Baruch Spinoza, a dutch philosopher, is recognized as one of the greatest minds of the 17th century whose contributions helped pave the foundation of the Enlightenment era philosophies. His greatest work, Ethics, was published following his death. The theories he postulated were in contrast to Rene Descartes’ theory of dualism. His philosophical writings laid the groundwork for the evolution of psychology and determinism.
On the subject of religion and philosophy that was so controversial at the time, Spinoza detailed his beliefs extensively in his work On God. Giving a list of propositions about the substances of nature, he attempted to prove that God is an infinite, necessary and indivisible being. He rejected the notion of god being anthropomorphic such as was idolized by the church. He instead believed that God was a substance with which there were an inconceivable number of attributes an as such would be cover every possible attribute known to man. According to Spinoza, a substance was defined as something “that which is in itself and conceived through itself. He also proposed that no two substances can hold the same attributes. In this scenario, God would thus be the only substance in nature. So it follows that entities like the mind and bodies are simply extensions of God as modifications of that substance. This differed from Descartes belief that although the existence of certain entities might could be dependent on God, they were their own substance.
In his deterministic view, everything that happens in history is necessary and unavoidable. The laws of nature and men stem from the essence of god and are impossible to violate. These views were criticized for being atheistic as Spinoza did not differentiate between Nature and God but rather saw them as one and the same. Whatever the case, the philosopher was clear in his belief that the representations of god set forth by the modern regions were fake and misguided. God was not an entity to be conceived or understood by humans and cared little for their well being.
Another principle on which Spinoza disagreed with Descartes, was the belief of mind and body as two distinct parts that interact directly. Although he believed that the mind and body were separate, he believed their relationship was more multi dimensional. He proposed that our understanding of human beings stems from the only two attributes of God that is known to man; extension and thought. Extension is the root of matter wheres thought is essential to the mind. With this basis, Spinoza proposed that minds are modifications on god’s attribute of thought, and bodies are modification of the attribute of matter. Since they both come from attributes of the same substance, mind and body are two sides of the same coin. The mind is the idea of the body and therefore cannot exist without it. On the other hand, the body is controlled by the mind and its subsequent ideas. A change in one would therefore cause a change in the other, and both depend on the other for continued existence. This principle came to be known as parallelism.
A consequence of this doctrine is that all physical matter (attribute of extension) in nature must then also have a mind (attribute of thought). Human beings, as a part of nature, vary from these “bodies” only in how elaborate and complicated our minds are.
Spinoza was also famously scornful of the concept of free will in humans. He believed that people had the illusion of control because they are aware of each action they take. However, the causes of these actions are determined and unknown to humans. In order to have free will, a person would have to be independent of these determinants. Since both people and the causes of their actions come from nature, it would be unnatural for humans to be free willed entities. Instead, a human’s actions are dictated by the laws of nature which itself is not comprehensible to them.
One of the principles used by Spinoza to explain this concept was known as the Conatus Principle. It posited that every “each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in being.” All beings (those with two primary attributes) work to continue their own existence. This effort of striving (conatus) is the essence of all things.
The resulting external causes are influenced by three primary affects or passions. These passive affects are identified as joy, sadness and desire. These emotions represent different aspects of the cognates principle. The affect of desire represents the awareness of our striving, sadness represents the diminishing of our abilities in existing, and joy represents the growth of our abilities of self preservation. Using these three passions, Spinoza went on to identify many more emotions that result from affects interaction with our mind. So it stands to reason that our consciousness of mind is completely ruled by our instincts of preservations. These are the primal instincts of humans, rooted in nature itself. When the cause of actions are part of the human nature, which is the knowledge we have of our self and our adequate ideas, the mind is seen as being active. When the cause is external and separate from our nature, our mind is seen as being passive. While we may use reason as a feeble substitution of control, free will is out of the question.
This ability to reason was based in knowledge, which Spinoza saw as power in itself. He claimed that “”the power of the mind is defined by knowledge alone, whereas lack of power, or passion, is judged solely by the privation of knowledge, that is, by that through which ideas are called inadequate.” To breakdown this principle, he identified three forms of knowledge. The knowledge that leads to our erroneous ideas is knowledge derived from our senses (including any symbols we see or what we hear from those around us). Our second concept of knowledges derived from our notions of the natural world. Our understanding here is restricted to the baser properties of the physics of nature. The last and most important knowledge knowledge is dependent on our adequate ideas about god and the essence of god. Spinoza stated that “Knowledge of God is the mind’s greatest good: its greatest virtue is to know God.” It is through our knowledge of god that we succeed in our striving to exist.
It is from this third type of knowledge that we can diminish the control of the affects on our being. Spinoza labeled this as the intellectual love of god. This knowledge is our greatest virtue as it allows us to better understand the states of nature’s bodies and the states of the ideas of the bodies (our minds). Since god is the substance from which all nature is made, we understand that the essence of matter influence our bodies and the essence of thought influence our minds. Both unceasingly follow the laws of the universe and are thus determined. Our knowledge and acceptance of this will give us a degree of freedom from the powers of our passions. The rational mind, as a consequence, comes from this love of god (who is nature itself) and is the basis off our ethics. A person with this knowledge acts with an understanding of the determined forces of the universe, and this compliance to its laws enable them to have peace of mind. It is then that humans can live a life of virtue and reason. Our knowledge of God, in essence, is our highest good.
Spinoza’s works have gotten varied receptions over the years since his death. His theory of God and the universe saw him get applauded as an advocate of pantheism. It simplistic interpretation of the world was enticing to many who had been practicers of deism or atheists. His work also saw him opposed and criticized by many philosophers who regarded his views as being paradoxical and illogical. Others found his denunciation of traditional and material religions dangerous and posed a threat to its influence in culture. Despite these objections and censure, many scholars agreed that Spinoza contributed greatly to western philosophy and left a legacy that would help shape its modern form.
- Spinoza, B. (2006). The essential Spinoza: Ethics and related writings. Hackett Publishing.
Of Skies and Spectres 