Spinoza`s Monism

Published posthumously, Baruch Spinoza s philosophical treatise Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order sets out to systematically and mathematically outline Spinoza s arguments on the nature of the universe and the laws that governs it, using a series of definitions and axioms to derive a great many propositions. Spinoza s philosophy of substances, attributes, and modes can almost be seen as a response to the work of Descartes even if it departs considerably from Descartes s initial theories, the influence is evident in the structure of the argument and some of the underlying assumptions of Spinoza s work. In this essay, only the first part of Ethics, On God, will be taken into account when trying to explain what Spinoza means by a mode and the distinction between infinite and finite modes. To understand the notion of modes and any internal distinctions, one must first work through Spinoza s ideas of substance and attribute.

Before Spinoza, most major thinkers including Descartes viewed the world as being composed of multiple material and immaterial substances, and these substances were to some extent capable of an independent existence that is to say, it is possible to conceive of these substances, or more precisely of finite substances, without necessarily having to conceive of other finite substances. In this tradition, however, not everything is capable of independent existence, far from it: size, shape, and thoughts depend on substances to be able to be conceived of. These are examples of modes, and just like how there are two types of substances, there are also two types of modes, material and immaterial. Here, modes are any property of a substance that is not intrinsically necessary to the existence of the substance. Descartes s piece of wax, for example, has certain properties, like being hard and round and emitting a small noise when hit, but when that piece of wax is put next to the fire, it becomes liquid and formless and emits no noise. Almost all of the wax s modes have been altered, but it remains the same piece of wax as the fundamental property of the substance is unaltered, the fundamental property, which can also be called the attribute, in this case being extension. Were the piece of wax to no longer extend in any way or shape, then one might speak of a change in the substance for the substance would no longer exist. The nature of immaterial substances and modes can be understood in analogous terms.

Portions of this common sense version of metaphysics are replicated in Spinoza s own, but there are significant and substantial differences. First, Spinoza believes that we have a knowledge of God before we have knowledge of the fintie world, which is the opposite of Descartes s metaphysics, and thus has implications for how the rest of Spinoza s work logically reads. Most radically, a position that will be further developed momentarily, Spinoza rejects the conventional pluralism of substances, instead insisting that there is only one infinite substance, that can be called either God or Nature, which are the same thing under Spinozistic metaphysics. This theory is called substance monism. In this theory, modes are still dependent on the substance, but there are differences in the Spinozistic notion of substance which is drawn out in the following proof:

1. I-D4: Every substance has at least one attribute.

I-P5: Two substances cannot share the same attribute. I-D6: God has all possible attributes. I-P11: God exists. I-P14: Therefore, no other substance other than God can exist. The conclusion is supported by the commonly shared notion that God is an infinite being, and as an infinite being, he contains infinite attributes, but goes against the idea as espoused by Descartes and others that God is necessarily an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being. Spinoza rejects the idea that any of these attributes can be attributed to God since as Curley puts it in his section on the Definition of God our arbitrary definitions cannot legislate such a being into existence. The only attributes that can be attributed to a substance that humans are aware of are thought and extension. By Descartes definition, God is supremely perfect, what must mean that He is also absolutely infinite that which is infinite must materially extend infinitely (the substance has the attribute of extension) and immaterially manifest infinite thoughts (the substance has the attribute of thought). Since God has both the attributes of extension and thought, no other substance may have these attributes, so God is the only substance that exists.

The most controversial point of this argument, aside from the conclusion, is in step 2, I-P5, which claims that two substances cannot share the same attribute. Spinoza supports his position by maintaining that were two substances to share the same attribute, they would be indistinguishable from one another when stripped of all but their fundamental properties (attributes), and thus would effectively be considered the same substance. This is not a popular claim. Leibniz s objection to P5 points out that, if it is possible for a substance to have more than one attribute (which is possible under Spinoza s theory, since God has infinite attributes, i.e. more than one), then it should be possible for substances to share one attribute and not all, hence being distinguishable.

But even if one grants that P5 holds, they may still wonder how it is that we conceive of anything else in the universe, if everything is one substance. Under substance monism, modes are affectations of the substance, not-intrinsic properties of a substance that can change to reflect different things. According to Spinoza, the greatness of a substance s essence determines how many modes that substance may take. Relatively finite objects, like geometric shapes, take relatively few modes/properties, but an infinite substance as it is argued that God is can proportionally take infinite modes. It is also entirely possible that the infinite substance has different modes in different areas at different times, and our basis for distinguishing between various finite objects comes down to recognizing various finite and infinite modes.

Before moving on to a discussion of the significance between finite and infinite mode, we can reiterate here a summarized distinction between substance, attribute, and mode, as the terms are defined by Spinoza. Everything that exists is either a substance or a mode. A substance is an independent entity that exists in of itself. An attribute is what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence or fundamental property. An attribute is important to being able to properly make sense of a substance a substance abstracted from its attribute is, in a way, an empty notion. Pure substance with no qualifier is hard to picture, but both an extended substance and a thinking substance are ideas that the human brain is ready to accept. Mode has previously been defined as affectations of substance, which are dependent on the substance to give them form and include everything from shape and color to the complex ideas that a human can hold in their mind. All physical entities and thoughts are complex modes of one infinite substance.

As for the actual difference between infinite and finite, it boils down to a difference in the degree of fundamental-ness, or how important a certain mode is when observing a substance. Finite objects can be viewed as smaller or larger portions of one continuous object, whereby in temporal and spatial qualifiers make their simultaneous existence a non-issue, free from contradiction in this, there seems to be little that is fundamental to any observation, with size and shape failing to properly predicate the existence of any object. However, there are properties that are able to qualify non-finite objects, which can in turn be used to negatively define finite ones. As put forth in I-P21-23, everything that necessarily follows from one of God s infinite attributes, is itself, necessarily infinite. From the attribute of extension, one gets the infinite mode of motion an rest for the attribute of thought, one gets the infinite mode of intellects.

Finite modes, in contrast, do not follow necessarily from God s attributes, and are therefore limited. Finite modes are able to come into existence and disappear just as quickly, in accordance with the natural laws of causation that have been created by God (or Nature, or the Infinite Substance). In I-P28, Spinoza says, Every finite thing can neither exists nor produce an effect unless it is determined this way by another finite substance and so on into eternity. There must be a cause for everything, however, and as with other theories of God, Spinoza s great causer is this infinite being. This here argues that finite modes follow conditionally from God and not absolutely. In this way, Spinoza s monism can be read as a form of determinism as well as a form of materialism.

As a conclusion to this essay, one might choose to reflect on the implications of Spinoza s distinction of finite and infinite modes suggesting that every finite object is somehow determined by the laws and inertia of some infinite substance. However, one might also want to consider if Spinoza s monism is in all honestly necessarily religious. Spinoza s conception of the universe as all being different forms of the same substance presents a nice image of unity and peacefulness that is not undermined if the infinite substance is merely an infinite substance devoid of the attributes normally associated with the Christian God. Moreover, to the best of current scientific knowledge, is the universe not made up of the same three particles, just in infinitely different combinations? Such a theory seems well in line with monism, where everything is composed of the same substance, and it is accessory attributes that distinguish different object from one another as modes do in monism.