Abstract
I address an apparent conflict between Spinoza’s concepts of immanent causation and acting/doing [agere]. Spinoza apparently holds that an immanent cause undergoes [patitur] whatever it does. Yet according to his stated definition of acting and undergoing in the Ethics, this is impossible; to act is to be an adequate cause, while to undergo is to be merely a partial cause. Spinoza also seems committed to God’s being the adequate cause of all things, and, in a well-known passage, appears to deny categorically that God is capable of undergoing. How then can God also be the immanent cause of all things, as Spinoza claims? On the basis of a close reading of the passage in question, I argue that Spinoza actually distinguishes between two senses of undergoing. An immanent cause undergoes not by being a partial cause but rather by being the metaphysical subject of its effect. While this sense of undergoing has its roots in scholasticism, Spinoza’s willingness to attribute such a capacity to undergo to God is idiosyncratic and reveals important ways in which his understanding of essence, perfection, and causation differs from the scholastic model.
Allison, H. 1987. Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction. New Haven.Search in Google Scholar
Askénazi/Askénazi-Gerson. 1968. Spinoza. Abrégé de grammaire hébraïque. Trans. J. Askénazi/J. Askénazi-Gerson. Paris.Search in Google Scholar
Bennett, J. 1991. “Spinoza’s Monism: A Reply to Curley.” In God and Nature: Spinoza’s Metaphysics. Ed. Y. Yovel. Leiden, 53–59.Search in Google Scholar
Bloom, M. 1962. Spinoza. Hebrew Grammar. Trans. M. Bloom. New York.Search in Google Scholar
Campos, A. 2012. Spinoza’s Revolutions in Natural Law. New York.10.1057/9781137005106Search in Google Scholar
Carraud, V. 2002. Causa sive ratio. La raison de la cause, de Suarez à Leibniz. Paris.10.3917/puf.carra.2002.01Search in Google Scholar
Carriero, J. 1995. “On the Relation between Mode and Substance in Spinoza’s Metaphysics.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 33, 245–73.10.1353/hph.1995.0026Search in Google Scholar
–. 2005. “Spinoza on Final Causality.” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 2, 105–47.Search in Google Scholar
Clatterbaugh, K. 1999. The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy, 1637–1739. London.10.4324/9781315822181Search in Google Scholar
Curley, E. 1969. Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation. Cambridge, MA.10.4159/harvard.9780674330450Search in Google Scholar
–. 1988. Behind the Geometrical Method. Princeton, NJ.10.1515/9780691214269Search in Google Scholar
–. 1991. “On Bennett’s Interpretation of Spinoza’s Monism.” In God and Nature: Spinoza’s Metaphysics. Ed. Y. Yovel. Leiden, 35–51.Search in Google Scholar
Curley, E./Walski, G. 1999. “Spinoza’s Necessitarianism Reconsidered.” In New Essays on the Rationalists. Ed. R. Gennaro/Ch. Huenemann. Oxford, 241–62.10.1093/0195165411.003.0011Search in Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. 1988. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Trans. R. Hurley. San Francisco.Search in Google Scholar
–. 1990. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. M. Joughin. New York.10.2307/j.ctv1qgnqcpSearch in Google Scholar
Della Rocca, M. 2003. “The Power of an Idea: Spinoza’s Critique of Pure Will.” Noûs 37, 200–31.10.1111/1468-0068.00436Search in Google Scholar
–. 2008a. “Rationalism Run Amok: Representation and the Reality of Emotions in Spinoza.” In Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays. Ed. Ch. Huenemann. Cambridge, 26–52.Search in Google Scholar
–. 2008b. Spinoza. London.10.4324/9780203894583Search in Google Scholar
–. 2012. Review of V. Viljanen, Spinoza’s Geometry of Power. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Available at <http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/32044-spinoza-s-geometry-of-power/>.Search in Google Scholar
Des Chene, D. 1996. Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelianism and Cartesian Thought. Ithaca, NY.10.7591/9781501723711Search in Google Scholar
Donagan, A. 1996. “Spinoza’s Theology.” In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Ed. D. Garrett. Cambridge, 343–82.10.1017/CCOL0521392357.009Search in Google Scholar
Dunin-Borkowski, S. 1936. Spinoza, vol. 4. Münster.Search in Google Scholar
Eliot, G. 1981. Spinoza. Ethics. Trans. G. Eliot. Ed. Th. Deegan. Salzburg.Search in Google Scholar
Elwes, R. H. M. 1883. Spinoza. The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza. Vol. 1. Trans. R. H. M. Elwes. London.Search in Google Scholar
Freddoso, A. 1988. “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causation in Nature.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism. Ed. Th. Morris. Ithaca, NY, 74—118.10.7591/9781501746123-004Search in Google Scholar
–. 1991. “God’s General Concurrence with Secondary Causes: Why Conservation Is Not Enough.” Philosophical Perspectives 5, 553–85.10.2307/2214109Search in Google Scholar
–. 1994. “God’s General Concurrence with Secondary Causes: Pitfalls and Prospects.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 68, 131–56.10.5840/acpq199468224Search in Google Scholar
Gabbey, A. 2008. “Spinoza, Infinitive Modes and the Infinitive Mood.” Studia Spinozana 16, 41–66.Search in Google Scholar
Garrett, D. 2002. “Spinoza’s Conatus Argument.” In Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes. Ed. O. Koistinen/J. Biro. Oxford, 127–58.Search in Google Scholar
Giancotti Boscherini, E. 1970. Lexicon Spinozanum. The Hague.10.1007/978-94-010-2964-3Search in Google Scholar
Gueroult, M. 1968. Spinoza I: Dieu. Paris.Search in Google Scholar
Huenemann, Ch. 2004. “Spinoza and Prime Matter.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 42, 21–32.10.1353/hph.2004.0006Search in Google Scholar
Hobbes, Th. 1839. Opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, vol. 1. London.Search in Google Scholar
Hübner, K. “On the Significance of Formal Causes in Spinoza’s Metaphysics.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97, 196–233.10.1515/agph-2015-0008Search in Google Scholar
–. 2016. “Spinoza’s Thinking Substance and the Necessity of Modes.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92, 3–34.Search in Google Scholar
James, S. 1997. Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Oxford.10.1093/0198250134.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Jaquet, Ch. 2018. Affects, Actions and Passions in Spinoza: The Unity of Body and Mind. Trans. T. Reznichenko. Edinburgh.10.3366/edinburgh/9781474433181.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Jarrett, Ch. 1977. “The Concepts of Substance and Mode in Spinoza.” Philosophia 7, 83–105.10.1007/BF02379993Search in Google Scholar
Joachim, H. 1901. A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar
Kisner, M. 2011. Spinoza on Human Freedom: Reason, Autonomy and the Good Life. Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511973512Search in Google Scholar
Kisner, M. (ed.) 2018. Spinoza. Ethics: Proved in Geometrical Order. Trans. M. Silverthorne and M. Kisner. Cambridge.10.1017/9781107706972Search in Google Scholar
Krop, H. 2011. “La scolastique élusive. Les traces de la scolastique dans l’Éthique.” In Spinoza et ses scolastiques. Retour aux sources et nouveaux enjeux. Ed. F. Manzini. Paris, 15–30.Search in Google Scholar
Koyré, A. 2014. “The Dog That Is a Heavenly Constellation and the Dog That Is a Barking Animal.” Trans. O. Marrama. The Leibniz Review 24, 95–108.Search in Google Scholar
Lærke, M. 2009. “Immanence et extériorité absolue. Sur la théorie de la causalité et l’ontologie de la puissance de Spinoza.” Revue philosophique 2, 169–90.Search in Google Scholar
Lin, M. 2017. “The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Spinoza.” In The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza. Ed. M. Della Rocca. Oxford, 133–54.Search in Google Scholar
Marshall, E. 2014. “Man Is a God to Man: How Human Beings Can Be Adequate Causes.” In Essays on Spinoza’s Ethical Theory. Ed. M. Kisner/A. Youpa. Oxford, 160–77.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657537.003.0009Search in Google Scholar
Martin, C. 2010. “A New Challenge to the Necessitarian Reading of Spinoza.” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 5, 25–70.Search in Google Scholar
Matson, W. 1977. “Death and Destruction in Spinoza’s Ethics.” Inquiry 20, 403–17.Search in Google Scholar
Melamed, Y. 2013. Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought. Oxford.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394054.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Morrison, J. 2015. “Restricting Spinoza’s Causal Axiom.” The Philosophical Quarterly 65(258), 40–63.10.1093/pq/pqu049Search in Google Scholar
Nadler, S. 1999. Spinoza: A Life. Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511815713Search in Google Scholar
–. 2008. “‘Whatever is, is in God’: Substance and Things in Spinoza.” In Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays. Ed. Ch. Huenemann. Cambridge, 53–64.10.1017/CBO9780511487200.005Search in Google Scholar
Newlands, S. 2010. “Another Kind of Spinozistic Monism.” Noûs 44, 469–502.10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00751.xSearch in Google Scholar
Parkinson, G. H. R. 1981. “Spinoza’s Concept of a Rational Act.” Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa 20, 1–19.Search in Google Scholar
Peterman, A. 2015. “Spinoza on Extension.” Philosophers’ Imprint 15(14), 1–23.Search in Google Scholar
Renz, U. 2009. Die Erklärbarkeit von Erfahrung. Realismus und Subjektivität in Spinozas Theorie des menschlichen Geistes. Frankfurt.Search in Google Scholar
Robinson, L. 1928. Kommentar zur Spinozas Ethik, vol. 1. Leipzig.Search in Google Scholar
Robinson, T. 2007. Spinoza and the Metaphysics of Mechanism. Ph.D. dissertation, Purdue University.Search in Google Scholar
–. 2009. “Spinoza on the Vacuum and the Simplicity of Corporeal Substance.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 26, 63–81.Search in Google Scholar
Schrijvers, M. 1999. “The Conatus and the Mutual Relationship between Active and Passive Affects in Spinoza.” In Desire and Affect: Spinoza as Psychologist. Ed. Y. Yovel. New York, 63–80.Search in Google Scholar
Shirley, S. 2002. Spinoza. Complete Works. Trans. S. Shirley. Ed. M. Morgan. Indianapolis.Search in Google Scholar
Steinberg, J. 2011. Review of M. Kisner, Spinoza on Human Freedom. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Available at 〈http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/spinoza-on-human-freedom-reason-autonomy-and-the-good-life/〉.Search in Google Scholar
Totaro, P. (ed.) 2013. Spinoza. Compendio di Grammatica della Lingua Ebraica. Trans. M. Gargiulo. Firenze.Search in Google Scholar
Trendelenburg, A. 1867. “Ueber die aufgefundenen Ergänzungen zu Spinoza’s Werken und deren Ertrag für Spinoza’s Leben und Lehre.” In Historische Beiträge zur Philosophie. Vol. 3, Vermischte Abhandlungen. Berlin, 277–398.Search in Google Scholar
Van Bunge, W./Krop, H./Steenbakkers, P./van de Ven, J. (eds.) 2011. The Continuum Companion to Spinoza. London.Search in Google Scholar
Van Vloten, J. (ed.) 1862. Spinoza. Opera quae supersunt omnia supplementum. Amsterdam.Search in Google Scholar
Viljanen, V. 2009. “Spinoza’s Ontology.” In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics. Ed. O. Koistinen. Cambridge, 56–78.10.1017/CCOL9780521853392.004Search in Google Scholar
–. 2011. Spinoza’s Geometry of Power. Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9781139005210Search in Google Scholar
White, W. 1883. Spinoza. Ethic Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Divided into Five Parts. Trans. W. White. London.Search in Google Scholar
Willis, R. 1870. Benedict de Spinoza: His Life, Correspondence, and Ethics. Trans. R. Willis. London.10.1037/14149-000Search in Google Scholar
Wolf, A. (ed.) 1910. Spinoza’s Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. London.Search in Google Scholar
Wolfson, H. 1958. The Philosophy of Spinoza. New York.10.4159/harvard.9780674866416Search in Google Scholar
Zev Harvey, W. 2002. “Spinoza’s Metaphysical Hebraism.” In Jewish Themes in Spinoza’s Philosophy. Ed. H. Ravven/L. Goodman. Albany, 107–14.Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
