Personally, I appreciate Berdyaev's ethics, and ethical insights - and political insights actually - but I disagree with pretty much the entire metaphysics. — Agustino

Good for you! What points exactly do you disagree with?

They both say that our essence is will. But how they arrive at that claim is different. Spinoza more or less just declares this to be so. Schopenhauer argues that our essence is will by identifying willing with bodily movement.

What points exactly do you disagree with? — John

For example, I read this essay of his just this past week:

http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1952_476.html

I disagree that Being reveals itself through the subject but not also through the object. I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. I disagree with that entire anthropomorphism of his in metaphysics. I find that disgusting actually. But I agree on social philosophy (socialism) and on ethical personalism.

Schopenhauer argues that our essence is will by identifying willing with bodily movement. — Thorongil

How does this help to prove that the will is our essence?

Spinoza more or less just declares this to be so — Thorongil

Spinoza explains why it simply cannot be otherwise. Things which are contrary to one's nature cannot be part of one's nature, because then one's nature wouldn't even exist in the first place. So therefore one's nature - in order to be one's nature - must be aimed at seeking to preserve itself, simply because the opposite is a contradiction.

I know... but the point is Spinoza does talk about "spirit" (unity, infinite, Substance).

When I referred to the expression of Substance, you then compared it to Hegel's notion of spirit expressing the world, noting the similarity of infinite/unity, etc.,etc, between the two concepts, suggesting that Spinoza was merely talking about what Hegel was, that there was really no disagreement between the two.

You more or less do this all the time. When someone brings up a metaphysical philosophy which disagrees with yours, you ignore what its saying to claim it doesn't really disagree with yours.

As for what you could do, how about recognising some philosophies are making a point that disagrees with yours? That's why I say you play dumb. I'm pointing out you don't even recognise Spinoza is making a different point about metaphysics.

When I referred to the expression of Substance, you then compared it to Hegel's notion of spirit expressing the world, noting the similarity of infinite/unity, etc.,etc, between the two concepts, suggesting that Spinoza was merely talking about what Hegel was, that there was really no disagreement between the two. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Can you cite the passage where I say this?

How does this help to prove that the will is our essence? — Agustino

Read the second book of the WWP, lol. I'm too tired to summarize it.

I said:

When "God causes" it doesn't not mean that a state of the acts to make the world one way or another. Rather, it means that, logically, given the world in-itself, no other outcome is possible. If I write this post, then is must happen, God necessitates it. By Substance, this state (me writing this post), cannot be anything else and so it amounts to the occurrence of this state over any other possible event. God is an expression rather than a casual actor. — TheWillowOfDarkness

To which you said:

Yes, I like to say, with Hegel, that the world is an expression of spirit. It makes no sense to say that spirit ( or mind) causes the world. But we have already cleared up this misunderstanding of yours, so I'm not clear why you're repeating it here. — John

And then I said:

For Spinoza, the spirit is an expression of the world.

This is a critical difference because it eliminates the world's logical dependence on spirit. For thinkers like Hegel, spirit is still acting as a creator. It treats the world like it's something spirit acts to make, as if the logical truths expressed by the world were finite rather than eternal. Eliminate spirit and it's supposed the logical forms expressed by the world cannot be formed.

Spinoza points out this is a misunderstanding of the infinite. Eternal truths are never created of made, not even by spirit. Being infinite, they are always true and defined in-themslves. Spirit an expression the world cannot be without. There is no possibility of "meaninglessness" that an act of spirit needs to avoid. — TheWillowOfDarkness

To which you the claimed:

None of this has anything to do with what I have been saying, or even with what Hegel says. And I'm pretty sure that Spin doesn't even talk about spirit. — John

You were the one to bring-up Hegel in comparison to Spinoza. Then, when I clarified how Spinoza was different to Hegel on this matter, you claim it has nothing to do what we are talking about.

The first passage is your statement; you did not mention Spinoza in it. I was responding to your statement about the incoherence of the idea that spirit (or God) causes (obviously thinking of 'cause' in the empirical sense here) the world, by saying that I agree with Hegel that the world is more rightly thought as an expression of spirit or God. Where did I make mention of comparing Spinoza to Hegel?

Read the second book of the WWP, lol. I'm too tired to summarize it. — Thorongil

>:O I have, but I want to hear your thoughts about it, hence why I'm discussing it with you rather than reading WWR again :P

I was talking about Spinoza's God. My initial post in full, where the first paragraph mentions Spinoza by name twice.

In a sense, yes. Not the one most people think of though, which is why Spinoza is so frequently misread as a pantheist (rather than recognised as acosmist). For Spinoza, God is not a body in the usual sense (distinct individual states of the world), but Substance, the infinite and unchanging truth.

When "God causes" it doesn't not mean that a state of the acts to make the world one way or another. Rather, it means that, logically, given the world in-itself, no other outcome is possible. If I write this post, then is must happen, God necessitates it. By Substance, this state (me writing this post), cannot be anything else and so it amounts to the occurrence of this state over any other possible event. God is an expression rather than a casual actor. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Which was in a direct response to your comments about Spinoza:

If you accept that the in itself or in Spinoza's terms 'the one substance' is both an infinite extension and an infinite mind (and an infinite number of other attributes, of which we can know only these two) then would not time, space and causality originate, just as we and our minds must be thought to, in that greater mind (and for Spinoza, body) that is God? So, even if time, space and causality are 'generated' by the human mind, since the human mind is 'generated' by God, they must also, ultimately be 'generated' by God, no? — John

I disagree that Being reveals itself through the subject but not also through the object. I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. I disagree with that entire anthropomorphism of his in metaphysics. I find that disgusting actually. But I agree on social philosophy and on ethical personalism — Agustino

Can you point to exactly where in that text you think Berdyaev makes the claims you say he does? I couldn't see it.

I don't see how you can generally disagree with anthropmorhism and yet call yourself a Christian. Christianity is, at least in most of its predominant sects. the most thoroughly anthropmorphic of the world religions.

Can you point to exactly where in that text you think Berdyaev makes the claims you say he does? I couldn't see it. — John

"The fundamental problem of philosophy is the problem of man. Being reveals itself within man and through man"

"In man there is a twofold aspect: man is the point of intersection of two worlds, he reflects in himself the higher world and the world lower."

"Metaphysics is naught other, than a philosophy of human existence; it is subjective, and not objective, it rests upon symbol and myth. Truth and reality are not at all identical with objectification"

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning"

etc.

You're not reading very carefully...

How does this help to prove that the will is our essence? — Agustino

We experience our body in two different ways: externally as an object among other objects, but also internally, and unlike all other objects, as will. To know what our body is internally, subjectively, and in-itself is just to know its essence. So our essence is will.

Your first passage only talks about spinoza's conception of the "body' of God. And of course it is obvious that God is not a body in the world; to say that would just be ridiculous. IT is controversial among Spinoza scholars as to whether Spinoza intended to identify God only with natura naturans or with natura naturata as well. If it is just with the former then insofar as the laws of nature are transcendental to the empirical world ( they do not appear as such in it) then God should rightly be thought as transcendent. Of course the laws of nature are also immanent in nature. On the other hand if the body of God is thought as the body of the world; if God is identified as wholly immanent, then we might think there is no transcendent aspect of God at all and that the laws of nature are nothing more than descriptions of how nature operates, that in no way are prior to, or transcendent of, created nature.

— John

"The fundamental problem of philosophy is the problem of man. Being reveals itself within man and through man"

"In man there is a twofold aspect: man is the point of intersection of two worlds, he reflects in himself the higher world and the world lower."

"Metaphysics is naught other, than a philosophy of human existence; it is subjective, and not objective, it rests upon symbol and myth. Truth and reality are not at all identical with objectification"

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning"

etc.

You're not reading very carefully... — Agustino

It's not an issue of careful reading at all, that is your assumption, as though there is only your interpretation of what Berdyaev writes.

It is an interpretative issue: I take Berdyaev to be merely saying, much as Heidegger does, that being appears as such only within human experience. I think this is correct insofar as I doubt that animals have a concept of being.

Metaphysics is necessarily subjective because only a subject can carry it out. There is no metaphysics without subjects. Again, I can't see why you, particularly as an admirer of Schopenhauer, would disagree with this.

How can truth and reality be identical with "objectification"? I take Berdyaev to be saying that without human experience and understanding there is no truth and reality. How could there be. We cannot even begin to say what there could be without human experience and understanding. This view is common to Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel (as well as the other German idealists) and Heidegger; so I cannot see why you would, while remaining consistent with what I know of your philosophical preferences, disagree with Berdyaev here.

And you haven't cited the passages that deal with

I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. — Agustino

I was talking about Spinoza's God full stop, not just whether there's a body in the world-- i.e. Spinoza's God is not any sort of bodily distinction or casual actor of any realm.

The point is not just God is not any particular existing state, but there are no other realms (i.e. transcendent) to which a bodily actor of God belongs. All logical objects are given in themselves.

Spinoza identifies God with both natura naturans and natura naturata. The former being expression self-causation (i.e. being a thing that acts or causes), the latter being the passive expression of caused modes (i.e. the logical expression of states of existence- e.g. forms, "laws of nature, etc.,etc."). Neither are a casual actor, whether that be in the world (e.g. a falling rock smashing a plate) or in logic (e.g. spirit making a world of logical expression where there was previously none or could be none).

Nor is this controversial. It's the basic contention of Spinoza's philosophy-- one Substance (God), not two (transcendent God and the world).

How can truth and reality be identical with "objectification"? I take Berdyaev to be saying that without human experience and understanding there is no truth and reality. How could there be. We cannot even begin to say what there could be without human experience and understanding. This view is common to Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel (as well as the other German idealists) and Heidegger; so I cannot see why you would, while remaining consistent with what I know of your philosophical preferences, disagree with Berdyaev here. — John

The problem is it makes the Ideal dependent on us-- the infinite becomes dependent on human experience. Without experience, there is nothing to know or understand. If human experience doesn't exist, then there can be no infinite truths. For God to be Real, we would have to exist. God would become nothing more than a worldly whim of particular humans living.

With the infinite, the point is to know something independent of our experience. Not in the sense that we can't know it, but in the sense that it maintains without us, that it is unchanging, even as we pass on or cease to be aware of it.

It's the basic contention of Spinoza's philosophy-- one Substance (God), not two (transcendent God and the world). — TheWillowOfDarkness

To say that there is a transcendent God and the world, ( and the relation between them: Father Son and Holy Spirit, perhaps) is not necessarily to say there is more than one substance. They are thought as 'three in one', but this thought is acknowledged to be inadequate to the Reality. God is certainly not universally considered to be the one substance in any case.

I understand that Spinoza contends one substance, and no transcendence, but I don't find the contention coherent. You haven't presented anything that convinces me otherwise. You just keep making unsupported claims.
Agustino said earlier:

But for example I believe in one substance because all other conceptions are incoherent. — Agustino

The fact is that there have been many conceptions of substance, substance considered variously along the lines of essence, identity or ground of being, for example. Under the two former conceptions of course there are many substances. Under the latter conception, it doesn't seem to make sense to say that there could be more than one ground of being. But this tells us nothing about that ground of being. Of course it might seem incorrect to say there are many grounds of being, and if we accept that to say that is incorrect, that still doesn't tell us that the ground of being is a unity; because the term 'unity' would seem to be as inapplicable as the term 'plurality' when referring to 'something' that is not part of what is experienced and may be investigated empirically. We are considering something here upon which none of our concepts can gain any purchase.

In any case I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were to claim that substance cannot be rightly thought as 'ground of being' either. If you think you have a coherent conception as to what substance is, then why don't you tell us what that is. I have challenged you to this before and you haven't come up with anything. Do you think substance is something more than merely a logical expression or idea, for example? If so, then what? I would be content to say it is right to think it is something more, but that we cannot say what that something more" is. Can you say what it is?

We experience our body in two different ways: externally as an object among other objects, but also internally, and unlike all other objects, as will. To know what our body is internally, subjectively, and in-itself is just to know its essence. So our essence is will. — Thorongil

Okay, but it seems to me that this is no-way different than Spinoza proving objectively that the body cannot be anything other than conatus. Not merely because you experience it to be so, but because it simply could not exist if it was otherwise. Schopenhauer doesn't ground the will in the thing-in-itself the way Spinoza grounds the conatus in the Substance - he rather grounds it in your perception (but your perception could be wrong). That's why I say anthropomorphic.

To all those interested in Spinoza's conatus argument, I remember this paper being good, although it is quite long.

I take Berdyaev to be merely saying, much as Heidegger does, that being appears as such only within human experience. I think this is correct insofar as I doubt that animals have a concept of being. — John

I disagree - Being shows itself just as much in object as in subject

Metaphysics is necessarily subjective because only a subject can carry it out. There is no metaphysics without subjects. Again, I can't see why you, particularly as an admirer of Schopenhauer, would disagree with this. — John

Metaphysics must be both subjective and objective in order to be a complete description of Reality though. So yes, obviously only a subject can be conscious of it, but that doesn't change the fact.

I take Berdyaev to be saying that without human experience and understanding there is no truth and reality. — John

Yeah, it's all about human beings... :s This is just anthropomorphism at its best, at least you should recognise that...

This view is common to Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel (as well as the other German idealists) and Heidegger; so I cannot see why you would, while remaining consistent with what I know of your philosophical preferences, disagree with Berdyaev here. — John

The view that there can be nothing without human experience isn't common to, for example, Schopenhauer.

I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. — Agustino

I did provide a citation for this:

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning" — Agustino

because the term 'unity' would seem to be as inapplicable as the term 'plurality' when referring to 'something' that is not part of what is experienced and may be investigated empirically. We are considering something here upon which none of our concepts can gain any purchase. — John

Yes, this is Schopenhauer's point. Substance is non-dual.

Do you think substance is something more than merely a logical expression or idea, for example? If so, then what? I would be content to say it is right to think it is something more, but that we cannot say what that something more" is. Can you say what it is? — John

I already quoted you what Spinoza defined substance as - that which exists in itself and is conceived through itself. Now if you have an issue with that definition, then please explain what that is. Or indeed, please explain what "something more" could substance be?

Very relevant to this thread, and to criticism of Kant's empirical derivation of the non-empirical thing-in-itself (which me and Willow have been hitting on):

"Kant bases the assumption of the thing-in-itself, although concealed under many different turns of expression, on a conclusion according to the law of causality, namely that empirical perception, or more concretely sensation in our organs of sense from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. Now, according to his own correct discovery, the law of casuality is known to us a priori, and consequently is a function of our intellect, and so is of subjective origin. Moreover, sensation itself, to which we here apply the law of causality, is undeniably subjective; and finally, even space, in which, by means of this application, we place the cause of sensation as object, is a form of our intellect given a priori, and is consequently subjective. Therefore the whole of empirical perception remains throughout on a subjective foundation, as a mere occurence in us, and nothing entirely different from and independent of it can be brought in as a thing-in-itself, or shown to be a necessary assumption. Empirical perception actually is and remains our mere representation it is the world as representation. We can arrive at its being-in-itself only on an entirely different path I have followed, by means of the addition of self-consciousness, which proclaims the will as the in-itself of our phenomenon. But then the thing-in-itself becomes something toto genere different from the representation and its elements, as I have explained.

The great defect of the Kantian system in this point, which, as I have said, was soon demonstrated, is an illustration of the beautiful Indian proverb: 'No lotus without a stem'. Here the stem is the faulty deduction of the thing-in-itself, though only the method of deduction, not the recognition of a thing-in-itself belonging to the given phenomenon" - Schopenhauer WWR Vol I, Appendix I

More interesting things as I'm revisiting some works:

"The mistake at the root of this view, a mistake which has been fully revealed only by scientific development in the twentieth century, is the assumption that Newtonian physics is a permanently and incorrigibly true body of fact. It is not. But because Kant believed it was, he was bound to assume that everything about the a-priori forms [space, time, causality] and categories with which human sensibility and understanding were to be credited, whatever they were, must be such as would yield, and would yield only - and therefore must necessarily yield - a world which conformed to the laws of Newtonian science. All other possibilities must be ruled out" - Bryan Magee in Schopenhauer

So it seems that Magee also criticises Schopenhauer/Kant for extending the a prioriness to conceptions of space, rather than remaining with the fact that whatsoever conception there is, it will still presuppose a space that is not given in experience, and is thus not certain. In this regard, neither Euclidean nor Non-Euclidean geometry are anything more than conceptions of space.

So it seems that it may be most correct to say that what is a priori are the forms of space/time/causality, but the current conceptions we have of them, while logical and fitting with our current experience, could be wrong. However, we are always destined to have some conception of space/time/causality for the mere reason that they are forms of our perception - they are never given within perception, and we never perceive them, but we always perceive through them. "Everything about" them however is part of our conception whatever that happens to be, and it could turn out that this conception is wrong. But it can't turn up that we don't perceive mediated by space/time/causality. That is certain.

Schopenhauer doesn't ground the will in the thing-in-itself the way Spinoza grounds the conatus in the Substance — Agustino

Schopenhauer's argument is empirical, whereas Spinoza's is rationalistic. I am more fully convinced by the former because it corresponds to my own experience and provides the key for interpreting the whole of nature.

Kant bases the assumption of the thing-in-itself, although concealed under many different turns of expression, on a conclusion according to the law of causality, namely that empirical perception, or more concretely sensation in our organs of sense from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. — Agustino

While Kant does say things like this, I think Schopenhauer is being slightly uncharitable here. Kant also says and would respond by saying that we must think that sensation is caused by the thing-in-itself, even if it may not be. We cannot but think this, because we cannot but apply the law of causality universally. This makes Kant inconsistent in his claims, but not incapable of being read such that he is free from Schopenhauer's charge.

So it seems that it may be most correct to say that what is a priori are the forms of space/time/causality, but the current conceptions we have of them, while logical and fitting with our current experience, could be wrong. However, we are always destined to have some conception of space/time/causality for the mere reason that they are forms of our perception - they are never given within perception, and we never perceive them, but we always perceive through them. "Everything about" them however is part of our conception whatever that happens to be, and it could turn out that this conception is wrong. But it can't turn up that we don't perceive mediated by space/time/causality. That is certain. — Agustino

Ha! You've finally come around to my position I see.

Ha! You've finally come around to my position I see. — Thorongil

Yes, but your explanation of it wasn't clear since you didn't address the status of the synthetic a prioris in relationship to space, time and causality. All that remains synthetic a priori is the form of space itself - perception mediated by space - and nothing else.

I disagree - Being shows itself just as much in object as in subject — Agustino

Berdyaev's point, as i interpret it, is that being shows itself at all only when there is subject. It is obvious that, understood analytically, being reveals itself only as object, as beings. I doubt Berdyaev, or any thinking person, could disagree with this.

Yeah, it's all about human beings... :s This is just anthropomorphism at its best, at least you should recognise that... — Agustino

Truth and reality are conceived only by spiritual beings like us. If other animals have the linguistic, conceptual and spiritual capacity to conceive of truth and reality, then there would be truth and reality for them too. Are you denying this is so?

The view that there can be nothing without human experience isn't common to, for example, Schopenhauer. — Agustino

None of the thinkers I mentioned would say there is literally nothing without human experience. Being appears in it fullness with human experience ('human experience' taken here to mean the experience of a rational, conceptualizing language using being).

I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. — Agustino

I did provide a citation for this:

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning" — Agustino — Agustino

The sentence you cited makes no claim that meaning is present only to humans. It is obvious that natural signs would have meaning for animals, but they cannot posit that meaning if they are not capable of conceptual language.

I already quoted you what Spinoza defined substance as - that which exists in itself and is conceived through itself. Now if you have an issue with that definition, then please explain what that is. Or indeed, please explain what "something more" could substance be? — Agustino

Spinoza's definition says literally nothing, because nothing can be "conceived through itself". Even God or substance must, at the very least, be conceived apophatically, through what it is not. Do you know what it means for something "to exist in itself"? Of course you don't, you only know what it means for things to exist for you. So, sure, as a negation of what it means to exist for us, we can conceive the merely logical idea of something existing in itself; but it cannot, discursively at least as opposed to poetically,intuitively or mystically, be 'something more" than a merely logical formulation.

So, it seems quite ridiculous for you to ask me what that something more could be when it is I that have been saying that it cannot be anything more (meaning something more for us, rationally, mind to emphasize that again) and have asked you to tell me what more than a merely logical idea it could be. In other words explain what you think the in itself is ontologically, or in terms of being. You and Willow keep insisting that the in itself is not unknowable and yet you are both incapable of saying anything about it beyond its minimal formulation as a negation of what we are familiar with; a negation of the 'for us'. The absurdity of your position is that the in itself is defined precisely as unknowable, as a negation of the knowable 'for us'.

This passage clearly shows only Schopenhauer's superficial reading of Kant. Kant specifically denies that Space and time and the twelve categories can be applied to the in itself. The in itself is "derived" from the empirical only apophatically, as a logical negation. Kant does get himself into some conceptual difficulty when he says that for there to be appearances there must be something that appears, but I believe he intends this only as a merely logical statement. IT would be illogical to say that there is an appearance and yet that there is nothing that appears.

Of course conceptual and linguistic difficulties will inevitably arise when we try to talk about the in itself.

The it-in-itself is no less "for us" than anything else. Our knowledge and experiences is not just empirical or logical relationships expressed by the emprical (e.g. "laws of nature" ). When we say that the it-in-itself is knowable, we are rejecting Kant's formulation of it as the negation of the emprical and knowledge.

Logic shows negation of the emprical is not equivalent to the it-in-itself. To say "not emprical" doesn't specify what we are talking about. Countless logical truths are "not emprical." If I'm talking about a negation of the emprical, I could be speaking about anything from 2+2=4, an statement of formal logic, Substance, a derivative equation or one of many others. Merely saying "negation of the emprical" doesn't say enough. It only points out I'm not talking about the emprical.

Each non-emprical turth is its own. It must be positively defined and knowable, be it 2+2=4, a formal logic statement, a derivative or Substance. Every non-emprical truth means something more than just "non-emprical," else it's more or less meaningless, for it's been reduced to what it is not.

That our conception of the in itself is for us is obvious, but it is conceived precisely as not being for us; in fact that is its definition. So, you are equivocating the fact that it is conceived by us, with the fact that it is conceived as being not for us.

Of course it is a negation of our entire experience and understanding and it is true that some of that experience and understanding may not be considered to be merely empirical; that depends on your worldview. I believe I have already said at least once that that it conceived as that which cannot be investigated either empirically or logically by pure reason, so there is no excuse for your continued disingenuous assertions that I have been treating the in itself as merely a negation of the empirical.