Charles Jarrett’s fraaie uitleg van hoe de ‘parabel’ van het sterrenbeeld Hond en de blaffende hond moet worden verstaan

In het blog van gisteren, “James Benjamin Wilbur (1924 -) redigeerde een Spinoza-bundel” schreef ik:

Charles Jarrett gaat in zijn gedegen review [van James B. Wilbur, ed. Spinoza's Metaphysics: Essays in Critical Appreciation. Philosophia Spinozae Perennis, vol. 1. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976; in: Journal of the History of Philosophy 18, 1 (1980), 87-90] uitvoerig in op misinterpretaties van verschillende auteurs van datgene wat Spinoza in Ethica 1/17s stelt over verstand en wil m.b.t. God. Een kennelijk notoir moeilijke tekst die we op dit blog vaker aan de orde hebben gehad. Ik overweeg die interessante beschouwing van de reviewer in een volgend blog over te nemen.

Het wordt, om het auteursrecht niet te schenden, eigenlijk een te lang citaat, maar ik waag het toch deze tekst van Jarrett hier over te nemen: het is een schitterend voorbeeld van hoe een kritische recensie iets uiterst zinvols kan toevoegen én het illustreert het grote belang van een precieze vertaling – als een vertaling niet klopt kan het anderen op een verkeerd been zetten.

Het gaat om de interpretatie van het Scholium bij stellng 17 van deel I van de Ethica, waarin Spinoza de beroemde vergelijking maakt met het sterrenbeeld Hond en de blaffende hond. Over dat scholium is het op dit blog meermalen gegaan, maar niet iedere bezoeker kon worden overtuigd van de juiste uitleg. Misschien kan die van Charles Jarrett helpen.

Ik hoop dat Charles Jarrett, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Education Department of Philosophy and Religion Rutgers University, deze overname als een eerbetoon wil beschouwen.
[De nummering van de noten heb ik behouden, maar voor dit blog moesten van de voetnoten eindnoten worden gemaakt.]

 

Several papers in this collection exhibit misunderstanding of Spinoza's remarks in E, I, xvii, s (concerning the relation between God's essence and intellect, and between God's intellect and ours). Although Koyré’s 1950 paper[3] contains, in my view, a correct account of Spinoza's position, a few further remarks seem necessary here.

Spinoza notes in the scholium to E, I, xvii that he will show that neither intellect nor will pertain to the nature of God,[4] and his strategy, stated quite clearly at G, II, 62, 34-63, 3, is to show that if intellect and will did constitute God's essence, they would have to differ "toto coelo" from our intellect and will, "nec in ullâ re, praeterquam in nomine, convenire possent . . . . -[5] But to assert the latter is to say (what Spinoza himself does not accept) that "intellectus" (for example) cannot univocally be applied both to God and to humans, and that hence this term (as understood by us) does not really apply to God. The argument, then, is a (thinly veiled) reductio: if God's intellect, for example, constitutes God's essence, then "intellectus" does not really apply to God, and hence God's intellect does not constitute his essence.

The argument itself is given at G, II, 63, 3-31 (signaled with "Quod sic demonstrabo'), and it is this passage that is all too frequently taken as evidence for the claim that Spinoza subscribes to the following:

1. God's intellect constitutes his essence.

2. God's intellect is the cause of the essence and existence of everything.

3. God's intellect differs in essence and existence from our intellect.

Spinoza in fact subscribes to none of these. Statement 1 is assumed only for the sake of the argument, in order to show that it entails 2, which in turn (and again for reasons not here at issue) entails 3. And it is 3 that Spinoza (not entirely convincingly) regards as sufficient for the conclusion that God's intellect and ours have only the name in common.[6]  Therefore (what Spinoza does not bother to state explicitly), 1 entails a consequence that shows 1 to be false.

Most of the difficulty in understanding the scholium arises from this passage (G, II, 63, 3--31) because Spinoza uses the indicative mood. He uses the indicative, however, not because he accepts 1-3, but because he is drawing the consequences of his opponents' assumption, namely 1. This is indicated, for example, by G, II, 63, 9--13, where Spinoza writes, "Quare Dei intellectus, quatenus Dei essentiam constituere concipitur, est reverâ causa rerum, tam earum essentiae, quàm earum existentiae; quod ab iis videtur etiam fuisse animadversum, qui Dei intellectum, voluntatem, & potentiam unum & idem esse asseruerunt.”[7] Spinoza does not here assert, as his own view, that 2 is true, nor does he say that others have correctly seen that it is. He notes, rather, that 2 is a consequence of 1, and that the fact that it is a consequence seems to have been seen by some of his opponents (who identify God's intellect [and will] with his power).

In contrast, Sherman's paper (p. 39) quotes the first part of the above quote to impute 2 to Spinoza, while Wilbur cites E, I, xvii, s to show (p. 66) that God has no intellect.[8] Beck, on the other hand, appears to attribute both 1 and 2 to Spinoza, but he is clearly uneasy about this. He writes (p. 8) concerning the above quote that "while this part of the passage clearly assigns a causal role to intellect as constituting God's essence, it is difficult to read unambiguously," and he then goes on to note, correctly, that it is the attribute of Thought, not the infinite intellect, that Spinoza maintains to constitute the essence of God. This, however, is mistakenly taken to be a correction of Spinoza (see the last two lines of p. 8). In a similar way, Harris writes (p. 17) that "there is for him strictly only one thinking thing (res cogitans), as also there is only one extended thing (res extensa) and . . . it is the same thing in both cases---namely God. The thinking thing is the infinite intellect . . . . " But he does not cite E, I, xvii, s in support of such a claim [9] (nor does he explain how E, I, xxxi could be true if God is the infinite intellect).

Difficulties concerning Spinoza's position on the relation between God's essence and his intellect and will are perhaps increased by the error in the White-Stirling translation of E, I, xxxiii, s. 2. Spinoza there writes: "Deo aliam libertatem assueti sunt tribuere, longè diversam ab illâ, quae à nobis (Defin. 7.) tradita est; videlicet, absolutam voluntatem. ''[10] This is translated by White and Stirlings as "They have been in the habit of assigning to God another liberty widely different from that absolute will which (Def. 7) we have taught. ''[11] But since (a) Spinoza holds that God's infinite will and intellect are modes and not "absolute thought" (E, I, xxxi and its demonstration), (b) he denies that there is an absolute, that is, free, will (see E, l, xxxii and its demonstration, as well as II, xlviii, where we find the phrase "absoluta, sive libera voluntas"), and (c) he quite conspicuously defines freedom independently of the notion of will (in E, I, def. vii), the passage in question should instead read, "They have been accustomed to attribute to God another liberty, namely an absolute will, far different from that which (Def. 7) we have proposed." Thus Spinoza does not here assert that God has an absolute will, and the passage cannot be used to impute to Spinoza the belief that God's will pertains to his essence.

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[3] "Le Chien, Constellation Céleste, et le Chien, Animal Aboyant," Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 55 (1950):50-59.

[4] G, II, 62, 1-3.

[5] "Nor would they be able to agree in anything besides the name..." (G, II, 63, 1-2).

[6] Spinoza states, "ergo, Dei intellectus, quatenus divinam essentiam constituere concipitur, à nostro intellectu, tam ratione essentiae quam ratione existentiae differt, nec in ullâ re, praeterquam in nomine, cum eo convenire potest, ut volebamus" (G, II, 63, 27-30), where it is only the first part of this ("Dei intellectus… differt") that follows from his explicitly stated premises. Insertion of the second part thus constitutes a rejection (without discussion) of Aquinas's position--that "aliqua dicuntur de Deo et creaturis analogice, et non aequivoce pure neque pure univoce" (Summa Theologiae, la, q. 13, art. 5. Aquinas, incidentally, asserts here that when "sapiens" is said of God, "non intendimus significare aliquid distinctum ab essentia, vel potentia, vel esse ipsius," and it is partly because of this that it is not univocally predicated of God and creatures).

[7] "Whence the intellect of God, insofar as it is conceived to constitute the essence of God, is really the cause of things, both of their essence, and of their existence, which seems to have been observed by those who have claimed that God's intellect, will, and power are one and the same" (my translation).

[8] Wilbur later argues against this, without discussion of E, I, xvii, s.

[9] Harris cites no support for the claim. But compare the use of E, I, xvii, s on p. 38 of his Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza' s Philosophy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).

[10] G, II, 74, 30-32.

[11] Ethics of Benedict de Spinoza, trans. W. Hale White and Amelia H. Stifling (London: Oxford University Press, 1923) p. 34.