Spinoza

Spinoza :

Substance : The fundamental reality ,in Spinoza’s philosophy ,is absolute and perfect,eternal and unchanging.He accepted the concept of substance as self-dependent entity with the dualism of thought and extension as the two attributes of the substance.He writes in the Ethics:

“By substance, I mean that which exists in itself,and is conceived by itself,i.e. that what does not need the conception of any other thing in  order to be conceived.”1

It means that the substance in Spinoza’s philosophy is absolute and non-dual.At the same time it is the causa sui .Everything else in this universe has cause for its existence but substance itself is causeless cause.Though it is the cause of everything of the universe but itself without cause.That’s why Spinoza writes :

I have shown that he,necessarily exists,that he is one,that he acts solely by the necessity of his nature,that he is the free cause of all things and how is so,that all things are in God and so depend on his that without him,they could neither exist nor be conceived.2

Everything else in the universe is determined and fixed and there is no place for free will,teleology and final causes in his system.

There is only one substance in Spinoza’s philosophy .And it has two attributes – thought and extension.From the point of view of thought,it is God and from the point of view of extension it is nature.Reality as a

1.Spinoza – Ethics

2. Ibid

 whole is,substace.And there isn’t anything else upon which this depends to exist.It depends on itself for its existence.As Spinoza explains :

“I understand that to be ‘cause of itself ‘ (causa sui)whose essence involves existence and whose nature cannot be conceived except existing.”1

He says that substance is self-determined.All its actions qualities follow from its own nature as necessarily as the properties of a triangle follow from the nature of a triangle.Substance is absolute.So ,it cannot be determined by anything else.Every determination will be negation of substance’s absoluteness.Any human qualities,like intelligence or will etc canot be imposed on it.It doesn’t have any thinking or deciding quality.So,it does act purposively.He uses the epithet ‘ divine caprice’ for  the random incidents of the universe.God isn’t our well-wisher.He wouldn’t do anything good for us,purposively ,because He doesn’t have any capacity of thinking.According to him,to consider God as well-wisher will be nothing else than subjecting Him to fate,and is a most absurd view of him whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence and existence of things.2

Prof R K Tripathi rightly says that, ‘the only change he introduces is regarding the causality of the God.The traditional conception of creation is demiurgic,teleological and volitional.These conceptions appeal more to religious than to reason.”3

1.Spinoza – Ethics

2.Ibid

3.R K Tripathi – Spinoza in the Light of Vedanta ,p. - 94

If we take into consideration his views of God as Nature,it seems much more naturalistic than theistic.Spinoza’s theory of extension may prove him materialist while thought may prove him idealist but according to Stephen Priest, “I call Spinoza a  ‘neutral monist’because he eschews these extremes and tries to produce a philosophy by positing a substance,which is ‘neutral’ between its mental and physical descriptions.”1

Attibutes :

Extension and thought are not two independent substances,but two attributes of one substance.He writes, “that which represents a chain of motions when seen from the side of extension bears the aspect of a series of ideas from the side of thought.”2

He writes about attributes in the Ethics ,as, “By attribute,I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.”3

From this definition of attributes given by Spinoza we can draw two meanings: one is that ,attributes are merely imposed by the intellect on the substance and another that the attributes are real.According to Hegel and Erdmann,since it is something imposed by the reason,that’s why it is not something real;it is merely something conceptual.R N

1.Stephen Priest – Theories of the Mind , p.p. – 160-61

2.Spinoza – Ethics

3. Ibid

Sharma writes  that Spinoza himself in a letter wrote to De Vries ,in

which he has spoken of attributes as nothing more than varieties of intellectual perception.He writes as all the distinctions that we make in regard to the attributes of God,are not real but rational distinctions.

While Kuno Fisher and others consider ,attributes as real.This view is supported by Thilly also.

As rationalist philosopher,Spinoza has accepted the necessary forms of thought as objective reality.Yet he was hesitant to accept the objective reality of attributes,because,according to him all determinations is negation.But tried tofind way out of this problem by saying that infinite substance has infinite number of attributes,all of which are infinite and eternal.

But human being can know only two attributes i.e. thought and extension.Man possesses himself both these attributes.Both these attributes correspond to each other.Both these are infinite but not absolutely infinite,since there are infinitely many other attributes of God.None of them are absolutely infinite.All these attributes have independent existence of the other attributes,andthey don’t interact either.He writes in the Ethics, “When two things have nothing in common with one another,the one cannot be the cause of the other.”1

Like occasionalists,he says that only like can produce like.Since mind

and matter have different qualities,they cannot affect each other.Thought and extension are the two aspects of the same universal reality,so they cannot become cause or effect of each other.Both have

1.Spinoza – Ethics

 the equal status.Of course,they correspond each other.

If he will accept the unreality of attributes,the world will turn into mere vacuum,devoid of any characteristic,inactive and static as well.

Modes :

By modes ,I understand the modifications of the substance,i.e. that which exists in God and is conceived by something other than itself.1

Attributes manifest themselves in various ways.These various ways of expressions of attributes are called ‘modes’ in the philosophy of Spinoza.Modes belong to things.They don’t have existence of their own.Extension is expressed through body while thought is expressed through mind.Extension and thought don’t exit without body and mind.

Various minds and bodies are the modes of the two attributes of God i.e. thought and extension.Substance manifests itself in various ways.Infinite mind expresses itself in the form of various thoughts while motion and rest are the forms of extension.Without extension,motion is impossible.The whole universe is the combination of thought and extension.Apparently ,the world changes continuously,though the underlying reality remains the same.

In his view ,substance isn’t the direct cause of the objects of the

1. Spinoza - Ethics

 universe.Though it is the substratum of the whole universe.According to Spinoza:

Every mode which exists both necessarily and as infinite,must necessarily follow,either from the absolute nature of some attributes of God or from an attribute modified by a modification which exists necessarily and as infinite.1

According to Spinoza ,just as the definition of the triangle includes its various attributes in the same way the concept of substance includes in itself various attributes .But ,just as we only concept cannot produce the existence ,number form and other qualities of a triangle so also merely concept of substance cannot provide us attributes of it.For the existence of attributes ,modes are the necessary medium.

Concept of God or Nature : By God I mean a being absolutely infinite that it is a substance consisting of infinite attributes,of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality,1

God, in Spinoza’s philosophy is self-caused and It includes its existence by definition.We cannot think about any infinite entity without presuming Its existence.As Spinoza says :

By the cause of itself I mean something of which the essence involves existence,of which the nature is conceivable only as the being in existence .

Since God is without any beginning and end ,so It is beyond time and eternal.As Spinoza says :

1.Quoted by Y. Masih – p. – 82

By eternity,I mean existence itself,so far as it is conceived necessarily and follows solely from the definition of that which is eternal.

Since God is everything,the existence of human beings naturally follows from It. We are nothing different from Him.Even God moves our body and God thinks our thoughts.For example:

When we say that the human mind perceives this or that,we say nothing else than that God,not in so far as He is infinite,but in so far as He is explained through the nature of the human mind ,or in so far as He constitutes the essence of the human mind,has this or that idea.

We don’t have free will because our actions are really actions of God and logical consequences of the whole ‘Nature’.

The Mind-Body Problem :

Spinoza tries to find out some metaphysical solution to the mind-body problem.One substance has two attributes : first one is thought which is known as God also while the second one is extension,which is known as nature. In the same manner,human being may be thought as mental and physical or mind and body.He writes in the Ethics that mind and body are one and the same individual,which is conceived now under the attribute of thought and now under the attribute of extension.

Spinoza rejects dualism of mind and body.By mind and body he means two attributes of thought and extension.According to him mind and body are two aspects of human being.He has also refuted any possibility of causal interaction between mind and body.

Mind and body cannot become the cause or effect of each other.They are effects of the same reality i.e. God. Thilly rightly calls this theory as psycho-physical parallelism.In his view there cannot be any entity like soul or ego.Mind consists volitions,feeling and thoughts,but in no way these are by- products of the body.They don’t affect each other.There is correspondence between the bodily processes and the ideas of mind.Both are parallel.

Things of this world are modes of mjnd and matter.According to the idea of the body of which the body corresponds.Human mind is self-conscious also.So,Spinoza calls mind as the ‘idea of the idea of body’.As we have many parts in the body,so the the mind has many ideas.According to Spinoza,there is co-incidence between the actions and passions of the mind and actions and passions of the body.

Spinoza’s view is similar to the view of  philobiologists,who accept the existence of cosmic mind.He says that every mind is an aspect of the Infinite Intellect,which consists infinite number of  minds and ideas.Infinite intellect is the eternal mode of the thought of God.

Mental activities correspond to the bodily activities.Mind can know body only through the ideas of the modifications of the body.Mind can know other bodies through sense-perception.But this knowledge is not distinct and clear,it is somewhat confused ond.But knowledge based on reason is clear and distinct.

Spinoza says that man’s volition is not free.It is pre-determined by some cause.He accepts rebirth and determinism.

Some objections have been raised against Spinoza’s parallelism.It cnnot prove the psycho-somatic problem which has been proved by psychologists.According to the theory of evolution mind is the developed stage of body . But according to Spinoza both are diametrically opposed to each other .So there isn’t any relation of cause and effect between the two.

Pantheism :

According to the pantheist Spinoza,ultimate reality is one perfect being which is immanent in the universe.If fact He is not immanent in the universe,but universe itself.As the basic element of the universe,He is inherent in it.He is the essence of the universe.

The rationale behind pantheism is this that if God were noteverything,then there would be something which is not God.And  it  will cause limitation to God’s infinity.God must be all of existence or existence as a whole.Since,God is everything,nature of human being also naturally follows from God.

Universe is not something without but within God.There isn’t any relation of cause and effect between the God and the universe but it is merely His self-manifestaion.God is the basic element of the universe,the substratum of it.INthe words of Spinoza,God is natura naturans or the source of all reality.And the world is natura naturata or the objective.

Since He is omnipresent,He is the substratum of it.As he writes in Ethics:

‘By God I mean a being absolutely infinite that is a substance consisting in infinite attributes,of which each expresses eternal and infinite,essentially.’1

God is  not transcendent but immanent in the universe.But Spinoza wasn’t atheist because of the rejection of transcendent,personal God.As Michael P. Levine writes :

‘In explaining the relationship between pantheism and theism it is important to reiterate that pantheism,no less than theism asserts the existence of God.Pantheism is a non-theistic or non-personal type of monotheism.’2

According to Hobbes,it is simply not true that “ to say that the world is God amounts to saying that there is no God.’

Coleridge’s claim of Spinoza’s philosophy as atheistic,due to its exclusion of intelligence and consciousness from Deity,is also false.As Levine writes:

‘Pantheism may be seen as a kind of deanthropomorphised theism.It could be taken as a type of anthropomorphic projections attributed to God.’3

1. Spinoza – Ethics ,part – 4^th

2. Michael P. Levine – Pantheism , P. – 147

3. Ibid

Three Orders of Knowing :

Spinoza held that there are three possible grades of knowledge.These three grades are:

1. Imagination i. e. obscure and inadequate ideas

2.Reason i.e. Clear and distinct knowledge

3.Intuition i.e. Absolute knowledge

He has accepted the process of development in the realm of knowledge Gradually we proceed from confused and vague knowledge towards clear and distinct one.

Since we human being are finite being, our intellect has also its limitations,which prevents us from perceiving clearly and distinctly the things ,what they are.But since we are a part of infinite intellect of God,we have every possibility of the development of absolute knowledge i.e. intuition.

Obscure and Inadequate Ideas (imagination) :

Obscure and inadequate ideas arise from sense perceptions and imaginations and are related to the modes of the body.They don’t give us accurate knowledge.Mere opinion cannot give us clear and distinct knowledge.Imagination gives us only partial knowledge of anything.It is based on one sided view of the reality of the thing.It is based on something phenomenal.

In the words of Spinoza himself :

“These ideas or the modifications of human body , in so far as they confused.They are like conclusions without premises because our ideas are adequate only,in so far as they are reffered to God.”1

The underlying reality of things remains illusive in imagination.It causes illusion,error and misconception.While reason and intuition help us in differentiating truth from error and also the awareness of the knower of its truth and falsity.Error is defective knowledge.The truth and falsity of the idea depends on the availability or the absence of the object,concerned.Having illusory knowledge and considering it as if it were true ,is illusion.

Clear and Distinct Ideas (Reason) :

Adequate knowledge,with clear and distinct ideas , is rational knowledge.Being a rationalist , Spinoza says that only purely rational knowledge can give us the correct view of the world,not relation with God.As Spinoza says:

“The essence of one thing is concluded from the essence of another.”2

Reason comprehends the reality of things,their causal connections and their relation with the eternity.The truth and validity of rational knowledge is intrinsic.It is self-evident.

1. Spinoza – Ethics

2.Ibid

Intuition (absolute knowledge) “‘Intuitive knowledge is that kind of knowledge which proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of attributes of God to the adequate knowledgebof the essence of things.”1

Intuitive knowledge is direct and immediate knowledge.It is not based on sense perception.That’s why,in the view of Spinoza,it is the highest kind of knowledge. In the words of Spinoza :

It advances from an adequate idea of the objective essence of certain attributes of God,to the adequate essence of things.

It shows us that God is the origin and essence of all things.Rightly says Spinoza :

So long as we do not have clear idea of God which unites us to Him in such a way that it leaves not a thing to love besides himself,we cannot say truly that we are one with God and depend directly upon him.2

1. Y Masih , p. -  87

2. Spinoza – Short Treatise