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99. - Infinity and Finitude

from I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Noa Shein
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

In the early modern period, the distinction between “finite” (finitus) and “infinite” (infinitus) was traditionally grounded in God’s creative power. This established a clear divide between those entities which are finite and that which is infinite. Spinoza’s notorious rejection of this metaphysical chasm via his identification of God with Nature and claim that anything that is, is in God (E1p15), met with signification opposition. Many took the very natures of being finite and infinite as necessarily incompatible, such that what is finite cannot be said to be “in” or “follow from” what is infinite. We begin by reviewing the different aspects of Spinoza’s metaphysics that he refers to as “infinite” and explain in what sense they are infinite. These include the infinity of substance, the infinite attributes, and the infinite modes. Subsequently we will review Spinoza’s answer to a possible objection in Ep12 and E1p15s. Finally we shall consider Spinoza’s characterization of finite things and interpretative routes scholars have taken in this regard.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 272 - 277
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Bayle, P. (1991). Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections. Hackett.Google Scholar
Curley, E. M., and Walski, G. (1999). Spinoza’s necessitarianism reconsidered. In Gennaro, R. J. and Huenemann, C. (eds.), New Essays on the Rationalists (pp. 241–64). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Della Rocca, M. (2019). The elusiveness of the one and the many in Spinoza: Substance, attribute, and mode. In Ramond, C. and Stetter, J. (eds.), Spinoza in Twenty-first-Century American and French Philosophy: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy (pp. 59–86). Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, D. (1991). Spinoza’s necessitarianism. In Yovel, Y. (ed.), God and Nature: Spinoza’s Metaphysics (pp. 191–218). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1995). Lectures on the History of Philosophy, ed. Rockmore, T., trans. Haldane, E. S. and Simson, F. H.. Routledge.Google Scholar
Hübner, K. (2015). Spinoza on negation, mind-dependence, and reality of the finite. In Melamed, Y. (ed.), The Young Spinoza: A Metaphysician in the Making (pp. 221–37). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nadler, S. (2012). Spinoza’s monism and the reality of the finite. In Goff, P. (ed.), Spinoza on Monism (pp. 223–43). Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Primus, K. (2021). Spinoza’s monism II: A proposal. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 105(3), 444–69.Google Scholar
Renz, U. (2018). Finite subjects in the Ethics: Spinoza on indexical knowledge, the first person, and the individuality of human minds. In Rocca, M. Della (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (pp. 204–19). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shein, N. (2015). Causation and determinate existence of finite modes in Spinoza. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 97(3), 334–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shein, N. (2018). Not wholly finite: The dual aspect of finite modes in Spinoza. Philosophia, 46, 433–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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