Chapter 1: Living Well: The Language of Degrees and The Water Analogy
The word eo has many possible
meanings. However, I am drawn to its potential sense of conveying a barometer
of degree which adjusts its percentage accordingly. This is partly because I
think this meaning fits the comparative structure of this sentence. It compares
how, the more (plures) we have of X, the less (minus) we have Y and Z. Support
for this reading and translation of Spinoza I think can be found in Elwes’s
translation choice of expressing this comparison as proportional:
“In proportion as the mind understands more things by the second and
third kind of knowledge, it is less subject to those emotions which are evil,
and stands in less fear of death.” (EVpXXXVIII)[i]
This translation captures the
sense in which I suggest Spinoza was arguing for a principle which holds that
there is a proportional adjustment in the percentage of evil/malicious/harmful
affects we feel, including a fear of death, in accordance with the amount of
second and third types of knowledge we possess. In the scholium to EVp38,
Spinoza again reinforces this message by concluding that, although death is
hurtful, it becomes less or more hurtful in accordance with the amount of
adequate knowledge that we possess. Spinoza also continues to develop this
argument slightly further on in EV, making it a main argument in the Ethics.
The demonstration to EVp38 shows that what survives death is our essence. In
terms of our mind, our essence is knowledge. In this way, the more knowledge we
have, the more we boost our essence and since this essence is eternal, more of
us becomes eternal. So, this sense of degree and proportion permeates the whole
of the proposition and results in demonstrating that the more adequate
knowledge we seek and understand in this life, the more eternal we shall be
after death because by increasing our adequate ideas, and thereby our knowledge
of God and the world which flows from God, the more we are enhancing our
rational soul which is immortal and eternal.
The word qui just five words
later than eo in EVp38 (see the interlinear text in the introduction to this
section) can also carry an implication of degree. Thus, we could interpret this
as referring to affects which have any degree of harmful, hurtful evil in them.
I think this captures the sense of this passage, given that qui is unlikely to
mean ‘kind’ in a strong sense if it also means ‘degree’. Someone might argue:
Surely one could translate it as kinds of emotion? My initial answer would be
that, if one were to accept this, qui would only mean kind in a weak sense and
so would not be sufficient textual evidence in itself to build an argument
which treats these kinds as though they are strongly distinct categories. I
read Spinoza as rejecting sharp categorical metaphysical distinctions (such as
the mereology of parts and wholes, ontological categories and natural kinds) in
virtue of his substance monism. For accessibility and clarity, I may sometimes refer
to kinds of knowledge in Spinoza but this is in order to use the same
vocabulary as secondary literature on him. However, strictly speaking, I prefer
not to read Spinoza as carving up knowledge into kinds for the same reason as I
think he avoids strong categorizing. In terms of giving a literal sense of
Spinoza’s chosen words, I suggest perhaps interpreting genere in the context of
knowledge as something along the lines of there being three main varieties of
knowledge because it is more ontologically flexible, unified and feels less
like an artificial, hypothetical kind. I especially have metaphysical and
logical concerns about using the language of parts when philosophising about
Spinoza’s metaphysics, other than perhaps in a loose sense when lacking a more
convenient word in English. This is because the language of parts in
metaphysics all too easily leads to talk of parts and wholes, otherwise known
as the topic of mereology. I struggle to see mereology as being a good fit for
Spinoza’s style of substance monism, which rejects the notion of carving up the
one substance, especially given that this would entail dividing up God and the
natural world which is conceived by and contained within God. To accept parts
would be to break-up the unity of God which Spinoza argues so strongly for in
EI. Spinoza explains at length in EIp15s how, although we imagine (or picture) things
such as substance or quantity to be “finite, divisible and compounded of
parts”, the intellect shows us they are in fact “infinite, one, and
indivisible” (EIp15s)[ii]:
“If, then, we regard quantity as
it is represented in our imagination, which we often and more easily do, we
shall find that it is finite, divisible, and compounded of parts; but if we
regard it as it is represented in our intellect, and conceive it as substance,
which it is very, difficult to do, we shall then, as I have sufficiently
proved, find that it is infinite, one, and indivisible. This will be plain
enough to all, who make a distinction between the intellect and the
imagination, especially if it be remembered, that matter is everywhere the
same, that its parts are not distinguishable, except in so far as we conceive
matter as diversely modified, whence its parts are distinguished, not really,
but modally.” [iii]
He then goes on to illustrate
this with his analogy of water:
“For instance, water, in so far
as it is water, we conceive to be divided, and its parts to be separated one
from the other; but not in so far as it is extended substance; from this point
of view it is neither separated nor divisible. Further, water, in so far as it
is water, is produced and corrupted; but, in so far as it is substance, it is
neither produced nor corrupted. I think I have now answered the second
argument; it is, in fact, founded on the same assumption as the first-- namely,
that matter, in so far as it is substance, is divisible, and composed of
parts.” [iv]
(EIp15s)
This passage I think illustrates
how Spinoza’s metaphysics argues against sharp divisions, carving up substance,
reality and things in the world into parts of a whole, rather like slices of a
pizza. Instead, Spinoza is arguing for a more flexible yet unified metaphysics.
Like water, everything runs together and is related to one another and what we
imagine are parts of it are really just distinguishable modes which cannot be
separated off from or divided from the overall whole. These modes seem to go in
and out of existence (in the same way as people are born and die) but are
eternal in virtue of their relation to substance (similarly, people are eternal
in relation to God). Spinoza writes the word modus many times in the Ethics and
defines it as “the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is
conceived through, something other than itself”, modifications being a
translation of the Latin affectiones, as explained in Elwes’s footnote to this
definition (EId5)[v].
It is best translated as mode, other than when, perhaps, manner or way would be
a more accessible word to use for English speaking readers because Latin words
have more layers of meaning than the English equivalent reveals[vi].
Moreover, if we were to choose to
translate eo in EVp38, for instance, as therefore/consequently/for that reason
or as somehow flowing from us, I think we would lose the sense of contrast set
up by the sentence structure of plures…minus…minus. Nevertheless, I suggest the
notion of emotions flowing from us is still something to bear in mind and hold
in conjunction with the notion of degrees. I think there is a sense in which
emotions pour out of people so this description of eo captures an aspect of understanding
human nature in detail. This was a major overall aim Spinoza had in philosophy.
He goes to great lengths to examine human nature, almost down to a scientifically
accurate method about laws of nature, as far as was possible in his era,
especially given that psychology (including rigorous case studies) was not yet
a distinct, independent discipline in the seventeenth century but was still
often a sub-discipline within philosophy. Overall though, the advantage of
translating both eo and qui as degree is that it keeps the language and
metaphysics of degree consistently running throughout the sentence, which
highlights a consistency in Spinoza’s philosophical thoughts, arguments and
methodology.
This is important because secondary
literature on Spinoza is not in agreement about textual evidence to support
reading Spinoza in terms of degrees or kinds, modes or parts. Indeed, given
that Spinoza explicitly and repeatedly uses the Latin word pars, it is argued
that Spinoza can be better understood as arguing in the vocabulary of parts. However,
I have suggested that EVp38 provides textual evidence of Spinoza writing
explicitly in the language of degrees because it is plausible that Spinoza did
argue in terms of degree given that the Latin word eo and qui carry a sense of
degree and can be literally translated as such. A Latin word which specifies
kinds of matter is elementum, elementi, a word Spinoza doesn’t really make use
of except when discussing Euclid’s work on mathematics. Given this, amongst
other reasons, I suggest the language of degrees is a better fit for Spinoza’s
metaphysics and epistemology.
Thus, the relevance of the language
of degrees not parts and varieties not kinds to the topic of life and death is
that we need to develop the second and third varieties of knowledge in order to
adjust the degree to which we suffer from harmful affects, including a fear of
death. This approach to life is an aspect of living well and also helps us
after death because we have boosted the amount of adequate ideas we have, hence,
we will enjoy more eternity.
[i] Benedict de Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS
of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, trans. R. H. M. Elwes, REVISED EDITION. London, UK,
vol. II, BOHN’S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. SPINOZA’S WORKS. (London: york street,
covent garden new york: 66, fifth avenue, and bombay: 53, esplanade road
cambridge: deighton, bell & co: GEORGE BELL & SONS, 1901), 266,
http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/1711/1321.02_Bk.pdf.
[ii] Spinoza, II:58.
[iii] Spinoza, II:58.
[iv] Spinoza, II:58.
[v] Spinoza, II:45.
[vi] Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, transl.
W.H. White and A.K. Stirling, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature (Great
Britain: Wordsworth Editions, 2001), translator’s preface, XVII.
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