Spinoza
Historical Importance
The first to notice about Spinoza is that he continues the method that Descartes has deployed, that is to say the geometrical kind of method preceding from definitions and axioms logically to prove theorems and conclusions. For example, Spinoza’s ethics starts with definitions and axioms and then proves theorems. Spinoza insists that his words, particular about God and his attributes must never be understood in their vulgar and figurative sense, but only in the special sense given to them in the definitions.
Remember this the age where there was a crisis with authority with regards to human knowledge, where Bacon and Descartes had in their separate ways tries to establish certain basis on which we can build scientific knowledge. Spinoza is in that sense following Descartes in wanting knowledge to be built as axiomatic knowledge as in the case of mathematics.
The second important thing to notice is that Spinoza modifies Descartes’ overall point of view in very clear cut ways. Descartes was a dualist in two sense, the duality of mind and body and duality of God and Nature. Spinoza rejects both dualities. He is a metaphysical monist, a kind of double aspect monism. There are two aspects, there is rational intelligible order and the changing material ingredients. You have logos and matter in Stoics and you’ll find essentially the same in Spinoza. God and Nature are two words referring to the same thing, God stressing the intelligibility side, the logos side, Nature stressing the matter and motion side. So instead of a theistic metaphysic, Spinoza has a pantheist metaphysic. Instead of mind and body being separate substances, they are just names two aspects of one of the same thing.
Remember in Descartes we has Stoic ethics, and that continues in Spinoza. He does it more systematically, and he ground his Stoic kind of ethic in a Stoic kind of metaphysic, that is, nature pantheism. He is the historical link in transmitting a nature pantheism to 19th century romanticists.
The third importance is the influence of his rationalist critic of traditional religion, in his case traditional Judaism. Religion for Spinoza reduced to right living. His Judaism will be analogous to reformed Judaism, which is a religious humanism valuing the moral concerns of Judaism without super naturalist theology. Because of that the role of religious symbols changed, religious language and rights are no longer descriptive of traditional God and his mighty acts.
General Features
The first general feature is God and Nature are the same. He starts with a definition of substance, the way he defines substance leads to the conclusion that God and Nature are the same thing. In God there is both thought and extension. God is infinite in extension and thought. These are two attributes of God, which are evident in both infinite and finite modes of thought. Infinite mode as in God and Nature, finite as in mind and body. But these are not substances, mind is a substance separate from body, we are finite modes of being of God. So there is no sense of separate substances, but only distinction of modes. In the distinction of finite and infinite you can see echos of Plato’s divided line: the eternal and temporal, the infinite and finite.
The second general feature has do with his epistemology. He is a rationalist, and in his “On Improvement of Understanding” he distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: opinion, reasoning and intuition. This is very much like Descartes. We have the distinction in another place in his ethics. Number one kind of knowledge, opinion has to do with fragmentary awareness of particulars, two has to do with the ideas with symbol and words in imagination. Reasoning, knowledge of second kind, are universal truth that are commonly known. Third kind of knowledge which precedes from adequate idea of the attributes of God, he is talking about intuition with something that is absolutely certain, similar to Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas. He start with something that is intuitively certain and works out things that are demonstratively certain, as in a geometrical system.
Double Aspect Monism
God and Nature
The first definition, by that which is self caused, that of which whose essence involves its existence, that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent, that is the classic way of talking about God, and it’s the basis of Descartes’ ontological argument about the existence of God. Definition 3, by substance, I mean that which is in itself and conceived in itself has an identity of its own, and you can think of it in isolation to anything else. That is Descartes’ way of talking about substance. In other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently from other conception. There are no logical assumptions about other things involved. He defines substances as that which in no sense is dependent on other substances, that’s why he defines substance in such a way that can only be one. Definition 6: by God, I mean a being absolutely infinite, that is a substance consisting in infinite attributes of which expresses eternal and infinite essentiality. God is an independent being which is all inclusive.
Historical Remarks
Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are the three great rationalists of the history of western thought, interpreting the world in accordance with certain a-priori conceptions. There is a speculative metaphysic, where speculative refers to seeing with mind’s eye, clearly and distinctively. This kind of speculative metaphysic, developing a picture of reality, tends to generate problems about the relationship of appearance to reality. The thing underlying it is the problem with the world of appearance, the world of their experience, a vacuums of knowledge and authority, growing conflicts between science and religion. So what they are trying to do is to handle problems in their world, the world of experience by appealing to certain universal and necessary truth. When you have conflicting points of view the only way to resolve them is to come back and look for universal basis. The motivation for speculative metaphysics is very practical. In contemporary philosophy, we definitely need speculative metaphysical approaches to provide alternatives to the kind of scientific naturalistic metaphysics that are being worked out in meticulous detail in contemporary American philosophy.
Reason & Emotion
Emotion
We got into the discusion by talking about the Spinoza’s determinism which is presupposed in his view of both reason and emotions, and we can see that when we note his definition of emotion, which is a bodily modification increasing or decreasing it’s active power. Emotion is physically based and it has to do with the active power of the body, the causal energy with which one bodily state followed by another. But parallel of every bodily change is the other aspect of our being. He is explict in talking about both the will and intellect being involved in the conscious sie of the process.
Human Bondage
Bondage to emotions arrises from the lack of clear and distinct ideas and by the same token, freedom from being emotionally driven comes with clear and ditinct ideas, clarity of thought dispels the passions that would otherwise drive us rather than clear thought. A virtue is going to be a life ruled by reason rather than controlled by emotion, it is something we aquire not by fear of evil but by understanding of the consequences of what we are doing and what we are going to embark on.
Intellectual Love of God
Life of reason means that we have to gain clarity about the causal force that are determining our circumstances. It is by understanding the causal mechnisms of nature and accepting them as given, it is in that acceptance of natural law that we find freedom from emotional upset. It’s in that acceptance that comes a peace of mind, in that sense, virtue is its own reward. Intellectual acceptance of the ordinance of nature is an intellectual acceptance of God or Nature and in loving the ordered magnificence of nature, one is loving God. This is what he is speak of as the intellect love of God.
God has no passions
God is not affected by our love or hate. God loves himself, but he loves himself through our love for him. Because if God understand himself through finite modes of thought which are our ideas then God loves himelf through those finite modes which are our love for God.