Abstract
The question of whether beliefs are normative is often treated with regard to the fact that beliefs can be true or false. If I say something false, I seem to break a rule or deviate from a standard of semantic correctness. Accordingly, the contemporary dispute is about whether there is some sort of social normativity involved here or whether we just happen to deviate from the facts. Against Brandom’s interpretation, this paper argues that already Spinoza offers a fairly thorough account of the (natural) normativity of ideas. In construing ideas as propositional attitudes, I suggest that Spinoza’s ideas are beliefs that respond to two kind of normative constraints. On the one hand, beliefs count as naturally normative in that they are grounded in our striving for self-preservation (conatus). On the other hand, they exhibit a kind of socially rooted normativity in that they are governed by associations reinforced by custom and convention.
Previous versions of this paper have been presented at different workshops in Berlin and Nijmegen. I am particularly grateful to Johannes Haag, Martin Kusch, Dominik Perler, Ursula Renz, Eric Schliesser, Stephan Schmid and Anik Waldow for their insightful comments.
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Notes
- 1.
See Engel (2008) for an overview.
- 2.
- 3.
See Williams (1985, ch. 7).
- 4.
The following remarks on the main tenets of the Ethica are mainly taken from Lenz (2012). References to the Ethica (in Opera II, ed. Gebhardt 1925) are indicated in the standard way: Roman numerals correspond to parts; abbreviations (often along with Arabic numerals) specify appendix (= app), corollary (= c), definition (= def), demonstration (= d), proposition (= p), and scholium (= s). Translations are taken, sometimes with slight modifications, from Curley (1994). – For the doctrine of substance monism see Spinoza, Ethica I p 14–15. See Della Rocca (2008, 46–69), for a thorough exposition of Spinoza’s theory of substance and modes.
- 5.
See Cook (2006) for a concise exposition of the conatus doctrine.
- 6.
See on the parallelism thesis Della Rocca (2008, 99–104).
- 7.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 11 c. On Spinoza’s holism see Della Rocca (1996, 68–83).
- 8.
Brandom (1994, 93).
- 9.
The teleological character of Spinoza’s conception is of course a matter of highly controversial debate. Yet, it is hard to deny that Spinoza takes recourse to teleological formulations especially with regard to human action; see Viljanen (2011) for an overview.
- 10.
Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus II 8.
- 11.
Accordingly, Spinoza admits to different degrees and thus more or less optimal (i.e. teleologically construed) ways of self-preservation; see Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus V.1: “But since the best way of living to assure the utmost self-preservation is that which is framed according to the dictate of reason, it follows that a man or commonwealth acts in the best way, inasmuch as he or it is in the highest degree under his or its own law. For we do not claim that everything of which we say that it is done by right, is also done in the best way. For it is one thing to till a field by right, and another to till it in the best way.”
- 12.
See Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus II 8 and Stemmer (2008).
- 13.
The following ideas are partly adopted from Lenz (2012).
- 14.
See Della Rocca (2008, 90).
- 15.
Spinoza, Ethica II 49s.
- 16.
Brandom (2001, 80).
- 17.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 43 s.
- 18.
Spinoza, Ethica II p 49s.
- 19.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 47s.
- 20.
See Lenz (2010, 338 f).
- 21.
See, for example, Brandom (1994, 79).
- 22.
Spinoza, Ethica II p 49d.
- 23.
See Spinoza’s variant of the so-called voluntarist principle in Ethica III p 9s: “From all this, then, it is clear that we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.”
- 24.
Spinoza, Ethica II p 49d.
- 25.
Spinoza, Ethica II p 13.
- 26.
See Spinoza, Ethica III p 3d.
- 27.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 26.
- 28.
See Spinoza, E II p 16–17 and 26.
- 29.
This does not imply, however, that, in affirming this we have a conscious volition or desire. Spinoza makes it clear that this willing concerns our faculty to affirm what is true and not to desire it; see Spinoza, Ethica II p 48s, III p 2s and III p 9s.
- 30.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 13–14, and Cook (2006).
- 31.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 24d.
- 32.
See Spinoza, Ethica III p7.
- 33.
Spinoza, Ethica III p 10d.
- 34.
Gibson (1979, 127).
- 35.
See Spinoza, Ethica II p 40s1.
- 36.
See Spinoza, Ethica III p 15–16.
- 37.
Williams (1985, 129 f).
- 38.
Spinoza, Ethica III p 25.
- 39.
See Spinoza, Ethica IV p 1s.
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Lenz, M. (2013). Ideas as Thick Beliefs: Spinoza on the Normativity of Ideas. In: Lenz, M., Waldow, A. (eds) Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6241-1_3
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