Henry More and Nicolas Malebranche's Critiques of Spinoza

European Journal of Philosophy 23 (3):764-792 (2013)
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Abstract

Henry More and Nicolas Malebranche, each in his own way, drew a distinction between two kinds of extension, the one indivisible and the other divisible. Spinoza also drew a comparable distinction, explaining that, insofar as extended substance was conceived intellectually, it would be grasped as indivisible, whereas, when it was instead depicted in the imagination, it would be seen as divisible. But, whereas for Spinoza these were just different views on one and the same extended substance, More and Malebranche's two kinds of extension were supposed to be really distinct from one another. Consequently, neither of them could identify Spinoza's substance with both of his own non-identical kinds; and so they faced a choice over which one they would associate it with. The intriguing thing is that here they diverged. More felt that Spinoza's substance was actually divisible, and consequently material. Malebranche felt that it was actually indivisible, and consequently ideal and divine. In each case, they felt that the other kind of extension—whichever that might be—was simply absent from Spinoza's system. This article explores this divergence between More and Malebranche's interpretations of Spinoza's metaphysics, and it seeks an explanation for it in their own respective epistemologies

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Jasper Reid
King's College London

Citations of this work

God, space and the Spirit of Nature: Morean trialism revisited.Jacques Joseph - 2024 - Intellectual History Review 34 (1):165-184.

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References found in this work

The philosophical writings of Descartes.René Descartes - 1984 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The search after truth.Nicolas Malebranche - 1991 - In Aloysius Martinich, Fritz Allhoff & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Early Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary. Blackwell.
Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion.Nicolas Malebranche - 1688 - Cambridge Univ Press. Translated By: N. Jolley and D. Scott.
Dialogues on metaphysics and on religion.Nicolas Malebranche - 1923 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Nicholas Jolley & David Scott.

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