Baruch Spinoza

About spinoza :
Baruch spinoza was 17th century Dutch philosopher who tried to reinvent
religion from moving it away from something based on superstition and
ideas of direct divine intervention to being a discipline that was going to be
far more impersonal.

Notion of God by spinoza

For spinners Our God is not a person who stands outside of nature or does not perform
as a Governor or as a miraculous been but in spite of this spinoza did not declared
himself as an atheist although he was criticized or judged to be so because of his views
he claimed to remain the starch defender of God and rather a pantheist. God plays an
absolutely Central role in spinoza Philosophy spinoza's god is wholly impersonal and is
indistinguishable from nature or existence for him whatever is is in God and nothing can
exist or be conceived without God
Spinoza is considered to be a pantheist because of the view that God and nature or
God and substance are one.
Spinoza argued that God exists and is abstract and impersonal. He contended that
everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality
(substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which
surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names
for the same reality,[73] namely a single, fundamental substance (meaning "that which
stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all
lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by
Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is
understood only in part.
Spinoza's main contention with Cartesian mind–body dualism was that, if mind and
body were truly distinct, then it is not clear how they can coordinate in any manner.
Humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, which is a result of their
awareness of appetites that affect their minds, while being unable to understand the
reasons why they want and act as they do.

God is the 'causa sui' or the cause of itself, because,

Something is causa sui only if it's existence and all of its characters and all of its
particular states follow from its pan essential nature. If it is capable by being affected in
any way by anything other than itself, or if it's existence presupposes the existence of
anything else , it is not causa sui.

Proof for the existence of God.

Existence veli nga to the nature of substance. To concieve of god , is to concieve of a

substance. Therefore god cannot be concieved except as existing. To concieve Him as
not existing would be absurd , it would involve a self contradiction to deny that He exists
, therefore he exists.

As the potentiality of existence is a power, it follows that in proportion. As the reality in

the nature of a thing, so also will it increase its strength for existence . Therefore a being
absolutely infinite such as God, has from himself an absolutely infinite power of
existence and hence he does absolutely exist.

Spinoza was determined to base his understanding of what he calls God solely on
rational argument. That is why he does not go with traditional understanding.

Notion of Substance : attributes and modes

Spinoza accepts the traditional notion of Substance, but only considers God as pure
substance.

A) why is it that spinoza does not accept ordinary object as substance ?

1. Primary object are affected by eachother and many of their particular characters are
the results of their interactions , i.e., they do not really exist entirely independent of each
other.

2. These objects are capable of dissolution and distruction.

B) why spinoza considers God as substance?

According to spinoza, god means a being that is absolutely infinite.i.e.,substance
consistent of infinite attributes.he states that, substance cannot be produced by another
substance and there cannot be 2 or more substances having the same attributes or
essential characters.

Modes and attributes

Attributes

To explain the variety of existence Spinoza formulates the doctrine of Attributes and
Modes. Spinoza defines attributes as that “which the intellect perceives as constituting
the essence of substance”.

God or Substance consists of infinite number of “attributes of which each expresses an

eternal and infinite essence”.Of these infinite numbers of attributes, only two—thought
and extension—can be known by human intelligence. In one sense each of the
attributes of God is infinite.
For it completely represents the nature of God from one particular point of view.
Thought is infinite in ‘its own sphere, but it is not absolutely infinite, for it is limited by
extension and other attributes.

God is absolutely infinite: the attributes only in their kind. By his doctrine of attributes
Spinoza tries to solve the problem of the relation of mind and matter which Descartes
had failed to solve. Thought and extension are not as with Descartes two distinct and
opposed substances but two attributes of one and the same substance—two points of
view from which the same substance may be apprehended.

There is no connection left, and no need for any. The attributes of substance are
parallel to each other. Corresponding to every mode of thought, there is a mode of
extension. None is superior to the other. Spinoza is opposed both to Spiritualism and
Materialism, one of which tries to explain matter in terms of mind and the other—mind in
terms of matter.

Modes

Spinoza’s doctrine of modes and their relation to substance is an attempt to explain the
existence of the finite world and its relation to the infinite. Spinoza attempts to derive the
many from the one and the changing from the eternal by his doctrine of modes.

By mode, says Spinoza, “I mean the modification of the Substance or that which exists
in and is conceived through something other than itself.” The modes are, therefore, the
actual finite objects of the universe. They exist in the Substance and are conceived
through the Substance. They have no independent reality of their own.

The attributes Thought and Extension are infinite. They represent the intellectual and
the material sphere of existence. But the modes of thought and extension represent the
finite and particular minds and bodies of the world. Corresponding to every mode of
thought there is a mode of extension e.g., there is a particular body corresponding to
every particular mind.

The Relation of Modes with Attributes:

On of the modes to the attributes is left unexplained by Spinoza. If modes are finite and
the attributes are infinite how to explain their reference to one another? Spinoza makes
a last attempt to solve the problem of the relation between infinite and the finite in his
conception of “Infinite modes”.

These are the immediate modifications of attributes. As an example of an infinite mode

of extension Spinoza mentions “motion”.

Motion itself is infinite though particular causes of motion are finite. This affords a
seeming connection between the infinite substance and the finite objects of the world.
But even the infinite modes are infinite. So the origin of the finite world of particular
remains as obscure as ever.

In connection with the origin and status of the system of finite modes Spinoza is faced
with the same difficulty as he had in connection with the attributes.