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123. - Mind

from M

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Ursula Renz
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

Spinoza’s concept of mind (mens), including his views about the human mind, is among the most controversial issues of his philosophy; it has prompted many debates, in particular concerning the status of finite minds. That Spinoza might have a problem in this regard was a worry already voiced by Pierre Bayle in his Dictionnaire historique et critique; but the same concern was present in the Pantheism Controversy between Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Jacobi, and questions about the status and individuation of the human mind were also driving the readings of Spinoza developed in German Idealism. Critics in particular voiced the concern that Spinozism cannot account for the numerical difference between finite subjects and thus offers no solution to the problem of the individuation of minds.

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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 351 - 356
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Bartuschat, W. (1992). Spinozas Theorie des Menschen. Meiner.Google Scholar
Della Rocca, M. (1996). Representation and the Mind-Body-Problem in Spinoza. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gueroult, M. (1974). Spinoza, vol. ii: L’Ame (Éthique, 2). Aubier-Montaigne.Google Scholar
Jaquet, C. (2021). The mind-body union. In Melamed, Y. (ed.), A Companion to Spinoza (pp. 296–303). Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koistinen, O. (2018). Spinoza on mind. In Rocca, M. Della (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (pp. 273–94). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levy, L. (2000). L’automate spirituel: La naissance de la subjectivité moderne d’après l’Éthique de Spinoza. Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Marshall, G.E. (2014). The Spiritual Automaton: Spinoza’s Science of the Mind. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renz, U. (2018a). The Explainability of Experience: Realism and Subjectivity in Spinoza’s Theory of the Human Mind. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renz, U. (2018b). Finite subjects in the Ethics: Spinoza on indexical knowledge, the first person, and the individuality of human minds. In Della Rocca, M (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (pp. 204–19). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Renz, U., and Hutchins, B.R. (2021). Spinoza on human and divine knowledge. In Melamed, Y. (ed.), A Companion to Spinoza (pp. 253–64). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wilson, M.D. (1999). Objects, ideas, and “minds”: Comments on Spinoza’s theory of mind. In Wilson, Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy (pp. 126–40). Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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  • Mind
  • Edited by Karolina Hübner, Cornell University, New York, Justin Steinberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992459.123
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  • Mind
  • Edited by Karolina Hübner, Cornell University, New York, Justin Steinberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992459.123
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Mind
  • Edited by Karolina Hübner, Cornell University, New York, Justin Steinberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992459.123
Available formats
×