Baruch Spinoza (Benedict de Spinoza)

1. Baruch Spinoza (Benedict de Spinoza) 1632-1677

2. Spinoza • Jewish Convert • Moved from Portugal to the Netherlands • When he moved his family proclaimed their Judaism • Was excommunicated from Judaism shortly after • Died at the age of 45

3. Spinoza’s Works • Principles of Philosophy (1663) • Theological Political Treatise (1670) • Treatise on the Correction of the Understanding (post humus) • Ethics demonstrated according to Geometrical Order (post humus) • Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being discovered in 1851)

4. Ethics • Part 1: God • Part2: Nature and Origin of the Mind • Part3: The Origin and Nature of Emotions • Part 4: Of Human Bondage or the Strength of the Emotions • Part 5: Of the Power of the Understanding, or Human Freedom

5. Influence • Descartes • Jewish writers • Renaissance writers (Bruno) • Scholasticism • Stoics • Hobbes • Leibniz • Bacon

6. Causal and Logical Order • Ontological priority • Order of ideas • Order of method • Begins with Divine Substance (Rationalist) • Rather than empirical data (Empiricist)

7. Ethics, Part I: God 8 Definitions V. Modes VI. God VII. Free VIII. Eternity I. Self-Caused II. Finite being III. Substance IV. Attribute

8. 7-Axioms I. Everything that exists exists either in itself or in something else. II. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself. III. From a cause an effect follows; and if no cause then effect. IV. Knowledge of an effect depends and involves knowledge of a cause

9. Axioms V. Things that have nothing in common cannot be understood, the one by means of the other. VI. A true idea must correspond to its ideate or object. VII. If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, then its essence does not involve existence.

10. Conclusions37 Propositions • God necessarily exists. • God is one. • God acts by the necessity of his own nature. • God is the cause of all things. • All things are in God.

11. Spinoza’s Philosophy • The most important element of Spinoza’s philosophy is his pantheism. • Spinoza was a monist. • He believed the world could only have one substance and that was God. • Everything else was a modification of God.

12. Spinoza’s Philosophy • The second most notable element of Spinoza’s philosophy was that God created or emanated necessarily (or according to his own nature) and not freely as understood by theist. • Theist believe that God created freely in so far as God could have done otherwise. • That is, according to theists, God could have abstained from creating or God could have created another world rather than this one.

13. Spinoza’s Philosophy • Because the world is simply a manifestation of God and God manifests himself necessarily, according to his nature, there is no room for asking: What purpose God had for creating this world? • There is no room for final causality in Spinoza’s philosophy. • In fact, there is no room for human free will because all things happened simply because God acts as his nature dictates.

14. Spinoza’s Philosophy • Everything that happens in the world can be explained by efficient causes, that is the causes that brought the event into being. • All efficient cause can be traced back to the Divine nature.

15. Prejudices 1) God and Final Causation: That God acts freely and for a purpose (for some reason). 2) That humans act freely, that is, that what ever choice you make in life you could have done otherwise.

16. 1. God’s Final Cause • Humans believe that all things must act as they do, for some end in view (teleological) • This is also said of God, that is , that God acts with some end in mind, some definite goal or purpose.

17. Prejudiced view • God acts with Purpose, for some reason, to fulfill some desire or reach some objective. • If God acts with purpose then he must act freely. • If God acts freely, then we should be grateful for creating us.

18. Spinoza’s View • If God acts necessarily, then God could not have done otherwise. • We need not be grateful. • If what happens in the world happens necessarily, then there can be no such thing as good or bad or blameworthiness or praiseworthiness.

19. God Purpose Necessity No Good or bad No right or wrong No praise or blame No order or disorder No standards • Good and bad • Right and wrong • Praise and blame • Order and confusion • Beauty and ugliness

20. Prejudice to Superstition • “…but in their endeavor to show that nature does nothing in vain, i.e., nothing which is useless to man, they only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods, and men are all mad together.” • Simply consider natural evils of the world!

21. Another Problem with Final Cause • God created with a purpose. • But before creation there was only God. • God must have created for His own Purpose. • But this goes against the idea of God as perfect.

22. Another Problem with Final Cause • Everything happens for a reason. • Why did the rock fall on the man’s head. • Theologians must seek refuge in the will of God or “sanctuary of ignorance”

23. 2. Human Freedom • Freedom based on the consciousness of one’s volitions and desires. • But where did these desire come from? • What is their cause?

24. Free Will and Final Cause • Human beings act always in regards to final cause. • Human beings act with a view toward that which is most useful for them • They then attribute the same reasons to external causes. (GOD) • They judge other natures to be like their own.

25. Proof of Free Will • The only proof we have of free will is to show that I could have done otherwise. • The fact that you feel like you can choose does not prove that you can choose. • The fact that you deliberate a decision and then choose does not prove that you could have done otherwise. • In fact, there is no way to prove that one is free.