enunciating EIax4, "Spinoza is thinking of some stratospherically high standard of cognitive perfection - some sort of utterly comprehensive knowledge which we cannot have of a thing unless we have just as good knowledge of its cause." 14 But elsewhere Bennett provides a nice example of an extremely weak and commonsensical reading, according to which the axiom only means "that one's intellectual grasp on any item is weakened by one's ignorance of its cause."15 This reading is, he suggests, most likely to yield a plausible axiom if understood in terms of instances like the following: "I would have a better grasp of the French Revolution if I knew more about what led up to it."16 But this bland reading has little connection with any of the roles the axiom is given to play in the Ethics. 17 I will try to make this clear shortly, in connection with the contexts I consider. If I am right, then interpreting" cognitio" weakly in terms of an ordinary "intellectual grasp" (such as I might have of the French Revolution) is no sounder than restricting it to "adequate" or perfect causal knowledge. Zellner avoids the problem of interpreting "cognitio" in the axiom by treating EIax4 as essentially a metaphysical, rather than an "epistemological," principle. He construes axiom 4 as expressing a "transmission theory of causality" - as "saying that" the cause and effect "share" a property which the cause transfers to the effect. 18 Zellner defends his interpretation by complex reasoning which I won't attempt to assess in detail. It does seem though, that his reading is unsatisfactory insofar as it renders the actual phrasing of the axiom - in terms, precisely, of "cognitio" - so far out of accord with what he thinks it is meant to "say."19 In any case, I think it can be shown that axiom 4 cannot be expressing a "transmission" theory, in virtue of some of the same considerations that tend to undercut Gueroult's view. (Without doubt, though, it is quickly tied in with some form of "causal likeness principle," the relevance of which Zellner advocates more plausibly.) Indeed, I think it can be shown that

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Spinoza did not hold a transmission theory of causality. in any general form. in the Ethics. 20 According to another viewpoint Elax4 is an expression of Spinoza's "deductive" conception of causality. Bennett appears more-or-less to exemplify this viewpoint, too. He says that Elax4 must be read in a "logical" way in all its uses. except at EIIp7. where a "psychological" reading is required. Setting aside the issue of a "psychological" reading (which I'll return to later). one may ask what Bennett means by a "logical" reading of the axiom. He writes: "If la4 is read in a logical way, it says that if x causes y then there is a conceptual link between them. this being a version or a part of causal rationalism" (p. 127). "Causal rationalism." he has earlier explained, is the view that "a cause relates to its effect as a premise does to a conclusion which follows from it. "21 It is hard to guess what Bennett means by "a version or a part" of causal rationalism. Thus it is hard to know whether he mean~ to imply that axiom 4 represents cognitio of an effect as requiring cognitio of a cause, such that the latter logically entails the former. But there is at least the suggestion of this view in his wording. I earlier indicated reservations about the "logical entailment" interpretation of Spinoza's conception of causality. Even setting those aside. though. one may still dispute a reading of the axiom that construes it as an expression of a "deductivist" conception of the cause-effect relationshipY Although the axiom quickly becomes implicated in some assumptions about "conceptual relations" between cause and effect. these appear to go in the opposite direction than that required by "causal rationalism" as Bennett defines it. For. in some uses of the axiom, it appears that the "knowledge" of the cause is supposed to follow from "knowledge" of the effect (but, perhaps. not vice versa). Or, to express the point epistemically. knowledge of the effect is sufficient for knowledge of the cause (but not vice versa). In the next section I will try to establish some of these points by examining Spinoza's development of the implications of his axiom in the early propositions of Ethics I and some of the middle propositions of Ethics II. with particular reference to the attribute-mode relation. Afterward I will show how this development underlies his repudiation of mind-body interaction. while also indicating the importance of sharply distinguishing axiom 4, on its Spinozist interpretation. from Cartesian causal principles. Subsequent sections will be concerned with Spinoza's unique applications of axiom 4 to support Thought-Extension parallelism, and to explain the possibility of sense perception without inter-attribute causation.

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One thing that emerges at once, with respect to this axiom, is that Spinoza seems to take the following as equivalent formulations: "the knowledge of B depends on and involves the knowledge of A"; "the concept of B depends on and involves the concept of A"; and "B is understood through A." One can see this by considering E1ax5, and the way that Spinoza employs it in conjuction with E1ax4. Axiom 5 reads: Things that have nothing in common with each other, also cannot be understood by means of each other, or the concept of the one does not involve the concept of the other. [Quae nihil commune cum se invicem habent, etiam per se invicem intelligi non possunt, sive conceptus unius alterius conceptum non involvit.]

The "understanding" and "conceptual involvement" of this axiom are then merged with the "cognitio" of E1ax4 in the proof of E1 p3: If things have nothing in common between them, one of them cannot be the

cause of the other.

The short proof goes: If they have nothing in common with each other, then (by Axiom 5) they cannot be understood through each other, and thus (by Axiom 4) one cannot be the cause of the other.

Similarly, the definition of substance as "conceived through itself" is combined with axiom 4 to yield a proof of E1p6: "One substance cannot be produced by another substance." Thus, axiom 4 must be read as assertingor at least implying - that the concept of an effect depends on the concept of a cause, and involves it. 23 (Spinoza's use of axiom 4 in Ethics II expands the list of substitutions for" cognitio" to include" idea" and even "perceptio, " as further explained below,) But does this not mean that the "knowledge" of an effect (by the implications here ascribed to axiom 4) always follows logically from that of its cause? The answer, I think, is "No." To understand this point one needs to consider the relation between the "conceptual dependence" asserted by axiom 4, and the conceptual dependence of modes on substance, which is built into the definition of modes. A substance, by definition, is that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: that is that, the concept of which does not need the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed (Eldef3).

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A mode, however, is an affection of substance, or that, which is in another, through which also it is conceived (EIdefS).

This definition of "modes" appears quite harmonious with the Cartesian notion. As Descartes says of the distinction between modes and substances (Principles of Philosophy, I, §61): [W]e can clearly perceive substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, but we cannot, conversely, understand that mode without the substance. Thus figure and motion are modally distinguished from corporeal substance, which they are in [cui insunt); so also affirmation or recollection [are modally distinguished] from the mind. 24

Of course, the modes of body and of mind pertain to separate substances for Descartes, whereas Spinoza recognizes only one substance. There is, nevertheless, an analogous dualism in the order of modes for Spinoza. For modes pertain to substance just insofar as it is understood under a particular attribute, as one can see from Elp25c: Particular things are nothing but affections of the attributes of God, or modes, which express the attributes of God in a certain and determinate way.

Or, as the point is expressed even more explicitly in Elp28: [B]esides substance, and modes, there is nothing ... , and modes are nothing except affections of the attributes of God. 25

But attributes are "really distinct" from each other (ElplO). And however exactly we interpret Spinoza's position on unknown attributes, Thought and Extension are, as Bennett says, the only specific ones relevant to the Ethics. 26 The coherence of the Cartesian system certainly requires that the relation of causal dependence not be conflated with the conceptual dependence of modes on substances (or their attributes). Thus God causes motion, but motion is a mode of res extensa, which is entirely distinct from God. Similarly, the human mind, through the volitions which are its modes, causes changes in brain states, or modes of body. Spinoza, however, definitely runs together the conceptual dependence of modes on substance and the conceptual "involvement" of effect and cause. This point can be briefly established by considering the proof of Elp25: "God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things but also of their essence." The core of the proof goes as follows: If you deny this, then God is not the cause of the essence of things; and so (by Axiom 4) it is possible to conceive the essence of things without God: but this (by Prop. 15) is absurd."

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And the relevant part of the proof of EIp15 is simply: Modes however (by Def. 5) cannot be, nor be conceived, without substance.

This intimate connection between axiom 4 and the mode-attribute relation is further reflected in EIIp45. Because substance is God, and an attribute is just "what intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence" (EIdef4), Spinoza can reason as follows: [S]ingular things (by Prop. 15, p. I) cannot be conceived without God; but because ... they have God for a cause, insofar as he is considered under the attribute, of which the things themselves are modes, the ideas of them (by Axiom 4, p. I) must necessarily involve the concept of their attribute, that is ... the eternal and infinite essence of God.28

(This passage exemplifies the point mentioned above, that in Part II "idea" joins "conceptus" as an evidently equivalent substitute for "cognitio" in axiom 4; "perceptio" is employed in place of "idea" in certain contexts of Ethics II.29 It follows, Spinoza thinks, that "each idea of every body, or singular thing, existing in act, necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God" (EIIp45; emphasis added). These passages, which stress the "involves" component of axiom 4, indicate that the cause is conceptually included in the effect. Thus, if an "entailment" relation figures here at all, it is an entailment of the cause by the effect - not a "deduction" of effect from cause. Thus the axiom cannot rightly be construed simply as an expression of "causal rationalism." Notice too that the application of the axiom at EIIp45 is readily intelligible as long as a more-or-less Cartesian understanding of the mode-attribute relation is assumed. For on this understanding there is no longer much mystery in the claim that we don't "know" anything - even in the sense of "know by acquaintance" - without having some knowledge of its cause. It is, after all, very easy to see why someone who believes that all "effects" are either mental or physical might consider it evident that all effects "depend on and involve knowledge" of either Thought or Extension. While I may not know just what occurrence brought about the stain on the rug - so that the specific nature of that occurrence forms no part of my conception of the stain- I wouldn't deny that in conceiving of the stain I conceive it as extended. Similarly, while I might be quite perplexed about what made my fantasies take a certain form, I have to admit that I can't really conceive of them without conceiving of them as thoughts. We see already why axiom 4 cannot be restricted to adequate knowledge. Admittedly, Spinoza holds that all knowledge of God's essence, through our

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knowledge of particular things, is adequate. ("Those things which are common to all, and which are equally in the part and in the whole, can only be conceived adequately"; EIIp38; cf. EIIp47.) But the knowledge of modes/ effects through which we possess such adequate knowledge of substance/cause is not itself adequate. It is the human mind's ideas "from which it perceives itself, ... its own Body, and ... external bodies as actually existing" (EIIp47d) which establish (by EIIp38) its claim to possession of adequate knowledge of God's essence. But such ideas are not adequate in the human mind. We have, for instance, "only completely confused knowledge of our Body" (ElIp13s). (Later, in discussing Spinoza's account of perception of external things, I will show that both occurrences of "cognitio" in the axiom can be satisfied by inadequate knowledge.)30 Of course I do not mean to deny that" cognitio" encompasses adequate knowledge. In EIIp47 Spinoza in fact goes on to link our possession of adequate knowledge of God's essence with the possibility of achieving the "third kind of knowledge," which "proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to adequate knowledge of the essences of things" (EIlp40s2). He comments in EIlp47s: Since all things are in God, and are conceived through God, it follows that from this knowledge [ex cognitionem hac] we can deduce many things [nos plurima posse deducere], which we know adequately [quae adaequate cognoscamus]. and thus form that third kind of knowledge. of which we spoke in Scholium 2 of Proposition 40 of this Part. ...

But for present purposes "can" is a key word in the passage just quoted. By virtue of our adequate knowledge of God's essence, we are able to form the third kind of knowledge; but the use of axiom 4 to show that we have adequate knowledge of God's essence does not construe cognitio of the effect as itself of this kind. Neither do I mean to deny that EIax4 is in some ways connected with the view that finite modes are "deducible" from the attributes that are their "causes" - however exactly this "deducibility" relation is to be understood. That Spinoza holds such a view is evident from the passage just quoted, as well as from others concerned with scientia intuitiva. This view is the cognitive mirror of the claim at Elp16 that all things "must follow from the necessity of the divine nature" (which is explicated through the triangle analogy at EIp17s).lJ EIp16 and EIax4 are joined in the proof of EVp22, "In God ... there necessarily is an idea. which expresses the essence of this and that human Body under the form of eternity." (Because God is the cause of such essences, they must - by Elax4 - be conceived through him, "with a certain eternal necessity (by Prop. 16. p. I)"; a later proposition is then

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adduced to establish that the ideas of such essences "must be in God.") Rather, I have simply been trying to show that EIax4 plays a broader role in the Ethics: that it is not restricted to contexts where the cognitio is assumed to be adequate, or the manner in which effect "follows from" cause is assumed to be evident. We are now in a position to see some reasons for the untenability of some of the other readings mentioned above. Consider Zellner's suggestion that Spinoza held a "transmission" view of causality, and that axiom 4 should be read as an expression of this position. I believe that the application of the axiom I have just traced rules out this interpretation. Insofar as axiom 4 covers the relation of substance to its modes (as we have just seen that it does), it cannot be interpreted in terms of the transmission of a property from one thing to another. The model of a quantity of motion being transferred from a moving to a previously stationary billiard ball (Zellner'S example)32 simply fails to apply when the cause is God or substance - an immanent, not a transitive cause, by EIp2l - and the effect is an affection or expression of an attribute of God. There appears in this case to be no transmission at all, and certainly not a transmission of a property from one entity to another distinct one. In fact, the dependence of modes on attributes seems basically to consist in the fact that modes have no being apart from their respective attributes. Finally, one may also see from this application of EIax4 that the axiom need have little to do with "improving one's intellectual grasp" of a thing or event, by expanding one's knowledge of the causes in the conventional sense. Causes, in the conventional sense, do not come into the picture: and in the case of "knowing" the attribute through the mode one's intellectual grasp is in any case always "adequate."3]

II

Although I deny that axiom 4 is just an expression of "causal rationalism" as defined by Bennett, I of course agree with Bennett that, in light of the propositions immediately following it, axiom 4 must be interpreted as indicating connections of some kind between the concepts of the cause and of the effect. (In my view, then, it is important to distinguish the "conceptual involvement" notion from the claim that "knowledge" of the cause logically entails "knowledge" of the effect.) This requirement of conceptual connection is the basis of Spinoza's repudia tion of the Cartesian assumption of mind-body interaction, and the Cartesian view that God, an immaterial entity, is the creative cause of a substance of a different nature (the material

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universe). To clarify the significance of Spinoza's axiom, it is important to see its role in these anti-Cartesian arguments. I will now focus on the former of these. I particularly want to emphasize the difference between axiom 4, as Spinoza employs it, and the restrictions on causality espoused by Descartes, with which it is sometimes too uncritically compared. As mentioned above, the Cartesian must certainly repudiate Spinoza's partial conftation of the dependence of effect on cause with the relation of dependence between substance (or attributes) and modes. The Cartesian also must reject axiom 4 as Spinoza interprets it. Consideration of the relation between Descartes' causal principles and EIax4 helps show that he is in a position to do so consistently.34 Spinoza's "refutation" of mind-body interaction begins with his definitions of "substance" and "attribute." An attribute is Uust) what intellect perceives of substance, "as constituting its essence." In EIplO Spinoza makes clear that he takes the latter clause to mean that an attribute must conform to the definition of substance, in respect of being "conceived through itself' (and not through another). (Spinoza of course indicates that, unlike Descartes, he does not permit an inference from such independent conception to independent entities, i.e., distinctness of substance.) According to EIIp! and EIIp2 thoughts (or "ideas") and bodies are just "modes expressing the nature of God in a definite and determinate way" (by EIp25c). Therefore [in the case of thought] there belongs to God (by Def. 5, p. I) an attribute, the concept of which all singular thoughts involve, and through which they are conceived. Therefore Thought is one of the infinite attributes of God ... (EIIpJd)

Similarly, for body or extension, mutatis mutandis. But the status of Thought and Extension as attributes is then sufficient to show - by EIax4-that thoughts (or ideas) and bodies, as modes of the respective attributes, never stand in causal relation to each other: Neither can the Body determine the Mind to think, nor can the Mind determine the Body to motion, nor to rest, nor to anything else (if such there is) (EIIIp2).

For it follows from the conceptual independence of the attributes that: [T]he modes of any attribute involve the concept of their attribute, but not of another; and so (by Axiom 4, p. I) have God for a cause, insofar only as he is considered under that attribute, of which they are modes, and not insofar as he is considered under another (EIIp6d; cf. EIIlp2d).

Q.E.D.35

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The primary Cartesian argument for mind-body distinctness of course relies on the independent conceivability of (oneself as) a thinking thing, on the one hand, and res extensa on the other hand. Further. Descartes seems committed to the view that there is in some sense a conceptual connection between cause and effect: he holds that one cannot conceive a (total) cause as having less reality or perfection than is contained in the effect; or, indeed, as failing itself to contain the effect, "formally or eminently."J6 Some have held that this principle - sometimes called a "causal likeness principle" is inconsistent with the postulation of mind-body interaction. Some have held, in fact, that Descartes himself saw an inconsistency in maintaining mind-body interaction. Bennett, while acknowledging that Descartes "freely allowed" mind-body interaction in "some of his works," claims that: Usually, however, Descartes was uneasy about allowing causal flow between thought and extension.]7

Bennett goes on to relate Descartes' followers' rejection of mind-body interaction to the causal principle of Meditations III, interpreted as indicating that an effect cannot receive a property not possessed by the cause. (It is not entirely clear whether Bennett means to suggest that Descartes' own "uneasiness" had something to do with his causal principle.) In fact, however, Descartes decisively rejected any claim that the postulation of mind-body interaction involves inconsistency. As he writes to Clerselier, it is a "false" supposition, "which cannot in any way be proved," that if the soul and body are two substances of different nature. that prevents them from being able to act one upon the other. 18

It is perfectly credible, moreover, that this posItIOn IS compatible with Descartes' causal principle (or principles). The key points are (I) that Descartes initially states his causal restriction in terms of "reality or perfection"; and (2) that he permits "eminent" containment (of effect in cause). The "reality" aspect of the principle rules out only the causation of the more perfect by the less perfect; thus it absolutely does not rule out the causation of matter by God, or of a physical mode by a mental one. Even the requirement that the cause must "contain" the effect does not rule out cross-attribute causation per se, precisely because "eminent containment" is allowed. Admittedly, there is some problem in reconciling Descartes' restrictions with body-mind causation, on the assumption that mind is more perfect than body. One move by which Descartes might cover this point and perhaps one which he does actually make - is to hold that a bodily

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state is never more than a partial cause of a mental state (amplified by further causes which are themselves mental). If one takes Descartes' causal principle(s) to imply that the concept of the effect "involves" the concept of a cause with equal or greater perfection, one might conclude that, in a marginal sense, Descartes accepts a version of EIax4. But he does not accept EIax4 as Spinoza interprets it. As the statement to Clerselier in effect shows, Descartes sees no difficulty in the notion that conceptually distinct substances can satisfy such conceptual conditions as exist on causation: the distinctness of res cogitans from res extensa does not prevent the substances or their modes being suitably comparable in terms of degrees of reality or perfection. Unlike Spinoza, Descartes does not accept a specific identification of the conceptual restriction on causation with the conceptual involvement of attribute in mode: and there seems to be no obvious "inconsistency" in his position. One may still ask, however, whether Spinoza's argument against interactionism from axiom 4 has intrinsic plausibility. On the one hand, the popularity over the centuries of the view that mind-body interaction is somehow "inconceivable" would seem to suggest that Spinoza has some sort of intuition on his side. On the other hand, it does not seem that the exact nature of the alleged problem has ever been made very clear; and it is certainly doubtful that Spinoza's argument does very much to clarify it. For there seems to be no great difficulty, for Cartesians or others, in rejecting Elax4 on its Spinozist interpretation: as requiring that the concept of an effect "involve" the concept of a cause in a way that presupposes identity of attribute between the twO. 39 In summary, the main points I have so far made about Elax4 are the following. First, Spinoza takes the mode-attribute relation to satisfy the axiom. Insofar as an attribute is considered as cause, knowledge of an effect is sufficient for knowledge of the cause (and it is not too hard to see why this should be so). Second, the knowledge of the effect involves knowledge of the cause, under the mode--attribute interpretation, even when the former is inadequate. Third, Spinoza views the "conceivability" relation between effect and cause indicated by Elax4 as ruling out inter-attribute causality: for he construes it as inconsistent with the conceptual distinctness that obtains between attributes. (I have also held that the Cartesian can coherently resist the latter move, without totally denying the spirit of Elax4, because his causal principle requires only a more abstract, less restrictive condition on causal conceivability.) I turn now to Spinoza's use of axiom 4 in connection with certain positive doctrines about mode-mode causality. Of greatest interest are its roles in

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grounding the "parallelist" thesis developed In Ethics II, and in underpinning the crucial theory of external perception presented later in the same part. I will take these up in order.

III

Perhaps the most striking use of Elax4 occurs in the proof of EIIp7, one of the foundation stones of Part II, and subsequent sections of the Ethics. The proposi tion reads: The order, and connection of ideas is the same. as the order, and connection of things.

The demonstration is stunningly simple: This is evident from Axiom 4, p. 1. For the idea of whatever is caused depends on the knowledge of the cause, of which it is the effect. [Patet ex Ax. 4. p. 1. Nam cujuscunque causati idea a cognitione causae. cujus est effectus. dependet.]

It is here that the transition occurs to the use of "idea" as a substitution for "cognitio." In addition, "depends" is here the operative verb, whereas the arguments previously considered (and one to be considered later) rely on "involves." What is the significance of these changes? Bennett holds that in this application of Elax4 "idea" /" cognitio" must be understood as a "mental" or "psychological" term (as opposed to the "logical" interpretation that he considers appropriate to other contexts).40 It seems to follow that the appeal to EIax4 is specious, for a different "axiom" must really be involved: one concerned with the relation of "mental" items. as opposed to an expression of the relation of "logical" items, or concepts. Bennett's reason for this view is that Spinoza soon begins identifying "the human mind" with "the idea of' the human body. He is able to find. however, no satisfactory account of the new "axiom. "41 There are a number of reasons to reject Bennett's view. For one thing. Spinoza has just defined an idea as a concept: "a concept of the Mind that the Mind forms insofar as it is a thinking thing" (ElIdef3). Admittedly, one may object to Spinoza's combining this definition with the identification of minds with ideas; but the definition does rather clearly indicate that Spinoza sees no sharp break between terms that Bennett considers "logical" and those that he considers "psychological." Further, it is at best misleading to construe the term "idea" in the Ethics as "psychological" or "mental." Bennett seems to take for granted that the meaning of "mental" or

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"psychological" at least is clear: but this is something one emphatically must not take for granted in dealing with Spinoza. 42 Finally, up to EIIp7 Spinoza has been talking exclusively of ideas in God. Making sense of the claim that there actually exists an ordered series of "ideas," in one-to-one correspondence with the series of things, really depends on thinking of "ideas" in this way, as bits of God's omniscience. (At any rate, one could hardly make sense of the claim if one thought of ideas as items just of human- and perhaps other higher animal - awareness.) Thus, EIIp3, which provides necessary background for EIlp7 (though not explicitly invoked in the "demonstration"), reads: In God there is necessarily the idea both of his essence, and of all things that necessarily follow from his essence:]

I conclude that, since the need for interpretation of Spinoza's terminology in relation to ordinary usage extends to the term "idea" itself, and to "mens" as well, it is misleading to insist that Elax4 takes on a new, "psychological" sense when introduced in the proof of EIIp7. 44 Of course this observation does not settle the question whether the axiom is susceptible of a single interpretation in all of its applications; and does not conflict with the point that Elax4 turns out to have important connections with Spinoza's theory of "the human mind." Whatever significance one attaches to the substitution of "idea" for "knowledge" at EIIp7, one should recognize that this application of the axiom also includes a different shift, which truly is important: the switch from "involves" to "depends on." Whereas "involves" connotes a relation of internal conceptual inclusion, "depends" connotes a sort of external relation between ideas or items of knowledge. This distinction between internal and external causal and cognitive relationships is in fact the basis for Spinoza's distinction between adequate and inadequate knowledge, between "God insofar as he is affected by the human Mind," and "God insofar as he is considered as affected by other ideas" (EIIp28d). That Spinoza is able to make such a distinction shows something important about Elax4: that the "involvement" of cause in effect is somehow limited. For, if all ideas in the human mind involved the full chain of their causes without limit, then, it seems, there could only be adequate knowledge, or knowledge that contains the "premises" as well as the "conclusions" (EIIp28d). Spinoza in fact stresses that the human mind knows things only insofar as they relate to its body; whereas God knows things in all their relations, and specifically (by EIIp7 itself) knows them as effects of causes that are "prior in nature" (EIIp2S).45 This is the point at which the dual occurrence of

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"cognitio" in the axiom appears to create problems, though. For it appears to tie knowledge of anything, in any mind, to knowledge of the whole regress of causes: by the terms of the axiom, to have knowledge of anything is to have knowledge of its cause. This consideration may well lie behind Gueroult's claim that the axiom concerns only adequate knowledge. (Certainly the wording of his discussion of the axiom suggests that he had its use at EIIp7 prominently in mind.) I have shown already that Gueroult's claim cannot be sustained, however; and I will strengthen my refutation in the next section. Thus, the problem of interpreting the axiom for inadequate knowledge must be faced. I will return to it in the next section. 46 There is one other important point about the interpretation of Elax4 that emerges from its use in the demonstration of EIIp7: namely, that the dependence relation between ideas is the same as the relation that holds between material causes and effects. This is clear from the fact that the axiom is supposed to support the idem of EIIp7: the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things. Further, Spinoza actually begins speaking of the order of ideas as causal in EIIp9d: [T]he order and connection of ideas (by Prop. 7 of this part) is the same as the order and connection of causes [or things].47 Therefore. the cause of one singular idea is another idea, or God, insofar as he is considered to be affected by another idea ... and so on, to infinity,,8

Thus it is clear that Spinoza does not distinguish (from the theocentric point of view) between the relation of necessary determination that holds among physical things and that which obtains among cognitiones. There may actually be less information here than appears to meet the eye, however. To tell us that the same relation holds among physical causes that holds among bits of God's omniscience does not really tell us all that much about the relation. In particular, it does not directly tell us that the relation in question should be construed as "logical entailment." For in order to tell us this, it would have to make clear - as it does not - that the envisaged relation among ideas is one of logical entailment. IV

The final application of EIax4 that I will consider occurs at EIIp16. This proposition is concerned with our knowledge of external bodies, i.e., bodies external to our own bodies. To understand the problem of external perception as it presents itself to Spinoza, it will be helpful again to consider Descartes' position briefly for purposes of contrast.

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Descartes uses a ca usa I argument to justify his belief that there are bodies, starting from the solipsistic viewpoint of the thinking self. His causalcontainment principle yields, he insists, the conclusion that the cause of his sensory ideas of bodies must contain as much reality as is contained in the ideas themselves, considered as ideas of bodies. But to obtain conclusions that the causes of these ideas must be physical, Descartes introduces further premises about both his "disposition to believe" that the ideas are caused by bodies, and God's veracity. After he has obtained this general conclusion that "corporeal things exist," Descartes proceeds to conclude, more specifically, that he "has" a body and feels sensations according to its needs; and, further, that there are other bodies which exist around his body, and can do it good or harm. Subsequently in the Meditations - and also in such other works as the Dioptrics and the Principles - Descartes explains the process of sense perception more concretely. Motions transmitted from bodies form impressions in the brain, there giving rise to sensory ideas in the mind, according to a "natural convention," or system of regular correlations, established by God. These ideas in turn may lead the mind to make judgments about external things. Because the ideas tend to be confused, the judgments are very likely to be mistaken unless carefully subordinated to reason. A number of aspects of Spinoza's general position underlie the fundamental differences between his position on the perception of bodies and that of Descartes. Among them are the fact that Spinoza eschews the Cartesian solipsistic starting point, in favor of a theocentric one; that he accords little epistemological priority to the mental; and (most important in the present context) that he repudiates causal interaction between mind and body. According to Spinoza, the human body is that "existing thing" which (by EIIpll, citing EIlp7) is the "object" of the idea which "constitutes the being of the human Mind." Thus, according to EIIpI3: The object of the idea constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode of Extension actually existing, and nothing else.

Hence it follows, Spinoza says, "that man consists of Mind and Body, and the human Body, as we sense it [prout ipsum sentimus] exists" (EIIpI3c). One thing we know about this mysterious "object of" relation is that it is non-causal: the mind's objects are never causes of it or of (the formal being of) its subsidiary ideas. Thus, as Spinoza says in EIIp5: [T]he ideas both of God's attributes and singular things do not admit as their efficient cause the objects [ideata] them,elves, or the things perceived, but God himself. insofar as he is a thinking thing.

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Yet EIax4 does enter into Spinoza's account of sense perception in a crucial way. Descartes, as mentioned above. uses a causal argument to establish the existence of body, reasoning in a general way from ideas of sense; he then moves specifically to claims about his own body and external bodies. Spinoza first establishes the existence of the human body as the "object," but not cause, of the human mind. But he then faces the problem of providing an account of the "perception" of external bodies (i.e .. bodies external to the human body), given that he takes "perception" to be strictly mental, and that he denies any physical-mental causality. If the relation between sense perception and thing perceived cannot at all be explained in terms of a causal relation between the two, how are we to understand it? In addressing this problem Spinoza again enlists the aid of EIax4. Important in the analysis is EIIp12: Whatever happens in the object of the idea that constitutes the human Mind must be perceived by the human Mind, or there necessarily is given in the Mind the idea of this thing. That is, if the object of the idea constituting the human Mind is a body, nothing can happen in this body which is not perceived by the human Mind.

Thus, the idea or knowledge of any change of state in the body will occur in the mind, of which the body is the "object." But, when the change of state is the effect of an external body, then it would seem to follow directly by EIax4 that knowledge of this change of state "involves" knowledge of its cause. i.e., that in virtue of having knowledge of the bodily changes, the mind also has knowledge of, or perceives, the external bodies which cause them. This is in fact roughly the line that Spinoza does take, but two points of mild complication need to be noted. First, in developing his theory of sense perception, Spinoza relies on the following additional "axiom," presented as Axiom l' in the midst of the lemmata about bodies that follow EIIp13: All the modes in which any body is affected by another body follow from the nature of the affected body. and at the same time from the nature of the affecting body ....

Such modes, in other words, have as causes both the affected and the affecting bodies. So, by EIax4, the ideas of these modes will involve the knowledge or ideas of the affected, as well as the affecting bodies. This enables Spinoza to conclude that sense perception reflects the nature of our own body as well as external bodies, a view which he relates to the subjectivity of sense perception. 49 Second, Spinoza's phrasing of the key proposition about sense perception fails to reflect the phrasing of Elax4 in a puzzling way, despite the explicit

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citation of the axiom in its demonstration. "Knowledge of an effect ... knowledge of the cause" is altered to "knowledge of an effect ... nature of the cause." Thus, EIIpl6 - which has as its first corollary the claim that "the human Mind perceives the nature of a great many bodies together with the nature of its own body" - reads as follows: The idea of any mode in which the human Body is affected by external bodies must involve the nature of the human Body, and at the same time the nature of the external body.

For (according to the demonstration), the idea of such a mode will (by Elax4) necessarily involve the nature of both the bodies from which (by the special lemmata axiom) the mode follows: the human body itself, and the external body. I see no great significance in the omission of the second "cognitio" (or "idea") in EIIp16, and shall not comment on it further. 50 But the fact that our perceptions of the states by which we know external bodies at the same time reflect the nature of our own bodies connects with a point on which I want particularly to insist. Both the ideas of the affections of the human body and the ideas of external bodies with which EIIp16 is concerned manifestly include confused or inadequate ideas. Since the derivation of EIIp16 turns on Elax4, then, we see again that the latter cannot be construed as restricted to adequate ideas. Spinoza directly asserts at EII p25: The idea of any affection of the human Body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the external body.

The proof of EIIp25 depends on the claim that (by EIlp7) God has knowledge of any external body, not merely insofar as it affects the human body, but also insofar as he has an idea of something outside the human body, something "prior in nature" to the external body. But EIIp16 is concerned only with knowledge of the external body insofar as the latter is a cause of an affection of the human body - from which point of view the knowledge must thus be inadequate. Again, Spinoza maintains at EIIp28: The ideas of the affections of the human Body, insofar as they are related only to the human Mind, are not clear and distinct, but confused.

Now, EIIp16 is of course not restricted to "ideas of the affections of the human Body, insofar as they are related only to the human Mind." But it must be taken to encompass ideas considered in this way: otherwise the crucial inference from EIIp16 to its first corollary would be incomprehensible. Hence the ideas of the affections of the human body, and

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the perceptions of external bodies which (by Elax4) they "involve," include inadequate and confused ideas. In other words, the axiom is supposed to be satisfied under conditions where both occurrences of "cognitio" denote inadequate knowledge. Axiom l' from the lemmata section is not formally involved in the proof of the inadequacy of the ideas which (by EIIp16) we have of external bodies. It is clear, though, that Spinoza does connect the claim that our ideas of external things involve the nature of our own body as well as (indeed, by EIIp16c2, more than) the nature of external bodies with the error of confusing our own physiological responses with actual properties of objects. For this is precisely the point of the examples he cites at EIIp16c2. Thus Spinoza appears to explain the "inadequacy" or "confusion" of our perception of external things through their effects on our bodies in two ways. On the one hand, he holds that adequate ideas of the things require knowledge of them through "things prior in nature" (or prior "in the order of nature"), and not merely through their effects. On the other hand, he indicates that our ideas of external bodies are thoroughly contaminated with "the nature of our own bodies," through which we perceive them. Beside refuting the view that EIax4 applies only to "idees vraies, " its use in the proof of EIIp16 also tells strongly against any attempt to construe the axiom as an expression of "causal rationalism," as explained by Bennett. The notion that we know or perceive external things confusedly through their effects on our bodies is perhaps consistent with the notion that the effects are "logical consequences" of the causes (assuming one can make any sense at all of the latter view). But, certainly, no such deductivist view is involved in the account of knowledge that Spinoza goes on to describe as "confused" and "mutilated" (EIIp28d and EIIp29c,s)Y Earlier I suggested that the notion that "knowledge of an effect involves knowledge of a cause" is susceptible to an obvious and commonsensical interpretation. once one notes that attributes count as "causes" of their modes (assuming a more or less Cartesian conception of attributes). I now want to suggest that it is possible to interpret, in commonsensical terms, the "involvement" of knowledge of cause in knowledge of effect that might be at issue in EIIp16 - as long as one is ready to follow Spinoza in saying that the mind "knows" its body. For if one thinks of sense perception as an "effect" of external things, it is hard to see how to avoid thinking of it as an effect that "involves the nature" of its cause or its causes. Even if one restricts oneself, as Spinoza's system requires, to intra-attribute causation, the notion of "involvement" makes obvious sense. One need only think of retinal images, let alone of the impressions of external objects lodged in the center

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of the brain. on standard Cartesian theory. The internal states do not merely follow on external stimuli - do not only follow with necessity from external stimuli: they in some sense incorporate the external entity (or so it seems). It would be a mistake to rely too far. though. on this homely view of Spinoza's application of Elax4 in developing his theory of our perception of external bodies: at best. it constitutes a sort of partial interpretation. I have already mentioned in passing Spinoza's claim that the human mind perceives everything that happens in the human body. What we must now acknowledge is that his use of axiom 4 in EIIpl6 and its corollaries appears to commit him also to the view that we perceive everything that causes any change whatsoever in our body. Retinal images (or for that matter the cortical mappings of contemporary perceptual theory) can have no favored status as effects relevant to external perceptions. as opposed, for instance, to X-rays transmitted through one's hand, odorless and colorless gasses that have subtle metabolic effects, and so onY (Such considerations are also sufficient to show what a very technical sense "cognitio" has taken on by the middle of Ethics II; we are far indeed from such routine illustrations as "improving our intellectual grasp on the French revolution by learning more about its ca uses. ") I return. finally. to the problem sketched toward the end of the last section: that of reconciling the cognitive regress implicit in Elax4 with the claim - essential to the notion of inadequate knowledge - that we have only limited knowledge of the causal chains that impinge on our bodies. As recently noted, the proofs of EIIp24 and EIIp25 lay some emphasis on the notion that God's possession of adequate knowledge of external things consists in the fact that he knows them through his ideas of things "prior in the order of nature" to them. One might take this to mean that God, "insofar as he is affected with other ideas," has ideas of the causes of external things, whereas God, "insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human mind," has ideas only of their effects. It does not seem. however, that Spinoza can categorically deny, consistently with Elax4, that our causal knowledge. too. in some sense extends to infinity. Perhaps the problem of reconciling inadequate knowledge with Elax4 can be more satisfactorily resolved by focusing on another theme prominent in these passages: the observation that we know things only in relation to our own body. whereas God knows them in all their relations with all bodies and in the correct, "internal" order. Thus (one might propose) it does not really matter how many cause-ideas are somehow "involved" in the idea that constitutes the human mind; the knowledge will remain inadequate and partial as long as each of these presents its object only in its limited relation

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to us. (Whether this is a completely satisfactory solution - one consistent with other aspects of Spinoza's treatment of adequate and inadequate knowledge- I will not attempt to determine here.)53 Conclusion I have tried to show how several attempts to explain or interpret EIax4 fail to fit well with - or are actually contradicted by - some of the most important uses of the axiom in the Ethics. One moral I draw from all this is, of course, that there is not much point in trying either to explain or to justify the axiom in an off-the-cuff manner, without considering in detail what Spinoza does with it. This moral applies to attempts to interpret the axiom in terms of other Spinozist doctrine (such as the theory of adequate ideas); to attempts to give commonsensical readings; to efforts to relate it to previous or contemporary causal theories. It applies as well to attempts to connect the axiom with "causal rationalism" or (more specifically) the "logical entailment" view of causality supposedly expressed in ElpI6-17, and elsewhere in Spinoza's work. I have also argued that Bennett's claim, that the axiom has a different sense at EIlp7 from its other applications, fails to take adequate account of the context of that proposition, and of the oddities of Spinoza's use of "mental" terms. I have not claimed that the axiom is used in a consistent and univocal way throughout the Ethics, though. Indeed, the fact that the "involves" component figures essentially in certain contexts, while "depends" does the work in others, shows at least that appeal to "Elax4" does not come to exactly the same thing in all cases. Further, the fact that the axiom unquestionably applies across the distinction between adequate and inadequate knowledge introduces additional interesting complications into the interpretive problem. 54

Notes 1. Sometimes Spinoza speaks in similar terms of the determination of one finite mode by another: "These [human dispositions] follow from this [human] affect as necessarily as [it follows] from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles" (EIVp57s). Translations throughout the paper are substantially my own. Translations of Spinoza are based on the Gebhardt edition. I have. however, consulted Shirley's and Curley's versions of most passages. 2. Henry E. Allison, Benedict de Spinoza (Boston: Twayne, 1975), p. 71; G.H.R. Parkinson, Spinoza's Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1954), p. 64; Jonathan Bennett. A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1984), p. 30.

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For a relatively detailed discussion, see E.M. Curley, Spinoza's Metaphysics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 45 ff. 3. Curley's exposition of the "logical entailment" interpretation, while not entirely clear, is the clearest I know. (For reference, see n.2.) 4. At Elp33s1 Spinoza offers an "explanation" of how "necessary" should be understood. This turns out to consist of explaining that things are "necessary" either by reason of their essence or by reason of their cause! The account he offers here of impossibility is perhaps slightly more suggestive: a thing is said to be impossible "either because its essence or definition involves a contradiction, or because no external cause is given, determined to produce such a thing." (See Curley, chap. 3, for some other passages relevant to this issue from the Ethics and other works.) 5. Charles Jarrett has said of the axiom in question that it "might in fact be taken as a definition of 'cause' "; "The Logical Structure of Spinoza's Ethics," Synthese 37 (1978): 29. This suggestion derives support from Spinoza's definition of "adequate cause" and "inadequate cause" at the beginning of Ethics III. 6. Among those who have objected to translating "cognitio" as "knowledge" are Jonathan Bennett (Study, p. 127) and Alan Donagan (in conversation). I prefer to use "knowledge" because the one likely alternative, "cognition," sounds so strained and contrived as to be distracting. The term employed in Elax4 is the same used by Spinoza in EIIp40s2, where he expounds (what are usually known in English as) the three kinds of knowledge. Later I will emphasize that" cognitio" in Elax4 is not restricted to adequate knowledge, i.e., to knowledge of the second or third kinds. Spinoza, of course, also uses the term "scientia," which has a more restricted sense for him than" cognitio." Thus, in EIIp40s2, the third kind of knowledge is identified as "scientia intuitiva." 7. I see no justification for the practice followed by most English-language translators - including both Curley and Shirley - of simplifying the structure of the axiom by incorporating" et eandem involvit" into the first clause: "The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause" (The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and transI. E.M. Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), vol. I, p.41O; see also Spinoza, The Ethics and Selected Letters, transl. Samuel Shirley, ed. Seymour Feldman (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1982), p. 32.) Although this move does not change the literal sense of the axiom, it does create a slight shift of emphasis away from "involvit," as a distinct relation. But as I shall show, this is really the operational term in most of the important applications of the axiom, and the distinction between "involvere" and "dependere" is genuinely significant. (By contrast, Louis Loeb maintains that "involvit" does not figure essentially in any application, and accordingly "simplifies" axiom 4 by dropping the term; From Descartes to Hume {Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981} p. 102.) I take it that the antecedent of "eandem" is clear on either reading. 8. See vol. I of Gueroult's Spinoza, Dieu (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), pp. 95-98; Loeb, From Descartes to Hume, pp. 102-103, and 167 ff.; Bennett, Study, p.50 and 127 ff.; Zellner, "Spinoza's Causal Likeness Principle," Philosophy Research Archives 9 (March 1986): 453-462. 9. "Axiom 4, and the parallelism between the order of ideas and the order of causes that it implies, does not hold for inadequate ideas. '" Axiom 4 concerns nothing but true ideas." Gueroult, Spinoza, I, pp. 96 -97.

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10. Ibid., p. 96. It will turn out that "including in itself the integral knowledge of the causes of its object" may not be a sufficient condition of adequate knowledge for Spinoza: confused and inadequate ideas, by virtue of EIax4, contain knowledge of their causes, considered in certain relations. 11. Loeb, Descartes to Hume. p.l02. 12. Ibid., pp. 102-103. (Loeb cites a relevant passage on knowledge of effects from the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.) 13. Ibid., pp. 103, 175. As indicated in note 10, above, I will suggest later that, in a sense. all ideas may have to involve infinite causal knowledge. This result derives from the double appearance of "cognitio" in the axiom, which of course suggests a regress: if the cause is itself an effect, then cognitio of it will require cognitio of its cause, and so forth. This consideration seems to underlie the longer passage quoted from Gueroult. His error, in my view, is to assume that the regressive aspect of the axiom ties it exclusively to the domain of adequate knowledge. 14. Bennett, Study, p. 129. Bennett notes that on such an understanding the axiom would require "an infinite mental embrace - a cognition of something, and of its cause, and of its cause, and so on." (At this point he is considering what he takes to be the "psychological" version of the axiom; un surprisingly, then, he considers it less than evident that on this strong interpretation there will exist a "cognition" that satisfies it.) 15. Ibid., p. 179. Bennett is here discussing EIIpI6, and hence assuming what he calls the "logical" understanding of EIax4; see ibid., pp. 127-128, and p. 128, n. 1.) 16. Even on this understanding, Bennett doesn't seem to think the axiom is especially plausible, though it's hard to see why not. 17. Bennett does not say it does. In fact, on p. 179 he is indicating that, on its most "plausible" reading, the axiom cannot help with the problem at hand: of explaining why inadequate ideas are "mutilated." His approach throughout is to generate freely possible "meanings" of the axiom, evaluating each one in terms of (1) whether it is "plausible," and (2) whether it produces a valid argument in the context under discussion. (It appears that none of the readings of the axiom that he considers in connection with particular arguments passes both tests.) My approach here, by contrast, will be to try to get a better understanding of Spinoza's conception of the axiom by close consideration of its use. 18. "Spinoza's Causal Likeness Principle," pp.453-456. 19. "Cognitio" also appears prominently in EIax5, discussed below, which Zellner regards as providing a partial interpretation of axiom 4. 20. Bennett, like Zellner, interprets a remark that Spinoza makes in correspondence with Oldenburg (Letter 4) as indicating a "transfer" view of causality, which would rule out mind-body interaction. He expresses agnosticism, however, about "[w]hether this line of thought was at work in [Spinoza's] later years, encouraging his view that if one thing has nothing in common with another it cannot be its cause" (p. 50). The gist of the comment to Oldenburg is that an effect must have something in common with its cause; otherwise "whatever the effect had, it would have from nothing" (Letter 4; G41 10-11; Curley transl., vol. I, p. 172). I do not think this comment actually establishes a transfer view of causality. (It is compatible as well with, for example, a "copy" view of causality.) The passage from Spinoza's

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exposition of Descartes' Principles, which Zellner also cites in this connection. seems to me even less strongly indicative of a transfer or transmission view. 21. Bennett. Study, pp.29-30. 22. It of course cannot be assumed that a philosopher influenced by Descartes understands "deduction" as a formal relation. 23. This point seems to be generally accepted in the literature; cf., e.g .. Jarrett, "Logical Structure .... " p. 32; and Bennett. Study, p. 127. 24. Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. 12 vols. (Paris: Cerf. 1897-1913; reprinted Vrin 1957-1958), vol. VIII-I, p.29. 25. See also EIIp45d: "'[Particular things] have God for their cause, insofar as he is considered under the attribute. of which the things themselves are modes." 26. Bennett, Study, pp. 75-79. 27. As Jarrett remarks ("Logical Structure ... ," p. 29), the respective uses of Elax4 in Elp3 and Elp25 show that it must be interpreted as a biconditional. In the former. Spinoza takes it that x causes y only if knowledge of y depends on knowledge of x. In the latter, the operant assumption is that knowledge of y depends on knowledge of x only if x causes y. A less charitable view is taken by Bennett (Study, p. 128, n. I), who accuses Spinoza of an "illegitimate conversion" of the axiom at Elp25. 28. EIIp45d. The omissions indicated by the ellipses are references to EIIp6 and Eldef6. respectively. 29. Given the transition from "cognitio" to "conceptus" at the beginning of Ethics I. the substitutability of "idea" appears to be licensed by the definition of that term at the beginning of Ethics II. 30. Because the attributes are "self-caused." the knowledge of them does not require any further knowledge under Elax4; and a regress problem does not emerge at this point. The use of Elax4 in connection with external perception - where both cause and effect are finite modes - does present such a problem, though. I will return to this issue in Section IV. 31. I have tried to demonstrate the integral connection between Elpl6 and "the third kind of knowledge" in "Infinite Understanding. Scientia Intuitiva, and Ethics I.l6." Midwest Studies in Philosophy VIII, ed. Peter A. French et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1983). pp. 181-191. 32. Another example that Zellner mentions is that of transfer of heat from one body to another. 33. See EIIp46. 34. The discussion in this section owes a considerable debt to Loeb's vigorous arguments in Descartes to Hume, chaps. 3 and 4. 35. The proposition Spinoza derives at Elp3 with the aid of Elax4 - "if two things have nothing in common. one cannot be the cause of the other" - no doubt qualifies as a causal likeness principle. But this proposition is largely an idle part, and plays no role in the formal "refutation" of mind-body interaction. On this point, see Loeb's excellent discussion in Descartes to Hume, pp. I R6-190. 36. Adam and Tannery, vol. VII. pp. 40-41; cf. the French version, vol. IX-I, p. 32. This principle figures both in Descartes' hrst argument for the existence of God and his later proof of the existence of bodies. 37. Bennett, Study, pp. 49-50. 38. Adam and Tannery. vol. IX-I. p. 213; Descartes goes on to observe (in the same

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sentence) that others don't hesitate to affirm that "accidents" like heat and weight can act on a body; yet, he says, there is "more of a difference" (plus de difference) between accidents and substance than between two substances. On this point and related ones about Descartes' position, I largely follow Loeb's work and contributions by Robert Richardson and Eileen O'Neill. See especially Richardson, "The 'Scandal' of Cartesian Interactionism," Mind 91 (1982): 20-37; and O'Neill, "Mind-Body Interaction and Metaphysical Consistency: A Defense of Descartes," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 25: 2, pp. 227 -245. O'Neill's interpretive position is developed more fully in Mind and Mechanism: An Examination of Some Mind-Body Problems in Descartes' Philosophy (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1983). 39. These points are cogently urged by Loeb, pp. 171-190. 40. Bennett, Study, pp.127-131. 41. Ibid., p. 129: "I have done nothing to make 1a4 believable on a psychological reading, and that task is too much for me. It is hard even to suggest reasons for Spinoza's finding it plausible. He may have been influenced by its plausibility when read logically." 42. For a detailed defense of this claim, see my paper, "Objects, Ideas, and 'Minds': Comments on Spinoza's Theory of Mind," in The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, ed. Richard Kennington (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1980), pp.103-120. 43. Bennett stresses the importance of EIIp3 for the "parallelism" thesis. But his treatment of EIax4 in connection with EIIp7 is rendered very confusing by his failure to consider the relevance of EIIp3 until after he has defended the need for a "psychological" reading for several pages, and raised objections to Spinoza's position read in this way. 44. One could even say that, in a sense, EIIp7 requires a less "psychological" reading of EIax4 than the other uses considered in this paper. The uses considered previously involve" cognitiones" of mind and body that are (on one interpretation of the mode-attribute relation, anyway) directly and consciously accessible to the human mind; the one to be considered last has to do with human sense perception. 45. See also EIIp24. 46. It is true, of course, that the use of EIax4 at EIIp7 has an important connection with the concept of adequate knowledge. The dependence relation among ideas with which proposition 7 is concerned is, precisely, the system of ideas in God; and" All ideas ... insofar as they are related to God, are true ... and ... adequate" (EIIp36d). It does not follow, though, that truth or adequacy is presupposed as a condition on "idea" /"cognitio, " even in its application at EIIp7. For EIIp36d bases the claim about adequacy directly on EIIp7c, and the claim about truth on EIIp32, which is itself based on appeal to the same corollary (together with Elax6, "A true idea must agree with its object"). In other words. claims about truth and adequacy are posterior to this application of the axiom. 47. See Curley's note in his translation of Spinoza's works, vol. I, p.453. 48. See also EIIp6c: "[T]he objects of ideas follow and are inferred [consequuntur, & concluduntur] from their attributes in the same way, and with the same necessity as we have shown ideas to follow from the attribute of Thought." 49. Indeed, according to EIIp16c2, our ideas of external bodies indicate the nature

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of our own body more than of external bodies. It is doubtful that Spinoza is strictly entitled to this conclusion by his preceding argument: see Curley's edition, vol. I. p.463, n.42. . 50. Cf. Gueroult, Spinoza, vol. II, pp. 194-195, for a different view (which I think is mistaken). 51. It is perhaps worth mentioning that, inasmuch as EIIp16 is specifically concerned with external causes, its reliance on EIax4 implicitly rules out an attempt to interpret the axiom strictly in terms of constituent causes (where "knowing the effect" would be understood as knowing the nature of the effect, and knowing the nature of the effect would mean knowing its molecular structure, underlying chemical processes, or other microstructural factors). I do not discuss such an interpretation in the body of the paper because it does not seem to have been advocated by publishing scholars, though I have occasionally heard it proposed in both seminars and informal discussion. 52. This consequence is indeed more fundamental to Spinoza's account of perception than the claim that the human mind perceives everything that happens in the human body. See n.49, above. 53. At one time I believed that the axiom's assertion of "involvement" actually came into conflict with the assertion of "dependence," since ideas of affections have to depend on ideas of remote causes, but (given the existence of inadequate knowledge) could not generally involve the ideas of remote causes. The solution I now propose in effect allows one to say that ideas of effects do generally involve ideas of remote causes, but only in a limited or partial way, working outward from effects, rather than "concluding" to effects from causes. 54. A confused and mutilated earlier version of this paper was presented at a Philosophy Department colloquium at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as at the Jerusalem Spinoza Conference. I'm grateful to the participants on both occasions, and especially to Annette Baier, for helpful and constructive comments. Work on the paper was undertaken during a year of leave, with support, from Princeton University, for which I also wish to express my thanks.

Pierre Macherey

From Action to Production of Effects: Observations on the Ethical Significance of Ethics I

Under the heading "On God," Spinola begins his Ethics with an exposition of universal necessity which is based on the dual relationship of substance to its attributes (Elpl-15) and to its modes (ElpI6-36). The general context of this exposition is described clearly in the recapitulation given at the beginning of the Appendix: With these [demonstrations] I have explained God's nature and properties: that he exists necessarily; that he is unique; that he is and acts from the necessity alone of his nature; that (and how) he is the free cause of all things; that all things are in God and so depend on him that without him they can neither be nor be conceived; and finally, that all things have been predetermined by God, not from freedom of the will or absolute good pleasure, but from God's absolute nature, or infinite power.

The phrase "all things have been predetermined by him" is exceptionally expressive of the meaning of this summary. SpinOla's correspondents, who were familiar with this text or its contents, were particularly surprised that such an assertion of absolute determinism comes at the beginning of a work called Ethics, which purports to reveal the conditions under which human existence could be liberated. For, while providing an apparently unshakable metaphysical and physical foundation for this "ethics," SpinOla was not divesting the idea of freedom of all content by placing it, from the beginning. within the massive order of a system of necessity that negated it in advance. This is essentially Hegel's argument as well. Basically stated, Hegel's criticism of SpinOla's system is that any philosophy based on the idea of substance, as though it were self-sufficient, is bound to either underestimate or completely overlook the idea of the subject. Recent commentators have described similar difficulties vis-a-vis what they view as SpinOla's two ethics. To them it seems that SpinOla's work is the result of two successive doctrines: a doctrine of necessity based on the principle of predetermination. and a doctrine of freedom that allows for the possible and the contingent -

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the transition from the first to the second being effected by means of a moreor-less artificial and coherent montage. Spinoza was aware of this type of objection, but he regarded it as a false problem, based on a misunderstanding as to what "necessity" and "freedom" mean, and on a dissociation of their contents. In asserting that. on the contrary, these two ideas do not relate to distinct realities but say the same thing in different terms, Spinoza wished to indicate that the beginning parts of the Ethics are not merely aimed at laying the groundwork for an ethical doctrine, but actually constitute this ethics - considered from the point of view of the initial conditions for it. These initial conditions could then be developed to lead us, as though by the hand, to the supreme beatitude: freedom. There is one observation that I should like to make in passing. It has been usual to describe the various stages ofSpinoza's reasoning by using the term "book." Thus, one speaks of "Books" I, II, III, IV and V of the Ethics. This seems to permit the conception that the Ethics is a collection of separate treatises - briefly stated, an ontology or a theology, an epistemology together with a physics, and a physiology, politics and, finally, an ethics that have been collected and arranged in a certain order for publication. Spinoza, however, expressly states that these are successive "parts" of a whole: an "Ethics demonstrated in geometric order and divided into five parts" (my emphasis). Now, the term "part," inasmuch as the idea that it represents assumes a whole (one need only consider the decisive stakes involved in the simple formulation pars naturae) is not at all ingenuous in Spinoza; he undoubtedly chose this term deliberately to designate the principal divisions of his work. Thus, and more specifically, "On God" is simply the first part of an Ethics, from which it can only be detached artificially. This brings us back to the very general problem encountered above: how can we read the theory of necessity expounded in Ethics I so that it reveals the concept of freedom that must be implicit in it from the beginning? In other words, how can one restore its fundamentally ethical dimension to this "part" of the text? For, without this, Spinoza's philosophy runs the risk of being divided into heterogeneous doctrinal elements. Obviously, one should not presuppose its unity as though one were dealing with a dogma, but should instead see if it can be established through an attentive reading of the text itself, knowing that, if we cannot prove such a unity, Spinoza's philosophy will have contravened its own principles and failed to achieve the ideal of rational coherence to which it aspires. As we cannot solve this whole problem, we shall deal with only one aspect, basing ourselves on the distinction between the two correlative terms

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agere (to act) and operari (to produce effects), which Spinoza uses throughout Ethics I to explicate the concept of universal necessity, this being the essential purpose of this part. This distinction is introduced as early as in Eldef7: That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, and is determined to act [ad agendum] by itself alone. But a thing is called necessary, or rather compelled, which is determined by another to exist and to produce an effect [operandum] in a certain and determinate manner.

The use of these two verbs underlines the distinction between the ideas being expressed here: a "free" thing and a "compelled" thing. What, then, is the significance and scope of this terminological distinction? Agere, Operari

The free thing, which exists from the necessity of its nature, is also determined by its nature to "act" (agere), while the compelled thing is determined by another to exist and to "produce effects" (operari) in a certain and determinate manner. Spinoza's differentiation between these two terms seems to be based on the distinction between 1tpa~t<; and 1t01T]crt<;, as formulated by Aristotle. Spinoza takes agere to express the idea of an absolute action that has its principle - Aristotle would have added: and also its end - in itself, independently of any relationship to external objects. One of the examples of a free action - "to live," which Spinoza sets forth in Letter 56 - is typically Aristotelian. The term operari, on the other hand, refers to a production that presupposes a relationship to objects, within a system of specifically technical or mechanical determinations that does not contain its significance within itself. For instance - to go back to Aristotle - because the construction of a house is subordinated to ends that do not coincide with the process of its effectuation, and because it depends on the intervention of agents and the existence of materials, it can only be carried out with reference to a model that has preceded it and subsists independently of it. A free thing "acts" by virtue of an internal cause, and a compelled thing "produces effects" by virtue of external causes whose "reason" is apparently independent of its own nature. Thus, Aristotle distinguished the £vtpy£ta of immanent action, realizing a thing through its own power or the perfection of its essence, from the KivT]crt<; of a transitive production that exploits the means or agency of other elements for the fabrication of artifacts which themselves are only means or constituent parts of larger productions of effects, and which are thus removed to an infinite degree from that which

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constitutes their proper nature (Metaphysics 1048b). The distinction between the "immanent cause" and the "transitive cause" in EIp18 undoubtedly fits into this scheme of reference. Spinoza's use of the two terms, agere and operari, is therefore crucial, in that it indicates a reversion from Cartesian to Aristotelian ideas of causality- Descartes favoring a model of transitive causality, on which he constructed, in an apparently homogenous manner, a mechanistic concept of reality, whereas Aristotle allowed for a differentiation of forms of causality which seem mutually irreducible. Does this mean that Spinoza's notion of causality does not have an unequivocal meaning, or that it results in the restoration of a hierarchical system of orders of reality similar to the one on which the ancient image of the cosmos was constructed? Before attempting a more complete interpretation, we should first ask whether Spinoza systematically correlates the terms agere and operare all along Ethics I. In EIp17d, for example, while preparing the way to the concept of immanent causality that he introduces in EIpI8, Spinoza uses agere in the same manner that he does in EIdef7: "[T]here can be nothing outside [God] by which he is determined or compelled to act [agendum]. Therefore, God acts [agit] from the laws of his nature alone, and is compelled by no one." To be free - and, here it is with God that this characteristic is specifically associated - means to "act" on one's own, independently of any external determination and, in particular, without being compelled by anyone. This conception of a free action with implicit reference to the idea of causa sui is developed in EIpI7c1: "From this it follows ... that there is no cause, either extrinsically or intrinsically, which prompts God to action, except the perfection of his nature." Divine action is free not because it has no cause in virtue of a limitless omnipotence beyond any indispensible determination, but because it has its cause in God himself, in the perfection of his naturei.e., in the laws that constitute his order - without any other extrinsic or intrinsic cause being able to act upon this action or determine this determination, as it were, in such a way as to alter its unfolding. The statement "[T]here is no cause, either extrinsically or intrinsically, which prompts God to action" is at first sight surprising: does not the perfection that defines the divine nature in itself, due to whose reason the action of God takes place, have the value of an intrinsic cause that necessitates the action? But, what Spinoza probably means is that, owing to its very immanence, this immanent cause coincides with the action that manifested it or expressed its power, and thus did not play an instigatory role that made it happen artificially and unnecessarily - as in the traditional

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theories of creation. God "acts" neither with external aims in view, nor by virtue of an arbitrary will or a free edict whose principle, being within himself, would be tantamount to an absence of principle that would render his action incomprehensible. In Letter 58, after having reiterated his definitions of free and compelled things word for word, Spinoza illustrates this through the example of divine action, which is free precisely because it contains its reason in itself: I say that a thing is free which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature ... , So also God freely understands Himself and absolutely all things. since it follows solely from the necessity of His own nature that He should understand everything. You see, therefore, that I do not place Freedom in free decision, but in free necessity.

Even if Spinoza does not utilize the term determinari (is determined) here to characterize the free thing - as he does in Elden - reserving it instead for his presentation of the compelled thing, it is clear that this does not modify his fundamental thesis, to which the paradoxical expression "free necessity" lends an even more paradoxical character. To be free, as God is, means to have assimilated and integrated the laws of rational order so that one acts completely within oneself, instead of producing an effect externally in accordance with an extrinsic law. All the texts analyzed above apply the concept of free action to God, which could not be done in terms of definition 7 alone. Thus, EIp17c2 concludes the process that begins in EIp17,d with: "It follows ... that God alone is a free cause." One can readily understand why the characteristics of a free cause (i.e., internal causality) are ascribed to God and his action, since this action takes place entirely on the basis of the principle that constitutes his being and within the order that it determines. However. this corollary says something more: it reserves to God alone the disposition of being a free cause, and hence the faculty of acting in the true sense of the word. By so doing, Spinoza seems to be withdrawing the faculty of acting "in the true sense" from all other "things" (i.e., modes of substance), and thereby dispatching them, as it were, to the other side of the system of causality, where they are exposed to the laws of the production of effects to an infinite degree. If, however, God alone has the ability to "act," it is also because an ethical approach has no further object, as it is completely absorbed in the order of necessity that determines the divine nature, outside of which there seems to be no room for free action. Similarly - and the very formulation of this difficulty provides the elements that permit its resolution - to act freely, for whoever (or rather, as we have been dealing herein only with "things," for whatever) is always to act within God, i.e., to return to the

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necessary principles that determine his being, while avoiding all the additional determinations that might spoil the play of "free necessity" as it exists on the basis of the "free cause." It is thus quite logical that EIp34d, which brings everything into the comprehensive order of the divine power, relates agere to both God and the things that he comprises: "Therefore, God's power, by which he and all things are and act [agunt], is his essence itself," for everything that is in God "acts" with him. We should note that, at this point of the argument, the two relations in se (in itself) and a se (by itself) come together. If God (i.e., all that exists) acts by himself, it is because he is acting within himself, without any need to pass beyond the limits of his order - an infinite order which is therefore completely free of any limitations. But this conjunction, which takes place only after EI p 16, and which utilizes all the elements of the demonstration that have accumulated in the interval and added to our knowledge of the divine being, is not conceivable on the basis of previous definitions. For, on the contrary, these definitions set the relations of in se and a se forward as given, true ideas, independently of the relationships that could bring them together, inasmuch as they are related to the existence of certain things. Thus, at least with respect to Ethics I, the use of agere in relation to the idea of God as a free cause is systematic. Moreover, if one examines the apparent exceptions carefully, they confirm this use indirectly. For example-following EIp32, which denies that the will in general is a free cause and labels it instead a necessary cause - corollary I concludes from the demonstration: "[I]t follows ... that God does not produce any effect [operari] by freedom of the will." I t is significant tha t here the term operari is utilized negatively in relation to God, as precisely that which does not make him into a free cause, and not. therefore, active in the true sense of the term. At the beginning of EIapp, when Spinoza states that "men commonly suppose that all natural things act [agereJ, as men do, on account of an end; indeed, they maintain as certain that God himself directs all things to some certain end" (Curley, p. 439), and again, "men act [agere] always on account of an end, viz. on account of their advantage, which they want" (p. 440), or "while they sought to show that nature does [agere] nothing in vain (i.e., nothing which is not of use to men), they seem to have shown only that nature and the Gods are as mad as men" (p. 441) - he employs the term agere in a negative context with a very precise intention. For, here Spinoza wants to convey that what men assume to be a true "action," such as one executed in accordance with principles that are proper to it, is true only in their imagination and does not correspond to anything in reality. It is when men believe that they are "acting" by themselves and for themselves that,

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without even being aware of it, and precisely because of this unawareness, they are most subject to the general laws of determinism - in other words, that their production of effects is subordinated to conditions over which they have no control. Another example of the systematic equivocations of language through which Spinoza expresses men's confusion regarding what they do, when they don't know what they are doing, or how they are doing it, is found in EIp33s2. Here Spinoza employs agere and operari in a way that seems interchangeable, as if they referred to comparable processes: I confess that this opinion, which subjects all things to a certain indifferent will of God, and makes all things depend on his good pleasure, is nearer the truth than that of those who maintain that God does [agere] all things for the sake of the good. For they seem to place something outside God, which does not depend on God, to which God attends, as a model, in what he does [operando], and at what he aims, as at a certain goal. This is simply to subject God to fate (Curley, p. 438 ff).

To take God's action as a production of effects is tantamount to believing that it aims, like the supposed "actions" of men, at an end that it places ideally outside its own accomplishment and that in some way determines it from the outside. Production of effects is distinguished here from action, of which it is only a semblance, because in such an order it is situated extern all y. Let us now see if, at least in Ethics I, the term operari is the object of equally systematic use. The term occurs most frequently in the group of statements that begin with EIp24 and that are devoted to the presentation of finite modes (i.e., particular things), the concept of which is introduced in EIp25c: "Particular things are nothing but affections of God's attributes, or modes by which God's attributes are expressed in a certain and determinate way." The expression "in a certain and determinate way" (certo et determinato modo) is remarkable here. On the one hand, it is a play on the repetition of the word modus, which means both "mode" and "way," and thus in a sense makes particular things into the modes of modes; and, on the other hand, it echoes the expression "in a certain and determinate manner" (certa ac determinata ratione) of Elden and brings out the relational - and, one might say, measured - character of this modified modification of which particular things are the over-determined result. EIp26 deduces the nature of the productions of effects that particular things can effectuate from the conditions that determine their existence: "A thing which has been determined to produce an effect has necessarily been

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determined in this way by God; and one which has not been determined by God cannot determine itself to produce an effect." The form of this proposition is an indirect reference to definition 7, which says that a compelled thing is one that is determined to exist and to produce an effect by another (ab alio). The expression used here is ab alio, meaning "by something or someone else," as the formulation "compelled by no one" in Elp17 suggests, and not ab alia, (implying re, i.e., a thing), meaning "by something else," understood in the sense of something of the same nature that is itself determined to exist and to produce an effect due to a certain determined reason. The significance of this ab alio, which has hitherto been understood as given in Elden, is made clear here: a particular thing, that produces an effect only because it is determined to do so and not because it determines itself, is necessarily determined "by God." But, can one say that, because it produces an effect under such a determination, the thing is compelled in the sense of definition 7 - i.e., that it is compelled by God? These last formulations are obviously inappropriate; for if God's action is action in the true sense, not subject to any compulsion, it is clear that it does not itself create any compulsion; if it did it would lose the characteristics of an action and become instead a production of effects, analogous in its very principle to the effects it induces in the particular things it determines. Does this mean that the "which is determined by another ... to produce an effect" of Eldef7 and the "determined to produce an effect ... by God" of Elp26 are not completely interchangeable? Elp26d clarifies the nature of the determination to which the finite thing is subjected in its production of effects by introducing a reference to something "known through itself": "That through which things are said to be determined to produce an effect must be something positive." If this determination is positive, it is because it cannot be conceived in relation to any limitation, for that would turn it into a negation: here determinata (determined) is used in a fundamentally different sense from terminata (limited). Let us return now to the preceding formulas. It is not because a particular thing is limited ab alia (by another thing of the same nature) that it is determined to produce an effect in a certain manner; on the contrary, it is because a positive cause "acts" in it that a particular thing "produces an effect" in determined conditions - i.e., in relation to the existence of other things, which limit it and at the same time are limited by it. Here the limitation does not have the value of a cause and, consequently, of an explanation; at most, it is only a derived effect. This means that there is no pure production of effects, which takes place independently of the

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conditions of action: in each "production of effects," which has its source in particular finite things, there is - not potentially but in actuality - an "action" whose principle exists positively in God and which constitutes the efficient cause of this production of effects (Spinoza introduces this concept in EIp25). Thus, the difference between action and production of effects comes down to a difference in point of view: that which is a production of effects with regard to the finite things that constitute its sphere of operation, is action in relation to God - who is its cause. Moreover, the production of effects is not something on a par with action, an autonomous way of doing or proceeding; it is in action and by action, and, being one of its aspects, it is at once in God in the sense of EIp15 and by God in the sense of EIp26. Particular things do not produce effects by themselves, but are determined to do so by a cause that acts in them. EIp27 - "A thing which has been determined by God to produce an effect, cannot render itself undetermined" - is immediately demonstrated through axiom 3: "From a given determinate cause the effect follows necessarily; and conversely, if there is no determinate cause, it is impossible for an effect to follow." Thus, God acts in such a way as to cause particular things to produce an effect, i.e., as a given determinate cause, which is precisely what is conceived under "an efficient cause" in EIp25. Hence the relation of God's action to production of effects is like that of a cause to its effects. Let us go further: causality, in the Spinozist sense of causa seu ratio, is nothing other than the relation that links (divine) action to (finite) productions of effects, so that productions of effects are dependent on (divine) actions and cannot "free" themselves from this dependence. The production of effects does not involve its own reason, because its cause is in God; but this cause, residing in God where all things are, is also in itself. Only if one imaginarily detaches the production of effects from its cause is it laid out in an external order, where things limit one another and follow one another in duration in accordance with the model of transitive causality. However, the true concept of cause, which relates to the model of immanent causality, is one that "envelops" the concept of its effects as the whole includes its parts or as substance comprises its affections in itself. The divine action of Natura naturans develops though the totality of the productions of effects that constitute the order of Natura naturata, just as a cause produces all the effects contained within it. In this respect, to produce effects for anything whatsoever is basically to "act," i.e., to positively express the power of that thing not arbitrarily but in accordance with the conditions that necessarily determine its nature. With regard to particular things, these conditions are determined ab alio, in that they have their

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principle in God as the cause of all action. We now see. however. that the terms of Elden are completely reversed: to act. inasmuch as that depends on God alone and has its cause nowhere else than in him, is an ab alio with which no compulsion is in principle associated. and which also precisely defines the ethical conditions of freedom. Proposition 28 of Ethics I lays out the logic of production of effects through the sequence of finite causes that continues ad infinitum. Here, the ab alio ("by another"). which takes the form of "by another cause. which is also finite and has a determinate existence." signifies an order of dependence in which its elements are assigned the status of compelled things as defined in Eldef7. But, can one therefore say that the form of production of effects replaces that of action in this case, making the model of transitive causality prevail over that of immanent causality. or at any rate endowing the former with a sort of autonomy in relationship to the latter? This finite logic of production of effects is essentially defective; the "by another [ab alio] cause" explanation that it permits is, by definition, incapable of taking positively and exhaustively into comideration the reason, the ratio. of the singular events through which particular things enter into a relationship with each other; for this reason is infinite and sends us back to an ab alio. For Spinoza, this infinite reason. which is the principle of the determination of all things. is not to be found at the end of the infinite chain of their finite existences. and is not terminated with their summation: the famous example in the appendix to Ethics I - of the accidental death of a passer-by who was hit on the head by a stone fallen from a roof - shows that. in moving backward from cause to cause, in accordance with their apparently natural succession. one retreats from rather than comes closer to the determining principle of these causes and thereby obscures its necessity. To ask oneself about the causes of causes, following the order of finite productions of effects - in this case, the fall of a stone, a man passing by. a strong wind. a desire to visit friends. an agitated sea - is to yield to the flux of sense-images. thus replacing the reality of things with their contour. determining tha t reality on the basis of the limitations of these sense-images, and thus also separating things from the cause that "acts" in them. One therefore sees that Spinoza does not cling to the traditional opposition between a finalistic and a mechanistic explanation of natural events; these are only opposite versions of a single account, which does not convey, because it proceeds from a finite image of things, that the rationality of things is infinite. The ideal end toward which men believe things are moving is nothing else than the distorted reflection of the indefinite

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of a reality in which everything holds together through its rigorous linkage, this limitless succession is permeated and haunted by a void that is then filled by finalistic illusions. Here Spinoza is closer to Pascal than to Descartes. He is also very close to Hegel and the latter's reflections on the subject of false infinity. To explain something by its cause, in the perspective created by the model of transitive causality, is not to explain anything at all. Moreover, it is to forget the "reason" for things - the reason why, when things seem to be the causes of - or rather to exist for the sake of - each other, they are, taken together, effects of the same cause, of which they are only modifications. That is why Spinoza rules out the usual concepts of "proximate cause" and "remote cause" in EIp28s. For, these two models claim to insert God's absolute reality into a~ infinite chain of finite things, assigning him a fixed position whether at the beginning or end of the chain, whereas God is actually everywhere in the chain because he eludes its factual logic and because the necessity of his "action" cannot be reduced to the particular form of any "production of effects." As has already been pointed out, if the relation between action and production of effects is asymmetric, it is because the two do not constitute opposing terms in an abstract disjunction. The problem for Spinoza was not, properly speaking, the choice between two forms of logic - that of action or that of production of effects - but of knowing in which direction to reason: from action toward production of effects or vice versa. The path of reasoning from production of effects toward action has been avoided because it leads to illusory associations of the imagination, which merely reflect the mechanical connections between things by reversing them, in the hope of being liberated from them by means of this reversal alone. Thus, authentic thinking, which seeks the positive necessity that determines all productions of effects within rather than behind them, must adopt the former path of reasoning, namely, that from action to production of effects. This is the path that Spinoza takes in EIp29d: "[T]he modes of the divine nature have ... followed from it necessarily and not contingently (by P 16) either insofar as the divine nature is considered absolutely (by P21) or insofar as it is considered to be determined to act [agere] in a certain way (by P28)." What is remarkable in this formulation is that it relates the term agere, associated here with the divine nature, to the expression "determined ... in a certain way," which Spinoza has until now reserved for particular things, and which he specifically associates with their finite productions of effect in EIp29: "In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce

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Could it be that agere and operari both have the same value here because there is also only a single necessity, which commands the order of both Natura naturans and Natura naturata. and which derives from the divine? On the contrary; far from their meanings being fused, here the two verbs are strictly adjusted to the functions that have been previously recognized as theirs. If finite things "produce effects" in accordance with a certain determined reason, under compelling conditions, it is because the divine nature "acts" in them both absolutely - on the level of the infinite immediate mode in which they participate - and relatively - "in a certain way," i.e., in the totality determined by the infinite mediate mode within which they are interconnected. The divine action does not cease to be an action when it is determined "in a certain way." Therefore, as pointed out above, this determination, which particularizes finite things, relates not only to their limits - a negative relationship defining an order of compulsion to which they would forever remain subjected, since this representation of a fatality also signifies the surreptitious return of the finalistic illusion - but also to the conditions of an existence that is free and thus determined by an internal rather than an external cause. Not only is the divine action determinable "in a certain way," but it is only effectuated as a result of this determination. For Natura naturans does not have any reality independent of Natura naturata - within which it accomplishes all its effects. In this respect, the possibility of an ethics is integral to the doctrine of necessity of Ethics I in exactly the same way that the effect is contained in its cause or, again, that the power of a thing is defined by its very nature. Let us take an example from outside the text of Ethics I. Definition 3 of Ethics II defines an idea as a "concept," i.e., as EIIdef3exp makes clear, as an "action of the mind": "By idea I understand a concept of the Mind that the Mind forms because it is a thinking thing." In so doing, Spinoza relates the term "action" not to substance but to one of its modifications - the mind - inasmuch as the mind participates in Thought, which is its attribute and owing to which it is a "thinking thing." If the mind forms ideas, it is because the divine nature determines it in the two ways just described: absolutely and relatively. Thus, the mind is active with regard to the ideas formed within it. This certainly does not mean that the mind has "formed" these ideas in the sense of a fabrication or a completely independent production; that would deny the idea as such the dual determination by which it is posited as necessary. For, if the mind had the power to act entirely on its own, it would be an autonomous substance, detached from reality as a whole, which would be opposed by

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the mind's own initiatives, in the form of an essentially negative liberty. The action "of" the mind, through which the power of God is expressed in that it is "determined to act in a certain way," is an action that is effectuated "within" the mind by virtue of a necessary act of thought, which takes place in it, and which produces its ideas. But this does not mean that the mind is a passive witness in this production, for its sole identity is the one conferred upon it by this act (from which it is indistinguishable), by means of which it accomplishes "in act" all that defines its nature. Thus, the reality of the mind coincides completely with its perfection (EIIdef6). This means that, for the soul, to act (agere) and to produce effects (operari) - if they are not one and the same thing - correspond to a single process apprehended at the extreme points of its principles and its consequences: considered from the point of view of its global cause, it is action, and, from that of its particular effects, it is production of effects. Thus, in line with the well-known formula of The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, to speak of the action of the soul is to conceive "the soul as acting according to certain laws, like a spiritual automaton" (TIE 85). The action of the mind is regulated by laws that define its nature as a "part of nature," within the common order of things. The latter not only determines this "action" as a particular production of effect, but makes it an action in the true sense of the word, i.e., places it within the general movement of the divine action, whose infinite power it expresses in its own way, according to its modification. Thus it falls under the statement, in EIp33d, that "[I]f things could have been of another nature, or could have been determined to produce an effect in another way, so that the order of Nature was different. then God's nature could also have been other than it is now ... which is absurd." It is the same order which, on the level of modal reality, links up the production of effects of particular things, and, on the level of substantial reality, necessarily determines the divine action. To deny this determination from either point of view is to abandon the attempt to understand reality, i.e., to conceive of the rational necessity that is fully effectuated in it. Between the action and the productions of effects there is no room for a gap in which - where God as well as things are concerned indifference and contingence could take place. Action and the production of effects are therefore parts of the same order of necessity, which they characterize at the opposite ends of its internal dynamics: its premises and its results. Thus, it is under the general concept of causality, which necessarily and rationally articulates causes and effects, that we conceive their unity - since they belong to the same order - as well as their difference - since they represent the order at its extremities, where it

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begins and ends (inasmuch as this beginning and end are understood rationally and not factually).

The Order of Things

What characterizes the causal relation that links action with the production of effects? And - to return to the problem raised at the beginning of this paper - how does Spinoza's concept of this relation prepare the way for an ethical reflection? To act for any purpose - i.e., to be free - is not in any way to escape the common order of things, which is unique because of its intrinsic perfection. There is no room here (i.e., a metaphysical gap, rather than a physical vacuum), which might allow for another possible order that differs from this order of reality, and which would constitute a negation of its tendencies. Rather than filling it like filling a receptacle whose form is pre-existent to the contents it receives, the power that gives this common order of things its plenitude is wholly determined by the nature of the substance that is its cause. This power cannot be construed as an excess of the cause, of which it is the necessary consequence. God does not produce all things eminently, by virtue of an indeterminate creativity that has no common measure with the effects it produces: he produces them formally, under conditions which make the order of the effect completely coincide with that of its cause. It is in this sense that Spinoza calls God "the efficient ca use of all things" (EI p 16c1). Gueroult has shown that, here, Spinoza formulated the concept of the "efficient cause" on the basis of the "emanative cause" and the "active cause," as these had been defined in Heereboord's Hermeneia Logica.! No intermediary that would disjoin the relationship between cause and effect and re1ativize its necessity is thinkable. The efficient (or, perhaps, effective) cause - i.e., the cause in act rather than in potency - is that which "acts" in producing all its effects and nothing else. It does not produce them outside itself, thus remaining an incommensurate cause of an external order, but within itself, as an immanent. not a transitive cause, according to Elpl8. The theory of "cause or reason" in Spinoza is precisely this historically and terminologically paradoxical identification of the "efficient cause" with the "immanent cause," which posits the necessity of a total action in which nothing is lacking because nothing extrinsic to it, or which has a negative relationship to it, enters into its comprehension. To conceive the order of things absolutely (i.e., in its totality), is only possible if one adopts the point of view of "the substance ... considered in

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itself, i.e., considered truly," in accordance with the formula in EIp5d, where, moreover, the main occurrence in Ethics I of EIax6 - which states the necessary agreement of the true idea with its object - is found. 2 Now, the substance is considered "in itself" (in se), inasmuch as it is first in nature relative to all its affections; thus, it is entirely within itself, before being modified by its affections - which determine it in a particular manner. And since it is thus completely self-sufficient, in accordance with the very definition of substance, it is placed within its proper context. It is clear that the precedence of which we are speaking here is both an ontological and a logical priority, and has nothing to do with a chronological precedence. The substance does not precede its affections as one thing precedes others that it conditions within the framework of the transitive linkage that deploys and disperses them, partes extra partes, within duration. This makes it clear, moreover, that nothing absolutely precedes any other thing, except in the sense that, in both its reality and its concept, the whole is prior to its parts. In accordance with a Pascalian phrase of clearly anti-Cartesian inspiration - "all things being caused and causing, assisted and assisting"3 - the order of things is only necessary if considered from the point of view of its absolute cause, which is also its raison d'etre, namely, the all-encompassing determination that eliminates all contingency from it. When "considered in itself," the substance is taken as it in fact is, for "in itself" (in se) is what defines it (EIdef3) according to its concept - which necessarily expresses its true nature (Elax6). Thus all the modalities of its determination exist in relation to it as phenomena - i.e., as figures circumstantially carved out in the interior of the total system, within which they appear and disappear. As Spinoza says: "There can be no ... thing which is in itself outside God" (EIplSd), which is another way of expressing the oneness of the substance, i.e., the fact that it constitutes a single whole, which is in relation only to itself, and in relation to which nothing can be conceived that is not included in its order. One can see that this being in itself or inside itself - which is substantiality itself - has nothing in common with Hegel's Insichsein in his Science of Logic,4 where he defines it in connection with the fact that "something" exists within its limits, within the boundaries of which it effects a synthesis between its determination (i.e., in relation to itself, as a sort of Ansichsein) and its disposition (i.e., in relation to others, as Seinfuranderes). For, if substance is unique in that it alone can be considered in itself, which is how Spinoza defines it, this is precisely because it is not determined as "something" - i.e., as some kind of thing or individul - since its existence is not delimited like that of a being that remains what it is inasmuch as it

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stays within the framework set by its own limits. This means that the immanence of substance "considered in itself" does not express an innerness in relation to an exterior, for the exterior, bordering the frontiers of substance, would also be in a certain way within it, like its other (in accordance with Hegel's principle of the dialectic of the Dasein). Instead, it is an "in itself" or a "within itself" that is completely self-defined, independently of any relationship with an exterior. And this is the reason that it is infinite. Thus, the substance is a totality so self-sufficient in reality and concept that (according to EIplS) whatever is must also be conceived as being within it, i.e., conceived as a "part" that belongs to its whole. Thus, inasmuch as God is, first of all, entirely in himself - or even "that which is entirely in itself" - all things are in God. Furthermore, it is the relationship of inclusion or envelopment, binding the whole to its parts, which constitutes the reason for the divine "action," i.e., which explains the order through which its absolute power manifests itself causally. Conversely, the partial chain of the modal "production of effects" is included in this comprehensive order. For one thing does not produce another, in the sense of a particular production of effects, unless the common order of things on which it depends through the mediation of the immediate and mediate infinite modes - for instance, in the case of bodies, the general laws of Motion and Rest and the existence of the universe regarded as a single thing (the "face of the whole universe") - is wholly involved in this production of effects. And, in relation to the divine action as a whole, the production of effects is like one of its modifications. This is why transitive causality, partes extra partes, is merely a trap if one separates it from the conditions imposed upon it by the absolute action of the whole, acting in itself according to the principle of immanent causality. According to Eldef7, a thing is compelled which is determined by another to exist and to produce an effect in a certain and determinate manner; i.e., itself existing only as the effect of causes external to it, it operates as a cause in relation to external effects only to the degree that it is itself determined by a cause whose reason is not provided by it, because it does not depend on the limits by which it is particularized. It is this reasoning that permits Spinoza to conceive the infinite as actively present in the finite, without regarding this presence as a relation of transcendence. Thus, the model of mechanical causality is not merely relativized, but contested in its very principle. Inasmuch as it is related to the existence of particular things, the apparent chain of causes and effects is only the surface expression - necessarily defective, since it is not self-sufficient - of a causal action which takes place continuously, and of which it provides only a

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provisional and incomplete perspective. One thing is the cause or the effect of another thing only subject to a reason to which all things are commonly subordinated, and which is not a reason of any single thing, determining its particular order uniquely and to the exclusion of any other order that might be possible. Nor does the order of things have its reason in things. because these are only its effects; moreover, to the degree that they result from itin the sense of immanent rather than transitive causality - they are also in it as its partial realizations. Thus, immanent causality and transitive causality do not determine two independent orders of causality. at the intersection of which finite things would themselves be produced; rather it is one and the same order which, considered synthetically, as a whole, acts absolutely in itself, and when considered analytically, partes extra partes. distributes its production of effects according to particular relationships that are not autonomous because their reason is not in themselves. It is here that we encounter a specifically ethical problem: depending upon whether one considers it from a total or partial viewpoint, one and the same thing can be free, in accordance with the law of its own action, or compelled, in accordance with the external chain of productions of effects in which it is caught up. Thus, to liberate oneself is not to escape the system of determination that links causes and effects, but, on the contrary. to return to the system in order to go deeper into it so as to seize and integrate its immanent necessity. To be free or to be compelled, to act or to produce effects, correspond to ways of being and doing that are subject to the rationality of the same laws. What distinguishes these ways of behaving is only the point of view developed in them with regard to this common rationality: submission to it, due to ignorance of or failure to take into account its all-encompassing determination: or total self-fulfillment in it. due to a recognition in it of the necessary - positive rather than restrictive - condition of self-actualization. This is what we learn from EIIp44 - "It is of the nature of Reason to regard things as necessary, not as contingent" - which is demonstrated as follows: "It is of the nature of reason to perceive things truly (by P41). viz. (by IA6) as they are in themselves, i.e. (by IP29). not as contingent but as necessary." It is significant that there is a reference here to EIax6 which. as we have pointed out, already occurred in EIp5d in connection with the reality of a thing considered "in itself" (in se). In EIp5 the reality "in itself" is related to the substance it defines, whereas in EIIp44 it is related to all things that reason perceives as necessary, i.e., as they are in themselves. Thus, if being "in itself" pertains to the one and only substance, as Spinoza asserts in EIp18d, it nevertheless does not pertain to it exclusively, meaning

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that all other things - i.e., its affections - are thereby being deprived of it. Moreover, the immanent causality of substance - i.e., its rational powerconsists precisely in communicating all that is posited in it and by it. without any remainder, to the things that depend upon it as its modifications. In this respect, while they relate to the substance that acts in them, all things are also "in se." In other words, they are "in themselves" effectively, inasmuch as their reason causes them both to be and to know. We said above that modes have the same relationship to substance that phenomena have to the thing "in itself," whose absolute reality they reveal in a way that is necessarily limited in the case of finite modes; but, because such revelation is necessary, it bears within its very limits the mark of perfection which really belongs to its cause. Thus, modes that are in substance also exist "in se," i.e., as things in themselves, because they are not in substance as in another, which is itself contingent, and upon whose compulsion they depend. When Spinoza says "By reality and perfection I understand the same thing" (EIIdef6), this general statement, which relates to all things, sums up the rational impulse of Ethics I: to manifestly establish the identity of reality and perfection which substance transfers to all things dependent upon it. And this identity renders these things free in God - cf. the expression "in God" in EIp15 - when considered from the comprehensive point of view of immanent necessity, no matter how compelled they may seem when considered partially. In this respect, one can say that compulsion relates to freedom exactly as error relates to truth. Compulsion is not external to freedom, like another order, but is comprised in it as in a whole, in relation to which it has only an incomplete existence since, as a detached part, it is not self-sufficient. One should, however, remember that, as a part of the whole that continues to depend upon it, compulsion can be detached from freedom only relatively and not absolutely. This is why one can say that the order of things is the same for all things, whether free or compelled, since, according to the very definition of substance, it is fundamentally an order in things. All this is comprehensible only if the priority in nature of the substance in relation to its modes is recognized and maintained. As we have seen, if one tries to reconstruct the system of immanent causality on the basis of the external relations of transitive causality, one is necessarily left with an inadequate representation of it. These exterior relations must, on the contrary, be interpreted as partial effects of the immanent causality that works in them "in a certain and determinate way" (to repeat a formulation that occurs so frequently in Ethics I). It is only when this condition is met

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that the cause takes on a rational meaning - as a reason. Thus, in its true sense, the cause is never that which acts "on" a thing, for Spinoza's use of the term agere completely excludes consideration of such an external relation. By acting "in" a thing, the cause determines that thing to act, i.e., to produce all the effects of which it is capable by virtue of its cause, or, in other words, by virtue of its nature. In this connection, it is quite logical that the demonstrative exposition in Ethics I concludes with: "Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow" (Elp36). The fact that effects necessarily follow from the nature of a thing means that the thing does not produce its effects by virtue of the artificial compulsion of a modus operandi (i.e., an order of producing effects that would proceed partes extra partes, linking independent causes and effects together), but by virtue of the immanent reason that determines it; i.e., it produces all these effects not because, considered in isolation, it would be the sole and exclusive cause of them, but in virtue of its own cause - which is its nature and which immediately links it, as pars naturae (a "part of Nature") to all other things of Nature. The statement of the principle of causality with which Ethics I ends is remarkable. For the traditional formulation of this principle - "no effect without a cause," or, as it is commonly expressed, "no smoke without fire" - Spinoza substitutes the inverted formulation "no cause without an effect," because the cause is always efficient or effective. This formulation constitutes, in fact. the reason, or the truth, of the preceding one, which is only a partial expression of it. Indeed, the apparent symmetry of the two formulations should not cause us to forget their essential dissimilarity. To say "no effect without a cause" is to arrive at the cause from the effect. which is to give preference to the model of transitive causality in the attempt to master the logic of its productions of effects - something that cannot be done completely. This logic cannot be completely mastered, as it is drawn into a movement of infinite regression which, proceeding from effect to cause, always makes our understanding of the cause or reason, that in its totality constitutes the order of things and causes it to be recognized as necessary, recede a little further. It is here that one is confronted with the perpetually incomplete series of questions and answers, each of the answers giving rise to new questions. This series of questions in Elapp reveals the deficient nature of a knowledge that- because of its inadequacy - can find a refuge only in the reactivation of the finalistic illusion ("And so they will not stop asking for the causes of causes until you take refuge in the will of God, i.e., the sanctuary of ignorance" - Curley, p. 443). To assert, on the contrary, that all the effects

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that depend on a cause must necessarily follow from that cause is to place oneself from the outset in the rational perspective of the absolute priority of substance in relation to its modes, thereby also descending from the cause to its effects. Now, as we have seen, this priority is also that of the whole in relation to its parts and of the principle in relation to its consequences. Thus, to respect this priority is to observe the natural and rational character of the causal relation that posits the effects in the cause, even before they interact with one another externally, under the common reason that determines them without compelling them.

In conclusion, one can say that the theory of causality that is the essential object of the demonstrations in Ethics I has not only ontological or epistemological significance, but an ethical value as well: it shows how the definition of the "free thing" that is valid, first of all, for God and his action, is, in consequence, also valid for all the forms of modal existence, inasmuch as these are not disconnected from their rational determination, i.e., are related to their reason like parts to their whole. According to Spinoza, one does not have, on the one hand, substance's action, and on the other hand, modes' production of effects, each of them constituting a distinct order subject to a different model of rationality. Between this action and these productions of effects there is only a difference of point of view separating an incomplete from a complete knowledge, rather than a difference of nature, which would make Natura naturans and Natura naturata completely independent of one another. Thus, because substantial action takes place within the modes themselves, and not only in the spaces between them, it is also moral action by virtue of its rational power - which is also the power of its cause. This means that, as finite beings, we can be free, not in the sense of an ideal possibility, but with respect to the effective power that acts within us, and the recognition of whose efficacy depends entirely upon ourselves.

Notes 1. M. Gueroult, Spinoza. vol. I, Dieu (Ethique I), (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), p. 251. 2. This axiom is also employed in Elp30d. 3. B. Pascal, "Pensees," P2, in: Oeuvres de Blaise Pascal. ed. L. Brunschvicg (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1925), vol. XII, p.88. 4. Vol. I, The Doctrine of Being, section I, chap. IIA.

Jacqueline LagnSe

From External Compulsion to Liberating Cooperation: A Reply to Macherey

In his essay "On Experience," Montaigne writes: "II y a plus a faire a interpreter les interpretations qu'a interpreter les choses, et plus de livres sur les livres que sur autre sujet: nous ne faisons que nous entregloser." (There is more ado with interpreting interpretations than with interpreting the thi ngs themselves, and more books about books than about any other subject; we do nothing but comment on each otherY And in his essay "Of the Art of Conversation," he observes that: "L'etude des livres. c'est un mouvement languissant et faible qui n'echauffe point. la ou la conference apprend et exerce en un coup. Si je confere avec une arne forte et un raide jousteur. il me presse les fiancs, me pique a gauche et a dextre; ses imaginations elancent les miennes. La jalousie. la gloire. la contention me poussent et rehaussent au dessus de moi meme. Et I'unisson est qualite du tout ennuyeuse en la conference." (The study of books is a languid and feeble process. which ha~ no warmth; whereas conversation teaches and exercises at one stroke. If I converse with a powerful thinker and a sturdy fighter. he presses me close. touches me to the quick on the left and the right; his conceptions stimulate mine. Rivalry, vanity. the struggle. urge me on and raise me above myself: and accordance is an altogether irksome quality in conversation.)2 Adopting Montaigne's language. I will admit that Pierre Machere), is "une ame forte et un raide jouteur," (a powerful thinker and a sturdy fighter). And my accepting of the task of "replying" to him has made my rereading of Ethics I a process that is neither "feeble" nor "languid." Are interpreting and endeavoring to understand acting (agere)? Or producing an effect (operari)? I like to believe that they represent an action in which a determination that has proceeded from another replying to the determined interpretation of a question "determined in a certain way" (certo modo determinata) - has stimulated rather than compelled my power to act and think.

10\J

1

It'J' C

1Y1 Ut

flt~J t~y

that depend on a cause must necessarily follow from that cause is to place oneself from the outset in the rational perspective of the absolute priority of substance in relation to its modes, thereby also descending from the cause to its effects. Now, as we have seen, this priority is also that of the whole in relation to its parts and of the principle in relation to its consequences. Thus, to respect this priority is to observe the natural and rational character of the causal relation that posits the effects in the cause, even before they interact with one another externally, under the common reason that determines them without compelling them.

In conclusion, one can say that the theory of causality that is the essential object of the demonstrations in Ethics I has not only ontological or epistemological significance, but an ethical value as well: it shows how the definition of the "free thing" that is valid, first of all, for God and his action, is, in consequence, also valid for all the forms of modal existence, inasmuch as these are not disconnected from their rational determination, i.e., are related to their reason like parts to their whole. According to Spinoza, one does not have, on the one hand, substance's action, and on the other hand, modes' production of effects, each of them constituting a distinct order subject to a different model of rationality. Between this action and these productions of effects there is only a difference of point of view separating an incomplete from a complete knowledge, rather than a difference of nature, which would make Natura naturans and Natura naturata completely independent of one another. Thus, because substantial action takes place within the modes themselves, and not only in the spaces between them, it is also moral action by virtue of its rational power - which is also the power of its cause. This means that, as finite beings, we can be free, not in the sense of an ideal possibility, but with respect to the effective power that acts within us, and the recognition of whose efficacy depends entirely upon ourselves.

Notes 1. M. Gueroult, Spinoza. vol. L Dieu (Ethique I), (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), p.251. 2. This axiom is also employed in EIp30d. 3. B. Pascal, "Pensees," ~72, in: Oeuvres de Blaise Pascal, ed. L. Brunschvicg (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1925), vol. XII. p. 88. 4. Vol. I, The Doctrine of Being, section I, chap. IIA.

Jacqueline Lagree

From External Compulsion to Liberating Cooperation: A Reply to Macherey

In his essay "On Experience," Montaigne writes: "I! y a plus a faire a interpreter les interpretations qu'a interpreter les choses, et plus de livres sur les livres que sur autre sujet: nous ne faisons que nous entregloser." (There is more ado with interpreting interpretations than with interpreting the thi ngs themselves, and more books about books than about any other subject; we do nothing but comment on each other.)! And in his essay "Of the Art of Conversation," he observes that: "L'etude des livres, c'est un mouvement languissant et faible qui n'echauffe point, la ou la conference apprend et exerce en un coup. Si je confere avec une arne forte et un raide jousteur, il me presse les fiancs, me pique a gauche et a dextre; ses imaginations eJancent les miennes. La jalousie, la gloire, la contention me poussent et rehaussent au dessus de moi meme. Et l'unisson est qualite du tout ennuyeuse en la conference." (The study of books is a languid and feeble process, which has no warmth; whereas conversation teaches and exercises at one stroke. If I converse with a powerful thinker and a sturdy fighter. he presses me close, touches me to the quick on the left and the right; his conceptions stimulate mine. Rivalry, vanity, the struggle, urge me on and raise me above myself; and accordance is an altogether irksome quality in conversation.)2 Adopting Montaigne's language, I will admit that Pierre Macherey is "une ame forte et un raide jouteur," (a powerful thinker and a sturdy fighter). And my accepting of the task of "replying" to him has made my rereading of Ethics I a process that is neither "feeble" nor "languid." Are interpreting and endeavoring to understand acting (agere)? Or producing an effect (operari)? I like to believe that they represent an action in which a determination that has proceeded from another replying to the determined interpretation of a question "determined in a certain way" (certo modo determinata) - has stimulated rather than compelled my power to act and think.

Y. Yo vel, ed., God and .,",'ature: Spino::a's .\1('{aphl'sics. 1R1-190. © 1991. EJ Brill, Leiden-Yell York-Kl1benhavn-Koln

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I wish first to make clear my total agreement with Macherey concerning the correctness and pertinence of the terminological and conceptual distinction between agere and operari to which he has drawn our attention. One could develop this analysis further by noting that the distinction potentia / potestas is accompanied by constant semantic correlations: one always meets the formula potentia agendi and not potentia operandi. There is, in fact, an occurrence of potentia ad operandum in Letter 40, but otherwise one finds only the expression potestas existendi et operandi. J Moreover, one can point out that, in Ethics I, Spinoza also uses the verb producere (to produce), in its passive form produci (to be produced), in two different ways. He uses it negatively in the formula: non potest produci ab alia substantia (cannot be produced by another substance; Elp6), where a se produci is equivalent to in se esse. i.e., to agere. This is the property of substance, the essence of which involves existence. He also uses producere in the positive form of ab alia (= a Deo) produci (produced by God; Elp24), where it is the property of beings whose essence does not involve existence. Thus, in order "to produce" one has first to be produced, either by oneself or by anotherand it is the impossibility of being produced by another that logically determines substance as causa sui. Finally, to terminate these lexicographical observations, the Index informatise de I'Ethique 4 informs us that, out of thirty-one occurrences of operari. twenty-six take the form determinatusla ad operandum (determined to produce an effect), which is analyzed by Macherey. An a contrario proof of the importance of these distinctions is provided by Condillac's failure to appreciate them in the chapter of his Traite des Systemes (1749) devoted to Spinoza,5 and his resultant incapacity to conceive the productivity of finite modes, and particularly of man, within the framework of Spinozism. My questions to Macherey, even more than my objections, are concerned with the conclusions of his analysis: the theme of the impermanence of the finite, and what seems to be an attempt to reduce a transitive modal causality to an immanent substantial causality by means of the notion of "point of view." This causes me to wonder whether the idea of point of view-whose point of view? about what? - permits one to conceive of an effective freedom whose promotion and defense, I readily acknowledge, constitutes the ethical and liberating perspective of the Ethics from its first part, "On God." I have said above that Condillac's lack of awareness of the semantic and conceptual distinction between agere and operari. in Chapter X of his Traite

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des Systemes - and the same is true of his otherwise quite accurate, although incomplete, translation of Ethics I - rendered him incapable of conceiving the productivity of finite modes. This failure to understand is interesting because it touches on what I view as major difficulties in Spinoza's philosophy. Certainly, Condillac did not have the mind of a metaphysician: he denies that thought can "affirm about a thing everything contained in the clear and distinct idea that one has ofit,"6 and he treats the Ethics as a paradigm of an abstract system that can create the illusion of knowledge "when our thoughts depend merely on words that have no determined sense."7 In short, the system is taxed with verbalism and accused of allowing the imagination to run riot, uncontrolled by experience. What Condillac is essentially reproaching Spinoza for is his identification of the efficient cause with the logical cause (causa sh·e ratio) and, consequently, for making existence a logical derivation of immanent cause (in the case of God, of his eternal essence as a cause of himself), whereas, according to him, a cause must differ from its effect both in its nature and in time. Hence, in his commentary on EIpl7s, Condillac rejects the comparison between the existence of God in relation to his essence and the properties of a triangle in relation to its essence. For, according to Condillac, a triangle cannot be construed as "a first cause, efficient by itself, of the equality of three angles to two right angles," because "I cannot see that the nature of the triangle acts to produce the equality of its three angles to two right angles."g For Condillac, what follows logically from the nature of a thing or its essence does not result from its action, since the properties of the essence are this essence itself fully developed. And, thus, if everything follows from the divine nature through the same logical necessity that ordains the properties of a triangle, "I infer from this an evident contradiction, namely, that everything in Nature takes place without there being any action" (commentary on Elp17s 9 ). In Eldef7, as in Elp26 and the following propositions, Condillac translates both agere and operari by agir (to act), and he denies that the position of existence is similar to action, noting that "[t]he more Spinoza uses the words cause, action and production, the more confusion one finds thereof' (commentary on Elp25c 10 ). EIp25s reads: "God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause of himself." On this, Condillac comments: "If he is the cause of himself, that does not mean that he acts to give himself existence or that he produces himself. Hence, he does not act to give existence to other things; thus, he does not produce them, and, properly speaking, in the whole of Nature there is neither action nor production, neither cause nor effect"

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(commentary on Elp2Sc ll ). One consequently arnves at the following paradoxes: (I) God is an effect (of himself). and (2) we are infinite (Elp28d), since: 12 (i)

God alone determines all that exists to exist (Elp16, ElplS).

(ii)

Hence. we are determined to exist by him.

(iii)

But all things which follow from an infinite substance or which are determined to exist by an infinite substance must also be infinite (Elp21-22).

(iv)

God is an infinite substance (Eldef6).

(v)

Hence, each of us is infinite.

One might, of course, refute this argument by reinstating the mediations omitted by Condillac, but this sophistic game draws our attention to the following major difficulties in understanding Spinozist causality: (1) The passage from immediate or mediate infinite modes to the infinitely repetitive series of mediate finite modes; (2) Our difficulty in conceiving action and, even more, production, without any reference to a transitive causality, i.e., without separating the effect from its cause or the work from its creator; and (3) The impossibility of deducing existence. When one looks at Bayle's reflections in his Dictionnaire, or Diderot's in the article "Liberty" in the Encyclopedie, one observes that the new paradoxes raised all depend on the direct identification of causa with ratio, which serves as a justification for the interpretation of substance as that which is inherent, since it is a passive substratum of its modifications rather than a force of infinite productivity. This has the following shocking consequences: God is no longer immutable; he becomes the efficient cause and passive bearer of all conceivable abominations; and finite modes are no longer responsible for anything. One significant example has to do with suicide. We know the extent to which all of Ethics IV, which Spinoza aptly calls "On Human Bondage," is aimed at demonstrating that philosophy is a meditation on life and not on death. Thus, in his opinion, "those who kill themselves are weak-minded and completely conquered by external causes contrary to their nature" (EIVp18s,§iii). To him, then, suicide represents the very highest degree of alienation or human bondage. To the contrary, Diderot viewed suicide even when based on motives as dependent upon external factors as "the vanity of making oneself talked about or the desire to demonstrate one's strength of mind" - as proof through example of "the power of freedom

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that is stronger than all the movements of nature." And he adds, "What power one must have over one's body in order to compel one's hand to take a dagger in cold blood and plunge it into one's heart,"!3 Now we know that, in the philosophical as well as the poetic tradition, as soon as one deals with freedom, life, love and death immediately come into playas a counterbalance: inevitable problems and examples spread over the conceptual fields outline their meanings and set their limits; it is as though these heritage-laden ideas were required to ensure implicit content for an overly abstract term by reminding the reader of what is involved and how much is at stake. Thus, the question of death can help us reflect both on the questions of causality and on that of "acting" and "producing an effect." Pierre Macherey has reminded us that, although the desire to live and to love is not the result of compulsion, it is nevertheless necessary (cf. Letter 56). Living is generally accepted as the very example of action (as opposed to production). And loving? To love is both to act - to develop one's nature - and to produce an effect, i.e., to induce a transformation in the object of one's love. One loves not only to love: one loves something or someone. The action of love is effected through a certain determination to produce an effect. Let us return to the classic example (Elapp) of the man who meets an unfortunate death when a stone falls from a roof while he is on his way to see a friend. This man is "acting" his friendship and effectuating it by going toward his meeting, by walking toward his friend. But his movement whose effectuation as a mode of Extension is subject to the laws of his own nature that cause him to love his friend, and that must be accompanied by thoughts concerning his friend - is countered by the independent, external, adverse movement of the stone that is blown off the roof by the wind and kills him. Death is thus the opposite of freedom; it is pure accident and exteriority, resulting from an action that is concomitant with but not integrable into one's nature. If conatus is identical to essence and power, to act (agere) is to persevere in one's being, i.e., as Breton puts it:!4 to act of oneself, in oneself, by oneself and for oneself. To produce effects, on the other hand, is to produce them of oneself and with others, in oneself and on others, for oneself and for others. As here the case is one of finite beings, exteriority inevitably plays a powerful role. Can one thus say that all we are dealing with here is a difference in point of view? Do we produce effects only because God acts in such a way as to cause us to produce these effects in a determined manner? The answer is "Yes," if it is understood that this means our vital dynamism is rooted in that of God himself - concerning whom Spinoza says that to call him life is

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to "speak best" of him (/v!etaphvsical Thoughts II: 6, Curley, p. 326). Again, the answer is "Yes," if it is clear that this dynamism cannot operate in any manner or in any place, but is effective inasmuch as it is ordered and thus operates "in a certain and determinate way." However, I feel that, in order to establish an effective human freedom which is not simple adherence to the order of the world because that is the divine order, but which involves an active transformation of the world toward greater rationality and justice and less violence, it is necessary to firmly uphold the differences and interrelationships between the immanent causality of acting and the transitive causality of producing an effect. There would be some danger in being too critical of the mechanistic model of causality. Although this model is indeed worthy of criticism in that it shifts all the finalism to the beginning, it should be relativized rather than contested. To consider substance as a "thing in itself," and modes as its "phenomena ," "figures circumstantially carved out in the interior of the total system, within which they appear and disappear" (see Macherey's paper herein, p. 175) - is this not to presuppose a consciousness (which here could only be the infinite intellect of God) for which these modifications, transient as they are, appear and disappear inconsistently compared to the law that governs their appearance and disappearance? Indeed, the question of the impermanence of finite things undoubtedly relates to a certain aspect of Spinozism (i.e., the opposition of perishable and durable beings), but it is one that one finds more in the propaedeutics of the system (cf. the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect 1-11) and in Spinoza's letters than in the system itself, i.e., in the Ethics (and there it is discussed mainly in the scholia). Here, however, the duality of thing in itself and phenomenon quite naturally recalls, in turn, the classic duality in philosophy of the representation of depth and of surface; transitive causality becomes the surface manifestation of the only true causality, i.e., the immanent causality that acts in depth (Macherey, p. 176 above). If this is the case, however, I can no longer understand what our freedom consists in. Going back to the definition of the res lib era (free thing), one notices that the neutral term res (thing) signifies that freedom does not exist in itself but is always a determination of something or somebody: "That thing is called free [libera] which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, and is determined to act by itself alone [a se sola]" (EIdef7). In an absolute sense (a se sola), God alone can be said to be free; but if liberus (free) is opposed to coactus (compelled), there can be forms of freedom that are partial and relative to other things, and man in particular may be said to be more or less free, depending upon the extent to which he is

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determined by the laws of his nature to produce effects, or that he is compelled to do so by external things. The freedom of finite modes is not immediate or given, but is achieved as a result of a process of liberation which cannot be in us without us, and which can only derive from us. Otherwise we face an untenable paradox: the very act of liberation would not be a free act. Indeed, as we learn from the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, if "the causes ... which prevent us from attaining our perfection are in ourselves" (KV II: 26/ I), and if to be free, according to a formulation one also finds in Hegel, is "to live in one's own element" (cf. KV II:26/2), then, in order to be free, we must seek our own element. Now, just as water is the vital element of fish, so our element is God (KV II: 26/4), in whom "we have life, movement and being,"15 or eternal life, i.e., the knowledge and intellectual love of God. "True freedom is to be and to remain bound by the lovely chains of the love of God" (KV II: 26/5). To be, to act and to actually exist (three formulations that are equivalent according to EIVp21) is also to be in another, recognized not only as St. Augustine's interior intimo meo (my inmost essence), but as "the better part of us" (EIVapp/32). One can no longer dissociate the life and the power of a limb from the life and power of the whole, for although the two are not identical in their orientation or specific effects, universal Providence and particular Providence cannot be differentiated with respect to them. This is because what universal Providence provides for is not the life of the whole but the life of the part as a part of the whole, whereas particular Providence is the conatus of a particular thing considered as a whole (KV I: 5). To sum up, the freedom of a finite thing or finite mode is a production of effects that operates on two totally different planes: that of aseity, of which one can say that the source of its dynamism is the divine action or the life of God, the source and dynamism of all life; and that of exteriority, which allows for the insertion of my production of effects into the interproductions of other modes, and which finds there conditions for its exercise, as well as obstacles and auxiliaries. For man, however - as opposed to God - potentia and potestas never entirely correspond. By its very nature, man's limited potentia limits his potestas as well (cf. EIVapp/32: "[H]uman power [potentia] is very limited .... So we do not have an absolute power [potestatem]"; cf. also Political Treatise 2/7: "[M]an can ... be called free ... insofar as he preserves the power of existing and operating according to the laws of human nature"). The point of view of potentia refers to productivity in act; that of potestas (apart from its political connotations) refers not only to logical possibility or conceivability, as

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Gueroult appears to claim,16 or to potential productivity (i.e., the capacity of producingI7), but to the force of production considered from the point of view of its result (a parte post), as we see in EIVapp/32. In order to increase aseity and freedom, we must learn to live increasingly in our own element, i.e., to cultivate our intellect and "produce true ideas in [ourselves], and make all these things known to [our] fellow men also" (KV II: 26/8,94). For we have the possibility - and this is undoubtedly the moral lesson of Ethics I - of passing from an external to an internal plane, since among the beings external to ourselves there are some whom we can integrate into our own natures in order to form a more perfect nature together. These are other people with whom we can share true knowledge: "All the effects which we produce outside ourselves are the more perfect the more they are capable of being united with us to make one and the same nature, for in this way they are nearest to internal effects" (KV II : 261 8,§4; my emphasis). Thus, to be free is indeed to return into oneself and act of and by oneself, in oneself and for oneself. However, one cannot act by oneself alone, where one is a separate mode, but must act with others - certainly with God, since without him we can neither be nor do anything - but also with others who are of the same nature as ourselves and with whom we can together construct a more perfect human nature, which the TIE claims to seek in its opening pages. Since, being neither the whole nor the only ones, we cannot be absolutely free, our way of being, living, acting, loving and thinking is both free and compelled as each of us is dete~mined by oneself (a se), by another (ab alio) and with another (cum alio). But this alius (other) need not be an alienus (stranger); it can become an alter ego or even part of us, the better part of us (meliora pars nostri: EIVapp/32). The question is whether, as Pierre Macherey says, the only difference between these two types of conduct is in the point of view adopted toward a common rationality that is either ignored and endured or recognized and acted upon. In this regard, I myself prefer to speak of a difference in style. Just as the lesson of Kantian moral philosophy is not the emergence of a new predicant morality (since morality has always been present to the common moral consciousness), but a new way of exercising morality - i.e., obedience to the law out of pure respect for it - so one could say that the lesson of Spinoza's practical philosophy is not the emergence of a new kind of rationality. Reason and its laws have always been there, present to the attentive mind, since we "have a true idea" from which we derive not only the true method of thinking and acting but, finally, the experience of our eternal being ("we feel and know by experience that we are eternal"; EVp23s). Spinozist philosophy represents a new style in

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the exercise of our freedom, which, instead of wearying itself in the pursuit of things outside our own element, increases our power to act and produce internal effects by concentrating our forces on what is truly in our power. This idea of Spinoza's goes far beyond the Stoic concept of mastering our representations; it gives rise to a science, a medicine, a pedagogy and a poli tics (cf. the program of action of the TIE). The freedom of the substance is entirely in se et a se (in itself and by itself), while that of the mode is a se et ab alio, in se et in alio, e sua potentia et ex altera potentia (by itself and by another, in itself and in another, from its own power and from another power). Ethics I provides the theoretical principles that allow us to establish the congruence of in se and in alio; Ethics IV provides the practical determinants that allow the coactio as a compulsion to become a co-action, a cooperation, and that allow the cum alio (with another) to become a true in se. It is the very idea of the self that is expanded in the conception of an organic model which never disperses the part in the whole; for at the very heart of the whole - the absolute whole of substance or the partial whole of communal society - each member conserves and develops his own conatus.

In closing, I should like to repeat, on my own account, Spinoza's words in Letter 19: "[O]f all the things which are beyond my power nothing is more esteemed by me than to be allowed to have the honour of entering into the bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love the truth. For I believe that of the things beyond our power, there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquillity except such men." Pierre Macherey is. to an eminent degree, one of those who sincerely love the truth. Thus, I am certain our friendship - founded on our common love of truth - cannot end. any more than a mind could refuse to accept the truth once it is conceived. Because he has helped me to reread Spinoza and to understand him better (which is no small matter), and to understand and to act out my own freedom- for the sake of the truth and so for our sake - I wish to thank Pierre Macherey heartily!

Notes 1. Montaigne, Oeuvres completes, (A. Thibaudet and M. Rat. eds .. (Paris: Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, Gallimard. 1962). p. 1045. For English translation see The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, trans!' George B. Ives (New York: The Heritage Press. 1946). vo!. 2. Book III, p. 1,459. 2. Ibid .. Oeuvres completes. p. 900: Essays ... Montaigne. p. 1.255.

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3. E.g .. Political Treatise, chap. 2. P; cf. M. Gueret. A. Robinet and P. Tombeur. eds .. Index In{ormatise de I'Ethique. (Louvain: Presse d'universite de Louvain. 1970), and especially Emilia Giancotti's admirable Lexicon Spinozanum. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970). 4. See above, n. 3. 5. Oeuvres philosophiques de Condi/fac, ed. George Le Roy, (Paris: Presses universitaires de France. 1947), vol. I, chap. 10. 6. Condillac. ibid., p. 194. 7. Ibid .. p. 127. 8. Ibid .. p. 185-186 (my italics). 9. Ibid., p. 186. 10. Ibid .. p. 188. 11. Lac. cit. 12. Ibid., p. 190. 13. Denis Diderot. Oeuvres completes, ed. J. Assezat (Nendeln. Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint. 1966 [reprint of 1876 edition published in Paris by Garnier]), vol. 15, p. 487. 14. Stanislas Breton, "Hegel ou Spinoza; ReJlexions sur I'enjeu d'une alternative," Cahiers Spinoza. no. 4. (Paris: Editions Replique, 1983), p. 73. 15. St. Paul. Acts, xvii: 28. referred to by Spinoza in Letter 73. 16. M. Gueroult. Spinoza, vol. I. Dieu (Ethique I). (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), p.388. 17. Ibid .. p. 387.

Don Garrett

Spinoza's Necessitarianism

In a letter dated July 22, 1675, Henry Oldenburg advises Spinoza not to include in his "five-part Treatise [the Ethics] anything which may appear to undermine the practice of Religious virtue" (Letter 62). In response to Spinoza's subsequent request to know the specific doctrines that he intends (Letter 73), Oldenburg reports on the reactions of readers of the earlier Theologico-Political Treatise: I will tell you what it is that causes them most distress. You seem to assert the fatalistic necessity of all things and actions: and they say that if this is admitted and affirmed, then the nerves of all laws, of all virtue and religion, are cut through, and all rewards and punishments are empty (Letter 74).

To this, Spinoza replies immediately and firmly: At last I see what it was that you asked me not to publish. Since, however, this very thing is the principal basis of all those which are contained in the Treatise [the Ethics] I had intended to pUblish, I want to explain in what sense I maintain the fatalistic necessity of all things and of all actions. For in no way do I subject God to fate, but I conceive that everything follows with inevitable necessity from the nature of God, just as all conceive that it follows from the nature of God Himself that He should understand Himself (Letter 75; my emphasis).

Spinoza develops this "principal basis" throughout Part I of the Ethics, concluding that "In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way" (EIp29), and that "Things could have been produced by God in no other way, and in no other order than they have been produced" (EIp33). How are these conclusions to be understood? It is widely agreed that Spinoza's position entails determinism: the doctrine that every event is causally determined from antecedent conditions by the laws of nature. But there has been little consensus concerning the further question of whether his position also entails what we may call "necessitarianism": the doctrine

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that every actual state of affairs is logically or metaphysically necessary, so that the world could not have been in any way different than it is - or, to adopt the Leibnizian mode of expression, that the actual world is the only possible world. Stuart Hampshire has asserted that Spinoza is indeed committed to necessitarianism; Curley has argued that he is best interpreted as committed to its denial; Matson, Jarrett and Bennett have maintained that he inconsistently commits himself to both necessitarianism and its denial; while Delahunty appears to hold that Spinoza's formulations are sufficiently ambiguous that he commits himself neither to the doctrine nor to its denial. 1 With respect to the actual substance, its attributes and its infinite modes, Spinoza's position seems straightforward: they exist of necessity, and are the only ones there could have been. 2 If there is any contingency to be found in his universe, therefore, it evidently rests with the finite modes. But the possibility of different finite modes is a more difficult question. EIp28 asserts that every finite thing is caused to exist and to produce an effect by another finite cause that is caused to exist and to produce an effect by yet another finite cause, "and so on, to infinity." Since causes produce their effects necessarily for Spinoza (EIax3), it follows that the existence and action of each finite mode is, given the antecedent existence of its cause, inevitable at the time it is produced. Moreover, because the chain of prior finite causes for each finite mode reaches to infinity, it also follows that there has been no point in the entire duration of the universe at which two different prospective sets of finite modes constituted genuinely alternative possible futures. Nevertheless, even this latter conclusion does not entail that the actual total series of finite modes as a whole is a necessary one; for it leaves open the question of whether there could not instead have been, from eternity, some other equally possible total series of finite modes, one equally compatible with all of the necessary constraints on such a series. If Spinoza allows that there could have been a different total series of finite modes, then for all its invocation of necessity and inevitability his metaphysics will not be necessitarian. For, to each such total series there will correspond a different "possible world" - that is, a different way the universe genuinely could have been. Thus, the question of Spinoza's necessitarianism is largely centered on the necessity or contingency of the total series of finite modes. In this paper I will argue for three theses: (I) Spinoza is not positively committed by anything he says to the denial of necessitarianism; (2) Spinoza is positively committed by what he says to the truth of necessarianism; and (3) if we do understand Spinoza as a necessitarian, then we can make better sense of two fundamental Spinozistic doctrines - his

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monism and his doctrine that every internally adequate idea corresponds to its object - as doctrines that are indeed founded on the "principal basis" of the "necessitv of all things and actions," Although each of the three theses for which I will argue is deductively independent of the others. in the sense that they could be true or false in any combination without contradiction. they are nonetheless mutually supporting. Taken together, these theses constitute a strong case for regarding Spinoza as a necessitarian. I will defend the theses in order.

There are three textual grounds on which Spinoza has been thought to be committed to a plurality of possible worlds and hence to the denial of necessitarianism: (1) the relation he describes between the finite modes and the "absolute nature" of the attributes; (2) his distinction between essences that involve necessary existence and those that do not; and (3) his distinction between essential and inessential characteristics of things.

1. Finite modes and the "absolute nature" of attributes.

Elp28d states that:

[W]hat is finite and has a determinate existence could not have been produced by the absolute nature of an attribute of God; for whatever follows from [sequitur] the absolute nature of an attribute of God is eternal and infinite (by P21).

There are two different ways in which this claim might be thought to commit Spinoza to a plurality of possible worlds. 3 a. "Following from." The first and more general of these ways does not demand that we assign any specific interpretation to the "absolute nature of an attribute" at all, so long as that "nature" is taken to be expressible in some propositional content. The argument, proposed by Bennett, is as follows: Elp21 and Elp28d both entail that finite modes do not "follow from" the absolute nature of any attribute; but it is a theorem in most systems of entailment logic that a necessary truth is entailed by - i.e., "follows from" - any proposition whatever; hence, we must conclude that the existence of any particular finite mode cannot be a necessary truth.4 Bennett himself sets this argument aside on the grounds that the relevant theorem of entailment logic has not always been well-known and remains controversial, so that there is no reason to think Spinoza was a ware of it or

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held it. In fact, however, we can go further: Spinoza can and must reject the theorem, at least as a claim about the relation that he intends by "following from." He must reject it in view of its unacceptable consequences. To take one example, the existence of every infinite mode is necessary; but if every infinite mode therefore "followed from" every other infinite mode, Spinoza's distinction between immediate and mediate infinite modes, which is drawn in terms of that relation (EIp23d; see also Letters 63-64), would collapse. Moreover, he clearly intends "y follows from x" to entail "x causes y," as the cited passage from EIp28d indicates. s Yet, surely he could not accept the consequence that every necessary state of affairs is a cause of every other. If it were, then every infinite mode of a given attribute would be both cause and effect of every infinite mode of every other attribute, contrary to EIIp6; and, even worse, every infinite mode would also be the cause of God's existence, contrary to EIIp6c. He can reject the theorem because, in saying that "y follows from x," he means considerably more than simply that "x entails y," as the latter propositon is understood in most contemporary modal and entailment logics. In these logics, the meaning of" x entails y" is exhausted by the claim that there is no possible world in which x is true and y is false. For Spinoza, in contrast, to speak of x as following from y is to locate x specifically as a necessitating cause and ground of y within a causal order of the universe that is at once dynamic and logical. Thus, if the Spinozist "following-from" relation is to be identified with a kind of entailment at all, it must be identified with the entailment relation of a "relevance logic," one whose relevance condition is satisfied only by priority in the causal order of nature. 6 Relevance logics, because of the additional requirements they impose on the entailment relation, generally do not satisfy the theorem Bennett cites. b. "Absolute nature." However, that theorem is by no means the only basis on which EIp21 and EIp28d may be thought to be incompatible with necessitarianism. For it may be argued that once we understand more specifically what is meant by "the absolute nature" of an attribute (alternatively: an "attribute ... insofar as it is considered absolutely" [EIp23dJ), we will see that the failure of finite modes to follow from this nature will require them to be contingent. If, for example, we interpret the "absolute nature of an attribute" to be its true or complete nature, then it will be difficult to see how finite modes could be rendered fully necessary without following from an attribute's "absolute" nature - for the attributes

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constitute the essence of God, who is the only independently necessary being. There is reason to doubt, however, that "absolute nature" should be interpreted as "true or complete nature" in this context. For Spinoza also asserts repeatedly that all things - clearly including finite modes - must "follow from the necessity of God's [or "the divine"] nature" (ElpI6, Elpl7s, Elp26d, EIp33d, Elp33sl). At EIp29s, moreover, he equates "following from the necessity of God's nature" with following "from any of God's attributes." Hence, the finite modes do evidently follow from the attributes, but not from the "absolute nature" of the attributes - which would be a contradiction if "absolute nature" meant simply "real or complete nature."7 Can the notion of "absolute nature" be given a different interpretation, not subject to this difficulty? Its use in the Ethics gives us two clues. The first clue is in Elp2ld, where Spinoza offers two parallel reductio ad absurdum arguments. The first argument concludes that whatever follows from the absolute nature of an attribute of God must be infinite, while the second concludes that whatever follows from the absolute nature of an attribute must have always had to exist or be eternal. The first argument, which for the sake of definiteness uses "thought" as a representative attribute, may be outlined as follows: (1) "in some attribute of God [for example, "thought"] there follows

from its absolute nature something that is finite" (Spinoza's assumption). (2) Every attribute of God, including thought, is "necessarily ... infinite by its nature" (by EI pll). (3) A thing can be finite only if it is limited or "determined through" something of the same nature (by EIdef2). (4) There is thought that does not constitute the finite thing question (from (1 )-(3)).

In

(5) "on that account [the finite thing] does not follow necessarily from the nature [of this thought] insofar as it is absolute thought." (from (4); my emphasis)

(6) Whatever "follows from the necessity of the absolute nature of the attribute itself ... must necessarily be infinite" (from the contradiction between (1) and (5), thus discharging Spinoza's original assumption).

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As the direct inference from (4) to (5) shows, Spinoza regards it as selfevident that whatever follows from the "absolute nature" of a thing must necessarily be manifested pervasively throughout that attribute. The second, parallel argument of the demonstration - concerning eternity and "determinate existence or duration" - similarly takes it as self-evident that whatever follows from the absolute nature of an attribute necessarily exists permanently. or without durational limits, throughout that attribute. The second clue is in EIp28d. There Spinoza argues that, since finite modes must be determined to exist and to produce their effects by God, yet cannot follow from the "absolute nature" of any attribute, they must follow instead from the attribute "insofar as it is considered to be affected by some mode." "Following from the absolute nature of an attribute" is thus contrasted not with failing to follow from the attribute at all, but rather with following from the attribute as that attribute is considered in a different way. 8 From these two uses of the notion of "absolute nature of an attribute," we can form a reasonable hypothesis about its purpose. An attribute, if it is to have any internal diversity or change, must be qualified in different ways at different places and times. Now, some things about an attribute will follow from the very nature of the attribute regardless of how it is qualified or "affected," and thus will follow equally from it under all circumstances; accordingly, things of this kind must be infinite and eternal, in the sense of being necessarily pervasive and permanent throughout the whole range of the attribute. This is the argument of EIp21d concerning infinite modes. Other things, however - those local and temporary features that actually constitute the attribute's diversification and change - cannot similarly follow from the nature of the attribute without regard to how it is qualified or "affected"; otherwise, they would be necessarily pervasive and permanent as well. Hence, these finite things must follow only from some non-pervasive or non-permanent qualifications or "affections" of the attribute. In order to be non-pervasive or non-permanent, these affections must themselves follow from non-pervasive or non-permanent affections, and so on to infinity. This is the argument of EIp28d concerning finite modes. The distinction at issue- between that which follows from the attribute "absolutely" or without regard to how it is affected, and that which follows from the attribute only where and when the attribute is qualified or affected in some particular way - is, thus, one that Spinoza would be committed to drawing simply by a commitment to the attributes' manifesting internal diversity and change through their modes, regardless of his attitude toward the contingency or necessity of the series of those modes.

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Still, it is one thing to say that Spinoza's use of the distinction need not be motivated by a belief in the plurality of possible series of finite modes, and another to say that his use of the distinction does not require such a plurality. Could Spinoza allow the actual series of finite modes to be necessary while denying that those finite modes follow from the "absolute" nature of the attributes? In order to answer this, we must first ask how, if at alL he could suppose the actual series of finite modes to be necessary. How could the series of finite modes be the only possible one? To put the question more precisely, how could there be only one possible solution to the problem of how an attribute is to be diversely modified by an infinite series of finite modes? Of course, such necessarily pervasive and permanent features of the attribute as its laws of nature - contained or "inscribed" in the attribute or its infinite modes (Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect 10 I) - will provide one kind of necessary constraint. Even so, however, the hypothesis that the actual total series of finite modes is the only one that is completely consistent with the laws of nature may seem too wildly optimistic for Spinoza to have accepted it. To this it might be replied simply that: (i) these laws of nature may be highly complicated, and (ii) it also seems wildly optimistic to suppose that the actual set of laws of nature is the only completely consistent set, yet Spinoza evidently does accept that hypothesis. However, there is another, fuller response available; for, in addition to the general laws of nature, Spinoza can allow a further, crucial, necessary constraint on the series of finite modes. He holds that everything whatever exists unless prevented from doing so (EIplld), that a substance's power to exist varies with its reality and perfection (EIplls) and that everything expresses some degree or other of reality and perfection (EIpJ6d; reality and perfecton are identified in EIIdef6). Furthermore, he evidently holds that "substance with less than the greatest possible number of attributes" is a contradiction, on the grounds that greater number of attributes is correlated with greater reality (by EIp9), so that the existence of God is necessary, while the existence of substances of fewer attributes is impossible. 9 It is therefore plausible that he would also regard "substance whose attributes express less than the greatest possible reality and perfection through their series of finite modes" as a contradiction, thus making the series of finite modes that expresses the highest degree of reality and perfection necessary, and all lesser series impossible. As Donagan has noted, this constraint is suggested by EIp33s I: "From the preceding it clearly follows that things have been produced by God with the highest perfection, since they ha ve followed necessarily from a given most perfect nature."JO (See also Elpl6d itself.)

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It now remains for us to consider whether a series of finite modes that is

necessary in such a way would be compatible with Spinoza's claim that finite modes do not follow from the absolute nature of the attributes. For, after all, it might be objected, if there is only one possible solution to the problem of how to realize a series of finite modes for an attribute, then that series must, after all, follow (either immediately or mediately) from the absolute or unqualified nature of the attribute itself. To this objection there are two alternative replies. First, if Spinoza accepts the requirement that the series of finite modes must express the highest degree of reality and perfection, then he could well maintain that the series of finite modes does not follow from the absolute nature of the attribute, but only from that nature together with this additional necessary constraint. This constraint, it might be argued, pertains to the nature of the attributes, but not to their absolute nature, as evidenced by the fact that the constraint requires different modifications at different places and times. Second, however (and this reply is available whether he accepts the additional constraint or not), Spinoza nowhere denies that the whole series of finite modes follows from the absolute nature of the attributes. His claim is only that no individual finite mode follows from it. Indeed, if the total series of finite modes as a whole were itself an infinite mode - not an implausible suggestion, given its pervasive and permanent extent - then it would necessarily "follow from" the absolute nature of the attributes, by EIp23. In that case, the total infinite series of finite modes would be an infinite mode having finite modes as parts; but that is not unprecedented, since the human mind is a finite mode that is nevertheless a part of the infinite intellect of God, by EIIpllc. In fact, the total infinite series of finite modes might well turn out to be identical with the "whole of nature [as] one Individual, whose parts ... vary in infinite ways, without any change [in] the whole Individual" that Spinoza describes in lemma7s preceding EIIpI4, and which he seems, in Letter 64, to identify as a mediate infinite mode. The crucial point, however, is that no finite mode would follow, considered independently of its membership in this series, from the nature of an attribute. For, if the mode followed independently, it would have to be necessarily pervasive and permanent throughout the attribute, i.e., it would have to be an infinite mode. Instead, each finite mode would follow from the nature of an attribute, but only in virtue of its membership as part of the one consistently constructible or maximally perfect series offinite modes. As a result, it would follow from an attribute only insofar as the attribute is considered to be affected by particular modes - just as EI p28d asserts. II Hence, the failure of individual finite modes to follow from the nature of an attribute "considered

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absolutely," is, on the proposed interpretation, compatible with there being only one possible total series of such modes. 2. Essence and necessary existence. EIIaxl reads: "The essence of man does not involve necessary existence. "12 At first glance, this axiom may suggest that the existence of particular men is not necessary, and hence must be contingent. Yet EIp29 asserts that "In nature there is nothing contingent," and EIp33s I asserts that" A thing is called contingent only because of a defect of our knowledge." Is this not a contradiction? We may begin by noting that the axiom does not claim that the existence of particular men is not necessary; it claims, rather, that necessary existence is not "involved" in the essence of men. It is thus simply a particular instance of the distinction drawn at Elp33sl: A thing is called necessary either by reason of its essence or by reason of its cause. For a thing's existence follows necessarily either from its essence and definition or from a given efficient cause. And a thing is also called impossible from these same causes - viz. either because its essence, or definition, involves a contradiction, or because there is no external cause which has been determined to produce such a thing. But a thing is called contingent only because of a defect of our knowledge. For if we do not know that the thing's essence involves a contradiction, or if we do know very well that its essence does not involve a contradiction, and nevertheless can affirm nothing certainly about its existence, because the order of causes is hidden from us, it can never seem to us either necessary or impossible. So we call it contingent or possible.1 3

This distinction is often interpreted as one between two degrees of necessity: real logical or metaphysical necessity, on the one hand, and mere causal inevitability in virtue of antecedent conditions, on the other. The "contingency" that Spinoza contrasts with both would amount, on this interpretation, simply to chance, or an absence of inevitability; and his denials of such contingency would therefore be simply assertions of determinism rather than of necessitarianism. It must be emphasized, however, that Spinoza does not present the distinction as one between two degrees of necessity, but rather as one between two sources of necessity: a thing's own essence, and a cause other than the thing itself. And, once again, this is a distinction that Spinoza would have to draw, given his commitment to the internal diversification of the attributes through a series of finite modes, whether he were a necessitarian or not. For the essence of an actually existing finite mode cannot contain a contradiction; if it did, it would be like a square circle, incapable of existing at all. On the other hand, the finite mode's own essence

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cannot "involve." or be the sufficient source of. its existence; for then it would require no external cause for its existence and could not be prevented. through the absence of such a cause, from existing pervasively and permanently (see EIplld), Hence. the individual members of a series of finite modes must have essences that, taken by themselves, do not necessitate the thing's existence without regard to external circumstances; rather, their essences must be capable of being instantiated under appropria te conditions (i.e., affections of the attribute), as part of a series of finite modes. (One might say that it pertains to their essence not to exist simpliCiter, but rather to exist given the presence of a particular efficient cause.) If the cause of such a finite mode is itself inevitable but only contingent, then the resulting finite mode will be inevitable but contingent. If, on the other hand, the series of causes that determines the finite thing to exist and to act at a particular time and place is itself the only possible series, then the existence of the finite mode at that time and place will itself be completely necessary, even though the necessity of its limited durational existence is derived from its place in the only possible series, rather than from its own essence considered in isolation. It might of course be argued that if the series of finite modes is completely necessary, then the limited durational existence of a finite mode must after all "follow from," and hence be "involved in" the thing's own essence; but this conclusion is warranted only if we accept the theorem that whatever is necessary "follows from" everything whatever: and this is a theorem that, as we have already seen. Spinoza can and must reject.

3. Essential properties. Throughout the Ethics, Spinoza appears to employ a distinction between the characteristics of a thing that are essential and those that are not essential. It may be argued, however, that if every actual state of affairs is necessary, then every characteristic of a thing must be essential to it, so that Spinoza's use of the distinction is incompatible with necessitarianism. As Bennett expresses it: The strongest pressure on Spinoza to allow that at least some propositions are contingent comes simply from its being hard to do good philosophy while staying faithful to the thesis that this is the only possible world. '" for example, his uses of the concept of a thing's essence, meaning those of its properties which it could not possibly lack, are flattened into either falsehood or vacuous truth if there are no contingent truths; because then every property of every thing is essential to it. 14

Bennett offers Elp5d and ElIIp6d as examples of arguments that are said to rely crucially on an essential/inessential distinction, and hence on the existence of contingent truths.

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a, Essence, property and accident. In assessing this line of argument, we must distinguish between two senses of "essence." In the first sense - due ultimately to Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, and common particularly in scholastic philosophy - the essence of a thing consists of the characteristics in virtue of which it is the thing that it is, and which, therefore, the thing must always have. This essence is distinguished both from the thing's properties and from its accidents. The properties are characteristics that do not belong to the essence but follow from and are deducible from it; for this reason, a thing must always have all of its properties. The converse, however, does not hold: the essence is not properly deducible from the properties. IS Accidents, in contrast, are characteristics that do not follow from the essence of the thing at all, and which the thing may therefore either acquire or lose without affecting its identity; their source is thus at least partly outside the essence of the thing. In the second sense of "essence" historically derivative from the first, and common particularly in contemporary modal logic - a characteristic is said to be essential, or to be part of a thing's essence, if it is a characteristic that the thing has in every possible world in which the thing exists at all. For lack of better terms, I will speak of essences of the first kind as "scholastic" essences, and essences of the second kind as "logical" essences. It is clear that Spinoza uses "essence" and related locutions to denote scholastic essences. At TIE 95, for example, he insists that a perfect definition "will have to explain the inmost essence of the thing, and to take care not to use certain properties [propria] in its place"; and at TIE 96, in discussing the conditions for a good definition of a created thing, he stipulates that we require "a concept, or definition, of the thing such that when it is considered alone, without any others conjoined, all the thing's properties can be deduced from it." The same distinction between essence and properties is clearly evident in the Ethics at EIIp40s2, where Spinoza contrasts knowledge of the second kind, which depends on "adequate ideas of the properties of things," with knowledge of the third kind, which "proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the ... essence of things." Other particularly explicit invocations of the essence / property distinction occur at EIp16d, and at ElIIdeLaff. VIexp and XXlIexp.16 The essence/ property distinction, as Spinoza draws it, does not require that a property belong to its bearer only contingently; on the contrary, it must belong to it necessarily, since all properties are deducible from the essence alone. Consider Spinoza's own example:

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Don Garrett If a circle. for example. is defined as a figure in which the lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equaL no one fails to see that such a definition does not at all explain the essence of the circle. but only a property of it (TIE 95)

Spinoza is certainly well aware that this property. though not the essence of the circle, is a necessary rather than a contingent feature of it. Spinoza also clearly allows that things have characteristics that are neither part of the thing's essence nor properties of it, characteristics that do not follow from the essence of the thing alone, and in that sense correspond to the "accidents" of the traditional distinction. Among the most important examples of such characteristics, for Spinoza's purposes, are human passions. But the fact that such characteristics do not follow solely from the essence of their bearer requires only that their source be at least partly outside the bearer; it does not require that there be a possible world in which the bearer would not have been caused to have them. Hence, neither Spinoza's own distinction between essence and properties, nor the distinction between these and characteristics that are imposed from outside, commits him to a denial of necessitarianism. b. Essence in EJp5d. Spinoza's own uses of the term "essence" are most naturally understood in the scholastic sense, a sense in which the existence of "inessential" characteristics is compatible with necessitarianism. Still, it may be objected, Spinoza might nonetheless rely on the supposition that some things have some of their characteristics only contingently, without using the term "essence" in connection with it. And, in fact, in neither of the two arguments Bennett cites as examples - Elp5d and ElIIp6d - does the term "essence" occur. Thus, we must still investigate whether these arguments commit Spinoza to the existence of logically inessential properties, under whatever name, and hence to a denial of necessitarianism. EI p5 and its demonstration read as follows: P5: In nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute. Oem.: If there were two or more distinct substances, they would have to be distinguished from one another either by a difference in their attributes, or by a difference in their affections (by P4). If only by a difference in their attributes, then it will be conceded that there is only one of the same attribute. But if by a difference of their affections, then since a substance is prior in nature to its affections (by PI), if the affections are put to one side and [the substance] is considered in itself, i.e. (by 03 and A6), considered truly, one cannot be conceived to be distinguished from another, i.e. (by P4), there cannot be many, but only one [of the same nature or attribute], q.e.d.

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One of the main problems in understanding this demonstration is to understand why Elpl ("A substance is prior in nature to its affections") entitles us to put "the affections ... to one side." Bennett's suggestion is that: If we take this [IPl] to entail that any state of a substance is accidental to it, i.e., that a substance could have lacked any of its actual [affections], then we get the following argument. Distinct substances must be unalike in respect of some properties which they cannot lose; for if they were unalike only in respect of their accidental properties they could become perfectly alike, and so, by the identity of indiscernibles, become identical. It is obviously intolerable to suppose that two substances could have been - or could become - one. So between any two substances there must be an unlikeness in respect of nonaccidental features, i.e., of attributes. 17

Ingenious as this proposed interpretation is, it is nevertheless subject to a number of serious objections. First, as Bennett emphasizes, it would be a logical fallacy for Spinoza to argue from "x and yare unalike only in respect of their accidental properties" to "x and y could become exactly alike." Second, it would be a further logical fallacy for Spinoza to move from "x and y could have been exactly alike" to "x and y could become exactly alike." Third, although Spinoza would indeed reject the claim that two substances could have been or could become one, he is not yet in a position to reject such a claim at ElpS. Indeed, the clearest grounds on which Spinoza could reject it would be Elpl4 and ElpI4c1, which assert that God is necessarily the only substance; but Elp14 is derived in part from ElpS, and so could hardly serve as a justification for it. Fourth, the kind of priority at issue in Elpl must be a kind of priority derivable from the premises ofElpl. These premises are simply Eldef3 and EldefS, the definitions of "substance" and "mode," which mention only the priority of "being in" and "being conceived through." These kinds of priorities may well be related to the scholastic inessentiality to substance of its modes, but the definitions do not imply that modes must be logically inessential, as the proposed interpretation requires. Finally, and perhaps most decisively, the proposed interpretation requires that Spinoza identify the distinction between a substance's attributes and its affections or modes - as employed at Eldef 1- with the distinction between its logically essential and logically inessential characteristics; but this Spinoza could not and would not do, regardless of his attitude toward necessitarianism, since the infinite modes are, by Elp21, logically (although not scholastically) essential to God. 18 For these reasons, it is unlikely that the proposed interpretation of ElpSd is correct. The interpretation could be rejected with greater certainty, of course, if we had a more satisfactory interpretation to offer in its place. I will outline such an interpretation - one that depends on a necessitarian

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reading of Spinoza - in the final section of this paper. But the objections just considered are sufficient for us to conclude that he need not be construed as a necessitarian on the basis of EI p5d. c. Essence in ElIlp6d. EIIlp6 states that, "Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being." The demonstration appeals, in part, to the claim that "no thing has anything in itself by which it can be destroyed, or which takes its existence away (by P4)"; or, as Bennett expresses it, that "nothing can, unaided, cause its own destruction." Bennett then asserts that "if all a thing's properties are essential to it, then this argument ought to conclude that nothing can, unaided, cause any change in itself." His line of thought, presumably, is this: a logically essential characteristic of a thing is one that it has in all possible worlds in which the thing exists at all; necessitarianism requires that all characteristics of things be logically essential to them; hence, necessitarianism requires that if a thing lost one of its characteristics, it would cease to be that thing, so that all change would be destruction. We must distinguish, however, characteristics whose permanent possession is logically essential from characteristics whose temporary possession is logically essential. Spinoza certainly recognizes some characteristics of the first kind, such as each individual's "fixed proportion of motion and rest." Necessitarianism, however, by no means requires that every characteristic be of this first kind; it requires only that, whenever a thing has some characteristic for a temporary part of its duration in one possible world. it must have that characteristic for that same temporary part of its duration in every possible world. To put the point in another way, necessitarianism does not require that nothing undergo change, but only that the series of a thing's actual changes constitute its only possible biography. For Spinoza, this would indeed be the case if the actual infinite series of finite modes was the only possible series. Necessitarianism is therefore compatible with EIIlp6d. Thus far, I have argued that Spinoza is not committed to the denial of necessitarianism by (1) his claim that finite modes do not follow from the absolute nature of the attributes, by (2) his distinction between things whose essences include necessary existence and those whose essences do not or by (3) his explicit or implicit use of an essential! inessential distinction. I have not yet argued that he is committed to necessitarianism. It is to this thesis that I now turn.

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II

There are three chief textual grounds for the conclusion that Spinola is committed to necessitarianism in Ethics I: EIpI6, which claims that "infinitely many things in infinitely many modes" follow from the necessity of the divine nature; EIp29, which denies any contingency in nature; and EIp33, which claims that "Things could have been produced by God in no other way, and in no other order" than that in which they have been produced. I will consider these three grounds in order. In the course of considering EIpI6, I will argue that, independently of these three propositions, Spinola is also committed to the denial of other possible series of finite modes by the doctrines of Ethics II. I. Elp16: The divine nature and the infinite intellect. EIpl6 and its demonstration read as follows: P 16: From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many modes (i.e., everything which can fall under an infinite intellect). Dem.: This Proposition must be plain to anyone, provided he attends to the fact that the intellect infers from the given definition of any thing a number of properties that really do follow necessarily from it (i.e., from the very essence of the thing); and that it infers more properties the more the definition of the thing expresses reality, i.e., the more reality the essence of the defined thing involves. But since the divine nature has absolutely infinite attributes (by D6), each of which also expresses an essence infinite in its own kind, from its necessity there must follow infinitely many things in infinite modes (i.e., everything which can fall under an infinite intellect), q.e.d.

Bennett outlines two different ways in which this proposition appears to commit Spinola to necessitarianism: the first concerns the relation between the actual and the necessary, while the second concerns the relation between the possible and actual. I will argue that Spinola is committed to necessitarianism in both ways.19 a. Necessity and actuality. claims:

Spinola is committed to each of the following

(1) Everything that falls under an infinite intellect follows from the

necessity of the divine nature. (2) "The necessity of the divine nature" is something necessary. (3) Whatever follows from something that is necessary, is itself necessary. (4) Everything that is actual falls under an infinite intellect.

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(I) is simply a paraphrase of Elp16 itself. Spinoza's commitment to (2) is evidenced not only in his reference to the "necessity" of the divine nature, but in the demonstration of Elp16 itself. For the demonstration argues as follows: (i) from the definition or essence of a thing, properties necessarily follow; (ii) the greater the reality contained in the essence, the more properties will follow in this way; (iii) God's essence is utterly infinite (by Eldef6); and, hence, (iv) from God's essence, infinitely many things must follow. The demonstration thus takes the "divine nature" to be equivalent to God's essence, which, by Elp20cl, is an eternal and, hence, necessary, truth. (3) is an evident consequence of the character of the "following from" relation as a necessitating logical and causal relation, as is apparent from its use in Elp21-28. It might be suggested, however, that we could reject the application of (3) in this context on the following basis: Even if the series of finite modes were contingent, each finite mode could still be said to follow at least partially from the nature of the attribute. For finite modes follow from other finite modes by means of the laws of nature governing them. And these laws, at least - laws contained in the attribute or its infinite modes - do follow from the absolute nature of the attribute, whether there could have been a different total series of finite modes or not. Hence (1) - the claim that everything falling under an infinite intellect follows from the divine nature - can be construed as claiming only that such things follow at least partially from the divine nature. But it is not true that whatever follows partially from something necessary must be itself necessary; hence (3) ought not be interpreted as applicable to (I). (A similar line of argument has been suggested to reconcile Elp16 with Elp21 and Elp28d; see note 7.) This argument, however, is subject to two serious objections. First, it requires Spinoza to trade tacitly (and equivocally, given Elp21 and Elp28d) on the very distinction between an adequate cause and a partial cause that he draws quite clearly at the outset of Ethics III, one that he could easily have drawn in Ethics I had he thought it would be useful. Second, the demonstration of Elp16 makes it clear that the relation between the divine nature and the infinitely many things said to follow from it is to be understood as the relation between a scholastic essence and its properties (in effect, the demonstration claims that infinitely many things are "properties" of God); yet, as we have already seen from TIE 96, the properties of a thing are all deducible from the essence of the thing alone. Finally, Spinoza's commitment to (4) is evident from the definition of "infinite" at Eldef2. For Elp16 equates "what falls under an infinite intellect" with "infinitely many things"; and, by definition, a collection of

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things cannot be infinite if it leaves any thing of the same kind outside itself. Moreover, numerous later passages (EIp17s, EIp26d, EIp33d, EIp33s), confirm that the "infinitely many things" that follow from the divine nature comprise "all" things, or everything. (4) is also independently required by Spinoza's commitment to the parallelism of the attributes - i.e., that "the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things" (ElIp7; EIIp7c in effect draws (4) as a consequence). But from (1 )-( 4) we can infer: (5) Everything that is actual is necessary. (5) is equivalent to necessitarianism. b. Actuality and Possibility. As Bennett observes,2o Spinoza also appears to be committed to the following two claims: (6) Everything that falls under the infinite intellect is actual. (7) Everything that is possible falls under the infinite intellect. (6) is directly entailed by EIp16 itself, since EIp16 states that whatever falls under an infinite intellect actually follows from the divine nature. It is also confirmed in EIp30, which states that, "an actual intellect, whether finite or infinite, must comprehend God's attributes and God's affections. and nothing else"; and it is confirmed again in EIp33s. Moreover, it is required by the parallelism of the attributes (Ell p7): for if the infinite intellect contained an idea of a non-actual thing, it would be an idea without a corresponding object. 21 Regarding (7), Bennett says only that "Spinoza sometimes uses the notion of an 'infinite' or unlimited intellect to express the notion of what is possible."22 I have been unable to confirm this by a definitive passage, but it might be regarded as evident simply from the definition of "infinite" (EIdef2), on the grounds that the failure to conceive something that is genuinely possible constitutes a limitation. This interpretation of the definition would be strengthened by Spinoza's apparent willingness to construe "infinite attributes" in the definition of "God" (EIdef6) as meaning "all possible attributes." But, from (6) and (7) we can infer: (8) Everything that is possible is actual. (8) is also equivalent to necessitarianism. c. Parallelism and causal independence. Even if we set aside EIp16 and EIdef2, however, Spinoza is still ultimately committed to (6) and (7) by

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doctrines he advances In Ethics II. We have already noted that he is committed to (6) by the parallelism of the attributes (EIIp7); I will now argue that Ethics II commits him to (7) as well. Since there is in God an idea of every actual thing (EIIp7c), and since there could have been no substances, attributes or infinite modes other than the actual ones, the question of how the infinite intellect could lack the idea of something genuinely possible may be reduced to that of how God could fail to have an idea of a possible but non-existent finite mode - i.e., of a finite mode that exists in some possible world, but not in the actual one. As we have already seen from EIp28, if there are to be genuinely possible but non-existent modes, they must belong to a total causal series of finite modes that is itself possible but not actual. But if there are such possible series of modes, what could prevent the occurrence of a corresponding series of ideas of those modes in the infinite intellect? There are only three alternatives: (i) the cause is to be found in the attribute of Thought itself; (ii) the cause is to be found in the non-existence of the objects of the ideas; or (iii) there is no cause, but the non-existence of the series of ideas is a brute contingent fact. None of these alternatives, however, can be acceptable to Spinoza. If the non-existent series of finite modes is indeed a genuinely possible series, then the series of ideas of those finite modes must be a genuinely possible series of finite modes of thought; and hence we cannot say that the idea is prevented from existing by the attribute of Thought itself. Yet, to say that the series of ideas is prevented from existing by the non-existence of their objects would be to contradict EIIpS: The formal being of ideas admits God as a cause only insofar as he is considered as a thinking thing. and not insofar as he is explained by any other attribute. I.e., ideas, both of God's attributes and of singular things. admit not the objects themselves, or the things perceived, as their efficient cause, but God himself, insofar as he is a thinking thing.

The remaining alternative is to say that, just as the series of finite modes itself could have existed but as a brute contingent fact did not, so the series of finite ideas of those objects could have existed but as a matter of brute contingent fact did not. But this too is unacceptable . For, if the existence or non-existence of a particular series of finite modes is an independent matter of chance within each attribute, then it will be only a matter of chance whether the series of finite modes from different attributes happen to correspond with one another. Moreover, we will never be in a position to know whether or not they do correspond. For example, from the existence of one's own mind, which is part of a series of finite modes in the attribute of Thought, one would not be able to determine whether the series of finite

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modes that includes one's own body has or has not been realized in Extension. EIIp7 (which asserts the parallelism of the attributes) and Elax4 (from which EIIp7 is derived) would then be, if not false. at least contingent, uncertain and unknowable. Hence. the infinite intellect must contain an idea of every possible thing, since the idea of any possible thing could be excluded from it only by violating either the causal independence or the necessary parallelism of the attributes. But the claim that the infinite intellect contains an idea of every possible thing is (7); and together with (6)'s requirement that every idea in the infinite intellect have an actual object, it entails (8), the doctrine that everything possible is actual - i.e., necessi tarianism. We may also put this same line of argument in somewhat more popular theological terms. If God is to know everything that is the case without error, his set of ideas about what series of finite modes is actual in each attribute must correspond precisely to the actual series of finite modes in that attribute, without positing any other, non-existent, finite modes as actual. But this perfect correspondence between things and ideas can be assured - and hence a source of knowledge - in only two ways: either (i) God's ideas are caused or explained by the actuality of the series of things itself, or (ii) there is for each attribute only one possible total series of finite modes, and one corresponding possible series of ideas of finite modes. Since Spinoza rejects the former alternative, he must accept the latter.

2. Elp29: Necessity and contingency. EIp29 states: In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and [ ... J produce an effect in a certain way.

Elp29 differs from EIp16 in only three respects: (1) its explicit use of the term "contingency," (2) its reference to "all things" as opposed to "infinitely many things" and (3) its explicit application both to the existence of things and to their actions. The demonstration justifies this greater explicitness on the basis of the more specific developments of EIp21-28. The heart of the demonstration, however, is the claim (EIp16) that infinitely many things follow in infinitely many ways "from the necessity of the divine nature." If, as I have argued, the necessity of EIp16 must be construed as logical or metaphysical necessity, and not as mere "inevitability in light of antecedent conditions," then the denial of contingency in Elp29, which is derived from and paraphrased in terms of that proposition, must be understood in the same sense.

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3. EIp33: The order of nature. follows:

EIp33 and its demonstration read as

P33: Things could have been produced by God in no other way, and in no other order than they have been produced. Oem.: For all things have necessarily followed from God's given nature (by PI6), and have been determined from the necessity of God's nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way (by P29). Therefore, if things could have been of another nature. or could have been determined to produce an effect in another way, so that the order of Nature was different, then God's nature could also have been other than it is now, and therefore (by PII) that [other nature] would also have had to exist, and consequently, there could have been two or more Gods, which is absurd (by PI4CI). So things could have been produced in no other way and no other order, etc., q.e.d.

The crucial question in the interpretation of this proposition is this: how are we to understand "in no other way, and in no other order?" If this expression refers only to the attributes, the infinite modes, and their lawswhich in a sense determine the "way" and "order" in which finite modes follow from one another - then the proposition is compatible with a plurality of different possible series of finite modes. If, on the other hand, this "way" or this "order" includes the finite modes as well, then the proposition will deny the possibility of even finite modes other than the actual ones. As the demonstration makes clear, the "order" in question is the "order of Nature" (naturae ordo). Of Spinoza's many uses of this term, in the Ethics and elsewhere, nearly all at least suggest that the order of nature includes particular finite modes as parts, and several imply it more directly. For example, in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, he proposes that we should "attend to the order of Nature" (TIE 65), as the chief remedy against the formation of imaginative "fictions" concerning the existence of particular durational things - advice that would presumably be useless if such particular things were not to be found as parts of that order. EIplld asserts that: [T]he reason why a circle or triangle exists, or why it does not exist, does not follow from the nature of these things, but from the order of the whole of corporeal Nature. For from this [order] it must follow either that the triangle necessarily exists now or that it is impossible for it to exist now.

Perhaps most directly of all, EIIp24d speaks of the relation between a part of the human body and "a singular thing [i.e., a finite mode or a concerted association of them, by EIIdef7] which is prior, in the order of nature, to the part itself." Spinoza also consistently uses such related terms as "common order of nature" (communis ordo naturae) and "order of causes" (ordo

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causarum) to include the finite modesY Moreover, as Bennett points out,24 Spinoza characterizes his position in Elp33d and EIp33s2 as a denial that "things could have been of another nature," that God could "decree anything different," that God could have "willed and decreed something different concerning nature" and that "things could have been produced otherwise than they are now." Taken together with the demonstration's reliance on Elp16 and Elp29, these facts strongly suggest that Elp33 is intended to rule out not merely any alternative possible attributes and infinite modes, but any alternative possible series of finite modes as well. In this section, I have argued that Spinoza is committed to necessitarianism by three propositions in Ethics I: ElpI6,29,33. I have also argued that he is independently committed to that claim by the conjunction of two doctrines expressed in Ethics II: the causal and explanatory independence of the attributes (EIIp5), and the necessary parallelism of the attributes (EIIp7).

III

Thus far, I have argued that Spinoza is not committed to the denial of necessitarianism, and that he is committed to its truth. But, does the question of necessitarianism have any bearing on our interpretation of the rest of his philosophy? I believe that it does, with respect to at least two topics: his monism, and his view of the relation between the internal adequacy of an idea and its external correspondence to its object. We are now in a position to explore briefly the bearing of necessitarianism on these topics. 1. Monism and the sharing of attributes. Spinoza's monism is stated in Elpl4: "Except God, no substance can be or be conceived." The formal demonstration is straightforward: (i) God is by definition a being "of whom no attribute which expresses an essence of substance can be denied" (by Eldef6), and (ii) "he [God] necessarily exists" (by Elpll); but (iii) two substances cannot share an attribute (by EIp5); hence (iv) God is the only substance. The demonstration of Elp14 relies, however, on Elp5; and the demonstration of the latter proposition has puzzled commentators. As we have seen, Elp5d begins by asserting (i) that two or more distinct substances would have to be distinguished either by a difference of attributes or a difference of modes ("affections"). Spinoza then argues (ii) that a difference

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of attributes would entail that there was only one substance of the same attribute; and he infers from EIpl - that is, "A substance is prior in nature to its affections" - (iii) that we may set the modes "to one side." He then concludes (iv) that there cannot be two substances with the same attribute. Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the argument is its claim that we are entitled by EIpl to put the affections or modes of substance "to one side" in the attempt to distinguish two substances of the same attribute. Few commentators have agreed that Spinoza is entitled to do so. The fullest attempt to explain his grounds for so doing is that of Bennett, discussed above, according to which Spinoza's argument commits him to a plurality of possible worlds. Bennett himself rightly characterizes as "fallacious" the argument he is forced to ascribe to Spinoza; and I have argued that it is subject to a number of additional difficulties as well. If, however, we interpret Spinoza as a necessitarian, then we find that he does have grounds for putting the modes "to one side" that are both comprehensible and sound. If all modes follow from attributes in such a way that no attribute could possibly have given rise to a different set of modes, then we will indeed be entitled to set the modes to one side in our attempt to distinguish two different substances with the same attribute; for any difference in modes will necessarily be due to some difference of attributes, and hence the second alternative for distinguishing two substances (difference of modes) will reduce to the first (difference of attributes). Spinoza's necessitarianism is of course not yet articulated at this point in the Ethics. But it does not need to be for the purposes of ElpS. He needs only the claim of Eldef3 and EldefS, that modes must be conceived through substance, together with the equation of "substance" with "attributes" that Elp4d makes for this context. From a strong reading of this claim of priority, expressed in Elpl, he can infer that any difference of modes must be conceived through a difference of attributes. He need not appeal to the more explicit claim that modes are conceived through their attributes because they are causally necessitated by them - although this more explicit claim is arguably already available from the claim (in Elax4) that effects should be conceived through their causes, together with the description (in Elax3) of the causal relation as necessitating. The question of how Spinoza reduces differences of mode to difference of attribute is by no means the only question that can be raised about the argument for ElpS.25 But, if we construe the dependence of modes on attributes in the strict way dictated by a necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza, then we have a much more natural and persuasive basis for one

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crucial step of the demonstration of EIpS, and hence for one crucial step in his argument for monism.

2. Internal adequacy and correspondence. EIIdef4 states that: By adequate idea I understand an idea which, insofar as it is considered in itself. without relation to an object. has all the properties, or intrinsic denominations of a true idea.

In the Meditations, Descartes devotes a great deal of effort to arguing that a certain internal characteristic of an idea - namely, its clarity and distinctness - is and should be treated as a reliable criterion of the idea's agreement with or correspondence to that which it represents. In striking contrast, Spinoza seems at Elldef 4 simply to take it for granted that there is a certain internal characteristic belonging to all and only ideas that are true - i.e., ideas that, by EIax6, agree with their objects. Similarly, in the TIE he asserts without argument that truth involves both an "internal" and an "external" denomination (TIE 69). How could Spinoza simply presuppose a correlation between an internal characteristic of ideas and their external correspondence to their objects, particularly when Descartes had tried so carefully and elaborately to establish such a correlation? If there are genuinely possible but non-actual series offmite modes, then it is difficult to see how any intrinsic characteristic could reliably distinguish a "true" idea affirming the existence of a really existing finite mode from a "false" idea affirming the existence of a non-existent but equally possible mode. Furthermore, as we saw in our earlier discussion of the infinite intellect, there could be no guarantee that such false ideas would not exist, given the requirement of the explanatory independence of the attributes in EIIpS. Hence, if Spinoza regards the series of finite modes as contingent. his assumption that there is an internal characteristic of ideas possessed only by those that correspond truly to their objects would be unwarranted. If, however, we interpret Spinoza as holding that the attributes necessitate a unique series of modes, so that no other series is possible, then he will have a comprehensible and sound justification for his assumption. Necessitarianism entails that nothing is logically or metaphysically possible except what is actual. Hence, if an idea possesses enough internal consistency or "adequacy" to show that what it represents is a genuine possibility, it will thereby also show it to be actual. Of course, in Spinoza's view no idea affirming the existence of a finite mode actually possesses this degree of adequacy, as the idea exists in any human mind, since this adequacy

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requires a knowledge of all of the finite mode's causes (EIIp24-27). However, he also requires that ideas affirming the existence of particular finite modes must be "adequate" in God (EIIp9, EIIp32); and this internal adequacy could not guarantee the idea's correspondence with actually existing modes unless those modes were the only ones genuinely possible.

Conclusion I have argued that Spinoza is not committed to the denial of necessitarianism by any of the three textual grounds on which he has been taken to be so committed. I have argued that he is committed to necessitarianism by three propositions of Ethics I, and, on independent grounds, by the doctrine of attributes contained in Ethics II. Finally, I have argued that if he is interpreted as a necessitarian, then both his monism and his view that internal "adequacy" is correlated with external correspondence can be given a sounder basis in his philosophy than they can be given otherwise. Taken together, these results make a strong case for the claim that Spinoza is a necessitarian. They also suggest that his doctrine of necessity is, indeed, a "principal basis" of at least some of the central doctrines of the Ethics.

Notes 1. Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (New York: Penguin, 1951), p.54: Edwin Curley. Spinoza's Metaphysics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1969), especially pp. 106-109: Wallace Matson, "Steps Towards Spinozism." Revue Internationale de Philosophie 31 (1979): 76-83: Charles Jarrett, "The Logical Structure of Spinoza's Ethics, Part I," Synthese 37 (1978): 55-56; Jonathan Bennett. A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett. 1984). 111-124; R.J. Delahunty. Spinoza (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1985). pp. 155-165. Although I am in general agreement with Hampshire's characterization of Spinoza's position, I find his one-line justification of it. in terms of the co-extensivity of Natura naturans and Natura naturata, to be too brief and general to be helpful. I am inclined to classify J.1. Friedman with Curley. as one who interprets Spinoza as a non-necessitarian. on the basis of his "Spinoza's Denial of Free Will in Man and God." in Spinoza's Philosophy of Man. ed. Jon Wetlesen (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1978), pp. 58-63; I do not do so because I am not sufficiently confident that I know what he means by the locution "causally but not logically necessary" in the context of the paper. It should be noted that only Delahunty actually uses the term "necessitarianism," and that he uses it in a somewhat broader sense than I have given it here. 2. In the course of Ethics I. he asserts that God necessarily exists (Elp I 1), and that there could exist no other substance but God (ElpI4). He defines God as the

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substance of infinite (unlimited or all possible) attributes (E1def6), which, given God's existence, entails that there could have been no attributes other than those actually possessed by God; and he asserts that all of God's attributes are eternal (ElpI9), which, by the definition of "eternity" (Eldef8), entails their necessary existence, He affirms that whatever things follow from the absolute nature of any of God's attributes have always had to exist and be infinite, and are eternal through that attribute (Elp21), and that every infinite mode must so follow, either immediately or mediately, from the absolute nature of some attribute of God (Elp23d). Assuming that no attribute could have had a different "absolute nature" from the one it actually has, and that nothing could have followed from such an absolute nature except what actually does follow from it, we may conclude not only that every infinite mode exists necessarily, but also that there could not have been any infinite modes other than the actual ones. Furthermore, Spinoza holds that nothing exists except substance and modes (Elp6c, Elpl5d and Elp28d), and does so on cited grounds (Eld3, EId5, and Elaxl) that presumably render this restriction a necessary truth for him as well. 3. Of these two ways, only Bennett describes the first. The second is to be found in Curley, Matson, Jarrett and Bennett (cited in n. I). 4. Entailment is, of course, primarily a relation between states of affairs or propositions, whereas for Spinoza the "following from" relation is primarily between things. I shall not insist on the distinction here, however, and will instead speak indifferently of a mode, its existence and the proposition that it exists. For present purposes, nothing turns on the distinction. 5. This is clear from the fact that a claim about "production" is inferred directly from a claim about "following from." It is also especially evident in the derivations of ElpI6cl-3, each of which infers a claim about the character of God's causality directly from ElpJ6's claim that infinitely many things "follow from" the necessity of the divine nature. 6. This is presumably a condition that could not be formalized. For a discussion of formalizable relevance logics, see Alan Ross Anderson and Nuel Belnap, Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). As we shall soon see, Spinoza also holds that, in some cases, a y can "follow from" some x "insofar as" x is "considered in" one way, but not "insofar as" x is "considered in" another way. This is a related respect in which his "follows from" relation differs from, and is less formalizable than, other entailment relations. 7. One might seek, as Jarrett suggests, to reconcile this contradiction by interpreting Spinoza as employing his own later distinction between adequate and partial causation at this point, so that Elp21 and Elp28d refer to following adequately, while the other passages ref~r to following partially (p. 55). I discuss this interpretation and my reasons for rejecting it below, in section II. 8. Note that these two ways of follOWing from the attribute need not be mutually exclusive; the demonstration implies that mediate infinite modes follow in both ways, although immediate infinite modes follow only in the former, and finite modes follow in only the latter. 9. For an examination of the role of this principle in explaining why God is the only possible substance, see my "Spinoza's 'Ontological' Argument," The Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 198-223.

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10. Alan Donagan. "Spinoza's Proof of Immortality:' in Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene (New York: Doubleday. 1973). p. 249. This constraint would also explain why the attributes must express themselves through finite modes at all. To the question of why there are any finite modes. Spinoza could reply as he does to the question of why God has created men who are not governed by reason: "because the laws of his nature have been so ample that they sufficed for producing all things which can be conceived by an infinite intellect" (EIapp: Curley, p.446). 11. Of course. the absolute nature of the attribute would "entail" the existence of each individual finite mode, in the sense that there would be no possible world in which the attribute had that absolute nature and yet the finite mode did not exist: but, as we have already seen, Spinoza requires more than this of the "following from" relation. In his view. a finite mode can be said to "follow from" an attribute "considered" in one way. but fail to "follow from" it when it is considered in another. more restricted, way - a distinction that makes good sense when taken as expressing a finite mode's dependence for existence on its membership in the only constructible or maximally perfect infinite series of such modes. but a distinction for which the modern entailment relation simply makes no allowance. 12. Spinoza's own gloss of this axiom continues: "i.e., from the order of nature it can happen equally that this or that man does exist, or that he does not exist." 1 discuss the interpretation of this gloss below. in n. 21, If what 1 argue in this section is correct, then it will be evident that both of the plausible interpretations of the gloss are compatible with necessitarianism. 13. For similar distinctions. see also TIE 53 and Metaphysical Thoughts 1:3. Reference to Elax2. EIp33sl. or both figure in Curley, Bennett. and Friedman. 14. Only Bennett offers this argument (p. 114). As the quoted passage suggests. however, it constitutes his chief grounds for regarding Spinoza as committed to a denial of necessitarianism. 15. If a thing's having its essence is a necessary truth. of course. then its doing so is entailed by anything whatever, in one sense of "entailment" discussed above. This only shows, however. that the sense of "deducible from" in question here is not identical with that sense of "entailed by." 16. The scholastic essence/property distinction is also in accordance with the definition of the "essential" offered at EIIdef2: D2: I say that to the essence of any thing belongs that which. being given, the thing is necessarily posited and which, being taken away. the thing is necessarily taken away; or that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived. and which can neither be nor be conceived without the thing. For a thing can be conceived (simply by conceiving its essence) without conceiving its properties. This does not mean that we can conceive that the essence might fail to give rise to the properties, but only that conceiving the essence does not require us to conceive the properties. (This situation is somewhat analogous to that of the attributes: we conceive each attribute without the aid of any other (ElplOs), but we cannot conceive that one should exist and that another should not, since that would involve conceiving that an attribute failed to exist.) Similarly, the thing does not causally depend on the properties, and in that sense "can be" without (reliance on)

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them, even though it cannot fail to give rise to them through its essence. Indeed, EIIIdeLaff. XXIIexp speaks of "an effect or [sive] property." 17. Bennett, pp.67-68. 18. The infinite modes do not, of course. constitute respects in which substances of the same attribute might differ. The objection is rather to the reading of EIp I that Bennett's interpretation requires. 19. These two ways, which I outline below, are based specifically on Bennett. p. 122; the argumentation that Spinoza is committed to their individual elements is my own. 20. Bennett, p. 122. 21. It is worth taking note of a weaker sense in which there are ideas of non-existent finite modes - for example. of unicorns. conceived as a species of one-horned equine animals. This is the sense of EIIp8; and if having an idea of a non-existent thing in this sense were sufficient to make something "fall under the infinite intellect." (7) would follow immediately. But as EIIpS explains, such an idea is not an idea having no object, which would violate EIlp7: rather it is an idea having a truly existent thing as its object. This truly existent thing is not an existent unicorn. however, but rather the formal essence of a unicorn. This essence is "comprehended" in the attribute of Extension. As I understand it. this means that the essence is itself a real, existent, feature of Extension: specifically. the pervasive and permanent feature that Extension's general laws are such as to permit the unicorn-mechanism to exist whenever and wherever the series of finite modes and causes should dictate. The idea of a "non-existent thing" in EIIpS is simply the idea of this essence (which I construe to be an infinite mode); indeed, the idea is the very same mode as this essence. but manifested under the attribute of Thought (EIIp7s). In the case of actually existing finite modes, however, there is in God not only an idea of their permanent essence. but also an idea of their actual existence (EIIp8c). This idea of the actual existence of a finite mode is itself a finite mode. and is indeed the very same finite mode manifested under the attribute of Thought. as part of a causal order paralleling the causal order containing its object (EIIp7s; EIIp9.d). The human mind is an example of such an idea of an actually existing finite mode (EIIpll), and all such ideas of the actual existence of finite modes are in the infinite intellect of God (by EIIpllc' whose demonstration is completely general). (To put the matter in more popular terms. God not only knows what essences there are. he knows which particular finite modes actually exist.) It is such finite ideas of the actual existence of finite modes that I am discussing in the text. 22. Bennett, p. 122. 23. In fact, there is only one passage that even appears to contradict this interpretation. Spinoza continues in EIIax I ("The essence of man does not involve necessary existence") as follows: "i.e .. from the order of nature it can happen equally that this or that man does exist, or that he does not exist [hoc est, ex naturae ardine, tam fieri potest, ut hic, & ille homo existat, quam ut non existat]." There are two possible interpretations of this gloss that are compatible with Spinoza's determinism: (a) that the existence of a particular man in itself neither contradicts nor is required by the general and pervasive laws ("order") of nature, or (b) that the man's essence does not determine whether he exists or not, but that his existence is instead determined as part of the actual series ("order") of natural causes and effects. The first interpretation requires that the "order of nature" not include finite modes, but

2 I H Don Garrett the second interpretation requires that it should include finite modes. The first interpretation is particularly suggested by the Curley and Shirley translations: the second is particularly suggested by the Elwes and White-Sterling translations. 24. Bennett. pp. 119~ 120. 25. For an excellent presentation of some of these issues, see Bennett, pp. 66~ 70. I have discussed these issues in "Ethics IPS: Shared Attributes and the Basis of Spinoza's Monism." contained in a collection of essays written in honor of Jonathan Bennett. ed. Mark Kulstad and Jan Cover (Indianapolis: Hackett. 1990).

Y osef Ben-Shlomo

Substance and Attributes in the Short Treatise and in the Ethics: An Attempt at an "Existentialist" Interpretation

Since its discovery in the middle of the last century, the Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being, which was written by Spinoza around the year 1658 and is probably his earliest work, became a major source for research on the Ethics and for the historical understanding of its fundamental problems. The status of the Short Treatise, as Spinoza's first attempt to formulate his system in its entirety, lends it great importance with respect to the question of the sources from which the Spinozist system was evolved and the specific influences that stimulated and formed the philosopher's thought. Even a full clarification of Spinoza's sources does not, of course, belittle the depth and the original force of his system. But it may give us a key for understanding the central core of the Spinozist system. At the very least, it may disclose the conceptual starting-point of the system in the framework of the history of philosophy, or reveal the philosophical trend that Spinoza brought to its final consistent conclusion. The major importance of the Short Treatise is not, therefore, in a wellordered presentation of the system itself, which we have in its fully matured form in the Ethics, but rather in its being a kind of Urethik or embryonic form of the Ethics, in which we confront the birth-pangs of the system as it unfolds before our eyes in all its strife - with all the difficulties, internal inconsistencies and even contradictions that are involved in the development of any great system before they are settled or covered up in its mature and coherent formulation. On the other hand, the Short Treatise helps us understand the origin of those same difficulties that remain unsolved in the Ethics. Moreover, there are also several matters in the later work whose meaning is clarified only after one realizes that they are remnants of the earlier formulation. The foregoing not withstanding, viewing the Short

Y. Yo vel. ed.. God and Nature: Spinoza's Metaphysics. 219-229. © 1991. £.1. Brill. Leiden-New York-Kflbenhavn-Koln

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Treatise as a kind of introduction to the Ethics does not negate its intrinsic importance as a special and separate formulation ofSpinoza's doctrine. For the Treatise not only admits us, as it were, behind the scene of the production of the system, where we can follow the internal processes of its evolution; but, in that process, several of the deepest undercurrents of Spinozist thought - which might have been denied before the late discovery of the Short Treatise- are revealed to us. Thus, Spinoza's religiosity, which is concealed by the geometrical form of the Ethics, becomes salient here. And this resurrects the question that has now been a matter of controversy for three hundred years: Was Spinoza an atheist? Whatever the answer to this nebulous question, the Short Treatise is more interesting than the Ethics in relation to it, because the personal side of the philosopher has almost completely disappeared in the latter work. Indeed, by using the strict style of the geometrical form, Spinoza's intention from the outset was to prevent any emotional expression that might attest to what was taking place within himself; thus, the pathos from which the system derives its vitality breaks out only here and there (especially in Ethics V). In the Treatise, on the other hand, we are witness to the philosopher's attempts to formulate his ideas to himself no less than to others, and to give conceptual expression to his personal experiences. The entire Treatise attempts to answer a personal question - What can one do in order to attain salvation? - which is also the purpose of philosophy in general, as Spinoza himself says in the opening words of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. As is well known, the Spinozist system evolves dialectically out of two contradictory trends of thought, which come together in the statement that constitutes the foundation of the whole system: the identity of Nature, God and the infinite substance. With this identity, the contradictory elements of Cartesian philosophy and pantheistic thought are unified: on the one hand, the extreme dualism of spirit and matter, God and the world; on the other, the monistic view that reveals the basic unity of all things. It is true that this original synthesis is completely fulfilled only in the Ethics, whereas the duality from which it was built up can still be recognized in the Short Treatise; but it is nonetheless clear that the internal core of the Spinozist system already appears here, as a profound primary experience of the unity that pervades the world - a unity "outside which nothing can be imagined to be" (KV I: 2, dialogue 1, G30/2).! This primary unity relates to plurality as the infinite relates to the finite. The infinite is only the other side of the absolute unity: if reality is truly one, then it is necessarily infinite because it must be all that exists; and if infinity is truly infinite, then it is the all-

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encompassing unity, so that anything finite is only a negation of it and within it, and "[TJhere cannot be two infinities, but only one" (KV I: I, G 18 /10). This is the same concept of infinity that also appears in Descartes, according to whom the infinite is not quantitative, a collection of parts that are too numerous to count. "[TJhe infinite cannot be obtained by putting together divers finite parts" (KV I : I, G 18 / 10), but infinity is a positive quality that is prior to the finite, so that only by negating it is it at all possible to determine the finite as finite. Similarly, in the Ethics, Spinoza says: "[BJeing finite is really, in part, a negation, and being infinite is an absolute affirmation of the existence of some nature" (EIp8s1). Such a conception of unity and of the infinite necessarily leads to the Spinozist monism that identifies God with nature or total reality, and thereby negates the reality of a world separate from God. In the Short Treatise, this radical - from the point of view of traditional monotheism - conclusion is derived as a necessary outcome of the fundamental assumptions of monotheism itself, and it is formulated there in religious terms. Spinoza takes the theological postulation of the uniqueness and infinity of God seriously: if God is truly one and infinite, then, indeed, as the Bible says, "[TJhere is none but Him." For, how can there be any possibility that anything exists outside of God? This would limit God's infinity, since he would not be this thing, i.e., he would not be absolutely infinite. Any such existence - for example, the material world - to which one attributes independent reality would also negate the absolute uniqueness of God; for this would mean that there is a reality that is not God, and, therefore, that God is not the only reality. Here we can agree with Hegel, that "Spinozism is monotheism elevated into thought."2 And, so, monotheism loses its original meaning and is taken out of its historic context: true monotheism eliminates theism. From the above, we can see that, already in the Short Treatise, Spinoza concludes that all things "are only modes of the One, Eternal, Infinite Being, who exists through himself" (K V I: 2, dialogue 1, G29/ 33). He reaches this conclusion through a criticism of the Cartesian theory of substances, and the use of the term "modes" anticipates his identification of God as the only substance. However, in KV I: 1-2, which deal with the existence of God and his essence, Spinoza does not designate God as "substance," but speaks instead of the thinking substance and the extended substance - although he emphasizes that these substances are not created. Relying on this, several commentators have tried to distinguish between different stages in the development of Spinoza's concept of God. According to their interpretation, the three concepts - God, Nature, Substance - refer to three

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different starting points, although they do not reach total identity until the end of their development. The concept of God is what Spinoza has to begin with. This concept, which belongs to the heritage of philosophy and theology, was available to him along with all the other concepts that are associated with it: the most perfect Being, the first cause, the source of all that exists. And, even if Spinoza altered the meaning of the traditional concept of God, he could still use it as his point of departure. But this was not the case with the concepts Nature and Substance, which evolved with the development of his thought. This interpretation is based on the fact that, in the discussion of substances in the early parts of the Short Treatise, Spinoza does not yet explicitly state that it is the very nature of a substance to exist; the substance (or the attribute) is conceived through itself, but does not exist in itself; i.e., here, the concept of substance corresponds only to the second part of its definition in the Ethics: "that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed" (EIdef3). Only the essence of God - and not that of any other substance - involves existence. In order for Spinoza to be able to attain a concept of Substance that is identical with God, he must first alter the traditional concept of God to show that nothing exists besides him. Spinoza achieves this alteration by means of the concept of an infinite Nature that includes all reality - the absolute unity which is in itself and in which all possible and conceivable things are actualized - in other words, Nature, which is identical with God. Only now is there no longer any room for substances in the Cartesian sense, and only now do they become attributes of the one unique substance. Only when this stage is reached can Spinoza formulate the concept of Substance as "that which is in itself" and is its own cause (causa sui). Such is the interpretation of Sigwart. 3 But Freudenthal and others 4 justly reject this artificial division, because, even in the Ethics, when Spinoza speaks about the attributes he sometimes uses the Cartesian term, calling them substances even though there is no evidence there that he still holds Descartes' theory of substances. Nonetheless, Spinoza's use of the term "substance" can be completely understood within the Cartesian tradition. Descartes' first strict definition of substance reads: "By substance, we can understand nothing else than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist. And in fact only one single substance can be understood which clearly needs nothing else, namely, God ... , That is why the word substance does not pertain univoce to God and to other things" (The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, §51). 5 But, as we well know, Descartes also gave a less strict definition, according to which

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it is possible to speak of created substances: A substance is also that which can be conceived without needing any other thing besides itself. Spinoza accepts only Descartes' strict definition, and from it he deduces the necessary conclusion. Thus, he can speak of the "extended substance" (Letter 12) and, as I have already pointed out, retain remnants of the Cartesian terminology, even in the Ethics. This is especially the case when he discusses Extension (See, e.g., Elpl3c: "From these [propositions] it follows that no substance, and consequently no corporeal substance, insofar as it is a substance, is divisible." And in EIIp7s: "[T]he thinking substance and the extended substance are one and the same substance.") Thus, everything that is said on God and on infinite Nature in the first chapters of the Short Treatise conforms completely to the so-called "later concept of substance" in the Ethics. According to Spinoza, these three concepts - God, Nature, Substance - are identical from the outset, and there is no need to consider the concept of Nature as an intermediary between the concepts of God and Substance. The concept of Nature appears immediately at the beginning of the discussion, with a meaning that overlaps the definition of Substance. The infinity of Nature means, in itself, that Nature includes the so-called "substances." Therefore, it is really the only substance: "[T]here is but One [substance], which exists through itself, and is a support to all other attributes" (KVI:2, dialogue I,G29121). The uniqueness of substance is so greatly emphasized here that Spinoza is even willing to name the so-called "substances" (i.e., the attributes) as modes of the one "substance": "And if you will refer to the material and the mental as substances, in relation to the modes which are dependent on them, ... you must also call them modes in relation to the substance on which they depend: for they are not conceived by you as existing through themselves" (ibid., G29124 ff.). This overlap between Substance and God is hinted at in the first chapter of the Short Treatise, and is developed at the beginning of the second chapter, where God is defined as "[A] being of whom all or infinite attributes are predicated, of which attributes everyone is infinitely perfect in its kind" (KV I: 2, G 19 /5- 6). The very same thing is said afterward about Nature: "[O]f Nature all in all is predicated, and ... consequently Nature consists of infinite attributes, each of which is perfect in its kind. And this is just equivalent to the definition usually given of God" (KV I: 2, G22/9 ff.). And, similarly, in the corollary to proposition 4 in KV, appl: "Nature is known through itself, and not through any other thing. It consists of infinite attributes everyone of them infinite and perfect in its kind; to its essence

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pertains existence, so that outside it there is no other essence or existence, and it thus coincides exactly with the essence of God who alone is glorious and blessed." Thus Spinoza reaches his famous radical formulation "Deus sive natura" as an outcome of the discussion of Cartesian concepts! He intends to show that, even if one begins with theistic assumptions as they are defined in Descartes' doctrine, one cannot maintain the dualism between God and the world - and certainly not the idea of Creation: one must necessarily reach the pantheistic conclusion. Hence it is clear that, just as Spinoza altered the Cartesian, theistic concept of God, he also altered the concept of the divine attribute. It no longer designates a perfection of God, but an ultimate and irreducible quality or essence of reality. Thus, also in the Short Treatise, the created Cartesian substances are turned into attributes. However, this theory necessitates changing the meaning of the term "attribute" in general. Spinoza accomplishes this change in the Short Treatise by means of a distinction that makes use of terms borrowed from the medieval philosophical tradition, namely, the distinction between attribute and property (proprium). Here we arrive at the most interesting difference between the Short Treatise and Ethics I - a difference that may shed light on the very nature and character of the whole Spinozist system. Although Spinoza uses the term proprium in its Aristotelian meaning6 in different general contexts, for our purposes the important one is its restricted use, i.e., properties as qualities or characteristics ascribed to God. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza differentiates between the property of a thing and its attribute, which is "the inmost essence of the thing" (TIE 95). When he defines Nature as "a unique and infinite being" (TIE 76), he adds in a note: "These are not attributes of God that show his essence, as I shall show in [my] Philosophy" (TIE 76, n. z). And, indeed, Spinoza does explain this matter at length in the Short Treatise, which is the "philosophy" at which he hints here (the TIE was apparently intended as an introduction to the Short Treatise). This distinction appears in the Short Treatise as early as the first chapter, where Spinoza outlines the qualities or perfections of God, such as existence, eternity and the like. There, Spinoza says that all these perfections "are no attributes [eigenschappen] of God," but rather denote "what is proper [eigen] to God" (KV I: 1, n.4, G 18129-30; my emphasis; cL the distinction, in KV 1:3, between the attributes of God and his propria [Eigene]). It is true that it is impossible to talk about God except by means of these expressions- "Without these, indeed, God could not be God" (KV I: 1, n. 4, G 18 / 30) - but they do not constitute the essential or substantial

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nature of God. The true attribute, on the other hand, teaches "something essential" about God, i.e., it constitutes an irreducible ultimate subject for all the predicates that are ascribed to it, and through it or within it they are given meaning. The attribute is thus defined as the actual revelation of God himself, as opposed to the properties with which we attempt to describe him in an "extrinsic" manner. The proprium is called an "extraneous denomination" because it does not tell us "what God is" (KV I: 2, G27/20-24). When we say about God that he exists in himself, that he is infinite, the cause of all things, and the like, "we cannot know what that being to whom these properties pertain, is, and what attributes he has" (KVI:7, G45/19). The attributes, on the other hand, express what God is, and only in them is his essence revealed: "[T]hrough [them] we come to know him in himself, and not as he acts outside himself" (KV I: 2, G271 15-17). Of these essential attributes, "those which are known to us consist of two only, namely, Thought and Extension" (ibid., G271 12). Only to these does the term "attribute" apply strictly. And then comes the important statement that "[a]ll else ... that men ascribe to God beyond these two attributes, all that (if it otherwise pertains to him) must be an 'extraneous denomination:" i.e., a mere property (KV I: 2, G27 119-21). Now, since Spinoza says that all finite things are modes of attributes, it follows that" All else that is commonly ascribed to God is not any attribute of his, but only certain modes ... for instance, that he is eternaL selfsubsisting, infinite, cause of all things, immutable ... omniscient. wise," etc. (KV I: 7, n. 4, G44/26 ff.). Two questions should be asked here: (I) In what respect can one say that the properties of God are modes? (2) Of what attribute are they the modes? The answers become completely clear later in the same chapter, where Spinoza considers things that are ascribed to God. "and which do not, however. pertain to him" (KV I: 7. G45 122), as opposed to things that do pertain to him, even if only as properties. The examples that Spinoza gives here are "omniscient, merciful, wise." But these are precisely the characteristics that he has previously called properties of God that are modes! In the present paragraph it is said of all these modes that "they are only certain modes of the thinking thing." Since it is impossible that Spinoza could consider a quality like "merciful" to be a legitimate property of the attribute of divine thought. it is therefore clear that the properties are nothing but modes of the human mind, which ascribes such characteriscics to God. And this is true of all the properties: whether or not they "pertain," so to speak, to God, they are modes of human thought, i.e., ideas in the mind of a particular person, who thinks thus about God. In this

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respect - and in this respect alone - the properties are indeed real modes, since, even if they are mistaken, the ideas are actual modes of the attribute of Thought in the mind of man. Is it possible to distinguish which of the different properties really apply to God and which do not? At first, this seems possible because Spinoza differentiates between "ideas [or: images] that people commonly have of God" - which he does not take into consideration - and "what the Philosophers can tell us about it" (KV I :7, G44/9-10). In the second category, he includes the following properties: "a being existing through or of himself, cause of all things, Omniscient, Almighty, eternal, simple, infinite, the highest good, of infinite compassion" (ibid., G44/ll.-13). But, is Spinoza really willing to ascribe all these properties to God because they are "philosophical" and not imaginary? The answer is "No," since the property "of infinite compassion," for example. which is included in the list in the second paragraph of KV I: 7, is said (under the term "merciful") not to belong to God in the eighth paragraph of the same chapter (G45/22). We must now turn to those properties which Spinoza himself declares outright to "pertain" to God. These are: "self-subsisting, being the cause of all things. highest good. eternal and immutable" (KV I: 7, G45/ 16-17). Other properties that Spinoza apparently saw as legitimate, since he includes them in his system (albeit with a meaning peculiar to this system), are: God's necessary activity, which is truly free activity (KV 1:4); general and special providence, which is nothing but the infinite conatus (KV I: 5); and divine predestination (KV I: 6). To these we may add the properties mentioned at the beginning of the appendix to Ethics I. According to Spinoza's own testimony there: "I have explained God's nature and properties: that he exists necessarily; that he is unique; that he is and acts from the necessity alone of his nature; that (and how) he is the free cause of all things; that all things are in God and so depend on him that without him they can neither be nor be conceived; and finally, that all things have been predetermined by God, not from freedom of the will or absolute good pleasure, but from God's absolute nature, or infinite power." This shows that, even in Spinoza's mature system (which is almost entirely free of theological terminology), he considers the things ascribed to God as mere properties that do not tell us what God is. The only legitimate definition of God is that he is a being of infinite attributes; everything else said about God consists of nothing but properties. It is true that we ascribe these properties to God alone; they are proper and specific to God. Without them there would be no God for us, because without them we would not be able to talk about him. It

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is in this respect - and in this respect alone - that they "pertain" to God. For they are included neither in his essence nor in the real definition of him; thus it is impossible to attain a true understanding of God through them. Thus, the discussion of the properties in the Short Treatise exposes an important element of Spinoza's conception of God. From this early formulation of his system we learn something about the nature of the mature system: If everything ascribed to God, except Thought and Extension, has the status of mere property, then this is the status of everything that Spinoza himself says about God in his system! These are abstractions and not the actual concrete reality of God (except, of course, insofar as these abstractions themselves are modes of the attribute of Thought, since they are somebody's thoughts). The only ontological statement about God is that he has attributes; everything we say about the attributes themselves - that they are infinite, eternal, etc. - is already in the realm of the properties. Therefore, there is no escape from the conclusion that it is impossible to know what God is besides Thought and Extension, since any such knowledge relates only to the properties. I would like to emphasize here that - unlike the famous interpretation of Wolfson 7 -this is not the well-known doctrine of medieval theology, which denies God any positive attributes, since, according to Spinoza, God does have real and positive attributes, two of which are known to us. And, since the attributes express the essence of God, we are able to know him- even if only partially - and to know what he truly is: He is Thought and Extension. But what will be the precise meaning of this knowledge of God? We know God, i.e., his attributes, only as the modes that we know ourselves to be. namely, our body and our mind. However, this is not knowledge of God. but rather the human mind's awareness of its own reality in the full meaning of the word, sub specie aeternitatis. namely, that the human mind is a particular mode of a divine attribute. This is the significance of Spinoza 's statement, in the Short Treatise. that knowledge of God is being at one with him (KV II: 4, G61/22). We attain this kind of "knowledge" only through the intuition with which we live or feel our psycho-physical being, and experience it as a part of the divine Thought and Extension; "[W]e feel and know by experience that we are eternal" (EVp23s). In this experience are revealed both the unity of body and soul, and their place within the attributes of God. Here it is surely justified to speak about the mystical character of Spinoza's system. But here we can also find the basis for the atheistic interpretation of this system: If the existence and essence of God are exhausted by his attributes, then there is nothing in reality but the infinite

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worlds of Thought and Extension - "substance" and "God" thereby becoming mere abstract names that are given to the totality of all the attributes or existing worlds. This is not to say. of course. that Spinoza's whole doctrine is a mystical one. After alL there are bodies. ideas and emotions; there are human beings. and so there also are society, state and rel.igion; and it is possible to discuss all these in a discursive, rational way. Moreover, these are the topics that constitute the main body of Spinoza's philosophy, which is more an ethics than an ontology of God. Spinoza's metaphysics is the philosophy of a man who thinks about God in the "right" way, i.e., in accordance with the requirements set for any philosophy or conceptual system worthy of being called a "true" system, namely, self-evidence and coherence of thought. But the importance of a philosophy is measured by its concrete results: the degree to which it strengthens man and brings him happiness and joy. The Spinozist philosophy begins with this point at the beginning of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and it ends with the same point in the last part of the Ethics. To summarize, according to Spinoza the ultimate reality is the attributes of God, and one of the modes of this reality is the particular person. But thinking and speaking about the properties of ultimate reality involve nothing but an abstract conceptual system, a modal occurrence within a particular person, whose concrete relationship to God is realized only in the intuition of identity. The latter is a concrete situation that man can reach, in that man's soul is a mode of the attribute of Thought. And this same situation is also expressed in man's body, in that the body is a mode of the attribute of Extension. But. what is unique (at least on our planet) in the case of man is only his being conscious of his own situation in reality, which is nevertheless also that of all other existent modes. Man's lowest kind of knowledge expresses itself in fear, sadness, despair and false hopes, while his highest kind of knowledge expresses itself in feelings of potency, happiness and tranquility. However, this situation is not part of philosophy; it is. rather, an existential state. in which a particular person exists and of which he is aware. Spinoza's philosophy - i.e., the abstract propositions that are about reality- aims at achieving the state in which a person does not think about God but rather lives in God. as a finite part of him. And this is what Spinoza calls the "love of God." Spinoza remains a traditional philosopher in that he ascribes to the very practice of philosophy the ability to bring he who practices it to his salvation. But this is where the paradox - paradox perhaps being the

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distinguishing mark of any great system - arises: this salvation is attained only by transcending the philosophical activity leading to it, namely, by the transition from the second to the third kind of knowledge, in which we not only know reality but also live it. The Short Treatise differs from the Ethics in that the former places much greater emphasis on the difference - rather than on the continuity - between the rational and the intuitive kinds of knowledge. Together with the clear-cut distinction between the attributes and the properties, and the use of explicit religious terms, this difference brings out the mystical or "existential" character of Spinoza's system, which- to use Goethe's words - is hiding beneath the frightening ice-field of the Ethics.

Notes 1. All translations of the Short Treatise are quoted from A. Wolf. Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man. and His Well-Being (New York: Russell and Russell. 1963). Wolf does not have Curley's division to sections. Therefore. each citation is followed by a reference to Gebhardt, e.g.: G441 12-13 (p. 44, lines 12-13 in Gebhardt. vol. I). 2. G.W.F. Hegel. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. transl. E.P. Haldane (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955). vol. III. p. 282. 3. C. Sigwart (transl. and ed.). Benedict de Spinozas K urzer Tractat (F rei burg, 1881). p.40. 4. J. Freudenthal. Spinoza: Leben und Lehre (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1927). p. 243; among the others is, for instance. L. Busse. Beitriige zur Entwicklungsgeschichte Spinozas (Berlin: G. Schade, 1888). pp. 20-21. S. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. transl. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1968). vol. I. p.239. 6. See. for instance. Aristotle. Topics. 5 (lOlb37 If.), 8 (l03bl If.). 7. H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948). vol. I, pp. 152-153,351-352.393.

Sylvain Zac

On the Idea of Creation In Spinoza's Philosophy

One of the most important distinctions in Bergson '5 Evolution creatrice is that between the concept "fabrication" and the concepts "invention" and "creation." To fabricate is to go from the multiple to the single, from the periphery to the center. An artisan or technician begins with a plan which has been prepared with design and calculation, but the process of fabrication then necessitates manual operations which require the manipulation of available and appropriate matter: the article being fabricated is prepared, adjusted and its parts assembled in such a way as to obtain an object which can be situated in our environment. On the other hand, "invention" and "creation." which are synonymous for Bergson, always imply originality. They go. not from the multiple to the single, but from the single to the multiple - from the center to the periphery. One begins with what Bergson calls the "unique point" in philosophical creation, or what is called an innovative "intuition" or "dynamic scheme" in other creative manifestations of the human spirit. such as the literary and artistic disciplines. Whatever name one gives to this "kernel" of creation. the creator experiences it as a sort of evocative tendency capable of giving rise to new ideas and arousing original emotions which shake our being to the core. But. can divine creation be conceived through analogy with human genius? Spinoza's writings teach us the opposite. In order to understand the significance of Spinoza 's refutation of the idea of "creation." its ins and outs. which is connected with the problem of God's relationship with nature. one must know what the word "creation" means in the Jewish Scriptures. And this is a very difficult matter when one considers that. contrary to the generally accepted notion. the speculative thought of the Jews, even in earliest times. has been varied and not at all dogmatic. However. since Spinoza set out to refute the idea of "creation,"

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he must have formed an opinion as to what he thought it is. In this connection the following five points are pertinent: I. In Greck thought, the concept of "creation" is replaced by the idea of a "demiurge." The Platonic demiurge contemplates an intelligible model and organizes "errant matter" in accordance with the requirements of that model. No Greek thinker would have been willing to acknowledge that one can make something out of nothing. It was through Jewish thought that the idea of creation in the latter sense penetrated the philosophical thought of the Middle Ages and. in the seventeenth century. became the great epistemological as well as metaphysical theme. 1

2. The Jewish concept of "creation" is that there is a special moment of creation: an incomparable moment at the beginning of time, or a sudden rupture in its course, which paved the way for the genesis of the world and the making of history. The term "continuous creation" (an expression used by Spinoza) does not denote a succession of worlds, each of which destroys the preceding one. but rather the constant dependence of all beings in their ontological state on the power of God. The creative moment never passes, but renews itself constantly. 3. Creation is the work of God and depends upon him alone. God does not need any cooperation. Spinoza himself addresses this point in the Short Treatise on God, Man. and His Well-Being, where he says that, if the creation of the world had required the division of labor among a number of gods. the world would not have been a perfect creation. For the Jews. the idea of creation is inseparable from the idea of monotheism. 4. Spinoza's philosophy is a philosophy of being, not one of value. Similarly, the issue of creation is not the same for Spinoza as it is, for example, in Bergson. whose philosophy is called a "philosophy of creation" in France. But. whereas Bergson often bases his analyses on the experience of artistic creation. Spinoza was not interested in this at all. Alluding to the nature of the beautiful in the Appendix to Ethics I. he makes no distinction between artistic and natural beauty, and he insists on the subjectivity and relativity of the beautiful. as linked to certain modifications of the senses and to the structure of the body in general. For Spinoza, the issue of creation is the same as it is in Jewish philosophy and in those philosophies which draw their sources from ideas about the creation of the world. It is the very issue that - under the heading "the

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novelty of the world" - Maimonides opposes to the theory of the "eternity of the world" so dear to Aristotelians. By "the novelty of the world" Maimonides does not mean that which is contrary to the old and the obsolete, but that which is radically new in both form and matter - and which could never be conceived through analogy with any human activity. In Maimonides, the idea of creation is linked to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. To him, the creation of the world is the "miracle of miracles," which alone could guarantee the miracle of Mount Sinai. 5. There is no common measure between God and the created thing. This was a constant theme of the Jewish theologians in the Middle Ages, and was developed above all by Maimonides in his theory of negative attributes.

While all these theories concerning the creation of the world were refuted by Spinoza, they nevertheless constitute the starting-point of his reflection on the idea of "creation." Indeed, they are the theological underpinning of Ethics 1. I shall now illustrate this point by citing a few texts from Spinoza's writings. In KV I: 3, note c, Spinoza distinguishes between "generating" and ·'creating." To create, he says, is to bring a thing about in terms of both its essence - i.e., the nature proper to it - and its existence - i.e., the position it occupies in the totality of things which constitute the universe. If God has created a thing, then he is the source of both its intelligibility, or what makes it comprehensible, and its existence, i.e., its position in being. With the act of "generating" it is otherwise; here, essence both precedes and is independent of existence, which is a result of it. Let us take an example: A man begets a child. The essence of the child is the genotype in which its specific and individual essence is to be found. The child will become an adult and the bearer of a specific organization of its parents' genes. Spinoza says that this essence is both an individual essence and an eternal truth. However, once the child terminates its interuterine development, appears in the world and gradually acquires its independence, its existence is completely independent of its parents; it exists on its own, and its parents wish it to take up its own existence in the world. The child's existence is not a simple consequence of its essence; it also depends on the infinity of causes which surround it. The underlying significance of the text I have just explicated can be seen in Elp17s. This well-known scholium, with its example of the two dogs, has been the cause of much debate. It contends that the intellect and the will,

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which Spinoza takes to pertain to the essence of God, "would have to differ entirely from our intellect and wilL and could not agree with them in anything except the name." That is to say, "They would not agree with one another any more than do the dog that is a heavenly constellation and the dog that is a barking animal." This scholium presents difficulties because it is not easily reconciled with what Spinoza teaches elsewhere. Although it is concerned with the creative intellect of God, Spinoza did not always adopt the same attitude with regard to God's creative will. According to him, the particular characteristic of human intellect consists solely in the limitation of the divine intellect, of whose constituting stock of ideas it forms a part. Now, the example of the two dogs is found in Maimonides' book on Logic. We know that. in order to preserve the idea of God's unity, Maimonides insists on the difference between the processes of knowledge in man and in God. In man, he explains, all knowledge entails the separation of the knowing subject, the idea of the thing known and the thing itself. This means that. for humans, there is a gap between the thing itself and the idea of that thing - that human thought progresses through successive approximations. For God, on the other hand, says Maimonides adopting an idea of Aristotle's - the knowing subject. the idea of the thing known and the known thing are one and the same. Since there is a complete coincidence of the idea and the thing in God, the problem of the relationship between knowledge and being does not exist. Hence the idea of the difference in nature between the infinite intellect of God and the finite intellect of man. Human intellect is not a part of the divine intellect, but is a creation of it, just like its other creatiom. Thus Spinoza asks: If there is a difference in nature between the cause and the caused, how can producing take place? (For. between the cause and the caused there must be a certain homogeneity.) Moreover, ifMaimonides were right, our knowledge and the truth reserved to God would have nothing in common. But this would render God totally incomprehensible to us, and our inability to comprehend God would destroy the foundation of our reason. In another text (Metaphysical Thoughts, Part II, chap. X), Spinoza goes further in his analysis of the idea of "creation." Creation is an operaton whose only operative cause is the efficient cause; i.e., in order to exist a thing created presupposes nothing previous to it except God. This text expresses two ideas: (1) that to say a thing has been created is the same as saying that God is its sale presupposition; but also, (2) that, among the four kinds of causes recognized by Aristotle, only the efficient cause is a creative cause.

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Indeed. everyone agrees that God cannot he a material cause. for the material cannot be produced by the immaterial. Yet. Maimonides and the theologians say that God is not only an efficient cause (for to create is to make or produce a new thing). but also. since creation is not a blind operation, a "formal cause." which gives form and organization to created things; and God is also a "final cause." as creation is a manifestation of God's wisdom. Spinoza similarly acknowledges that God is not a material cause. since he is the origin of forms of being other than the material universe; but neither is God a formal cause, for, if he were, he would be reduced to the status of some sort of demiurge. Lastly, God is not a final cause. for - as everyone agrees - he is absolutely perfect in that he is not lacking in anything. And. we learn in the Appendix to Ethics 1. that. where God is concerned. one must reject both an "end of need," i.e., a being's consciousness of its poverty. and an "end of assimilation," by virtue of which God would seek to create a world in order to reflect his own glory. Thus. God is solely an efficient cause. But, in Spinoza, creation is not the result of a fiat; it is the necessary production of things. which takes place according to the laws of God's intellect. In his definition of creation as it is generally conceived, Spinoza does not use the expression ex nihilo (out of nothing). His reason for this is that one must not conceive of "nothing" as matter. or. rather. as that which things were made of before the divine creation. This is because his philosophy is one of affirmation - of plenitude. As a result. for him "nothing" is a pseudo-idea or a fictive idea through which we represent something real without being able to say exactly what it is. We know. he says. that the idea of "creation" is difficult for the mind to grasp, while that of "generation" is habitual to us. Now, "generation" is always obtained from matter. however complex that matter may be. And so. through a false analogy. we pass from the idea of "generation" to that of "creation," attaching to the latter the term ex (out of). But, since we cannot specify the context of the term "out of" in the case of "creation." we add to it the word "nothing" (nihil).

In Metaphysical Thoughts II: 6 Spinoza repeats in their entirety. and even word for word. Maimonides' observations on the different natures, the life of creatures and the life of God. As we shall see. Spinoza reconsiders Maimonides, and Maimonides rightly says that to reconsider is to recreate. To think together with others, when one is able to judge and appreciate. is by no means the same as repeating parrot-fashion. Although Spinoza

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follows Maimonides. he reaches conclusions which Maimonides would never have contemplated. After having given a somewhat obscure analysis of Aristotle's conception of biological life on the one hand. and the life of the "perfect being" on the other. Spinoza follows Maimonides in drawing a distinction between living beings. who have life. and God, who is life. Life belongs to creatures to "have" it (to use an expression of Gabriel Marcel's), but the life of God is "God's being"; it was not given to him, nor can it be taken away from him. In corroboration of this idea, namely, that the creator and his life are not two, as in the case of the life of bodies and angels, Spinoza says that many theologians think this is why the Jews say ;"1};"1' 'n (by the living God) and not ;"1};"1' 'n (the life of God) when they take an oath the vowel sign" in ;"1};"1' 'n indicating belonging. On the other hand, when they swore on the life of Pharaoh, they always said ;"117'~ 'n. The notion of life is an integral part of Spinoza's philosophy.2 In all the philosophies of the Middle Ages. this idea is synonymous with that of essentia actuosa. Here actuosa should be translated as the adjective "actualizing," and the word "essence" suggests "intelligibility," or, rather, "rational spontaneity"; on the other hand, God's life implies a ceaseless action which operates in the totality of Nature. With God, spontaneity. activity and rationality go together and are to be found in particular things. One can thus understand the properties of God which make him God. God is causa sui; yet, one should not endow this expression with a negative meaning: sui is used here not in the sense that God does not exist through another, but that he exists through himself (per se). Thus. causa sui should be understood positively, as denoting the superabundance of God's being. In this sense, he is the life through which he perseveres in his being, and causes things to persevere in their being. This definition constitutes a single whole, but, in order to grasp its meaning, one must divide it into its parts and study each one separately. God is an absolutely infinite being, existing necessarily. exhausting the totality of being or the totality of the absolute forms of being. This definition is clarified when one examines God's relationship to his attributes: God is a substance - something which is in itself and is conceived through itself - and which consists of an infinity of attributes. Spinoza's attributes are nouns and not adjectives (although some late nineteenthcentury Spinoza commentators maintained that the attributes are different aspects of being, as they are conceived through the form of human thought). In Letter 9, Spinoza gives de Vries the following example of how one can allow a diversity of attributes: "First, I say that by Israel I mean the third Patriarch. I also mean the same Patriarch by the name Jacob, since the name Jacob was given to him because he had seized his brother's heel." However,

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the attributes are infinite In their own kind. and so they are distinguished from substance. which is absolutely infinite. God's - or substance's - essence exhausts all attributes, i.e., all forms of being. In Spinoza's vocabulary, an attribute is a substance in its own kind. Now, in Spinoza's example to de Vries, the names Jacob and Israel clearly designate the same being, but the example's applicability here is understood if we remember that, in the Bible, the name ofa person is changed when there is a real or miraculous modification of the substance of his personage. Alongside finite modes, Spinoza distinguishes infinite modes, the study of which may shed more light on God's creativity. The infinite modes act as intermediaries, as it were, between God and the finite modes. These infinite modes are immediate when they derive absolutely from the nature of God, and mediate when they derive from God through the mediation of immediate infinite modes. For the sake of brevity, I shall only discuss the infinite modes of the attribute of Extension. The immediate infinite mode of Extension is Motion and Rest. Although the Cartesian mechanism explains all things by extension and motion, according to Descartes, extension is inert. From where, then, does motion come? Descartes says that it is transcendental in origin. By asserting that Motion is an infinite mode of God, Spinoza maintains, against Descartes, that it is integral to the essence of extension which is itself dynamic - and that it is a sort of intrinsic explanation of things. The mediate infinite mode of Extension is the/acies totius universi (the face of the whole universe). Indeed, scientific explanation does not proceed, as Descartes would have it, from the parts to the whole. Nature is a "total individual." a "concrete whole" formed out of a hierarchy of more or less complex structures. each of which is defined by a ratio of motion to rest. As a realized totality, the "macrocosm" is analogous to the "microcosm," and there is an analogous unity between them. In order to understand Spinoza 's explication of the origin and intelligibility of things, one must also appreciate the distinction between Natura naturans and Natura naturata. For the Thomists, this distinction exists not for the purpose of denying divine creation, but in order to show that there is a certain analogy between the nature of God and that of Nature, and in order to emphasize the immanence of God's creative power. God is a general providence which unfailingly stamps its imprint on finite things, as one stamps an imprint on coinage.] However, Spinoza does not follow these theologians. According to him, Natura naturans is God and his attributes. or that which is in itself and is conceived through itself. And it is God considered as a free cause. i.e., a cause that acts by virtue of its own laws. By Natura naturata Spinoza means Nature in the passive sense, i.e .. the

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constant and necessary order of things, in that it is the product of the universal cause. As both Jewish and non-Jewish theologians begin with the idea of a creative and transcendent God, one can also understand why they maintain that Natura naturans is external to Natura naturata. But, since in Spinoza there is an immanence of God in things and an immanence of things in God, it follows that Natura naturans is immanent in Natura naturata. It does not follow, however, that Spinoza's system is one of absolute pantheism. For, Natura naturata is a system of infinite and finite modes. And, whereas the modes exist through God and are conceived by him, they are also distinguished from him by both their essence and their existence. Although it might be concluded from what I have said that Spinozism is absolute determinism, I do not subject everything to the jatum. For one learns in Ethics IV and V that divine necessity is not blind but rational, and - to use Spinoza's own expression - a "free necessity." Despite the specific nature of the Spinozist idea of creation - the idea of an original and infinite cause, of a totalizing God who is not himself a totality - Spinoza does not deny the incommensurability of God with the essences of modes or even of attributes. On the other hand, philosophy is not only an account of natural origins, but also a spiritual path. It is a path which starts off from God and leads back to God. And Spinoza's God is also a creator, if one asserts, like Fichte, that he is the original cause of things. In his Descartes' "Principles oj Philosophy" Spinoza forcefully expounds a complex of Jewish ideas which, as is well known, were also maintained by Descartes. This is the "Mosaic conception of creation" (as my teacher Brehier called it): (I) the creation of the world ex nihilo; (2) the creation of eternal truths; (3) the idea of continuous creation; (4) the primacy of the instant of creation. Now, everything suggests that Spinoza found answers to his queries in this conception of creation, but that he decisively rejected them. According to Descartes: To one who pays attention to God's immensity, it is clear that nothing at all can exist which does not depend on Him. This is true not only of everything that subsists, but of all order, of every law, and of every reason of truth and goodness; for otherwise God. as has been said just before, would not have been wholly indifferent to the creation of what He has created. For if anv reason for what is good had preceded His preordination. it would hav~ determined Him towards that which it was best to bring about: but, on the contrary, because He determined Himself towards those things which ought to be accomplished, for that reason, as it stands in Genesis, they are very good; that is to say, the reason for their goodness is the fact that He wished to create them so ....

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To this text I wish to suggest the following analysis: l. Descartes' theory of creation is based on a careful consideration of the idea of the immensity of God. According to him, "immensity" signifies the superabundance of being, its infinity and self-sufficiency. Descartes' great discovery was the idea that the infinite precedes the finite. It is true that, for him, the infinite transcends the world, but creation is the effect of the infinite being, as it is the only being in whom nothing is lacking.

2. Since God is infinite, it is logically necessary that everything should depend on him. Creation is a dependence at every moment on the will of God, united with his intellect and power. "Continuous creation" means that creation never ceases, that the world's dependence on God always remains the same. 3. Also dependent on God are physical laws and moral values: the reason for goodness, which justifies relations of generosity among men, and the reasons for truth, which justifies the communication of minds. Neither God nor man is subject to an ethical or logical model. Man is subject to values; God creates them. Thus, man must seek knowledge not in the intimate depths of God, but in the ethical or logical order which God dictates to man. The goodness of things corresponds to God's requirements and not to his desires. Once things are created by God, they are said to be "very good." They do not correspond to preestablished norms. 4. For Descartes, truths are both contingent (they could be otherwise than they are) and necessary for the human intellect. Moreover. his idea of creation is only an idea of indifference, meaning here not neutrality but the possibility of free choice.

Now, Spinoza rejects all these Cartesian assertions for the following reasons: 1. Descartes links creation to contingency, but the concept of contingency stems from our ignorance. 2. According to Descartes. creation is an act of the will united with intellect and power. Here we are in the presence of the Single within the multiple, the multiple comprising a mUltiplicity whose elements are various. Hence the

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idea of God's incomprehensibility, which is unacceptable to Spinoza, since the whole of Spinozism is predicated on the idea of God's transparency. 3. Indifference in the sense of neutrality is meaningless. Indifference as a possible choice is incompatible with the idea of God's power. A choice in this sense implies a lack and a renunciation, which is alien to Spinozism.

Nevertheless, Spinoza acknowledges that he prefers the Cartesian conception of Nature, which subjects everything to an indifferent divine will, to one which would subject God's operations to a model. Therefore, while he does not entirely agree with Descartes, Spinoza adjudges Descartes' theory of Gods' indifference preferable to that of Leibniz, who subjects God to a model, a destiny. The idea of an indifferent God was philosophically preferable to Spinoza, as it preserves the idea of the self-sufficiency of God's freedom. Thus, according to him, Leibniz would have been completely wrong, for a God who chose the best of all possible combinations would be an anthropomorphic God, whereas, according to Spinoza, creation is a testimony to the activity of God, due to his superabundance.

Descartes and Spinoza produced their philosophies in concordance with the science of their age. While denying that he is a follower of Galileo, Descartes rejects the idea of finalism, propounding instead a mechanistic explanation of things. He rejects the idea of a qualified universe, placing himself within the perspective of an open and infinite universe. Yet, as a good Catholic who even tried to prove that the Eucharist could be explained in terms of the new physics, Descartes was always ready to compromise. Spinoza, on the other hand, is a completely free philosopher, one whose sole master is reason - knowledge derived from "common notions." His universe is not even that of Descartes' mechanism. Although his physics is a mechanism, it is a flexible, dynamic mechanism, in which a single living principle operates according to necessary laws. This is the principle of interconnected individuals: The whole precedes the parts, and is their totalization. Spinoza's metaphysics heralds Einstein's physics.

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Notes 1. Spinoza sometimes maintains that to create (N1J) in the Bible really means to work out (1,,'). But if this were true. there would be no difference between the Jews and the Greeks. 2. This was also admitted to me personally by Martial Gueroult. who encouraged me when my thesis on this point brought forth criticism that I was "romanticizing" Spinoza. 3. The Hebrew words lIJt:I (Nature). and lIJt:l1J (coin or imprint) have a common root. 4. Reply to the Sixth Set of Objections, ~8. in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, transl. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1968), vol. II, p.250.

Notes on Contributors JONATHAN BENNETT has been Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University since 1979. Born in New Zealand, he was educated there and at the University of Oxford. He has also taught at the universities of British Columbia and Cambridge. Professor Bennett has written on Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind and Language and Moral Philosophy. YOSEF BEN-SHLOMO has been Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Mysticism and the Philosophy of Religion at Tel-Aviv University since 1976. He has also taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Maryland, where he was Kaplan Professor of Jewish Studies. Professor BenShlomo's publications include studies on Jewish (and other) Mysticism, Hermann Cohen, Rudolph Otto as well as Spinoza. He has also published annotated Hebrew editions of Spinoza's Treatise on The Emendation of The Intellect (Jerusalem 1973, 1977) and the Short Treatise (Jerusalem 1978, 1987). Professor Ben-Shlomo is now engaged in a comprehensive study of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. EDWIN CURLEY is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and the American coeditor of Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie. The author of Spinoza's Metaphysics (Harvard 1969) and Behind the Geometrical Method (Princeton 1988), as well as of numerous articles on Spinoza, Professor Curley is now engaged in translating the complete works of Spinoza for Princeton, Volume I of which appeared in 1985. HERMAN DE DUN is President of the International Association "Het Spinozahuis" (Rijnsburg, The Netherlands). He teaches the History of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, and is chief editor of the Tijdschrift voor filosofie, as well as a member of the editorial board of the Studia Spinozana. Professor De Dijn has published many articles on Spinoza, mainly in Dutch and English. The late ALAN DONAGAN was most recently Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of Philosophy at The California Institute of Technology. He spent the greater part of his academic life in the American Midwest, especially at the University of Chicago, where he taught for fifteen years. Among Professor Donagan's works are The Theory of Morality (Chicago 1977) and Choice: the Essential Element in Human Action (London 1987). His recent Spinoza (Hemel Hempstead, 1988) is a landmark in Spinoza scholarship.

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DON GARRETT is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. He has also held positions at Harvard and at The Johns Hopkins University. In addition to Contemporary Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind, his major fields of interest include Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, particularly that of Spinoza and Hume. Professor Garrett's articles on the History of Philosophy have appeared in The Philosophical Review, Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, Studia Spinozana and elsewhere. He is editor of the Cambridge Companion to Spinoza and author of the forthcoming Cognition and Commitment in the Philosophy of David Hume. EMILIA GIANCOTTI is Professor of the History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Urbino. A scholar of Seventeenth-century philosophy in general, Professor Giancotti concentrated particularly on Descartes, Spinoza and Hobbes. Among her notable publications are: Lexicon Spinozanum (2 vols.; the Hague 1970), and the Italian editions (with introduction and notes) of the TTP (Torino 1972, 1984) and the Ethics (Rome 1988), as well as two monographs on Spinoza (Rome 1972, 1985). Professor Giancotti is president of the Italian Association of the Friends of Spinoza. JACQUELINE LAGREE is Agregee de Philosophie and lecturer at the University of Caen. A member of the Spinoza Research Group at the Sorbonne (CNRS - Paris IV), she contributes regularly to the Bulletin de bibliographie spinoziste, published by the Group in the Archives de philosophie. Among her publications are an annotated French translation of Luis Meyer's La Philosophie interprete de I'Ecriture Sainte (together with Pierre-Franc,;ois Moreau; Paris 1988), Le Salut du larc (including a translation, with commentary, of Herbert de Cherbury's De religione Laid), (Paris 1989), La Religion naturelle (Paris, forthcoming 1991) and La Raison ardente (with a translation of Grotius' Maletius), (Paris, forthcoming 1991. PIERRE MACHEREY is Agrege de Philosophie and lecturer at the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne). His publications include Pour une tMorie de la production litteraire (Paris 1966), Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris 1979, 1990), Comte: La Philosophie et les sciences (Paris 1989) and A Quoi pense la litteraire? (Paris 1990), as well as numerous articles on Spinoza and Spinozism, the History of Philosophy in France in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries and on Philosophy and Literature.

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JEAN-Luc MARION, Professor and Chairman of the Philosophy Department at the University of Paris X (Nanterre), has taught at the University of Paris IV and at the University of Poitiers. His numerous studies include Sur l'ontologie grise de Descartes (Paris 1965, 1981), Sur la theologie blanche de Descartes (Paris 1981), Sur Ie prisme metaphysique de Descartes (Paris 1986), as well as many articles on the History of Classical Philosophy. ALEXANDRE MATHERON is Professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud. He has published three books on Spinoza: lndividu et communaute chez Spinoza (Paris 1969, 1988); Le Christ et Ie salut des ignorants chez Spinoza (Paris 1971); Anthropologie et politique au 17e siecle (etude sur Spinoza) (Paris 1986), as well as numerous articles, many of them on Spinoza, Hobbes and Descartes. MARGARET D. WILSON is Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, where she has taught since 1970. Professor Wilson is the author of Descartes (London 1978) and editor of The Essential Descartes (1969). She has published many articles on Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century Philosophy, including previous articles on Spinoza. YIRMIY AHU YOVEL is Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Chairman of the S. H. Bergman Center for Philosophical Studies and founder-chairman of the Jerusalem Spinoza Institute. He has held university appointments at Princeton University, the Sorbonne, CUNY, Columbia University, the University of Milan and Wolfson Colledge, Oxford. His publications include Spinoza and Other Heretics (2 vols.; Princeton 1989), Kant and the Philosophy of History (Princeton 1980, 1989), several anthologies-on Kant, Nietzsche, Maimonides, the Philosophy of History - as well as numerous papers in these and related areas. SYL VAIN ZAC, who was Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Paris X (N anterre), also ta ught at the Sorbonne. He is vice-president of the French Association of the Friends ofSpinoza. His publications includeL'Idee de vie chez Spinoza (Paris 1963); Spinoza et l'interpretation de l' Ecriture (Paris 1964); Mai"monide (Paris 1965); Philosophie, theologie, politique dans l' a:uvre de Spinoza (Paris 1979); La Philosophie religieuse d'Hermann Cohen (Paris 1984) and Salomon Mai"mon critique de Kant (Paris 1988).

Index

accident 20lf acosmism 116 act (agere) 163-190 passim absolute action 163 169 172 236 affect 48995 151 affection 152 169 196 agnosticism 157 Alquie F. 75 131 anthropocentrism 122-131 passim anthropomorphism 37 122-131 passim antimetaphysics 126 Aquinas, Thomas 2 Thomists 237 Aristotle 1-21 passim, 53 8390 163201224 229233f236 pure intelligence 2 eternity of world 233 science 83 see inertia Arnauld, see "Port Royal Logic" aseity 187f atheism 45 220 227 Augustine 187 authenticity 124 autonomy 170 177 attribute(s) absolute nature of 58 103 164 193218 passim actual revelation of God 225 as form of beings 257 cause of modes 146 153 conceived through itself 144 158 essence of substance 13 84 IlOf 123 144 185224 eternal 18 62 85102107196215 independence of 211 213 infinite 14 16 186273 84f89 101-103 107237 infinite essence of 205 internal diversity of 196 198 199 necessary parallelism of 208f 211 necessity of existence of 89 102f 197 of Extension 12f37 41495659859096 102127217223-229 passim, 237 of Thought 12 13738996102117 127f

195 208 217 225-228 self caused 158 ultimate reality 228 ultimate subject of predication 225 unity of 27 Bayle, P. 36f 39 184 beatitude, see freedom beauty 231 being in itself III 175f 203 Bennett. J. 4 17 19 35-51 passim, 59 83 93 9496133-160passim,192-218passim,243 explanatory rationalist 19 field metaphysics 38-51 passim, 5459 passim indexicality 55 Spinoza causal rationalist 4 135 138 150153155 Bergson, H. 230-241 passim "philosophy of creation" 231 Bible 30 221 237 Body 38101117123125133138142150 176209228 eternal & necessary idea of 142 object of human mind 151 Boyle, R. 6 III Breton,S.185190 Cabala, see Kabbalah Cartesian, see Descartes causa sui. see God causality 1020596479849298113128 133-160passim 179180206 adequate 215 contingent 200 divine 118 history of 136f immanent 10 81 91 98 III 113 164180 passim, 186 mechanical 87 92 171 176 order of 133164210 proximate 97-118 passim, 171 remote 97 118 passim, 160 171 transient, transitive 10 135157164-180 passim, 184 186

248

Index

cause 410 24 64 8199 adequate 156206 constituent 160 external 2 25 31 included in effect 140 logical 4 81 9394 material 235 of being 10 or reason 4 51 6471 169 174 179 183f Christ 112 117 Clerselier 145f cognition 133-160 passim cognitivism 123 125 common notions 95125127240 compulsion 163-180 passim, 186f 189 conatus 34 91 185 187 189204226 conceivability 9 26 146 188 Condillac 182-190 passim contingency 86f 161 171 173 191-218 passim, 239 creation 224 230-241 passim continuous 231 238 in art 230 231 creationism 115 Curley E. x xiii 3 19 21 36 40 50f 5359 passim, 98-118 passim, 130 155-160 passim, 166f 179 186192-218passim,222 243

indifferent divine will 240 matter as mass 110 mind-body theory 31 145 150 220 natural light 3 95 supernaturalized Nature 3 transitive causality 138 146164 determination 104110 114149155172175 186196 determinism 83 85123130133 161 167191 199217238 dialectics 90 94 Diderot, D. 184190 Donagan, A. 1-21 passim, 156197216243 duration 86 92 94 109 196204

death 120 131185 De Dijn, H. 130243 deductibility 113 138 142 153 184206 definition 115 20 I Delahunty, R.Y. 51 192 214 deists 79f De1bos, V. 119130 Descartes, R. 1-21 passim, 36-77 passim, 86-97 passim, 110 120 135-160passim, 164 171213220-229 passim, 237-241 passim anti-Cartesian interactionism 134160 passim causal independence of substance 37 222 dualism God-world 224 extension 110 113237 external cause 64 idea as intellectual representation 9 213 immaterial God 150222

Fichte, J.G. 238 finalism 170 172 179 186 240 freedom 123 125 128 133 161 165 170 177 180-190 passim liberation 187 is supreme beatitude 162 of will 166 French revolution ix 133-160 passim Freud, S. ix Freudenthal, J. 114116222229

Einstein, A. 131 240 Epicurus 9 Erasmus 98 essence 29 17 24f 108 116201203215233 eternal 91 formal 201 in Aquinas & Maimonides 2 logical 201 203 scholastic notion of 201-218 passim eternity 12929499196215 ethics 119-131 passim, 162-180 passim, 228 Extension, see attribute

Galileo 2, 240 Garrett. D. 215 244 Gebhardt. C. 2194114116155229 generation 233 235 genesis 2 238 geometrical order 5 61 125130133 Gerhardt, c.r. 21 Giancotti, E. 131 190244 gnosis 80

Index God absolute totality 91 236238 almighty 226 as substance 62 72 219-229 passim, 236 as thinking thing 208 causa sun I 2465-77 passim, 86f94 III 125129133183222236 creator 280 123 238 "Deus sive natura" 7 118 123129203 211 220-229 passim, 236 efficient cause 140 169 174184200211 234f essence of9 28 6186123 126166206 221f 237 eternal 80 125f221-229 passim existence of 1525-34 passim, 618086 221-229 passim extrinsic properties of 39 224-229 passim final cause 235 first cause 222 formal cause 235 free activity of 226236 free cause9 33 72 8098-118passim, 125 161 165f 183186215 225f free necessity 68 73 798486 161 195218 passim, 226 236 238 highest good 226 immanent 94 96 98 125 176 237f immaterial 235 immensity of 71 immutability of 39f 8099 102225f incommensurability of 238 infinite being 141823 25f65-77 passim, 126221236 infinite compassion 226 infinite power of 8 33 71 84 106 110 161 166172176226231 infinitely positive 91 infinity of86 184221-229 passim in Jewish & Christian Scriptures 2813 234 omnipresent 79 84115 omniscient 148f 154 225f original cause 238 perfect 66-77 passim, 222 224 235 productivity of 104108118187 Providence 125 187225 qualities of 224

249

rationality of 236 selfsubsiding 225f simple 226 source of all existence 222 233 spontaneity of 236 superabundance of 236240 transparency of 240 transcendent 118 125 131 238 unique 161 221 226 Goethe, J.W. ix 229 Greeks 83 91 126231241 Gueroult, M. 20-26 passim, 102f 114-116 130-160 passim, 174-190 passim, 241 Hampshire, S. x 35192214 happiness 119228 Heereboord 124174 Hegel. G.W.F. ix 61 75859194116161 171175187190221229 Heidegger, M. 126 Hobbes, T. 131 Hume, D. 4126156 idea 7-16 passim, 141f147152228 adequate 71f 137153193 213f as concept of the mind 147 172 clear & distinct 26 28 false 7-16136213 forma1208 objective being of 108 of every actual thing 208 of God 89 100 of infinity 66 of nonexistent object 208 217 of particular person 225 order and connection of ideas 106 148f 174206 true 2571 108159189213 inertia 6 88 9096 Aristotle's law of 1516 illusion 121 125171 imagination 891 166 171 immortality 125 impossibility 156 individuals 84 essence of 200 infinity 220 see God

250

Index

insight 119-131 passim contemplative 120 intuitive 120129 rational 126 theoretical 120 intellect 2 82f99-118 passim. 187f actual 205-218 passim as thinking thing 99 147 creative 234 infinite 2 89 100f 112129186198 205f 213 & will 125 234 intellectual love of God 127 129187228 intelligibility 23 68 83 135233 236f Jarrett. C. 114 156 158 192 214f Joachim. H.H. 21 36394250 Kabbalah 95 97 115 Kant. 1. 384385188 Klever, W. 50 Kneale. W. 53f 59 knowledge 120 128 133 199 adequate 121 142f 148 149 155 first kind of 228f inadequate 142 149 152-156 158 179 20 I 227 229 of cause & effect 4 134 154 of external bodies 15lf of particular essences 128 of primary causes 121 second kind of 121 1271' 131 142 156 158201 229 third kind of (intuitive) 121-131 passim Kolakowski. 1. 126 l31 Laws logical 88f 95 206 of association 89 95 of conservation 88 90 125 of God's intellect 235 of Nature 9 1849 79-96 passim. 123 197 206

of rational order 165 physical 88f 125 Leibnitz. G.W. 2 7 152153-59 passim. 7S 87 192240 life 129 185 235f Locke. J. 53

Loeb, L. 134-160 passim logic 121 194 logical entailement 133 138 149 156 193f 2151' see Bennett (Spinoza causal rationalist) love 185 228 Macherey, P. 114 116 181-190 passim, 244 Maimonides 2 13 90 233-241 passim negative attributes of God 227 233 novelty of the world 233 Malebranche. N. 75 Marranos 79 80 Marcel, G. 236 Matheron, A. 20 114 117245 Matson, W. 131 192 214f mechanics, mechanistic 43f 85 90 93 170 186 240 Medieval Aristotelians (Muslim, Jewish & Christian) 2 3 13 83 97 104 124 224 metaphysics 88 90f 121 133 228 240 anti-anthropocentric 123f construction of 119 in between reason & intuition 127 naturalization of 18 & physics 119-131 passim reality of 93 middle ages 231 233 236 Mignini. F. 114-116 mind 96 100f 112117123125150208227 active 172 human 148 IS If 186f 198 217 225 227f see body miracle 91 233 237 mode affection of substance II f 140 conceived through substance 211 contingent 196 199213 dependent 37 49 53 80 82 99f eternal 58 100 107215 225 impermanence of 182 implication of God's essence 96 infinite 334958 79-96 passim, 125 194218 passim, 237 face of the whole universe 88 94 102-118 passim, 176237 immediate 33 81 97-118 passim, 172 215 237 mediate 33 93 97-118 passim, 198

Index 215 237 multiplicity of 79-96 passim, 116 197 205 necessity of 86 91 107 property of God 23 36f 20 I f 206 224f series of finite modes 12 16 18 34 49 599If97-118passim, 167 169 178225 237 monism 17 43 47 54-59 passim, 79 89 931' 192-218 passim, 2201' monotheism 221 231 Montaigne, M. 181 190 motion, movement 2 5 38 81 90 97118 passim, 140237 fixed proportion of 204 laws of 85-96 passim mode of Extension 140 & rest 43 57f 85-96 passim, 237 laws of 89 176 mysticism 227-229 Nature 3 57 174 220-229 passim absolute unity of 16 222 237 as an individuum 237 as concrete whole 237 as total reality 22lf 236 common order of 210 216 "Deus sive natura" see God infinite power of 106 222 infinity of 223 mechanical conception of 7 Natura naturans, Natura naturata 46 79-96 passim, 99-118 passim, 125 129 133 169 172 180214 237f perfect in its kind 223 priority in order of nature 153f 175 194203211 necessity as causal inevitability 199 209 free 166 immanent 177 necessitarianism 191-218 passim rational 173 real logical or metaphysical 199 209 single 192 sources of 199 universal 123 156 161 172 214 negation 91 neo-Platonic 97 112f 116

251

Newton, I. 2-26 passim, 38 43 Mechanical System of the World 6 21 Nietzsche, F. ix nomological explanation 84 127 nominalism 82-96 passim nothing 235 objectivity 124 Oldenburg 6 112 157 191 order of things (of reality) 174f 178 panpsychism 55 pantheism 45 48 51 58 220 224 238 Parkinson, G.H.R. 155 Parmenides 91 126 particularization 87 9lf Pascal, B. 171 175 180 passions 121 128 133 202 228 PauL St. 190 perception 95 133 154 of external bodies 135 151 153f of retinal images 153f sense perception 137f 151 153 philosophy 15 188222224228238 240 of being 231 physics 124f 162 240 see "common notions"; laws physiology 162 Plato, Platonic 38 83 97 231 Timaeus 50231 Plotinus 118 plurality 193 politics 89 124 189 Pollock, F. 3 18 19 Port-Royal Logic 9 20 possible worlds 191-218 passim Prado, J. de 79 94 predetermination 161 production of effects (operari) 163-180 passim, 181-190 passim quantum theory 38 43 Quine, W.V.O. 7 reality 23 26 99 170 177 205 220 as perfection 123 independent 221 reason 4 170 179 234 infinite 170

252

Index

recollection 140 religion 124 228 Christian 112 124 130 rationalistic 126 Richter, G.T. 114f 118 Robinson, L. 103 114f Roth, L. x Russell, B. ix 51 131 logical atomism 51 salvation 121-131 passim, 220 228 Santayana, G. 125 129 131 Sartre, J.P. ix Schmitt, E. 114 118 Schuller 102 113 science holistic 7 human 126 intuitive 142 natural 119-131 passim new 86 88 90 189 240 Sigwart, C. 222 229 Socrates 9 Son of God 97-118 passim space, see attribute of Extension Strawson, P.F. 55 59 130 stoic 189 substance absolutely infinite 237 as being or existing 8f 24 26 39 108 as cause 109 as perfection 73 178 197 as rea Ii ty 197 conceived through itself 139 222 dynamic principle 110 113 effect 109 eternal 9 31f 69 extended 221 223 in Aristotle If 10 independent 1 8 37 53 individual 8 indivisible 223 infinite 2 7 12f 16 25 69 184 necessary 9 109 not created 221 omnipotence of 2 8 115 otherness of 129 passive substratum 184

power of 2831-33 110 174178 197 priority in nature 178 producing activity 29f 33f pure actuality 2 192 in the rationalists 48 self-sufficient 161 175 thing in itself 25 39 65 thinking 221 223 transcendent 118 125 128 unique 2 223 see God suicide 184 superstition 10 system 79 94 228 Takeuchi, Y. x Tchirnhaus 23 71 89 91 102 teleology 90 theism 221 224 theology 57 124 162 209 22 If 226 Jewish theologians 233-241 passim Thought, see attribute thought-matter parallelism 133 138 147 159 Tosel, A. 131 totality 84f 172 of reality 221 transcendence, see God truth 14556184119-131 passim, 159206 213 as end in itself 121 love of 189 pursuit of 123 129 understanding, see intellect universals 83 85 95 Velthuysen 47f virtue 121 Vries, de 13-17 236f Wetlesen. J. 130214 whole 125 127-129 186 includes parts 169 189 precedes parts & is their totalization 240 whole of Nature, of reality 36 40 44f 48f 57f 81 117 120 as individual 102 198

Index will 117 123 125 166 Wiltgenstein, L. 126 WolL A. xiii 1921 229 Wolfson, H.A. 75 103 114f 227 229

Yovel, Y. 94115-117 245 Zac. S. lIS 117245 Zellner, H. 134-160 passim

253