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.
Aren’t they saying the same thing when Spinoza states things are necessary or contingent? Ok maybe not exactly but it seems like he is splitting hairs at first. I see it as when a cause causes an effect, isn’t a thing contingent on the other? Necessary things at least using reason are harder to quantify .Contingent being something not certain. For example things perceived by the mind, A+B=C. Reason as I understand it requires necessity and the higher degree of certainty that necessity brings. What I understand is that people rely on more on correlation and experience rather than reason. I’m not 100% sold on the idea that Spinoza has used reason without a little of both necessity and contingent.
ReplyDeleteI see your problem Tom, but the impression I got from this is not that people are wrong in using this contingency method but that it brings, in a way, a construed understanding of particulars. As opposed to using Reason which for Spinoza is tied to his notion of god, this would allow for a clear and true understanding of not a series of cause and effects but rather one cause and one effect seperately. To my understanding this is a form of factual understanding. This is only how I see it, Professor Vaught might bring my hot air balloon crashing down.
ReplyDeleteFor Spinoza, contingency only pertains to the imagination, while necessity signifies the knowledge from reason and intuition. I think you put the point by nicely when you said that contingent knowledge is more of a a "construed understanding of particulars." In the scholium to the 1P33, Spinoza said that the order of causes will never appears to us either necessary or contingent insofar as we are unaware of related essence. Reason, in contrast, begins with the understanding of common notion. The nature of Reason, Spinoza says, is to perceive things under a certain species of eternity (corollary 2). Since Spinoza maintains there is nothing contingent in nature (1P29), it follows that imagination is the "sole cause" of falsity, while reason (along with intuition) is the certain forms of knowledge. The first kind of knowledge is often connected through temporal or spatial sequence, while reason understands things through what he calls "species of eternity." Similarly, reason does not seek to understand particular; it is only interested with the notions which are common to all. In so explicating, Spinoza claims, as Armend points out, the necessity of things become inseparable from the necessity of God. In other words, Spinoza's epistemology is closely linked with his metaphysics.
ReplyDeleteNazmul has legitimately explicated what I attempted to say, and even took it a step further and broke it down to exactly, what I believe, is what Spinoza says in relation to necessity and its relation to reason. I too felt that Spinoza's epistemology is in turn connected to his metaphysics. But Nazmul let me ask you a question, this may be a digression from the points that Spinoza attempts to make, but when I was reading some of "The Ethics" earlier I wondered whether reason could be considered divine. I do realize that Spinoza believes reason is attainable, but can reason be considered divine in someway or another, I would have to assume so being that it is related to god, I just wanted to see what you, or tom or anyone else for that matter might think.
ReplyDeleteHi Armend, sorry for being late here. I didn't notice your comment earlier. Also, there are some typos in my last comment, for which I am very sorry.
ReplyDeleteYour question is very relevant. In order to think through the nature of reason (that is, whether it has anything to do with divinity), I believe we will have to specify the relation between the reason and the eternity, for reason conceives things under a species of eternity(2P44). Now, "eternity," as Spinoza has clarified, has nothing to do with perpetual existence in time. In E1D8, Spinoza already pointed out that eternity can not be explained by duration or time, even though the duration is conceived as without beginning and end. In some way, then, eternity is timeless in the way of, say, mathematics. Given it's timeless necessity, it follows that eternity emanates from the (Spinozist)God. Now, reason also conceives things as necessary and timeless. Moreover, reason understands things through their common notions-- that is, unlike the third order of knowledge, it does not concern the particularity of things. Spinoza thus claimed that reason is "abstract" (4E62). In light of these points, it seems that it would not be appropriate to term "reason" as divine, even though it involves the God. For the God of Spinoza does not enjoy any extra-rational privilege. That is to say, knowledge through reason is fairly attainable, notwithstanding its necessary relation with what he called "God."