Spinoza's Thinking Substance and the Necessity of Modes

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (3):3-34 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The paper offers a new account of Spinoza's conception of “substance”, the fundamental building block of reality. It shows that it can be demonstrated apriori within Spinoza's metaphysical framework that (i) contrary to Idealist readings, for Spinoza there can be no substance that is not determined or modified by some other entity produced by substance; and that (ii) there can be no substance (and hence no being) that is not a thinking substance.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Acosmism or weak individuals?: Hegel, Spinoza, and the reality of the finite.Yitzhak Y. Melamed - 2009 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 48 (1):pp. 77-92.
Spinoza on Composition and Priority.Ghislain Guigon - 2011 - In Philip Goff (ed.), Spinoza on Monism. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Nature, number and individuals: Motive and method in Spinoza's philosophy.Marx W. Wartofsky - 1977 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 20 (1-4):457 – 479.
Spinoza’s Two Views of Substance.Frank Lucash - 2011 - Dialogue 50 (3):537-555.
Ch'an buddhism, western thought, and the concept of substance.Paul Wienpahl - 1971 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 14 (1-4):84 – 101.
Spinoza and process ontology.Francesca Di Poppa - 2010 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 48 (3):272-294.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-08-08

Downloads
1,970 (#4,223)

6 months
333 (#5,216)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Karolina Hubner
Cornell University

Citations of this work

Spinoza on Action and Immanent Causation.Stephen Zylstra - 2020 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102 (1):29-55.
The unity of substance and attribute in Spinoza.R. Kyle Driggers - 2021 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (1):45-63.
Hegel, Spinoza, and the ‘Principle of Individuality’.Shachar Freddy Kislev - 2018 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (4):499-522.
Reply to Yenter: Spinoza, Number, and Diversity.Galen Barry - 2016 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (2):365-374.

Add more citations

References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
The philosophical writings of Descartes.René Descartes - 1984 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Complete Works: The Rev. Oxford Translation.Jonathan Barnes (ed.) - 1984 - Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

View all 74 references / Add more references