Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:29:20.686Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Adam Murray
Adam Murray*
Affiliation:
aDepartment of Philosophy, University of Toronto
*
* E-mail: adam.murray@utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

My project in this paper is to fill a gap in Spinoza's theory of metaphysical individuation. In a few brief passages of the Ethics, Spinoza manages to explain his views on the nature of composition and the part-whole relation, the metaphysical facts which ground the individuation of simple bodies and the extended individuals they compose, and the persistence of one and the same individual through time and mereological change. Yet Spinoza nowhere presents a corresponding account of the individuation of simple ideas, or the minds such ideas compose. While it is initially tempting to locate the details of such an account in Spinoza's views on the relation between the mental and physical domains, I argue here that such approaches fail, in conflicting with Spinoza's insistence that the mental and the physical are conceptually and explanatorily independent. By contrast, I show that for Spinoza, each idea essentially possesses the property of affirming the existence of its object, and that such properties are well-suited to serve as the principle of ideal individuation Spinoza never explicitly provided.

Keywords

Mental IndividuationParallelismConceptual BarrierFinite and Infinite ModesPanpsychism
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , 2013 , pp. 78 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barbone, S. 2003. “What Counts as an Individual for Spinoza?”. In Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes, Edited by: Koistinen, O. and Biro, J. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. 1984. A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. 1976. Adequacy and the Individuation of Ideas in Spinoza's Ethics. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 14 ( 2 ): 147–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curley, E. 1969. Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curley, E. and trans. 1994. A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and other Works, Edited by: Curley, E. Princeton: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Della Rocca, M. 2008. Spinoza, Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, D. 1994. “Spinoza's Theory of Metaphysical Individuation”. In Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy, Edited by: Barber, K. and Gracia, J. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, D. 2008. “Representation and Consciousness in Spinoza's Naturalistic Theory of the Imagination”. In Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays, Edited by: Huenemann, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gueroult, Martial. 1968. Spinoza, Paris: Aubier-Montaigne.Google Scholar
Huenemann, Charles. 2004. Spinoza and Prime Matter. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 42 ( 1 ): 21–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huenemann, Charles. 2008. “Epistemic Autonomy in Spinoza”. In Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays, Edited by: Huenemann, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarrett, C. 1977. The Concepts of Substance and Mode in Spinoza. Philosophia, 7 ( 1 ): 83–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarrett, C. 1991. Spinoza's Denial of Mind-Body Interaction and the Explanation of Human Action. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 24 ( 4 ): 465–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, C. R. 2009. The Mind and the Body as ‘One and the Same Thing’ in Spinoza. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 17 ( 5 ): 897–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melamed, Y. 2013. Spinoza's Metaphysics of Thought: Parallelisms and the Multifaceted Structure of Ideas. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86 ( 3 ): 636–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melamed, Y. and Lin, Martin. 2011. “Principle of Sufficient Reason”. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Fall 2011 Edition) Edited by: Zalta, E. N. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/sufficient-reason/Google Scholar
Nadler, S. 2008. Spinoza and Consciousness. Mind, 117 ( 467 ): 575–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radner, D. 1971. Spinoza's Theory of Ideas. The Philosophical Review, 80 ( 3 ): 338–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spinosa, B. 1661–1676 [1995]. The Letters, Trans. S. ShirleyIndianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Ward, T. 2011. Spinoza on the Essences of Modes. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 19 ( 1 ): 19–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar