Ethics (1677)
Deus sive Nature European considered Sphinoza as Atheist ⇒ but his works mentioned God
God of the Philosophers/Metaphysicians
- Unmoved Mover of Aristotle (pre-Socratic Ionian Xenophanes)
⇒ Value of philosophers esteemed, not the value of the normal being
- Not a personal being with loves or being
- but more rationalistic god
Monotheistic
God != nature ⇒ God creates nature
Spinoza: God = nature
- powerful, perfect being
Substances
Aristotle: Substance is that which exists in itself and not in another
Descartes: Two substances, mental and physical (dualism)
Parmenides: “Say and think only this: Being is” A single substance, numerically one.
Spinoza: Combine the conclusion of Aristotle about what substance is with the argument of Parmenides, that there can be only one single one substance
What is this? One being is alive, infinite, intelligent, all-powerful material, spacial
God is not transcend natural, not super nature cause God is nature
Substances
(1D3)
Substance is cause of itself, causa sui
Cause of itself (causa sui) = necessary existence
Something that doesn’t exist but how it can beomce?
Substances has no cause, belongs to the substance it is
It has to exists, essence includes existence
Monism
Substance is unique. There exists only one substance. Not one kind of substance, but numerically one single substance
- Something exists
- What ever exists has a sufficient cause
- Therefore a causa sui substance must exist, and
- There is at most one
Why one?
- If there are two causa sui substances, must be difference
- If there is a difference, then there must be a cause
- One causa sui substance cannot cause change in another self-caused being
Aristotle’s Idea of Substance
Color does not exists in the horse, instead of the form
Horse would exists with itself?
Nature is not a totality of things
Mode and Attribute
Attribute: That which is intellect perceives of substances as constituting its essence (1D4)
Substances has inf attributes, each attributes has inf mode
Mode: The affections of a stubstance; that is, that which is in something else and conceived through somethign else (1D5)
Each mode is connected, can be modified by others
“Mode” = modification, modality way. A mode of substance is a modification of it, some way in which substnace is modified.
“Conceived through” = explained by, made intelligible, reasonable by
Spinoza’s idea of Substances (=God)
One single, infinite, eternal, complex substance, comprising infinitely many modes of infinitely many attributes
Substances > Attribute > Mode
Invisibility implies corruption
God can’t have parts and pieces
Is god divisible?
Definition 6: By God I emean an absolutely infinite being; that is, substances
Proposition 11:
Method for the proof of god
Ontological Proof: Explain God as a being that cannot not exist. God’s essence includes existence
Cosmological Proof: God is the first cause, the aultimate cause of everything else. WIthout God the chain of cause and effect would recede forever, and the world would be without a rational foundation. Aristotle’s proof of the Unmoved Mover in Metaphysics was this type of proof
Teleological Proof (“Design argument”): Nature shows evidence of intelligent design. ← Sphinoza rejects the Teleological proof. His three arguments in Proposition 11
Reduction of Absurdity (reductio ad absurdum)
To prove P:
assume NP
show that if NP, then Q & NQ
Q and NQ is contradiction and is impossible (contradiction=False)
so not NP
therefore PFirst proof: (ontological argument)
- Suppose God does not exist
- Axiom 7: If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence
- Prop. 7: Existence belongs to the nature of substance. - Why? a. Substance cannot be produced by another b. So, from def.1, substance is self-caused, aso its essence involves edistence
- The hypothetical non-existence of God reduces to contradiction
- Therefore, God exists.
Second proof: (cosmological argument)
- For everything, there must be a cause, either of its existence or its nonexistence.
- The cause, whether of existence or non-existence, is either in the thing or in another
- A thing necessarily exists if no cause prevents its existence.
- So, if God does not exist, there must be a cause of non-existence, and this cause must be in another
- What causes God not to exist must absolute exclude God from being, and can there have nothing in commong with God
- If two things have nothing in common, one cannot prevent the other’s existence
- Therefore, no cause prevents God’s existence
- So, God exists.
There is nothing of which we can be more certain than the existence of an absolutely infinite or perfect entity