2. Anonymous Timed Writing
Consider this statement:
“I am satisfied with the course so far.”
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Neutral
4. Disagree
5. Strongly disagree
Write the number and briefly explain what you like most and least about the course or any comments and suggestions you may have.

3. The Significance of Spinoza
The first modern philosopher?
Understanding the Emotions is central
The Ethics of Love is central

4. Background to Spinoza: Descartes’ Philosophy
Spinoza will criticize:
Cartesian dualism
View of God
View of humans
The nature of error
The understanding of emotions
On God and Nature see p

5. Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza
1632: b. Amsterdam
Rabbinical education
1656: excommunicated for unorthodoxy
1663: Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy
1670: Theologico-Political Treatise
1677: Death
1678: Publication of Ethics

6. From the formal record of Spinoza’s excommunication:
“Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not pardon him; the anger and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law, and the Lord will destroy his name from under the Heavens.”
From: A. Wolf, ed., The Oldest Biography of Spinoza (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1927), 146.

7. Approaching the Ethics
“To be a philosopher you must first be a Spinozist: if you have no Spinozism, you have no philosophy.” Hegel
“Indisputable masterpiece” J. Bennett
“One of the major and most influential works in philosophy” E. Curley
“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” Spinoza

8. Why Demonstrated in Geometrical Order?
“It is the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain species of eternity.” e2p44c2
“For the eyes of the mind, by which it sees and observes things, are demonstrations.” e5p23s

9. Part One: Concerning God (Metaphysics)
Central definitions (Part I):
Substance (Monism)
Attributes (Property-Dualism)
Modes (Pantheism)
Deus sive Natura (God, or in other words Nature): Nature is a unified whole, and we must grasp the nature of this whole before we can understand the parts.
Self-caused, existing, necessarily infinite, indivisible, extended (corporeal), immutable, infinitely powerful, without freedom of will, immanent cause
Which are most controversial?

10. Central Propositions
Prop. 5: In the universe there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute.
Why?
Because then nothing could possibly distinguish them.
Prop. 7: It belongs to the nature of substance to exist.

11. Ontological Proofs of God’s Existence
Prop. 11: God, or substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.
Reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to the absurd”—assume the opposite of what you want to prove and derive a contradiction or absurdity, thus proving the affirmative)
God doesn’t exist.
Therefore his essence doesn’t involve existence. (contra. Prop. 7)
Thus, God exists.

12. An a posteriori proof:
Axiom: to be able not to exist is a weakness; to be able to exist is a power.
If what necessarily exists is only finite entities, then they are more powerful than an absolutely infinite entity, which is absurd.
Thus, since we exist, so must an absolutely infinite entity.
Prop. 14: There can be, or be conceived, no other substance but God.
A perfect substance possesses all attributes. (def. 6)
There can’t be more than one substance possessing an attribute. (prop. 5)
Thus, only one perfect substance exists, since there are no attributes left over for another substance.

13. Determinism: e1p25-33
Everything that happens is determined by two factors—the standing nature of God (i.e. the laws of nature) and previous conditions likewise determined back through infinite time
Central propositions: 25 & 29 & 33
A problem? Props. 23 & 28
Appendix on Human Prejudices: Against the Doctrine of Final Causes, i.e., that Nature has an end (or that God has a will)—this doctrine negates the perfection of God

14. Advantages of Determinism (E2p49sIV)
1. Teaches us to act solely in accordance with the command of God and participate in divine nature
Also, calmness of mind and blessedness
2. Proper attitude towards fortune
3. Social life: teaches us to hate no one, despise no one…be content and help our neighbors
4. Society in general: how citizens should be governed—not as slaves, but as free men

15. Part Two: On the Nature and Origin of the Mind
Philosophy of Mind, Theory of Knowledge (Epistemology), Philosophy of Science
What are the two known attributes of God?
Thought and Extension
Descartes and the Mind/Body Problem
Spinoza’s solution: mind-body identity theory and psychophysical parallelism
The mind is just the idea of the body, i.e., a mode of thought that is identical with the body and has the body as its object.
Because each is causally self-contained, there is no question of bodily events causing mental ones or vice versa.

16. Part Two: Central Propositions
Prop. 7: The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
Prop. 11: The first thing that constitutes the actual being of the human mind is simply the idea of some particular thing which actually exists.
Corollary: The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God.
Prop. 13: the object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body, or, a certain actually existing mode of extension, and nothing else.

17. Epistemology Criterion of truth: an adequate idea: Def. 4
Nature of Falsity (error, sin):
Prop. 35: Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge which inadequate, i.e. mutilated and confused, ideas involve.
Falsity is not a positive characteristic of ideas, but rather a kind of privation or mutilation. Because things must be understood through their causes, an idea of a thing that doesn’t include knowledge of its cause is incomplete and partial.
Examples: “Humans are free.” “The sun is 200 feet away.”

18. Three Kinds of Knowledge (E2p40s2)
First, Opinion or Imagination
Disorganized, confused knowledge from senses and experience. (Only source of falsity)
Second, Reason
Understand essential properties of things clearly and distinctly; understand causal process and how things follow deductively.
Third, Intuition
To “see” self-evident truths without explicit conscious processes of reasoning.
An example: A common property of proportionals 1, 2, 3, …?