Frank Lucash over de relatie tussen het eindige en oneindige bij Spinoza - #spinoza

De in de titel genoemde relatie is een thema dat in de geschiedenis van het Spinozisme en ook op dit blog voortdurend aan de orde was en is. Nu stuitte ik  recent op d titel van een artikel van dr. Frank Lucash dat ik graag zou willen lezen, maar nog niet kon vinden.

Dr. Frank Lucash, Associate Professor Emeritus van de University of Nevada, “has been mainly [working] on the philosophy of Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza. He has given presentations at meetings in Chicago, Jerusalem, and San Francisco and has published on many aspects of Spinoza's philosophy, such as mind/body, freedom, substance, intuitive knowledge, immanence, existence and essence, eternity of the mind, good and evil, etc. [Cf.]

De Duitse Spinoza Bibliografie vermeldt wel 20 titels van zijn hand, waaronder niet de volgende:

• Frank Lucash, “Spinoza's Philosophy of Immanence - Dogmatic or Critical?” In: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1994), pp. 164-178

• Frank Lucash, “On the finite and infinite in Spinoza.” In: Southern Journal of Philosophy 20 (1):61-73 (1982) [cf. Wiley Online Library].

Bij Wiley Online Library is van dit laatste artikel de eerste pagina te vinden waarin hij de problematiek duidelijk formuleert. Hieronder neem ik die pagina over.

Ik zou dat artikel wel willen lezen, maar mijn abonnement bij de Koninklijke Bibliotheek verschaft ‘t mij niet. Dus als een van de bezoeker van dit blog het mij kan bezorgen (via het e-mailadres van dit blog rechtsboven) dan zal ik hem of haar zeer dankbaar zijn – zoals alleen vrije mensen dat tegenover elkaar kunnen zijn, volgens Spinoza.

PhilPapers geeft nog meer titels. Kortom, dr. Frank Lucash publiceerde veel over Spinoza. Opmerkelijk dat ik hem in de Spinoza-literatuur niet eerder tegenkwam. *) 

 

ON THE FINITE AND INFINITE IN SPINOZA

Frank Lucash

University of Nevada, Reno

One interesting point that Stuart Hampshire makes about Spinoza's Ethics is that one can return to it again and again without being sure that one has penetrated to the center of his intentions. ¹  He further states that the center of these intentions most likely lies in the moving tensions and unresolved conflicts of the Ethics. One of these conflicts, the one I believe which lies at the very center of the Ethics, is the grounding of the finite in the infinite or how the finite follows from or comes from the infinite. ²  The conflict Spinoza presents is that on one hand he holds that substance is infinite and only infinite things follow from substance, and on the other hand he holds that there are finite things which in some sense must come from substance since everything which is, is substance or is in substance.

Spinoza himself notes the contradiction in the Ethics:

. . . the nature of substance cannot be conceived unless as infinite, and that by a part of substance nothing else can be understood than finite substance, which (Prop. 8) involves a manifest contradiction (IP 13N).³

Since substance is infinite, everything that is in or a part of substance will be infinite. But then Spinoza mentions finite things. Where do they come from? In most of the propositions concerning the infinite and finite in Ethics I, Spinoza states that only infinite things can come from substance or that finite things cannot come from substance. See for examples PI 6D, P21, P22, P23, and P28. But in P28D he says that in some respect finite things come from the infinite:

But the finite and determinate could not follow from God, or from any one of His attributes so far as that attribute is modified by a modification which is eternal and infinite (Prop. 22). It must, therefore, follow or be determined to existence and action by God or by some attribute of God, in so far as the attribute is modified by a modification which is finite and which has a determinate existence.

My purpose in this paper is to explain what Spinoza meant or could have meant by this passage, to show how it does or does not fit in with other statements he makes, and to indicate how or if the conflict can be resolved. In order to do this I shall first indicate what the nature of the infinite and finite is; then show what relation Spinoza says there is between the infinite and the finite; and finally examine different resolu­tions of the problem. By taking this approach I hope to provide some insight into the resolution of the problem and into Spinoza's philosophy.

Frank Lucash is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has published articles in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of language and is continuing work on Spinoza.
[van hier]

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*) Hier en daar wordt wel een artikel van Lucash in de bibliografie genoemd, maar zo ongeveer alleen in het volgende wordt met Frank Lucash in discussie gegaan:

Oded Balaban, Subject and Consciousness: A Philosophical Inquiry Into Self-consciousness. Rowman & Littlefield, 1990 en wel in
Chapter 4, "Spinoza: A Philosophy of Self-Consiousness" – books.google
[cf. academia.edu-pagina van Oded Balaban]

Ik neem hier verder nog de titel op:
Frank Lucash, "What is the relationship between ideas in the human mind and ideas in the mind of God for Spinoza?" In: Sophia, May 2006, Volume 45, Issue 1,  pp 25–41 {Springer]