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.
I think you've made this topic seem a little clearer to me. Spinoza thinks that bodies and minds are two modes of the same substance (God). Spinoza believes that the mind and the body are two distinct attributes that are produced by substance. This is unlike Descartes because Descartes separated thought and extension into separate substances. However for Spinoza only one substance can exist and this substance can be conceived in an infinite number of ways, thought and extension are simply two ways. Neither can be the cause of the other because they both are just distinct ways of perceiving the same thing.
ReplyDeleteIt is always interesting to see how philosophers who believe in a radical separation between thought and the physical world deal with the instances of apparent causation, or at least correlation, between the two. If I remember correctly, Descartes falls back on the idea of a benevolent god, who ultimately would not choose to deceive him, as a means of reconciliation between thought and the physical world. It seems Spinoza is in a deeper hole than Descartes here. Spinoza also does not allow for mind and the physical world to interact, but he does not have the recourse of a benevolent god. All we’ve heard from Spinoza so far is the vague suggestion of a parallel between the link of cause and effect in thought, and that in the physical world (P7). I wonder if Spinoza, given the position he has taken so far and his admirable method that makes only those claims he feels can be definitively demonstrated, can solve this problem at all.
ReplyDelete