Chapter 2: Spinoza’s Letter to Oldenburg (32): Parts and Wholes - The Lymph Analogy
In letter 32, Spinoza wrote to Henry
Oldenburg (1665 in Latin), answering his request for further explanation about
Spinoza’s views on parts and wholes. Spinoza’s clarification in this letter, I
think, is consistent with his views in the Ethics on parts and wholes yet does
not merely restate the same notions and arguments. Spinoza manages to shed
light on his views and reasoning process in a readable, accessible way which, I
find, helps one understand and picture what he has in mind, making this a
useful letter to examine alongside his Ethics.
Oldenburg wanted to know why and
how we seem to learn about/become acquainted with/recognise parts and wholes.
More specifically, Spinoza frames his question as two-fold:
- In what way do parts/portions/pieces (pars, partis) of nature fit together, harmonize/agree with (conveniat from convenio) their whole (entire/total/complete/all parts together) (toto from totus)?
- In what way do the parts cohere/combine together (cohaereat from cohaereo)?[i]
In answer to the first puzzle
stated above, Spinoza begins his clarification by reaffirming the claim he made
in a former letter that, strictly speaking, he cannot know how parts of nature
fit together to make the whole of nature because that would entail knowing the
whole of nature and all its parts first, which is impossible. So this gives an
overview of Spinoza’s approach to the possibility of knowing how parts and
wholes go together in nature. His view seems to reject the possibility of
knowing this accurately and fully and addresses the fitting together aspect of
the word convenio. I suggest Spinoza then addresses the harmonizing meaning of
the word convenio by first stating a proposition which is logically prior
(prius) to his following arguments[ii].
Namely, that Spinoza does not bestow/attribute (tribuere) beauty, ugliness,
order/rank/class or confusion/disorder to nature[iii].
A further meaning of tribuere is to divide so perhaps Spinoza is also
explaining that he does not divide nature up into beautiful, ugly, ordered and
disordered parts. Describing nature in this way is a work of the imagination
which is why we bestow such descriptions on the world despite them not being
strictly true of the world[iv].
This is important to bear in mind when situating Spinoza within seventeenth
century philosophy because it shows that his views are contrary to those of,
for instance, Leibnitz who argued for pre-established harmony and claimed that
the world was in fact ordered, despite appearing disordered.
The question remains, how can
parts agree with their whole? Spinoza explains that, when he writes about the
relationship between parts and the whole of nature, he is claiming that the
nature of the parts is such that they adapt/adjust to (accommodant) the nature
of the whole[v].
In this way, they are said to fit together/unify/be in agreement/harmonise
between each other (inter se consentiant) as a whole[vi].
When parts of nature seem to have a discrepancy/differ/are out of sync/tune
with one another, it is because we have formed distinct ideas of them in our
minds, leading us to think of the parts as a whole instead of a part[vii].
In answer to the second puzzle
above, Spinoza briefly explains that parts combine/cohere together in the sense
that their laws of nature adapt/adjust to other parts so they do not oppose
(contrarientur, an infrequently used medieval Latin word) one another[viii].
Spinoza then expands on this by
giving two analogies. The first analogy is the Lymph Analogy which I discuss in
this chapter. The second analogy is the Worm Analogy which I analyse in the
following chapter.
The Lymph Analogy is a concise
biological analogy of the whole, represented by the blood stream, and parts,
represented by things in the blood[ix].
Through this analogy, Spinoza shows how one and the same thing can be thought
of as either a part or a whole, depending on how we examine it. Spinoza
illustrates this by discussing the biological phenomenon of absorbing lymphs,
chyle and so on into the bloodstream[x].
Clearly Spinoza was excellent at science in general, not just physics and
optics and matters relating to his profession as a lens grinder. As can be seen
by his correspondence, Spinoza enjoyed discussing and receiving news about not
just philosophy but also about cutting edge scientific knowledge and
discoveries[xi].
Spinoza debated a variety of scientific disciplines and topics in his
correspondence, ranging from astronomy, chemistry experiments, physics, optics
as well as biology. He was up to date on the latest discoveries, one of which
was the lymphatic circulatory system, discovered around the mid-17th
century. Although lymphatic vessels were first suggested in the 3rd
century by Herophilus and lymph nodes had been discussed as early as the 5th
century, theories about such lymphs consisting in an entire circulatory system
were considered one of the most important medical discoveries, alongside the
blood circulatory system (early 17th century)[xii].
In this letter (32) Spinoza is writing to Oldenburg, the secretary for the
Royal Society in London which debated experimental science and natural
philosophy. Oldenburg was at the centre of correspondence between scientists
from all over Europe, thus he received information about the latest thoughts and
experiments in that field. Therefore, in this letter, Spinoza assumes Oldenburg
has a detailed knowledge of biology so that his metaphysical analogies could be
fully appreciated by him. So, I shall briefly elucidate the biological,
physiological, biochemical, anatomical knowledge Spinoza assumes in his analogy
in Letter 32. Moreover, assessing the overall accuracy of Spinoza’s biology is
relevant to analysing how successful his analogies are because the premises of
an analogy need to be true for an argument to be compelling[xiii].
Here, Spinoza’s argument by analogy is trying to establish that lymphs and
chyle are examples of things in the world which can be thought of as either
parts or wholes, depending on how you reason about them.
Lymph refers to a type of fluid which
passes into the lymphatic system. They travel around various systems in the
body, such as the gastrointestinal tract, the lymphatic system and the blood
circulatory system, they also enter tissues and lymphatic organs and play a
vital role in our immune system[xiv]. Lymphs undergo processes and carry out
various tasks. Among the tasks they perform are combating infection, regulating
fluid and carrying fats around the body[xv].
Chyle is a lymph which is
transporting fats and travels through the small intestine wall into the
bloodstream. To give a sense of scale, they are so minute that they are only
about one micron in size[xvi]
(which is 0.001 millimetres).
The relevance of this for
Spinoza’s Lymph and Worm analogies is that it means the lymph and chyle have come from a different
system outside of the bloodstream before entering the bloodstream. Another key
phenomenon which makes the lymph and chyle a good metaphor is that Spinoza
wishes to use them as an example of something which can be contemplated either
as wholes (because they are a distinct things with different names, lymphs and
chyles) or as a part (because they are a fluid which is part of the bloodstream).
In this way, lymphs and chyles are a great example of something which can be
considered as a part or a whole so fulfils the requirement of providing true
premises. I would like to suggest that this also informs us what Spinoza may
mean by the phrase “under this aspect”[xvii]
ie we consider it one way or another way, looking at it from different angles
to grasp another dimension to it. In this way, when we imagine them and
contemplate them in their capacity of being a lymph or a chyle, we imagine them
to be wholes. For instance, we think about them as particles and compare how
lymphs differ in size and character from a chyle[xviii].
Conversely, we imagine them being parts because they are able to “unite, and
form one fluid”[xix]
which, in turn, becomes a part of the bloodstream.
Thus the lymph analogy is similar
to Spinoza’s water analogy in his Ethics which I discuss in Chapter 1. Both the
water and the lymph analogies use the example of flowing fluids whose parts are
perhaps impossible for us to distinguish from the whole and any such attempt to
delineate parts of the fluid are thought up by the imagination and superimposed
onto nature. So, maybe Spinoza wants us to conceptualise ourselves as a water
droplet in a large, interconnected, ever flowing river – adapting, surviving, having
a connected affinity with both the world around us and God who causes
everything and conceived us and the universe into existence.
[i] Benedict de Spinoza, Opera: DE
INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., ed. C.H. Bruder,
EDITI ONIBUS PRINCIPIBUS DENUO EDIDIT, EDITIO STEREOTYPA, (google e-book), vol.
II (Leipzig, Germany: TYPIS ET SUMTIBUS BERNH. TAUCHNITZ JUN., 1844), 184–85,
https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadzEPDWXpqdc1w64BhFzajGArDBTQxm7-OplWX-YAvgSP9r0aWjRuX_tWKyc91-v3Gs_dl8Bj6OsIx-MXggSVv8YstyN_hv_92hGuIgl7pjaissVrP4yATRaHCCUioseMVU8P140b-vRAVXK3X2671uEoDyNHgJNglQzeqMHaWArZG409KntocN2v_33hMNHHIie-SfXal-O7pNaaJTNnYo5Vdp_tP0ZStSFL2ajcir8s3q1LHnTpfqUrXkIlOd7woTP-bA2LMP2J729nBFPsQz-WHMOw.
[ii] Spinoza, II:185.
[iii] Spinoza, II:185.
[iv] Spinoza, II:185.
[v] Spinoza, II:185.
[vi] Spinoza, II:185.
[vii] Spinoza, II:185.
[viii]
Spinoza, II:185.
[ix] Spinoza, II:185.
[x] Spinoza, II:185.
[xi] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS
EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE.
[xii] C. T. Ambrose, ‘Rudbeck’s Complaint - A
17th-Century Latin Letter Relating to Basic Immunology’, Blackwell
Publishing Ltd. Scandinavian Journal of Immunology 66, no. 4 (October
2007): 487, https://doi.org/doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3083.2007.01969.x.
[xiii]
Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for
Arguments, 4th edition (Indianapolis, IN, USA: Hackett Publishing Company
Inc., 2009), 20–21.
[xiv] ‘Lymph’, Encyclopædia Britannica
(Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 31 July 2008),
https://www.britannica.com/science/lymph.
[xv] ‘Fluid’, Encyclopædia Britannica
(Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 6 January 2012),
https://www.britannica.com/science/fluid-biology.
[xvi] ‘Chyle’, Encyclopædia Britannica
(Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 16 February 2016),
https://www.britannica.com/science/chyle.
[xvii]
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), 291,
http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/1711/1321.02_Bk.pdf.
[xviii]
Spinoza, II:291.
[xix] Spinoza, II:291.
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