English original version of the post Resumo do pensamento de SpinozaResumo do pensamento de Spinoza
Segue a transcrição traduzida1 de uma curta aula que resume o pensamento do filósofo holandês Spinoza. É a explicação mais clara e abrangente que já vi, mesmo entre textos — apesar de ainda poder ser desafiadora. O professor é o…, as it is not available elsewhere in text, a hard to find clear and comprehensive summary of Spinoza’s philosophy.
It’s a transcript of a short talk by Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, from University of Exeter (UK).
Spinozism – Synopsis
written and spoken by yours truly,
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, 2021
Baruch, later Benedict, de Spinoza was a philosopher who lived from 1632 to 1677 in the Netherlands. He was of sephardic jewish heritage, though he was excommunicated by the jewish community in Amsterdam in his twenties for his views.
He was published anonymously and posthumously. His books became banned by the church only a century after his death. Following the pantheism controversy of the 1780s, his writings did become openly studied.
Spinoza published works on Descartes’ philosophy, on politics and theology, including a highly controversial book involving biblical criticism, but most importantly he wrote on metaphysics.
The Ethics was his last work — and master work — wherein was contained his metaphysics, this system of explaining reality, a system that had an influence on many thinkers — notably Goethe, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wordsworth, Nietzsche, Borges, Whitehead, Næs, Deleuze and Einstein, who called Spinoza “the greatest of modern philosophers”.
The following are the basic tenets of spinozism or more specifically Spinoza's metaphysics.
Monism
Substance
There is one substance, one underlying reality that can be expressed in an infinite number of ways.
Attributes
These expressions, abstractions or aspects are called attributes. Each attribute is infinite in itself. Humans have access to only two attributes: thought and extension, which are — roughly speaking — mind and matter, or better, sentience and physical space.
Modes
Each particular instance is called a mode or modification. A particular physical object is a mode of the attribute of extension. A particular mental state is a mode of the attribute of thought.
Note: For Spinoza, mind and matter are not two separate substances, as was advanced by Descartes, but rather, mind and matter are two ways of grasping the very same substance. Thus, there can be no interaction, emergence or downward causation between mind and matter, just as there can be no interaction between Hesperus and Venus, because both names refer to the same planet.
Pantheism
This one substance, Spinoza calls “god or nature”, in part because this one existent reality must have the attribute of extension “infinite space”, in parallel with its attribute of thought “infinite intellect”.
That is, Spinoza adds the attribute of physicality to the notion of the perfect being, thereby completing him, rendering god immanent, rather than transcendent.
Spinoza's contention that all (“pan”) is god (“theos”) was named pantheism by mathematician Joseph Rafson, 20 years after Spinoza's death. Rafsson contrasted pantheism to pan-nihilism, the view that everything is insentient matter.
Note 1: By identifying god with nature, Spinoza was accused of atheism. However, considering the infinite intellect as an aspect of the universe should suggest otherwise. Indeed, Novalis referred to Spinoza as “god-intoxicated”. However, Spinoza's god was not personal. The infinite intellect is a simile to the human mind, as infinite space is a simile to the human body — i.e. radically dissimilar.
Note 2: Spinoza's nature is not merely physical, but also includes the infinity of other attributes, including thought. Thus, those accusing Spinoza of being a materialist were also off the mark. Pantheism is not pan-nihilism. Matter is but one expression of reality, it is but an abstraction or extraction — i.e apart. Likewise, those calling Spinoza an idealist are also off the mark, as mind is not productive of matter, but equally expressive of the fundamental substance.
Note 3: Substance, nature, god are thus synonyms.
Panpsychism
All matter then, not just complex animal matter, is an expression or attribute of substance-nature-god. Therefore, all (“pan”) that exists physically must have its parallel mental attribute (“psyche”).
Consequently, we see that Spinoza's monism implies a panpsychism, that all things have mind. Because they are fundamentally identical, mind cannot have emerged from matter, in the animal past, nor can mind emerge from matter, in the present, neither diachronically within gestation, nor synchronously, from extensive brain to thinking mind. Such common belief betrays an inherent and unwitting dualism.
Because mind and matter are but different expressions of the same underlying reality, one would expect to find neural correlates of consciousness, and mental change accompanying bodily change, through brain damage, chemical ingestion etc, as is the case.
At its core, there is nothing unscientific about spinozism, so long as one distinguishes science as a method from any dogmatic belief system, such as the materialist — and thus unwittingly dualist — tendency still observed in biology, a manifestation of the cartesian legacy.
A mind — and thus a being — is essentially individuated through its having a conatus, a striving to persevere in its own being. The fathoming of good and evil are relative to this conatus. What is good to a being is what helps that being persevere, what is evil is that which hinders this conatus.
There is no absolute objective good or evil that exists outside substance-nature-god, as this is all that exists. Spinoza is a nominalist, rather than a platonist, in this respect.
Spinoza notes, though, that altruism often serves the conatus, via civilization. Friendship and merriment, trade and infrastructure, kindness and nobility all frequently aid both the individual and society, but ultimately might is right.
Spinoza's ethics are descriptive and naturalistic, not prescriptive and transcendental.
Neutral monism
Because mind and matter are parallel, it is for them to call spinozism a panpsychism, as all things have minds. This is also referred to as parallelism. However, considering that substance-nature-god has an infinity of infinite attributes other than mind and matter, the term neutral monism also serves as a fair designation of spinozism.
Mind and matter are equally fundamental attributes of reality, yet reality (substance-nature-god), with its other equally fundamental but unknown attributes, is more than mind and matter. Thus, the “neutral” prefix for spinozism does not refer to something other than mind or matter, but to something more than mind or matter. Therefore, there is no contradiction in holding concurrently here a panpsychism and a neutral monism.
As part to whole
Determinism and fatalism
There are two main reasons as to why Spinoza rejects free will and endorses a determinism and fatalism. Firstly, as regards determinism, free will is rejected, because substance-nature-god is perfect, complete and, thus, has inviolable laws of nature, that cannot be transgressed.
Though today we often formulate these laws in purely physical terms, because the physical is parallel with the mental, these laws also pertain to the mind. Spinoza writes that though we are mostly ignorant of the causes of our actions and thoughts, this is not a license to believe that our actions and thoughts are uncaused, undetermined and, therefore, free.
For Spinoza, both mind and mattter are not transparent, they are insufficiently known, both in themselves and in their etiology. Mind and matter are both abstractions of a more complete, more concrete, substantial reality, that has a set nomology, that no being is free to alter. Free will is rejected by the same principle by which miracles are rejected.
The second reason Spinoza rejects free will is due to the fatalism that accrues, because substance-nature-god, in its human mind independent reality, is eternal, timeless, perfect, thus complete indivisible immutable being. Duration is merely our way of perceiving this eternal reality through extension and thought.
Spinozism is a monism not only of god and nature and mind and matter, but also a monism of past and future. Consequently, our minds are not free to alter the future.
Note 1: There is no free will, but there is mental causation, just as there is physical causation. Physical causation is determined, therefore mental causation must be determined, as they are parallel. But one must add that by “mental causation” is not meant psychological to physical causation, as this would imply a psychophysical dualism. There is no psychophysical causation nor physical psychological causation, but only a psychophysical to psychophysical causation, as far as humans are concerned.
Note 2: Spinoza advocates that one gain freedom over the affects, or the emotions that make one suffer, i.e. the passions. This freedom is determined by reading and reasoning about ones and others psychological issues. The Ethics contains much analysis of such issues, and thus presents itself in part as an early modern psychology text, anticipating later studies of the workings of the subconscious. Yet more fundamentally than today's practice, Spinoza symbiotically interweaves psychology with a greater fatalistic metaphysic. Seemingly paradoxically, the more one realizes that everything is necessary, the more free one becomes. Because one frees oneself from suffering from remorse, blame, anger, envy etc, nothing is itself to blame for anything, because everything that happens is necessary, not contingent. Of course, reading and reasoning about these things is itself determined by prior causes, therefore freedom is determined by necessity, and realizing necessity determines freedom. Spinoza's masterpiece is called the Ethics because it advances a virtue ethics, promoting a powerful stable state of mind, a blessed peace of mind. As spinoza states, “virtue is power”, returning the term to its origins.
Immortalism
Because there is no dualism of mind and body, there can be no mind, no soul that exists as such after the death of the body. This is a consequence of the mind matter parallelism that Spinoza's monism entails. However, toward the end of the Ethics, Spinoza unleashes a line that has vexed most Spinoza scholars. Spinoza writes: “The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with a body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.”
Spinoza proceeds to elaborate that there are three types of knowledge. Firstly, opinion — sensation, imagination. Secondly, reason — conceptualization and inference. And thirdly, intuition.
He writes that intuition is difficult and rare, but, if achieved, exposes one to the concrete reality beyond the abstraction that we humans commonly perceive. In the peak of this state, one becomes united with god-nature. The finite intellect and the infinite intellect unite. As god is fundamentally eternal, immortal, one becomes temporarily eternal. This state of being, Spinoza calls “the intellectual love of god”.
Spinoza explained in an earlier work: there are two kinds of parallelism; one's mind with one's body, and one's mind with substance-nature-god. The intellectual love of god or nature mitigates the fear of death. This is its instrumental ethical virtue, aside from its intrinsic value. The details Spinoza provides for this peak state of being are ambiguous however, and therefore have been interpreted in a variety of ways, from dismissal to mysticism.
This synopsis is about the peak of the mountain range observed above the clouds, but even here one begins to fathom spinozism's parsimony, its harmony, its powerful coherence, both in itself and in relation to the world we see. Moreover, the founder of deep ecology, norwegian philosopher Arne Næs, considered spinozism vital, as an approach to our profound ecological issues, in terms of the respect that it endows nature. Spinozism is the apotheosis of naturalism. It sees nature as alive with its own intrinsic value. Thus, spinozism is a metaphysic coldly logical, yet also warmed with virtues good for ourselves, our science and our world.