Sunday 4 March 2018

'Language as Affect'


Continuing from my last post, the other topic in Whistler’s paper for the London Spinoza Circle1 (1/03/18) which fascinated me was the catchy phrase he used ‘language as affect’.

Contra Professor David Savan, Whistler maintained that Spinoza does not see language as irretrievably confused and does not relegate signs to inadequate ideas. Whistler is interested in the pertinent question: If words are all inadequate, what happens to philosophy (which needs words)? So, to salvage Spinoza from Savan’s negative thesis about language, Whistler advocates an examination of Ethics, part 5, proposition 3 (EVp3). This states that:

“An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it” (EVp3)2


So, Whistler posed the question: Does language also work like this for Spinoza? In other words, although language can be confused and involve inadequate ideas at times, we may be able to surmount this problem in the same way that we manage to turn passions (a type of affect which involves confused ideas EVp3d) into a type of affect which involves clear and distinct ideas. In this way, the inadequacy of language could be conquered with knowledge of language and adequate ideas. This parallels affects and passions in that, for Spinoza, knowledge of the affects and adequate ideas help us turn negative passions with inadequate ideas into positive affects with adequate ideas. Hence, Whistler reasoned, given that language is not exempt from affect, perhaps we should think of language as an affect.  

During the paper, I was unsure about what the phrase ‘language as affect’ exactly entailed and how wide the application of this concept was. Did Whistler think of it as a strict identity between language and affects in general, so this identity would hold for a variety of situations (language ≡ affects)? Or was he merely suggesting that he thought it was helpful to solve the tension in Savan’s negative claim about language by approaching language in the same manner as affects in Spinoza? The advantage of this being that it gives us a way to turn inadequate ideas into adequate ones for language as well as the affects. Later I asked Whistler about this to clarify in my mind how his suggestion of ‘language as affect’ worked. Whistler answered that he was making the claim that language is an affect itself, and therefore it works well to approach language in this way. I learnt that he was advancing both of my above versions of ‘language as affect’. He was curious to know if I agreed with this. I explained that I agreed that it may be very useful to approach language as an affect for the purposes of turning inadequate ideas into adequate ones, so that all words and philosophy do not stagnate into only involving confused ideas, especially since it feels implausible that this is the case or that Spinoza would advocate this. However, I was still undecided whether I wanted to identify language as being an affect. So then I asked Whistler to explain it to me in the form of a flow chart. Where is language placed in relation to affects? So Whistler helpfully explained how it looks as a chart, which I found very enlightening and clear. This is how I have attempted to reconstruct the chart he described to me:  


The chart represents that there is a main class, ‘Affects’ which contains two subcategories, psychological affects (such as love, hate) and signs (such as words). He explained that he saw the psychological affects and signs as having a parallelism between them, just as Spinoza has for mind and body. So words, which are signs, are identical to affects in the sense of belonging to a subcategory of affects. This I find mind-blowing! So I wanted to give him my test cases to improve my understanding of how these subcategories work in practice and relate to one another. I asked:

What about when we talk about (obviously by using words and therefore language) affects, such as love, hate, sadness etc?

When Whistler thought this interesting because we see that Spinoza has to do this himself when giving definitions of the affects in his ethics, another question crossed my mind:

Would there be a difference between whether we were talking about affects in a general way (such as when Spinoza gives definitions of various affects) and when we talk about our affects we’re feeling now (I’m feeling sad)? The latter means we are using an affect (ie the main class one at the top of the chart) to clarify an affect eg to explain how you are feeling. How does that work?

Then Whistler put forward the fascinating thought that perhaps when dealing with both subcategories of affect at once (eg by talking (ie using words) about how you are feeling (eg love, hate, sadness) this would be a mixed affect. I agreed this does logically lead to the conclusion that it would involve mixed affects, albeit in a different sense from how we normally refer to mixed affects in Spinoza. By mixed affects, we usually mean a mixture of affects within the same subcategory (eg feeling both sadness and hate). However here, it would be a mixed affect which goes between the subcategories (psychological and signs) as well as their subcategories (of eg hate and words) since it consists of both words and psychological feelings. I further learnt that Whistler’s main textual support for advocating this theory of affects is that Spinoza describes signs in a very similar (or perhaps identical way) to the way he describes affects so he feels a parallelism approach works well. Nevertheless, he thought my questions raise complex epistemological issues about Spinoza on ideas and what Spinoza would say about having ideas about ideas. This made me try to remember what Spinoza says in his Ethics about the possibility of having two ideas in our mind simultaneously (which in this case, is the idea of a sign and the idea of an affect eg love)? Do cases such as this involve assenting or rejecting one idea in favour of the other, as is the case when we make a judgement by excluding one idea in favour of another to assent that we believe x.

In the end, we were both keen to comb through the Ethics again to see what specific passages could provide the textual evidence needed to help solve these particular complex questions and test cases we explored in discussion. This enjoyable and thought-provoking discussion I had with Whistler has certainly renewed my enthusiasm to re-read Spinoza’s Ethics in light of our discussion on language and affects. Hopefully, Whistler will comment below on this post or any other of my posts if he has something further he’d like to ask me, add or clarify about his research. I’d welcome his thoughts on my posts!

I am still undecided whether language is identical to an affect yet, although I agree there is something to be gained by approaching it as such, in order to salvage language from inadequate ideas. I think it is true that it is easier to express adequate ideas the more we understand language itself and how it functions. This I think includes the recurrent question of whether the words we use satisfactorily capture what we want to convey about our thoughts and emotions. This problem comes up in feminist philosophy, which highlights that women can find it hard to talk about and convey their experiences in life because patriarchal language often leaves them lacking the words to satisfactorily describe their experiences. Such problems lead to questions about how feminism can progress language in a way which makes it more female user-friendly. The aim of this is to prevent language itself from silencing women.  This happens when women struggle to put their life stories/experiences and accompanying emotions accurately into words to convey them to others in the hope of receiving an empathetic, helpful response in return.   

This aside, I am still left intrigued by the question Whistler asked me: But if ‘language is not affect’ in Spinoza, then what is it? Surely it would leave language as being an ontologically strange entity? So, while re-reading Spinoza’s Ethics, I shall bear this in mind. I shall not only consider whether ‘affect is language’ or not, but also conversely, hypothesise that 'language is not a subcategory of affect', to examine what good alternative explanations of language in Spinoza’s works exist. This analysis of language, signs and words in Spinoza will also hopefully, in turn, inform my research on the affects, the passions, adequate and inadequate ideas and imagining.              

1 for more details and his abstract see:


2 An open access text of Spinoza’s Ethics (including his ‘Treatise on the Correction of the Understanding’) is available at:


for this quote in the Ethics, see page 203
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The tool analogy in Spinoza’s ‘On the Improvement of the Understanding’


On Thursday (1/03/18) I battled my way through the snow and freezing wind to attend Dr. Daniel Whistler’s talk at the London Spinoza Circle. For details about the talk and his abstract see:


Listening to Whistler’s paper has given me lots of food for thought and drawn my attention to research areas in Spinoza I haven’t specifically focused on so far. I expected his topic of how Spinoza talks about eternity and Ethics V to be the most interesting for me because it is something I have thought about a great deal, especially since writing my abstract on life and death in Spinoza, available at:


Nevertheless, I found myself drawn to and more fascinated by two other topics in his paper. So I discussed these with him and would like to share what I learnt and how it relates to my philosophy research.

One topic which Whistler touched on was Spinoza writing about methodology in his ‘Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione’ (On the Improvement of the Understanding) and in particular, Spinoza’s tool analogy. He was interested in the question of:

Who Spinoza was responding to and why?

He suggested that the person who made most sense was Descartes but, if Spinoza was indeed criticising Descartes, then what does this tell us about Spinoza and Descartes on methodology?   

If I understand Whistler correctly, his impression of Spinoza’s tool analogy is:

Spinoza’s aim is to resolve the tension in the seemingly circular 4th rule that Descartes expounds where he, as Whistler puts it, “presupposes what you need”. Furthermore, Spinoza seems to be arguing against someone (most probably Descartes) who is claiming that we need to equip ourselves with a method for philosophising ab initio (ie from the very beginning) before we embark on the activity of philosophising. In contrast, Spinoza is advocating that, given that we are always philosophising we can’t help but use a method all the time. Hence, starting a methodology ab initio is impossible. It is better to reflect on our methodology as we philosophise. This is illustrated by his analogy of the tool needing a hammer and vice versa and so on ad infinitum. So the only way to go from the beginning when we have no tools (or method) to having tools and a hammer, is to improve what we do have as we go along and thus merely aim to make progress rather than create everything at once before beginning.   

Although this was a relatively brief passage in Whistler’s paper, this got me thinking. I vaguely remembered reading something on Descartes over 10 years ago which likened Descartes’s take on methodology as being like apples in a cart: there are good and rotten apples all mixed up together and the most efficient way to make sure we separate the two is by emptying the cart completely and then making sure we only put the good apples in the cart. So similarly, although we are already and continually philosophising, we are using a mixture of both good and bad methodology so we are not consistently reaching only clear and distinct ideas. So it is best to empty our minds of all we have learnt beforehand, and start afresh from the beginning and only accept solid methodologies which lead us to clear and distinct ideas. My worry was that, if this captures Descartes correctly, this would make Whistler’s account of Spinoza and Descartes seem more similar than he had wanted. So I asked him about this and discovered that Whistler did agree that the apple analogy was representative of Descartes on methodology. So then his concern was that, if Descartes is not similar to the person Spinoza seems to be refuting, then who is Spinoza arguing against? So he concluded that it is perhaps best to think of Descartes himself and the Cartesian-like person Spinoza is arguing against as being distinct from one another, realising that Descartes may not have held the exact same views as Spinoza is refuting, and hopefully, this does not adversely affect the overall analysis of Spinoza’s tool analogy.

Whistler’s question to me: If Spinoza is not arguing against Descartes, then who is he responding to? stayed with me on my journey home so I decided to research this further the next day by examining the primary texts. I found two open access resources to make it easier to refer to passages from Descartes and Spinoza on this blog:

Descartes, ‘Rules of the Direction of the Mind’, (cited as RDM) section in an eBook available at: https://ia801600.us.archive.org/6/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.547481/2015.547481.Rules-for.pdf

Spinoza ‘Of the Improvement of the Understanding’, (cited as TIE) eBook available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1016/1016-h/1016-h.htm

The tool passage in Spinoza’s TIE is concentrated into [30] – [31] and states:

“[30] (1) Now that we know what kind of knowledge is necessary for us, we must indicate the way and the method whereby we may gain the said knowledge concerning the things needful to be known. (2) In order to accomplish this, we must first take care not to commit ourselves to a search, going back to infinity--that is, in order to discover the best method of finding truth, there is no need of another method to discover such method; nor of a third method for discovering the second, and so on to infinity. (3) By such proceedings, we should never arrive at the knowledge of the truth, or, indeed, at any knowledge at all. (30:4) The matter stands on the same footing as the making of material tools, which might be argued about in a similar way. (5) For, in order to work iron, a hammer is needed, and the hammer cannot be forthcoming unless it has been made; but, in order to make it, there was need of another hammer and other tools, and so on to infinity. (6) We might thus vainly endeavor to prove that men have no power of working iron.


[31] (1) But as men at first made use of the instruments supplied by nature to accomplish very easy pieces of workmanship, laboriously and imperfectly, and then, when these were finished, wrought other things more difficult with less labour and greater perfection; and so gradually mounted from the simplest operations to the making of tools, and from the making of tools to the making of more complex tools, and fresh feats of workmanship, till they arrived at making, complicated mechanisms which they now possess. (31:2) So, in like manner, the intellect, by its native strength, [k], makes for itself intellectual instruments, whereby it acquires strength for performing other intellectual operations, [l], and from these operations again fresh instruments, or the power of pushing its investigations further, and thus gradually proceeds till it reaches the summit of wisdom.” (TIE [30-31])


Assuming I have the passage in Descartes Whistler had in mind, the title of Rule IV in Descartes’s ‘Rules of the Direction of the Mind’ states “There is need of a method for finding out the truth” (RDM page5). Amongst other things, Descartes expands on this by adding that:

“Moreover by a method I mean certain and simple rules, such that, if a man observe them accurately, he shall never assume what is false as true, and will never spend his mental efforts to no purpose, but will always gradually increase his knowledge and so arrive at a true understanding of all that does not surpass his powers.” (RDM page5)


Descartes seems concerned that people, including philosophers, chemists and geometricians “conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but being merely willing to risk the experiment” and although such “wanderings” can unearth “something true” this is mostly due to “luck” (RDM page5). So, to reduce or eliminate this element of chance in happening upon the truth, Descartes advocates having a method to avoid “unregulated inquires and confused reflections” (RDM page5). This would seem to suggest that Descartes thinks of philosophy as something we are already doing and is on-going, albeit unsatisfactorily conducted in terms of methodology. However, there is a glimpse of the Descartes Whistler had in mind and who he thought Spinoza was depicting, when we see Descartes providing ‘an argument from experience’ to show that we often find that the “mental powers” of people “who have never taken to letters, give a sounder and clearer decision about obvious matters than those who have spent all their time in the schools” (RDM page5). He depicts this vividly when he likens this to “Those who become accustomed to walk in darkness weaken their eye-sight so much that afterwards they cannot bear the light of day” (RDM page5). So perhaps Descartes himself has something in common with the Cartesian-like person Spinoza seems to be arguing against, in that (although unlike the latter he sees philosophising as already underway) both Descartes and the person Spinoza may have in mind both perhaps hold an ab initio approach to philosophy and methodology as an ideal. This would mean that Whistler may be right in thinking that Spinoza had Descartes in mind and that his depiction of his views sufficiently captures the real Descartes to help us examine Spinoza’s passage.

However, on reading the following few rules Descartes outlines, I started to wonder whether it would be more helpful to relate Spinoza’s tool analogy to Descartes’s rule VIII where he tries to build on his three preceding rules, as well as making use of his other earlier rules. This is because a passage in Descartes’s rule VIII caught my eye because it bears a striking resemblance to Spinoza’s tool analogy since Descartes uses the same imagery when he likens methodology to the mechanical crafts. Like Spinoza, he describes the process of at first being bereft of any instruments (or as Spinoza would put it, tools) and then progressing from making use of “a piece of rock instead of a hammer” to making “other tools” which are more “useful” and advanced before embarking on making objects eg helmets and swords. This, I think, reflects Descartes’s description of his methodology in rule IV:    

“I, however, conscious of my inadequacy, have resolved that in my investigation into truth I shall follow obstinately such an order as will require me first to start with what is simplest and easiest, and never permit me to proceed farther until in the first sphere there seems to be nothing further to be done.” (RDM page5)


So, this returns me back to Whistler’s question to me about who Spinoza had in mind. I feel I still need to research this further before coming to a conclusion about this and putting forward an interpretation of Spinoza’s TIE. I am also yet to explore the existing secondary literature discussing this topic in Spinoza and Descartes, other than listening to Whistler’s paper on Thursday. I shall follow up his paper by reading the version of it he mentioned he has on his academia site, although apparently this version focuses on Ethics V, unlike the version of the paper he read which is larger in scope and explores additional areas. This shows the value of attending talks rather than just relying on reading papers and books! I’m pleased I braved the bitter weather to listen to the version of his paper he presented as it has inspired me to examine aspects of Spinoza that I previously did not see the direct relevance of in my research.

Although this aspect of my Spinoza research is still very much a work in progress, my initial thoughts on this question of who Spinoza had in mind in TIE 30-31, are that Spinoza’s tool analogy in TIE may be drawing on the analogy that Descartes provides in rule VIII in his RDM (page13). In particular, Descartes description of a smith making progress by using the “rough” instruments (RDM page13) around him to advance his craft into creating ever improving tools leading to complex objects such as helmets and swords. I would like to further explore the implications of this, because it seems plausible to me that Spinoza may be agreeing with Descartes rather than arguing against him, given the similarity of description between Spinoza’s TIE 30-31 and Descartes’s RDM rule VIII, down to making use of “instruments supplied by nature” in order to be able to start (TIE [31] (1)). This has an ab initio aspect to it because it avoids a regress “to infinity” (TIE [30] (2)) whereby one could never begin because it would mean being stuck in an infinite regress of needing a tool before having a tool. I suspect that, as Spinoza does with many philosophers and is known to do with Descartes, he may be selectively agreeing with some aspects of Descartes’s writings which strike him as being true and agreeing with his understanding of methodology, philosophical enquiry and knowledge and his Judaism, while rejecting other aspects of Cartesian philosophy which do not cohere with his system of thought and his logical reasoning behind it.  
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