A History of Philosophy | 38 Spinoza (continued), Leibniz

all right what I'd like to do today is two things one in abbreviated form to sum up what I was going to say on Friday last concerning the Spinoza on reason and emotion I gathered from the discussion that you are getting to feel fairly familiar with the main contours of Spinoza's thought and so we can summarize that rather readily then get started into Lightning's who occupies us for the rest of this week so on reason and emotion then in Spinoza there are four things that I've written on the board that I want to stress not the same outline as I had up there on Friday because I decided to abbreviate condense but this I think is it as I recall we got into the discussion by talking about Spinoza's determinism which is presupposed in his view of both reason and of the emotions and we can see that cried readily when we note his definition of an emotion which you can check for yourself if you want it's on 134 in the anthology an emotion is a bodily modification increasing or decreasing its active power now a couple of things to underscore in that first that an emotion is physically-based okay it's a bodily modification a modification being a temporary mode of bodily being remember finite modes so an emotion is a temporary mode of one's bodily existence and it has to do with the active power of the body either increasing or decreasing it power of the body yes the the causal energy with which one bodily state is followed by another bodily state so when the adrenaline flows the power is increased when you feel utterly dejected emotionally the power is reduced an emotion is a bodily modification increasing or decreasing active power now that is basic definition so it's apparent the two emotions then are physically caused but keep in mind that the parallel the accompaniment of every bodily change is the other aspect of a being that is to say if thought and physical extension of the two attributes of being and then there is corresponding to the physical emotion a changing state of consciousness which we feel and so if we're talking of emotions as we're conscious of them we're talking of feelings or if the the emotions act on us mentally we tend to call them passions in which were pass it mentally passes so a bodily modification increasing or decreasing the active power of the body and accompanied by a changing state of consciousness now he's very explicit in the context in talking about both about both will and intellect being involved in the conscious side of the process but the emotion is basically a physical thing and we talked of it last time in the discussion in terms of what Spinoza calls con natus that driving energy that we associate with willing or wanting or desiring various cognitive functions as we call them in Psychological language the coitus so emotion then is what underlies that appetite yes and in the conscious life wanting and willing is the way in which we refer to these emotional states wanting or not wanting liking or disliking so forth so definition of emotion tip fairly clear now the most significant thing about Spinoza's theory of the emotions is that the emotions hold us in bondage then you may have noticed that the last two sections of his major work the ethics are entitled respectively human bondage and human freedom sounds like an echo of what loser or something of that but Human Bondage yes because some win in the consciousness we have in adequate ideas that in to say when we lack clarity and distinctness in our thinking then what we have is a confused idea woven into the emotional feeling and it is the emotional feeling that drives the consciousness rather than the clarity and distinctiveness which should rule and so bondage to emotions then arises from the lack the absence of clear and distinct ideas and by the same token freedom from being emotionally driven human freedom comes with clear indistinct ideas clarity of thought dispels the passions that would otherwise drive us rather than clear thought so it's going to follow in the development of his ethics that Verte you and you can follow this through on pages 145 148 so forth avert is going to be a life ruled by reason rather than controlled by emotion the rule of reason over emotion virtue is something which we acquire not by fear of evil that would be emotion emotionally-driven but only by virtue of clear distinct understanding of the consequences of what we're doing or what we're about to embark on and that life of reason then means that we have to gain clarity about the causal forces that are determining our circumstances the causal forces at work in us physically emotionally the causal forces at work in the world around us since all a part of the one all-inclusive substance in other words it is by understanding the causal mechanisms of nature and accepting them as given something that we cannot contradict it's in that acceptance of natural law that we find freedom from emotional upset and here's where that stoic ethic comes out you'll see because it's in that acceptance that there comes peace of mind in that sense for you living a life in accordance with reason virtue is its own reward and no future award is needed virtue is its own reward now he talks then of that rational acceptance but an intellectual acceptance of the ordered nosov nature is an intellectual acceptance of God or danger one or the other and in loving the ordered magnificence of nature a one is loving God and so this highest state of virtue is what he speaks of as an intellectual love of God simply enjoying the contemplation of the ordinance of nature and all the natural forces that are at work now the speak of loving God in that way is obviously the language of Spinoza's Jewish heritage here o Israel the Lord our God is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your mind with all your strengths and so that's where he picks that up but because he is the pen theist rather than a theist item for necessarily follows that God has no passions he is not affected by our love or our hate God loves himself wholly understanding himself in the totality of all clear thought but he loves himself through our love for him now you see why that is because if God understands himself through those finite modes of thought which are our ideas then God loves himself through those finite modes which are our love for God so God does not love us we're not a separate being to be loved but God loves himself through our loving him and so there is no reciprocation how can there be from God when God is all in all which includes us now that's my summary of Spinoza's view of reason and the emotion do you want to melt let over for a little bit or was it predictable by this stage of our thinking and Spinoza could you speak up a little louder yeah yeah well if by will you mean the consciousness that we have of a free choice then will is nothing more than another idea yes see it is a consciousness of preferring of affirming or denying it's nothing more than another idea and like all other ideas it is caused in the whole stream of antecedent ideas so a act of will is a state of consciousness confusedly conceived as free whereas it is causally deter yes the agape love of the Bible in the sense that sometimes - self-interest I suppose I I don't know that he talks about it anywhere but my guessing's that the way he would respond is that that self-denying love is simply one aspect of that kind of intellectual love of the totality which has God which then surpasses one's love for one's own pleasures or desires or whatever other emotionally-driven states we have our no no did I say his loving us or what I should have said what I intended to say is God loving himself through our loving him well no because you can only say God loves us back if if us is something other than God now we're not we could love God because God is more than we are we are part of the Divine Being and therefore we can love the whole of which were part get it but there is no such focused love because in effect what we need is a diagram like this where this segment loves the whole you see but the whole in loving itself doesn't focus on particular segments David yeah there is this note that runs runs through his his thinking and I think it's around page 148 that he he speaks of the knowledge of consequences let's see if I can find that exact passage that's seed now I I don't catch it now but check with me later David and maybe we can track that down okay consequences for us would involve relationship to the whole but I'll have to track down the particular passage right right that you see our lack of love is accompanied by confused ideas now we have confused ideas but God is not so God has perfect clarity of thought and therefore has no lack of love for the object of thought which is himself that doesn't keep God from loving himself under how he would respond to that you see if he says yeah wait a minute yeah he would respond God is more than the sum total of all humans yes he and humans are in a minority in comparison with the totality of nature now the totality of nature that may not involve conscious loving nonetheless accepts its place within the whole and in that acceptance of the whole there is that equivalent of love which therefore out does your little hates okay now I'm extrapolating there but I rather think that's the way he'd go because it's not only in humans that you have the double aspect it's in all aspects of being now other aspects of being may not be conscious Spinoza doesn't talk like the Prince of Wales does about talking to the flowers and the plants and so forth no but he does recognize that there is the the intellect side of things that is manifest not in consciousness all the time but at least in intelligible order and that intelligible order is there what do we see is degrees of consciousness in different things ranging from the fullest clarity of complete self-consciousness in God to moments of modes of clear and distinct consciousness in us though not all of our consciousness is clear and distinct to more confused consciousness in animals to know consciousness but responsiveness to what's going on still in vegetative life you'll see so there is this intellectual ordering throughout yeah he seems to mean a conscious being and and I say that because if God has full clarity and distinctness of thought as he claims God does have and then that implies consciousness in that whole hierarchy of understandings God's is the clearest and the fullest where's the passage where he says that 158 okay from what has been said we clearly understand where in our salvation consists and notice he equates with salvation blessedness freedom namely in the constant and eternal love towards God or in God loves toward men no either or or are they one on the same now as you read on you notice in let's see by Hawkins pinpoint that presage 158 and say yeah the corollary right above the note that you drew attention to God insofar as he loves himself loves men consequently the love of God towards men and the intellectual love of the mind towards God are identical okay as so constant in eternal love towards God is God's love towards man so it's there's no focused individual love of God in response to the individual now this love or blessedness the Bible calls glory not undeservedly that whether it be referred to God or to the mind it may rightly be called acquiescence of spirit there's that acceptance you'll see acquiescent it's not really distinguished from glory so that is that salvation that blessedness is nothing more than the enjoyment of that contemplative love of God nothing more than that he loves us but no God doesn't love us in return yes a rather is that God understands and accepts fully the whole cosmic order of which were part yes a of which were part the whole cosmic order which is himself but that doesn't mean to say that there is a personalised affection on God's part for you as an individual okay that's the thing he's backing away from so if you're thinking of salvation in the personalized sense of Scripture the individualized sense or in terms of a life Hereafter that's not Spinoza that may be the Jewish Scriptures but it's not spin out okay all right I'm ready to leave Spinoza at this juncture okay that little wrap-up oh not yet yes Kail yeah in 20th century terms he wants to DeMuth ologies it that is to say to reinterpret it in terms of his rationalistic pantheism detaching what he sees as the essence of the Jewish faith from the narrative story within which it came including the notion of Yahweh as a being who acts in special miraculous ways and so forth that's part of the story within which the essence of Judaism is communicative are you familiar with the distinction between reformed Judaism and Orthodox Judaism today reformed Judaism being analogous to some sort of I was going to say Unitarianism but a Unitarianism in which the the emphasis is on certain ideals for humankind and for nature as a whole rather than on personal relationship to a to a moral deity who's concerned with justice and love get the distinction well yeah I don't know whether he would say that I think he would have to say probably that all religions are really confused understandings of the God who is the one all-inclusive being such as he has spelled out I think it has to say that and I think he would probably say that some are more confused than others which I guess anybody who has a preference would say anyway but he would say it world how do you clarify your ideas and I think his response is really twofold one by the kind of contemplation which involving Wharton in a Socratic kind of dialectic gets ideas cognitive but secondly in dispelling emotion which confuses our and distracts our thinking so you need a focused and undistracted mind okay now those two things I pick up not only from Spinoza but from his predecessor Descartes who when he's talking about clear and distinct ideas talks about a concentration of an undistracted mind or words to that effect you'll see tie that into the theory of emotions and you get the two criteria now I thought you were going to when you started I thought you were going to ask this question if that is the way we gain freedom but if we are in no sense free to choose to do it how do we get ourselves to do it you see and I the only thing that I can say to that is that there there is I guess we have it over here there is this pervasive drive that runs through nature including our mental meanderings so that you like the cat with a mouse you won't let it go Yesi in fact isn't that what's going on now we won't let Spinoza go you see we want to get clear how can this be yeah so it's as if there is a there is a natural drive that keeps pushing us keeps pushing us and when we think we're choosing to concentrate on this it's really the alternation between some confusing emotion and the other okay all right now in leaving Spinoza don't imagine that we're leaving this kind of agenda we're not in fact this segment of the board I've put up a very summary comparison between Descartes Spinoza indictments on three of the main features in Spinoza's agenda namely the relationship between the one and the many theme which goes back to the pre-socratics the mind-body issue and freedom and determinism and obviously these are the key themes all the way through in the case of Descartes you've got a dualism of course of mind and body a dualism within a theistic context so let's call it a theistic dualism okay and when we talk of dualism in Descartes we are speaking qualitatively there are there is a qualitative duality between mental and physical substances thinking things and extending things they're qualitatively different things distinguish a qualitative view from a quantitative view how many minds are there how many bodies are there well yeah I know you have only one of each but altogether now that would be the quantitative and of course the significant thing in Descartes is the fact that he is a qualitative quantitative obviously qualitative duyst Spinoza we say as a monist yes he's a qualitative monist take it back he's a quantitative monist a quantitative monist numerically there is one substance one thing now there are qualitative what qualitative aspects of the one being that he's a quantitative monist with a qualitative dualism pluralism Leibniz on the other hand is a pluralist how many substances are there many many substances he's a quantitative pluralist an indefinite number quantitative pluralist but he's also a qualitative pluralist because this vast number of different substances differ qualitatively by degree by degree what he is doing is reintroducing is reintroducing the medieval notion of a hierarchy of being an analogy of being in which all beings have analogous qualities but differ proportionately by degree so you have degrees of difference qualitatively within the quantitative plurality of limits now we'll flesh that out just a little while I wanted to get the contrasts first now when it comes to mind body Descartes of course causal interaction Spinoza of course double aspect limits parallelism yes mind and body are different substances bodies are very complex substance mind is a simple substance but there's no causal interaction no causal interaction that they simply are so made and if you like pre-programmed that they keep step with each other they keep time with each other perfectly the idea corresponding to the bodily state perfectly pre-arranged pre orchestrated so parallelism in the case of Lightman's on freedom and determinism well with regards to freedom of the will take heart is an indeterminate the will is free to a thermal to deny that's why it has to restraint has to be restrict Spinoza is a determinist by virtue of the inner causal processes and in our determinism lane it's different the game he finds freedom and determinism compatible compatible because he's thinking of freedom not as freedom from mechanical causes mechanistic but as freedom to pursue goals aims to actualize one's inner entelechy does that sound like scholasticism it is you see this the these things in lightness arise because he is rejecting mechanistic science as an ultimate explanation he's not satisfied that its ultimate or not it's only dealing at a phenomenal level he asks this question this this mechanistic science tells us that everything is explained in terms of matter and motion well what is there when matter this integrates and motion ceases what's left and his answer not matter but energy source in other words Lyme Nets is conceiving of energistics physics around 1700 energistics physics in a teleological metaphysic where everything is aimed oriented and there are inner intelligence everything has its own nature and it's in the outworking of that nature that the teleology is eminent so that initial picture then introduces what Leibniz is up to let's see yeah let me put it this way live in its living as he does around 1700 is seeing emerging conflicts between science and religion he thought it was evident enough in people like Hobbes and Spinoza conflicts between science and religion and fairly widespread way beyond those individuals mechanistic science poses problems for Christianity problems about human freedom problems about the human soul problems therefore about a future life and problems about the nature of God and how he is related to how he relates to the world of nature and because of these implicit problems within mechanistic science accepted as a philosophy that tells you about the ultimate nature of reality he rejects mechanistic science as an account of the ultimate nature of reality he is an anti realist about mechanistic science they were realist about the kind of science he and visuals now I I might add that lightness was not professionally an academic he was a German diplomat constantly engaged in shuttle diplomacy constantly on the road which is why he doesn't ride along systematic treaties like Spinoza but the shorter works that we have some of in the anthology he he's concerned about the religious wars that were raging throughout Europe in the day and is trying to work for a united Europe and the United christened so he's trying to engage in those kinds of negotiations and of course in order to do that bringing together opposing conflicting parties he needs something of a philosophical worldview to provide some foundations to which to appeal and he's convinced that a mechanistic science which can only talk of opposing forces cannot impart any sense of purpose underlying purpose which can provide the basis for the kind of Europe that he envisions as so the conflict between religion and science now in effect what do we see when we get to lightness is a questioning not only of the mechanistic system and the devising of a new system that I'll focus more effectively on the human mind and human freedom not only a questioning of the mechanistic system but also a questioning of the rationalist approach what you find in in live Nets is theological ideas feeding into his thinking in a way in which they did not in Spinoza and sur and not even in Descartes Descartes was content with conclusions that harmonized with his religion what limits is after is some underlying vision of a purposeful creator active in the creation and that's what runs throughout his whole thinking now with that in mind the one step further and still by way of introduction quite evidently from what I've said so far the crux of the matter for limits is going to be the concept of substance the concept of substance he is opposed to date currents of view of substance material substance in this case as simply extended stuff occupying space because that notion of matter fails to explain other very basic properties of material bodies such as inertia the fact that a body continues in the state of motion or rest in which it naturally is and he therefore argues that extension is not a basic primary property it's derivative rather than basic an extended substance is a composite of more basic ingredients and the properties of extension are due to the relationships between those basic ingredients rather than being simply compilations of extending substances the way Democritus and the atomists have said a body is a composite of non extended entities an extension is a result of the composite the ultimate ingredients of substance therefore are what he calls monads and they the basic units of all reality they are units of force energy rather than units of extended stuff now by the same token he is dissatisfied with Spinoza's conception of substance because with Spinoza's determinism there is nothing really contingent in the entirety of nature everything has its own descendants and there is no contingency on the incidental accidental that they happen he does not like the Aristotelian conception of substance because for Aristotle a primary substance is still a composite rather than what's basic and even Aristotle's analysis of substance into prime matter and form it doesn't tell us enough about matter try matter does not explain inertia any more than de cartes concept of substance explained inertia and when he looks at Newton's physics he dislikes Newton's conceptions not only a conception not only of matter substance but of space and time because this uniform infinite empty space which has fixed locations where you convert substances says Newton is a shear abstraction with no basis at all in reality so he argues for the relativity of time and space relativity in 1700 ok I realized the debate over which came first science or philosophy is sort of like the chicken and the egg debate but it's very interesting to see how Democritus was hundreds of years before mechanistic science and live nets a couple of hundred before what came later well here's what he says about space as from my own opinion I've said more than once that I hold space to be something merely relative I hold it to be an order of coexistence --is as time is an order of successive events for space denotes in terms of possibility an order of things existing at the same time considered as existing together and when many things are seen together one perceives the order of things among themselves and then a little later he says in fact in the next paragraph space is absolutely uniform without things placed in it one point of space does not absolutely differ in any respect from another point of space from hence it follows that it's impossible there should be any reason why God notice how God is involved in having reasons yes a it's impossible that there should be a reason why God preserving the same situation of bodies among themselves should have placed them in space in one way and not another way or why everything wasn't placed in an entirely contrary way by changing East into West if space is nothing else than order relation nothing at all without buttons then those two states one such as it now is the other the quite contrary wouldn't differ at all if space is entirely empty and nothing space is the empty possibility of ordered relationships of things in time well the same is the case with respect to time supposing anyone should ask why did God create everything a year sooner and the same person should infer that God has done something concerning which it is not possible that there should be a reason why he did so and not otherwise the answer is this inference would be right if time was anything distinct from things existing in time if there were no events of a space-time sort there would be no time so he abandons the Newtonian conceptions of space and time know what's happening there are four key concepts of mechanistic science Newtonian science matter force or matter motion motion explained in terms of forces matter notion space time space and time by themselves are nothing the words don't refer to anything matter and motion are not the ultimates the ultimate is force energy so what you have is a complete rejection of the four key concepts of Newtonian physics replacing it with a conception of force or energy in a teleological system god's purposes well let me pause there we have a few moments questions comments would you want me to go on and elaborate on his mo Ned's and Mona dollar gee I gather you do dr. chapel yeah maybe I'd better go on and elaborate to provide a framework for answering the question all right Luis say something more than about his monads there's a tendency when first you get acquainted with line it's to view his monads as the product of a wild imagination resist that tendency view it rather as a quasi scientific hypothesis anticipating contemporary discussions about the nature of matter particle or unit of energy or just what regarded in other words as our hypothesis about energistics constituents of matter as distinct from solid pillars of matter okay now with that in mind what he does is to propose that monads are units of force differing only in their degrees of a petition and a perception two greens of a petition and their perception what is a petition but essentially Spinoza's carnitas that drive that forcefulness that in a push which seems to run through all of natural processes including our own bodily energies and desiring and willing and wanting you see there is always then this content us this a petition this this drive as this and here on picking up on the teleological notion as if there is some lore attracting towards a goal the notion of final causation is involved yeah the kinetise in Spinoza seems to be entirely efficient cause push in line it's I want to say it's pull but it's not no push it's sort of push and pull folks yeah in other words he combines in this efficient and final causation you say a push end ball the whole process of nature is energized there's some degrees of a petition so that rocks resist you're crushing them and plants and seedlings grow and bodily processes keep going on so forth but also degrees of a perception now a perception obviously is mongrelization of the word perception awareness consciousness there are degrees of awareness of consciousness of relatedness to environment responsiveness to environment not always conscious but how low degree analogues to consciousness they like the way in which they grass seed I sewed this fall after that summer drat quite unconsciously germinated and began to show its head and yeah some of its still surviving above the mud there's an awareness of what it's supposed to do and awareness well very very low degree responsiveness to warmth and moisture so there are degrees of a petition and low degree analogues of human appetite degrees of a perception and low degrees and degree analogs of human perception running all the way down the the hierarchy of being and in this hierarchy of being he accordingly distinguishes various kinds of monads at the bottom you have their monads bear monads then as you go one step further you will have soul monads or if you like life monads and then you have spirit monads and at the very top you have the supreme moment now bear monads have no distinct awareness consciousness at one point he says it's as if they're dazed stunned unconscious but that doesn't mean to say that there is no built in a petition or a perception you can have living things that are unconscious and organic processes continue and the analogy he has is more to an organism than an unconscious organism then to an unconscious machine an unconscious machine by itself does nothing and unconscious organism by itself does a lot so bare monads at the bottom so monads those giving life in the animal so here you have inanimate matter here you have an animal life and of course all degrees in between on the hierarchy and in soul monads you have some conscious perception of a consecutive sort in some advanced animals you have some memory in the sense of retention you have habits that have been formed in soul moments well in in spirit monads this is where the human spirit comes in you have abstract thought reasoning processes self consciousness not just sends awareness of stimuli but self awareness we reflect on ourselves human animals are the only ones who worry about the meaning and purpose of life as it's sometimes said and so spirit monad is the ruling thing the ruling in Turkey in human nature and then there is the supreme monad God the supreme monent full consciousness that is to say omniscient all-knowing and he would add with complete clarity and distinguish that God fully conscious all know fully powerful that is to say boundless a petition drive impetus sovereign will God who is necessary being his very essence is to exist soul I mean it's to is open to ontological arguments now the point is then that you have these different kinds of monads and in various kinds of composites let us say bare monads in composites produce just material things physical objects soul monads combined with bare monads produce animals spirit monads compose combined with soul monads and their monads human beings so rather like the Aristotelian and scholastic thing where you have vegetative so an animal soul and rational so your theory constitution of that whole hierarchy well which do you prefer the hierarchy of being or the mechanistic metaphysic well we'll pick up on this next time

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Length: 67min 31sec (4051 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2015