Bermudas

Contribution of Spinoza

the references between brackets re-examine with the various proposals of the first part of the Éthique .

The pantheist doctrines are not foreign with the Kabbale. In its Ethical , Spinoza affirms that pantheism is the only logical way to consider God and the universe. Although the term in question appears at the 18th century, therefore in Spinoza itself was foreign, it summarizes, though very coarsely, the essence of the thought of the author. God is not this supreme, transcendent and personal being. He is in fact impersonal and immanent in the world, i.e. he forms part of the world; better, than it is the world.

The beings, instead of being seen like a creation of God, are perceived like an affection of the substance, an expression of God. Having this at the head, one can include/understand what leads Spinoza to write its Éthique , and to do it according to the geometrical method. One can, since God is nature, and not a celestial being residing out it world, to make a very scientific study of it, with the method of the natural science. All is thus only one thing, and this only thing, it is God. It cannot, such as one sees it in the proposal 14 of the Éthique , exit their gasoline. The table is table before being a red table, and so on.

In the same way, knowing that a substance is conceived by itself and does not depend on another (déf. 3), two substances do not have anything commun run between them if they have different attributes. Spinoza does nothing but extend here definition 3. If, indeed, a substance does not depend on another, it is that it has its concept in itself, and thus its concept “does not wrap the concept of the other. ” The two substances are thus entirely independent, they do not know each other mutually. However, a thing cannot cause some another if she does not know it.

One comes to the key question, which is the determination of the things, i.e. what enables us to distinguish a thing from another. For Spinoza, it is either the “diversity of the attributes of the substances”, or “the diversity of the affections of the substances. ” Since a thing can exist only by itself, one can distinguish it only by his own properties, i.e. his attributes and his affections. However, as we showed, the substance comes before the affection. If the affections are drawn aside and that one concentrates only on the substance in itself, one cannot any more distinguish it. If it is on the other hand the attribute which determines the substance, one cannot distinguish two substances having the same attribute. One must conclude that there “cannot be in nature two or several substance of comparable nature or attribute. ” (Prop. 5) We proved that a substance cannot produce some another if it does not have anything commun run with it. We affirm now that no substance, in fact, has anything with another in common. One can deduce from it that “a substance cannot be produced by another substance. ” (Prop. 6) Voilà which concludes this first movement from the argumentation relating to the substance as such. Let us see now what is of God.

If a thing cannot be produced by another, it is that it is its own cause. That implies that “its gasoline wraps necessarily its existence” (Prop.7), therefore which it exists. However, since any substance must be single and that it necessarily exists, it must exist either like finished thing, or like infinite thing. Spinoza refutes however the thesis of the Finitude. If a substance is finished, it is that it is limited by another of comparable nature which, it also, necessarily exists. However, we showed that there cannot be two substances of comparable nature. It is thus absurd that a substance exists like finished thing. In rises that “any substance is necessarily infinite. ” (Prop. 8) That includes also God, whom we described as being an absolutely infinite being. However, if it is admitted that the gasoline wraps necessarily the existence, it must as admit as God, substance consisted an infinity of attributes, exists. (Prop. 11)

However, Spinoza holds to the skeptics a neater proof. It stresses that one cannot prove that God exists while referring to another thing because, we saw it, two different things do not know oneself one the other. One cannot cancel his existence either, for the same reasons. One must thus explain God by his own nature. However, to show that God does not exist while using concepts contained in its substance is absurd. That would amount for example showing that a table does not exist by using its color or its solidity like argument. The goal of this second movement is reached: we arrived to a definition of God and a proof of its existence. Now let us try to combine with that what we said of the matter.

God, who even exists by his nature, is indivisible. It is the case for any absolutely infinite substance, which one cannot consider differently. Indeed, let us imagine that this substance is divisible. In a case, the “pieces of infinite” would retain the attributes of their country of origin (not divided) and there would be several infinite. However, we showed it, one cannot conceive two substances having the same attributes. In the other case, the infinite substance would not be any more and, having shown that God exists indeed, that is impossible. God exists, it is infinite and indivisible. But if it is infinite, it is that it has all the possible attributes. It is thus perfect, in the classical sense of the term, since it contains necessarily more to be that anything else. Any substance must thus be explained by one of the attributes of God. But that is absurd because there cannot be two substances having the same attributes. Moreover, one substance can be explained only by itself. The only solution is to admit that nothing exists in-outside God. If something could be conceived in-outside God, this thing should be conceived as being existing. How could it then express a gasoline since all the gasolines remain as a God? This substance out of God would thus not have attributes, and since the attributes define the substance, could not exist. However, we showed that any substance necessarily exists. One can thus think no substance apart from the divine substance. There is in nature only one substance, which is God, and who has all the attributes.

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