Spinoza and Nominalism

Imagination is characterized by Spinoza as the first kind of knowledge, and, as such, imagi- nation is a mode of thought. However, in a further mapping of the concept in the Ethics, we see that it is an activity that involves both the mind and the extended body. The standard and idealist interpretation of imagination does not account for its corporeal or extended dimension, leaving aside an important aspect of the activity. Based on the thesis of causal independency of attributes, I will argue against the traditional interpretation and demon- strate that there is an imagination of the body in Spinoza.

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 25 (3): 506-525, 2017

In the following article, I aim to elucidate the meaning and scope of Spinoza’s vocabulary related to “consciousness.” I argue that Spinoza, at least in his Ethics, uses this notion consistently, although rarely. He introduces it to account for the knowledge we may have of the mind considered alone, as conceptually distinct from the body. This serves two purposes in Spinoza’s Ethics: to explain our illusion of a free will, on the one hand, and to refer to the knowledge we have of our mind as something eternal, on the other. I contend, therefore, that we should not confound Spinoza’s technical use of the notion of “consciousness” with the “degrees of animation” that he also evokes in the Ethics. Consciousness, for Spinoza, is neither a faculty, nor a property specific to certain minds or ideas. Furthermore, consciousness does not come in degrees. Indeed, Spinoza’s account of consciousness is not intended to differentiate kinds of minds in terms of awareness of their respective ideas.

Spinoza's account of human agency is presented as a solution to the fundamental dichotomy between physicalism and mentalism in psychology. It is argued that this dichotomy originates in the 17th century with the Cartesian and Hobbesian responses to the collapse of the Scholastic synthesis. Spinoza's view of nature as equally Mind and Body, and his understanding of efficient causality as grounded in a self-caused natural totality are described. Spinozism's relative lack of influence on contemporary scientific culture is attributed to his work having been marginalized during the 1st century after his death by political and religious authorities. Contemporary responses to the mentalist/physicalist dichotomy are discussed, as are trends in contemporary psychology that were foreshadowed by Spinoza's observations. Meehan Spinoza's alternative 3/35

Critical Essays, 2008

Pro-Fil: An Internet Journal of Philosophy, 2018

Baruch Spinoza's philosophy of mind stirs up the disputes about the nature of body-mind relations with its rigorous and naturalistic monism. The unity of body and mind is consequential of his metaphysics of the substance, but the concept of the unity of the mind and its idea rightfully confuses Spinoza's commentators. Many have been tempted to interpret this as a possible account of consciousness, but it still has not yet been fully understood. This paper attempts to introduce an interpretation of the concept of ideas of ideas with regards to consciousness based on strict ontological monism, conceptual dualism, and self-similarity architecture, which concludes in distinguishing mental and psychic reality. While we might attribute mental reality, or mentality, to every extended thing, psychic reality is constituted by conscious ideas. And it seems to follow from Spinoza's theory that the more 'psychic' the mind is, the more it knows God.

SSRN Electronic Journal

Ontologically, Spinoza must be wrong and Descartes must be right about mind and meaning. Nevertheless, Spinoza’s mysticism and resounding Spinozist rejections of Cartesian rationalism can be found in most basic assumptions of current cognitive science. The main issue of this ’metaphysical’ debate is the status of mind, of mental representations, meaning, and therefore the possibility of a cognitive linguistics, semantics, and semiotics.

Ontologically, Baruch Spinoza and Rene Descartes take significantly different stands on truth, mind and meaning. It this respect, the latter can be regarded as the founder of modern epistemology, phenomenology, and scientific thinking. Nevertheless, Spinoza's mysticism and resounding Spinozist rejections of Cartesian rationalism can be found at the root of modern analytic philosophy and, even more surprisingly, in most basic assumptions of current cognitive science. The main issue of this "metaphysical" debate is the status of mind, consciousness, mental representations, truth, and meaning in general, and therefore the debate concerns the possibility of a cognitive semantics.

Carlos Fraenkel, Dario Perinetti et Justin Smith, dir., The Rationalists : Between Tradition and Revolution (New York: Springer, 2010, pp. 199-231)., 2010

This paper undertakes to clarify the ontological status of inadequate ideas and passive affects in Spinoza by questioning the identity of the subjects of which Spinoza speaks when referring to the subjective and objective realities of a mode. Against the surprisingly widespread view which holds that for Spinoza, inadequate ideas and passive affects are “nothing,” she argues that they must have a share in Deus sive Natura and shows how our subjective, psychological mind is intrinsically related to the logical, abstract one in God’s intellect, of which it is a “part.” Traduction en flamand par Karel D’Huyvetters publiée en septembre 2014 sur le site Spinoza in Vlaanderen (http://blog.seniorennet.be/spinoza_in_vlaanderen/).

Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 86 (2013), 2013

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2013

Spinoza seems to commit himself to two implausible doctrines about representation: (i) that no idea can represent what is not the case and (ii) that every idea of imagination represents a truly vast amount of what is or has been the case. This essay examines the roles of confusion and causation in Spinoza’s theory of imaginative representation. In doing so, it uncovers a promising way in which he could use his distinctive conatus doctrine—that “each thing, insofar as it is in itself, strives to persevere in its being” (E3p6)—both to constrain the otherwise vast extent of the imaginative representation of what is and to explain how imaginative misrepresentation is possible.