Mirroring Spinoza's Mind

Dalton, Peter

doi:10.1093/019512815x.003.0007

Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes 2002

DOI: 10.1093/019512815x.003.0007

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Mirroring Spinoza's Mind

Peter Dalton¹

Abstract: This essay explores Spinoza’s theory of the mind. It argues that Spinoza’s theory is marred by obscurities, omissions, questionable inferences, a heavy dependence on theological view of reality, and incoherence. Fourteen Spinozistic theses about the mind are presented, and the most serious problems of the reconstructed theory are discussed. A model that functions like a Spinozistic mind that solves or avoids the problems is then described.

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2018

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“…Peter Dalton (2002) considers this a serious problem: it seems to him that according to this account, one cannot have ideas other than the ideas of bodily states (Dalton 2002, 151). It is true that Spinoza's account of affections seems to head this way.…”

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'An Activity Whereby the Mind Regards Itself': Spinoza on Consciousness

Joppová¹

2018

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Baruch Spinoza's philosophy of mind stirs up the disputes about the nature of body-mind relations with its rigorous and naturalistic monism. The unity of body and mind is consequential of his metaphysics of the substance, but the concept of the unity of the mind and its idea rightfully confuses Spinoza's commentators. Many have been tempted to interpret this as a possible account of consciousness, but it still has not yet been fully understood. This paper attempts to introduce an interpretation of the concept of ideas of ideas with regards to consciousness based on strict ontological monism, conceptual dualism, and self-similarity architecture, which concludes in distinguishing mental and psychic reality. While we might attribute mental reality, or mentality, to every extended thing, psychic reality is constituted by conscious ideas. And it seems to follow from Spinoza's theory that the more 'psychic' the mind is, the more it knows God.

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'An Activity Whereby the Mind Regards Itself': Spinoza on Consciousness

Joppová¹

2018

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Mirroring Spinoza's Mind

Cited by 1 publication

References 26 publications

'An Activity Whereby the Mind Regards Itself': Spinoza on Consciousness

'An Activity Whereby the Mind Regards Itself': Spinoza on Consciousness

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