Handout 8: Introduction to Spinozas Ethics

Philosophy 322: Modern Philosophy Professor Geo Pynn Northern Illinois University Spring 2012
The Ethics is a dense and dicult book. Before we begin reading it, we should bear in mind a few key ideas that motivate quite a lot of Spinozas thought.1

the principle of sufficient reason

Walking through the forest, you stumble upon a large translucent sphere.2 How unusual! What a strange and surprising discovery! You wonder to yourself, How did this get here? Who made it? Why is it here? As if reading your mind, a booming voice comes from the sky. There is no answer to your questions, it says. No one at all brought the sphere here. No one at all made it. I didnt, and neither did any of your fellow human beings. Nor did it form by any natural process; nor is it the accidental byproduct of some unusual sequence of events. It simply appeared here. One day it wasnt here, and the next day, it was. What an intriguing mystery! you say to the voice. Why did that happen? You do not understand, replies the voice. I am omniscient: I know everything there is to know. And I know that there is no answer to your question. You cannot nd out why or how the sphere got here, or who or what made it. This is not because of some ignorance or limitation on your part. Rather, it is because there is no explanation for the sphere. There is no cause or reason for why it is here in the forest. There is no account of why or how it came to exist at all. One day it didnt exist, and the next day it did, and thats simply all there is to know. Discovering the sphere would be surprising. Hearing the booming voice coming from the sky would be even more surprising. But most surprising of all is the thought that the voice might be correct. The suggestion that something exists without a cause, reason, or explanation seems like something we can simply dismiss out of hand. We often accept that we do not know or understand why something is the way that it is. But we never entertain the possibility that there is no explanation for why something is. The Principle of Sucient Reason (psr) is the thesis that everything has an explanation. There are a number of dierent ways of articulating the psr: For every fact F , there is an explanation for why F is the case.
My reading of Spinoza is deeply indebted to the work of Michael Della Rocca, a contemporary scholar and interpreter of Spinoza. See especially his wonderful, clear, and helpful book, Spinoza (Routledge, 2008). 2 This example is a modied version of that given by Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, (Prentice Hall, 1992).
1

For everything that is, there is a reason why it is. Everything has a cause. As the example of the sphere in the forest shows, we take it for granted that every fact has an explanation. So it is fair to say that we ordinarily presuppose something like the psr. But as well see as we explore Spinozas thought, the psr can also lead us to some very surprising philosophical conclusions.

spinozas strong version of the psr

Spinoza holds that everything can be fully conceived or understood; we can regard these terms as being synonymous with explained. Spinoza does not think that we do understand everything, or that we have explanations for everything. He thinks that everything can be understood, and that there are explanations for everything. To use another of his terms, everything is intelligible. Spinozas version of the psr is particularly strong. It applies not only to everything that is, but also to everything that is not: For every thing a cause or reason must be assigned either for its existence or for its nonexistence. For example, if a triangle exists, there must be a reason, or cause, for its existence. If it does not exist, there must be a reason or cause which prevents it from existing, or which annuls its existence (1p11, AW 147b; emphasis added). Thinking about the example in the last section, this means that for Spinoza there would be an explanation not only for why the sphere is in the forest, but if there were no sphere in the forest, there would be an explanation for why not. Spinozas adherence to the psr is uncompromising. Spinoza always takes somethings inexplicability or inconceivability as decisive evidence that it doesnt exist or isnt the case. A comparison with Descartes can illustrate this. Descartes, when pressed by Elisabeth about the nature of mindbody causal interaction, replies that it is a primitive notion and cannot be understood except through itself . Thus for Descartes there is something unintelligible about mind-body causation. Spinoza agrees that causation between minds and bodies would be unintelligible. But for him, this implies that there isnt any. Spinoza denies the existence of mind-body interaction because such interaction would be inexplicable. Since the psr says everything is explicable, there is nothing that cannot be explained; hence there is no mind-body interaction.

spinozas naturalism
Spinoza holds that everything that exists is part of nature, and everything in nature follows the same basic laws. Of particular importance in his view, human beings are part of nature, and hence can be explained and understood in the same way as everything else in nature. This aspect of Spinozas philosophy, which well call his naturalism, was radical for its time, and might still be seen as radical and even dangerous by some people today. In the preface to Part III of the Ethics (which concerns the emotions), he writes:

Most of those who have written about the emotions and about mens way of living seem not to discuss natural things, which follow the common laws of nature; rather, they seem to discuss things that are outside nature. Indeed, they seem to conceive the place of man in nature as being like an empire within an empire. For they believe that man disturbs the order of nature rather than he follows it, that he has an absolute power over his actions, and that he is determined by himself alone. [] But my argument is this. Nothing happens in nature which can be ascribed to any defect in it. For nature is always the same and everywhere is one, and its virtue and power of acting is the same. That is, the laws of nature and the rules in accordance with which all things happen and are changed from one form into another are everywhere and always the same; and therefore there must also be one and the same way of understanding the nature of things of any kindnamely, by the universal laws and rules of nature (Ethics, tr. G. H. R. Parkinson, pp. 163-164). Spinoza is saying that there is no aspect of reality that is not explained by natural laws. Since human beings are aspects of reality, everything about them is governed by and can be understood in terms of natural laws. Humans are not dierent in kind from the rest of the natural world; they are part of it. Another comparison with Descartes will be useful. For Descartes, everything in the material world functions according to the same principles: all extended things can be understood and explained in terms of geometry and universal laws of motion. But Descartes denied that minds were part of the material world. Thinking things occupy a separate neighborhood of reality than extended things, and cannot be understood and explained in the same way as extended things. And yet Descartess interactionism commits him to the idea that thinking things have eects on extended things, and are aected by them. In Spinozas terms, Descartes held that thinking things disturb the order of naturethey act on the extended world in a way that is not explicable in terms of the laws governing that world. So for Descartes thinking things comprise an empire within an empire. But Spinozas naturalism is incompatible with such a picture; for him, everything there is follows the same laws as everything else. Spinozas naturalism can be seen as deriving from his strong commitment to the psr. Suppose that thinking things do disturb the order of nature in the way Descartes thought. Then there are certain special relations between thinking things and the material world that cannot be understood in terms of more general principles applicable to all of nature.3 The psr implies that there is some explanation for the existence of these special relations. So there must be some laws that govern these special relations. But what is the explanation for these special laws? Their existence cannot be explained in terms of the general laws governing all of nature, for then it would be the case that thinking things and material things can all be explained and understood through the same general principles. Hence there is no further, more general explanation available for the special laws: they simply are, and nothing further can be said about them. The psr implies that such non-explanations are impermissible. So no such special laws exist.
Descartes endorses just this idea when he remarks to Elisabeth that the notion of mind-body union is a primitive notion that cannot be understood in terms of anything else.
3

substance, attribute, mode

Spinoza borrows the terms substance, attribute, and mode from Descartes. But he denes them in his own way, and his denitions are consequential. substance Ethics, Part 1, Denition 3 (abbreviated 1d3): By substance I mean that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; that is, that the conception of which does not require the conception of another thing from which it has to be formed (AW 144a). There are two important parts to the denition. First, substance is in itself . This means that substance exists independently; it does not require the existence of anything else in order to exist. This is equivalent to Descartess conception of substance as something that exists in such a way as to depend upon no other thing for its existence.4 Second, substance is conceived through itself . This means that substance can be understood or explained without reference to anything else. This, too, is close to Descartess understanding of substance. However, remember that Descartes distinguished between nite and innite substances. Only an innite substance truly depends for its existence upon nothing else. A nite substance is independent from all other things except one; namely, innite substance. Spinoza does not tolerate this distinction between nite and innite substance. For him, to be a substance is to be completely independent. attribute Ethics, Part 1, Denition 4: By attribute I mean that which the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence (1d4, AW 144a). On the surface, this denition is close to Descartess idea of an attribute as that which constitutes [a substances] nature and essence, and to which all its other properties are referred.5 For Descartes, a substances attribute is something like its basic kind: its the answer to the question fundamentally, what kind of thing is that? Descartes held that there are two attributes: extension and thought; i.e., that there are two fundamental kinds of things, bodies and minds. Spinoza also treats extension and thought as attributes, though he denies that they are are the only two attributes. But while Descartes thinks of an attribute as a substances nature or essence, Spinoza thinks of it as that which the intellect perceives as constituting a substances essence. As with Spinozas disagreement with Descartes about the distinction between nite and innite substance, this one will make a large dierence down the line. There are a couple of intriguing questions about this denition. First: whose intellect? Second: what does as mean? Third, how should we
4 5

Descartes, Principles of Philosophy I 51. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy I 53.

understand constituting its essence? There are a number of interpretive options for answering these questions, but Im going to stipulate answers to them. First, the relevant intellect is Gods; i.e., the innite intellect, which makes no errors and fully conceives of and understands absolutely everything. Second, as here means as it really is, not as it appears to be. And third, were going to read constituting its essence as simply meaning to being its essence. So an attribute of a substance is: everything there is to be understood about a substances essence. mode The ordinary philosophical use of mode at Spinozas time was to refer to any particular property or quality of a thing. So, for example, a tables color, shape, size, and location are among its various modes. Spinoza intends his use of mode to be understood in this ordinary way. His denition of the term is meant to uncover what he thinks is essential to this ordinary conception: By mode I mean the aections of substance, that is, that which is in something else and is conceived through something else (1d5, AW 144a). Substance is that which is in itself and conceived through itself; modes are neither. Okay, but what does this mean, exactly? Descartes uses the term mode to refer to the aspects of a substance that presuppose, or are conceived in terms of, its principle attribute. For example, we conceive of the shape of the table in terms of extension; i.e., to attribute a certain shape to the table is to conceive of it as being extended in a particular way. By contrast, we conceive of someones ideas, will, and understanding in terms of thought; i.e., to attribute to me certain ideas, desires, and so on is to conceive of me as thinking in a particular way. So to conceive of the modes of a thing requires conceiving that thing through something else; i.e., through the attribute of extension or thought. Spinozas denition of mode latches on to this feature. Be careful with the word in. By saying that the shape of the table is in the table, Spinoza means that the shape of the table depends upon the table for its existence, but not vice versa. He doesnt mean that the tables shape is literally inside the extended boundaries of the table; that wouldnt make any sense. Similarly, by saying that my current ideas are in me, we mean that they depend for their existence upon my existence, but not vice versa.

substance monism
How many things are there? Most people would answer that there are many, many things. Spinozas answer is that, strictly speaking, there is only one thing. Though there may be a loose way of talking on which it is okay to say that there are many things, all this really means on Spinozas view is that there are many aspects (or, specically, modes) of the one thing that exists. This view is known as substance monism. The argument for substance monism takes up the rst 15 propositions of Book 1 of the Ethics. We will consider it carefully in the next handout. Here are a few highlights of Spinozas monism: The one substance that exists is God. In Book 4 of the Ethics Spinoza refers to substance using the phrase God, or nature (Latin: Deus sive natura, 4p4), and nature might be a more appropriate term, since there are several ways in which to call Spinozas single existing 5

substance God is quite misleading. But Spinoza calls this substance God, and well follow him in that. Spinoza was widely thought to be an atheist. It is an interesting question whether this label is appropriate or not. Everything else that exists is a mode of God. Hence everything that exists is either God or a mode of God. This latter category includes you, me, and all of what we see around us; none of us is God, but each of us is a mode of God. God has all attributes (1d6). So God has both thought and extension; i.e., the single substance that exists is both a thinking substance and an extended substance. In fact, as we will see, this is true for every mode of God as well (2p7). Here are some other claims that Spinoza makes about God: God, the one substance, exists necessarily (1p11), as do all of Gods modes; each aspect of God necessarily exists and is just as it is of necessity (1p29; 1p33). Each of Gods modes follows necessarily from his nature: [F]rom Gods supreme power or innite nature [] everything has necessarily owed or is always following from that same necessity [] just as from the nature of a triangle it follows from eternity to eternity that its three angles are equal to two right angles (1p17s1, AW 152b). This, together with substance monism, implies necessitarianism: the view that every fact or truth is necessary; or put another way, that its strictly impossible for anything to have been any way other than the way that it actually is. There have been very few necessitarians; it is an extreme view. Well discuss this in a later handout. God, the one substance, is indivisible (1p13). Nothing in God could be divided from God, so nothing that exists could exist without everything else that exists. God, the one substance, is eternal (1p19), and thus has no beginning or end. This is not the case for all of Gods modes, though; some of them are nite and hence have durations.