1. The organic totality: unity
of substance
“By the association of parts…I merely mean that the laws
or nature of anyone part adapt themselves to the laws or nature of another
part, so as to cause the least possible inconsistency. As to the whole and part,
I mean that a given number of things are parts of a whole, in so far as the
nature of each of them is adapted to the nature of the rest, so that they all,
as far as possible, agree together. On the other hand, in so far as they do not
agree, each of them forms, in our mind, a separate idea, and is to that extent
considered as a whole, not as a part.” - Letter
XV (Dover 1 pp 290)
“When awareness of needs of parts for one
another is realised, love for each other follows immanently” – Spinoza uses
the metaphor of the body; the lung does not act for heart altruistically.
The above suggests that parts are considered
as pre-existent to the whole, the latter considered as the association and the
harmonic interaction of parts that adapt themselves to one another. This is
clearly different from contradictions as the central principle of dialectical
considerations of totality.
Of interest in this regard are Althusser’s statements in a section of his Essays in self-criticism (NLB 1976). Althusser elaborates here the reason for his seduction by Spinoza. He was looking for a philosophical grounding for materialist positions. He says that Spinoza was a detour taken in order to arrive at a better understanding of Marx as well as a means of exposing Hegelian idealism. In Spinoza Althusser says he found the first systematic elaboration of a theory of ideology, although he was to later realise that that which he formulated as a consequence was trans-historical and did not take into account the class struggle within ideology. The absence of contradiction, in Spinoza too, “had taken its toll” (pp 141).
Yet Spinoza was
eminently foundational to Althusser’s and his followers understanding of the
totality. Spinoza offered a means of formulating a Marxist topography absent from
Hegel’s dialectics, which only constructed shapes in order to shatter them in
the dialectic’s progressive movement to its telos:
“…the position of
the Marxist topography protects the dialectic against the delirious idealist
notion of producing its own material substance: it imposes on it, on the
contrary, a forced recognition of the material conditions of its own efficacy.
These conditions are related to the definition of the sites (the “spheres”), to
their limits, to their mode of determination in the “totality” of a social
formation. If it wants to grasp these realities, the materialist dialectic
cannot rest satisfied with the residual forms of the Hegelian dialectic. It
needs other forms, which cannot be found in the Hegelian dialectic. It is here that
Spinoza served us as a (sometimes direct, sometimes very indirect) reference:
in his effort to grasp a “non-eminent” (that is, non-transcendent) not simply
transitive (a la Descartes) nor expressive (a la Liebniz) causality, which
would account for the action of the Whole on its parts, and of the parts on the
Whole – an unbounded Whole, which is only the active relation between its
parts: in this effort Spinoza served us, though indirectly, as a first and
almost unique guide”
(pp 141)
Spinoza looks at the connection between things, and hence is strongly opposed to neo-positivist currents that argue for the isolated seperateness of phenomena and false believe that it is only the power of thinking and the ‘concept’ that can unite this infinite plurality (see Ilyenkov pp 18-20)
2. Totality and adequacy – adequate ideas of
a thing
Breaking with the
mind/ body dualism of Descartes (See Ilyenkov
essay for expanded treatment of Spinoza’s relation to Descartes); Spinoza
through of thought and extension, not as separate entities, but attributes of
the same substance, that is to say, nature. Thought is the way that
nature thinks of itself, and the conscious knowledge of things: the development
of adequate ideas that exactly reflect them, is the body’s means of being in
the same state as those things, of coming closer to its own reality as
substance as part of nature. Its capacity do this is given by the extent to
which it has commonality with things (artificially posited as outside the human
brain/body).
Ilyenkov describes it thus:
“Descartes’
dualism between the world of external objects and the inner states of the human
body thus disappeared right at the start of the explanation. It is interpreted
as a difference within one and the same world (the world of bodies), as a
difference in their modes of existence (‘action’). The specific structure of
the human body and brain; is here for the first time, interpreted not as a
barrier separating us from the world of things, which are not at all like that
body, but on the contrary as the same property of universality that enables the
thinking body (in contrast to all others) to be in the very same states as
things, and to possess forms in common with them.” (pp 22)
Spinoza: “There
will exist in the human mind an adequate ideas of that which is common and
proper to the human boday, and to any external bodies by which the human body
is generally affected of that which is equally in the part of each of these
external bodies and in the whole is common and proper…hence it follos that the
more things the body has in common with other bodies, the more things will the
mind be adapted to percieve.”
Through this we
come to a more and more adequate idea of God, increased through the knowledge
of more and more of his infinte instances in indivual things. But the world of
man is clearly apparent to this too, the universal forms of human activity in
other bodies, itslef becoming more visible through the ‘emmendation of the
intellect’ as opposed to the imagination. The funcitonal role of thought, will
become apparent to philosophy if it ceases to speculate on what occurs within
the thinking body (this is the proer area of concern of physiologists and
doctors) and looks at the objective determinations of thought, that is to say,
the body and its position in the material unvierse of nature, of whose active
function is thought.
An adequate idea
for Spinoza is one that then reproduces the characteristics of the thing, of the
body, through thought. Hence a hand that describes a circle is coming ito a
relation of identity with ‘the form of the circle’ outside ones body. This is
different to defining the thing through its internal affects on our
imagination, through the sense perception caused by the reflection of its light
on our retina. This passive receptivity, mistaken for the thing itself, errs
greatly. Only by expadning the role of the body and its activity the more
adequate would ideas become. Here totaltiy appears as very much the goal of
susbtance thinking itself, and the more activity the thinking body does, the
closer it approximates to its own nature. Hence for Spinoza, the development of
adequate ideas is intrinsically linked to an expansion of activity, and a broadening
of horizons to encompass more of the world of things.
Ilyenkov: “Man’s
thinking could achieve ‘maximum perfection’ (and then it would be identical
with thought as the attribute of substance) only in one case, when his actions
conformed with all the conditions that the infiintte aggregate of interacting
things, and of their forms and combinations, imposed on them, i.e. if they were
built in accordance with the absolutely universal necessity of the natural
whole and not simply with some one of its limited forms.”
Finite thought does not of course reach this state of
perfection, so it must be ‘built in the image and likenes of thought in
general’, and ideal model to which we must approximate.
From introduction à
L'Ethique ; la nature des choses (Pierre Macherey)
More maybe than
any other passage in the oeuvre of Spinoza, the ‘on God’ is a text that one
must reread a certain number of times to be able to read it simply: in the sharp
rapidity of these 36 propositions, that do not follow in the appearance of a
linear manner, it seems to escape a direct or first degree comprehension. In
fact, the difference with the rest of his book is Spinoza does not speak here
of this or that determinate aspect of reality, but of everything, all at one
time, taken as everything, and this is according to the due order, where it
comes to be the question, the ‘concerning God’ proposes to give itself a
rational basis for studying th whole of reality, not only secundum fieri, due
to the fact that deploys itself in the order of existence, but sucundum esse,
for the reason that it is in its own being. In this sense, the ‘concerning God,
which is in fact about ‘the cause of
all things’ could have been intitled ‘about all things’ or ‘about the nature of
things’ (1). BUt, how can we recognise within the ensemble of the real thus
given, straightaway a totality as object of philosophical investigation. How can one untangle an intelligble order
from the indefinite web of particular determinations that immediately
constitute the real? The 36 propositions of ‘concerning God’ have precisely as
their object the reconstituion of this concealed order, that provides as a plan
(or global diagram) of all reality, and allows for this necessary
reconstruction of approach.
To present this
system of reality (or nature of things), Spinoza adopted a demonstrative mode
of expositon where the model is foramlly borrowed from geometry, supposedly
under the exemplary form that he had been given in Antiquity by the books of
Euclides. The Ethics is within his ensemble, and not only in his first part
devoted to God, “expressed according to geometric order”, just as is expressly
indicated in the same title of his book.
In choosing to give to a philsophical discourse this very particvular
form that, in the whole history of the tradition of philsophy, he was the only
one to have used, Spinzao had without doubt searched for the maximum
clarification of his ideas and facilitated the assimilation: and yet he found
that, by his choice, he had taken the risk of exposing his manner of
philsophically looking at things to a number of attacks and objections that
would either confuse the form and the foundation, or, definitely have been
redirected back to back without seeking to comprehend the conditions of their
articulation; On the other hand he had, in a manner that one could judge
artificial, created an obstacle, and by the same token enlivened a resistance
to the assimilation of his thesis, the content of which many of his readers had
been tempted to grant (accede), by going around the constraints of the
demonstrative expositon, hence by economising on the demand for rigour that
Spinoza had literally incorporated in the framework of his text. This is why
certain explications are indispensible concerning the stakes attached to this
form of expression often contested in his presuppositions and, in that which
concerns the details of his procedures, misjudged, itself even ignored.
(1) In the perspective
perculiar to Descartes, the euclidian figure of rationality had expired, and it
was on all other bases that, in the rupture with euclidianism, he had
constructed his conception of geometrical analsysis developed in this Geometrie
of 1637…. L.Brunschvig inists on this point (1929). In this point of view, the
choice of the euclidian model operated by Spinoza can be interpreted as
reactive, in so much that it represents some sort of return on this side of the
Cartesian position.
(see below for the
French)
Spinoza’s major work, the Ethics, begins with 36 propositions concerning God. (for a discussion of the importance of this to his general philosphical conception, see Macherey 1998, pp -
“All thing follow with inevitable necessity from the
nature of God”.
God is a being of infinite attributes (letter 2 pp 277), ‘supremely perfect and absolutely infinite’. Furthermore, each attribute of God is infinite or supremely perfect after its kind.
Definition VI: “By God, I mean a
being absolutely infinite – that is, a substance consisting in infinte
attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality” –
“Explanation – I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind: for, of
a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but
that which is absolutely infinite contains within its essence whatever
expresses reality, and involves no negation.”
‘God is of all things the cause immanent, as
the phrase is, not transient’. ‘All things are in God and move in God, this
agreeing with Paul and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers.’
‘The revelation of God can only be
established by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words
by ignorance.” (letter
XX1 pp 299)
“All thing follow with inevitable necessity
from the nature of God”. Thus God is by his essence
everywhere.
Q. But if God is the primary cause, and if
we must know god before all else, how is this not a transcendental philosophy
A. Macherey:
“nous ne pouvons
rien comprendre au sujet de la nature, si nous ne développons pas en même temps
la connaissance de la première cause, c’est-a-dire de Dieu” (from ammendment of the Intellectual
, quoted in Macherey (1998) pp 11
Macherey says of this that the important
term is ‘en même temps’: “ La
connaissance de Dieu ne précède pas l’appréhension rationnelle de la réalité…
mais elle lui est simultanée.
“Tous doivent
en vérité accorder que sans Dieu rien ne peut être ni être conçu. Car il est
incontesté pour tous que Dieu est l’unique cause de toutes choses, tant de leur
essence que leur existence, c’est-a-dire que Dieu est cause des chose non
seulement, comme on dit, selon qu’elles sont faites, mais selon leur être”
A. Montag
“Thus Spinoza’s repeated insistence in the
Ethics that we must know things through their cuases, and that the knowledge of God must therefore precede
knowledge of the world, which would seem to affirm a kind of transcendentalism,
that is notion of the primacy of the supernatural over the natural, takes on an
opposed meaning when we learn that God is the kind of cause that does not exist
outside of and prior to his creation, and that God’s unity is not only epressed
as but is constituted by the diversity of an infinity of singular essences.”
(Montag Masses, Bodies, Power, pp4)
Spinoza understands the resurrection of
Jesus as spiritual or allegorical;
“…scripture, when it says that God is angry with sinners, and that He is a Judge who takes cognisance of human actions, passes sentence on them, and judges them, is speaking humanly, and in a way adapted to the received opinion of the masses, inasmuch as its purpose is not to teach philosophy, nor to render men wise, but to make them obedient’.
Spinoza insists on the materiality of the text, and its historicity. He thus accounts for the changing modes and historical circumstances in which scriputres authors communicated differing messages. He is strongly opposed to most interpretative methods, that seek a inner unity in scripture.For Spinoza’s views on scripture, its interpretation and opposition to biblical hermeneutics, see Montag, Masses, Bodies Power…pp 4
Facts and discrepancies in Scripture that can not be understood through scripture alone, must remain unanswered. Spinoza is extremely hostile to the metaphorical interpretations of scripture which are for him, disingeuous attempts by subsequent theologians &c to impose their own imaginative fanciful consrutctions of its meaning on the text. That ancient hebrew, especially in its various adaptions over time, is in some parts inaccessible, is percieved by Spinoza to be an irreconcilable misfortune.
“severed from their origins, associated
together at a later time in such a way that the meaning of each text was
modified by its proximity to the others, as well as by its place in the order
of the narrative, these divergent texts, each heterogenous itslef and made up
of an element only partially intelligible, form a factitious totality that can
only be described as ‘fault, mutilated, adulterated , and inconsistent’” – Montag pp 13)
Hence as Montag says, whereas most interpretations of scripture ended up by some means to present Scripture as having a doctrinal unity, Spinoza finds it disordered, contradictory and imperfect. Even Maimonides approaches the text as if the prophets were of the same voice, and in ‘agreement on all matters’. The pervasiveness of this idea is what leads to active distortions of the orginal texts by its interprators. Elements that contradict one another are either left out, or their meaning changed so as to conform to a principle expressed wel by Alfakhar that for the internal consistency of the text, nothing which is affirmed or negated in one place should be contradictorily affirmed or negated in another.
N.B. The particular form of presentation of
the Ethics is similar to Euclid’s elements; definition, common notions (Spinoza’s
‘thing of a kind’?) postulates, propositions. However a number of these
defintions are similar too to the system used by Descartes so should not be
understood as necessarily original to Spinoza.
Attribute:
“that
which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance” E I
Definition IV
Self-caused: “that of which
the essence involves existence, or that of the nature is only concievable as
existent” E I Def I
Substance: “that which is in itself, and is
conceived throught itself: …that of which a conception can be formed
independently of any other conception” E I Def III
“the points to be
noted concerning substance are these: First, that existence appertains to its
essence; in other words, that solely from its essence and definition its
existence follows….as a consequence of the above, that substance is not
manifold, but single: there cannot be two if the same nature. Thirdly, every
substance must be concieved as infinite.” Letter xxix (pp 318 Dover)
Substance
pertains to infinite being.
Mode:
“the modifications of
substance, or that which exists in, and is concieved through, something other
than itself” E I def V
The
definition of a mode…”cannot involve any existence.”
Modes are perishable.
Conatus:
the striving to exist.
Extension: the
physical world must have the character of a ‘self-sufficient’ system and set of
general causal laws of dependence. Ideal science of physical gives knowledge of
essence and its substance. Extension is attribute of God. (cf: Scruton, pp 45)
Potestas: power delegated by a rightful superior e.g. God. The sphere of power/ authority.
Duration/eternity: Duration is only applicable to the existence of modes (we cannot infer from their existence today that they will exist tomorrow. On the other hand eternity pertains to the existence of substance that is to the infinite faculty of being.
Criticisms
of Spinoza
Fichte: “He does not deny the unity of empirical consciousness, but pure consciousness he completely rejects. On his view, the whole series of presentations in an empirical subject is related to the one pure subject as a single presentation is to a series. For him the self (what he calls his self, or what I call mine) does not exist absolutely because it exists, but because something else exists. – The self is certainly a self for itself, in his theory, but he goes on to ask what it would be for something other than the self. Such an ‘other’ would equally be a self, of which the posited self (e.g. mine) and all other selves that might be posited would be modifications. He separates pure and empirical consciousness. The first he attributes to God, who is never conscious of himself, since pure consciousness never attains to consciousness; the second he locates in the specific modifications of the Deity. So established, his system is perfectly consistent and irrefutable, since he takes stand in a territory where reason can no longer follow him; but it is also groundless; for what right did he have to go beyond the pure consciousness given in empirical consciousness? – It is easy enough to see what impelled him to his system, namely the necessary endeavour to bring about the highest unity in human cognition. This unity is present in his system, and the error of it is merely that he thought to deduce on grounds of theoretical reason what he was driven to merely by a practical need: that he claimed to have established something as truly given, when he was merely setting up an appointed, but never attainable, ideal. We shall encounter his highest unity again in the Science of Knowledge; though not as something that exists, but as something that we ought to, and yet cannot, achieve. – I further observe, that if we go beyond the I am, we necessarily arrive at Spinozism (that, when fully thought out, the system of Liebniz is nothing other than Spinozism, is shown in a valuable essay by Solomon Maimom: Uber die Progression der Philosophie, etc.); and that there are only two completely coherent systems: the critical, which recognises this boundary, and the Spinozistic, which oversteps it.” (Fichte The Science of Knowledge – pp 101-102 CUP 1970)
(Thus Spinoza grounds the unity of consciousness in a substance wherein its unity is necessarily predetermined alike as to matter (the determinate series of presentations) and as to form. But I ask him what it is, once more, that contains the ground for the necessity of this substance, both as to content (the various series of presentations it contains), and again as to form (whereby all possible series of presentations are alleged to be exhausted in it, and to a form a complete whole). But for this necessity he offers me no further ground, telling me merely that it is absolutely so; and this he says because he is compelled to assume some absolutely primary, ultimate unity. But if this is what he wants, he ought to have stopped forthwith at the unity given him in consciousness, and should not have felt the need to excogitate (think out – ed) a higher one still, which nothing obliged him to do.) (ibid. pp 118).
Levinas: Levinas generally critiques Hegelian
dialectics for reducing the other to the self. This is relevant to Levinas’s
comments on Spinoza as he appears to see him as an Idealist in the same manner
as Hegel. This contradicts greatly the materialist interpretations of Spinoza
we have become familiar with in the post-Althusserian French schools. Levinas’s
problem with Spinoza and Hegel is that the will is identified reason and the
conflict of the I with the other resolves into neuter – separation and
difference are abolished. Levinas asks rhetorically, what would two entirely
rational beings say to one another! By this he means to challenge the basic
identities between will and reason as manifested in the dialectical subsumption
or neutralisation of the other.
Spinoza: The
Ethics
Tractatus
Theologico- Politicus – theological political treatise
The
Political Treatise
The
treatise on the emendation of the intellect
Etienne Balibar: Spinoza and Politics (translated from the French Spinoza
et la Politique (1985) by Peter
Snowdon), Verso 1998
Antonio Negri: The Savage Anomaly
Pierre Macherey: Hegel ou Spinoza – if anyone has this book I’d love to
borrow it.
Introduction
a L’ethique de Spinoza – la premiere partie, la nature des choses – (1998)
Avec
Spinoza: etudes sur la doctrine et l’histoire du Spinozisme
Warren Montag: Bodies, Masses, Power – Verso
Warren Montag&
Ted Stolz .ed: The New Spinoza
Hegel: History
of Philosophy 3
Hegel: Science
of Logic
Althusser: Essays
in self-criticism, NLB 1976, pp 132-142
Evald Ilyenkov: Spinoza;
Thought as Attribute of Substance – Dialectical logic, chapter 2 (current
on 07/08/02)
Mason: Spinoza’s God
Scruton: Spinoza
Plus peut-être
qu'aucun autre passage de l'œuvre de Spinoza, le de Deo est un texte qu'il faut
relire un certain nombre de fois pour pouvoir simplement le lire : dans la
rapidité tranchante de ses trente-six proposi- tions, qui ne se suivent qu'en
apparence de manière linéaire, il semble échapper à une compréhension directe
et de premier degré. En effet, à la différence de ce qu'il fera dans la suite
de son livre, Spinoza parle ici non de tel ou tel aspect déterminé de la
réalité, mais de tout, de tout à la fois, pris comme tout, et ceci selon
l'ordre dû, l’ordo philosophandi dont il vient d'être question : le de
Deo se propose de donner ses bases rationnelles à l'étude d'ensemble de la réalité,
non seulement secunâum fieri, du fait qu'elle se déploie dans l'ordre de
l'existence, mais secunâum esse, en raison de ce qu'elle est dans son être
même. Dans ce sens, le de Deo, qui est en fait un de Causa omnium rerum,
aurait pu s'intituler de Omnibus Rébus ou de Natura rerum (1). Or
comment se reconnaître dans l'ensemble du réel ainsi donné d'emblée en totalité
comme objet à l'investigation philosophique? Comment dégager un ordre
intelligible de l'intrication indéfinie des déterminations particulières qui
constituent immédiatement le réel? Les trente-six propositions du de Deo ont
précisément pour objet de reconstituer cet ordre caché, qui donne comme le plan
ou l'épure globale de toute la réalité, et permet d'en reconstruire la marche
nécessaire.
Pour présenter ce
système de la réalité ou nature des choses, Spinoza a adopté un mode
d'exposition démonstratif dont le modèle est formellement emprunté à la
géométrie, sous la forme censément exemplaire qui lui avait été donnée dans
l'Antiquité par les Livres d'Euclide' : L’Ethique est dans son ensemble, et non
seulement dans sa première partie consacrée à Dieu, « démontrée selon l'ordre
géométrique » (ordine geome- trico demonstrata), ainsi que cela est
expressément indiqué dans le titre même de l'ouvrage. En choisissant de donner
au discours philosophique cette forme très particulière que, dans toute
l'histoire de la tradition philosophique, il a été le seul à utiliser, Spinoza
a sans doute cherché à clarifier au maximum la présentation de ses idées et à
en faciliter l'assimilation : or il se trouve que, par ce choix, il a d'une
part pris le risque d'exposer sa manière de voir les choses philosophiquement à
de nom- breuses attaques et objections qui soit ont confondu la forme et le
fond, soit les ont renvoyés définitivement dos à dos sans chercher à comprendre
les conditions de leur articulation ; d'autre part, il a, d'une manière qu'on
peut juger artificielle, créé un obstacle, et du même coup suscité une
résistance à l'assimilation de ses thèses au contenu desquelles beaucoup de ses
lecteurs ont été tentés d'accéder en contournant les contraintes propres à
l'exposé démonstratif, donc en faisant l'économie de l'exigence de rigueur que
Spinoza a littéralement incorporée à la trame de son texte. C'est pourquoi
quelques explications sont indispensables à propos des enjeux attachés au choix
de cette forme d'exposition souvent contestée dans ses présupposés et, en ce
qui concerne le détail de ses procédures, méconnue, voire même ignorée(3).
1. La formule «la
nature des choses» {naturel rerum), dont Lucrèce s'est servi pour intituler son
ouvrage dont Vîîthique se trouve proche à bien des égards, apparaît dans le
texte de Spinoza, par exemple dans l'énoncé de la proposition 5 du de Deo. Elle
a été reprise comme titre du présent volume de commentaire en vue de restituer
à la présentation que tait Spinoza du concept de Dieu la plénitude de son
envergure philosophique qu'évoque aussi la formule Deus sive natura.
2. Dans la
perspective propre à Descartes, la figure euclidienne de la rationalité était
périmée, et c'est sur de tout autres bases que, en rupture avec
l'euclidianisme, il avait édifié la conception de l'analyse géométrique
développée dans sa Géométrie de 1637 (c'est un point sur lequel L. Brunschvicg
a beaucoup insisté, en particulier dans Les étapes de la philosophie
mathématique, Paris, éd. Alcan, 1929). De ce point de vue, le choix du modèle
euclidien opéré par Spinoza peut être interprété comme réactif, en tant qu'il
représente une sorte de retour en deçà de la position cartésienne.
3. Parmi les
lecteurs de l'Ethique qui ont été les premiers à attirer l'attention sur
l'importance proprement philosophique de la forme d'exposition démonstrative
adoptée par Spinoza, on peut citer principalement Lewis Robinson (Kommentar zu
Spinozas Ethik, Leipzig, 1928) et Martial Guéroult (les deux volumes publiés en
1968 et 1974 de sa monumentale étude sur la philosophie de Spinoza, t. 1 :
Dieu, t. 2 : L'âme, Pans, éd. Aubier-Montaigne).
Fundamental, is that Spinoza thinks politics
from within philosophy. Secondly of great importance is the separation made
between Theology and Philosophy/ reason.