Vormen we Spinoza’s model van de menselijke natuur (naturae humanae exemplar) uit de verbeelding of stamt het uit de rede?

Anders gevraagd: is dat na te streven model iets subjectiefs of iets objectiefs?

Beluister hier Steven Nadler over de “naturae humanae exemplar” bij Spinoza.

In vervolg op het blog van 6 oktober 2018 ´De sluwheid van de verbeelding bij Spinoza volgens Eugene Garver,” breng ik hier dit gedeelte van het Q&A na de toespraak die Steven Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison) hield over: « Spinoza on the Objectivity of Good and Evil » tijdens het Colloque International Spinoza France États-Unis, Paris, 3-4 juin 2016 [op 21 jun. 2016 werd de video op Youtube gezet]. Na de eerste reactie/beantwoording door “Répondant” Lorenzo Vinciguerra (Université Picardie Jules Verne), stelde als eerste Chantal Jaquet, in het Frans uiteraard, enige vragen en gaf Steven Nadler in het Engels het hierboven te beluisteren antwoord over de "naturae humanae exemplar".

In tegenstelling tot velen (waaronder aanvankelijk ook ik) die ons ideaalbeeld van de menselijke natuur waarnaar we willen streven, zien als voortkomend uit onze verbeelding, komt Nadler met een heel andere zienswijze.

Ik vind het intrigerend om deze zienswijze van Nadler hierover in ogenschouw te nemen. Om anderen tot hetzelfde uit nodigen, haal ik in dit blog dit stukje tekst uit het geheel naar voren. Ik gaf me niet meteen gewonnen, maar heb me toch, na zijn antwoord goed tot me te laten doordringen, door Nadler laten overtuigen.

Ik realiseerde me n.l. dat in Spinoza’s benadering het besef hoort dat als ieder naar zijn verbeelding zich een naturae humanae exemplar zou vormen dat hij wil nastreven, we allemaal subjectief verschillende ideaalbeelden zouden nastreven. Maar Spinoza gaat er duidelijk vanuit dat, als we ons door ‘dictaten van de rede’ laten leiden, we overeenstemmende dingen nastreven – het met elkaar eens zijn. Degenen die stellen dat het ideaalmodel een functie van de verbeelding is, kúnnen geen gelijk hebben; verbeeldingen scheppen tweedracht. 

* * *

Ik ben uiteraard ook weer eens gaan kijken wat Nadler in zijn Spinoza’s Ethics. An Introduction [CUP, 2006] schrijft over the ideal human being ofwel Spinoza's "model of human nature” [naturae humanae exemplar]. In hoofdstuk 8, “Virtue and “the free man”, schrijft hij aan het eind van de § “good and evil” (het thema ook van zijn Parijse lezing), nadat hij heeft gewezen op
"What we judge to be good or evil when we follow the dictate of reason must be good or evil." [Ethica IVP35] schrijft hij op de pagina’s 219-221 het volgende:

Naturally, this objectivization of good and evil will work only if Spinoza can provide some objectivity for what he will claim is the ideal human being — what he will later in Part Four call 'the free man' or the person who lives according to the dictate of reason. Why should this conception of a human being, Spinoza's "model of human nature [naturae humanae exemplar]," be privileged? Why should it have an advantage over any other model of a human being that we might conceive? Unless he can provide a satisfactory answer to this question, he cannot escape the subjectivism that seems to be inherent in his relativization of 'good' and 'evil' to "modes of thinking." Spinoza, unfortunately, does not explicitly offer any response to this challenge. But one plausible way to answer the question on his behalf is to suggest that when an individual guided by reason and not the influence of the passions is put in front of a number of possible models of human nature, including Spinoza's exemplar, it is this latter model that that rational individual, acting from knowledge, will necessarily desire (from his striving to increase his power of acting) and endeavor to [] achieve. This may seem to beg the question, since we can now ask why should the desires and choices of a rational individual (who, after all, represents the model itself that we are trying to justify) be privileged over the desires and choices of the individual acting out of passion. But remember that the individual acting out of passion is not really acting at all but rather reacting. Only the individual whose desires and choices are guided by adequate ideas is an individual whose actions are generated by his own nature and is thus doing what naturally and necessarily follows from his conatus alone. Thus, Spinoza can say that while good and evil will remain relative to some standard, the standard itself is not relative to just anyone's conception of what the good life is but is in conformity with human nature itself.

Spinoza's view of the human project as one of approximating, as much as one can, some specific ideal model (and, correlatively, his conception of 'good' and 'evil' as what will further or hinder that project) is present in his earliest extant works. Thus, in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, he says that "since . . . man conceives a human nature much stronger and more enduring than his own, and at the same time sees that nothing prevents his acquiring such a nature, he is spurred to seek means that will lead him to such perfection" (G II.8/C LK)). In the Short Treatise, we find him claiming that

We have already said before that all things are necessitated, and that in Nature there is no good and evil. So whatever we require of man, must relate only to his genus, and this is nothing but a being of reason. And when we have conceived an idea of a perfect man in our intellect, that [idea] could be a cause of our seeing (when we examine ourselves) whether we have any means of arriving at such perfection. (KV 11.4, G I.6o/C I.Io3) ⁴

 

[] While in the earlier works he may have believed this perfection to be something attainable, in the Ethics it is clearly an ideal to which we can draw near but never achieve.

 

 

___________

⁴ Bennett (1984), in fact, suggests that the naturae humanae exemplar in the Ethics, which appears only in the preface, is “a relic of a time when Spinoza planned to make the concept of a favoured model of mankind do some work for him in the body of Part 4” (p. 296). I would say, however, that while the exemplar terminology does not reappear later in Part Four, nonetheless the concept of a “favoured model” that it represents does, in the form of the “free man.”