A Rationalist Manifesto: Spinoza and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Author(s): Michael Della Rocca

Source: Philosophical Topics , SPRING AND FALL 2003, Vol. 31, No. 1/2, Modern
Philosophy (SPRING AND FALL 2003), pp. 75-93
Published by: University of Arkansas Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43154409

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PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS

VOL. 31, NOS. 1 & 2, SPRING AND FALL 2003

A Rationalist Manifesto : Spinoza and

the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Michael Della Rocca

Yale University

In this paper, I will put in motion a rationalist train of thought. The train is
powered at each stage by the Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter, the
PSR), roughly the principle that each fact has an explanation or, equivalently,
that there are no brute facts. Few, if any, of you will want to stay on this train
very long for it quickly leads to some extremely controversial conclusions.
And, fortunately perhaps, there are a number of points along the way at which
one may be able, with some legitimacy, to jump off the train. However, I
would not be so eager to disembark. As I will try to show, at each stage the
rationalist train of thought moves with surprising and substantial plausibil-
ity for the PSR makes the ride seductive. But convincing you of the correct-
ness of this train of thought is not my goal. I am well aware that much more
argumentation than I can develop here (or perhaps elsewhere!) would be
needed to justify fully the (plausible) rationalist moves that I make along the
way. Instead of offering knockdown arguments for rationalist conclusions,
one of my primary aims is to highlight the strength and promise of the ratio-
nalist line of thought - in short, to lead you, through this broad overview, to
take these positions more seriously as live philosophical options.
My other main aim is to do justice to some of the views of that great
rationalist, Spinoza. He goes further, perhaps, than any other major philoso-
pher in prosecuting the rationalist line of thought with which I am concerned.

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In part, I want to do justice to rationalism by doing justice to Spinoza. The
paper will move (seamlessly, I hope!) between interpretations of Spinoza and
a general rationalist position, for I believe that this approach is a very effec-
tive way to put both Spinoza and rationalism in the best light.

I. CAUSATION AS CONCEIVABILITY

I begin with a rationalist problematic about causation. What is it for one thing
to cause another? What is it in virtue of which a causal relation obtains? It is
natural to think that there must be some informative account to be had here.
Yes, there are obviously cases of causation, but it is not enough just to point
and say that that's a causal relation. We want to know what such cases have
in common and what it is for a causal relation to be present. What is it for
one event to make another occur? To put it vividly, what does the oomph of
causation consist in? It would seem odd for causation to be a primitive fact,
even if it is observable. This intuition is behind all reductive accounts of cau-
sation, and I want to point out here that this line of thought is a rationalist
one. In demanding an account of the nature of causation, one is really seek-
ing to explain causation. The fact of causation would be a brute fact if it were
primitive, and to the extent that you find such a primitive objectionable (as
I do), you are well on your way to a rationalist account of causation. In this
light, such philosophers as David Hume and David Lewis - both reduction-
ists about causation (or at least, in the case of Hume, a would-be reduction-
ist) - appear to be guided by rationalist sympathies. This may seem puzzling
because who would regard those philosophers as rationalists? But I am merely
pointing out that there is an application of rationalist thinking here and not
full-blown rationalism itself. This is in keeping with my theme that ratio-
nalist sentiments are much more natural than they might at first seem. In any
event, this approach to causation represents what I regard as the first use of
the PSR in the case of causation. The very demand for an explanation of cau-
sation and the rejection of causation as a primitive is a local application of
the PSR.1
This first use of the PSR - fairly common because it is shared by all
reductionists about causation - naturally leads to a second use of the PSR
that is far less common and correspondingly far more interesting. Given that
one accepts the demand for an explanation of causation, what must that
explanation be? The account of the oomph or of the making relation must
(somehow) leave no possibility of a (the total cause) occurring without b (the
effect). If there is such a possibility, then, I would be inclined to say, a did not
really make b occur, did not really cause b. So there must be a necessary con-
nection in order for there to be causation. But what kind of necessary con-

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nection does causation involve? If there is just a brute necessary connection -
a necessary connection that is itself inexplicable - then we would not have
succeeded in explaining what causation is. To say that causation just is nec-
essary connection, but to leave us with no understanding of the nature of this
necessary connection would be to saddle us, again, with causation as a prim-
itive. This would not do justice to the original (rationalist) intuition that cau-
sation is in need of explanation and would not do justice to the question,
"what is it in virtue of which causation obtains?" If we now have brute nec-
essary connections, then the question becomes: what is it in virtue of which
these brute necessary connections obtain? And to this question, the answer -
for a proponent of brute necessary connections - must, of course, be "noth-
ing." This would be a defeat by the lights of the rationalist intuitions that have
been developed here.
To avoid this conclusion, you might deny that causal connections are
necessary. But even if you do, you still must allow that if causation is to be
explained, then there must be some connection between cause and effect. And
then the question arises: is this connection (of whatever kind) brute or not?
If the answer is that it is brute, then, once again, this would be a defeat by the
lights of the rationalist intuitions I am offering.
What, then, must the connection be, if it is not brute? I think that - for
one who insists on an explanation of causation - it must be some kind of
conceptual necessity. In a case in which a is the total cause of b , if a causes b>
then the claim that "if a occurs then b occurs" must be conceptually true, true
somehow by virtue of the concepts of a and b. If the connection between a
and b were not settled by the very notions of a and b> if it were some kind of
fact beyond the concepts at work here, then it would be unclear why this con-
nection holds, and indeed the connection would, I believe, be ultimately inex-
plicable. For the question would arise: what makes it the case that this further
fact (of connection) holds? This question would always remain unanswered,
unless we could see the concepts of a and of b as themselves the source of the
connection.

But if the connection is not an extra-conceptual fact, but is instead con-

ceptually grounded, then the connection would be completely explicable. It
would be explicable in precisely the same way that, to pick a simple case, the
connection between being a bachelor and being an unmarried man is expli-
cable. It makes no sense to try to dig deeper at this point and ask: why does
this conceptual connection between being a bachelor and being an unmar-
ried man hold? In the end, this connection is self-explanatory and to ask this
question is a manifestation of a failure to grasp properly or fully the concepts
of these properties. In a similar way, once we claim that "if a occurs then b
occurs" is conceptually true, then we cannot ask why this conceptual con-
nection holds without betraying a misunderstanding of the concepts involved

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in that claim or at least a failure to grasp those concepts completely. (Of
course, the conceptual connection in this case may not be as direct as in the
bachelor case, but a complicated conceptual connection is nonetheless a con-
ceptual connection.)
It might be helpful at this point to compare the view that causation is
conceptual connection with a view - espoused, e.g., by Shoemaker - accord-
ing to which causal connections are necessary in the highest degree (i.e., meta-
physically necessary, as Shoemaker stresses), but are not conceptually
grounded. For Shoemaker, causal claims in general are metaphysically nec-
essary but knowable only a posteriori.2 This view, for a proponent of the ratio-
nalist argument that I have given, goes far but not far enough. The rationalist
would welcome Shoemaker's seeing causal connections as necessary, but for
the rationalist Shoemaker goes wrong because he must, ultimately, see the
necessity of the causal connection as a brute fact. He still faces, and is unable
to answer, the question: why are things that fall under such-and-such con-
cepts causally (and necessarily) connected? Shoemaker can only answer: they
just are. By contrast, the rationalist can say in answer to this question: they
are causally connected precisely because these things fall under these con-
cepts, precisely because the very notions of such things require that they stand
in these relations.
So there is pressure, once one accepts the demand for an explanation of
causation, to see causation as consisting in some kind of conceptual con-
nection between a and b such that, literally, it is not intelligible for there to
be a without b. Causation thus seems to be explained in terms of intelligi-
bility or conceivability.3 More specifically, the view is that if one accepts the
rationalist demand, one must hold that if there are any causal connections,
these connections must be conceptual. One's options, given the rationalist
demand, are thus either to say that there are no causal connections in the
world or to say that there are causal connections in the world and that these
are just conceptual connections. Seeing these implications of the rationalist
demand, one may opt just to get off the rationalist train at this point. If so,
fine. But there is a cost: one must give up the intuitively appealing demand
that there be a reductive account of causation or, more generally, that there
be an explanation of causation.
If the PSR is the demand that everything be intelligible or conceivable,
then we can see, in the kind of rationalist account of causation just offered,
a second use of the PSR. For this explanation of causation is really an expla-
nation of causation as some form of intelligibility or conceivability. So the
notion of conceivability figures in at the first stage by issuing a demand for
the conceivability of causation. And once one accepts the (rationalist)
demand, one is, I would say, inexorably led to the view that causation must
be explained in some way in terms of conceivability itself. Otherwise, there

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would be no real account of causation. Causation is, on this rationalist way
of thinking, unintelligible unless it amounts to some form of intelligibility
itself. This is the second use of the PSR or of the notion of intelligibility.
I think that this kind of two-fold use of the PSR (first to demand an
explanation of a feature, and, second, to generate pressure to see this feature
as merely some form of conceivability or intelligibility) is perhaps most char-
acteristic of rationalism: the strategy uses the PSR in a way that circles back
onto itself. The PSR becomes not only a formal principle dictating the struc-
ture of a metaphysical system, but also the very content of that metaphysical
system. One might say that the PSR is the structure and what the structure
structures.

Returning now to causation, I think that something like the two- fold use
of the PSR is grasped by both Malebranche and that great rationalist, Hume.
Malebranche defines causation as necessitation - it must somehow be a nec-
essary truth that "if a occurs then b occurs." I believe he sees the necessity
here as conceptual necessity.4 Not finding this kind of strong conceptual con-
nection between finite objects, Malebranche concludes that God is the only
cause.

Hume agrees with Malebranche in seeing ordinary objects a

ing the requisite conceptual relations for there to be a genuin
tion. (As Hume would put it, the claim that "b is followed b
relation of ideas.) Not wanting to go theological here, as did M
Hume simply says that he cannot give an account of the causal
obtain in the world and must settle for something "extraneous
to the cause.5 It seems, then, that by Hume's own standards, if
ally succeeded in reducing causation, it would have been to s
conceivability.6
Spinoza, I believe, shares this general outlook, and thus he
as making a two-fold use of the PSR in this case. The main dif
Malebranche and Hume is that, unlike them, he does see ordina
events as conceptually connected. And so he has real causal rel
world of finite objects. But it's not that Spinoza is unwilling
Malebranchean move to God. For Spinoza, as for Malebranche
power is God's causal power. But since Spinoza's God, unlike M
God, is not transcendant, finite objects can still be causes simply
power is, as it were, a chunk or aspect of God's power. These p
the relations between God and finite objects are, of course, quite
and I cannot go into them further here.
What is the evidence that Spinoza was thinking along these g
when it comes to causation? The first thing to note is that Sp
the PSR - the principle that is, in effect, guiding the rationalist
I have offered. In fact, he accepts it in a particularly strong form

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"For each thing there must be assigned a cause or reason both for its exis-
tence and for its nonexistence" (lpl ld2). 7 This principle is strong because it
requires an explanation not only for existence, but also for nonexistence.
Consider also lax2: "What cannot be conceived through another must be
conceived through itself." Here Spinoza says, in effect, that each thing must
be conceived through something (either itself or another thing). Now, for
Spinoza, to conceive of a thing is to explain it.8 Thus in presupposing in lax2
that everything can be conceived through something, Spinoza is presuppos-
ing that everything is able to be explained. He does not directly invoke this
view when he offers his account of causation, but it is plausible to think that
he would welcome a reduction of causation for PSR- style reasons.
This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that Spinoza does indeed give
an account of causality; he does not treat it as a primitive. What causation
amounts to, for Spinoza, is conceivability or intelligibility. Spinoza holds that
for b to be caused by a just is for b to be conceived or explained or under-
stood through a. This is evident in his claim (crucial to his argument that
substance is self-caused) that a substance cannot be caused by another thing
for then the substance would (contrary to the definition of substance) be
conceived through that other thing (lp6c). Thus, for Spinoza, there must be
some conceptual connection between a and b in order for them to be causally
related. Indeed, it is clear from several passages that Spinoza sees this kind of
conceptual connection as coextensive with causation.9
What does Spinoza mean by saying that one thing is conceived through
another? One thing he means is that one thing explains another. But the expla-
nation at work here - the only kind of explanation that, in the end, Spinoza
will allow - is conceptual in nature. The concepts of a and b enable one to
explain V s existence by appealing to as existence. (Spinoza does allow for
one thing to be partially conceived through another. So we should say, more
precisely, that if b is partly conceived through a, then the concepts of a and
b enable one to explain the existence of b partly in terms of the existence of
a.) The general point is that if b is conceived through a, then the very con-
cept of b requires that a explains b.i0
But just because Spinoza holds that there is a causal relation between
two things if and only if there is a conceptual relation between them, it does
not follow that he is thereby explaining causation as some kind of concep-
tual relation; it does not follow that he sees causation as nothing but, and
fundamentally, conceivability. For all I have said, causation and conceivabil-
ity may be distinct notions, each of which must, despite their necessary coex-
tensiveness, be understood in its own terms and not in terms of the other. To
show that Spinoza accepts this kind of explanation, one would need to show
not only that, for him, the relations of causation and conceivability are coex-
tensive, but also that, for him, the notion of causation somehow depends on
the notion of conceivability. And this is precisely what Spinoza claims. If we

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focus on substance, we can see that, for Spinoza, causation clearly depends
on conceivability. Thus, self-causation is defined in terms of conceivability
( ldefl). Substance is not defined in terms of self-causation, but in terms of
self-conception (ldef3). And Spinoza derives the fact that substance is self-
caused from the fact that it is self- conceived (lp6, lp7). This indicates that,
for Spinoza, causation depends on conceivability.
There are many other complications and questions that need to be
addressed but that I, keeping in mind the nature of this paper as a broad
overview, will merely mention instead of discussing fully. For example, is
Spinoza willing to say that any form of conceivability or conceptual connec-
tion is a kind of causality? Is there, e.g., a causal relation between the fact that
a triangle is a right triangle and the fact that it satisfies the Pythagorean the-
orem? This certainly does not seem causal, but at most merely conceptual.
Still, I think Spinoza would not balk at calling this relation causal.11
For the idea that causation just is conceptual connection to be at all work-
able, Spinoza must see conceptual connections as different from and stronger
than what we would regard as logical entailment generally. Thus most would
regard the fact that Bush is president as entailing that, e.g., 2 + 2-4. (This
is because there is no possible situation in which the former is true and the
latter false.) It would certainly be desirable if Spinoza would hold that the
former fact does not cause the latter fact to obtain. To do this, Spinoza would
appeal to the notion of dependence. Effects depend on and are explained by
their causes in a way in which the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 does not depend on or
is not conceived through the fact that Bush is president. But exactly how to
characterize this notion of dependence is, of course, far from clear, and
Spinoza does not give us the resources to do so.12
A related problem arises when we consider cases in which a and b are
conceptually connected, and, intuitively, b does not cause a, and instead a
causes b. Thus the fact that Bush was born in the United States and the fact
that Bush is president are conceptually connected (leťs say). In addition, the
latter entails the former and not vice versa. However, the former is arguably
(part of) the cause of the latter and not vice versa. To capture this result it is
not enough to say that the two facts are conceptually connected, for this does
not by itself show why the causation has the direction it does. One needs here
a notion according to which one of the facts is conceptually (and thus
causally) prior to the other. But how this notion of conceptual priority is to
be characterized is, in this case too, far from clear, and here too Spinoza does
not give us the resources to do so. The general worry here is that causation
may be only one variety of conceptual connection. But how then are we to
distinguish it from the other varieties?
Finally, I will also have nothing to say here about the related issue of the
connections between causation and conceivability, on the one hand, and
inherence, on the other hand. I do, though, think that many of the same points

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apply, i.e., that Spinoza quite controversially holds that for one thing to inhere
in or be a property of another is just for it to be conceived through or caused
by that other.13
I have put aside these important issues because I want to highlight what
have been my main aims so far, viz., to see what a rationalist program with
respect to causation might look like - in particular to see that it involves the
two- fold use of the PSR - and to show that Spinoza, as a rationalist, embraces
the two-fold use of the PSR in the case of causation.

II. EXISTENCE AS CONCEIVABILITY

I now want to turn to a deeper and even more controversial case that oper-
ates along the same lines: the nature of existence. To take on this question, I
will proceed in a fashion that is the reverse of that of the previous section.
There I outlined a plausible and powerful rationalist program (with regard
to causation) and then showed how Spinoza falls in with that program. Here
I want to show how Spinoza adopts a similar rationalist approach in the case
of existence, and then I will go on to argue that this approach to existence is
actually rather plausible, especially in light of the plausibility of the motiva-
tion behind the rationalist treatment of causation.
Thus I want to argue first that just as Spinoza explains causation in terms
of conceivability, he explains existence itself in terms of conceivability. For
Spinoza, existence must be explained; it is not a primitive.14 Further, for
Spinoza, to exist is to be conceivable or intelligible. In eliciting Spinoza's views
on existence and conceivability, I will start with the case of God's existence
in particular because Spinoza is more explicit about the nature of Gods exis-
tence than about the nature of the existence of things in general. Then I will
show that Spinoza is indeed committed to the more general claim that exis-
tence is explained in terms of conceivability.
Fortunately, Spinoza clearly tells us what Goďs existence is: it is his
essence. As Spinoza says, "God's existence and his essence are one and the
same" ("Dei existentia , ejusque essentia unum & idem sunt"; lp20). So what
it is for God to exist is for God to have a certain essence. Thus we can see that
Spinoza must accept some form of the ontological argument for the existence
of God. But, as I will explain later, the issues he is dealing with are, in some
sense, deeper than the ontological argument and help avert a challenge to it.
I want to highlight here a crucial line of thought at work in the demon-
stration of lp20. Spinoza says:
the same attributes of God which (by ld4) explain God's eternal
essence at the same time explain [explicant] his eternal existence,
that is, that itself which constitutes God's essence at the same time

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 constitutes his existence. So his existence and his essence are one
and the same.

I will not go into the precise way in which attributes relate to essence and
existence (and the way in which attributes relate to one other), but I would
like to extract an important point that shows the PSR at work. Spinoza seems
to be saying that because God's existence and God's essence are explained by
precisely the same things (viz., God s attributes), then Goďs essence is iden-
tical to Goďs existence. The general principle at work here seems to be one
to the effect that if there is no difference between the things that a and b are
explained by, then there is no difference between a and b. Or, to put it fan-
cily: any difference between two things (any nonidentity) must supervene on
some explanatory difference between the two things.
It is not hard to see why Spinoza would hold such a principle: if a and b
were distinct despite being explained by precisely the same things, then the
nonidentity would not be explicable; there would be no answer to the ques-
tion: what is it in virtue of which a and b are distinct? In the case at hand,
Spinoza would say that if God's existence were distinct from God's essence,
the nonidentity would, given the complete explanatory overlap, be a brute
fact. And, as we have seen, Spinoza rejects brute facts. So God's existence and
God's essence must be identical.
One might object at this point: the argument I just gave is not effective
because just as we might ask, "What is it in virtue of which God's essence and
God's existence would be distinct?" so too we might ask, "What is it in virtue
of which God's essence and God's existence are identical?" If, in each case,
there is no good answer to the question, then appealing to the notion of expla-
nation here can go no distance toward showing that God's essence and God's
existence are identical. But for Spinoza, while the former question would have
no answer, the latter question - What is it in virtue of which God's essence
and God's existence are identical? - would have a ready answer: they are iden-
tical precisely because they are explanatorily equivalent. This equivalence is
what precludes any legitimate way to individuate God's essence and God's
existence from each other, and, for this reason, they must be identical.15 Thus
the PSR is at work in Spinoza's claim that God's existence and God's essence
are identical.
Given this identity, we may say that, for Spinoza, what it is for God to
exist is for God to have a certain essence. But what is it for God to have that
essence? Recall that for Spinoza - and many other philosophers - the defi-
nition of a thing states its essence.16 So let us look at two of Spinoza's defini-
tions for help in answering this question. God is, of course, defined as a
substance and a substance is defined as that which is in itself and is conceived
through itself. So the essence of a substance is to be self-conceived.17 As we
saw earlier, for Spinoza, to say that b is conceived through a is to say that b is

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explained through a or that b can be understood through a or is intelligible
through a. So God's essence is just the fact that he is conceivable or intelligi-
ble through himself and thus God's essence is just his conceivability, i.e., it is
God's conceivability, i.e., it is the conceivability of a being that is self-con-
ceived. This is, as we shall see shortly, a unique feature of Goďs essence: Gods
essence is his conceivability, but the essence of other things is not their con-
ceivability.
We can conclude that, just as God's existence is God's essence, so too
Goďs existence just is Gods conceivability. If God's existence were something
else over and above God's conceivability, then there would be a brute fact;
there would be no account of God's existence.
This identification of God's existence and his conceivability amounts,
for Spinoza, to an explanation of God's existence in terms of God's conceiv-
ability. As Spinoza says in lp20d, God's existence is explained by God's
attributes which are, of course, by their very nature self-conceived (lplO) and
which are those features through which God is conceived. So Spinoza is say-
ing in lp20d that God's existence is explained in terms of his conceivability.
Also Spinoza holds (in ldef8) that God's existence follows from God's defi-
nition. Since God's definition is a statement of God's essence and since God's
essence is God's conceivability, we can see again that Spinoza holds that God's
existence is explained by his conceivability.
We can unpack here a two-fold use of the PSR analogous to the two-fold
use in the case of causation. First, to accept the legitimacy of the demand that
God's existence be explained and not treated as a primitive is, at bottom, an
application of the PSR. Second, what God's existence is accounted for in terms
of is precisely God's conceivability or intelligibility itself. Just as causation is
unintelligible unless explained as intelligibility itself, so too, for Spinoza, God's
existence is unintelligible unless explained as God's intelligibility itself. Here
again, with the two-fold use of the PSR, Spinoza is making the characteris-
tic rationalist move.

I want to show now that Spinoza holds that the existence not only of
God, but of things in general just is their intelligibility or conceivability. This
is a very exotic claim for it entails, e.g., that my existence is nothing over and
above the fact that I am intelligible. We might be happy to admit with Spinoza
that God's existence is God's intelligibility (after all, people are always saying
unusual things about God!). But it is an entirely other matter to say that the
existence of each thing - including such ordinary objects as tables, rocks,
people, and particular events such as my drinking tea at a particular time -
is just the intelligibility of that thing. Still that is precisely the view that, as I
will now argue, Spinoza holds. I will then try to bring out what I think are
the surprisingly powerful reasons in favor of this exotic view.

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 The first thing to note is that, for Spinoza, in contrast to the case of God,
the existence of anything other than God is not the essence of that thing.
(Because things other than God are, for Spinoza, modes, I will sometimes
speak in terms of the existence of modes.)18 For Spinoza, while the essence
of God does by itself guarantee (and indeed constitute) the existence of God,
the essence of a mode does not guarantee the existence of that mode.19
By the same token, for Spinoza, the intelligibility or conceivability of a
mode is not identical to that mode's essence. This is because the essence of a
mode does not by itself guarantee that the mode is in the end intelligible.
First of all, the essence of a mode may be somehow internally incoherent (and
thus the mode would not be intelligible)20 or the essence of a mode may
depend on another essence which is internally incoherent. And so, because
its very conception depends on the conception of an unintelligible thing in
this way, the mode could not in the end be truly intelligible or conceivable.
To bring home this point, consider that Spinoza defines a mode (in part)
as that which is conceived through another. Conception-through-another is
the essence of a mode and, as we have seen, this means that to understand or
conceive the mode one must rely on the understanding or conceivability of
something else. If these other things are not themselves internally coherent,
then in the end the first mode which is - it turns out - conceived through
this incoherent thing - is not itself genuinely conceivable either. It is precisely
because the essence of modes is to be conceived through other things that
their very conceivability is at the mercy of the conceivability or intelligibility
of other things. Thus the essence of a mode, in addition to failing to guar-
antee (and to be) the existence of that mode, also fails to guarantee (and to
be) the intelligibility of that mode. And, again, God - whose essence is to be
self-conceivable - does not suffer from these defects.
However, although the essence of modes fails to be identical either to
their existence or to their conceivability, their existence and conceivability are
identical to each other. That is, the existence of a mode is, for Spinoza, that
mode's conceivability. To see this, I will first argue that, for Spinoza, a mode
is conceivable if and only if it exists. And from that conclusion, I will show
that, for Spinoza, the existence and conceivability of a mode are identical.
First the claim of coextensiveness.21 Let's take, in particular, the claim
that if a mode is conceivable, then it exists. Now if a mode is conceivable,
then its existence would not involve any brute facts. This is because, for
Spinoza, given the PSR brute facts are inconceivable, literally inexplicable.22
So, if a mode s existence would involve brute facts, then that mode is incon-
ceivable. And thus, if a mode is conceivable, its existence would involve no
brute facts. In order to show that conceivability entails existence, lets say, for
the sake of argument, that the existence of mode m would not involve any
brute facts, and let's say that the nonexistence of m would also not involve

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brute facts. That is, the existence of ra and the nonexistence of ra are each
conceivable. (As we have seen, Spinoza allows - and indeed requires - that
there are explanations of the nonexistence of things. See lpl ld2.) If this is
the case, then it seems as if - contrary to the claim for which I am trying to
argue - the conceivability of a mode does not guarantee its existence.
However, I will now argue that this scenario is actually impossible for Spinoza;
there cannot be a situation in which a mode is conceivable and in which the
nonexistence of that mode is also conceivable. To see this, let s assume that
each of these is conceivable, that each of these would not involve a brute fact.
If this is so, then if, lets say, mode ra does exist, then since m s nonexistence
is equally conceivable, there would seem to be no reason why ra exists rather
than not. That is, ras existence would be a brute fact after all. Thus, on the
assumption that the existence of ra is conceivable and would involve no brute
facts and that its nonexistence also is conceivable and would involve no brute
facts, it follows that if ra exists, its existence would involve a brute fact. But
this contradicts the assumption that the existence of ra involves no brute facts.
This result shows that it is not possible, given the PSR, for each of the exis-
tence and the nonexistence of ra to be conceivable. Thus if mode ra is con-
ceivable, then the nonexistence of ra is not conceivable. But if the nonexistence
of ra is not conceivable, then it follows (inter alia) that ra exists after all. Thus,
given the PSR, if ra is conceivable, then it exists.
This is the left-right half of the biconditional linking conceivability and
existence. And, of course, Spinoza would also accept the right-left half: if a
mode exists, it is conceivable. This also follows from the PSR's commitment
to the intelligibility of all things. Thus a mode exists if and only if it is con-
ceivable.
But from here it is a quick step to the conclusion of identity. Given the
necessary coextensiveness of the existence and the conceivability of a mode,
in virtue of what could they differ? Surely, in these circumstances, any dis-
tinction between existence and conceivability would be primitive, and, in this
light, Spinoza would feel pressure to identify them.23 Thus for Spinoza the
existence of a mode is nothing but the conceivability of that mode.
Another way to see that Spinoza holds this view is to bring God back
into the discussion. As we saw, for Spinoza, the existence of God is the intel-
ligibility of God. In this light, how could it fail to be true that a similar prin-
ciple applies to modes, i.e., that the existence of a mode just is its intelligibility?
To say that the existence of a mode cannot be its intelligibility would be to
draw a distinction between modes and God for no reason. This would be a
violation not only of the PSR, but also of Spinoza s naturalism, which seeks
to treat all things as operating according to the same principles.24 1 grant that
there is reason to say that, unlike God, modes are not such that their essence
is their existence. This reason stems from the fact that modes are modes and

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God is not a mode. But there is, on Spinozistic terms, no reason, as far as I
can see, to deny that the conceivability of a mode is its existence. To say that
the conceivability of a mode is its existence does not come into conflict with
the claim that a mode is a mode and not a substance. So the reasons that were
in place for denying that the essence of a mode is its existence are not in place
here, and, as far as I can see, there is no other available reason to deny that
the conceivability of a mode is it existence.
And, in fact, we find Spinoza saying something along these lines in lp25s.
There he says: "God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense
in which he is called the cause of himself." Now God is cause of himself in
the sense that Gods essence makes God conceivable and this conceivability
is God's existence. If, as Spinoza says in lp25s, God is the cause of a mode in
the same sense in which he is the cause of himself, then Spinoza must mean
that Gods essence makes the mode conceivable and this conceivability is the
existence of the mode. So, given that God's existence is his conceivability, I
do not see how God could be the cause of modes in the same sense as he is
cause of himself unless the existence of modes is their conceivability.
So we have reached the conclusion that, for Spinoza, the existence of
modes is their conceivability. And, as we saw, for Spinoza, the existence of God
is Gods conceivability. Given that all that exists (and all that can exist) are God
and his modes ( lp4), it follows that existence in general is conceivability.
Here again we see the two-fold use of the PSR. Spinoza requires that exis-
tence be explained. This demand is an application of the PSR and represents
the first use. In saying that existence is explained in terms of conceivability
or intelligibility or explicability, Spinoza says, after insisting on a demand for
an explanation of existence, that existence is explained in terms of explica-
bility, that is, it is conceived in terms of conceivability. This second use of the
notion of conceivability is the second fold in the two-fold use of the PSR.
In this argument and interpretation, I am committed to seeing Spinoza
as espousing a version of necessitarianism, as holding the view that each fact
holds necessarily by some kind of conceptual necessity. To see why my inter-
pretation carries this commitment, consider: if existence just is intelligibility,
then if something does not exist, that can only be because it is unintelligible.
So there can be no conceivable but nonactual situations - for, according to
Spinoza, nonactual situations are nonactual precisely because they are incon-
ceivable. In other words, there are no merely conceivable situations; thus the
actual exhausts the conceivable, and so everything nonactual is inconceiv-
able. Given the PSR, if something is inconceivable, then it is impossible. Thus,
for Spinoza, everything nonactual is inconceivable and is thus impossible.
And this is just necessitarianism, a thesis I take Spinoza to be expressing in
lp33: "Things could have been produced by God in no other way, and in no
other order than they have been produced."

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 There has been much controversy over whether Spinoza is, indeed, com-
mitted to necessitarianism and over how exactly to interpret propositions
such as lp33.25 Independently of the argument in this paper, I had already
accepted the necessitarian reading of Spinoza. But I think that the consider-
ations I have raised here enable us to go even deeper into the sources of
Spinoza's necessitarianism. Without entering the vexed territory of lp33, etc.,
we can see that Spinozas rationalist commitment to an explanation of exis-
tence - analogous to his commitment to an explanation of causation - leads
him inevitably to necessitarianism.

III. COULD THIS BE RIGHT?

I have argued that Spinoza is committed to necessitarianism and to an expla-

nation of existence as conceivability. Fair enough. But is the view itself at all
plausible? Certainly it seems highly implausible to say that it is strictly impos-
sible for me to have worn a red shirt today instead of the blue one I am cur-
rently wearing. It seems equally, if not more, implausible to say I could no
have failed to exist, i.e., that I necessarily exist. However, I think that there i
considerably more plausibility to this view than philosophers have typically
granted. To see why, note that the view in question actually consists of two
claims in need of defense, claims that correspond to the two folds in the two-
fold use of the PSR. The first claim is that there should be an account of exis-
tence. But why should this be so? Why cant existence just be a primitive? The
second claim is that existence must be accounted for in terms of conceiv-
ability. But even if we grant that existence itself is in need of explanation, why
should we grant that existence is explained in this particular way? This is a
concern especially in light of the fact that, as we have just seen, if we grant
that existence is explained in terms of conceivability, then we are committed
to necessitarianism. I will take up these questions in turn.
First, why should we grant that existence must be accounted for in terms
of something? Here I can only gesture at an answer, a gesture that is, I believe,
fairly powerful. For this purpose, it is most helpful to draw a parallel to the
case of causation. If we grant that causation is to be explained, we do so
because we want to be able to say what causation is. We see plenty of cases of
causation in the world and we want to know what it is that such cases have
in common that makes them all cases of causation. How are we to under-
stand the differences between cases of causation and cases that are not cases
of causation? Surely, we are inclined to say, there must be something we can
say here to elucidate this difference. Or at least this is what one who feels the
need for an account of causation would say, and it seems perfectly natural to
feel this need. A similar line of thought applies to existence. We are aware of

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plenty of cases of existence. Just look around. But what makes all these cases
cases of existence? What unites these cases and how do they differ from cases
of nonexistence? What is it in virtue of which, e.g., Bill Clinton exists and the
Tooth Fairy and Sherlock Holmes do not? Or, to put the point differently,
what is it in virtue of which it is true to say that Bill Clinton exists and what
is it in virtue of which it is false to say that the Tooth Fairy exists? Surely, one
is inclined to insist, there must be something to say in response to these ques-
tions. And, in any event, the questions here seem as natural as the parallel
questions in the case of causation. So my argument for the legitimacy of a
demand for an explanation of existence is a conditional one: if a demand for
an account of causation is legitimate, then so too is the demand for an account
of existence. And although this argument is conditional, I believe that the
conditional and its antecedent have a good deal of plausibility.
Let's turn to the second main question I isolated. Even if we grant that
existence should be explained, why should we grant Spinoza s view that it is
explained in terms of conceivability (with all the baggage such a reduction
entails)? If existence can be explained as something other than conceivabil-
ity, then perhaps the necessitarian consequences would not follow.
However, I believe that there is a difficulty with the notion of an account
of existence as something other than conceivability. To say that existence is
explicable is to say that for each existing thing, there is something in virtue
of which it exists, something that explains its existence. This statement is,
however, tantamount to a version of the PSR, the claim (in part) that there
is a sufficient reason for the existence of each thing that exists. One can see
the considerations I just raised as providing an argument for the PSR. If one
finds plausible the view that existence needs to be explained, one will also
find the PSR plausible.
So acceptance of the claim that existence is explicable is tantamount to
acceptance of a version of the PSR. In this light, exactly what is existence
explained in terms of? Given the implicit acceptance of the PSR here, it seems
natural to say that existence is explainable in terms of conceivability or intel-
ligibility. The PSR asserts that if something exists, then it is conceivable. And,
as we saw earlier, given the PSR, if something is conceivable, then it exists. So
it seems that, given the PSR, conceivability is coextensive with existence. In
this light, conceivability is a natural candidate for that in terms of which exis-
tence is to be explained. Further, if existence is explained in terms of some-
thing other than conceivability, then given the coextensiveness of existence
and conceivability, that something else will also be coextensive with con-
ceivability. For this reason, we can say that if existence is explicable, then it is
to be accounted for either in terms of conceivability or in terms of something
coextensive with conceivability. This would, I think, be a tight enough con-
nection between existence and conceivability to suit Spinoza s purposes
because, for one thing, it allows the necessitarian conclusion to go through.

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 But we can take this argument one stage further: if there is something
else besides existence that is coextensive with existence and with conceiv-
ability, then there seems to be no reason to deny that this purported some-
thing else really is existence and conceivability. For, as we have seen already,
given the PSR and given this coextensiveness, there is pressure to identify exis-
tence and conceivability.
Notice that this argument shows that a standard and Kantian criticism
of the ontological argument fails to address what are, perhaps, the most pow-
erful reasons in defense of that argument. In that famous section of the
Critique of Pure Reasony Kant claims, in effect, that conceivability is separate
from existence.26 But a rationalist who has his wits about him (as Spinoza
does) will simply deny this by saying - and plausibly so, as I have argued -
that conceivability is identical to existence. Kanťs criticism of the ontologi-
cal argument fails to confront the reasons that can be marshaled for the claim
that conceivability is not separate from existence. These reasons depend, of
course, on the PSR, and this shows that the defense of the ontological argu-
ment may, in the end, surprisingly rest on a defense of the PSR. This is sur-
prising because the PSR is generally associated with the cosmological
argument which Kant claimed was dependent on the ontological argument.
But now it may seem that the explanatory considerations at the heart of the
cosmological argument may be the more fundamental.27
Seeing the necessitarian and other conclusions to which the claim that
existence is explicable leads, one may want to retract one s acceptance of that
claim. That is, of course, an option. But, I say again, it seems perfectly natural
to demand an account of what existence is, to insist that existence not be treated
as a mystery. Given this apparently legitimate demand, all else follows and we
have something like the PSR (in its two-fold use) and necessitarianism.
More broadly, I believe we can now begin to appreciate - and see how
Spinoza appreciates - the power of the two-fold use of the PSR in develop-
ing rationalist accounts of causation and existence. There are, as you might
expect by this point, other important cases in which Spinoza invokes, with
considerable plausibility, the two- fold use of the PSR to reach further ratio-
nalist conclusions in metaphysics, psychology, and moral philosophy. And, I
would also argue that the account of existence as conceivability can give us
considerable insight into Spinoza's views on the eternality of the mind. But
these are topics for other occasions. I hope to have done enough here to show
that there is a strong line of argument for rationalism of the kind that Spinoza
accepts. This line of thought not only gets to the heart of Spinoza's rational-
ism, but also shows in a startling way how important and vital - alive -
rationalism is.
Final question. Just as we asked what causation and existence are to be
explained in terms of, we must now ask: what is conceivability - the notion
that provided the answers to the earlier questions - to be explained in terms

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of? This is the inevitable and inevitably annoying question that one who insists
on a demand for explanation must face. Certainly, the rationalist cannot refuse
to address this question after he has been making precisely this kind of
demand in criticism of others' philosophical views. So what can the ratio-
nalist say? What is it in virtue of which a thing a is conceivable? And, more
specifically, what is it in virtue of which a is conceivable in terms of such-
and-such? The answer is this: a is conceivable in a certain way because oth-
erwise it would not be a. That's what it is to be a. Asking why a is conceivable
in such-and-such a way is analogous to asking why bachelors are unmarried.
In each case, the question betrays a misunderstanding of the very concepts
at work. In this way, facts about the way in which a thing is conceivable stop
any unpleasant regress of why-questions. The conceivability of a thing not
only provides the basis for the explanation of other facts, but is, in a way, self-
explanatory.

NOTES

Earlier versions of this paper were presented in my Spinoza seminar at Yale in the fall of 2002,
at a faculty discussion at Yale in February 2003, at the meetings of the Pacific Division of the
American Philosophical Association in March 2003, and at the University of Connecticut in
May 2003. On all these occasions, I received enormously beneficial reactions (shock, mostly)
and feedback for which I am very grateful. I would particularly like to thank Don Garrett for
raising a crucial question; Lisa Shapiro for her comments and for organizing the APA session;
and also Don Baxter, J. C. Beali, Tad Brennan, Justin Broackes, Troy Cross, Robin Jeshion, Jim
Kreines, and Michael Nelson.

1. Explaining causation itself, as I am considering here, is different from explaining partic-

ular occurrences. One can insist that causation have an explanation, that there be an
account of causation, without insisting that each particular occurrence have a (causal)
explanation. Conversely, one can insist that each particular occurrence has an explana-
tion without insisting that causation itself be explained. The PSR leads to both demands,
I believe, i.e., to the demand for an explanation of causation and to the demand for a causal
explanation of each occurrence, but it is primarily the former that I am focusing on here.
2. See Sydney Shoemaker, "Causality and Properties," in Time and Cause, ed. Peter van Inwagen
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980), 109-35; and Sydney Shoemaker, "Causal and Metaphysical
Necessity," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998): 59-77.
3. For a similar argument, see Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis,
Ind.: Hackett, 1984), 31-32.
4. Nicolas Malebranche, The Search afier Truth, trans, and ed. Thomas Lennon and Paul J.
Olscamp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Malebranche says, "A true cause
as I understand it is one such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it
and its effect" (ibid., 450, my emphasis).
5. David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, in L. A. Selby- Bigge and P.
H. Nidditch (eds.), 3d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 5-165; sec. 7, pt. 2, 76.
6. Of course, this is a controversial reading of Hume. For a judicious alternative interpreta-
tion according to which Hume does offer a reduction of causation to regularity in objects
and the association of ideas in our mind, see Justin Broackes, "Did Hume Hold a Regularity
Theory of Causation?" British Journal for the History of Philosophy 1 (1993): 99-1 14.

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 7. All references to Spinoza are to the Ethics. Translations from Spinoza are from Curley's
The Collected Works of Spinoza , vol. 1. Passages from Spinoza's Latin are from Gebhardt;
Carl Gebhardt, ed., Spinoza Opera (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1925). I have followed Curley's
system of numbering passages from the Ethics. Edwin Curley, ed. and trans., The Collected
Works of Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985).
8. See, in particular, how Spinoza moves naturally from claims about the way in which sub-
stance is conceived to claims about the way substance is explained (lplOs, lpl4d, 2p5).
See also the way in which conceiving a thing is identical to understanding it or finding it
intelligible (lax5). For further discussion, see Michael Della Rocca, Representation and the
Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3-4.
9. See, in particular, lp25cd in connection with lp6c. For a fuller discussion, see Della Rocca,
Representation and the Mind- Body Problem in Spinoza , 10-11.
10. See in this connection Spinoza's important gloss on the notion of being self-conceived in
the definition of substance: "By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived
through itself, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from
which it must be formed" (ldef3).
11. His talk of the definition of a circle in Letter 60 points in this direction. See also the appar-
ent equivalence suggested by Spinoza's locution "reason or [seu] cause" in 1 p 1 ld2 and
4Pref (Gebhardt, Spinoza Opera , 206; Curley, The Collected Works of Spinoza , 544).
12. For a brief discussion, see Don Garrett, "Spinoza's Necessitarianism," in God and Nature:
Spinoza's Metaphysics, ed. Yovel Yirmiyahu Yovel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991 ), 194, 2 16 n. 1 1.
What Spinoza needs here is some kind of relevance logic.
13. For more on this debate, see Edwin Curley, "On Bennett's Interpretation of Spinoza s
Monism," in God and Nature: Spinoza's Metaphysics, ed. Yovel Yirmiyahu Yovel (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1991), 35-51; and John Carriero, "On the Relationship between Mode and
Substance in Spinoza's Metaphysics," Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (1995): 245-73.
14. Again, as in the case of causation, one must distinguish between explanation of existence
in general and explanation of specific cases of existing things. The PSR can lead to a
demand for explanations of both types, but I focus primarily on the first.
15. Implicit in this argument is a version of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles -
distinct things must be discernible. Spinoza clearly holds such a principle as I show in
"Spinoza's Substance Monism," 13-14.
16. See, e.g., 3p4d: "the definition of any thing affirms, and does not deny, the thing's essence."
For further discussion and references, see Della Rocca, Representation and the Mind-Body
Problem in Spinoza, 88.
17. I will deal with the "in itself" relation in other work where I argue that the "in" relation is
equivalent to and, ultimately, the same as the conceived through relation for Spinoza.
18. I will briefly unpack the technical term 'mode' shortly, but will not offer a full-blown anal-
ysis.
19. See 2axl for a version of the claim concerning the essence of man in particular.
20. Spinoza says, e.g., that the nature of a square circle involves a contradiction (lpl ld2).
21. The argument of this paragraph is a bit complicated, but stay with it - it should be clear
by the end of the paragraph.
22. I assume here that for Spinoza the PSR is itself necessary. The modal verbs in his state-
ments of the PSR (in lax2 and lpl ld2) suggest that this is so.
23. Again, the flipside objection - viz., if they are identical, then in virtue of what are they
identical? - would have an answer for Spinoza. Existence and conceivability are identical
precisely because they are coextensive. (Here again a version of the principle of the iden-
tity of indiscernibles is at work.) In this light, it is interesting to note that in 2p49d, Spinoza
moves from saying that will and intellect are coextensive to saying that they are one and
the same thing.
24. See, in particular, the preface to Part III of the Ethics.

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25. For an illuminating interchange, see Don Garrett, "Spinoza's Necessitarianism," and Edwin
Curley and Gregory Walski, "Spinoza's Necessitarianism Reconsidered," in New Essays on
the Rationalists, ed. Rocco J. Gennaro and Charles Huenemann (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 241-62.
26. Thus: "with actuality the object is not merely included in my concept analytically, but adds
synthetically to my concept" (A599/B627) and "whatever and however much our concept
of an object may contain, we have to go out beyond it in order to provide it with exis-
tence" (A601/B629). Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , trans, and ed. Paul Guyer
and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
27. For a similar point, see Garrett, "Spinoza's 'Ontological' Arguments," Philosophical Review
88 (1979): 198-223.

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