The masterpiece of the ethics of modern times - the treatise "Ethics" by Spinoza - was completed in 1675. However, the author postponed the publication after he was informed that this would cause even greater scandal than his "Theological and Political Treatise." In the end, the book was published on the initiative of the friends of the Dutch philosopher several months after his death, in 1677.
Axiomatic method
The main provisions of Spinoza's Ethics are presented in the form of geometric proof in the style of Euclidean Elements, although Institutio Theologica (The Fundamentals of Theology) by Proclus, an axiomatic representation of neoplatonic metaphysics, compiled in the 5th century, probably served as more direct inspiration. The author, apparently, believed that the geometric presentation of ideas would be clearer than the traditional narrative style of his earlier works. Therefore, he began with a set of definitions of key terms and a series of self-evident âaxiomsâ and derived from them âtheoremsâ or statements.
Part I of Spinoza's Ethics does not contain introductory or explanatory materials to assist the reader. Apparently, the author initially considered this unnecessary. Nevertheless, by the middle of Part I, he added various notes and observations, so that the reader would understand the meaning of the conclusions he reached. Towards the end of Part I, the content of Spinoza's Ethics was supplemented by polemical essays and introductions to various topics. Thus, the form of work as a whole is a mixture of axiomatic evidence and philosophical narrative.
sources of inspiration
Spinoza's âethicsâ is based on three Jewish sources, which the author probably knew from his early intellectual life.
The first is the âDialogues of Loveâ by Leon Ebreo (also known as Yehuda Abrabanel), written at the beginning of the 16th century. Spinoza's library had a copy of this book in Spanish. It is the source of key phrases that the Dutch philosopher uses at the end of Part V to describe the culmination of human intellectual activity, namely the observation of the world âfrom the point of view of eternityâ, with âintellectual love for Godâ as the ultimate goal.
Spinoza also used at least one argument from the 15th-century Spanish Jewish philosopher Hassday bin Abraham Crescas, whose criticism of Aristotle was printed in Hebrew in the middle of the 16th century.
Finally, the author seems to have had access to the Heavenly Gates by Abraham Cohen de Herrera, the most philosophically sophisticated 17th-century Kabbalist. A disciple of Isaac bin Solomon Luria and an early member of the Amsterdam community, Herrera knew a lot of works in the field of ancient Islamic, Jewish and Christian philosophy, and was also familiar with Kabbalistic thought. Heaven's Gate - his main work, which was distributed in Amsterdam in Spanish - appeared in Hebrew in an abridged version in 1655.
Ontology and "Ethics" of Spinoza
The book is an ambitious and multifaceted work. She is ambitious because she refutes all the traditional philosophical concepts of God, the Universe and man of that time. The method of the Dutch philosopher is to demonstrate the truth about the Almighty, nature, man, religion and the common good, using definitions, axioms, consequences and scholi, that is, mathematically.
The Ethics of Benedict Spinoza is truly the best summary of his philosophy.
Although the work encompasses theology, anthropology, ontology and metaphysics, the author chose the term âethicsâ because, in his opinion, happiness is achieved through liberation from superstitions and passions. In other words, ontology is seen as a way to demystify the world and allow a person to live intelligently.
Ethics: Summary
Spinoza begins by defining 8 terms: the causes of oneself, the ultimate of its kind, substance, attribute, mode, God, freedom and eternity. This is followed by a series of axioms, one of which allegedly guarantees that the results of logical demonstrations will be true in relation to reality. Spinoza quickly comes to the conclusion that the substance must exist, be independent and unlimited. From this, he argues that there cannot be two substances with the same attribute, since then they would limit each other. This leads to the monumental conclusion from Theorem 11 that the Almighty, or substance, which consists of countless attributes expressing an infinite and eternal essence, necessarily exists.
From the definition of the Creator as a substance with innumerable attributes and other judgments about essence, it follows that apart from God, neither substance can be represented nor exist (Theorem 14), everything exists in God, without which nothing can be represented, nor exist ( Theorem 15). This is the core of Spinoza's metaphysics and ethics. God is everywhere, and all that exists is his modification. He is known to people only by his two attributes - thinking and extension (the quality of possessing spatial dimensions), although the number of His attributes is infinite. Later in Part I of âEthicsâ, Spinoza establishes that everything that happens necessarily follows from the nature of God, and that there can be no unforeseen circumstances in it. The section ends with the attached polemic about the misunderstanding of the world by religious and superstitious people who think that the Almighty can change the course of events, and that the course of events sometimes reflects a divine judgment on human behavior.
God or nature
By God the author means an absolutely infinite being, a substance that consists of countless attributes expressing an infinite, eternal essence. God has no limit; it necessarily exists and is the only substance in the universe. In the Universe, one substance is the Most High, and everything is in Him.
The following is a summary of Spinozaâs âEthicsâ judgments about God:
- By nature, the substance is primary to its states.
- Substances with different attributes have nothing in common.
- If something has nothing to do with the other, then they cannot be the causes of each other.
- Things are distinguished by attributes of substances or modes.
- In nature, substances of the same nature may exist.
- A substance cannot be produced from another.
- Substance is inherent in existence.
- The substance is necessarily infinite.
- A thing that has a greater reality or being has more attributes.
- The attributes of one substance must be presented through themselves.
- God, or substance, which consists of an infinite number of attributes expressing an eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.
- No attribute of a substance can be represented by a concept from which it follows that this substance can be divided.
- Absolutely infinite substance is indivisible.
- No substance, except God, can neither exist nor be represented.
This proves that the Creator is infinite, necessary and without reason, in three simple steps. First, Spinoza claims that two substances can share an entity or attribute. He then proves the existence of a substance with countless attributes. It follows from this that its existence excludes the existence of any other. Since in this case there should be an attribute. However, God already has all the attributes. Therefore, besides Him there is no other substance.
God is the only substance, therefore everything else exists in Him. These things, which are in the attributes of the Almighty, the author calls mods.
What are the implications of this concept of God? In Ethics, Spinoza sees Him as an immanent, universal cause that ensures the continuity of everything that exists. This represents a break with the God of Revelation, which is presented as a transcendental cause in the world. According to Spinoza, the world necessarily exists because the divine substance has an attribute of existence, whereas in the Judeo-Christian tradition God could not create the world.
Judgment 29: Nothing is accidental in nature; everything is determined by the necessity of the action and existence of nature in a known manner.
However, there are differences in how things depend on God. Some parts of the Universe are directly controlled by the Creator and it is necessary: ââthese are endless modes, which include the laws of physics, the truths of geometry, the laws of logic. Individual and concrete things are causally farther away from God. Final modes are violations of the attributes of the Almighty.
The metaphysics of the Creator of Spinoza is best summarized by the following sentence: "God or Nature." According to the philosopher, nature has two sides: active and passive. Firstly, there is God and his attributes, from which everything else follows: this is Natura naturans, that which nature creates. The rest, appointed by the Almighty and its attributes, is Natura naturata, that which nature has already created.
Thus, the fundamental insight of Spinoza in Part I is that nature is an indivisible whole, without reason, essential. Outside of it there is nothing, and everything that exists is part of it. The unique nature, single and necessary, is what Spinoza calls God. Because of its inherent necessity, there is no teleology in the Universe: nothing should end. The order of things simply follows God with indestructible determinism. All talk about the plans, intentions or goals of the Almighty is just fictitious anthropomorphists.
Spinoza and Descartes
In the second part of Ethics, Benedict Spinoza considers two attributes through which people understand the world - thinking and extension. The last form of understanding develops in the natural sciences, and the first - in logic and psychology. For Spinoza there is no problem, unlike Descartes, an explanation of the interaction between mind and body. They are not separate entities causally interacting with each other, but simply different aspects of the same events. Spinoza accepted Descartes' mechanistic physics as the right way to understand the world in terms of extension. Separate essences of the body or spirit are the âmodesâ of substance: bodily - in terms of the attribute of extension, and mental - thinking. Since God is the only substance, then all the essences of the body and spirit are His modes. Since modes are created by nature and are transient, the Most High, or substance, is eternal.
Human
Part II is devoted to the ethics of Spinozaâs personality, the origin and nature of people. The two attributes of God that we know are extension and thinking.
If the Most High is material, this does not mean that He has a body. Indeed, God is not matter itself, but the extension of its essence, since extension and thinking are two different attributes that have nothing in common. Stretching modes are physical organs, and thinking is ideas. Since they have nothing in common, the spheres of matter and mind are causally closed systems and heterogeneous.
One of the urgent problems of the philosophy of the XVII century and perhaps the most famous legacy of Descartes' dualism is the problem of the relationship of two radically different substances, such as the mind and body, the question of their union and their interaction. In short, in Ethics, Spinoza denies that man is a combination of two substances. His mind and body are expressions of one thing: man. And since there is no interaction between mind and body, no problem arises.
Cognition
The human mind, like God, has ideas. Spinoza analyzes in detail the composition of man, since his goal is to show that he is part of nature, unlike those who think of man as an empire in an empire. This has serious ethical implications. Firstly, this means that people are deprived of their freedom. Since the mind and events in consciousness are ideas that exist in a causal series of ideas that come from God, our actions and our will need to be predetermined, like other natural events. The Spirit intends to wish this or that for a reason which is determined by another reason, and so on to infinity.
According to Spinoza, nature is always the same, and its power to act is the same everywhere. Our feelings, our love, our anger, our hatred, our desires, our pride are governed by the same necessity.
Our affects are divided into active and passive states. When the cause of an event lies in our own nature, or rather, in our knowledge or adequate ideas, then this is an action. But when something happens for an inadequate reason (outside of our nature), then we are passive. Because the Spirit is active or passive, Spinoza says that the mind increases or decreases its ability to be. He calls the conatus, a kind of existential inertia, our tendency to persist in being.
Freedom is the rejection of evil passions, those that make us passive, in favor of the joyful passions that make us active and therefore autonomous. Passions are associated with knowledge, ideas sufficient for human storage. In other words, he must free himself from our dependence on feelings and imagination, from what affects us, and rely on rational abilities as much as possible.
Joy strengthens our power to act. All human emotions, since they are passive, are directed outward. Awakened by desires and passions, we seek or avoid those things to which we attribute the cause of joy or sorrow.
Path to freedom
Physical modes, which are biological, have a property that is different from simple stretching, namely the cone (âstressâ or âeffortâ), the desire for self-preservation. Unconsciously, biological modes are also caused by emotions of fear and pleasure to act in a certain way. People as biological modes are in a state of slavery while they act exclusively emotionally. In Part V of âEthicsâ (âHuman Freedomâ), Spinoza explains that freedom is achieved by understanding the power of emotions over human actions by rationally accepting things and events that he does not control, as well as by increasing his knowledge and improving his intellect. The highest form of knowledge consists of the intellectual intuition of things in their existence as modes and attributes of eternal substance, or God. This is consistent with the vision of the world in terms of eternity. This kind of knowledge leads to a deeper understanding of God, which is all things, and ultimately to intellectual love for the Almighty, the form of bliss that makes up the rational-mystical experience.
Virtue and happiness
Virtue, according to Spinoza, is the path to happiness. It is to live by knowing nature. The mind lives according to the conatus and seeks what is good for us. Final knowledge, or knowledge of the third kind, refers to understanding the essence of things, not their temporal dimension, but from the point of view of eternity. Ultimately, it is knowledge of God that leads to happiness, which is the goal of man.
In short, Spinoza's âEthicsâ is like stoicism, which claims that worldly vanity distracts us, and only fatalism can free us from sorrow. The wise understands that he is an integral part of nature, and is pleased with it. He is free and independent, because, following nature, perfectly harmonizes with it, knowing God.