Spinoza rarely refers to art. However, there are extensive resources for a Spinozist aesthetics in his discussion of health in the Ethics and of social affects in his political works. There have been recently been a few essays linking Spinoza and art, but this essay additionally fuses Spinoza’s politics to an affective aesthetics. Spinoza’s statements that art makes us healthier (Ethics 4p54Sch; Emendation section 17) form the foundation of an aesthetics. In Spinoza’s definition, “health” is caused by external objects that (...) maintain our power to act in a variety of ways. Humans need such objects because our complex bodies constantly lose or consume many parts necessary to our overall functioning. Notably, Spinoza defines humans’ bodies through this complexity (2p13Sch), so health as maintenance of complexity is a distinctly human endeavor. Further, while art is not the only healthy activity, I argue that art is a particularly potent cure, which explains Spinoza’s otherwise opaque comment that music can cure melancholy (by which he meant a near-total inability to act, akin to death). Rather than only causing frivolous pleasures, art may be as essential to human flourishing as are other human beings in general; other people are “most useful” because of the variety of actions they make possible (4p35Cor & Sch1). Art’s production of a dizzying variety of affects is likewise most useful for health. -/- Having established how art in general affects the individual, I then explain the role of artists in shaping social groups. Artists use vivid and highly charged affective techniques, as do political sovereigns and religious prophets (TTP chapters 1-2 & 15-16). However, sovereigns and prophets are concerned exclusively with “morality,” defined by Spinoza as the use of affects (primarily based on fear and hope) to produce “obedience” in the generic multitude or people at large. An artist, however, rarely causes affects in the whole nation, affecting instead only a smaller niche or “sub-genre” of people. The affects produced in this group are also not identical to those used by sovereigns, since artists do not primarily deploy sad affects of hope and fear but instead use a wide variety of joyful affects. Further, in Spinoza’s analysis of ceremonies (TTP chapter 5), we see how small groups exposed to repeated ceremonies or social practices eventually develop new strengths which they lacked before. Repeated exposure to shared aesthetic “ceremonies” (e.g., live music performances) of the same sub-genre will over time create the capacity of new powers in the sub-genre of people, which distinguishes them from the masses. Spinoza says sovereigns forge a “second nature” for the generic people through affects; we can then affirm that smaller groups exposed to a distinct sub-genre of art can acquire a new “third nature” which will contain unique powers extending beyond healthy maintenance of their existing bodies. That is, art in general is necessary to flourish and remain whole (maintaining health), but it can also occasionally expand what one is to unforeseen heights (through specific artistic sub-genres). (shrink)

Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.

In this paper, I join the so-called voluntarism debate on Descartes’s theory of will and judgment, arguing for an indirect doxastic voluntarism reading of Descartes, as opposed to a classic, or direct doxastic voluntarism. More specifically, I examine the question whether Descartes thinks the will can have a direct and full control over one’s suspension of judgment. Descartes was a doxastic voluntarist, maintaining that the will has some kind of control over one’s doxastic states, such as belief and doubt. According (...) to a long-held reading, the control that the will has over doxastic states in Descartes’s theory is direct; the doxastic states are affected by the mere act of will. This reading is called direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV), or direct voluntarism (DV) for short, and it states that we are capable of assenting, rejecting and suspending a judgment based only on our will to do so. Thus, these actions would be utterly and merely volitional. DV can be divided into two further positions, direct positive voluntarism (+DV) and direct negative voluntarism (-DV). Direct positive voluntarism deals with the act of forming judgments, maintaining that one can accept or deny a proposition wilfully and either merely believe or not believe something voluntarily. Direct negative voluntarism deals with the suspension of judgment, maintaining that it can likewise be accomplished by a simple act of will. However, I support an alternate account of Descartes’s voluntarism, which is called indirect doxastic voluntarism (IDV), or indirect voluntarism (IV) for short. By this account, the will is capable of affecting a doxastic state indirectly by making one concentrate on essential tasks for forming that state, such as gathering up and paying attention to strong reasons and evidence. IV is also possible to divide into indirect positive voluntarism (+IV) and indirect negative voluntarism (-IV). Per indirect positive voluntarism the will needs to pay attention to reasons for accepting or denying some proposition. Likewise, by indirect negative voluntarism, in order to suspend judgment the will needs to direct this attention to the reasons for doubt. By attending to these reasons, the will also comes face-to-face with its own freedom. This feeling of freedom can be described as affectivity of the reasons for belief (assent) and doubt (suspension). (shrink)

This paper focuses on the formulation of the concept of ‘reality’ between the XV and the XVI centuries by investigating the classification of being of reason and its distinction from real being in...

As a brief lexical analysis shows us, Descartes elaborated two concepts of reality. His first concept of reality, mainly thematised in Meditation V, is rather traditionnal: real...

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas (...) really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’. (shrink)

Descartes's claim that the eternal truths were freely created by God is fraught with interpretive difficulties. The main arguments in the literature are classified as concerning the ontological status or the modalities of possibility and necessity of the eternal truths. The views of the principal defenders of the Creation Doctrine – Robert Desgabets, Pierre Sylvain Régis, and Antoine Le Grand are contrasted with those of Nicolas Malebranche. In clarifying the theological, ontological, and logical terms of the debate we can see (...) that what was at stake was the objectivity and certainty of the truths of mathematics and physics. I conclude by suggesting that this issue might fruitfully be used to clarify the disparate discussions in the contemporary literature. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é responder à questão: a teoria cartesiana das ideias é realista direta ou representacionalista? Para responder a essa questão, analiso as noções de ideia, ser objetivo, realidade objetiva e essência nas "Meditações" de Descartes. Eu procuro mostrar que do ponto de vista da apreensão das essências das coisas externas, Descartes é um realista direto. Mas como algumas provas da existência são inferenciais, eu mostro também que deste ponto de vista a teoria cartesiana é representacionalista. My aim (...) in this article is to answer the question: is the Cartesian Theory of Ideas a direct realist or a representationalist theory? To answer this question, I analyze the notions of idea, objective being, objective reality and essence in Descartes’s "Meditations". I show that, from the point of view of the apprehension of the essences of external things, Descartes is a direct realist. However, since some proofs of the existence are inferential, I also show that, from this standpoint, the Cartesian theory is a representationalist theory. (shrink)

This article aims to present the Coimbra Commentaries as a critical source of the Cartesian Meditations. The Cursus Conimbricensis played an important role in shaping the philosophical pedagogy of the seventeenth century, and many modern scholars were formed through the pages of these volumes. Although we do not know for sure whether the Coimbra Commentaries were used as textbooks in La Flèche, there are solid reasons for believing that, when Descartes refers to the possibility of divine deception in the first (...) meditation, he is using some examples taken from the Commentary on Physics written by Manuel de Góis. (shrink)

As a brief lexical analysis shows us, Descartes elaborated two concepts of reality. His first concept of reality, mainly thematised in Meditation V, is rather traditionnal: real...

In this dissertation, I develop an interpretation of Leibniz on modality and free will. I do so for two reasons: first, I am attempting to revitalize the notion that Leibniz is the predecessor of contemporary modal semantics; second, I am using Leibniz's philosophical system to motivate responses to contemporary philosophical issues in modality and free will. In Chapter One, I argue that Leibniz's basic principles are plausible theoretical tools that ought to be used by contemporary philosophers in developing their philosophical (...) systems. In Chapter Two, I develop Leibniz's views on the nature of individuals. I argue that possible individuals are actually of the same sort as individuals in the actual world--possible individuals and actual individuals are complete creatures that do not differ ontologically from each other. In Chapter Three, I argue that Leibniz's views on possible individuals make him a modal realist and compare his view with contemporary modal realism in order to support this claim. I also argue that counterparts avoid many of the problems set for them by contemporary thinkers; I end with the ways that Leibniz's view differs from contemporary accounts. In Chapter Four, I argue that Leibniz provides two different analyses of modality. The first is an infinite analysis account; the second is a possible worlds account. I argue that these two accounts are compatible and amount to two different descriptions of the same theory of modality. I address objections to each account in order to show this. In Chapter Five, I argue that Leibniz is a compatibilist about free will. Importantly, I argue that it is precisely Leibniz's account of modality that allows for this compatibilism, as against a necessitarian like Spinoza. I then use Leibniz's account to challenge contemporary libertarians about free will on the basis of the principle of sufficient reason. I also show how Leibniz can help semicompatibilism avoid a worry concerning necessitarianism. At the end of the day, I claim that adopting elements of Leibniz's system can help us better understand modality and the freedom of the will and can be an aid in furthering contemporary philosophical theory. (shrink)