Hegel may be hard to read, but he guides you through the dialectic himself, doesn't leave it to you. So if you take the time to follow him, you can understand by just reading. At least I found it to be so in my readings of him. — Agustino
Ok, but why must I be engaged with it in a personal relationship in order for it to have significance to me?Think about entities in the world. An entities can have significance for you only insofar as it is either useful, beautiful, or you can have a personal relationship with it. In the last case it is a person or at least an animal with some personality. — John
We can say what that activity is - it is the constitutive activity of everything around.But since we cannot say what that activity is it is not really an activity at all for us. — John
It is stated, between the lines. That's what makes Spinoza's Ethics rich - that's how he designed the system. His geometrical method was chosen precisely because the objects of geometry are not things, but spatial relationships - likewise existence consists in relationships and movement - not in static things. Each element is built by its relationships with every other element - that's in fact what it consists in. Spinoza is teaching you a dialectical logic beneath the simplistic and naive mask on the surface. The geometric method is actually meant to illustrate relationships - it's the relationships between the propositions which matter most, not only their content. They all cling together.If you understand something that isn't stated by an author then you have no way of knowing whether that understanding is truly a reading of or a reading in. — John
What use would summarising be? Didn't Hegel himself say precisely that philosophy cannot just give its conclusions without working them out, because if they are so given, then they are false? In this he distinguished philosophy from mathematics - mathematics can say just the conclusion. If philosophy states just the conclusion, and neglects the process of getting there, then it has stated a falsehood, because it is the active process of getting there which is significant, and which actually confers truth on it. This is again something that cannot be stated in words - its an insight, just like Spinoza's Ethics.Also, until you have read, and can summarize the main points of both the Phenomenology and the Logic I would not believe that you have understood Hegel. This is a monumental task; I don't claim to have achieved it myself. — John
First there is disagreement over what infinite means with regards to the attributes. Is it infinite in a quantitative sense or a qualitative sense? In addition to this, granting it is quantitative (I'm not sure about this myself, we spoke of it before, and I just argued based on the idea that it is quantitative, but this is questionable), since the attributes are necessarily parallel, as I've argued before, there is no new knowledge that can be gained by having access to a different attribute - it would be only seeing the same thing from a different perspective - nothing would be gained in terms of knowledge. — Agustino
They are parallel by describing the same thing and being correlated in the same way - if I know serotonin is released in someone's brain, then I know they are feeling happy - there needs to be no corroboration, since the one just is the same thing seen one time from the attribute of thought, and another time from the attribute of extension.Yes, I have thought this myself. But the way it is stated in the Ethics certainly makes it seem that Spinoza has a quantitative sense in mind. And I don't understand what you mean by saying that the attributes are "necessarily parallel". Unless you can describe exactly how they are parrallel that just seems like playing with words to me. — John
This is wrong, because Substance always has a thought attribute even if no one perceives it. It's not perception that causes things to be as they are. For example, a series of sound waves can be described by a musical score, even if there is no one to think this or write it. Indeed, humans could not be aware of thoughts, if thoughts weren't already inherent in Reality.But then if there is no thought without animals and humans — John
Absent its relationships with all other elements from the system yes. But if you truncate the system, and take it apart in separate parts, that is a mistake. You must look at the Ethics as one WHOLE - the truth is in the whole, didn't Hegel use to say something like that? :PIf all we can say about Substance is that it is self-defining; that it's definition is simply that it is self-defining; then that is really no definition at all, because we don't know what it could mean for something to define itself. — John
Ok, but why must I be engaged with it in a personal relationship in order for it to have significance to me? — Agustino
So, it is really the modes that mean something to you; substance can be left out of the picture altogether if it can be nothing for you in itself, independently of its modes. — John
But I have read the Ethics, and Spinoza cannot explain how substance produces its attributes and modes. — John
This is wrong, because Substance always has a thought attribute even if no one perceives it. — Agustino
It's just the opposite. There is no finite state which is defined in terms of another. — TheWillowOfDarkness
All finite states expresses an infinite personality. — TheWillowOfDarkness
So the infinite is personal then? I doubt Spinoza will agree with this. Does God have infinite experience of His own, just as we have finite experience? — John
This is absolute nonsense, Willow; any finite entity is defined in terms of its attributes and relations to other entities. These definitions are formulated in terms of general categories involving similarities and differences. — John
Aside from the metaphysical point itself, to understand self-defintion and avoid the metaphysical errors thinking otherwise produces, there is no reason. — TheWillowOfDarkness
In terms of coherent metaphysics, this is why the Aristotelian way of thinking substance as multiple is a terrible. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The question here is not whether God has infinite experience (in the sense you are asking that doesn't make sense, as God is not an entity of extension), but rather whether we, in our finite experiences, have experience of the infinite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
If there were no experiencers; which there were arguably not prior to the advent of any animal or human life; would God nonetheless have infinite experience? You say the question makes no sense, that it is logically possible that an entity without extension could have experience any more than it is logically possible that it could have existence. I say we just cannot conceive what that existence and experience could be is all, since we are finite creatures and our logic is necessarily a logic of finitude. — John
In a sense, the correlationist metaphysical tradition is the hardest form of atheism there has ever been. For them, God must always be given in something else, in us, in some finite state, rather than just being its own thing. For the correlationist metaphysician, we actually have to bring God into being, to bring the presence of God by imagining it, else that infinite isn't there or is incoherent. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Self-definition is the only way to escape foundationalism. Only if you presuppose foundationalism does self-definition become incoherent, for the mere reason that the two are mutually contradictory. However, this very fact illustrates the superiority of self-definition dialectically - from the system of thought which adopts foundationalism, its self-definition demands that it negates self-definition as incoherent - this is in fact part of its self-definition.self-definition — John
But Substance is beautiful, admirable and loveable in and of itself. That is why the intellectual love of God is the highest man can aspire to, according to Spinoza. There is no case of Substance being "undifferentiated" - all difference is dialectically contained within it - aufhebung. Substance is a critical totality, critical in the Hegelian sense. Substance isn't something I cannot understand - indeed Substance is more like the light which makes both itself and the darkness intelligible. Substance is more myself than I am - it's the closest thing to me, it's the logically first idea vera, without it, I cannot know anything. So if I make use of it in all my acts of knowledge, in what sense is Substance "unknown"?I said something must be useful, beautiful or personal to you in order to be significant. I could have added other categories like good, admirable, and probably come up with many more. But the point is that something must be something to you in order to be significant. What can an undifferentiated substance, or even a substance that is an activity you cannot understand be for you? You might say that substance is something for you because you can understand its modes; because you experience them. But you do not experience them as the activity of substance, you just think of them that way, even though you cannot really comprehend what it means. So, it is really the modes that mean something to you; substance can be left out of the picture altogether if it can be nothing for you in itself, independently of its modes. — John
Yes he does actually explain it. It's between the lines. You read Spinoza's propositions individually as standing and falling on their own - as things, which try to form a Whole, instead of reading it as a Whole which forms the things - that's why his meaning remains hidden from you. Substance does not produce its modes, because Substance is not prior to its modes. It's not like first there is Substance, then there are the modes - it's not a temporal succession between the two at all. Rather the modes and Substance are temporarily simultaneous - self-defining. Book I doesn't come prior to Book V for example - they are simultaneous. It seems to me that you are confused by the temporal reading of Spinoza - reading it mechanically, as if the elements introduced first, constitute the elements introduced later. This is wrong. The elements introduced later, constitute the elements introduced first in-as-much as the elements introduced first constitute the elements introduced later, and cannot be understood or indeed even conceived without each other - hence self-definition. Spinoza is the Cartesian devil dressed in Cartesian clothes - but he undoes Descartes's mechanical understanding of philosophy and mathematics from the inside. It's ironic - he shows this mechanical understanding to be precisely what is false in philosophy and mathematics - indeed it shows itself to be false, hence why the Ethics is a dialectical text. Indeed I would go as far as saying that I think it to be the highest achievement of philosophy - an achievement which has still, in fact, not been realised, and I don't know if it will ever be realised. Spinoza is still far ahead compared to our current world, despite the tremendous advances we've made since Descartes's time.But I have read the Ethics, and Spinoza cannot explain how substance produces its attributes and modes. — John
But Substance is beautiful, admirable and loveable in and of itself. — Agustino
Yes he does actually explain it. It's between the lines. — Agustino
No I don't think you can. You have to look for it, you can't pull it out of your ass :PYou can say whatever you like is between the lines. — John
This is just false. The modes are things, Substance is an activity.Substance is literally nothing except its modes. — John
StrawmanWhy should I love nothing? — John
Why do you think all these experiences should be unified into one? :s I don't even know what you mean by that. They are - in truth - one experience, which necessarily sees itself from an infinite number of viewpoints.How would you conceive that all those individual experience could be unified into one in God if God is not thought as a divine person? — John
They are - in truth - one experience, which necessarily sees itself from an infinite number of viewpoints. — Agustino
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.