Spinoza explicitly rejects both
Aristotelian-style and Medieval-style final causes explanations[i]. So,
in this chapter, I shall look at Aristotle’s four causes and Maimonides’
adaptation of it to show how this links in with and influenced Spinoza’s own
thinking about teleology.
The topic of teleology and final
causes has its roots in Aristotle’s philosophy of science. Aristotle defines
final causes as: “an end which is not for the sake of anything else, but for
the sake of which everything else is”[ii].
Aristotle points out that final causes, by definition, are finite not infinite
and that this gives rise to “reason in the world”[iii]
because:
“…the reasonable man always acts
for the sake of an end―which is a limit.
Nor, again,
can the formal cause be reduced ad infinitum to another definition fuller in
expression.”[iv]
He further argues for this by
claiming that:
“(ii) To say that it has is to do
away with knowledge, because we thereby imply that we cannot know until we
reach the unanalysable terms involved in the definition. Scientific knowledge
too becomes impossible; how can one conceive of an actually infinite series?”[v]
Aristotle wished to shed light on
causation and causal explanations so that, in his capacity as a scientist in
his era, he could answer the why questions that arise when examining things in
nature as a whole, including various areas of biology and psychology[vi]. On
the other hand, in his appendix to part one of the Ethics, Spinoza writes that
teleological approaches as riddled with what he calls “praejudicia”[vii].
This is often translated as simply “prejudices”, for instance see White,
Stirling’s translation of E. I. app[viii],
which I think is roughly correct. However, the literal meaning of the word is a
prior judgement, decision or examination which gives me the sense that Spinoza
may have meant something along the lines of preconceived ideas. This fits with
the context of the word because Spinoza worries that it might get in the way of
his readers following his demonstrations[ix].
So I think Spinoza is asking his readers to logically follow his arguments from
premises to conclusion without letting their prior biases and judgements
interfere with the rational process. He criticises the conclusion that:
“…therefore, on that causal account, all
things are inherently by nature such that they tend/move/are led (purposefully)
to an end/goal” (my translation of E. I. app)
Spinoza then claims (E. I.
app):
“Satis hic erit, si pro
fundamento id capiam, quod apud omnes debet esse in confesso; nempe hoc, quod
omnes homines rerum causarum ignari nascuntur, et quod omnes appetitum habent
suum utile quaerendi, cuius rei sunt conscii.”[xi]
Suffice (adequate) to say (if
only to mentally conceive of/ mentally grasp the idea as a foundational basis
of thought, which everyone can acknowledge/concede) that everyone is originally
formed at birth not knowing/ being unacquainted with/ inexperienced in/ unaware
of the cause of things, because/ in so far as everyone instinctively
desires/seeks/strives eagerly/longs for what is useful/ profitable/ practical/
helpful/ advantageous/ for them to obtain, which is a phenomenon (something eg
event or cause) everyone is (secretly) aware of. (my translation of E. I. app)
So, on Spinoza’s view, this
tendency to find out what is profitable leads people to ascribe usefulness and
purposefulness to things in the world. This approach to understanding the world
can be seen in Aristotle’s Physics[xii],
where he puts forward his argument for teleology by claiming that events in
nature have a purpose and are useful to us, so it is incoherent to argue that
such natural events happen as a result of necessity and are only, by chance,
useful to us.
When Aristotle refutes such
arguments as incoherent, he is possibly entering into and attempting to further
on-going debates by responding to claims such as those made the pre-Socratic,
Empedocles. We can see that Empedocles was one of the philosophers Aristotle
had in mind because Aristotle provides a summary of Empedocles’s theory of
evolution in his Physics (198b29-32)[xiii].
He describes Empedocles’s theory as maintaining that a plethora of living
organisms came into existence in the beginning of creation, some of which died
out while some survived because they had a use[xiv].
As Bostock points out, Aristotle then tries to refute Empedocles’s theory of
evolution by posing a two pronged dilemma for his theory:
“either animals and plants breed
true, or they do not. Aristotle insists that the correct answer is that they do
(199b13-26), but in that case Empedocles cannot suppose that there
ever was a stage of haphazard combinations brought together by Love; for such
combinations could only come from the seed of parents of a like kind”[xv].
So, if Empedocles thinks they
were “first created” like this, then he can’t explain why they “bred true”
afterwards[xvi].
In this way, Aristotle believes that Empedocles’s theory fails because he is
arguing for an odd “combination of chance and necessity” which undermines his
“mechanism for our evolutionary theory”[xvii].
In this way, Aristotle forces Empedocles to maintain the problematic stance
“that regularity can be initiated by chance”[xviii].
However, as Bostock[xix]
mentions, Aristotle’s argument here is weak because it overlooks the fact that,
just because a regularity appears to be in aid of a particular purpose, it
doesn’t follow that this regularity in nature must either be purposeful or due
to chance. Bostock[xx]
also points out that Democratus could rebut Aristotle by claiming that
“regularities in nature are due neither to chance nor to purpose but to
necessity”. I think Spinoza has this as a line of counter-argument against
Aristotle at his disposal because Spinoza argues for necessity in our nature
alongside accounting for human beings’ striving for what they decide or judge
to be useful (“utile”, E. IV. p26d[xxi])
to them and to “Conatus sese conservandi” (E. IV. p26d[xxii]).
This often used phrase has many potential layers of meaning and implications
when you try to translate the meaning of it so I shall break it down into its
component words. Conatus can mean an attempt, effort, exertion, struggle but
also an impulse or tendency as well as an endeavour, undertaking or enterprise.
So perhaps the sense of conatus is a natural tendency we have which gives rise
to impulses to keep ourselves (and perhaps each other) safe/spared (from
danger), intact/preserved (sese conservandi) which perhaps is addressing the
combination of the biological make-up and impulse to endeavour to survive,
together with the daily practical struggle for survival before evolutionary
theory (both biological and social) became a mainstream view, or the discovery
of DNA or detailed case studies in sociology and psychology.
The context of this passage is
(E. IV. p26d):
“Conatus sese conservandi nihil
est praeter ipsius rei essentiam (per prop. 7. p. 3.), quae quatenus talis
existit, vim habere concipitur ad perseverandum in existendo (per prop. 6. p.
3.), et ea agendum, quae ex data sua natura necessario sequuntur.”[xxiii]
(italics and accents omitted)
Breaking this down into a literal
translation with all meanings included, we see that this passage in Latin
argues that the tendency/impulse/struggle to keep ourselves safe (from danger
and thereby try to remain intact) is due to our/a thing’s essence. As long as
we exist like this, we/a thing will have the power/strength (and
imagination/understanding/adopt ways) to continue to exist and to move/act in a
way which necessarily comes from our/its nature.
Thus, Spinoza could demonstrate,
contra Aristotle, that regularity in nature can be explained through necessity
instead of purpose and teleology, without falling into attributing phenomenon
to chance.
In answer to this, Aristotle
could reply by maintaining that Democratus can’t account for what is and isn’t
useful to us if everything in the world happens necessarily[xxiv].
So, to fill this gap, Aristotle draws a parallel between how nature is set out
and human design. This leads Aristotle to claim in the Physics[xxv]
that the purpose of the characteristics of living organisms also facilitates
their ability to be alive in the first place. Nonetheless, as can be seen in E.
IV. p26d[xxvi],
Spinoza has the resources in his philosophy to protect his theory against this
type of objection by combining these concepts of necessity, usefulness and
striving together so that they complement each other rather than conflict with
each other.
And Spinoza continues by deducing
that:
“…est ergo hic intelligendi
conatus (per Coroll. Prop. 22 hujus) primum, et unicum virtutis fundamentum,
nec alicujus finis causâ (per Prop. 25. hujus) res intelligere conabimur; sed
contrà Mens, quatenus ratiocinatur, nihil sibi bonum esse concipere poterit,
nisi id, quo ad intelligendum conducit, (per Defin. I. hujus) Q.E.D.”[xxvii]
(italics omitted)
“…this effort to understand is
the primary and sole foundation of virtue, and that (Proposition 25, part 4) we
do not endeavour to understand things for the sake of an end, but, on the
contrary, the mind, in so far as it reasons, can conceive nothing as being good
for itself except that which conduces to understanding (Definition I, part 4).
Q.E.D.”[xxviii]
Curley has a similar take on how
this passage should be translated:
“…this striving for understanding
(by P22C) is the first and only foundation of virtue, nor do we strive to
understand things for the sake of some end (by P25). On the contrary, the mind,
insofar as it reasons, cannot conceive anything to be good for itself except
what leads to understanding (by D1) q.e.d.”[xxix]
In this way, the textual evidence
in the Ethics (E IVp26d) suggests that Spinoza is saying we necessarily act in
accordance with our nature which involves trying to ensure our
self-preservation and reasoning our way to rational understanding. This, I
think, resolves Aristotle’s conflicts between necessity, purposefulness and
apparent chance by showing how necessity and striving for survival cohere.
Furthermore, I suggest that
Spinoza suffers even less than Empedocles, and even Darwin and modern science
at times, from Aristotle’s criticism of those who hold the two contradictory
premises that nature’s regularities were propelled by chance. For instance,
this tension can also be resolved by reconceptualising Spinoza’s premises in
the appendix to E. I[xxx] in
the way I outline below:
Nature’s regularities are the result of the
laws of nature which flow from God because God is the only cause. God and so
the laws of nature act necessarily not contingently thus dictating human
behaviour and the natural world in a regular, patterned way and not by chance.
What seems to us like chance, reflects our lack of understanding about the laws
of nature rather than it being symptomatic of any random workings of God or the
natural world. Nothing is purely random and, strictly speaking, there is a
reason and explanation for everything so, if it seems random, the problem is
that the phenomenon is merely beyond our current understanding of natural
phenomenon. This dissolves the contradiction of regularity seemingly coming
from pure chance.
Indeed, even today, modern science can
sometimes assume that, for instance, which genetic traits or illnesses we
inherit can be due to brute luck and chance, rather than seeing these
apparently haphazard results as potentially due to causes that are currently
unknown to science. Genes are capable of mutating or switching on and off
during our lifetime, sometimes due to environmental factors. So I suggest that
a Spinozian approach; encompassing necessity, attempting to understand obscure
laws of nature and perhaps seeing our nature, DNA and genomes as striving to
persevere in their being, including by changing and adapting; may be a helpful
conceptual apparatus for scientific progress in this field. I think Spinoza
also coheres with scientific thought when he claims nothing strives to destroy
itself. When this seems to occur, it is probably due to external factors or is
symptomatic of something going wrong, giving rise to this abnormality of
self-destruction.
Nevertheless, contemporary
theories of evolution could try to evade Aristotle’s criticism on their own
terms by highlighting that, as Bostock points out, “From our evolutionary perspective,
the ‘purpose served’ is not so much the survival of the individual as the
survival of the species, or ―what comes to the same thing―the
successful reproduction of the
individual”[xxxi]
(italics in original). However, I
suggest Spinoza has a more well-rounded approach in his Ethics and TTP by
acknowledging that both individuals and collectives can strive so we can
potentially better explain the range of different ways we strive to survive as
individuals, collectively as groups as well as a wider political state[xxxii].
I interpret Spinoza arguments as retaining more flexibility and function in the
way he is asking us to apply them if we see his conatus doctrine/concept of
striving as an eclectic, cluster concept which spans a range of domains
including the social, biological, political, psychological, ethical, practical,
epistemological and metaphysical aspects of life all rolled into one.
For Spinoza, not only does his
account of necessity apply to the laws of nature studied in science but, unlike
Aristotle, it also applies to a monotheistic God. Spinoza argues in his Preface
to E. IV.[xxxiii]
that God is eternal and so His actions do not constitute final causes but,
instead, come about from necessity. In
this way, Spinoza[xxxiv]
argues that, since God’s actions and existence are not teleological, final
causes are invented by people because they want to understand what is useful to
them as well as how things in the world happen and why. This can be seen
explicitly in his Ethics when he writes:
“Ut iam autem ostendam, naturam
finem nullum sibi praefixum habere, et omnes causas finales nihil nisi humana
esse figmenta, non opus est multis.”[xxxv]
“…nature has set no end before
herself, and that all final causes are nothing but human fictions.”[xxxvi]
Figmenta can mean any of the
following words: figment, fiction, invention, unreality; thing formed/devised;
image. Different translators choose different words for it. I think it is
interesting to think which word captures Spinoza’s meaning here best because it
carries different implications accordingly. Is Spinoza saying that final causes
are like a figment of our imagination, or something that arises from our
imaginative capacities (in terms of the seventeenth century philosophy usage of
imagination), or that they are like fictional stories we create, or are they
something we invent, or that final causes are like an image, or that they are
unreal and so are not a phenomenon that happens in reality? This would also
impact on the type of claim Spinoza is making, for instance, a claim about
reality would be metaphysical but if it were about imagination or fictions it
could be an epistemic, psychological, philosophy of mind claim and fictions
would potentially involve truth claims more than reality claims. What type of
error is involved in believing in final causes, according to Spinoza? It could
be argued that it is a psychological error given he attributes final causes to
human desire (the word Spinoza chose was appetitum, so perhaps more precisely he
may mean a natural, instinctive desire which suggests a more biological reason
for this desire).
This passage comes much later on,
in his preface to part four of the Ethics:
“Causa autem, quae finalis
dicitur, nihil est praeter ipsum humanum appetitum, quatenus is alicuius rei
veluti principium seu causa primaria consideratur.”[xxxvii]
“A final cause, as it is called,
is nothing, therefore, but human desire…”[xxxviii]
(transl. White/Stirling)
This contrasts with medieval
views, namely Maimonides who considers God to be “the final cause of the
universe”[xl]
(hereafter referred to as Guide) and so certainly not a human desire or
fiction, as Spinoza suggests in his Ethics. Maimonides argues that the telos of
“the series of the successive purposes” is the “wisdom” or will of God[xli].
So, Maimonides concludes that “Consequently, God is the final purpose of
everything” and that “God is…the End of all ends.”[xlii]
In this way, Maimonides’ Medieval-style teleology is a different approach to
teleology from Ancient Greek and Early Modern approaches in that, unlike the
former, it argues for a monotheistic God and unlike the later, it takes a
broad-brush approach to divine teleology.
I think Spinoza would agree with Maimonides that God is causally prior
to all things. However, Maimonides’ Medieval-style teleology is distinct in
style in that it is wider in scope and outlines specific teleological arguments
for a monotheistic God, unlike Aristotelian teleology. I shall compare and
contrast the ways in which Spinoza selectively agrees and disagrees with
Maimonides about other notions surrounding final causes. Spinoza, unlike
Maimonides, views teleology as limiting God to being anthropomorphic-like. So,
he refutes all types of linear, final cause style explanations in favour of an
account of God’s non-linear eternity, existence and omnipotence that isn’t
restricted to specific goals to explain intentional human behaviour and the
natural world around us. Therefore, I base my approach on Spinoza’s Preface to
E IV and his appendix to E. I[xliii]
when he writes that God is eternal and so does not act in terms of final causes
but rather via necessity.
Spinoza argues for this in three
vitally different ways, in various sections of the Ethics, which he sees as
strengthening the omnipotence and perfection of God.
One, Spinoza refutes divine
teleology and explicitly claims that, if God did have an intellect or will then
it wouldn’t function or be able to be described in such a human-like way
because God’s intellect and will is so different from ours that the comparison
is as absurd and inaccurate as drawing parallels between “the celestial
constellation of the Dog and the animal which barks” (“quam inter se conveniunt
canis, signum coeleste, et canis, animal latrans”, E. I. p17s[xliv]).
By reducing God’s nature in this
way, we unintentionally and unwittingly reduce God’s perfection.
To illustrate how he refutes
divine teleology, I shall set out his argument in his Ethics logically (see A.,
B., and C. below).
I have formulated A to C myself
by organising Spinoza’s premises in his arguments into the following logical
argument frameworks to expose the structure of Spinoza’s rejection of teleology
by demonstrating how it could also be presented as:
A)
a
classical-style (ie Ancient Greek especially used in mathematics) reductio ad absurdum
B)
a
doctrinal annihilation (ie a group of propositions that taken together are
inconsistent with one another)
C)
Spinoza’s
positive argument as a deduction
A) Spinoza’s
argument against divine teleology set out as a classical reductio ad absurdum:
Premise 1) Suppose God acts in a
teleological way (with the purpose of acting for end goals/ a telos)
Premise 2) We know that God is
eternal (which by definition excludes having an ending, final point to aim at),
omnipotent and necessary (not contingent)
Premise 3) This means that God,
from His nature/essence, is eternal and acts, in accordance with His
essence/nature, from necessity and omnipotence.
Premise 4) But this means that
God does not act in a linear, teleological way that aims at special goals/ends
because it is not consistent with His eternal, omnipotent, necessary nature,
which is contrary to the hypothesis stated in 1) that God acts in a
teleological way
Premise 5) Hence, given the
hypothesis in premise 1 leads to a logical contradiction, it must be rejected.
Premise 6) In this way, the
thesis that God does not act in a teleological way for final goals/ends is
established.
B) Spinoza’s argument against teleology set out as a
doctrinal annihilation:
God → telos
Telos → final ends/goals
Final ends/goals → eternity
Not eternity
But this leads to the
contradiction that God is not eternal (because eternity does not involve a
final end point) so the hypothesis that God acts in a teleological way leads to
an absurdity so must be rejected as it has been shown to be logically
refutable.
So, I suggest Spinoza’s positive
version of the aforementioned negative argument could also be presented
deductively from axioms to conclusion in the following way:
C) Spinoza’s
positive argument as a deduction:
Premise 1: It is self-evident
that God is eternal.
Premise 2: Eternity, by
definition, has no end point/telos to aim at.
Premise 3: It is self-evident
that God exists necessarily not contingently.
Premise 4: From premise 3 it
follows that God acts necessarily not contingently (because God acts from His
essence/nature (E I) which is necessary not contingent).
Therefore: God’s existence is
necessary and eternal and so His actions involve necessity and do not aim at a
telos/end goal.
In this way, Spinoza argues[xlv]
that, since there is no telos to God’s actions or existence, final causes are
invented by humans because they desire to understand what is useful to them and
how things happen and why. Spinoza notes that when humans view the world as
existing in a way that is useful to them, they go on to suppose that God set it
out for them. This leads to appeasing God in a superstitious way in order that
the world functions in a way that is useful to them and favours them rather
than incurring divine retribution.
Therefore, teleology has
important implications for and impact on Spinoza’s discussion of true worship
and superstition. So, although Spinoza rejects teleology per se because it
involves the notion that an anthropomorphic God is directing humans and the
world through divine providence, he still considers his views as being in line
with true religion, partly because it avoids falling into false worship and
superstitious attitudes, beliefs and actions. Moreover, Spinoza thinks his
account leads to a strengthened belief in God because he claims that a
teleological account “does away with God’s perfection”[xlvi]
(“Deinde haec doctrina Dei perfectionem tollit”[xlvii]
[destroys, removes]). He views divine teleology as restricting God to being “in
need”[xlviii]
of something other than Himself.
“Deinde haec doctrina Dei
perfectionem tolli: Nam, si Deus propter finem agit, aliquid necessario
appetit, quo caret.”[xlix]
(E. I. app) (accents omitted)
So here we see that Spinoza is
arguing that we remove and thereby destroy God’s perfection if we see God as
acting (agit) for an end goal (finem) because this means He is seeking/striving
/longing for/desiring (appetit) a thing which He lacks/ is devoid of/ absent
from/ is without (caret). This last word is interesting because it highlights
the contradiction: how can God be perfect if He lacks something? Perfection
would mean not lacking anything, a lack surely implies an imperfection.
Therefore Spinoza thinks he has logically proven that, since God is perfect, He
cannot lack anything so can’t be teleologically striving for or desiring
anything. Striving, desiring and lacking, amongst other descriptions of Him, also makes God
anthropomorphic-like. So, Spinoza provides an alternative metaphysical account
by replacing all types of linear, final cause style explanations with a
thorough-going account of God’s non-linear eternity, existence, omnipotence and
perfection. Furthermore, Spinoza considers himself to have entirely (omnino)
overthrown/overturned/turned upside down (evertere) the doctrine of final
causes, especially when he adds that it conflates causes and effects by
misattributing one to the other[l]. The
word caret may also carry the implication that God is never, strictly speaking
absent, which would fit with the concepts in panentheism, a debate I address in
the next chapter.
Two, another reason Spinoza
rejects teleology in the Appendix to E I[li]
is that it also reduces God’s perfection by inculcating superstition. This
happens because, while attempting to figure out what is profitable for them,
people ascribe to “the gods” the desire to “direct everything for” the benefit
of humans and so think teleologically and look for final causes[lii].
Such teleological “praeiudicium” (prejudice, prejudgement), Spinoza argues,
becomes “superstitionem”, meaning literally superstition or irrational
religious awe[liii].
This passage perhaps also leads support for Spinoza’s arguments in his TTP[liv]
about the value of using our rational faculties in religion to avoid
superstition. In this way, people end up falsely believing that how they
worship impacts on the gods’ mood and how well disposed they are to humans
which in turn affects their fortunes in life as well as being the cause of
extreme weather conditions[lv].
This, for Spinoza, constitutes another form of lessening “God’s perfection”
because “if God works to obtain an end, He necessarily seeks something of which
he stands in need”[lvi].
This often leads to self-contradiction anyway since exponents of this view also
maintain that “God has done all things for His own sake, and not for the sake
of the things to be created, because before the creation they can assign
nothing excepting God for the sake of which God could do anything…”[lvii].
Much as Maimonides[lviii]
argues for divine purpose, he would also reject any attempts to pander to God’s
supposed supernatural powers as constituting superstition. So, I suggest
Spinoza here is in agreement with Maimonides concerning forms of superstitious
behaviour and tendencies, but Spinoza is trying to carry this through
consistently in his arguments by going on to refute the teleological,
purposeful motives behind God’s actions. This reformulation of Maimonides is
not as far removed from Maimonides’ views as it first appears to be since
Maimonides would agree with Spinoza that it is not in God’s nature to be at the
mercy of emotion.
Three, for Spinoza, technically
metaphysically speaking, there is only cause and that cause is God. This is a
pivotal concept in Spinoza’s thought and has various consequences for many of
his philosophical claims and outlook. For instance, In E. I. p24c[lix],
Spinoza explicitly argues that “God only is the cause”, whether this be in
relation to things first coming into existence, their existence per se, or
“their continuance in existence” which Spinoza links with God as the cause of
Being when he writes “(...scholastic phraseology) God is the causa essendi
rerum”.
Given Spinoza’s above views, I
think he may agree with Maimonides about Judaism’s notion of creation being
on-going (termed constant creation) because he views God as continually and
actively causing things to exist and act. Jewish views about constant creation
can be gleaned from certain prayers, such as the Modeh Ani, thanking God for
renewing you so you continue to exist and live another day. Spinoza has perhaps
merely adapted the doctrine of constant creation so that, rather than limiting
God to having a human-like will, His “infinite nature” has “supreme power” and
all things “have necessarily flowed, or continually follow by the same
necessity”[lx]
(omnia necessario effluxisse, vel semper eadem necessitate sequi[lxi]
[E. I. p17s]). In this way, Spinoza explicitly claims that he has “far more
firmly established” “the omnipotence of God” by arguing that God is and always
has and always will continually be eternal, perhaps together with the
implications of being imperishable and perpetual[lxii]
(Dei omnipotentia actu ab aeterno fuit et in aeternum in eadem actualitate
manebit[lxiii]).
This is derived from proposition 17 and its demonstration which clearly states
that everything flows necessarily from God’s divine nature in an unconstrained
and infinite number of ways[lxiv].
This impacts on Spinoza’s account of things in the world because God is “the
free cause of all things…all things are in Him, and so depend upon Him…and…all
things have been predetermined by Him…from His absolute nature or infinite
power”[lxv].
Moreover, in E. I. p29[lxvi]
he claims that “all things are determined from the necessity of the divine
nature to exist and act in a certain manner”. In the demonstration to this
proposition[lxvii]
Spinoza makes his controversial and hotly debated claim “Whatever is, is in
God”. This is often interpreted as a pantheistic claim which identifies God and
nature as being numerically identical or in other words, one and the same
thing. This can cause all sorts of interpretative problems when assessing
Spinoza on teleology, final causes and God so I shall be examining this in the
next chapter.
[i] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), chap. E. I. app; E. IV pref.
[ii] Aristotle, Metaphysics, 364.
[iii] Aristotle, 364.
[iv] Aristotle, 364.
[v] Aristotle, 364 (ii).
[vi] Barnes, “Aristotle” A Very Short
Introduction.
[vii] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I app, 116.
[viii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I app, 35.
[ix] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I app.
[x] Spinoza and Krop, E. I. app.
[xi] Spinoza and Krop, E. I. app.
[xii] Aristotle, Physics, chap. 8,
198b10-29.
[xiii]
Aristotle, 198b29-32.
[xiv] Aristotle, 198b29-32.
[xv] Bostock, “Introduction and Explanatory
Notes,” xxvii.
[xvi] Bostock, xxvii.
[xvii]
Bostock, xxvii.
[xviii]
Bostock, xxvii.
[xix] Bostock, footnote 16, xxvii.
[xx] Bostock, xxvii.
[xxi] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E IVp26d.
[xxii]
Spinoza and Krop, E. IV. p26d.
[xxiii]
Spinoza and Krop, E. IV. p26d.
[xxiv]
Aristotle, Physics, chap. 8, 199a8
f.
[xxv] Aristotle, Physics.
[xxvi]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. IV. p26d.
[xxvii]
Spinoza and Krop, E. IV. p26d.
[xxviii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. IV. p26d.
[xxix]
Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, ed.
and trans. Edwin Curley, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books (England, UK: Penguin
Books, 1996), E. IV. p26d.
[xxx] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app.
[xxxi]
Bostock, “Introduction and Explanatory
Notes,” footnote 17, xxvii.
[xxxii]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica;
Spinoza, Opera: TTP.
[xxxiii]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. IV. pref.
[xxxiv]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica.
[xxxv]
Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I.
app.
[xxxvi]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. app.
[xxxvii]
Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. IV
pref; Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica, E. IV. pref., 344
[xxxviii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. IV. pref, 162.
[xxxix]
Spinoza, Ethics, Transl. Curley,
E. I. pref., pref.114.
[xl] M. Maimonides, The Guide for the
Perplexed, ed. Andrew Meit and David Reed, trans. M. Friedlander, second
edition (e-book), 1904, Chap. LXIX, 196,
http://www.teachittome.com/seforim2/seforim/the_guide_for_the_perplexed.pdf.
[xli] Maimonides, 198.
[xlii]
Maimonides, 198.
[xliii]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. IV pref; E. I. app; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. IV. pref; E. I. app.
[xliv]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. p17s; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics.
[xlv] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica.
[xlvi]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White, Stirling),
E. I. app, 38.
[xlvii]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app.
[xlviii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. app, 38.
[xlix]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app, 120; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. app.
[l] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. app.
[li] Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics.
[lii] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. app, 36.
[liii]
Spinoza and Krop, Spinoza Ethica,
E. I. app; Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. app.
[liv] Spinoza, TTP Trans. Elwes;
Spinoza, Opera: TTP.
[lv] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. app, 37.
[lvi] Spinoza, E. I app, 38.
[lvii]
Spinoza, E. I. app, 38.
[lviii]
Maimonides, The Guide for the
Perplexed.
[lix] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. p24c.
[lx] Spinoza, E. I. p17s, 20.
[lxi] Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. p17s,
202.
[lxii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. p17s, 20.
[lxiii]
Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I.
p17s, 203.
[lxiv]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. p17; E. I. p17s.
[lxv] Spinoza, E.I. app, 35.
[lxvi]
Spinoza, E. I. p29.
[lxvii]
Spinoza, E. I. p29d.
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