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Thomas Nagel and the Principle of Sufficient Reason (or, on unprincipled natural teleology)

[Thomas Nagel's Mind & Cosmos has generated a number of very critical reviews, including this blistering one by Leiter/Weisberg, and another, wide-ranging one by Eliott Sober (thanked for his refereeing at OUP by Nagel in the preface to M&C!) as well as gratitude from the creationists (recall Mohan's discussion). Mohan has blogged about some of Nagel's moves before,  but the rather long post -- apologies -- below engages with issues thus far unexplored in these discussions.--ES.]

Analytical philosophy has made great progress over the last century. But its original, necessary biases did some harm, too. In particular, detailed working knowledge of the history of philosophy and metaphysics was banished for several generations. While metaphysics is thriving again, we still lack (despite the brilliance of David Lewis' modular approach) complete systems of thought that can rival in depth and interlocking breadth the past masters (say, Suarez, Leibniz, etc.). The damage has also been more narrow. For example, one of the most obvious so-called ‘Kuhn Losses’ is our relative ignorance of the nature and implications of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). This is no surprise because analytical philosophy was founded in the act of rejecting PSR. Our forefathers’ attempt to balance between common sense and the truths of science meant -- as science and the PSR parted ways -- the willing submission to brute, ultimate facts (recall this post).  

In Mind & Cosmos, Thomas Nagel happily embraces “a form of the principle of sufficient reason” (17) in support of his "common sense" (5, 7, etc.) and against the recent “orthodox scientific consensus.” (10; 5) Rather than accepting this "ideological consensus," (128) Nagel insists -- regularly using language reminiscent of the great Feyerabend --  that "almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct." (7) While Nagel insists that the champions of scientific enlightenment are bullies, he treats the "defenders of intelligent design" with "gratitude" (Plantinga returns the gratitude),  even though Nagel clearly recognizes that once one embraces one's inner sensus divinitatis one is also compelled in one's judgments. (12) 

A classic statement of the PSR is Spinoza's "For each thing there must be assigned a cause, or reason, both for its existence and for its nonexistence." (Ethics 1p11d2) That is to say, any PSR worth having imposes significant explanatory demands (especially of non-arbitrariness) on any philosophical system in which it is deployed. Below the fold I critically discuss Nagel's way of combining the PSR and his attempted revisionary science, but here I just register the marvelousness of Nagel's deployment of the PSR as an instrument in the service of common sense! (cf. 91-2) This is certainly an original move in the history of metaphysics--one that, in a single, magical stroke overturns Lovejoy's long narrative.

On card-carrying contextualists

In her introduction, James explains her methodology by pointing out that "in order to follow Spinoza, and to grasp the significance of his claims, it is not enough to explicate the text: one must also set it in the context of the sequence of theological and political debates to which he is contributing" (4). Though not myself a card-carrying member of the contextualist school, I believe that at least in the case of the TTP this attitude is quite fruitful and apt for a rather simple reason. The most salient feature of the text (as James points out) is its polemical nature, and it is hard to grasp the full meaning of a claim made as part of a debate when that claim is abstracted from its setting. Obviously, this interpretative attitude makes the decision about the proper context for understanding the book utterly critical.

...But James interestingly suggests that, in spite of this historical grounding, the book should not be read merely as an "active theological-political intervention in the politics of its time," but also as a work which "yields insights of general philosophical interest, bearing on our own predicament as much as that of the Dutch state in the second half of the seventeenth century" (6).--Yitzhak Melamed reviewing Susan James' Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise, Oxford University Press.

I was trained as a member of the contextualist school, and I used to carry my card proudly when I left home. (Nowadays as regular readers of this blog know I vaccilate between trying to save or abolish the school!) But the school was also founded with a dogma--the denial that classic philosophical texts addressed perennial issues that may have permanent answers. Yet, in the part of the introduction quoted by Melamed, James comes very close to denying the contextual dogma; Spinoza's text ""yields insights of general philosophical interest." So, what we are seeing, I think, is an evolution in the contextualist school.

A note on Hume's social epistemology & anti-mathematics

There is no Algebraist nor Mathematician so expert in his science, as to place entire confidence in any truth immediately upon his discovery of it, or regard it as any thing, but a mere probability. Every time he runs over his proofs, his confidence encreases; but still more by the approbation of his friends; and is rais’d to its utmost perfection by the universal assent and applauses of the learned world. Now ’tis evident, that this gradual encrease of assurance is nothing but the addition of new probabilities, and is deriv’d from the constant union of causes and effects, according to past experience and observation.--Hume Treatise, 1.4.1.2

I have been revisiting a terrific paper by Kevin Meeker (recall this post). Like a lot of Kevin's other work the paper argues for interpreting Hume as an old-fashioned skeptic (even about purported mathematical knowledge). Because of it I re-read Hume's Treatise 1.4.1 ("Of scepticism with regard to reason"). In  historical 18th century context the significance of 1.4.1 is two-fold:

1. Together with much of Treatise 1.2.4, Treatise 1.4.1.2 reinforces Hume's attack on the epistemic status of applying mathematical concepts to nature: "all [purported] knowledge degenerates into probability." (1.4.1.1) In particular, the epistemic status of mathematical, natural philosophy "becomes at last of the same nature with that evidence, which we employ in common life," (1.4.1.4) That is, Hume is here part of a much larger trend of what I call, 18th century "anti-mathematics." This is much indebted to Spinoza's "Letter on the Infinite" and even if we allow that Hume had not read Spinoza (which goes against a lot of circumstantial evidence), Hume almost certainly would have been familiar with species of such anti-mathematics either in Berkeley or in Mandeville (recall here; also here and here).

Spinoza, Hume, Hazony and Regimes of Truth

Some of the Hebrews seems to have seen this, as if through a cloud, when they maintained that God, God's intellect, and the things understood by him are one and the same.--Spinoza (E2P7S) [in Curley's translation]

In my previous three posts (here, here, here) on Yoram Hazony's The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, I did not engage with Hazony's efforts at articulating the epistemology (chapter 6) and metaphysics (7) of the Hebrew Scripture. Chapter 6 is a fascinating meditation on Jeremiah. Here I focus on the latter. According to Hazony in "the Hebrew Bible...truth is not in the first instance a quality of that which is said, but of "objects and persons." "Objects" here are taken very widely to include "objects of the understanding more generally, including actions and circumstances." (195-196). In particular, that "which is true is something that is reliable, steadfast, faithful; while that which is false is something that cannot be counted upon, or which appears reliable but is not." (199) So to simplify: something is true iff it is a steadfast object. So, in addition to true being a property of objects (etc.) it is also a normative property. As Hazony writes, "that which is true is that which proves, through time and circumstance, to be what it ought." (202)

Hazony contrasts what one can label -- to introduce and deploy a Foucault-ish terminology -- "the Biblical regime of truth" with the traditional one he claims we have inherited from Aristotle. (Foucault nor Heidegger are mentioned by Hazony.) In the traditional regime truth is a "quality of speech" (thought, etc.); true speech is about a reality separate from speech and agrees with or corresponds to that reality. (195) Let's grant Hazony the conceptual possibility that there are different "regimes of truth." So, here I ignore the kind of criticism familiar from, say, Bernard Williams' "general point:" that "nothing that was not opposed to the false could be rightly represented as the "the true." (Truth and Truthfulness, 272; emphasis in original; Williams' passage was discussed recently in an illuminating lecture on Foucault's debts to Marcel Detienne by my Ghent colleague, Maarten Van Dyck.) Williams is not just making a narrow (and plausible) point about translation; the general point denies the possibility of different regimes of truth. Given that here I am merely describing the history of various regimes of truth I need not worry if alternative regimes to ours represent anything.

The Myths of Modern Science in the Responses to Nagel's Mind and Life in the Cosmos

Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos is drawing quick responses. (Can't wait to read Mohan's!) Both in the hostile review by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg as well as in the more cautious strategic pivot by Alva Noë (who doesn't engage critically with Nagel's book), mythic history of the scientific revolution plays significant rhetorical roles.

Let's start with Noë:

If there is mind — and of course the great scientific revolutionaries such as Descartes and Newton would not deny that there is mind — it exists apart from and unconnected to the material world as this was conceived of by the New Science.--Alva Noë (NPR)

Let's accept Noë's point about Descartes. But Newton thought minds  had to be somewhere in space and in time, extended but "indivisible." Incidentally, this is also Newton's doctrine about "the Maker and Lord of all things" who "cannot be never and no where."  (Principia, General Scholium.) And at one point earlier in his career, Newton also flirted with the idea that an extended body had to be the kind of thing that was capable of exciting various perceptions in the senses and imagination of minds (this is from a piece known as "De Gravitatione;" I am linking to a very nice treatment by Zvi Biener and Chris Smeenk.) [Note that I am not drawing on the infamous sensorium passage at all.]

Spinoza, Hazony, (Lincoln) and The Political Philosophy of the Hebrew Bible

These three things taken together – the simplicity of the theme of all these books, the way they are connected, and the fact that they were written by someone other than the person whose name they bear, many generations after the events related – lead us to infer that, as we have just said, they were all written by one Historian alone.--Spinoza,  (1670) Theological Political Treatise (TTP), Chapter 8 [Here and below I use a draft of Curley's translation he kindly shared with me.--ES]

Yoram Hazony's The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (recall also here) identifies "a single, largely unbroken  narrative extending from creation of the world in Genesis to the destruction of Judah at the end of the book of Kings" at the core of the Hebrew Bible; this core he calls "The History of Israel." (140; disclosure: Hazony and I have written a piece on Hume & Newton together.) Hazony reads The History of Israel as offering an "instructional narrative," which conveys (among other things) a political philosophy.  The History of Israel favors the anarchic, shepherding life, but as the story unfolds comes to recognize that anarchy is not self-sustaining. Political order is understood "as oscillating between the imperial state...and anarchy." (160) Hazony reads the Hebrew Bible as a search for a politics grounded in ethics--one that makes the state "limited in its aspirations" (153-4; recall this post).

Hazony sugests that Jeremiah "or perhaps one of his students, may have been the final author of the History of Israel as a unified work." (161; by "author," Hazony does not mean "the person who wrote all of it by himself," 37-8.) Hazony's argument for this is that  The History ends "with the exile of Judag's leading political and spiritual figures, the most straightforward reading us that this history is the product of the exile from the land and its aftermath." (37; Hazony acknowledges he is echoing the Rabbanic opinion here.) The book would have been composed in Egyptian exile in the seventh century (BC). Crucially, it means that the viewpoint of the political philosophy of the Hebrew Bible is "the experience of the Jews in degredaton and exile, and the attempt to survive it." (38)

Williamson vs Experimental Philosophy; or Philosophical Expertise

"why, if at all, such testing of expertise is more urgent in philosophy than in other disciplines."--Tomothy Williamson

The Wykeham Professor of Logic claims that "the project of Experimental Philosophy, as characterized by Alexander, does not withstand scrutiny." It is worth paying attention if only because this is clearly an attempt to delegitimize experimental philosophy as properly philosophical. (In the conclusion to the piece experimental philosophy is characterized as "polemical philosophy-hating philosophizing from which it has not been entirely free.") Do not object that Williamson is merely criticizing Alexander's formulation. Williamson also writes:

"What the Experimental Philosophy revolution is supposed to change — systematize, restrict, or abolish — is a philosophical method: the use of philosophical intuitions as evidence....The systematic deployment of elaborate hypothetical cases is indeed an eye-catching feature of much recent analytic work. But what Experimental Philosophers target is neither the systematicity nor the elaboration." (Quoted from here; HT Prophilosophy)

Williamson targets the methodological aspirationsof Experimental Philosophy an sich. Given that this approach is no more than a methodology it has no reason for existing. Williamson has three strategies: first, after he suggests (via an analogy with theoretical and empirical physics where the "trade-off between the two sorts of skill is not easily avoided"--this sentence comes after a blistering few pages in which Alexander is portrayed as simply not understanding what important philosophical debates are about) that experimental philosophers will lack certain conceptual skills. (Williamson is counting on us agreeing that without conceptual expertise philosophy is empty.) The second  and third strategy are cleverly connected.

I quote Williamson:

Spinoza's fascination with Descartes's Death

[Today's post is a follow up to this one.--ES]

In a short note -- crossing the battle-front between the forces of Louis XiV and William III -- from 1673 to the Utrecht Professor Graevius, Spinoza asks for the return of a letter about the death of Descartes.  The rightful owner of the letter (ht: to Stefan Heßbrüggen) has demanded it back. Spinoza adds that if it had been his letter a hasty return would not be required. Let's leave aside the fascinating and complicated sociological fact (see here for background in Dutch) that Spinoza and Graevius, a professor of rhetoric and a classical philologist (who was very critical of Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise in his public utterances) were intimate enough to share letters.  (Anybody that spends time on editing Lucian can't be all bad.) At one point in his life, Spinoza was apparently interested enough to seek out (and presumably to copy) eye-witness testimony about Descartes' death. (After his death and later Hume's there was quite a bit of such interest; how do philosophers face death when they deny the immortality of soul?) This is a bit surprising.

While Spinoza sometimes has nice things to say about Descartes (see here), he is often extremely harsh about the thinker that is often taken to be his philosophical predecessor. In the Ethics, especially, Spinoza asserts the following:

"The illustrious Descartes [celeberrimum Cartesium]... in my opinion, he accomplishes nothing beyond a display of the acuteness of his own great intellect," (Ethics 3, Preface)

"Such is the doctrine of this illustrious philosopher [“clarissimi…Viri”] (in so far as I gather it from his own words); it is one which, had it been less ingenious, I could hardly believe to have proceeded from so great a man. Indeed, I am lost in wonder",(Ethics 5, Preface; see also E, 3p2S)

Maudlin on Einstein and Lewis, and some Spinoza...

[I am reading Tim Maudlin’s The Metaphysics Within Physics with Fred Muller, Victor Gijsbers, and Lieven Decock. The following post was inspired by our recent discussion.—ES]

In the context of a critical discussion (that I admire) of what he calls a "Separability" doctrine that he attributes to David Lewis, Tim Maudlin quotes a letter from Einstein to Born:

"The following idea characterises the relative independence

of objects far apart in space (A and B): external influence on A

has no direct influence on B; this is known as the 'principle

of contiguity', which is used consistently only in the field

theory. If this axiom were to be completely abolished, the idea

of the existence of (quasi-) enclosed systems, and thereby the

postulation of laws which can be checked empirically in the

accepted sense, would become impossible." (See here for the full letter, p. 170-1; a fuller extract is quoted in Maudlin, pp. 53-54, and discussed around pp. 63-4)

By ‘Separability,” Maudlin means “The complete physical state of the world is determined by (supervenes on) the intrinsic physical state of each spacetime point (or each pointlike object) and the spatio-temporal relations between those points.” (51)  Maudlin takes Einstein’s letter as evidence that in the face of evidence from quantum mechanics, Einstein also endorses Separability (and, thus, Lewis’ position is not just “a philosopher’s fancy.”)  In response, Maudlin writes, “Quantum theory has both been formulated and rigorously tested despite the centrality of non-Separable elements in its ontology. Whatever Einstein had in mind, he had to be wrong.” (64)

Now, I am no scholar of Einstein, but I suspect Maudlin is seriously misreading Einstein here.

Spinoza, the Self-Sufficient.

[The following reflections were prompted by a very interesting conversation with a young scholar, Johan Olsthoorn.--ES]

The official Letters by and to Spinoza that were collected in his posthumous works start with a letter from a very important person (The Secretary of the Royal Society, Oldenburgh), and that correspondence segue-ways nicely into a correspondence with Boyle--just about the most famous living scholar of the period. It would be a very surprising if this was the very first letter ever addresed to Spinoza. The Letters also cover only the last sixteen years of Spinoza, life. Spinoza was not very old when he died, but even so it implies that during the first twenty-eight years of his life the mailman never knocked at Spinoza's abode. (That's not a miracle; mail was expensive. But it was also not so uncommon in seventeenth century Holland.) From a note on the back of a letter (Letter 28 to Bouwmeester) that was not included in the original collection (but published later in Van Vloten) we know that not all letters known in 1677 were included in the original collection. It is safe to say that these letters are very much a biased selection. 

Even so, even including the letters found and collected since the publication of Spinoza's posthumous works, we average less than six letters per year during the last sixteen years of Spinoza's life. That's not a lot. (Still no letters have been found, I think, that predate the first letter from Oldenburgh.) Moreover, with one exception, none of the letters from Spinoza initiate a correspondence.  In a few cases Spinoza's is the first letter extant from a correspondence, but in all of these Spinoza is responding to a now lost letter. In these generalizations I leave aside a very brief note to Prof. Graevius in Utrecht (in which Spinoza wants a letter (presumably written by neither Graevius nor Spinzoa) returned so he (Spinoza) can return it to its rightful owner). [I am not claiming this note isn't interesting for the light it sheds on Spinoza's network in the academy!]

We can infer from these letters that Spinoza was remarkably self-sufficient intellectually. He did not seek out others in the Republic of Letters, nor did he sought to fashion himself through these letters. He also does not seem to be very curious about what others are up to in this Republic.  

Weekly Philo of Economics: on the Positivist Dogma Of Historical Scholarship, or Adam Smith as Reader of Spinoza...

A Positivist Dogma (PD) of scholarship is the rule that one must supply hard evidence for claims such as  "Z was influenced by Q" or "B is responding to C," etc. This is thought to be the insurmountable barrier between evidence-based scientific scholarship and shoddy research that bottoms out in arguments from authority, or (worse) some mystical insight. ("I just intuit that Kant read Hume's Treatise!") Moreover, not all evidence is appropriately hard: Y's book can be found in X's library (at X's death), show signs of wear and tear, but still be unread by X. (This could happen to books in your library!) Y may even be mentioned by X in X's main works and still only be known second-hand. (How many of us have read Gödel Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der "Principia Mathematica" in the original?) So, for example, given that Adam Smith never mentions Spinoza a responsible scholar should not assume that Smith is responding to or building on Spinoza.

Let's allow that the Positivist Dogma rules out a lot of lazy scholarship. It also prevents interpretive strategies that rely on authorial omniscience. One price to pay for PD is that it rules in a lot of lazy thought and gives ignorant scholars an excuse to remain...ignorant. For most scholars can discern there were once very different citation practices and modes of writings when crucial sources are never mentioned and extra-textual evidence on the reading habits of our subjects is deliberately scarce. For example, we know that Adam Smith, who was eager to control his posthumous reputation, had his notebooks burned in his presence just before his death. (Smith thought that Swift's reputation has suffered from the publication of Swift's personal papers.) But arguments from silence are tricky.

Now, in unpublished research Sarah Skwire has made a compelling case that Adam Smith's famous line early in the Wealth of Nations that "By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound, or a greyhound from a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd’s dog," echoes Shakespeare's Macbeth III.i.91.        . (See also the student notes to Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence.) Skwire has shown that there is more Macbeth in Wealth of Nations than meets the eye. Now, we know from student notes on Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres that he lectured on Shakespeare (although not, it seems, Macbeth), so a strong case can be made that the link between Wealth of Nations and Macbeth is not accidental. Either way, in the case of Smith we know that some of his silences are very deliberate. For example, Smith was famously proud  to refute An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, written by his rival James Steuart, without mention or allusion in the Wealth of Nations.

So what about Adam Smith and Spinoza?

Weekly Philo of Economics: Adam Smith on Religion (with hints to Spinoza)

[In honor of Ryan Hanley, the author of a very fine book on Adam Smith, and my host this week, I do a post on Smith's philosophy of religion--ES]

Discussions of Adam Smith's views on religion are bedeviled by two obsessively posed questions: (i) does the so-called 'invisible hand' instantiate or rely on a providential order?; (ii) is Smith a Humean skeptic about the existence of God? In what follows I ignore these. Consider, first, the following passage:

In the Decalogue we are commanded to honour our fathers and mothers. No mention is made of the love of our children. Nature had sufficiently prepared us for the performance of this latter duty. Men are seldom accused of affecting to be fonder of their children than they really are. They have sometimes been suspected of displaying their piety to their parents with too much ostentation. The ostentatious sorrow of widows has, for a like reason, been suspected of insincerity. (The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), III.3.13)

Here Smith treats the Ten Commandments sociologically. The Decalogue offers insight into which of our moral duties are innate (i.e., they don't need to be mentioned in the them) and which duties require sanctions (the ones listed). Given that at least for this item on the list he treats it as a reliable authority, he understands Moses or Moses' source as a wise-lawgiver (on this matter). This has affinity with chapter three of Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise. (I return to this below) As an non-trivial aside, if we are allowed to treat the whole list in such sociological terms then it appears that Smith thinks that the very idea of a mono-theistic God is not natural (nor innate) to us but requires social reinforcement mechanisms. (This echoes the first chapter of Hume's Natural History of Religion.)

The Spinoza-Clarke dispute in Boole (the origins of analytic philosophy, reconsidered)

A few weeks ago, I quoted this line from Russell: "The ethical work of Spinoza, for example, appears to me of the very highest significance, but what is valuable in such work is not any metaphysical theory as to the nature of the world to which it may give rise, nor indeed anything which can be proved or disproved by argument." (On Scientific Method In Philosophy) In commenting on the full passage, I remarked, "Russell systematically defends the beauty and nobility of Spinoza's ethics, but denies it is philosophical for three reasons: (a) Spinoza's metaphysics of substance has been disproved by science. I call such appeal to the authority of science to settle philosophic argument within philosophy, "Newton's Challenge to Philosophy." Russell here echoes eighteenth century Newtonian criticism of Spinoza. Once Spinoza's metaphysics is discredited, (b) Spinoza's ethics is not really founded on or supported by argument, but by feeling (and this is indeed also Russell's view of Bergson) and "maxims." I actually think this reading of Spinoza has a lot going for it (and the significance of maxims is a way in which Spinoza and Smith are connected), but about that some other time. (c) The feeling that Spinoza's ethics promotes is oriented toward practice, and (c*) Russell denies that philosophy is fundamentally concerned with practice, but rather with understanding." In private I wondered why Russell would have thought (b); had he done an analysis of Spinoza's arguments in the Ethics, which (we learn from Monk's biography) he admired greatly, and found them wanting? I doubt he did.

Rather, I suspect Russell remembered chapter 13 (and 14) of Boole's masterpiece, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854). Elsewhere, Russell credits Boole with having discovered "pure mathematics," or formal logic. (Oddly, Boole is not mentioned by Monk; this neglect is emblematic for a more general problem in the way "early analytic" is treated, but about that some other time more.) Boole writes, "The analysis of its [Spinoza's Ethics'--ES] main argument is extremely difficult, owing not to the complexity of the separate propositions which it involves, but to the use of vague definitions, and of axioms which, through a like defect of clearness, it is perplexing to determine whether we ought to accept or to reject. While the reasoning of Dr. Samuel Clarke is in part verbal, that of Spinoza is so in a much greater degree; and perhaps this is the reason why, to some minds, it has appeared to possess a formal cogency, to which in reality it possesses no just claim." (p. 145) What are these remarks doing in a book that regardless of its limitations from a more recent point of view, invents "pure mathematics"?

Clarke on Spinoza on Motion

{In honor of this conference a blog about some of Clarke's interesting arguments against Spinoza.--ES} Samuel Clarke is now best known for his correspondence with Leibniz. This is a shame because it is not his finest performance that does no justice to his philosophic acumen nor to Newton's views. Clarke's (1705) A Demonstration of the being and attributes of God: more particularly in answer to Mr. Hobbs, Spinoza and their followers is full of terrific arguments and also extremely subtle readings of Spinoza (and a book I like to blog about). In preparing this post, I have found a remarkable authority for this claim (about which more some other time)!!!

Now together with other English (Newtonian) critics of Spinoza, Clarke focuses on Spinoza's rather un-sophisticated treatment of motion to argue against Spinoza's system (and argue for an alternative physics, metaphysics, and theology). Here I discuss two of these arguments: “if [motion] was of itself necessary and self-existent, then it follows that it must be a contradiction in terms to suppose any matter to be at rest.” Now, when Clarke charges a "contradiction," one ought to read it as "this is problematic." This particular claim is, of course, question-begging against Spinoza (cf. Ethics 2p13A1’: “All bodies either move or are at rest”). But the spirit behind Clarke's argument may well be Spinozistic. Let me briefly explain.

Bergson says Spinoza, Russell says Leibniz

 In his nice post on the origins of analytic philosophy, a theme that has been addressed many times at this blog, Eric points out that Bergson was among Russell's principle targets. It is perhaps understandable that this part of the story has been forgotten. The Frege-Russell narrative concerning the origins and legitimacy of analytic philosophy has largely maintained its hegemonic status. Within this narrative, Bergson emerges not only as a  marginal “continental” figure safely ignored by analytic philosophers but moreover he is a philosopher whose influence on the continent was itself surpassed by the phenomenologists (who, such as Merleau-Ponty, rejected Bergson’s vitalism). However, following up on a comment I made on the thread to John Protevi’s post about Adrian Moore’s book, I would push back the genealogy of an important aspect of the continental/analytic divide to the choice between Spinoza or Leibniz. Understood in this way, Bergson, à la the song "Let's call the whole thing off," says Spinoza and Russell says Leibniz. In targeting Bergson, therefore, Russell is ultimately one in a line of many who are seeking to exorcise the specter of Spinoza.

Quote of the Day

"Peirce was motivated in his cosmogony by a bias toward a spiritualistic interpretation of the cosmos, and by an understandable reaction to philosophies of his day which attempted to derive the variety of things from a primal homogeneity. The moral is that it is just as much a mistake to deny an ultimate specificity and variety, as it is to deny an inexpugnable order. It is instructive to compare Peirce with Spinoza. Both recognized nature to possess a structure and also to contain an inexhaustible variety. Peirce chose to emphasize the latter and to regard the former as derivative. But I think Spinoza was both sounder and wiser when he included in Part I of the Ethics Prop. 15 as well as Prop. 28."--Ernest Nagel (JHP, 1933)

Footnote of the day

"53. Mr. Yolton's book on Locke's Essay demonstrates how a philosopher's modes of thought gain domination over the minds of men who devote their efforts to refuting him." (Rosalie Colie (1963) “Spinoza in England, 1665-1730,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 107(3): 210)

On Clarke's Use of Newton Against Spinoza and Hume's Response...

In The History of England, Hume writes: "While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he shewed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.” As I have argued elsewhere, this quote reveals crucial details about Hume's attitude toward Newton and the nature of skepticism. But I have recently come to believe that Hume's target is the use made of Newton and his achievements the argument for God's Benevolent Design in Samuel Clarke's Anti-Spinozistic (1705) ADemonstration of the being and attributes of God: more particularly in answer to Mr. Hobbs, Spinoza and their followers.

“Our whole approach presupposes a teleological account of concepts” (Benardete 1964: 224)

According to José A Benardete, philosophy can (also) be “an investigation of utopian concepts that transcend the empirical” (Infinity: An Essay in Metaphysics, 1964: 285). Now even most of our metaphysicians today do not durst to write so boldly; this is a radical break with the authority of SCIENCE (which knows one religion: the authority of the empirical). The enterprise is not, however, anti-scientific; for Benardete ontology and natural science are conversation partners (although with a reference to Hamlet, Benaderdete also observes that "in the absence of practical wisdom, [physical] theory itself may be pressed into the service of folly." (225)) Now a utopian concept belongs literally to no-place. It is beyond measure. But it does not mean it does not belong to this world. (Think of Spinozistic "eternal truths"--i.e., things that can't be negated; it is no surprise, then, that Benardete invokes Sponoza at the end of Infinity and in an old JPhil piece wishes to make room for the investigation of "invariants that preside over, and constitute, the eternal order.") Is there more to be said about philosophy's task according to Benardete? (And as I observed in an earlier post about Benardete's work this is not far removed from what Jeff Bell and I have advocated in a different key.)

Yes, there is.

Question about E2A5 (Spinoza, Ethics). feelings...

E2A5: "We neither feel nor perceive any singular things [NS: or anything of Natura naturata], except bodies and modes of thinking. See the postulates after P13" (Ethics in E. Curley's translation)

So, do such feelings/perceptions cross the attribute barrier (E2p7)? That is, somehow an individual's feelings/perceptions can be responsive to modes in both attributes? Or should we think of this axiom as saying that the intellect perceives (pure) modes of thought (in the manner of E1D4&e5p40) and that the imagination feels modes of extension (and the ways in which ideas are inadequate).

A note on one of Spinoza's prefaces

"I pass now to explaining those things must necessarily follow from the essence of God, or the infinite and eternal being--not, indeed, all of them, for we have demonstrated (1p16) that infinitely many things must follow from it in infinitely many modes, but only those that can lead us, by the hand, as it were, to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness" (Spinoza Ethics, preface to II; translated by E. Curley) A few remarks and questions about this little passage:

1. Are the topics that are deliberately avoided potentially harmful? That is, do they lead us away from highest blessedness? (Assuming that all such things are harms.) If so, then Spinoza's silences are motivated about a substantive views about the Good.

2. Is Spinoza also claiming that he has exhausted what can be said/written about God (understood as an infinite and eternal being)? For, nowhere does Spinoza indicate that he is leaving stuff out as he does say here about what could be said about modes ("not...all of them") or later about the "definitions of jealousy and the other vacillations of mind" (EIIIp58DefXLVIIIEXP [the wider passage is also relevant]).

3. This passage clearly looks ahead not just to Part II of the Ethics ("to the knowledge of the human mind"), but also to the last five propositions of Part V, that is, the end of the book. I think this is significant for claims about geometric method in the Ethics--Parts II-V are connected in an ascent to our salvation.

4. To say that something is "eternal" in Spinoza just means to say that it exists. But this kind of existence has funny properties. [Note: I am committed to the idea that in Spinoza existence is not used univocally.] In particular, it is not existence in time (or space). Rather it is more akin to an eternal (sic) truth. But as letter 10 teaches us, these "do not have any place outside the mind." Given that God is a self-cause and thinks, to say that he is "eternal" just means he has an idea of himself.

Maybe this is the best interpretation of Conatus doctrine thus far...

Thanks to Keith Allen for the pointer.

CFP: Spinoza, the Infinite, and the Eternal 11-12 May 2012, University of Dundee, Scotland

Keynote speakers: Clare Carlisle (King's College London) and Alan Nelson (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) More info here.

Work on the conatus and Freud?

Does anyone know of interesting work on the conatus and Freud ? I remember reading a bit about this sort of thing in Stuart Hampshire's book, and there's a fair bit of (often unnecessary) writing in France on Lacan and Spinoza, but I am looking for helpful, conceptually oriented essays on Spinoza's notion and how it compares to Eros and Thanatos, all that stuff. This is not directly for me but I'll be glancing at the material. (Oh, before someone mentions that, I do remember the long passage in Difference and Repetition on death drive and some faintly Spinozist ideas.) The work can be more analytic (although I suppose it will be soft analytic), or more continental. Or, of course, beyond all that. Please, no Badiou. Thanks!

A new (?) deflationary treatment of Common Notions in Spinoza

[Below is a draft of section 3B of a handbook article on "Spinoza and Science" forthcoming in OUP Handbook on Spinoza, ed. M. Della Rocca. I offer what I take to be a new reading of Spinoza's "Common Notions" and how we should not read them as akin to laws of motion. Comments welcome!--ES]

3B Common Notions (and laws of motion/thought)

Recall that in the TTP, Spinoza writes that “in examining natural things we strive, before all else, to investigate the things which are most universal and common to the whole of nature- viz., motion and rest, and their laws and rules, which nature always observes and through which it continuously acts and from these we proceed gradually to other less universal things,” (TTP 7.27; III/102). Spinoza alludes here to an important concept in his epistemology: so called “common notions.” In a handwritten note that Spinoza added to TTP he makes clear that common notions are stepping stones to adequate knowledge of God; in particular that God “exists necessarily, and is everywhere” and that God’s nature is presupposed in all things we conceive. (III/252-253)[1] So, while in this chapter I have been emphasizing a skeptical strain in Spinoza this concept seems to offer a robust route to adequate knowledge of the second kind (E2p40S2). In particular, one might think that I have given far too much attention to the unattainability of the third kind of knowledge and the limitations of the first kind of knowledge within Spinoza, while downplaying the presence of the second kind. Yet, Spinoza writes that human minds contain adequate ideas (E3p1dem) and refers back to E2p40S2; so common notions seem available to all.

Schliesser as Sixth Man at the Joint Session.

I am a Plenary at the Joint Session this weekend. (Very excited!) The program is here. As Philosophy's designated (bench-warming) Sixth Man, I am coming off the bench as a late substitute to comment on Susan James' (very fine) "Creating Rational Understanding: Spinoza as a Social Epistemologist"; my paper "Angels and Philosophers" has not been published in the Proceedings yet. A draft of my paper, full of typos, alas, is here. Comments welcome!)

A found manuscript of Spinoza's Ethics!

Dutch media are reporting that Leen Spruit has discovered a manuscript of Spinoza's Ethics in Vatican library. (By chance on Monday in Oxford, I had heard about this from Pina Totaro (CNR, Roma), who is involved in publication of the manuscript.) This is exciting news! The Dutch article writes that this ms was submitted to the Inquisition by Spinoza's ex-friend Nils Steno in 1677. The team that is analyzing the ms suspects Steno obtained the manuscript from Spinoza's interlocuter, Ehrenfried Walther Tschirnhaus.

The newspaper article subtly implies, however, that this ms is more authentic than the one published in Spinoza's Opera Posthuma. The article suggests that this ms proves that the posthumous work must have been edited and changed from the manuscript Spinoza left for his editors (now lost, presumably destroyed). But it is not impossible that Spinoza made some changes to the Ethics after he circulated the version now found in the Vatican library. Moreover, the Dutch translation that accompanied the Ethics in the Opera Posthuma contains subtle differences -- often clarifications --, suggesting that the editors were cautious in altering the Latin. Anyway, until the world's expert on these matters, Prof. Piet Steenbakkers, weighs in, I remain skeptical about the suggestion that we will need to study this manuscript as the authentic Spinoza.

Update: the manuscript will be invaluable to help figure out the extent of Spinoza's intellectual development during the last few years of his life. In particular, it may allow us to discern the impact, if any, of Spinoza's non-trivial correspondence with Tschirnhaus (and their intermediary, Schaller). Moreover, the Dutch newspaper reports also provide more evidence for the idea that the Ethics may have originally been conceived in four parts (or that material that was intended for a fourth part, ended up in the final part, which has a rather sharp break between proposition 20 en 21).

(Post)-Doctoral workshop (8-9 June, Ghent), Spinoza: the Political and the Metaphysical

On June 8-9, 2011, with support of Ghent University's Doctoral School, the Philosophy & Moral Sciences Department at Ghent University, is hosting a (Post-)Doctoral workshop on Spinoza.

Susan James (Birkbeck, London), Beth Lord (Dundee), and Willem Lemmens (Antwerp) have agreed to lend their expertise to the workshop.

Program:

Spinoza workshop in Ghent, May 11, 2011

On Wednesday, May 11, 2011, the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University hosts a Spinoza workshop with two speakers:

14:45-16:00: Michael Rosenthal (UW-Seattle): "Spinoza on the Idea of Progress"

16:20-17:35: Tinneke Beeckman (Brussels): "Machiavelli as Spinoza's inspiration for thinking politics"

Attendance is free. Location: Blandijnberg 2, Auditorium E.

On Phaedrus, Pythagoras, Pirsig, and (Newtonian) philosophy...

Below I reprint an old blog post. It is a homage to Fixler because he introduced me to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was an undergraduate. I was reminded of Fixler by this cute discussion (thank you Jason Stanley, by way of facebook). I went to The University of Chicago, and never lost my fondness for Pirsig. So, if it is true that "real philosophers do not consider this [Pirsig's book] real  philosophy" I am not a real philosopher, alas. [Yeah, resist the temptation to affirm!]