José Benardete’s eigen uitleg van ‘mind is the idea of the body’

Het opmerkelijkste van het artikel van José Benardete, "Spinozistic Anomalies," dat ik in het blog over hem van vijf dagen geleden signaleerde en dat Jonathan Bennett "one of the deepest and most challenging Spinoza papers in recent years" noemde, is volgens mij: dat het vervolgens helemaal geen aandacht kreeg.

Het verscheen als hoofdstuk in hetzelfde boek, Richard H. Kennington (Ed.), The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1980], waarin o.a. ook het hoofdstuk verscheen van Margaret D. Wilson, "Objects, ideas, and ‘minds’: Comments on Spinoza's theory of mind" en dat is in de secundaire Spinozaliteratuur veel en gedegen besproken en gebruikt geworden – nog steeds. Maar over dat van José Benardete hoor je niemand - behalve dan J. Bennett in die voetnoot.

Alleen in de bibliografie (niet in de tekst) van Don Garrett (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza [1995] is het opgenomen. In Olli Koistinen (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics [2009] komt het niet voor en in de beide boeken die vorig jaar verschenen en die ik in het blog van gisteren nog noemde (dat geredigeerd door Melamed en dat door Della Rocca), komt zijn naam niet voor. En zo kan ik nog wel en tijdje doorgaan. Het stuk is niet opgepakt en lijkt genegeerd te worden, ondanks dat enthousiasme van Bennett. Niemand is voor zover ik kan nagaan, in debat gegaan met Benardete.

Ik denk dat Benardete daar zelf verantwoordelijk voor was doordat hij een té idiosyncratische benadering van Spinoza-interpretatie had geconcipieerd, hoewel hij op vele plaatsen in zijn stuk heldere, frappante opmerkingen plaats waar je iets mee kunt (dat is hoofdreden waarom ik een ruim deel citeer). Hij behandelt een aantal afwijkingen (waaraan ik hier voorbij ga) en stelt dan: “there are indeed so many anomalies in the text of the Ethics that one cannot but hesitate in the end to call them anomalies at all.” [p. 57] Het gaat hem erom een hermeneutische aanpak te ontwikkelen om na te gaan of en welke bedoeling Spinoza daarmee had. Want voor hem is duidelijk “that Spinoza remains for us if not quite a closed book then certainly a book only partially opened.” [p. 55] Hij wil nagaan hoe het verder te openen is.

En daartoe komt hij met zijn opmerkelijke idee – of hermeneutische hypothese - dat Spinoza de systematische geometrische ordening gebruikte als een doek waarop het dialectische, andere verhaal zou oplichten [‘that the systematic character of the work was precisely designed by Spinoza as a foil against which the dialectical story is to be played out.”] Zijn vele ‘anomalies’ zou Spinoza met opzet hebben ingebracht tegen de achtergrond van de strakke geometrische systematiek en daarmee een dialectisch betoog hebben gehouden: “More radical is my suggestion that Spinoza himself positively intended and designed his work to be read in this dialectical, holistic fashion in contravention of the ostensibly systematic, above all standardly rationalistic, character that the work bears on its face. [p. 63]

Hij gaat dan vervolgens één voorbeeld minutieus nader uitwerken om dit te illustreren. Het is precies dat gedeelte van de tekst, waarnaar Bennet i.h.b. verwees en die mij zo intrigeert dat ik hem hierna in z’n geheel opneem, vooral ook daar je zo weinig beschouwingen tegenkomt over die gedeelten van de Ethica die in discussies hier aan de orde komen, maar zo weinig in de Spinozaliteratuur.

Vooraf nog twee opmerkingen
[1] In zijn stuk verwijst Benardete naaar het Eliminative Materialism. Dit is op zich wel helder, maar nuttig kan zijn te weten dat het Richrd Rorty was die de term muntte met de thesis “that there actually are no mental phenomena.” Paul M. Chrurchland is intussen de meest toonaangevende aanhanger van het ‘eliminative materialism’; hij schreef het boek: “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes” (1981).

[2] In de tekst die ik hierna citeer komt Benardete in de buurt van ‘eliminative materialism’ als hij schrijft:  “As a modus cogitandi or ens rationis (relying on Joachim), the mind simply does not exist at all.” U kunt hieronder lezen hoe hij daar komt; ik wil hier alleen wijzen op een contradictie of beter ‘onmogelijke denkfiguur’ die je krijgt als je een uitspraak ook op zichzelf laat slaan, naar zichzelf doet refereren (iets waarvan Russell de consequentie heeft aangetoond). Als ‘ens rationis’ niet duidt op iets dat alleen maar gedacht wordt (en dus niet bestaat) en je bedoelt die ‘ens rationis’ zelf, wie of wat is dan de instantie die dat niet bestaande ding denkt (als het zelf al een niet-zijnde zou zijn)?

[Dan volgt hier de integrale tekst van het door Benardete uitgewerkte voorbeeld dat loopt van halverwege p. 63 t/m p. 66; de pagina's zijn in rood tussen haken aangegeven]

* * *

 

[63] We learn from "a broadly synoptic view of Part II (now dispensing with all details, for we do not always insist on minutiae) that though mind cannot be understood apart from body (thematic references to body abound in the account of mind) body can indeed be understood apart from mind (the physical excursus is antiseptically austere in this regard). Demonstrated ad oculos along a massive front of text, this two-fold thesis is bound to escape the notice of any Spinozist who, in conventional fashion, is so preoccupied with what Spinoza says that he neglects to observe what he, often quite ostentatiously, does. It may well be that the only way in which one can argue effectively that body is intelligible apart from mind is to exhibit in detail what that understanding of body consists in, what it looks like. One can then say, "Look! Mind is nowhere to be found here." In effect Spinoza may be taken to have done just that, and in just the same sort of way the "dependence" of mind on body [64] is exhibited at convincing length. One can now scarcely resist forming the hypothesis that the origin or "άρχή" of mind is none other than body itself, and bringing the concept of origin in line with that of efficient causation we may propose that the efficient cause of mind is to be found in that union of bodies which is discussed in the definition (of a composite body?) that is embedded in Axiom 2 of the physical excursus. It does not of course follow from these considerations that mind is identical with body and indeed one would suppose from Leibniz's Law that it could not possibly be so. How precisely mind is related to body we learn, once again indirectly, from E. II, P21 where in the course of stating explicitly for the first time that mind is identical with body an alternative account of the relation is given as follows. Mind is united to body in the same way that the idea of the mind is united to the mind. We have then only to understand how the idea of the mind is united to the mind in order to understand how the mind is united, and a fortiori related, to the body. It turns out that the idea of the mind is the form of the mind, from which we are invited to conclude that Aristotle was right in defiance of the Cartesian revolution: the mind is the form of the body. That mind so understood should be taken to be identical with the body may not be quite so impossible as it sounds. Thus it is certainly arguable that Aristotle himself accepted the Identity Thesis (De Anima, 412b5 - 10). Nor should it be assumed that when Spinoza says, or implies, that it is mind that is the form of the body he differs from Aristotle when he says that it is soul and certainly not mind that is the form of the body. Although not widely recognized to play a central role in Spinoza's thinking, the topic-neutral concept of form that was already featured in the physical excursus (see lemmas 4-6) provides an important bridge between mind and body. It is, however, only as a first approximation that to Spinoza can be attributed the doctrine that the mind is the form of the body, for he qualifies it radically in its very formulation. Indeed from the physical excursus one would suppose that the form of any body, as therein characterized, would probably (though perhaps only probably) have to be described as a mode of extension rather than of thought. No wonder, then, that Spinoza declines to regard the mind as the form of the body simpliciter; it is rather to be seen as the form of the body in so far as it is considered under the limitation of a certain description, namely as a modus cogitandi. The form of any (composite) body is the enduring ratio of motion and rest that obtains among its component parts and which enshrines the persistence conditions of the body. The mind is the idea of the body, and this idea is indeed (also) the form of the body (i.e., a certain ratio) but only subject to a decisive qualification. It is the form of the body only to the extent that that form is considered without relation to its object, [65] namely the body. There is of course a puzzle here. If the essential or real definition of mind is "the idea of the body" any adequate understanding of mind must acknowledge the body. We are told, however, that mind is the form of the body considered in abstraction from the body. Presumably, then, an adequate understanding of mind will not view it under its essential description as the idea of the body. Instead, it will view it as a mere idea. To understand the mind for what it really is must then be to misunderstand the mind; which is absurd. Is Spinoza trying to tell us that the concept of mind is incoherent? Or is he oscillating like the contemporary materialist between an identity theory (mind = body) and an eliminative account (there are no minds)? At any rate, one is tempted to say that for Spinoza every reference to mind is a referentially opaque reference to a mode of extension. Mind being a certain x (the form of the body) in so far as it is viewed under a certain description (i.e., as a modus cogitandi) and hence under a certain limitation (i.e., by way of a certain abstraction from the body) all references to mind must then be non-extensional, and if scientific contexts are committed to being extensional mind must drop out of any purely objective account of the world. All this will be familiar from recent discussions, and it may not be easy to determine how much of this account may be attributed to Spinoza without lapsing into anachronism. Accordingly, I prefer to notice an implication of Part II that probably has no contemporary counterpart but which on the face of it is philosophically challenging in its own right. No one who has read Part II however cursorily has failed to register, if only on a subliminal level, a striking equivocation in Spinoza's use of the term "idea." Sometimes it seems to be used with its classical, objective force, other times (cheek by jowl) with its specifically modern and subjective. That equivocation (and it may well be that in the precise sense of the term) can now be explained in the light of the following principle. Cartesian mentalism arises when the Aristotelian form of the body (understood now much more physicalistically as a ratio of motion and rest) is mistaken for a thing in itself, by way of a radical separation from the body. An idea in the objective sense of the word, the form of the body comes to sight as an idea in the subjective sense (i.e., an abstraction) at the very moment that it is viewed in abstraction from the body. As a modus cogitandi or ens rationis (relying on Joachim), the mind simply does not exist at all.

That "dialectical" is true of Spinoza's procedure should now be evident. Granted that the term is a portmanteau word in which are packed more than one meaning, I submit that all (well, virtually all) apply, with doubtless greater or less propriety, starting from the core, the Socratic notion of question and answer. Simplifying our results, we can say that there is a first "moment" in which we are officially [66] informed that the attributes of thought and extension being really distinct from one another are each fully intelligible in its own terms, with the consequence that each mode of thought (extension) can be (perhaps even must be) adequately understood in the light of its own proper attribute. According to the second, unofficial, contrapuntal "moment," though body can indeed be fully understood in terms of a single attribute the same does not apply to mind which as the idea of the body can only be (adequately) understood in terms of a "mixed" account that draws on both attributes. What the third, reconciliatory "moment" might consist in, I shall not presume to say, but it cannot be doubted that we are being asked ("asked" is the right, Socratic word) to reconcile the two accounts.

One clue to a reconciliation might lie in an enigmatic remark that Spinoza makes immediately prior to his physical excursus. He says that everything is animata. What can Spinoza have in mind when he proposes, in effect that a stone is "animated"? It certainly ill accords with the physically austere account of body that follows. At the very least Spinoza must be understood as saying that in addition to its material components there is the form of the stone to be reckoned with and that this form is the very soul of the stone to the extent at any rate that the form is considered in abstraction from the material components. If this is all that Spinoza's doctrine of the soul of a stone can be shown to come to, it is scarcely to be distinguished from a reductio ad absurdum of the very concept of soul, across the board. That Spinoza's doctrine cannot be taken in such reductionist terms, is forcibly urged upon us by his conatus doctrine that certainly seems to take the mentalistic aspect of a stone very seriously indeed. With its insistence that everything endeavors to persevere in its being, the conatus doctrine is especially useful in allowing us to give some solid content to what in its absence would probably be no more than an empty shell, namely the doctrine that everything, even a mere stone, is fully intelligible under the attribute of thought. But for the conatus I think that one would search in vain for what it would be like to give an account of a stone purely in terms of the attribute of thought. When one turns, however, from the conatus doctrine itself to the reasons given in its support two are given in the space of a few lines in E III, P6, one theological, the other purely metaphysical—it is almost totally obscure how the latter (let them indeed be accepted without demur) are supposed to provide grounds for the former, particularly if the mentalistic aspect of E III, P6 is taken seriously.

A few comments on the metaphysical proof might be welcome here, if only for its own philosophical sake, as I think that I can at least convey the drift of Spinoza's thinking on this matter. Let us then imagine a universe with only one body. Moreover, let us posit that this…

[hier breek ik de tekst af - en laat het aan iedere lezer zelf over vast te stellen welke gedeelten van de beschouwing hem of haar nuttig lijken om Spinoza beter te begrijpen en waar eventueel teveel van Spinoza wordt afgedwaald.]