Individuation of Finite Modes in Spinoza's Ethics

Proposition 28 of Part One of Spinoza’s Ethics is considered to be one of the most central propositions of this magnum opus primarily because it is key to establishing the determinism pervading Spinoza’s universe. Commentators have taken for granted that what is being described here is an infinite regress of efficient causation among bodies or events. I propose an alternative reading of this fundamental feature of Spinoza’s philosophy, which, given its centrality, has far-reaching implications. I claim that the relation between finite things expressed in 1P28 must be understood as constitutive of the individuation of finite modes rather than describing the interaction between already established finite singular things.

International Philosophical Quarterly, 2015

The theory of ininite modes is not only one of the most controversial points in the philosophy of Spinoza, but also a kind of crossroads concept on whose clariication or interpretation the deinition of his philosophy's overall meaning depends. This article aims to examine Spinoza's theory of ininite modes, mediate and immediate, in relation to other elements of Spinoza's theory. Through an analysis of Spinoza's writings, it proposes an inner reconstruction of the theory in order to ensure the consistency of the dificulties pointed out by several critics and to provide a solution. Spinoza's identiication of immediate ininite in motion, rest, and ininite intellect involves the questions of "what" they really are and what their role is within his system. About mediate ininite modes, Spinoza talks very little and only in terms of facies totius universi. This "silence" is closely linked to the "false" problem of the deduction/mediation of the inite from the ininite, a problem for which Spinoza himself was partly responsible by his statements on motion and the need to analyze the topic in more depth.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2018

This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate causation (of finite modes) do not always go together in Spinoza's thought. We show that there is good reason to doubt that this is the case in Spinoza's early Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-being. In the Short Treatise, Spinoza defends an account of God's immanent causation without fully endorsing the account of activity as adequate causation that he will later introduce in the Ethics (E3def2). We turn to an examination of how God's immanent causation relates to the activity of finite things in the Ethics. We consider two ways to think about the link between God, seen as immanent cause, and the activity of finite things: namely, in terms of entailment and in terms of production. We argue that the productive model is most promising for understanding the way in which the activity of finite things and God's immanent causality are connected in Spinoza's (mature) philosophy

Síntesis, 2021

This paper argues that ontological immanence involves but is not reducible to substance monism. Attending to immanence in Spinoza's ontology, I provide a creative exegesis of the defining features of Spinoza's immanent ontology, arguing that it recasts the concept of substance itself from a term of transcendence and totalization to one of immanence and differentiation. In critical conversation with Deleuze's influential reading, I identify five interconnected features which, taken together, elaborate Spinoza's ontology of immanence: substance monism, univocity of attributes, immanent causality, the identification between G-d and Nature, and the status of finite modes as explications of substance rather than its extrinsic effects. I argue that, taken together, these features refashion the concept of substance, such that substance becomes not a term of totalization but rather one of ongoing production of diversity. Attending to the role of finite modes in this ontology, I emphasize the ways in which immanence can lend force to vital reconfigurations of ethical and political life: by defining beings and systems in terms of their capacities, which are augmented, diminished, or maintained depending on how they converge in relation.

2018

Spinoza is well-known for his claim that God is the only substance that exists, and that everything else is a mere “mode” of that substance. At the same time, Spinoza maintains that all things depend causally on God for their being. But if all of reality is in some sense identical with God, in what manner can God be its cause? Spinoza’s answer is found in his claim that “God is the immanent, and not the transeunt, cause of all things.” In this thesis, I investigate the scholastic roots of this distinction and its implications for understanding the fundamental features of Spinoza’s monistic ontology. The scholastics commonly distinguish between two kinds of activities, one which “remains” in the subject doing it and the other which “passes” outside. Those classified as immanent were primarily mental operations like thinking and willing. The first part of this thesis examines how the scholastics disagree over whether this kind of activity ought to be construed as a kind of production; the nature of its relation to its subject; and whether it is produced by means of ‘emanation’. The concept of an immanent cause emerges within this context. In the second part of this thesis, I bring this research to bear on our understanding of Spinoza’s metaphysics. First, I support the interpretation that Spinoza’s immanent cause emanates its effects within itself, in the manner that the properties of a thing follow from its essence. Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, however, this entails neither that it is a form of formal causation, nor that Spinoza’s conception of immanent causation is fundamentally discontinuous with the scholastic tradition. Second, I look at how Spinoza’s claim that an immanent cause undergoes what it does can be reconciled with the apparent impossibility of God undergoing anything on Spinoza’s system. I argue that we should distinguish between two senses of undergoing in Spinoza: God cannot undergo in the sense of being determined by external causes. But as the immanent cause of all things, God undergoes in the sense of being the thing that is affected by his own action.

Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, Ohad Nachtomy and Reed Winegar (Eds), 2018

There are many aspects of the Ethics that seem to suggest the possibility of deducing finite modes from the infinite substance. This way of proceeding would track the ontological order, going from cause to effect, and from what is in itself to what is in another. In spite of the inviting and elegant nature of this top-down trajectory, once we try to actually follow it, things become complicated very quickly. In this paper I argue that a demand for an abstracted top-down trajectory is unwarranted because a top-down trajectory presupposes a previous ascent from confusion to adequacy. Furthermore, I argue that the state of confusion itself, which is our undeniable starting point, is made metaphysically possible only in virtue of there being a real plurality of modes, and hence in that sense in no need of a deduction.

Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2020

I address an apparent conflict between Spinoza’s concepts ofimmanent causationandacting/doing [agere]. Spinoza apparently holds that an immanent causeundergoes [patitur]whatever itdoes. Yet according to his stated definition of acting and undergoing in theEthics, this is impossible; to act is to be anadequatecause, while to undergo is to be merely a partial cause. Spinoza also seems committed to God’s being the adequate cause of all things, and, in a well-known passage, appears to deny categorically that God is capable of undergoing. How then can God also be the immanent cause of all things, as Spinoza claims? On the basis of a close reading of the passage in question, I argue that Spinoza actually distinguishes between two senses of undergoing. An immanent cause undergoes not by being a partial cause but rather by being themetaphysical subjectof its effect. While this sense of undergoing has its roots in scholasticism, Spinoza’s willingness to attribute such a capacity to undergo t...

ProQuest, 2020

Spinoza’s doctrine of parallelism admits of certain observed inconsistencies that have long troubled Spinoza scholars. The scholarship over the last one hundred and thirty years or so has offered three dominant interpretations of Spinoza’s metaphysics as a result of the deficiencies with the doctrine of parallelism. These are 1) the subjective/objective distinction according to which the attribute of thought is understood as subjective and the attribute of extension is understood as objective, 2) materialism according to which the attribute of thought is claimed to depend on the attribute of extension, and 3) idealism according to which the attribute of extension is claimed to depend on the attribute of thought. A tension between materialism and idealism is addressed by each of these approaches. And the question of Spinozist idealism is of great concern to contemporary Spinoza scholarship. However, none of these interpretations succeed as they each fail to properly locate Spinoza’s problems with parallelism in a deeper attribute problem. Interpretations 1 and 2 fail more severely for also clashing with other central themes of Spinoza’s project such as his ethics which prioritizes thought at the expense of extension. This dissertation observes that the interpretive trends in the literature not only do not succeed but cannot succeed as Spinoza’s system admits of certain contradictions. Of primary consideration, and beyond the problems with parallelism, conflation of attribute with substance and conflation of attribute with mode. It being the case that Spinoza’s theory of attributes is deficient, I propose a revisionist approach to what I have termed Spinoza’s “deep attribute problem” according to which the attributes are disassociated from the active/passive distinction. The active/passive distinction is shown to be instrumental in tying Spinoza’s metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics together as well as being erroneously applied to the attributes. The proposed revision is that the attributes be disassociated from the active/passive distinction which is to be understood now in terms of a vertical and horizontal association. The vertical association identifies substance-mode relations and the horizontal association identifies mode-mode relations. An important consequence of this revision is that substance is recast as absolutely infinite intellectual substance. As such, Spinoza’s revised system is ontological idealism and it is suggested but left for future research that the revision may entail un understanding of Spinoza’s system too as modal existentialism and ethical mysticism.

This article presents a novel, albeit speculative, interpretation of Spinoza's metaphysics by viewing it through the lens of the Medieval mereological category of a virtual whole and its parts. A virtual whole is a unique, particular power that is neither composed out of nor actually divisible into proper parts, and whose parts are only distinguished by their power of activity. By importing this concept into Spinoza's metaphysics I argue that there are real definitions of part and whole if substance is understood as an absolutely infinite virtual or potestative whole and if modes are, correspondingly, understood as powerful parts inhering in this whole. The essay then enlists this virtual mereological theory to account for the process of individuation.