Spinoza: Atheist or Pantheist

               One major question that keeps arising is whether Spinoza is an atheist or a pantheist.  Now before we can even address this issue, let’s start by defining all the terms that are involved in this issue and using the Spinozic method to start this debate.

D1: Atheism is the belief that there is no god or that god does not exist (I take both sides of this conjunction to mean the same thing)
Cor: there is another definition of atheism, which is that it is the belief that the God of the world Religions does not exist, but since I believe that we would all agree that this is Spinoza’s opinion (see the TTP), it would be pointless to use this definition in this debate.

D2: Pantheism is the belief that nature is God

D3: The term God in both cases refers to some thing that is worthy of worship.
Schol: I use the term thing so that any conception of god would apply to it.  This is not to be confused with the concept of God itselfs, which would cause this discussion to get bogged down into a discussion of God, which is not completely relevant.

I think that we can all agree on the above definitions (if not that will come up at some point in this debate) yet it seems that more clarification is needed.  So the question seems to be whether or not Spinoza believes that god is worthy of worship.  If he does, then he would be a pantheist, if not, then he is an atheist.  The first step seems to be that the term worship needs to be clearly defined.  Once that task is completed, it will be possible to look at Spinoza’s work and determine whether or not he is an atheist or a pantheist.
While we often think that worship has a religious connotation, there are many types of worship.  Beyond worshiping god, there is worship of idols, there is worship of monarchs and heads of states, and there is even to one’s boss.  It is also often the case that in intimate relationships between two people, one or both parties worship the other.  The question then becomes what is common to all these types worship.  In some sense it seems that it is some internal acknowledgement of the greatness of the worshiped, it seems that the important part of this is the public aspect of this acknowledgement.  It seems that one can not be said to worship a monarch without publicly showing it.  In order to truly worship some thing or some one, there must be some public aspect to this worship.  there also seems to be another part of worship where one admits his or her subservience to that thing.  In the case of a monarch it is acknowledging your place under the monarch.  In the case of a lover, it’s your devotion to that person.  So, I propose that worship is the the public acknowledgement of the the greatness of some thing, and your subservience to it.

Given that i can now show how Spinoza is an Atheist.  Spinoza never publicly acknowledged the greatness of his conception of God nor did he make any public claims to be subservient to it.  In fact the only type of worship Spinoza did in his life were in the form Judaic and Christian religious services.  Now the claim might be made that Spinoza’s ethics were in it of themselves a form of worship.  However this claim does not apply to Spinoza. This claim could be made of a person who intends to have his work published.  For example, it might be legitimate to say that Einstein's work was a form of worship to Spinoza’s conception of God.  However, Spinoza’s ethics was his private sentiments, which he never had any intention of publishing and were not written in an easily accessible language.  Only after his death was his work published by friends of his.  This privateness of his ethics makes it clear that Spinoza’s God was a private sentiment and not something that needed to be worshiped.  As such, following from the definitions about, Spinoza was an Atheist.

Self-love is the holiest form of worship

"All things... are in God, and all things that happen, happen only through the laws of God's infinite nature and follow from the necessity of his essence." 1P15-6

"Blessedness consists in love of God" 4P42D

Because all things are in God, and God exist as us, through us, it is no surprise that through the sophistication and refining of ones intellect one can eventually find release from being acted upon by external causes, affects, and attain blessedness. Understanding that we exist in God, and that God expresses as us through us, man can come to see that "men, like other things, act from the necessity of nature" 5P10D.  Having a thorough understanding of oneself, the affects, and right ordering of the affects to the order of the intellect, man can attain blessedness. Blessedness is the contemplation of the mind upon itself, with the knowing of God as its cause. But because God exist as us, and through us, this knowing of God as its cause, is actually the "love the mind has... [as] part of the infinite love by which God loves himself" 5P36D. In this way, self-love becomes the holiest form of worship, as it is ultimately the most intimate and personal love of God.

This is why Spinoza says in 4P37 "The good which everyone who seeks virtue wants for himself, he also desires for other men; and this desire is greater as his knowledge of God is greater", because as ones knowledge of God is greater, the more clear it is that God, modes, and existence are one. This oneness is God. It is blessedness where one realizes that working against the nature of other men, is actually working against the nature of him or herself, and as we know, working against our own nature is only caused by inadequate ideas.

Through existence the mind has adequate knowledge of God, and it is through Gods infinite and eternal attribute of mind that man can access God's eternal and infinite intellect. This is why Spinoza calls our mind an "eternal mode of thinking" 5P40S. This is blessedness, this knowing of God as our cause, and of God as us through us. Love for God is "love toward a thing immutable and eternal, which we really fully possess" 5P20. Knowing oneself deeply, and having a greater understanding of the world around oneself, is ultimately having a greater understanding of God. It is reason and reason alone that becomes mans greatest ally in coming to know God, yet knowing God is also knowing oneself. This is why self-love is mans holiest form of worship.

Love Of God

        Of course I was not expecting Spinoza to describe a love for God at all like the sentiment I have become accustomed to.  In these sections of the Ethics (P11-P23), Spinoza describes a new "love", very different from the classic word itself.  Spinoza's "love" for God is more akin to an understanding of nature around us.  It is a knowledge of our existence.  This knowledge of God translates to an intellectual understanding (intellectual love) of God. It is when one recognizes that all affects and images of the mind and body are related to God, they are through God.  The mind must clearly understand that they are because of God.  (P14)  We understand that our nature is a part of God as it follows from one of God’s attributes.  This understanding of our existence is the highest form of knowledge for Spinoza.  When one attains this knowledge and properly grasps it, he or she is at a state of blessedness.  It is a state of high joy that can only be brought about by this “love” of God.

        When I first heard of the concept of the love of God, I immediately thought of the classical sense of love.  Where one loves God and is loved by God in return.  Spinoza is completely against this type of love as he blatantly states: “He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return” (P19).  Spinoza also states that God is a God without passions,  God is not affected by joy or sadness.  God does not hate and consequentially God does not love.  If one expects God to love him back then he expects God to no longer be God.  This is something that has to be expected and is in blatant contrast to religious views of the love of God where one flourishes because he or she is loved by God.  Spinoza does a great job of removing religion from his concept of love.  When one loves God he or she is free from passions, and is therefore free.  This freedom brings joy.  This freedom entails that the person does not fear an eternal consequence after death, does not look forward to an eternal life after death, both of which are removals of religious concepts.  It seems to me that this type of love is just plain and simple understanding.  This leaves me to question can understanding be the same as love?  Therefore can one even really love Spinoza’s God?  How is God affected by this love or by this understanding? Maybe those questions don’t even matter.  If all one has to do is strive to understand that he is because of God, understand that his nature and purpose are all due to the attributes of God, are caused by these attributes, then this will bring with it freedom and joy.  One does what is right and what he or she believes to be important all while striving for this highest knowledge.  In a way, this type of “love” of God brings about a salvation just as the classical ancient religious concept of a love for God would. 

Part V. "Prinicples of Correct Living"

       In the first section of Part 5 of the Ethics, Spinoza discusses how reason can overcome the affects in dictating human action, and how we may best live by the guidance of reason in the absence of full knowledge of our affects. Ultimately, we are left with a theory of habituation, or the frequent contemplation of certain moral truths, discovered through reason, which will guide us through the unknown or poorly understood affects that harass us in our lives.

       Spinoza holds that insofar as we have adequate ideas, we act, and insofar as we have inadequate ideas we are acted upon (IIIP3). In this way, if we form adequate ideas of the affects that affect us, their power over us is lessened (P4). These adequate ideas will be attained through knowledge of the cause of the affects in question (IVP23). There are no affects, or passions, that cannot be understood (P4). Once the power of our reason is increased, through adequate ideas, such that it is greater than that of the affects, the power of the affects will be forced to conform with that of reason (A1, P3). In this way, reason can have power over the affects (P4S). When this happens, and to whatever extent we have adequate ideas of our affects, we are guided by reason and have power over ourselves.

       In the world, however, we may not always have the adequate ideas of our affects that would allow us to be guided directly by reason. As Spinoza explains, When "…we do not have perfect knowledge of our affects, [we must] conceive of a correct principle of living…" (P10S). These correct principles of living, or "maxims" (P10S), can be instilled in us through contemplation, and serve to lessen the extent to which we are acted upon by our affects (P9). These principles are akin to Aristotle’s Virtues. Through frequent repetition we may habituate ourselves to these Virtues, or principles, and in this way condition ourselves to live by the guidance of reason, a task that Spinoza suggests would otherwise be difficult or impossible in this world of imperfect knowledge (P10S). The crucial differences between the theories of Spinoza and Aristotle are illustrative of the essence of Spinoza's idea of correct principles. These differences may be seen most clearly in two points. First, that for Spinoza the repetition of these principles seems to be purely contemplative (P10S), while for Aristotle the virtues must be practiced in action. This is a manifestation of Spinoza's irrevocable separation of the attributes, which in understanding thought demands that the perfection of the mind be understood as nothing other than understanding (P4S). The second illustrative point is that for Spinoza, these principles are only a place holder for certain knowledge, to be relied upon in its absence. This stands in contrast to Aristotle's virtues, which are put forward as autonomous from pure reason, defined rather by one’s social environment. The comparison with Aristotle is useful for understanding the place and practice of Spinoza’s principles in our lives. Spinoza’s principles have value only in so far as they are derived from reason. They are universals, or generalizations, regarding what reason would likely prove to be the correct course of action in a specific instance. The principle, "hate is to be conquered by love" (P10S) demonstrates this universal quality. The principles lack an explicit understanding of the particular instance of circumstances on hand, and, in this way, lack the accuracy which comes of a purely rational understanding, based on adequate ideas, of the affects involved.

      Finally, in a discussion of the application of the principles it is important to note that these principles, being universals, and in this way necessarily imperfect, only lessen, through repeated contemplation, the power of the affects(P9). They do not dissolve the affects in the way hate and love are dissolved by having adequate ideas of those things hated or loved (P2). In this way the correct principles increase the influence of reason in our minds, but fall short of the dissolution of the affects that our minds accomplish when in a position of complete understanding.

the deception of free man

            In the end of book four, Spinoza is discussing the nature of a “free man”.  A free man, according to Spinoza is a man who acts through reason alone.  In 4P72, he claims that “A free man always acts honestly, not deceptively” (237).  In explaining this proposition, Spinoza claims that when a free man acts through deception, it must be virtuous.  This is because a free man is guided by pure reason, and as such would know that the deception would be the greater good.  So, if in some situation a free man deceives someone, then it is the case the in that situation one always deceive another. 

            However, Spinoza seems to be claiming in the demonstration of 4P72 that even in an extreme case where it would seem that it is ok to deceive someone (for example to save your life), a free man would not deceive.  The claim is that he would understand that the institution of agreements would be undermined if he were to start down the path of deception.  That is if the recommended course of action that reason would lead to were deception, it would be the proper course of action, regardless of any situational conditions.  In other words, if reason would lead you to deceive to save your life, then it would also lead to that course of action in all other situations, which Spinoza thinks is absurd.

            This whole line of reasoning seems to rest on the idea that people will always do what is best for them.  A free man would know that it is absurd to act through deception.  However, it would seem that reason would also dictate that one ought to do anything to remain alive.  No one good would be not to act through deception and another good would be to stay alive.  Following from 4P65, it seems that even a free man would, under certain circumstances be able to deceive.  If the free man has a choice between a good and an evil, he will choose the good over the evil.  So, if one needed to deceive in order to save his life, the line of reasoning would not be based on the virtues or vices of deception, but rather it seems that more important line of reasoning would be is it better to live or die, with deception being a second tier of reasoning.  Put slightly differently, but also derived from 4P65, there are two evils, deception and death.  The free man will choose the lesser of the two evils, which would be deception.

Reason, Emotions and Human Nature

In this particular section of the Part IV (4P28-4P52), Spinoza seeks to determine the relation between emotions and human nature. To begin with, Spinoza contends that if there is nothing common between a particular thing and human nature, then that particular thing can not affect human nature. That is because if a particular thing determines human action, then it follows from Spinoza's discussion of attributes (prop. 6, part II) that the nature of particular thing is bound to share the same attribute with human nature. Emotions such as pleasure and pain have something in common with us, since they respectively increase and decrease our power of acting (P. 29). Laying out this general condition, Spinoza goes on to specify how emotions correlate with the human nature.

The agreement or disagreement between human nature and particular things determine how they affect upon human beings. If any particular thing agrees with human nature, then it is essentially good (4P31). For the agreement in nature implies that agreed things can not diminish their respective powers, as it contradicts with already proven proposition that things can be destroyed only by things that are external to it(3P4). It then follows that insofar as things are bad (i.e. things which cause pain, diminish human power) for humans, to that extent they disagree with human nature. This may seem contradictory with what Spinoza has maintained earlier, namely, things can not affect us in any way if they have nothing in common with us (4P29). How then the pain-causing things affect us? The answer lies in the difference between being different from and being contrary to human nature. While the former does not affect us in any way, the latter affects us negatively. That is, the pain-causing things are in negative relation with human nature, while the non-affecting things are in no relation at all. However, things only can agree in power, not in the lack of power (P32). Passions, which belong to the latter category, do not thus agree with human nature. Passions are the form of emotions that “harass” human beings (P34). What is more, the passions are the root cause behind the prevalence of discrepancy among human being. For the passions – or the lack of power – bar human beings from agreeing with each other's nature. Peter appears as antagonistic to Paul only when Paul hates or envies something that Peter possesses (P34), regardless of the efficient cause of that thing (3P16). In contrast, reason paves the way for agreement in nature: “ Insofar as men live in accordance with the guidance of reason, to that extent alone they always necessarily agree in nature” (4P35). To demonstrate this crucial proposition, Spinoza specifies the relation between human nature and reason. Insofar as human nature is conceived according to the reason, to that extent things that emanate from nature are to be understood only through human nature. The law of human nature, as we know, dictates that human beings always seek what they consider good and avoid what they reckon bad. If a particular thing is good for human nature, then it is bound to be good for every man (4P35). Human beings thus agree in nature insofar as they live according to the dictate of reason. While the passion-directed hatred generates hatred, the guidance of reason repays the hatred with love (4P46). We can thus conclude that the guidance of reason  does not only safeguard human beings from the power-diminishing passions,  but also sets human beings in a harmonious relationship with each other. 

Hope and Fear

            Spinoza states that there are only three primary affects, joy, sadness and desire. Man’s very essence is desire, we act solely on it, and this includes all of our appetites and impulses (IIID1). He explains that joy and sadness are not states, but instead passages to and from a greater and lesser perfection (IIID2, D3). It is the journey, not the destination.

Hope and fear for Spinoza are basically interchangeable, they are directly related. We couldn’t have one without the other, since there are both instances in which we hope for something to happen, and in which we hope for something not to happen. It could thus be said that we fear this something from occurring. Spinoza defines hope as an “inconsistent joy” which rises from an image of a past or future thing which we doubt the outcome of. Fear is defined as an “inconsistent sadness” which also arises from an image of a past or future thing which we doubt the outcome of (IIIP18S2). He goes on to state that if doubt is removed from these, hope becomes confidence and fear despair, since we hope for something that we believe will bring us joy, and we fear the thing that we believe will bring sadness. But this is all in our minds, and we chose to believe that which is favorable to us, and deny things that we do not want to happen. Yet all things mean something different to each one of us; something I hope for could be someone else’s greatest fear (IIIP51).

Spinoza believes that hope and fear govern a lot of people’s lives (Nadler 206). People spend their lives either really desiring something to happen, or are in fear of the consequences of it happening. However what people don’t realize is that they have no real control, that they are all predetermined. But because men see themselves as being free, and as being causes of their ends, they buy into their hopes and fears and act according to them.This is how superstitions and omens are born, and begin to slowly take over people’s lives (IIIP50). Nadler notes, as does Spinoza in his TTP, that hope and fear are the very foundation of organized religion (206). People so badly want something to to happen or to not happen, that they would believe almost anything to help or prevent it from happening. But this is not a healthy way to live, being in a constant state of anxiety would make anyone go crazy. Especially since we have no real control over our ends anyway, so both emotions are just a waste of nerve cells.

Mind-body connection = Thought-extension correlation

Spinoza takes a radical view of expressing the mind-body connection as having no inter-causal relationship between each other, but instead being a correlation between two distinct attributes. These two attributes are ultimately the same thing, the substance of God expressed as the attribute of thought or the attribute of extension occurring simultaneously (3P2). Spinoza believes we err when we conclude our bodies are drawn to move by the command of our minds direction, and that the body also cannot determine the mind (3P2). But interestingly, by 3P1 “Next, from any given idea some effect must necessarily follow, of which effect God is the adequate cause, not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is considered to be affected by that given idea”,  we are left questioning the relationship between the “given idea” and the “affected”. Simply because by D3, Spinoza defines affect as that which affects the body’s authority of acting as improved or lessened. So if the attributes of thought and extension are truly one and have no causal relationship, I’m left wondering how can an Idea affect the affections of the body and that not be considered causal?

 However, Spinoza goes on to explain that if God is affected by an adequate idea and is the cause of an effect, then that same mind (whom has the adequate idea) is also the effects adequate cause. This is interesting because he also says, by this causal-effect relationship, the mind acts (P1). This is all very perplexing to me because he really brings up a fascinating perspective in P2 when he separates the movement of body’s and the modes of thinking as not having a determinate relationship, but I can’t help but question by what he means in P1 when the ideas ultimately act.

               My only solution is that he stresses the importance of seeing thought and extension as not only distinct attributes, but also as the same substance that the order or connection is one. So there seems to be a cyclical-unity between these two attributes that only appears to be different attributes when viewed through the specific attribute, but is ultimately the same thing. It’s very difficult for me to understand thought-extension in this way, but he does have a point in his sleepwalking and other examples, and if anything raises an interesting perspective that perhaps we shouldn’t just assume our thought attribute is ultimately the cause of our actions/extension.

Intro to Images and Striving

For Spinoza all things act in accordance to their nature, for their nature must necessarily dictate how they are to act. Men are no exception to this law of nature because, contrary to popular belief, man is not determined by himself. The human mind, in particular, does not determine man’s body because they are two unique attributes of substance and though inseparable they have no causal connection.

Spinoza previously attempts to prove that Substance does not have any flaws in Part I of the Ethics. To believe otherwise is to assume that there is something lacking from that which is by definition absolute. While other scholars believe that man exists outside of nature Spinoza believes that man is merely a part of Nature and must behave in accordance to its laws. Spinoza states “Nothing happens in nature that can be attributed to any defect in it, Nature is always the same… the laws and rules of nature … are always and everywhere the same” (Ethics 153). Things exist the way they do because they always have and always will exist in this manner.

Spinoza challenges the idea that the mind and the body are separate entities that have the ability to influence one another. The mind does not have the ability to control the actions of the body because “all modes have God [or Nature] for a cause” (Ethics 155). As a result the mind and body of human beings are subject to the laws of Nature.

Although they are both attributes of substance the mind and the body have no causal interaction between them, the mind being an attribute of thinking and the body being an attribute of extension with. He states, “the body cannot determine the mind to thinking, and the mind cannot determine the body to [action]” (Ethics 155). These two attributes must only act in accordance to the laws of Nature and therefore they correspond to one another. “Things are able [to produce] nothing but what follows necessarily from their determinate nature” (Ethics 159).

Our minds ability to think and our bodies ability to act are simply just effects of the laws of nature not our ability to determine ourselves. As human beings our minds and our bodies are distinguishable expressions of Nature but not separable. The mind and the body are, by the laws of nature, determined.

P 44

P44 "It is of the nature of reason to regard things as necessary, not as contingent." (

It is this proposition which I will attempt to confront and the reason being is, it is opaque in nature, and rather abstract (to me of course). Spinoza is setting up an epistemological argument for reasoning and is comparing it to thinking based on contingency. On one scenario we have “the nature of reason” regarding things as necessary and the nature of reason NOT regarding things as contingent. Spinoza goes on to say that based on this claim we can make the further claim that when we conceive of something as contingent it is only because our imagination is acting upon what we perceive(Of the Mind; Dem 143). What Spinoza goes on to say in the scholium to proposition 44 is of huge importance in relation to this notion of necessity and contingency and their relation to the nature of reason. Spinoza says “…that if the human body has once been affected by two external bodies at the same time… when the mind imagines one of them, it will immediately recollect the other also…”(The Ethics On the Mind 143), we must start with what Spinoza is trying to say here. According to Spinoza, when people learn, or observe rather, two things which both occur simultaneously the mind, or rather the imagination, creates a correlation between the two. We can now approach Spinoza’s example regarding this; the boy who sees Peter, Paul, and Simon on various parts of the day learns to correlate their seeing of the particular person to the time of day, so based on temporality and the natural movement of time a particular person will come up when a particular time of day passes (On the Mind 143-144). This applies with anything not only temporality and people but also with standard habituation. In any psychology course they run Spinoza’s contingent experiment on their students, they will show you a picture of a dog then a cat then the same dog that showed up the first time, and the person watching this series of photos will safely assume that a cat will show up next, it is exactly this that Spinoza says is not the nature of reason. Spinoza continues with saying that “…this necessity of things is the very necessity of God’s eternal nature.” (On the Mind 144), So now Spinoza, in proposition 44, has not only created an epistemological theory but has correlated it with Spinoza’s own notion of God, which entails this notion of the nature of reason to be, in Spinoza’s perspective, the only right approach to knowledge.

~ True Ideas of the Body ~

The relation between thoughts and extensions helps me understand the relation between mind and body.  This is because in Spinoza's view, thought and extension are both attributes of God. Thus they both express the same essence, only in different ways.  And the human mind and all its ideas are ideas of the human body, and both ideas of God.   The pattern I see is that when one event (substance) causes the other (mode), the essence of the first is implied in the other.

Proposition 7 says: "The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things."  What he means is that the way in which a mode of thought is created is the same as how a mode of extension is also created.  The "connection of causes", how one thought leads to another or an event leads to another, are basically the same, because it all expresses the essence of substance, or of God.  The difference is that each has its own language.  As Spinoza says on the bottom of page 119, when talking about modes of thinking we should explain the connections of causes through thinking attributes only.  And the same goes for modes of extension. The point is that both modes have their own way of explaining the whole of nature, or the essence of substance.  

Now, if we look at proposition 13, we see that Spinoza is telling the same causal story here.  "The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body".  So all ideas of the mind are also ideas of the body.  Because proposition 11 says that when the mind perceives something it is the same as God having this idea.  Since the human mind is part of the intellect of God, and so is the body, Spinoza links both the mind and the body as attributes of one substance.  The Cartesian buried very very deep in me shrieked with horror, as this completely goes against Descartes dualism theory.  Spinoza puts the body and the mind in one hand, as attributes of one substance, rather then making them two completely separate things.

I personally think he is right on this. Or at least makes a better argument then Descartes. Because all modes express the essence of a single infinite substance. And so every combination of though and extension (mind and body) do not equal two separate things, but just one, the essence of God.  It also means that since substance is infinite, we may one day experience new ways of understanding mind and body, which is very sexy.

Mind and Body

Spinoza after explaining the theory of god’s existence shifts onto the nature and origin of the mind. His proofs of the existence of God and the intellect now lead up to mans minds and its workings in relation to god and nature. That being said, Spinoza states a body is a mode with certain attributes and expressions of god’s essence and work in tune in the grander picture of things. Starting on the opposite end of the spectrum, Descartes theory of the mind and the body is that the two are independent of each other. And since they are two separate things their workings don’t lend to each other or support each other. Same as a thought cannot be weighed nor has no physical properties, external ‘things’ to and of itself it have no correlation to the first. Both philosophers believe in the minds ability to think rationally and to exist in and of self, but while one makes clear distinctions between the two, Spinoza has a different view of body and mind.

Physical external things are finite and are limited to our precepts and experiences. A prior knowledge, a way of knowing before having any experience, are concepts already in the mind that don’t rely on experience but are realized (proven) a posteriori. Looking past substance and gods infinite being if we concentrate on what makes me me and you you, in body and in mind Spinoza view is that we are all finite beings made up of this finite “substance” and not different or special in any way aside from our modes. All things being a reflection of gods’ essence et al., it is also clear that things made that must survive gods plan and abide by his nature.

In P7 of The Ethics, Spinoza states: “the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” In the case of Hume, experience or cause and effect is by no means knowledge or a path to knowledge. If by the same token an idea becomes thought and a thought become a concept, a misguided idea or thought can mushroom into non/false knowledge easily. Same as an external occurrence might be thought of caused something else and actually does not, IE four leaf clover for luck.

The mind not having the same hindrance the body is free but must work the same way nature governs the external world. To Spinoza all are of one body anyway but all have a unique mind to which we can think outside of external things and conceive and rationalize many things, including our existence, mathematical concepts and god in general and work in conjunction with the order the way god intended. Is the mind limited to the body and vise versa? Are the two separate?

Things "Natured"

It is quite possible that I have absolutely no idea what I have just read, or that I have no hint of correctness in my explanation for what it means for a thing to be "natured". I believe that by things being “natured”, Spinoza is trying to say that all things have been created by some aspect of nature. It is impossible for anything to be outside of nature as nature is everything. God is not outside of nature, as God is nature. Nothing can exist outside of God so nature in turn is God. I find it particularly hard to follow Spinoza’s explanations due to their own confusing nature. Before Spinoza, I used to think that God was an entity outside of nature, one that was without association to a certain definition of being but Spinoza quickly takes that notion away by attributing God so directly to nature as to call God nature itself. He says that everything in existence is a part of nature, and there is no conceivable way that they cannot be a part. And according to the nature of God, everything is the way and happens in the way it does with a purpose. They could not have occurred in any other manner (p33, page 106)

For something to be natured, it has to be in accordance with the rules that it is the way it is because it absolutely has to be that way. It is intended to be that way, so I don’t think it is going too far if one was to say that all things in existence are natured. They have their own natures, stemming from the overall nature which is God and God’s intention. Personally I find it difficult to bring it further than saying the simple sentence “everything is because of God”, as that statement seems to be an easily appropriate answer to any question regarding the purpose of anything that one can think of.

Nature itself is something that is natured. Everything that exists in nature exists with a specific purpose that reflects God’s intention for it. There is no way for something to exist in nature without an effect. (p 36, page 109) Everything that is created by God is perfect because God’s nature is perfect. And the things that happen in nature are subject to the laws of nature.

For me it is hard to follow what Spinoza is really trying to say (it does seem that he has a lot more to say than what I am understanding from this) because all that I am getting from this is one overall set of ideas which is that everything is everything. God is nature and nature is God. God’s power is in his essence and God is the cause of himself. Things are because of nature, nature is because of God and God is because of himself. The way in which all things act and exist are God’s essence in themselves. (p 35, page 109) Spinoza says that whatever we can conceive to be a part of God’s power, necessarily exists (p 35, page 109) He pushes us to believe that everything in existence is necessary so therefore it is impossible for anything to be made independent of necessity. The way nature is, the way people are, are all a part of necessity and therefore a part of God’s essence. Things natured, are things out of necessity, things out of necessity are things that work and exist according to God’s power/essence, including God.

The "Nature" of God

The only thing that Spinoza is trying to prove, is that there is no God. At least not how we perceive him to be. For Spinoza, God is not an entity that one can bound or give some sort of quality to; He is not some vending machine we can ask favors from. God is no divine being, God is everywhere and everything. Spinoza’s basic mistake stems from his definition of God (D6 pg 85). He is trying to approach a psychological idea with metaphysical tools. He chooses a battlefield that he automatically wins in; he gives a clear cut definition of what he thinks God is, and then bases all of his knowledge about God on this very definition. Never has God been based on a mathematical proof, or logical deduction, it was always an idea that was based on the fact that people did not know anything for sure. Spinoza is attacking all those that ever tried to attach any quality or trait to God. They tried to separate God (who is divine and infinite) from the corporeal (finite) world, which is very easy to describe and explain to a common person (P15 pg 94). Spinoza is proving that this separation is not possible, for even the corporeal is infinite (IV pg 95). By doing this, he is ruining the common notion of God, as He is portrayed in religion. Spinoza is being diplomatic in that he is not outright stating that God does not exist. What he is doing is completely morphing, or dissolving God into a metaphysical idea of the eternity of the universe.

By stating that “whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God,” Spinoza is showing us how God and nature are one in the same. (Nature being everything.) If we take into account that every effect has a cause, (except for God, or substance, that is a cause of itself), Spinoza is basically saying that there is no beginning. Everything has a cause, except for God; he has always been and will be. However everything else is based on determinism and not some guiding hand of God, because that will give God purpose. Spinoza still fails to address the issue of God as we know Him. Just because my idea of a cat is the same as of a four dimensional machine, (or something else that the human mind is unable to perceive) and I can set up a fancy definition and proof to prove my point, it doesn’t mean that because a four dimensional machine is not a living thing, a cat is therefore not a living thing.

Human beings are an extension of substance, thus extensions of God.

Spinoza believes that human beings are extensions of God, thus we exist in God (SR 92). He ascertains that "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God" (SR 94). By his words, human beings are extensions of substance, or modes of the extension of God. As human beings, we are effects and the knowledge we have of ourselves depends upon the knowledge we have of our cause (SR 86). As God is the only substance, its cause is its self (SR 85,94). Therefore, the more we understand God as this cause, the more we can ultimately understand ourselves.
Spinoza also asserts that the existence of a substance is an eternal truth, and an eternal truth cannot be explained by a time interval, even if that interval has no point of ending or beginning (SR 86, 89). By these statements, one can deduce that a greater understanding of eternity will also lead to a greater understanding of human beings. Because there is nothing except for substances and modes, and substance is an eternal truth, Spinoza declares that corporeal or extended substance is itself of the divine nature (SR 89, 94). He addresses people's ignorance in declaring that extended substance, or human beings, are created by God, while removing corporeal substance from the divine nature, with the axiom that "one substance cannot be produce by another substance" (SR 87, 94). As human beings are the created, not the creator, it follows we are extensions of God.
Spinoza states that human beings either wield power by way of our existence as finite beings that are more powerful that an infinite being, or that we exist in something else, which necessarily exists, which is God (SR 92). For God not to exist, then nothing would exist. But alas we do exist, therefore God does exist and we are extended substance within God (SR 92). Spinoza addresses that opponents argue that because corporeal substance consists of parts, it cannot be infinite, or be of God (SR 94). But they mistakenly conceive corporeal substance to be finite because they believe it to be made of finite parts (SR 96). Ultimately Spinoza believes that human beings are extensions of God, that God is absolutely infinite, extended substance is one one of God's infinite attributes, and that corporeal substance is infinite (SR 94, 96).

Spinoza's Concept of Method

Distinguishing true knowledge from the inadequate variants of knowledge, Spinoza concentrates on how we can gain access to this supreme form of knowledge. Spinoza defines true knowledge as the knowledge which is acquired by comprehending things through their essence or proximate cause. For Spinoza, method has no external existence from the knowledge, nor is it a road to the true knowledge. Method, rather, is the way through which knowledge reflects upon itself (13). In this post (covering the latter half of the TDIE), I'll try to explicate Spinoza's concept of philosophical method and its place within his theory of knowledge.

Spinoza begins by epistemically differentiating the true idea from the object which it supposedly represents. The idea of an object, thus, constitutes a knowable entity of its own. That means the idea itself can become the idea-essence of another idea. In order to grasp the essence of an object I need not know that I am knowing its idea. The true idea of an object designates the essence of that object, rather than designating the idea-essence of the idea (which is a distinct object). True idea is its own justification. It requires, Spinoza stresses, no justification by method.  

Dispelling the Cartesian approach (which sees method as the structure upon which knowledge stands), Spinoza places knowledge before the method. Method doesn't lead thought to the truth. It has no autonomous existence. In Spinoza's succinct words: " Knowledge must exist before there can be knowledge of knowledge, there will be no methodology unless knowledge exists first" (13). Philosophical method consists in coordinating human mind with the anterior knowledge. Spinoza pinpoints two different parts of the method. Firstly, the reflection on the innate true ideas enables the mind to distinguish between true ideas and others. For clearly grasping this point, we need to link it with Spinoza's treatment of infinite regress in knowledge. What justifies the best-ness of the best method? A second method can justify the first method, a third method does the second one and so on. Since Spinoza posits a first inborn knowledge which is its own justification, he could cut through this apparent deadlock (15). This innate knowledge helps to discover other true knowledge by reflecting upon itself. And this very form of reflection is what we can call the method. Secondly, the growing knowledge of nature redefines the methodological process. By integrating the knowledge of the order of things, the philosophical method eschews useless queries. 

Young Spinoza's conception of method, so to speak, stands at odd with the common-place criticism of him as a philosopher who prioritized formal method over the philosophical content. Hegel famously said that Spinoza's method, being indifferent to the specificity of objects, misconceives the very nature of philosophical knowledge (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 283). Against the grain of such reading, this early reflection of Spinoza on method makes it clear that method doesn't mechanically produce knowledge; it doesn't either determine any regulative approach to knowledge. Coming as it does from the very reflection of knowledge upon itself, Spinozist method denies any methodological precondition of knowledge. In so doing, I would claim, Spinoza radically constructed a preemptive critique of the primacy of method in subsequent theories of knowledge.   

* I used the Joseph Katz translation of TDIE (1958, translated as "On the improvement of the understanding") for the citation.  

Essence, Proximate Causes, and the Rationalist Method:

The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect begins with a discussion of the method by which the “true good” may be found (1). The true good is the means of the perfection of man’s nature (13). For sake of attaining this good we must make a calculated and reasoned intellectual effort. To this end we must recognize how we come to know about things in the world (18), and which methods beget true knowledge, or understanding, of the “essence” of a thing. Spinoza recognizes an understanding which comes of knowing a things “proximate causes” as the method of knowing above all others (29). The method of proximate causes is superior to knowing a thing through report, through random sense perception, or through an understanding derived from a things effects (19). The priority of knowledge through proximate causes makes this form of knowing Spinoza’s candidate for the foundation of his method for the pursuit of the "true good".

Spinoza’s claims that to know something via its essence or proximate causes is the only intellectual method that “... comprehends the adequate essence of the thing and is without danger of error.” (29). In making this claim, defended only by an illustration of a persons’s geometric understanding of the concept of parallelism(24), Spinoza opens the floodgates to numerous objections. The first of which might come from an empiricists, who would doubt that the priority given to knowledge through proximate causes holds when we discuss those kinds of things which exist in the natural world, as opposed to those which have only intellectual existence, such as geometrical concepts.

This objection is especially relevant today, when the natural sciences have departed so far from the realm of the intellect. It is hard to imagine that knowledge of such things as the laws which govern quantum mechanics could have been known in any way other than the empirical (inferential) means by which they were discovered.* A Spinozist might object and argue that the essence of the objects of the quantum world is not found in these laws, and that this essence is not yet known to us. This leaves us with a need to investigate what is meant in Spinoza's work by "essence".

Regarding the nature of essence Spinoza is silent. In this we are left to our own devices. We may start by asking ourselves, in what does the essence of an electron consist; in the subatomic particles which compose it, or in the laws of its behavior, whereby we understand electricity. If it is indeed the former, as S. would insist, we will have to wonder, could such a reductionist approach to understanding the essence of the natural world ever deliver to us any knowledge of the true good, as Spinoza imagines it?

These questions represent one of the fundamental discussions of Spinoza’s time, namely, whether the world can be best understood rationally or empirically. Similarly, we may wonder what, if any, the role of science and the reductionist method is in questions of moral philosophy. Finally, we might ask if Spinoza can support any meaningful discussion of the method by which the true good may be pursued on such weak premises as the priority of knowledge through proximate causes and the existence of essence.

* This reference to quantum mechanics is used to illustrate a scientific truth alien to our usual conception of reason or S.'s conception of the intellect. I do not mean to use the all too common philosophical escape route of referencing quantum mechanics, and making wild claims as to its significance, that is often employed when someone is faced with a situation in which he or she has nothing to say.

Spinoza's Politics: Politics of Naturalization

In recent times, we have been seeing a tendency to dissociate Spinoza's politics from his ontology, as this dissociation allows one to assimilate him in the liberal framework. This way of conceiving Spinoza amounts to a Spinoza without his radical core. Interlinking Spinoza's political thoughts with his ontology, I will try to show that Spinoza's politics is an attempt to naturalize politics in accordance with the ''natural light of reason.” In other words, his political project, to put it in his metaphysical lexicon, is to elevate politics from the state of imagination to the state of reason. Before going any further, the ambiguous  meaning of the word “nature” needs to be clarified. For Spinoza, nature is not something normatively determined (as it is in Descartes), nor does the attempt to naturalize politics entail that it is a transition from non-nature to nature. Rather, it is a transition from the lower modality of nature (i.e. imagination) to the superior one (i.e., reason).


The bedrock of Spinoza's political philosophy, one can argue, is his double-edged concept of human nature. By nature, human beings are passionate entities, who long for “greater benefit” and seek to avoid “greater harm.” However, this is not the only aspect of human nature. This same conatus may also enable human beings to understand the world ade- quately. This is the rational bent of human nature.This aspect of human nature is actualized only through understanding of the actual order and connection among things. Thus, it is no surprise that Spinoza determines “understanding” as one of most important categories of his political theory. In political life, unlike the social life, desire is more powerful than reason.  The driving force of Spinoza's politics, to paraphrase philosopher Errol Harris, is the desire to devise a rational politics which neither suppresses nor gives free rein to the human agency (Spinoza's Philosophy: An Outline, 97).


The demarcation of reason from theology conditions Spinoza's conceptualization of rational theory of democratic state-form. Before entering into the discussion of his concept of state and sovereignty, it is required that we take a brief detour through this question. For  Spinoza, theology boils down to the singularity of prophecy and revelation, as it contains the knowledge as imagination at its most original form (since theological knowledge are not derivable by reason, it only can arrive through revelation). Being capricious and change- able, the sole “object of revealed knowledge is simply obedience”(TTP, 10). In a theocratic  state, this capricious knowledge (which, at best, is morally certain)  becomes the authority of both political and religious sphere. Collapsing faith into politics, this obedience-oriented political system compels citizens to remain stuck in the sphere of negative passion (e.g. fear). Spinoza's politics, in contrast, seeks to re-place politics based on knowledge of imagination with the knowledge of reason.

By carving the desires and by thinking through the dictate of reason, the rational-political agreement of citizens becomes the foundation of the democratic state. This very agreement  simultaneously elevates humans from the state of natural right to the state of civil right. In  the natural state, every “individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything that it can do” (195). In the rational-political state, citizens have to determine a sovereign who assumes  absolute power over individual citizens. In other words, citizens transfer their right to  sovereign. However, no finite entity, Spinoza says, can transfer the totality of his rights to  sovereign. This is where Spinoza definitively rejects Hobbesian concept of sovereignty, which presupposes an absolute transference of rights. By the same token, Spinoza's sovereign is not an abstract individual sovereign. The potentia or constitutive power of individual is inalienable, while the power of authority or potestas is transferable to the  sovereign. By explicating so, Spinoza strikes a delicate balance between the individual  and the sovereign. Ascribing absolute power (only insofar as potentia is concerned) to  the sovereign, Spinoza confronts the question of authority over sacred matters. Spinoza concludes that even in sacred matters citizens are compelled to follow the sovereign, since it will be the right way to obey the god . It may appear that Spinoza's absolutization of the  sovereign's domain poses a limit to the right of the individuals, contradicting his promise to maximize rights. Formulating this dilemma, Spinoza provides an original solution by linking the very sustenance of sovereignty with the individual freedom. That is, individual  freedom needed to be maintained for the sake of the sovereignty itself: “[F]or when...efforts are made to strip men of this liberty...antagonizes rather than frightens people...and incites them to take revenge” (TTP, 259).

Therefore, despite being shifted from the “state of nature”, Spinoza's politics is hinged upon the naturality of reason. This, of course, is not so much a politics in given nature, as rather it is a politics of naturalization. It won't be an exaggeration to maintain, along with Antonio Negri, that the TTP is to be reclaimed as the foundational document  of radical democratic theory.

On Scripture

The word of God has been corrupted and turned into what we now know to be scripture and Spinoza does not believe that this is the true or original state of God’s intention for man. Spinoza challenges the idea that scripture is the divine law because in its current state it has been recorded as a creation of the imagination of the prophets. Spinoza believes that scripture has become for man and extensions of God and in turn scripture is a manifestation of God himself. Spinoza does not deny that for certain individual’s scripture can be divine however; he does not believe scripture is truly the unadulterated word of God (TTP 164).

Spinoza thinks that scripture is nothing but the creation of pious men, who have been blinded by the religiousness and now believe that scripture is God. Much like an idolater worships an idol the pious man has come to worship scripture. Idolatry and worship of symbols is problematic for what scripture attempts to teach. In this way scripture and even idolatry are sacred or profane relatively to what a person believes. However the worshipping and complete faith in scripture is a misuse of its original purpose. It is this worshipping of the words they have written that has caused the pious to neglect the original intent of God’s divine law. Divine law is meant to be written in our hearts by God, because we have the knowledge of rights and wrongs. Objectors to Spinoza "will insist that, even though divine law is written in our hearts, the Bible is still the word of God, and therefore we may not say that it is mutilated and corrupt" (TTP 164). Spinoza goes as far as saying that in opposing his view his adversaries are turning scripture and by extension religion into nothing more than superstition.

Scripture has become a tool to keep men obedient to the ones who can interpret scripture. Scripture participates in the divine law but I believe people fall into trouble when they may scripture out to be God. Spinoza doesn't deny the power or importance of scripture but he does question the intention behind those who manipulate the words to create their own laws and teachings (TTP 170).

Critique of Revelation…

Reading Scripture can be taken literally or figuratively. It is meant as a way to govern our lives and live by an ideal communicated by God. Many if not all religions have prophets who have professed that they were visited by God and had a supernatural experience that left them not only more enlightened, but with words to live by to distribute to any and all his believers and non believers. Spinoza details the way in which revelation and scripture come about and the unique relationship of natural knowledge and divine inspiration (revelation). In his own words he see that revelation does not come to just anyone and takes many forms. In the first chapter of the TTP Spinoza details the different ways God has presented himself to those worthy of him in some of the more obscure ways. He mentions that revelation does not come clearly but at time come by way of images, nature and as man.”…or that Micah saw god seated, Daniel saw him as an old man dressed in white clothes, and Ezekiel as a fire,... (26, TTP), we see God has come in many forms to deliver his word that later became scripture.

The purpose of scripture is to provide followers a moral compass to which God has prescribed and is said to be a good and just life. One major fault Spinoza finds is that though they were the word of God and received though divine revelation, there is a certain vagueness in the writing and leads to a level of subjective argument that cannot be qualified through reason or some measure to which everyone even those in the same religion can agree upon. One of the problems is the language in which it was translated in or handed down. Not only language in the spoken or textual sense. Including dialects, verbiage and/or meaning, the true message he points out can become skew from what the original message is trying to convey to the reader and listener. Idioms in todays language do not translate well and are all subject to interpretation. That being said no one should be able change Gods message either consciously or by unconsciously. But what qualifies Gods word and from whom or what make it so without proof or reason?

Religion, politics...and subjectivity

The preface of the TTP covers a various selection of ideas which are each seperable into their own discourses. If there was an underlying theme of the preface it would have to be exactly what our syllabus labels it to be, and that is "Religion and Politics". Being that this is the preface to the TTP, Spinoza touches upon many things with a particular ambiguity, leaving room for interpretation and only allows the "philosophical reader" (TTP 15) to touch the surface of the works underlying points. The genesis of religion and the acceptance of religion by the masses, to religion's role in civil law, to subjectivity in perspectives and last but not least a proposal for the lawmakers of all epochs of time to consider pushing for ideological freedom; these are the points which I will attempt to address. Let me begin with what I feel is one of the most important points in the TTP's preface, the notion that is explored and elaborated in the first few sections; this idea of fear and superstition being responsible for the creation of and acceptance of religion. Fear, Spinoza says, is directly related to the instances in which prophets, people, and kingdoms become religious. It is only when the solider fears for his life that she/he prays in the name of the holy. "...Superstition must be just as variable and unstable as all absurd leaps of the mind and powerful emotions..." (TTP 5). It is this notion of superstition being a passion which is seperate from reasoning and thus falls in the realm of instability which means that religion is causally unstable. It is under these circumstances of religion that politics is introduced "Kings are adored as gods" (TTP 5). The points in section seven show religions power in tandom with politics; in a monarchy it is this fear and acceptance of religion which causes people to accept the government's fight, because it is in the name of religion and in the name of YOUR being. (It is this section which introduces "all words"/all forms of discourse to be free, a point which I will address soon) In this religious state, (including that of the Muslims, Christians and Jews) according to Spinoza, reason is impious, it is this notion which allows for the controlling of people and the coercion of unorthodox intellectual discourse.

Two more points which are worthy of note is this idea of subjectivity and Spinoza's proposal. In section 12 Spinoza elaborates on the notion of ideological freedom and subjectivity, "...human beings have very different minds and find themselves comfortable with very different beliefs." (TTP 12). Spinoza goes on to say taht this subjectivity is an innate right which should be allowed to be explored throughly and it is this which lawmakers should not deny anybody. A greater claim can be drawn from this idea of subjectivity, Spinoza can be understood as criticizing current civil laws, religously and egoistically thought of as being correc through their own subjective opinion which, Spinoza feels is absolutely wrong. I am-as we all are-confined within my own subjective understanding of Spinoza, It is this idea that Spinoza nails. (and the former ideas, but for lack of a possible onslaught by my classmates I do not directly refer to them.)

Link to Nadler's piece for "The Stone"

One of the blogs for the New York Times site is called "The Stone" and is devoted wholly to philosophical issues and is even written by philosophers (although contested by others).  The most recent posting is from Steven Nadler himself and on Spinoza, surprisingly.

Check it out.