Abstract
At the opening of the Ethics Spinoza defines God as a substance consisting of infinitely many attributes. Still, the reader of the Ethics will find only two of these attributes discussed in any detail in Parts Two through Five of the book. Addressing this intriguing gap between the infinity of attributes asserted in E1d6 and the discussion of merely the two attributes of Extension and Thought in the rest of the book, Jonathan Bennett writes: “Spinoza seems to imply that there are other [attributes] – he says indeed that God or Nature has “infinite attributes.” Surprising as it may seem, there are reasons to think that by this Spinoza did not mean anything entailing that there are more than two attributes.” In this paper I show that Bennett’s claim is fundamentally wrong and deeply misleading. I do think, however, that addressing Bennett’s challenge helps us better understand Spinoza’s notion of infinity. I begin by summarizing Bennett’s arguments and then turn to examine briefly the textual evidence for and against his reading. I respond to each of Bennett’s arguments, and conclude by pointing out some theoretical considerations that, I believe, simply refute his reading.
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Notes
- 1.
NS [Nagelate Schriften] refers to the text of the 1677 Dutch translation of Spinoza’s works. Unless otherwise marked, all quotes from Spinoza’s works and letters are from Curley’s translation. I have relied on Gebhardt’s critical edition (Spinoza Opera, 4 volumes (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Verlag, 1925)) for the Latin text of Spinoza . I use the following standard abbreviations for Spinoza’s works: TdIE - Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect [Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione], DPP – Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy [Renati des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae Pars I & II], CM – Metaphysical Thoughts [Cogitata Metaphysica], KV – Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well- Being [Korte Verhandeling van God de Mensch en deszelfs Welstand], TTP –Theological-Political Treatise [Tractatus Theologico-Politicus], Ep. – Letters. Passages in the Ethics will be referred to by means of the following abbreviations: a(-xiom), c(-orollary), p(-roposition), s(-cholium) and app(-endix); ‘d’ stands for either ‘definition’ (when it appears immediately to the right of the part of the book), or ‘demonstration’ (in all other cases). Hence, E1d3 is the third definition of part 1 and E1p16d is the demonstration of proposition 16 of part 1.
- 2.
See Spinoza’s assertion in E1p16d: “each of the attributes expresses an essence infinite in its own kind” (italics added).
- 3.
Ep. 4| IV/13/2-21.
- 4.
Bennett , “Spinoza’s Metaphysics,” 65. Italics added.
- 5.
Bennett , Study, 76; Bennett, “Spinoza’s Metaphysics,” 65.
- 6.
Bennett , Study, 78–79.
- 7.
Bennett , Study, 78.
- 8.
Bennett , Study, 76–77; Bennett, “Spinoza’s Metaphysics,” 66.
- 9.
Bennett , Study, 77.
- 10.
The closest Spinoza comes to the last claim is in a note to the first chapter of the first part of the Short Treatise where he claims: “After the preceding reflections on Nature we have not yet been able to find in it more than two attributes that belong to this all-perfect being .” (I/17/35-38). However, he immediately continues to argue against the view that God has merely two attributes : “And these give us nothing by which we can satisfy ourselves that these would be the only ones of which this perfect being would consist. On the contrary, we find in ourselves something which openly indicates to us not only that there are more, but also that there are infinite perfect attributes which must pertain to this perfect being before it can be called perfect.” (I/17/38-42).
- 11.
II/90/14-18. Italics added.
- 12.
II/90/23-28. Italics added.
- 13.
Italics added.
- 14.
II/96/12.
- 15.
Melamed , Spinoza’s Metaphysics, 169–171.
- 16.
IV/261/11-15. Italics added.
- 17.
Ep. 35| IV/181/16.
- 18.
Though I would not put much weight on the last source, since it addresses Spinoza’s 1663 book, Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, and one could argue that there Spinoza is referring to the Cartesian conception of God’s attributes.
- 19.
See Melamed , “Glimpse into Spinoza’s Metaphysical Laboratory,” 277–278.
- 20.
TTP Ch. 6| III/83/10,
- 21.
See note d| I/17/34-48.
- 22.
KV Appendix II| I/119/6–13. Cf. I/120/1-6.
- 23.
Pollock, Spinoza , 161. Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 6th Series, Volume 3, 385 (lines 12–15). Italics added. I slightly amended Pollock’s translation by replacing ‘in this world’ by ‘here’, which is more loyal to the Latin hic.
- 24.
Ep. 12| IV/53/12-14.
- 25.
E2pref| II/84/8-12. Italics added.
- 26.
Though, as we have already seen, the issue occasionally crops up in E2p13s, given the possibility of a mismatch between minds and their proper object.
- 27.
One may speculate that the version of the Ethics written by Spinoza’s twin in the third attribute would be silent about the nature of extension, since the latter kind of knowledge would be of no use in studying the measures leading to the blessedness of the mind of this third-attribute twin of Spinoza .
- 28.
E2p13.
- 29.
E2p7: “The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.”
- 30.
See Della Rocca’s elegant account of the barrier in Representation, 9–22.
- 31.
For a detailed explication of the Ideas-Things Parallelism , see Melamed , Spinoza’s Metaphysics, Chapter Five.
- 32.
For a detailed presentation of this issue, see Melamed , Spinoza’s Metaphysics, Chapter Six, and Melamed , “Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Thought.”
- 33.
Crescas , Or ha-Shem, I, 3, 3 (pp. 106–108 in the 1990 edition). Cf. Harvey, Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, 91–94, and Levy , Figures de l’infini, 204–207.
- 34.
Ep. 12| IV/62/1-10.
- 35.
See Harvey, Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, 94.
- 36.
See Descartes’s Letter to Mersenne from July 1641 (AT III 394| CSM III 185).
- 37.
See Principles of Philosophy, I 56. Cf. Comments on a Certain Broadsheet (AT VIIIB 348| CSM I 297).
- 38.
On the incomprehensibility of the infinite in Descartes, see Ariew , “The Infinite,” 17.
- 39.
Notice, however, that in contrast to the incomprehensibility of the Cartesian God, Spinoza’s “unknown attributes ” are comprehended by some finite minds , i.e., the minds of the modes of the unknown attributes.
- 40.
See my paper, “Spinoza’s Anti-Humanism.”
- 41.
“The infinite cannot be composed of a number of finite parts” (KV I 1 |I/18/10). E1p15s (II/58/27): “infinite quantity … is not composed of finite parts.” Cf. KV II 24 |I/107/1: “For how is it possible that we could infer an infinite and unlimited thing from one that is limited?”
- 42.
E1p10s| II/72/10-17. Italics added.
- 43.
Ep. 54| IV/253/7-11. Italics added. A similar argument appears at the end of E1p17s, where Spinoza argues that insofar as God is the cause of both the essence and the existence of finite things, they must differ “and cannot agree with [God] in anything except in name” (II/63/30). Italics added. Cf. CM II 11| I/274/32-34.
- 44.
The claim that there is no ratio between the infinity of God and finite things also appears in Gersonides (Milhamot ha-Shem III, 3, 23b| Wars of the Lord, vol. II, 114.), quoted above, and in Crescas , Or ha-Shem, I, 3, 3. Cf. my “Crescas and Spinoza ,” 213–214.
- 45.
Ep. 12| IV/61/9-14.
- 46.
Ep. 12| IV/59/1-13 and IV/61/15-62/10. Spinoza’s defense of actual infinity may provide further reasons for rejecting Bennett’s reading. Clearly, in the Ethics, the absolute infinity of God is the strongest kind of infinity. Given Spinoza’s admission of actual infinity , it would seem highly likely that God’s infinity is actual (and actual infinity is clearly more than two). However, Spinoza does not explicitly use the terminology of actual infinity in the Ethics, and for this reason, I avoided resting my case on this consideration.
- 47.
The main reason for the absence of this distinction seems to be that at this stage Spinoza has not yet fully developed the distinction between the substance and its attributes . The notion of attribute is not at all mentioned in Ep. 12, and in Ep. 9 – written merely a month before Ep. 12 – Spinoza virtually identifies the notions of substance and attribute (see IV/46/20-23). For a study of the development of Spinoza’s concepts of substance and attribute, see Melamed , “Glimpse into Spinoza’s Metaphysical Laboratory.”
- 48.
A reader who is still confused by Spinoza’s arguments in Eps. 64 and 66 is invited to consult my detailed reconstruction of Spinoza’s arguments in Spinoza’s Metaphysics, 156–165.
- 49.
In passing, let me note that in his 1883 Foundations of a General Theory of the Manifolds: A Mathematico-Philosophical Investigation into the Theory of the Infinite, Cantor was engaged in a closed study of Spinoza’s advocacy of actual infinity in Ep. 12, and of his theory of the infinite modes . Thus, for example, Cantor notes: “An especially difficult point in Spinoza’s system is the relationship of the finite modes to the infinite one; it remains unexplained how and under what circumstances the finite can maintain its independence with respect to the finite, or the infinite with respect to still higher infinities ” (Cantor, Foundations, 892). Cantor’s discussion of the independence of finite modes clearly echoes the concerns raised by Hegel (for a discussion of the last issue, see my “Acosmism or Weak Individuals”). Overall, Cantor’s discussion of the kinds of infinity in Spinoza is blended with his own views about the transfinite numbers. Thus, Bennett’s mockery of “Spinoza and his contemporaries” who unlike Cantor “had just muddles and puzzles” (Bennett, Study, 76) seems somewhat out of place, as Cantor’s writing seems to show that it was precisely “the muddles and puzzles” of Crescas , Spinoza , and Leibniz, that engaged Cantor and stimulated the development of his theory of transfinite numbers.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Zach Gartenberg for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Melamed, Y.Y. (2018). “A Substance Consisting of an Infinity of Attributes”: Spinoza on the Infinity of Attributes. In: Nachtomy, O., Winegar, R. (eds) Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 76. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94556-9_5
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