Spinoza and Buddhism on the Self

(Draft copy only. Please do not cite without permission.)

Soraj Hongladarom, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn

University

The self has become a fashionable topic in philosophy again. This age-old

philosophical problem has been given a boost through recent advances in cognitive

science and neuroscience, which finds it intriguing that an entity as familiar to us as

our selves continue to elude full scientific investigation. To put it in a rather formal

term, the problem is how to account for the referent of the first-person pronoun.

When we say, for example, that I am typing this paper, who is this ‘I’ that is typing the

paper? The problem of the self has intimate connections with the problem of personal

identity and the mind-body problem, but they are not the same. What makes the self

distinctive is its first-personal character, so to speak.

In this paper I would like to present a brief sketch of two philosophies on the

topic of the self, namely Spinoza’s and the Buddhist’s.1 A search through the literature

on Spinoza and Buddhism provides only very scanty result; 2 this is rather surprising

given the fact that Spinoza aims at giving an account of how achieve the best life

possible, which is clearly the same goal as in Buddhism. Furthermore, the key toward

1 As this paper presents only a sketch of a larger project, I do not specify which tradition of Buddhism is
presented to compare and contrast with Spinoza. What I intend to do is to present the core view within each
school of Buddhism in order to present Buddhism as a single whole, to the extent that this is possible at all.
More nuanced interpretation of Buddhism, especially on the self, has to wait for the further studies.
2 One of the earliest works on the topic is S. M. Melamed, Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1933). Other works related to the topic include Paul Wienpahl,
“Ch’an Buddhism, Western Thought, and the Concept of Substance,” Inquiry 14(1971): 84 – 101; Brook
Ziporyn, “Spinoza and the Self-Overcoming of Solipsism,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy
4.1(2012): 125 – 140; and Paul Wienpahl, “Spinoza and Mental Health,” Inquiry 15(1972): 64 – 94.

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the best life possible is only achievable through intellectual understanding for

Spinoza, which is comparable to the Buddhist’s view that it is wisdom, or panna, that

is necessary for realizing such life. The metaphysics are also quite similar; for

Spinoza, all things are, it could be said, interconnected since they are modes of either

the Attribute of body, if they are material things, or of the Attribute of the mind, in

case they are mental entities. In any case, all of these are parts of the one Substance,

or God. Thus, we could see Spinoza as showing that things, either physical or mental,

do not possess independent existence in themselves, because the one and only thing

that possesses such independent existence is none other than God. In Buddhism,

rather similarly, things are also interconnected, and although it is well known that

Buddhist philosophy entertains no conception of the personal God, the Buddhist

presumably would find it quite comfortable to live with Spinoza’s God. The

fundamental law of nature for the Buddhist, such as the Law of Karma and the Law of

Cause and Effect (idappaccayatā)3 seems to fit nicely with Spinoza’s conception of

things in nature all of which have to follow the Law of Cause and Effect to such an

extent that he claims that in nature nothing can really happen by chance.

The problem of why there is such a dearth of studies comparing the two

philosophies aside, what I would like to do, as I have said, is to compare and contrast

the two philosophies on the self. There is a clear reason for this, apart from the fact

that the self has become fashionable. Buddhist philosophy, as is well known, is

skeptical about the self. It is the hallmark of almost all schools of Buddhist

philosophy that they deny the inherent existence of the self. By ‘inherent existence’ it

is meant that the self could exist without any relations to other factors. On the

3 I use the Pāli terminology in this paper as a matter of convenience. As I said earlier, the Buddhism that I
present in this paper is a generic one which does not distinguish between Theravada or Mahayana, or any
other more specific school.

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contrary, Buddhism maintains that the self as we know it—such as when we refer to

ourselves using the first-person pronoun—is only an illusion, albeit a very useful one.

Spinoza does not talk much at all about the self in the Ethics, but he talks about the

human mind and the human body, and we can infer from that how he would conceive

of the self as referent of the first-person pronoun. The point I would like to make in

the paper, then, is that there are more similarities in Spinoza and Buddhism than

differences. Analyses of how the Buddhist view the conception of the self could shed

light on Spinoza’s own view about the union of the mind and the body that is very

difficult and obscure. Furthermore, a close look at how Spinoza formulates his view

about the human mind and body could shed light on how Buddhist philosophy in

general looks at the issue also. Hence the benefits go both ways.

More specifically, I would like to contend, as part of my ongoing project, that

Spinoza’s view of the self as a union of individual mind and individual body, 4 and of

bodies in general as objects of the mind, as well as his view of the mind as necessarily

embodied in the body, could function as a yardstick, so to speak, with which the view

of the mind and the body in Buddhism could be compared. In the same vein, the

Buddhist analysis of the self could also benefit an understanding of Spinoza. The

comparison is not only of exegetical interest; it has strong philosophical interest too.

Spinoza discusses the mind and the body in Book II of the Ethics. In

Proposition 11, Spinoza says as follows: “The first thing that constitutes the actual

being of a human Mind is nothing but the idea of a singular thing which actually

4 However, Colin Marshall argues that Spinoza does not believe that the mind and the body are numerically
identical. See Colin Marshall, “The Mind and the Body as ‘One and the Same Thing’ in Spinoza,” British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 17.5(2009): 897 – 919. His argument hinges on the ontological status
of the Spinozistic Attributes, which does not directly touch upon the argument presented in this paper as I do
not present any specific argument on the status of the Attributes here.

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exists.”5 And he goes on to say that the particular thing that is actually existing is the

body. An important Proposition, Proposition 13, says: “The object of the idea

constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode of Extension which

actually exists, and nothing else.” Thus he seems to be saying that the mind is

constituted by a thought, or an idea that one has, of a particular physical thing.

Without such a relation that the mind has toward an object, which has to be

physically existing, there can be no mind. To the extent that a mind has such a

relation to an individual object, the mind thus becomes an individual mind. Spinoza

sees a parallel between mind and body and a pre-established harmony between them,

which is rather similar to Leibniz’s view. However, Spinoza’s own unique view is that

both mind and body are Attributes of God, and there can be no body which is not

accompanied by the mind, and vice versa. Every individual mind has to have a bodily

object which it is related to, and every bodily object has to be accompanied by a mind

also. Previously in Proposition 3 in the same Book Spinoza states: “In God there is

necessarily an idea, both of his essence and of everything that necessarily follows

from his essence.” Given that literally every existing thing does follow from God’s

infinite essence in infinite ways, there is thus an idea of every thing whatsoever. In

other words, there is a one-to-one correspondence between every idea and every

physical object, and the pre-established harmony is established by the fact that all

ideas and all bodies are modes of the two attributes of God, each attribute being an

essence of God. In other words, both physical and mental objects are parts of the one

and the same God. When considered one way (under one Attribute) God appears as

physical, but considered another way, under another Attribute, God appears as

mental. As physical and mental objects are only modes of the two Attributes, they are,
5 The text of the Ethics is from the Curley volume. See Baruch Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza,
Edwin Curley, ed. and transl. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).

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collectively speaking, one and the same in this sense, and when considered as

individual things, the physical and mental character of the thing manifest themselves

as belonging to the thing as constituting its very being. In other words, the mental

and the physical are, deep down, one and the same. A physical object is also mental; a

mental object is also physical. The pre-established harmony is thus the strongest kind

as the two are in fact one and the same.

Spinoza does not specifically discuss the self, but he discusses both the human

mind and the human body, Proposition 16: “The idea of any mode in which the

human Body is affected by external bodies must involve the nature of the human

Body and at the same time the nature of the external body.” For him, the human

mind is the idea of the human body. This follows from our discussion above. Thus it

is not possible for the human mind to exist without the corresponding body. Spinoza

also states that the idea of the mind and the mind are one and the same, viz.

Proposition 20: “There is also in God an idea, or knowledge, of the human Mind,

which follows in God in the same way and is related to God in the same way as the

idea, or knowledge, of the human Body;” and Proposition 21: “This iea of the Mind is

united to the Mind in the same way as the Mind is united to the Body.” The last

Proposition is very important in that it points to Spinoza’s view on self-

consciousness, i.e., the act of the mind when directed back to itself. Basically what

Prop 21 says is that when the mind is directed to an object, the manner in which the

direction takes place is the same whether it is directed outward to an external object

or inward back to itself. Coupled with the earlier consideration, it could be said then

that the union of the mind and the body—the pre-established harmony discussed

earlier—is of the same type as the relation between the idea of the mind and the mind

itself. Thus as there is a pre-established harmony between mind and body, there is

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also pre-established harmony between the mind and the idea of the mind too. Here is

where we can get a glimpse of how Spinoza views the self. When the mind is directed

toward itself, it establishes a union between the perceiver and the perceived, in other

words, the subject and the object. The self is thus this union between mind and body

that is individual and limited only to a particular human being. The self thus is

composed both of physical and mental elements and belong to the body.

Let us look at how Buddhism views the self.6 The view of Buddhism on the self

is a vast topic; unlike Spinoza’s discussion, the view on the self is central to the

Buddhist philosophy and there is thus a vast amount of discussion in all the

traditions of Buddhist thought. In this short paper I shall only be able to focus only

one aspect of the argument that is concerned with an analysis of the self into five

skandhas, or aggregates. As is well known among Buddhist scholars, the self is

usually analyzed, both in the Theravada and Mahayana traditions, as being composed

of form (rūpa), feelings (vedanā), perceptions (saññā), thought formations

(sankhāra) and consciousness (viññāna). These five elements can be grouped

together roughly into physical and mental entities whereby form belongs to the

former and the other four aggregates to the latter. The argument is that, as the self is

analyzable into these five aggregates, the self itself cannot be found as an inherently

existing entity because the self dissolves itself by virtue of being analyzable into these

aggregates. Any characteristic that is thought to belong to the self, such as having a

certain personality, is not found to belong to any of these aggregates. The personality

may be thought to belong to perceptions and memories, but these are fleeting and

constituted by countless short episodes so cannot be considered as a candidate for the

6 In this draft paper, I do not put in references to Buddhism because the ideas from Buddhism are mostly well
known among Buddhist scholars. However, these will be provided in the final paper later on.

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self which is supposed to be enduring as source of personality. The same kind of

analysis applies when the self is equated with the body. In short, the Buddhist takes

up the usual way the self is conceived, such as existing as a life giving soul, and finds

that it is nothing more nor less than a collection of the five aggregates. As none of

these five aggregates possesses the characteristic that is necessary for there being a

substantial self, the latter cannot thus exist. Note, however, that for the Buddhist the

self does exist. To deny that categorically would be crazy because all of us refer to

ourselves all the time and communication would not be possible without this

capability. The problem, however, is what exactly is this thing that I refer to using the

word ‘I.’

The key to seeing whether Spinoza’s view on the self agrees with the Buddhist

or not thus lies in how Spinoza views the self. If he views it as not inherently existing,

as something whose existence necessarily depends on that of others, then on the

whole his view would agree with the Buddhist’s. I believe that his view finds a lot of

affinities with the Buddhist’s in this regard. Recall that for Spinoza modes are an

attribute of Substance considered as being limited by their own kind. That is, a

physical object is a piece of matter that is extended whose outer limit is defined by

other objects. If that is the case, then it can be seen that the very being of the object

depends crucially on others. Without the other objects to provide its outer limit, how

could the object even exist as an object at all? In the same vein, a self, that is a union

of individual body and individual mind, is delimited by its relations with other selves.

It is certainly the case that its body is delimited by other physical objects, and the

mind is also delimited in the same way. And the self, seen from the first-person

perspective as a union of mind and body pertaining to one particular person, is thus

delimited in the same way by other body and mind complexes too. This points to a

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rather striking similarity between Spinoza and Buddhist philosophy.

Now what about the actual metaphysical status of the self? According to

Spinoza, we have seen that the answer is that the self is something which is physical

and mental all together at the same time, just as Substance itself can be seen as being

constituted essentially by mind or by matter, the difference being that while

Substance is only one, the selves are parts of Substance, just as modes are. What goes

on at the cosmic level with the Substance also goes at the more modest level of the

human being. However, there is one difference between Spinoza and the Buddhist.

For Spinoza the self or the person is both mental and physical; however, in Buddhism

the standard canon does not point out such tenet. On the contrary, the body and the

mind appear to be separated. In the Abhidharma, for example, they are even

separated into two distinct and incompatible fundamental categories of basic reality,

which consists of mind (citta), mental formations or mental states (cetasika), form

(i.e., physical matter—rūpa), and Nirvana. However, in the Mahayana tradition

following the work of Nagarjuna, the doctrine of Emptiness has it that mind and

matter in the end are not strictly separated one from the other, as both belong in the

ultimate sense to the empty nature, or in other words both are equally empty of

inherent characteristics. This is a hugely complex matter, but suffice it to say at this

stage that according to the Mahayana, mind and matter could be regarded as

belonging to the same category of being, if it is possible to talk of Emptiness itself as a

category of being at all. In any case, there is at least a strand in Buddhist thought that

appears to equate mind and matter together, thus making it rather amenable to

Spinoza’s thought. This point, however, requires much further elaboration and

analysis. This project would have to look at Emptiness itself in Mahayana thought

and at Spinoza’s God or Nature in order to find out points of comparison. A study of

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the conception of the self in both Spinoza and in Buddhist philosophy cannot fail to

have a close look at how both view Ultimate Reality and how comparisons could be

made.

Conclusion

In conclusion, what we can say at this early stage of the investigation is that

there are a number of similarities between Spinoza’s conception of the self and the

Buddhist’s. Firstly, they are both unions of mind and matter that are limited by their

own kind. By ‘being limited to their own kind’ it should be understood in the mere

physical sense of the extent of one self being limned by the existence of other selves

physically; but should also be understood more metaphorically in the sense that the

existence of one self being recognized as such by other selves. This is in line with the

fact that selves are not mere inert object, but are the seats of subjectivity and sources

of thoughts and ideas. In Buddhism this is supported by the tenet that everything is

interconnected (idappaccayatā) such that a recognition of there being one thing

necessarily requires the recognition of existence of other things. Secondly, Spinoza’s

view that mind is constituted by matter or body does not seem to find a direct support

in Buddhism, but if we interpret the Mahayana doctrine of Emptiness in such a way it

is what reality is like in the ultimate sense, then mind and matter both belong to

Emptiness in the sense that Emptiness is perceived as possessing two major

characteristics, namely mental and physical, and this would be much in line with

Spinoza’s theory of the Attributes. Certainly we cannot provide such an interpretation

of Buddhist thought along this line in this paper, but if Emptiness is recognized to be

an entity—that is, the basic bedrock reality that appears to us as tables and chairs,

then mind and matter do indeed appear to go along the Spinozistic line. Or we could

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also say that Spinoza’s view of Substance and Attributes follow along the Mahayana

line of Emptiness as ultimate reality.

Then how about the important view in Buddhism of denying the inherent

existence of the self? Although Spinoza does not say anything specific about the self,

he does say quite a bit on the human mind and the human body, which are obviously

corollaries of the self. Furthermore, the whole purpose of the Ethics is to achieve

blessed life, and quite clearly it must be the self of someone who achieves that end

after following Spinoza’s path that he lays out in the book. Thus it seems incongruent

for one to conclude that Spinoza does not give much importance to the self only

because he does not talk about it directly in the work. However, this implies that

Spinoza recognizes the existence of the self. But if we think this way, then Buddhism

also recognizes the existence of the self too, because in the end it is the self of the

practitioner who, after arduous effort, arrives at the shore of Nirvana. In order to

arrive there, one has to relinquish the (erroneous for Buddhists) belief that the self is

inherently existing. In the same vein, I think it is also possible to see that in the Ethics

the existence of the individual self is also tenuous. For one thing, Spinoza

acknowledges that in the end there is only one thing, namely God, or Substance. All

the selves out there are only modes of some Attributes of God. Modes have some level

of existence, but they do not exist categorically as God does. This is another point of

comparison with Buddhist thought that I think it would be quite worthwhile to

pursue.

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