This collection of previously unpublished essays on Spinoza provides a representative sample of new and interesting research on the philosopher. Spinoza's philosophy still has an underserved reputation for being obscure and incomprehensible. In these chapters, Spinoza is seen mostly as a metaphysician who tried to pave the way for the new science. The essays investigate several themes, notably Spinoza's monism, the nature of the individual, the relation between mind and body, and his place in 17th century philosophy including his relation (...) to Descartes and Leibniz. The top scholars working on Spinoza today are all represented, including John Carriero, Michael Della Rocca, and Don Garrett. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird das Problem der Inkompossibilität bei Leibniz diskutiert. Zwei mögliche Substanzen sind inkompossibel, wenn und nur wenn es nicht möglich ist, daß sie in einer gemeinsamen Welt existieren, d. h. es für Gott unmöglich ist, eine Welt zu erschaffen, in der beide Substanzen existieren. Der Begriff von Inkompossibilität ist nun jedoch aufgrund der völligen Unabhängigkeit der Substanzen voneinander in Gefahr, sich als gehaltlos zu erweisen. Unser Ausgangspunkt im Folgenden ist Hintikkas Analyse des Problems. Wir versuchen zu zeigen, (...) wie es für Leibniz möglich ist, in seiner Theorie der Individuation ohne Relationen auszukommen und sich auf sie dennoch zu stützen, um dem Begriff der Inkompossibilität Gehalt zu verleihen. Dazu bedienen wir uns auch der Ideen von Russell über die Quelle der Inkompossibilität bei Leibniz: Um ihre Herkunft aufzuspüren, müssen wir das Konzept von der Welt, welches Leibniz verwandt hat, noch beleuchten -unsere Lösung des Problems kann dann als eine Art Synthese der sogenannten analytischen und synthetischen Lösungen angesehen werden. (shrink)

This paper consists of four sections. The first section considers what the proof of necessitarianism in Spinoza's system requires. Also in the first section, Jonathan Bennett's (1984) reading of 1p16 as involving a commitment to necessitarianism is presented and accepted. The second section evaluates Bennett's suggestion how Spinoza might have been led to conclude necessitarianism from his basic assumptions. The third section of the paper is devoted to Don Garrett's (1991) interpretation of Spinoza's proof. I argue that Bennett's and Garrett's (...) interpretations of Spinoza's necessitarianism have short-comings which justify an attempt to offer an alternative proof. In the proof given in the fourth section, it is argued that Spinoza derived necessitarianism from the conjunction of the following principles: (i) necessary existence of the substances; (ii) substance-property ontology; (iii) superessentialism; and (iv) the 'no shared attribute' thesis. (shrink)

This essay argues that Spinoza’s theory of causation provides another way to reconcile God’s causation with causation between finite individuals. It analyzes and identifies problems in Descartes’s theory of causation and Malebranche’s occasionalism. It is argued that Spinoza was aware of the problems that causation posed for ontologies which allowed substance-pluralism. In Spinoza’s monism, the view that God is the cause of everything is reconcilable with the determinism of the new physics. It is shown that Leibniz’s account of intrasubstantial causation (...) closely resembles Spinoza’s view. (shrink)

According to Spinoza mental events and physical events are identical. What makes Spinoza's identity theory tempting is that it solves the problem of mind body interaction rather elegantly: mental events and physical events can be causally related to each other because mental events are physical events. However, Spinoza seems to deny that there is any causal interaction between mental and physical events. My aim is to show that Spinoza's apparent denial of mind body interaction can be reconciled with the identity (...) theory. I argue that Spinoza had both an extensional and an intensional concept of cause and when Spinoza seems to deny mind body interaction he is having in mind the intensional concept of cause. This intensional concept of cause corresponds to that of causal explanation. I will argue that Spinoza anticipated Donald Davidson's view that even though mental events cannot be explained by referring to physical events and vice versa, mental and physical events are causally related to each other. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1677, Spinoza's Ethics has fascinated philosophers, novelists, and scientists alike. It is undoubtedly one of the most exciting and contested works of Western philosophy. Written in an austere, geometrical fashion, the work teaches us how we should live, ending with an ethics in which the only thing good in itself is understanding. Spinoza argues that only that which hinders us from understanding is bad and shows that those endowed with a human mind should devote themselves, as (...) much as they can, to a contemplative life. This Companion volume provides a detailed, accessible exposition of the Ethics. Written by an internationally known team of scholars, it is the first anthology to treat the whole of the Ethics and is written in an accessible style. (shrink)

Spinoza's philosophy has a practical aim. The Ethics can be interpreted as a guide to a happy, intellectually flourishing life. Spinoza gives us principles about how to guard against the power of passions which prevent the mind from attaining understanding. In what follows, I consider Spinoza's techniques for guarding against the passions by turning to Jonathan Bennett's criticisms of Spinozistic psychotherapy. Bennett finds three central techniques for freeing oneself from the passions: reflecting on determinism; separating and joining; and turning passions (...) into actions. Bennett believes that all of these techniques are in some sense flawed. I contend that Bennett offers good criticism against technique, but his criticisms against and are unfounded. (shrink)

We consider the so-called problem of the many, formulated by Peter Unger. It arises because ordinary material things do not have precise boundaries: it is always possible to find borderline parts of which it is not true to say either that they are parts or that they are not. Unger’s conclusion is that there are no ordinary things at all. We describe the solutions of Peter van Inwagen and David Lewis, and make some critical comments upon them. After that we (...) present our own suggestion which is based on ideas developed by Leibniz in connection with problems of unity and plurality. We suggest that what the problem of the many teaches us is that in order to understand what ordinary things are, we have to take seriously the Leibnizian-Kantian distinction between phenomena and things-in-themselves. (shrink)

We argue that Kant advocates existence dualism in a largely Cartesian vein. In such a dualism, there are two basic kinds of existence or ways of being: I-existence and categorial existence. I-existence denotes my existence, while categorial existence denotes, basically, the existence of ordinary things. First, we show how the route to existence is fundamentally different in the two cases. Then we ask whether they also indicate two ontologically distinct kinds and argue that I-existence should be regarded as the fundamental (...) kind of existence in any case. One important consequence of this is that I-existence stands outside the Kantian conditions of experience, being the one un-Copernican element left intact after Kant’s Copernican turn. (shrink)

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on (...) the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

Kant saw in an old argument a threat to his criticism of traditional rational psychology. He called this argument the Achilles of all dialectical inferences. What the Achilles purports to prove is that the unity of consciousness requires the simplicity of the soul. The argument proceeds from, a distinction between two types ofactions that are ascribable to a subject. For example, when we say that a school of fish moves, this movement can be explained by referring to the movements of (...) the fish constituting that whole. Thus, “moving” is an action type that can be attributed to an aggregate. The second premise says that the action of the thinking I cannot be regarded as the concurrence of several things acting. Thus, any thinking self has to be a simple subject because the action of the thinking self cannot be an aggregate of several actions of different subjects constituting that self. In this paper, Kant’s criticism of the Achilles argument is investigated. (shrink)

This book offers a novel interpretation of Spinoza's basic metaphysics of God, body, and mind. It considers the fundamental question of how finite things, especially human minds, are in God. Moreover, because for Spinoza God is identical with the universe, the question becomes how finite things are in the universe. The book shows that for Spinoza finite things are closer to God than what is thought in most contemporary Spinoza studies. It claims that the essences of finite things are degrees (...) or, in a very specific sense of the term "part," parts of the infinite essence of God. The book also shows how Spinoza's basic metaphysics attempts to give us the possibility to unite with God so that we can share some of God's perspective with [TO?] the world. This new knowledge, Spinoza claims, provides the mind with eternity and a kind of individual salvation that is deeply meaningful. The book is not only a study of Spinoza's basic concepts, but it also takes seriously what kind of epistemic attitude is required for experiencing the world truly. It is difficult to see and experience oneself in Spinoza's monistic system where God is the only existing substance. This book offers a novel and engaging interpretation of the Ethics that takes seriously the ontological experience of Spinoza's philosophy. Spinoza, Metaphysics, and the Possibility of Salvation is an essential resource for scholars and graduate students working on Spinoza, early modern philosophy, and metaphysics. (shrink)

For Spinoza substances are of certain kinds. Spinoza captures this with the help of attributes. For example, thought and extension are infinite attributes of God‐substance. For Spinoza the essence of substance is its existence and existence is power. An important albeit difficult thing in Spinoza's conception of essence is that an expression of an essence, such as the physical reality or the mental reality, is always a full expression of the essence or power. Spinoza shared with Descartes a well‐known tenet (...) according to which thinking of the finite is posterior to thinking of the infinite. The chapter deals with a citation where Spinoza denies that God is subject to fate, and provides a rough sketch of how Spinoza tries to shape the universe in causal form. Spinoza never considers how such free acts of thought or adequate ideas, are consistent with his necessitarianism. (shrink)