Abstract
In his very brief, yet very significant discussion of the nature of physical bodies, Spinoza describes a hierarchy, or a series continuously increasing in degree of complexity. The simplest bodies are distinguished from one another only by their state of motion, but any contiguous group, which transmit to one another a constant proportion of motion and rest, may be regarded as a single individual; and a group of such groups, on similar conditions, constitutes a more complex unity. The series continues indefinitely until the physical universe is seen as one single whole governed by a principle of organization which determines the proportion of motion and rest transmitted from one to another of its internally distinguishable parts.
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Cf., for the elucidation and elaboration of this position, H. F. Hallet, “On a Reputed Equivoque in Spinoza,” Review of Metaphysics, III, 1949. Cf. also R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan ( Oxford, 1942 ), Part I, i–v.
Cf. Pollock, Spinoza, his life and Philosophy (London, 1899), p. 198.
Cf. Tijd, Maat en Getal, Meededelingen van Wege het Spinozahuis VII (Leiden, 1946), pp. llf.
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© 1973 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Harris, E.E. (1973). Body and Mind. In: Salvation from Despair. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idees International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 59. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2495-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2495-2_5
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