Substance, essence and attribute in Spinoza, Ethics I
- Creators
- Donagan, Alan
Abstract
Both Descartes before Spinoza and Leibniz after him continued the medieval Aristotelian tradition of 'supernaturalizing' Aristotle's conception of God as first substance, and of treating God as the creator of natural substances. Because Spinoza adopts the terminology of that tradition, while identifying Nature with God, he is widely taken to supernaturalize Nature. This presupposes that he conceives his metaphysical axioms as the medievals did theirs, as true of all logically possible worlds, and per se nota to the human intellect. Unlike them, however, he holds that the "mechanical principles of nature," while per se nota, are true only of the actual world. This suggests that his conception of what is per se no tum in metaphysics is holistic, and presumes experience of the actual world. Assuming this, it is shown that his theory of substance in Ethics I must be elucidated on naturalist lines. The objection raised by de Vries to ElplOs, that really distinct attributes cannot, as Spinoza maintains, constitute one and the same substance (or essence of a substance), is shown to be valid on the 'supernaturalizing' interpretation of Spinoza's theory, and Spinoza's replies to it in Ep9 and ElplOs are shown to be question-begging. However, on the naturalist interpretation of it, Spinoza's doctrine in ElplOs is shown to be defensible. Pollock's explanation of why his arguments in ElplOs and Eplld are incompatible with the naturalist interpretation is adopted.
Additional Information
This paper is to be presented to a conference on Spinoza sponsored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, April 1-7, 1987.Attached Files
Published - HumsWP-0122.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 27528
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20111031-140437887
- Created
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2011-11-04Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2019-10-03Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Humanities Working Papers
- Series Name
- Humanities Working Paper
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 122