Het werd vandaag besproken op NDPR.
Na een algemene inleiding en hoofdstukken over Descartes en aan het
eind over Leibniz, zijn er middenin drie hoofdstukken over Spinoza:
● Yitzhak Y. Melamed, “A Substance Consisting of an
Infinity of Attributes”: Spinoza on the Infinity of Attributes, pp. 63-75.
Zoals we van Melamed gewend zijn, staat het hoofdstuk al – als DOC - op zijn academia.edu-pagina.
De NPDR-reviewer over dit hoofdstuk:
Melamed's paper is ostensibly concerned with refuting Jonathan Bennett's suggestion that by "infinitely many" Spinoza just means "all". On Bennett's view, when Spinoza says that God has "infinitely many attributes", he just means "all attributes", which is compatible with the view that there are only two (namely, thought and extension). I think this stated goal is certainly accomplished: Melamed provides strong textual grounds for the claim that, according to Spinoza, there are more than two attributes. But other aspects of Melamed's discussion are interesting in their own right, including the view that parallelism not only entails that minds don't causally interact with bodies, but also that ideas of minds don't causally interact with ideas of bodies. This claim is then applied to explain why even if there are attributes besides thought and extension we would not be able to know about them. This move is both intriguing and provocative: I was left wondering whether this really precludes the possibility of knowing other attributes (rather than merely the interaction between our ideas of thought, extension, and any unknown attribute), since we do, after all, have ideas of extension. Melamed refers the reader to some of his other work, which engages this issue more fully. Thus, Melamed's paper does more than simply refute Bennett's contention, but provides a variety of substantive interpretive claims about Spinoza's conception of infinity as well as his metaphysics more broadly.
Melamed's paper is ostensibly concerned with refuting Jonathan Bennett's suggestion that by "infinitely many" Spinoza just means "all". On Bennett's view, when Spinoza says that God has "infinitely many attributes", he just means "all attributes", which is compatible with the view that there are only two (namely, thought and extension). I think this stated goal is certainly accomplished: Melamed provides strong textual grounds for the claim that, according to Spinoza, there are more than two attributes. But other aspects of Melamed's discussion are interesting in their own right, including the view that parallelism not only entails that minds don't causally interact with bodies, but also that ideas of minds don't causally interact with ideas of bodies. This claim is then applied to explain why even if there are attributes besides thought and extension we would not be able to know about them. This move is both intriguing and provocative: I was left wondering whether this really precludes the possibility of knowing other attributes (rather than merely the interaction between our ideas of thought, extension, and any unknown attribute), since we do, after all, have ideas of extension. Melamed refers the reader to some of his other work, which engages this issue more fully. Thus, Melamed's paper does more than simply refute Bennett's contention, but provides a variety of substantive interpretive claims about Spinoza's conception of infinity as well as his metaphysics more broadly.
● Sanja Särman, Infinity in Spinoza’s Therapy of the
Passions, pp. 77-95
De NPDR-reviewer over dit hoofdstuk:
Sanja Särman's contribution is one of the few that moves beyond main-line metaphysics and engages with Spinoza's account of the passions. Her question concerns the viability of Spinoza's so-called "therapy of the passions". The idea, in brief, is this: on Spinoza's view, one of the ways to remove the grip that a certain passion has on us is to understand the object of the passion as necessitated by a series of finite causes. The problem is that the series of prior causes is actually infinite; therefore, this mode of therapy seems to require the synthesis of an actually infinite series. Särman's idea is that because this mode of therapy requires the synthesis of an actually infinite series, we must be capable of such a synthesis. I am intrigued, though I would like to see this aspect of Särman's account developed further. It seems that there are independent reasons to think that Spinoza would reject the possibility of synthesizing an infinite whole in this way -- in particular, of building an actual infinity from given parts. Though Särman rightly points out that, for Spinoza, thought about the infinite is not out of bounds for human beings, since, on Spinoza's view every idea contains an adequate idea of God in some way, that is different from the view that human beings can synthesize an actually infinite array into a single whole. More could be said about how the synthesis of an actually infinite chain of causes gets along with Spinoza's view that an actual infinity cannot be built up from parts.
Sanja Särman's contribution is one of the few that moves beyond main-line metaphysics and engages with Spinoza's account of the passions. Her question concerns the viability of Spinoza's so-called "therapy of the passions". The idea, in brief, is this: on Spinoza's view, one of the ways to remove the grip that a certain passion has on us is to understand the object of the passion as necessitated by a series of finite causes. The problem is that the series of prior causes is actually infinite; therefore, this mode of therapy seems to require the synthesis of an actually infinite series. Särman's idea is that because this mode of therapy requires the synthesis of an actually infinite series, we must be capable of such a synthesis. I am intrigued, though I would like to see this aspect of Särman's account developed further. It seems that there are independent reasons to think that Spinoza would reject the possibility of synthesizing an infinite whole in this way -- in particular, of building an actual infinity from given parts. Though Särman rightly points out that, for Spinoza, thought about the infinite is not out of bounds for human beings, since, on Spinoza's view every idea contains an adequate idea of God in some way, that is different from the view that human beings can synthesize an actually infinite array into a single whole. More could be said about how the synthesis of an actually infinite chain of causes gets along with Spinoza's view that an actual infinity cannot be built up from parts.
● Noa Shein, The Road to Finite Modes in Spinoza’s
Ethics, pp. 97p-114
De NPDR-reviewer over dit hoofdstuk:
Noa Schein engages the deduction of finite modes in Spinoza. Schein's paper is an outlier since it doesn't take up issues directly related to infinity. Rather, it concerns a related, epistemic issue: how do finite modes follow from infinite substance and how can this be understood by those finite modes themselves (namely, us humans). But as with many of the other papers, there is a deep question about the infinite at the heart of this issue: can infinite substance be built bottom-up, so to speak, or must finite modes be derived top-down? Which is prior, the finite or the infinite? Schein's suggestion is that in the case of our epistemic access there is no straightforward answer to this question; rather each "epistemic trajectory" constitutes part of the answer. Since we (as finite modes) find ourselves in a state of confusion, this needs to be overcome before any kind of top-down derivation is available: "Once we are successful in doing this, we can see without confusion that finite modes follow from the infinite substance top-down" (112). Thus, on Schein's view our epistemic trajectory is both bottom-up and top-down; the whole story comprises both trajectories.
Noa Schein engages the deduction of finite modes in Spinoza. Schein's paper is an outlier since it doesn't take up issues directly related to infinity. Rather, it concerns a related, epistemic issue: how do finite modes follow from infinite substance and how can this be understood by those finite modes themselves (namely, us humans). But as with many of the other papers, there is a deep question about the infinite at the heart of this issue: can infinite substance be built bottom-up, so to speak, or must finite modes be derived top-down? Which is prior, the finite or the infinite? Schein's suggestion is that in the case of our epistemic access there is no straightforward answer to this question; rather each "epistemic trajectory" constitutes part of the answer. Since we (as finite modes) find ourselves in a state of confusion, this needs to be overcome before any kind of top-down derivation is available: "Once we are successful in doing this, we can see without confusion that finite modes follow from the infinite substance top-down" (112). Thus, on Schein's view our epistemic trajectory is both bottom-up and top-down; the whole story comprises both trajectories.
Als ik die samenvatting van en dat commentaar op de laatste twee
hoofdstukken lees, mis ik erg de benadering van Wolfgang Bartuschat (wiens naam
- zoals bij books.google te zien is – ook niet in het boek voorkomt). Het blijven diverse werelden van spinozisme...
Hallo Stan,
BeantwoordenVerwijderenWat is er in jouw ogen mis met de redenering in dat derde stukje die stelt dat het bottom-up proces voor de top-down deductie moet komen.
Groet,
Howard
Dag Howard,
BeantwoordenVerwijderenIK ben net erg gelukkig met de typering "bottom-up" vs "top-down" als het gaat om inzicht in de verhouding tussen substantie en modi, het oneindige en het eindige. Maar als ik van dat bezwaar van verwoording afzie, moet ik toegeven dat de benadering van Noa Shein toch wel veel overeenkomst heeft met de benadering van Bartuschat die ik zei te missen. Er is dus niets mis in die redenering over het "epistemic trajectory."
Intussen heeft Noa Shein haar hoofdstuk op haar academia.edu-pagina geplaatst:
BeantwoordenVerwijderenhttps://www.academia.edu/37834322/The_Road_to_Finite_Modes_in_Spinozas_Ethics?auto=download