Jacobi is discussing whether or not
there is a distinction between a true determinist and a fatalist, which in turn
leads to a discussion of how Spinoza and Leibnitz account for free will. Since both claim that there is no free will
and that everything is a result of what came before it, Jacobi is trying to
explain what thought actually is. The
account becomes very confusing when Jacobi starts using Aristotle’s causes as a
way of explaining Spinoza. Now for
Aristotle there are four kinds of causes: formal, material, efficient, and
final. Since the first two are
irrelevant to the discussion of Spinoza’s account of free will I will skip over
them and focus on efficient and final causes.
The
efficient cause of something is the event that brought that thing into existence. A final cause is the purpose of that
thing. Now Jacobi says “it turns out
that, for Leibnitz as for Spinoza, each and every final cause presupposes an
efficient cause…” (On the doctrine of
Spinoza, p112). Since we are not
free thinking beings, but rather our thoughts are determined by events that preceded
the current event in which we are thinking, Jacobi, as well as Spinoza, must
account for what we perceive as thought.
So the question becomes, what is the efficient cause and what is the
final cause.
When
thinking of people it is not an issue for Jacobi to claim that thinking is a
final cause and that the substance, or the human body doing the thinking, is
the efficient cause. To put this more
simply, human beings have bodies. These bodies
have certain organs that perform certain operation, like the heart pumps blood
and the brain thinking. Without a body,
a heart would not pump blood and a brain would not think. Ultimately he is saying that thinking is only
caused by there being a brain, which is to say, the mind is just an inseparable
part of the body. The result is that in prior
to there being thought, some substance must exist that is material and not-thinking.
While I think
that he is correct in this assessment, I think Jacobi slightly misunderstand
Spinoza. Spinoza doesn’t think that
there are final causes. Rather final
causes are merely fictions of the human mind.
According to Spinoza, thinking is merely a byproduct of our human composition,
which is pre-determined. Since
everything is determined, there is no purpose to anything, and as such thought
is not a final cause, it is just a result of events that took place
beforehand. The question really is
whether or not Spinoza is a fatalist as well as a determinist.
Determinism doesn't necessarily involve fatalism. Spinoza's determinism, which is a determinism of means rather than that of ends, maintains sharp distance from fatalism (cf: Spinoza's critique of teleology). Quite interestingly, Jacobi's account of Spinoza
ReplyDeleteposes a paradoxical equation: Spinoza, who rejects final cause, is nonetheless a fatalist! How to account for that? I believe this reading is derived from Jacobi's understanding of the relation between finite and infinite (in Spinoza), which he implicitly aligned with Kant's (who is Jacobi's indirect target) differentiation between phenomenon and noumenon. As Jacobi pointed out, for Spinozist concept of immanence, the transitivity of the infinite to the finite is impossible. The real causality (i.e., efficient cause supposedly without final cause) that resides in the infinite substance is eternally fixed, while the finite manifestations, which "does not know anything about all of this," are "pure delusion" (P.109). Thus, as per Jacobi's interpretation of Spinoza, we are left with both skepticism and fatalism. Given the non-transitivity between the infinite and the finite, finite is always "delusion": skepticism is, thus, unavoidable. His attribution of fatalism to Spinoza pertains to the reality proper: the infinite substance, or the reality-in-itself. Since, for Jacobi, the relations among things are fixed in the substance, what it amounts to is sheer fatalism (as fixity of events need not be identified with the evolving teleological model which Spinoza rejected). That is to say, the immutable order of infinite substance, for Jacobi, is tantamount to the fatalism of the "in-dwelling...eternally unchanging" reality-in-itself .
[As Brad pointed out, Jacobi, whose critique of rationalist philosophy is dazzling (if untenable), made quite a misreading of Spinoza. This misreading, however, needs to be understood vis-a-vis the tensions of late eighteenth century's German philosophy.]