Ellen
Bliss Talbot was in 1906 gedoctoreerd op het proefschrift “The fundamental
principle of Fichte's philosophy,” [cf. archive.org], had al vanaf 1898 een aanstelling in de filosofie
aan het Mount Holyoke College, en was dus niet zomaar iemand die gevraagd was
voor dit review in The Philosophical
Review.
Om
de recensente enigszins te introduceren, haal ik hier de laatste alinea aan van
het door Dorothy Rogers geschreven lemma over haar in John R. Shook (Ed.), The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers
in America: From 1600 to the Present [Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016], waarvan
de laatste pagina bij books.google te lezen is.
Roughly one-third of Talbot's work consisted of
original discussions of philosophical problems, particularly on questions of
human freedom and moral value, as in "Humanism and Freedom,"
"Individuality and Freedom," and "The Time-Process and the Value
of I luman Life." In these writings, she explores how values, experience,
and human freedom intersect with and/or reinforce each other The most
innovative of thew writings arc the "Time-Process and Value"
articles, written when Talbot was a mid-career academic. Here she discusses
values and moral goods not as fixed entities, but as dynamic processes which
can have a greater or lesser impact, depending on the context, specifically in
regard to time. The articles show us that Talbot had a great deal in common
with the pragmatist, personalist, and process thought that was under development
in her day. Her work as a whole demonstrates that she was a competent
philosopher who was comfortable entertaining new ideas and interested in making
abstract thought relevant to everyday human problems.
En
nog dit uit “America’s First Academic Women Philosophers, 1880-1920”: Ellen
Bliss Talbot (1867-1968) was one of five women to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at
Cornell in the nineteenth century.
Interestingly, all of these women were successful academically […]. Talbot was Cornell’s most accomplished philosophy
doctoral student, publishing three books, over a dozen articles, and nearly
thirty book reviews. [Cf. – cf. ook pagina over Ellen Bliss Talbot op wikisource].
Een van die boekbesprekingen, nadat ze al haar boeken en artikelen over Fichte al had gepubliceerd, was dus haar hierna volgende bespreking in 1911 van:
Een van die boekbesprekingen, nadat ze al haar boeken en artikelen over Fichte al had gepubliceerd, was dus haar hierna volgende bespreking in 1911 van:
Die unendlichen Modi bei Spinoza. Von ELISABETH SCHMITT. Leipzig, J. A. Barth, i910.-pp.
viii, I36. [cf. vorige blog]
In this monograph we have an admirable study of one of
the most obscure and difficult features of Spinoza's philosophy. The various
interpretations which have been made of the doctrine of infinite modes may be
reduced, Frl. Schmitt thinks, to three: that of Camerer; that of Rivaud and
Wenzel; and the interpretation adopted by most of the earlier students of
Spinoza, which conceives the infinite mode as the infinite totality of the
particular modes. Each of these interpretations contains something of truth.
But all fail in one important respect: they describe the more or less external
properties of the infinite mode without determining its essential nature; and
for this reason they fail to show how it can be the common element in the
particular modes, or their cause, or their infinite totality. To remedy this
defect is the chief purpose of Frl. Schmitt's penetrating and exhaustive study.
The doctrine of infinite modes appears in the earliest
portions of the Short Treatise, and
its development continues throughout the rest of Spinoza's life. It is worked
out much more fully for the attribute of extension than for that of thought.
This is due partly to the fact that Spinoza never quite frees him- self from
the tendency to make thought dependent upon extension. To the last, the human
mind is described as the idea of the essence of the body. And from this point
of view it would seem that if you can show that the particular human body
proceeds necessarily from the nature of the attribute of thought, you have
accounted for the human mind as well. The essence of a particular body is a
certain proportion of motion and rest. Spinoza declares, however, that not only
the essence, but also the existence, of particular bodies is derived from
motion and rest; and further, that if there were in extension nothing but
motion or nothing but rest, there could be no particular things. " But how
is it that the nature of . . . this pair of opposites gives the possibility of
an infinite specialization? " (p. 50). Frl. Schmitt suggests the following
explanation. Motion and rest are not absolute opposites, but pass over into
each other through an infinite number of intermediate grades. They are the two
poles of an intensive reality or force. The infinite mode is a real being,
whose essence involves the possibility of an infinite number of quantitatively
different modifications. But since whatever in God is possible is also actual,
these possibilities must be realized. The infinite mode is thus the cause of
the existence, as well as of the essence, of particular things. It is
essentially an infinite activity, an infinite potentia suum esse conservandi et operandi. And by virtue of this
nature it is the principle of specialization, the ground of all particular
existence.
Now particular bodies, as proceeding from the infinite
mode, would be eternal and unchangeable, as it is, but actual bodies are
transitory and changeable. To meet this difficulty Spinoza introduces the
distinction (in the De Intellectus
Emendatione) between simple and compound bodies. Simple bodies combine to
form compounds or 'individuals.' The individual is a whole of parts whose
mutual relations of motion and rest are governed by a unitary law; and this law
is the essence of the individual. The number of parts may increase or decrease,
and if this change exceeds certain limits the individual perishes. Hence while
the simple modes of motion and rest are changeless and eternal, compound modes
(particular bodies) are changeable and transitory.
Just as simple bodies combine to form individuals, so
individuals may combine, under a unitary law, to form a larger individual.
Larger individuals unite to form still larger ones, till at length, as Spinoza
says, we have "the whole of nature as one individual." This supreme
individual is infinite. Also, unlike the lesser ones, it is eternal and
essentially unchangeable: for since it is the whole of nature, the only changes
of which it admits are rearrangements of the simple and compound bodies within
it; and these changes, being subject to the law of the whole, do not affect its
essence. In this 'whole of nature 'we have a new kind of infinite mode. In Epistle 64 and in the Ethics, I, 23, Spinoza explicitly
recognizes two grades of infinite mode, one proceeding directly from the
attribute, and the other from an infinite modification. For extension the
infinite mode of the first rank is motion and rest; the 'whole of nature' is
the infinite mode of the second rank. But it is necessary to show that the
second, both in its essence and in its existence, follows from the first.
Spinoza does not actually furnish the proof, but Frl. Schmitt supplies the lack
by an admirable bit of interpretation (pp. 92 f.). The infinite mode of motion
and rest (the first infinite mode) must, from its very nature, manifest itself
eternally in all the many different degrees of intensity which can be distinguished
between its opposite poles. Now in this form of its existence (i. e., as
totality of all possible proportions of motion and rest) it is still infinite
quantity of motion and rest, governed by a single law; and it is still a unity,
"since its parts are distinguished from it only modally. But these characteristics
. . . are preserved in a form so changed that the mode in this Daseinsweise can and must be regarded as
a distinct total-modification of itself, i. e., as a second infinite eternal mode, following from the first. In the
first, quantity and its law were an indistinguishable unity; in the second,
total quantity and total law form a systematic whole of an infinite
multiplicity of simple bodies and special laws, which act upon one another
according to the law of the whole," but in everchanging ways.
Thus we can see how the second infinite mode is
related to the first. But the more important problem, how the first proceeds
from the attribute, is left unsolved. From the nature of the attribute of
extension it follows that the mode must be infinite and eternal, but that it is
motion and rest we learn " not from the nature of its assigned cause, but
only from experience" (p. 97). Nor is the gap between attribute and
infinite mode filled in the case of thought. Here the infinite mode of the
first rank is infinite intellect. It is not deduced from the nature of thought,
though Spinoza's doctrine of God's omniscience serves somewhat to hide the gap.
In general the doctrine of infinite modes is less fully worked out for thought
than for extension. In the Short Treatise
infinite intellect is conceived chiefly as the systematic connection of all the
finite modes of thought. In the Ethics, however, it seems sometimes to be
regarded as having causal efficacy. If the parallelism between thought and
extension were carried out perfectly, infinite intellect would have to be con-
ceived as the opposition of conscious and unconscious (or sub-conscious), as an
infinite intensive potency, which manifests itself in all the different degrees
between consciousness and unconsciousness and which thus by its very nature
contains the necessity of infinite specialization. Occasionally Spinoza seems
about to say something of this sort; but it is only vaguely suggested. Ideas
are never explicitly described as definite proportions of consciousness and subconsciousness,
but always as ideas of the essences of bodies.
The distinction between two kinds of infinite mode is
not clearly indicated in the case of thought. In the Ethics the idea Dei comes
nearest to being what we should expect for the second infinite mode, but
ordinarily Spinoza seems to identify it with infinite intellect. Frl. Schmitt
is inclined, however, to interpret the facies
totius universi of Epistle 64 as
including the second infinite mode both for thought and for extension. Spinoza
is justified in employing the term thus, because "all modes of the
different attributes (if we abstract from the attributive coloring) are really
the same metaphysical being," one and the same Urmodus. In the phrase facies
totius universi "the moment of order, of conformity to law, is
emphasized, and this must actually be identical in all the attributes" (p.
116).
Frl. Schmitt's exhaustive study makes it clear that
the conception of infinite modes is an integral part of Spinoza's philosophy
from the beginning to the end, and that he was continually at work upon it. But
why is it, she asks, that a doctrine which the philosopher himself evidently
regarded as highly important should be given to us only in hints and fragments?
The answer must be found in the fact that contradictory tendencies are
struggling together in the system. E. g., the metaphysical parallelism demands
that infinite intellect should be an opposition of conscious and sub-conscious.
But Spinoza, regarding consciousness or understanding " as the better part
of the mind . . . and sub-consciousness or imagination as defect," could
not bring himself to posit sub-consciousness in the infinite intellect (p. I28).
The limitations of this review have prevented me from
following in any detail Frl. Schmitt's study of the development of the doctrine
and from giving many of the arguments offered in defence of the interpretation.
For these the reader must turn to the book itself. I can only add that upon
nearly all points the argument seems to me convincing and the interpretation
exceedingly suggestive. The book is an admirable piece of work and one which
will be of real value to all students of Spinoza. The chief lack which I have
felt is the omission of any consideration of the meaning of eternity in
Spinoza's doctrine. In view of the teaching that the eternal, infinite mode is
the ground of temporal things, it seems desirable that there should be some
discussion of the way in which Spinoza conceived the relation of time and
eternity.
ELLEN BLISS TALBOT.
MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE.
MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE.
Review
door Ellen Bliss Talbot in: The
Philosophical Review, Vol. 20 [1911], No. 6 [nov], pp. 666-668
Stan,
BeantwoordenVerwijderenbedankt voor dit blog.
Hopelijk kom je met een vervolg, bijvoorbeeld wie hierover in het Engels heeft geschreven. Had ik maar beter opgelet in de les Duits denk ik nu.
Ik vind het jammer dat er geen inhoudelijke reactie komt op het oorspronkelijke artikel. Het is een boeiend onderwerp. Het komt me nu echt niet uit, maar ik ga het artikel zeker lezen.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenEn Henk,
VerwijderenHet artikel reeds gelezen? Heb jij een inhoudelijke reactie want dit interesseert me.