Spinoza (1632-1677)
His family had come to Amsterdam from Spanish Marranos expelled from Portugal. At 22 changes his name from Baruch to Benedictus.  In 1656 formally accused of heresy, cursed and expelled from the synagogue.  Becomes a lens grinder. Works on the Ethics (in Latin) in 60's an early 70's avoiding publication for fear of persecution.  Publishes (1670) anonymously Tractatus theologico-politicus, upholding political and religious tolerance. Contains also a critique of revealed religion and begins "higher criticism" of the Bible. Violently attacked. De Witt's patronage (Grand Pensioner). French invasion of The Netherlands and lynching of De Witt's brothers in The Hague for their alleged French sympathies (1672).  Spinoza suspected of treason upon his visit to the Prince of Condé for possible peace, confronts the mob ( 1673).  Declines a chair in Philosophy. Last years spent working. Leibniz's visit. Dies of consumption.  His misogyny.

A. Some features of Spinoza's metaphysical system and his Ethics.
Spinoza's system is the paradigm of a rationalist system, for it clearly maintains the superiority of reason over the senses, rejects brute facts (vs. Descartes), and attempts a strictly deductivist approach to knowledge.  It is also the most famous version of pantheism and rejection of the personal God of the three religions (vs. Descartes): God, in Spinoza's view is nothing but Nature operating on the basis of its own metaphysically necessary laws. The outcome is a form of radical naturalism (vs. Descartes).
The Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata has the 5 parts:
1. On God
2. On the nature and origin of the mind
3. On the nature and origin of the emotions
4. On human bondage, or the strength of the emotions
5. On the power of the intellect, or of human freedom.
Here we study part 1 and sections of part 2.

BOrdine geometrico demonstrata: the Ethics adopts a strictly deductivist procedure, showing Euclid's influence.  The definitions are supposed to be real, not nominal, definitions (similar to  Socratic definitions).  However, they are often obscure.  The axioms often suffer from the same defect.  Perhaps, S. believed that the truth of the conclusions justifies the axioms and definitions.  The proofs are a mixed bag; some are problematic, as they rely on unclear axioms and definitions.

Part I: God

Devoted to an analysis of the nature of God and the main outlines of its relation to the world.  Can be divided into 4 sections:
1) Definitions & axioms.
2) Props. 1-15 : the essence of God.
3) Props. 16-29: divine power and the casual system rooted in it.
4) Props. 30-6 plus appendix: theological consequences of first two parts.

A. Definitions and Axioms

Definitions
Def. 1: X is self-caused just in case X's essence involves existence
Def. 2: X is finite in its own kind if it can be limited by another thing of the same nature (e.g. a body by another body).
Def. 3: "By substance I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception."

Def. 4: "By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance." Def. 5: "By mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself" Def. 6: "By God I mean a being absolutely infinite-that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses God's eternal and infinite essence,"
NOTE: The explication and later uses of this definition show that when S says God has "infinite" attributes, he means God has all the attributes.

Def. 7: Being free is being self-caused and self-determined; being constrained is being other-caused and other-determined.

Def. 8: "By eternity I mean existence itself, insofar as it is conceived necessarily to follow solely from the definition of that which is eternal."
NOTE:There are 3 main views of eternity:

  1. Eternity  as necessary existence
  2. Eternity as sempiternity
  3. Eternity as a-temporal existence

  4. NOTE: (1) is compatible with (3) and, with some effort, with (2).
 

Axioms

Ax.1: "Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else."
This says that everything is either a substance or a mode.
Ax.2: "That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself."
This says that everything is intelligible.
Ax.3: "From a given definite cause an effect follows necessarily; and on the other hand, if no definite cause be granted, it is impossible that an effect can follow."
This amounts to saying that:

Ax. 4: "The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of a cause."
NOTES: Ax. 5: If two things have nothing in common, they cannot be understood through each other.
Ax. 6: A true idea must agree with what it represents
NOTE:This amounts to accepting the correspondence theory of truth.
Ax. 7: If X can be conceived as non-existent, then X's essence doesn't involve existence.

B. The Essence of God (props. 1-15)

Prop 1: Substance is ontologically and epistemologically prior to its modes..
Prop 2: Two substances with different attributes have nothing in common because they can be conceived independetly of each other.
Prop 3: Two things which have nothing in common are causally idependent of each other (from Ax. 5-4)
Prop 4: "two or more things are distinguished one from the other either by the difference of the attributes of the substances, or by the difference of their modification."
The demonstration amounts to claiming that since all there is is substances and their modes, things can be distinguished from each other only by reference to substances (here identified with their attributes), or modes.
Prop 5: "There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attributes."

Prop 6: a substance A cannot be produced by any other thing B because if it could, the knowledge of A would depend on that of B, which cannot be because a substance is conceived through itself.
Prop 7: existence belongs to the nature of substance.  For,  a substance cannot be produced by anything else (prop 6). But everything has a cause. Hence, a substance is self-caused, i.e., it exists necessarily, i.e., existence pertains to its nature.
NOTES: Prop 8: "every substance is necessarily infinite," since if it were finite, it would be limited by another substance of the same nature (def. 2). But then, since substance exists necessarily, there would be two substances of the same attribute, which is impossible (prop.5)
Prop 9: the more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has. Prop 10: each attribute is conceived through itself, since it constitutes the essence of, i.e., it is, the substance.
Prop.11: God (i.e., substance of infinite attributes) exists necessarily because existence belongs to the nature of substance.
Props 12-13: substance is indivisible. If it were divisible, then its parts would be either substances or not.  If the former, there would be more than one substance with the same attribute, which is impossible (prop. 5). If the latter, then the infinite substance could cease to exist (against prop. 11) because its parts (not being substances) would not exist necessarily.
NOTE: corporeal, i.e., extended, substance is indivisible.
Prop 14: "Besides God no substance can be granted or conceived."
This is the central proposition of part I of the Ethics. Prop 15: All that is , is in God, and without God nothing can exist or be conceived, since all there is and can be is God and its modes.
In the note, S takes on some features of traditional theology and defends the view that God is extended:
  1. God is not to be understood anthropomorphically.
  2. It cannot be claimed, with Descartes, that God created extended substance because:
  3. There is no problem in claiming that God is infinitely extended because substance is not made up of parts, and all the objections against infinite extension assume it has constituent parts.

  4. NOTE: Cardinality arguments against actual infinity and standard answer in terms of totum analyticum.
  5. Moreover, even if extension had parts, it would not detract from God's power, since nothing can act on God.
C. Divine causality and the modal system. (props. 16-29)

The second part of Ethics Part I is devoted to the treatment of:

Prop 16: Since God is infinite and necessary, an infinity of things in infinite ways- that is, all things which can be conceived by an infinite intellect must follow from it.
This determines the nature of divine operation (it is necessary) and its extent (all that is conceivable).
Prop 17: Since nothing can exist besides God, God acts solely by the laws of its own nature and is not constrained by anything. Props. 18-20: These make two main points:
  1. God is the immanent (not the transitive) cause of things because they can be conceived and exist only through God
  2. God, i.e. all the attributes, are eternal and, viewed as natura naturans, unchangeable.
 

At this point S passes to the analysis of the modal system  and in effect he provides his counterpart of the orthodox doctrine of the derivation of the world from God, creation from nothing, by adopting his own version of emanation.

Props 21-2: these deal with eternal and infinite modes, i.e., modes which follow from God's attributes: some follow immediately from divine attributes and can be viewed as "immediate" modes; others follow from ""immediate" modes, and can be viewed as "mediate" modes. An example of the former in the attribute of extension is motion-rest (letter 64); an example of the latter in the attribute of extension is "the face of the whole universe" (letter 64)

Prop. 23: all infinite modes follow either immediately or mediately from divine attributes.
Prop. 24: since a thing whose essence involves existence cannot be produced by anything but itself, the essence of the things produced by God does not involve existence.
The corollary denies ontological inertia and gives S's counterpart of continuous creation.
Prop. 25: since God is the only substance, things can be conceived only through God, which is, then, the source not only of their existence, but also of their essence.
In the corollary, S. notes that particular things are modes of God.
Props. 26-7: claim that everything caused to act in a certain way is so caused by God and cannot uncause itself.
Prop. 28: Every individual, i.e., finite thing, cannot exist or act unless caused by another finite thing, and so on ad infinitum.
The idea of the proof is that a finite thing is caused by something else.  But being finite, it cannot be caused by God's attributes or God's  infinite modes. Hence, it must be caused by a previous finite thing back to infinity.
NOTE: In part, the point is that particulars cannot be derived from universal laws.  For example, to derive the behavior of a       specific falling body, one needs to plug in figures (initial conditions) into  s=vot+1/2 (gt2).
Problem of the dangling modes:
Leibniz notes that not everything follows from "the nature of God...God merely contributes something general and absolute of its own."
Reply:  S. could reply that every finite thing has two causal inputs both stemming from God: Prop. 29: Nothing in the universe is contingent because all follows necessarily from God.
The note distinguishes natura naturans (substance + attributes) as God proper,  and natura naturata (modes).

C. Theological consequences (props 30-36 & appendix)
 
Props 30-31: the intellect, finite or infinite, must comprehend God and its modes, since there is nothing else. That is, the object of the understanding is God.  Moreover, understanding, will, love, desire, etc., being a modifications of thought, belong to God as modalized, i.e., as natura naturata.
Prop 32: the will cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary cause, because it is but a mode of thought and hence it is determined like everything else.
Corollary 1: God, as a substance (natura naturans) has no will, i.e., has no volitions, and hence no free will.  Same for understanding.  Their relation to the attribute of thought is the same motion/rest has to that of extension. So, God is not a person for S. (Deus sive Natura).
Prop 33: Things could not have been brought about by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.

Prop 34: God's power is God's essence, since God is the cause of itself and everything else.
So, for S. God is essentially power which acts with inexorable necessity.
Props 35-6: Since God is essentially power, God brings about all that is in its power.  Moreover, since everything which exists expresses divine power, it must produce some effect. Nothing is causally dead.
 
The appendix on final causes
The first part of the Ethics ends with a very famous attack on final causes or teleology (the idea that the cause or reason for the existence of something is to be found in its function; for example, eyes exist so that we can see; teeth to chew, etc.).
S attacks final causes by bringing them "before the bar of reason."  He tries to explain:
  1. why people believe in final causes
  2. why it is wrong to believe in them
  3. how the belief in final causes has bad consequences, being the source of many errors.
 1. Why people believe in final causes.
Since they do things for an end, i.e., their own advantage, they tend to think that everything else works that way.  When they don't see the end, they think that things are made by benevolent deities for humans. But then the problem of evil arises, and so humans are compelled to believe that the gods are beyond human understanding.

2. Why teleology is wrong:

3. How teleology is the cause of many misconceptions.
Since people believe things are made for them, they believe that what benefits or harms them are the most important features of things themselves, and call them good, bad, ordered, confused, hot, cold, beautiful, ugly, etc. (note the reduction of moral predicates to the level of secondary qualities). They use imagination, which is based on how things feel to their bodies, and not understanding.  They do not see that God (natura naturans) is above all these sense-based qualities.  Moreover, since people have different tastes, they disagree on these things, and therefore they are led to skepticism.