Abstract
Spinoza’s bold claim that there exists only a single infinite substance entails that finite things pose a deep challenge: How can Spinoza account for their finitude and their plurality? Taking finite bodies as a test case for finite modes in general I articulate the necessary conditions for the existence of finite things. The key to my argument is the recognition that Spinoza’s account of finite bodies reflects both Cartesian and Hobbesian influences. This recognition leads to the surprising realization there must be more to finite bodies than their finitude, a claim that goes well beyond the basic substance-monism claim, namely, that anything that is, is in God. This leads to the conclusion, which may seem paradoxical, that finite bodies have both an infinite as well as a finite aspect to them. Finite bodies, I argue, both actively partially determine all the other finite bodies, thereby partially causing their existence insofar as they are finite, as well as are determined by the totality of other bodies. I articulate precisely what this infinite aspect is and how it is distinct from the general substance-monism dictum.
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Notes
All references to the Ethics are from Benedictus de Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza,Vol. I and II ed. E. M. Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985 and 2016 respectively). I have used the following common abbreviations to refer to Spinoza’s writings: Ep. = letter followed by the standard numeration. When referring to the Ethics, I note the part of Ethics followed by A = axiom, cor. = corollary, dem. = demonstration, P = proposition, or Schol. = scholium, with their respective numeration, e.g. “2P47” refers to Part Two of the Ethics, Proposition 47.
Spinoza establishes the non-inter-causal relations among modes of different attributes in 2P7Schol. and recalls it again in 2P2 with its lengthy scholium, among other places, and the non-inter-conceivability principle among attributes in 1P10. For this reason, what limits a finite thing can only be another thing of the same nature.
I return to discuss this definition at length in section 2.1.
In Section 5, I address a concern of an apparent circularity here.
See for example, Michael Della Rocca, “Rationalism, Idealism, Monism, and Beyond,” in Spinoza and German Idealism, ed. Eckart Förster and Yitzhak Y. Melamed (Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); “Interpreting Spinoza: The Real is the Rational,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 53, no. 3 (2015); “Steps toward Eleaticism in Spinoza’s Philosophy of Action,” in Freedom and the Passions in Spinoza’s Ethics, ed. Noa Naaman Zauderer and Tom Vinci (Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming). For other contemporary idealist readings see Samuel Newlands, “More Recent Idealist Readings of Spinoza,” Philosophy Compass 6, no. 2 (2011); Andrew Youpa, “Spinoza on the Very Nature of Existence,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 35 (2011); Eric Schliesser, “Spinoza’s Conatus as an Essence Preserving, Attribute-Neutral Immanent Cause: Toward a New Interpretation of Attributes and Modes,” in Causation and Modern Philosophy, ed. Keith Allen and Tom Stoneham (New York Routledge, 2011), 76; and Karolina Hübner, “Spinoza on Negation, Mind-Dependence and the Reality of the Finite,” in The Young Spinoza: a Metaphysician in the Making, ed. Melamed Yitzhak Y. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). For an assessment of Hegel’s charge of acosmism, see Yitzhak Melamed, “Acosmism or Weak Individuals? Hegel, Spinoza, and the Reality of the Finite,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48, no. 1 (2010) as well as “‘Omnis Determinatio Est Negatio’: Determination, Negation, and Self-Negation in Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel,” in Spinoza and German Idealism, ed. Yitzhak Melamed and Eckart Förster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012b).
Gaukroger, for instance, believes that Spinoza does not have the resources to account for solid bodies, yet holds him committed to admitting real simple bodies, Stephen Gaukroger, “Spinoza’s Physics (Lemmata Following 2p13),” in Spinoza’s Ethics: A Collective Commentary, ed. Ursula Renz and Robert Schnepf Michael Hampe, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 128. See also, for example, Jon Miller, “Spinoza and the Stoics on Substance Monism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, ed. Olli Koistinen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 110.
Cf. for example, the Preface to Part Three of the Ethics.
As Newlands points out, this objection was already raised in the context of nineteenth century British idealist interpreters of Spinoza. Newlands, “More Recent Idealist Readings of Spinoza,” 114.
A possible alternative would be to hold that Spinoza has in mind some kind of corpuscularian thesis—which very well may be the case. However, even if we admit corpuscles, given Spinoza’s other more fundamental epistemological and metaphysical commitments, the question remains whether he is entitled to them. The issues raised against the viability of finite modes in general would apply to corpuscles, such as, what accounts for their individuation, and how they are said to follow from the infinite substance.
The earliest version of this question is to be found in the exchange between Tschirnhaus and Spinoza in Ep. 80–82. For more recent treatments, see Stephen Nadler, “Spinoza’s Monism and the Reality of the Finite,” in Spinoza on Monism, ed. Goff Philip, Philosophers in Depth (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), as well as Yitzhak Melamed, “Why Is Spinoza Not an Eleatic Monist (or Why Diversity Exists),” ibid., ed. Philip Goff (London: Palgrave 2012a).
For such an articulation, see Alan Nelson, “The Problem of True Ideas in Spinoza’s Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect,” in The Young Spinoza: A Metaphysician in the Making, ed. Yitzhak Y. Melamed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
Peterman also makes the case that the Physical Interlude, in light of the 2P7 doctrine, tells us something about the structure of modes in general. See Alison Peterman, “Spinoza on Physical Science,” Philosophy Compass 9, no. 3 (2014): 219–20.
Most commentary on Spinoza’s physics has traced the connection and influence of Descartes while pointing out that, even with Spinoza’s amendments, there are deep problems that remain unresolved: Daniel Garber, “Descartes and Spinoza on Persistance and Conatus,” Studia Spinozana 10 (1994): 55; Gaukroger, “Spinoza’s Physics (Lemmata Following 2p13)”; Andre Lecrivain, “Spinoza and Cartesian Mechanics,” in Spinoza and the Sciences, ed. Marjorie and Nails Grene, Debra (Dodrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986); David R. Lachterman, “The Physics of Spinoza’s Ethics,” Southwest Journal of Philosophy 8, no. 3 (1977). A notable exception here is Peterman who argues that the content of physics for Spinoza is not fundamentally Cartesian. Peterman, “Spinoza on Physical Science,” 218–21.
For a detailed account of this, see Lachterman, “The Physics of Spinoza’s Ethics,” 76–82.
Lachterman points to the Descartes-Hobbes context within which Spinoza shapes his own views as well, but elaborates only on the connection to Descartes. Ibid., 76. As Nadler pointed out to me, this would mean that the Physical Interlude (as we know it) was not part of the draft of the Ethics set aside by Spinoza in 1665, since he read Hobbes’ work after that date, which very well might be the case.
I articulate precisely what this partial determination consists of in Section 4.2.
For a detailed exposition of Spinoza’s understanding, treatment, amendments, and modifications of Descartes’ geometrical physics see Lecrivain, “Spinoza and Cartesian Mechanics”; and Lachterman, “The Physics of Spinoza’s Ethics”. For an argument against seeing Spinoza as sharing in the move towards mechanism, see Eric Schliesser, “Spinoza and Science,” in Oxford Handbook of Spinoza, ed. Michael Della Rocca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Peterman has recently argued that Spinoza’s Extension is not to be construed as a Cartesian extension with motion imbedded into it, Alison Peterman, “Spinoza on Extension,” Philosopher’s Imprint 15, no. 14 (2015).
All Descartes references are from René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). I have also noted the pagination from the standard edition of Descartes’ writings edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. I have used the following common abbreviations, e.g., CSM, I, p. 210, AT VIII, 25, indicates p. 210 in the first volume of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, and p. 25 in Volume VIII of the Adam and Tannery edition.
Garber believes that Descartes is not entitled to speak of individuated bodies, Daniel Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, Science and its Conceptual Foundations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 181. Kenny and Sowaal also raise problems for the individuation of bodies by motion: Anthony Kenny, Descartes; a Study of His Philosophy, Studies in Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1968), 214; Alice Sowaal, “Idealism and Cartesian Motion,” in A Companion to Rationalism, ed. Alan Nelson (Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2005) and “Cartesian Bodies,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 2 (2004).
“Idealism and Cartesian Motion.”; Alan Nelson and Kurt Smith, “The Divisibility of Cartesian Extension,” in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Thomas Lennon, “The Eleatic Descartes,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45, no. 1 (2007).
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1989), 163–65.
Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, 178–79.
Cf. Ep. 81
Some might wonder here about the supposed modal iteration to be found in the definition “can be limited” rather than “is limited”. I take this to be due to two things: first, this might be construed as an expression of his later claim that finite modes do not follow immediately from the infinite substance. Second, at that point in the Ethics Spinoza has not yet established 3P4, which its implication is that nothing can limit itself. If things can only be either self-limiting or limited by another, and ultimately it is shown that they cannot be self-limiting, it follows that they can only be limited by another.
For an elaboration of the implications of 1P28 vis-à-vis the material world, see my “Causation and Determinate Existence of Finite Modes in Spinoza,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97, no. 3 (2015).
This makes it clear that there can be nothing internal to a body to account for its finitude insofar as it is finite. For this reason, I consider Garber and Viljanen’s positions problematic: Garber, “Descartes and Spinoza on Persistance and Conatus.”; Valtteri Viljanen, Spinoza’s Geometry of Power (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Chapter One. One of Viljanen’s main theses is that things, including modes, have essences that are modeled after geometrical essences and thus determine the thing internally.
Spinoza claims in the first lemma of the Physical Interlude that bodies are distinguished from one another by reason of motion and rest and not substance. Since motion for Spinoza, as it is for Descartes, must be relative in the absence of an external frame of reference, what is said about the surface determination of bodies is easily translatable to the given proportion of motion and rest of bodies. That is, the proportion of motion and rest of a given body is due to the proportion of motion and rest of the surrounding bodies. An articulation of the relativity of the proportion of motion and rest of bodies can be found in Garber, “Descartes and Spinoza on Persistance and Conatus,” 49–55. In the same way that a body cannot determine its own surface, it cannot determine its own proportion of motion and rest.
The alternative, a posteriori, demonstration for God’s existence (1P11) also assumes that we, finite beings, exist.
Garber holds that complex bodies can have an internal principle of individuation. He states that it is some structure that is self-supporting. Garber, “Descartes and Spinoza on Persistance and Conatus,” 56–69. However, this seems to assume what is internal and what is external to a complex body, when it is precisely the individuation of said body that is to be accounted for.
Garber notes that both Descartes and Spinoza seem to infer a genuine force from a principle of persistence. Furthermore, he agrees with Leibniz’ objection that this is a false step. See ibid., 61. However, this seems to overlook that the genuine force or opposition for Spinoza is derived not from the principle of persistence but rather from Extension itself being active. I elaborate on this point in Section 4.
Lachterman argues for the central role physics plays in Spinoza’s philosophy by pointing out that his project is similar to that of Descartes and Hobbes. Lachterman, “The Physics of Spinoza’s Ethics,” 76. See also Fn. 13.
Thomas Hobbes et al., The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, vol. 1 (London,: J. Bohn, 1839b). When referring to this work I have used the common abbreviation EW and indicated the relevant volume and page number.
Conatus in the Latin edition: Thomas Hobbes and William Molesworth, Opera Philosophica Quæ Latine Scripsit Omnia, in Unum Corpus Nunc Primum Collecta Studio Et Labore Gulielmi Molesworth, vol. 1 (Londoni,: apud Joannem Bohn, 1839a), 177.
Nelson makes a similar case for Descartes in Alan Nelson, “Micro-Chaos and Idealization in Cartesian Physics,” Philosophical Studies 77, no. 2 (1995).
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 6.
Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 163–65.
Douglas Jesseph, “Hobbesian Mechanics,” in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Steven M. Nadler (Oxford University Press, 2006), 152.
Lecrivain also suggests that pressure is involved in the individuation of bodies for Spinoza. He traces this influence to Huygens. Lecrivain, “Spinoza and Cartesian Mechanics,” 39. Spinoza was, of course, influenced by both. The line to Hobbes, via the account of images, however, helps explain the similarity of the role of resistance in the formation of ideas, and of what we are conscious. In other words, it strengthens the link between the physics and the epistemological account.
Spinoza makes the parallel claim with respect to the inherent active nature of ideas in 2P48, which is in contra-distinction to what he takes to be the case for Cartesian ideas.
I take Della Rocca to share my intuition here that to understand what the essence of a body is, what is required is kind of conditional: what would the body do if unimpeded by external bodies, Michael Della Rocca, “Striving, Oomph, and Intelligibility in Spinoza,” in Judgement and the Epistemic Foundation of Logic, ed. Maria Van der Schaar (Springer Science & Business Media, 2013).
Note that this extending ad infinitum is not incremental, since increments assume boundaries which, by assumption, are being eliminated. Spinoza makes what could be construed as an analogous thought experiment vis-à-vis man’s existence and offers it as a reductio ad absurdum in 4P4dem.
I have argued elsewhere that in order to conceive of body X, it is necessary to conceive the totality of bodies. Shein, “Causation and Determinate Existence of Finite Modes in Spinoza”.
Conceiving body X in this way would, in fact, be conceiving an infinite mode. Garrett has argued that the formal essence of the human mind is an infinite mode. Don Garrett, “Spinoza on the Essence of the Human Body,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, ed. Olli Koistinen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). However, my claim goes further in that I explain why the actual essence of a body must also involve an infinite mode as well. The infinite mode is not, however, identical to the finite mode because it is only under a certain way of conceiving an actual finite mode that its infinite nature becomes apparent, namely, when considering the way it actively determines all the finite modes.
The use of the term “potential infinity” in this context is meant only as opposed to a complete or actual infinity.
Hübner, “Spinoza on Negation, Mind-Dependence and the Reality of the Finite.”
Nadler discards, or at least says that holding finite modes to be given in experience is “a cheap and easy way to deal with the gap between the infinite and the finite”, in “Spinoza’s Monism and the Reality of the Finite,” 231. He fears that the idealists will not find this suggestion compelling since the status of empirical knowledge is dubious at best. The move Nadler begins to sketch out, however, is exactly right. What has been overlooked to make this route a viable one is the centrality of 2A4. Cf. fn .45.
The fact that we sense our bodies immediately plays a crucial role is addressing the question of how finite modes are derived from the infinite substance. Although a proper answer would require an in-depth treatment, some promissory remarks can be made. The fundamentality and immediacy of our access to the fact that there are finite modes shows that the derivation question is a non-issue for Spinoza. It is a given that there are finite modes. However, this does not mean that it is a brute fact or in violation of Spinoza’s rationalism, since a full account of their nature and existence can be given. Spinoza makes it clear in Propositions 19–31 of Part Two that inquiry begins with a very confused hold on finite things. That there are finite things is never put in doubt. Once we are on the path to adequate knowledge, we begin tracking what must be ontologically the case for there to be finite things. In other words, we begin seeing what finite things must be conceived through, namely other modes and their attribute. It is only after such an inquiry begins that we can then appreciate how finite modes follow from other modes and their respective attribute.
I thank Steven Nadler and Yakir Levin for each independently pressing me on this point.
See fn.45 regarding the derivation problem.
An analogous problem surfaces for Leibniz with respect to the relation between the monad and its states, and the relation among its states. For a solution along these lines for Leibniz, see John Whipple, “The Structure of Leibnizian Simple Substances,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 18, no. 3 (2010): 401–07.
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Alan Nelson, Michael Della Rocca, Julie Klein, Steven Nadler and Yakir Levin for conversations and detailed comments on previous drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Daniel Garber for sending me down the Hobbesian path. Likewise, I benefitted from discussions and presentations at the Eastern APA Symposium “Spinoza on Individuation, Determination, and Negation” and “The Body in Spinoza’s Philosophy” conference in Leuven. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 1199/13).
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Shein, N. Not Wholly Finite: The Dual Aspect of Finite Modes in Spinoza. Philosophia 46, 433–451 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9918-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9918-9