The celebrated Russian philosopher, Evald Ilyenkov, draws on Spinoza to solve a key philosophical problem: how exactly does the mind connect to the real world? However, the proposed solution has come under much criticism, for example in a recent special issue of Studies of East European Thought (74, 3). This paper aims to clearly explain the solution, overcoming misunderstandings that are evident in the special issue. The kernel of the solution is an argument that human cognition rests on practical activity. (...) In practical activity humans do not act on a fixed structure within their own bodies, in the manner, say, that the activity of water is determined by its fixed structure, H2O. Instead, human practical activity directly connects with and continually adapts to the structures and causal powers of external bodies. Awareness of practical activity thereby gives the human mind access to a mode of activity that is in direct contact and ever-greater accordance with the objects of the real world. The paper will elaborate and develop this kernel, with particular attention to the notion of ‘causal powers’ that it contains, by drawing from the revival in philosophy and the social sciences of what has been termed ‘causal powers realism’. The paper thereby opens new insights and connections regarding the Spinoza-Ilyenkov solution, alleviating the potential for misunderstandings evident in the special issue. (shrink)

It is standard to think that in Spinoza’s system, all things are necessary and in no sense contingent. However, in his classic book, Spinoza’s Metaphysics, published in 1969, Edwin Curley argues based on the proposition 28 of the first part of the Ethics that Spinoza endorses necessitarianism of only a modest kind, according to which when it comes to finite modes, there is a sense in which they are contingent. In this paper, I revisit Curley’s argument. Commentators have responded to (...) Curley’s argument, showing that Spinoza’s remarks on infinite modes entail that finite modes can in no sense be contingent. But this alone falls short of dispelling Curley’s misgivings about the standard interpretation, for it remains unexplained why Curley is wrong in thinking that the proposition 28 supports his moderate necessitarian interpretation. In defense of the standard interpretation, I bolster the usual response to Curley in greater detail than has been done in the literature and explain why, pace Curley, the proposition 28 plays no evidential role in support of Curley’s interpretation. (shrink)

One of the most famous and identifiable of Spinoza’s ideas is his amor Dei intellectualis (the intellectual love of God). It has been argued that this concept is somewhat alien to the main tenets of the Ethics, especially since it is reminiscent of more orthodox religious relations to God, and has a certain mystical (and so, nonrational) quality. In this paper, I will show that it is a consistent development of Spinoza’s interconnected and elaborate theories of knowledge and the affects. (...) Spinoza discusses three kinds of love: passionate love, friendship and the intellectual love of God. The intellectual love of God is nothing but a necessary outcome of Spinoza’s rationalistic project as a whole. Moreover, by culminating his ethical theory with such a concept, Spinoza is placing himself in a rich tradition of thinkers who develop epistemological and ethical systems that put love (either as eros or philia) as the backbone of their philosophy. In order to illustrate the similarities between Spinoza’s philosophical use of love and that of his predecessors, I will address salient features of Plato’s and Aristotle’s thought, emphasizing the relationship between love and ethics, as well as the nature of the philosophical impulse. (shrink)

There can be little disagreement about whether ideas of sense perception are, for Spinoza, to be classed as passions or actions—the former is obviously the correct answer. All this, however, does not mean that sense perception would be, for Spinoza, completely passive. In this essay I argue argues that there is in the Ethics an elaborate—and to my knowledge previously unacknowledged—line of reasoning according to which sense perception of finite things never fails to contain a definite active component. This argument (...) for activity in sense perception consists of two main parts: first, that ideas we form through sense perception have something adequate in them; second, that the adequate component is actively brought about. Discerning this line of thought connects to—and sheds some new light on—Spinoza’s general way of understanding ideas as entities involving activity. (shrink)

This paper examines Spinoza’s view on the consistency of mental representation. First, I argue that he departs from Scholastic tradition by arguing that all mental states—whether desires, intentions, beliefs, perceptions, entertainings, etc.—must be logically consistent. Second, I argue that his endorsement of this view is motivated by key Spinozistic doctrines, most importantly the doctrine that all acts of thought represent what could follow from God’s nature. Finally, I argue that Spinoza’s view that all mental representation is consistent pushes him to (...) a linguistic account of contradiction. (shrink)

I defend a new reading of Spinoza's account of causation that reconciles the strengths of the mechanist and formal cause interpretations by locating instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws inside individual natures; natures are efficacious because that's where the laws are. God's necessity, for instance, follows from certain logical principles contained within God's nature. Causes between finite particulars likewise stem entirely from finite natures. They do so, I argue, because finite instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws are inscribed (...) within those natures. In each of these instances, effects follow from natures on account of laws contained within them. (shrink)

The Aristotelian account of change—according to which no individual can survive a change of species because an individual's essence is, at least in part, determined by its species membership—remains popular in the seventeenth century. One important, but often overlooked dissenting voice comes from Anne Conway. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Conway firmly rejects the Aristotelian account of change. She instead endorses the doctrine of Radical Mutability, the view that a creature can belong to different species at different times. A horse, (...) for example, can gradually become a human being and yet remain the same individual. Why, though, is Conway so opposed to the prima facie appealing Aristotelian account of change? This paper claims that she levels two arguments against this account which have been largely neglected so far. First, she argues that there could be no causal interaction between creatures belonging to different species with distinct essences, because cause and effect would be too dissimilar in that case. Second, Conway argues that the Aristotelian model is inconsistent with divine goodness because it allows for the annihilation of creatures and because it imposes arbitrary restrictions on the capacity of creatures to improve. (shrink)

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend Pierre Fermat and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz against the charge of error made against them by Pierre Maupertuis that they errantly applied final causes to physics. This charge came in Maupertuis’ 1744 speech to the Paris Academy of Sciences, later published in different versions, entitled Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible. It is in this speech that Maupertuis lays claim to one of the most important discoveries in the history of (...) physics and science, The Principle of Least Action. From the date of this speech up until the end of the twentieth century, Maupertuis was credited with this discovery. Fermat discovered least time in optical physics, and Leibniz co-discovered infinitesimal calculus. When the credited discoverer of least action in physics accuses the discoverer of least time in optics and the co-discoverer of infinitesimal calculus of error before and audience of mathematicians, physicists and scientists, it is an event that calls out for investigation. The idea of final causes in physics is the idea that bodies move for an end purpose. During the early modern period, this challenged the intellectual establishment of the day with the idea of thinking in nature. The question which fueled the research for this dissertation is why such a man would accuse two other prominent intellects with such an unprovable metaphysical assumption. The research for this project started with a study of the positions of all three of these men regarding final causes in physics. The second phase was to research the historical context in which Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible was written and delivered. This context included the life of Maupertuis as member of the Paris Academy of Sciences and as later President of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. It also included the workings of three highly competitive, state funded, academies of science in Berlin, London and Paris. Research showed that no formal positions were held on the subject of final causes by either Maupertuis or Fermat. Only Leibniz demonstrated an established and well thought out position on the subject. Research did reveal the story of an ambitious man in Maupertuis, who made it the fulfillment of his ambition to rise in the ranks of math and science within the academies and establish himself as an intellectual great in European culture. Consequently, the life and career of Maupertuis illustrates the sociological dimension of scientific achievement. Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible turned out to be a politically calculated speech delivered for the purpose of career advancement. In 1744, Maupertuis was being considered by the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, and the leadership of the Berlin Academy of Science for the presidency of that institution. Maupertuis knew this. Therefore, the work must be interpreted in this context. Consequently, the charge of error against Fermat and Leibniz by Maupertuis must be interpreted likewise. Discovery was made in contextual and Leibnizian research that Maupertuis was aware of Leibniz’s idea of action from 1738 on, and knowingly claimed to have discovered a generalized notion of action in physics which was not his. It is the story of ambition clouding human judgment. The Leibnizians attacked Maupertuis on this matter, led by a member of the Berlin Academy named Samuel Konig. In the “Konig Affair”, Konig accused Maupertuis of what is essentially plagiarism, and Maupertuis countered with charging Konig with forgery for claiming to have in his possession a letter from Leibniz to Jacob Hermann demonstrating Leibniz’s knowledge of least action. Maupertuis buries Konig in legal proceedings, but loses his reputation in the process. During the final stages of the Konig affair, Maupertuis admits to Patrick d’Arcy, a member of the Paris academy, that he had used Leibniz’s theory of action. Having lost his effective leadership as President of the Berlin Academy, Maupertuis spends the last years of his life in his native France without ever relinquishing his title and office. When at first examining the charge of error, the immediate notion is that this is a cause and effect argument. It appears to be an argument about the order of metaphysics before physics. This turns out not to be the case. Maupertuis agrees with Fermat and Leibniz at every turn. The charge is all about career success. (shrink)