Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Thought: Parallelisms and the Multifaceted Structure of Ideas

Melamed, Yitzhak Y.

doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00549.x

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…On Melamed's account, modes of particular attributes (such as modes of Thought and Extension) pertain uniquely to the attribute under which they are conceived, and hence may only be conceived under a given attribute (a mode of Extension, for example, qua mode of a particular attribute, may only be considered under the attribute of Extension). By contrast, modes of God are not modes of any particular attribute at all, and may–according to Melamed–be considered ‘under all attributes’ (2011, 11). Crucially, on this view for any parallel pair consisting of modes of particular attributes (such as the pair consisting of my mind and my body), each member of the pair may be understood as an aspect of one and the same mode of God; more generally, each mode of a particular attribute may be understood as merely an attribute-relative aspect of a particular mode of God.…”

Section: The Affirmation-based Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

Murray

2013

Can. J. of Philosophy

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My project in this paper is to fill a gap in Spinoza's theory of metaphysical individuation. In a few brief passages of the Ethics, Spinoza manages to explain his views on the nature of composition and the part-whole relation, the metaphysical facts which ground the individuation of simple bodies and the extended individuals they compose, and the persistence of one and the same individual through time and mereological change. Yet Spinoza nowhere presents a corresponding account of the individuation of simple ideas, or the minds such ideas compose. While it is initially tempting to locate the details of such an account in Spinoza's views on the relation between the mental and physical domains, I argue here that such approaches fail, in conflicting with Spinoza's insistence that the mental and the physical are conceptually and explanatorily independent. By contrast, I show that for Spinoza, each idea essentially possesses the property of affirming the existence of its object, and that such properties are well-suited to serve as the principle of ideal individuation Spinoza never explicitly provided.

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Section: The Affirmation-based Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

Murray

2013

Can. J. of Philosophy

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“…3 For EIp10's role in epistemology and in Spinozist responses to skepticism, see Perler (2017), Peterman (2018), Schneider (2016), and Steinberg (2009). Finally, for human ignorance of other attributes, see Bennett (1984) and Melamed (2013b), both following up on Spinoza's correspondent Tschirnhaus, who originally expressed the puzzle.…”

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Spinoza’s EIp10 As a Solution to a Paradox about Rules: A New Argument from the Short Treatise

Rauschenbach

2020

Journal of Modern Philosophy

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The tenth proposition of Spinoza's Ethics reads: "Each attribute of substance must be conceived through itself." Developing and defending the argument for this single proposition, it turns out, is vital to Spinoza's philosophical project. Indeed, it's virtually impossible to o verstate its i mportance. Spinoza and his interpreters have used EIp10 to prove central claims in his metaphysics and philosophy of mind (i.e. substance monism, mind-body parallelism, mind-body identity, and finite subject individuation). It's crucial for making sense of his epistemology (i.e. Spinoza's account of knowledge and response to skepticism) and in resolving puzzles within the Ethics (i.e. explaining human ignorance of all but two attributes). Even those who do not attribute some of the above claims to Spinoza need EIp10 to defend much of what they believe about Spinoza's system. This paper locates a previously unnoticed argument for this proposition in Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being. There, Spinoza shows himself concerned with a powerful and underappreciated form of philosophical skepticism, one with echoes in the work of his contemporary Leibniz as well as in the later Wittgenstein. Spinoza's introduction of EIp10 in the Ethics circumvents this form of skepticism, solving the problem the Short Treatise envisions while also explaining that text's argument's absence from the explicit justificatory structure of the Ethics.

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“…9 This objection was raised by Gueroult in what he calls a set of Cartesian and idealist objections to Spinoza that appear when comparing E2p1 and E2p2(Gueroult, 1997b, p. 40-43).10 The corollary of this objection is the claim that there is a priority of thought over extension. The most recent defender of this claim isMelamed (2013), who considers that thought is not on a par with other attributes and it actually has priority over them. I will not address Melamed's argument here, but it is interesting to note that he tries to make the rejection of idealism compatible with the priority claim.…”

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confidence: 99%