Don't pretend to be so dim. Maximising the separation is night and day different from breaking the connection.

THE PROPER VIEW
I would rather look at past (and present) philosophers as those who made noble attempts to elevate the deplorable mental states of their times. If I had to pick one, I'd pick a current philosopher, such as Daniel Dennett, who perhaps 'rode to prominence' on media's need for sensationalism (they needed someone to sensationalize, and he was a good fit). In his partial defense, however, he does embody what a current (and future) philosopher should be - i.e. one who pursues philosophical answers to the Big Questions of Life (and the biggest, I have independently discovered, is "Why Bother?"), and one who realized that, in identifying an Ultimate Objective Value with which to base a life-guiding philosophy on (which we do not have in adequate form yet - hence continued vanity, hate, war, aimlessness, depression, and suicide, to name a few) (enter me), one must be familiar with all branches of science (which is our sole source of verified knowledge). He is familiar with many relevant branches of science, but he has done nothing with that knowledge yet (enter me again, with my mental sleeves rolled-up).

Maximising the separation is night and day different from breaking the connection. — apokrisis

So the separation isn't maximised by breaking the connection? Is this what your claim consists in?

Yep, simple isn't it. If you actually break things apart, they are no longer in a relation.

Again, close reading will show that I stress that this is about "directions" and "extents", and so the intrinsic relativity of a logical dichotomy is presumed. Your pretence otherwise is just trolling.

I don't see how this warrants a conclusion that the modifications are "illusions", which is apparently the central claim of acosmism, rather than merely a conclusion that the reality of the modifications is finite as opposed to the infinite reality of the substance. — John

To be finite is to be illusory, as I will explain below.

I asked you earlier to cite a passage from Spinoza where he claims precisely that modes are "illusions".. — John

Modes are illusions simply because they aren't Substance, and only Substance necessarily exists and can only be conceived as existing and not otherwise. Only to Substance does existence belong to as essence. There is no relevant passage to cite because it just has to do with the relationship between modes and substance. If you understand what both are - then you will see that modes are contingent on Substance, and thus ultimately illusory, unreal, if eternal and unconstrained existence belongs only to Substance (which Spinoza claims in the first book).

what you think "illusion" could even mean in this context. — John

Illusion means lacking being. Something that becomes lacks being, it never is, it is always in becoming. That's what philosophers starting with Plato have pretty much meant by the word.

Involved in this issue is also the corollary (as I see it) that if the being of substance is distinct from the being of the modes — John

The modes have no being, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Only Substance has Being.

how could it be thought to not be the case that the being of the substance is transcendent of the modes, just as reality is transcendent of illusion? — John

Except that reality isn't transcendent to illusion, but inherent within it. A dream may be an illusion, but that illusion is constituted by reality - the dreaming is real, even though the dream is illusion.

if the being of substance is distinct from the being of the modes (which it must be if one wants to say that the former is real and the latter an illusion) then how could it be thought to not be the case that the being of the substance is transcendent of the modes, just as reality is transcendent of illusion? — John

The modes have no being, they are the particular/temporary manifestations of Becoming. Where is Being? In Becoming - it is the essence of Becoming (of the process of Becoming to make that clear, not of its temporary and illusory manifestations). Being is thus immanent in Becoming. In addition, particular manifestations (modes) of Becoming never have Being, because they are always ceasing to be and becoming something else, and are thus never what they are - they are non-Being

It seems to me that you have a tendency to evade difficult issues like this by changing the subject or mentioning how many books you have read. — John

Well I certainly didn't mean to evade any issue, I only cited the books in reference to your opinion that there is (significant) disagreement among Spinoza scholars over Spinozism.

I just want to address this one issue to see whether you can give a coherent and consistent account of yourself — John

Ok, well I think I have given a consistent account above (especially the underlined bits). If you find difficulties and inconsistencies in it, please specify them so that I can address them clearly.

Modes are illusions simply because they aren't Substance, and only Substance necessarily exists and can only be conceived as existing and not otherwise. — Agustino

Apart from one other passage, I am only going to address what I have quoted here because the rest of your post consists in just making the same assertion over and over.

The problem with this is that the notions 'real' and 'existence' derive from our experience. Be-ing is becoming; we cannot even begin to conceive how something could be and yet not become. So, reality, for us, is becoming, consists in becoming. The notion of substance, as an absolutely static eternity or eternailty is a purely logical, formal notion; it is essentially exactly the same as the notion of identity which we use to understand ourselves, and others and in fact all things as 'something that persists despite changing through time'.

So, Aristotle considered substance to be manifold. The substance that is a temporal entity can persist as its identity for the duration of its existence. IT is only in a purely abstract logical or formal sense that the identity or substance of a thing does not change, unless it is something like what we think of as a real soul.

Would a real soul need to be immortal? Aristotle apparently didn't think so, but I don't want to go into that here. The point is that Spinoza does not provide a convincing argument for why there cannot be multiple substances, but only provides an argument for why there cannot be multiple substances as he conceives substance, which is an entirely circular argument that does no more than assume its own conclusion.

So, as I see it , we are back to the same point we were in an earlier discussion where I asked you and/or Willow to tell me what kind of existence an utterly changeless eternal substance could be thought to have, above and beyond its being a purely formal notion of identity or being, a mere abstraction which is used as a tool by us to make sense of our experience.

So what kind of existence can an utterly undifferentiated, absolutely changeless, infinite and eternal substance have other than as an abstract idea which is conceived by virtue of being a negation of the differentiated, changing, finite, temporal world we unarguably experience everyday?

If you cannot answer that, and yet want to maintain that only such a "substance" is Real, then you will be admitting that the one Real Substance is unknowable except apophatically, known, that is, only as a negation of everything that we do know. This would also be to admit that substance is transcendental because it cannot be positively conceived in terms of our experience but only as 'something' absolutely other to it.

Except that reality isn't transcendent to illusion, but inherent within it. A dream may be an illusion, but that illusion is constituted by reality - the dreaming is real, even though the dream is illusion. — Agustino

Here you contradict yourself, because on the one hand you say that waking existence is an illusion, and only substance is real, and on the other you say that it is real: "the dreaming is real". This demonstrates what I have claimed; that we derive our idea of reality from waking life not from thinking about some changeless substance, which we cannot even do in any positive sense.

Even in relation to a dream, what does it means to say the dreaming is real? How do you think you could you know that you had actually been dreaming? It could only be known if your memory that you had been dreaming was of something real, right? So, when you wake you say the dreams were an illusion in relation to the reality of your waking life. Two things you can remember (you are relying entirely on the reality of your memory here); your moment of waking where you remember the dream, and the dream itself are compared, and one is deemed to be an illusion in relation to the other. But the analogy does not hold in relation to any purported reality of substance in relation to waking life (conceived as modality) because you are not comparing two things you remember, but you are comparing one thing you remember (waking life) and its merely formal negation, and without any rational justification deciding that the latter, which can be literally nothing to you beyond being an empty formal motion is the Real.

The notion of substance, as an absolutely static eternity or eternailty is a purely logical, formal notion; it is essentially exactly the same as the notion of identity which we use to understand ourselves, and others and in fact all things as 'something that persists despite changing through time'. — John

It seems to me this is nothing but the typical Hegelian critique. But this is not the correct notion of Spinozist Substance. Substance is not an absolutely static eternity...

The point is that Spinoza does not provide a convincing argument for why there cannot be multiple substances, but only provides an argument for why there cannot be multiple substnaces as he coneives substnace, which is an entirely circular argument that assumes its own conclusion. — John

Spinoza is operating with the notion of substance that he adopted from the medieval Scholastics and from Descartes. If you look for Descartes' definitions of Substence, you will see that they are very similar to Spinoza's. So I don't think Spinoza pulled the concept of Substance out of his ass :P lol Certainly he did change its use though.

Willow to tell me what kind of existence an utterly changeless eternal substance — John

And you keep fighting against an image of Spinoza - I already told you that the utterly changeless and eternal substance is Becoming itself. Becoming - the act of becoming - is eternal and changeless. There is no static Substance. Now it seems that you want to discuss Hegel's conception of Spinoza's Substance. I'm just informing you that that isn't Spinoza's actual conception.

Here you contradict yourself, because on the one hand you say that waking existence is an illusion, and only substance is real, and on the other you say that it is real: "the dreaming is real" — John

The dreaming isn't the dream. The dreaming is the ACTIVITY which constitutes the dream - which makes the dream possible, in your Kantian/Hegelian parlance. This activity is very real - you are actually dreaming. The dream however is an illusion - it isn't permanent or fundamental, but rather it is constituted by the activity of dreaming (which is what is actually fundamental)

Even in relation to a dream, what does it means to say the dreaming is real? How do you think you could you know that you actually been dreaming? It could only be known if your memory that you had been dreaming was of something real, right? So, when you wake you say the dreams were an illusion in relation to the reality of your waking life. — John

You are mistaking the analogy. I'm not speaking empirically. I'm using an empirical analogy to drive a metaphysical point. The analogy is as follows - dreaming is real (in other words the activity which constitutes the dream - this has nothing to do with whether or not I perceive it as constituting the dream, just as it has nothing to do with whether I perceive Becoming as constituting the illusory world around), but the dream is an illusion. In similar fashion Substance - that activity which constitutes the modes - is real - while the modes are an illusion.

In the sense you are asking, none. Substance is not a state of the world or presence of a transcedent realm. Rather it is a necessary expression of existing states rather than one itself.

This is what pantheist and panenathiest readings of Spinoza get wrong. Both argue God is in the world (in addition to anything else). Spinoza point is this contention is wrong. We might say "God is in" or "God is the Soul of the world, " but this does not entail God is something in existence, as the pantheist and panenathiest argue.

God is beyond any finite state, an infinite-- defined as the changeless which is not any existing state.The Real (infinite) as opposed to the illusion (finite). To ask what existing state it is doesn't make sense.

If you look for Descartes' definitions of Substence, you will see that they are very similar to Spinoza's. — Agustino

What exactly do you think it is in Descartes' own notion of substance that makes his substance dualism inconsistent?

And you keep fighting against an image of Spinoza - I already told you that the utterly changeless and eternal substance is Becoming itself. Becoming - the act of becoming - is eternal and changeless. There is no static Substance. Now it seems that you want to discuss Hegel's conception of Spinoza's Substance. I'm just informing you that that isn't Spinoza's actual conception. — Agustino

Can you site a passage from Spinoza where he states that substance consists in becoming? The modes are the becoming of substance, but if the modes are not real, then the becoming of substance is not real, and then what are we left with?

You are mistaking the analogy. I'm not speaking empirically. I'm using an empirical analogy to drive a metaphysical point. The analogy is as follows - dreaming is real (in other words the activity which constitutes the dream - this has nothing to do with whether or not I perceive it as constituting the dream, just as it has nothing to do with whether I perceive Becoming as constituting the illusory world around), but the dream is an illusion. In similar fashion Substance - that activity which constitutes the modes - is real - while the modes are an illusion. — Agustino

You are mistaking my critique of the analogy. You and Willow both often bring in the "empirical" as a red herring it seems to me. Forget about the empirical, Spinoza never spoke specifically about it. You are just repeating the same contradiction. You say dreaming is real and yet you say modality is an illusion. Which is it to be, you cannot have it both ways? You haven't even attempted to deal with the difficulties involved in your "analogy" that I pointed out. If you're not prepared to exercise good faith and charitability and make a decent effort then why should I continue to respond to your posts? You often seem like you are just trolling.

It's obvious that substance is not a "state of the world". What do you mean by "presence of a transcendent realm"? How could a transcendent realm be present; since that is a contradiction terms?

It's not that "pantheist and panentheist readings of Spinoza" are wrong, rather that your understanding of pantheism and panentheism is inadequate. Neither argues that God is in the world in the sense of being phenomenal, as you suggest. Pantheism posits that God is the world, and panentheism posits that God is not identical with the world, but inheres in every part of it. For pantheism God is wholly immanent, for panenetheism God is both immanent and transcendent. So, to repeat again, neither position claims that " God is something in existence"; this is simply a misunderstanding on your part.

I think Spinoza's philosophy best fits panentheism, and that is why have been claiming all along that to read Spinoza's philosophy as a philosophy of the wholly immanent is both inconsistent and incoherent.
So, if you want to continue to claim that Spinoza's position is neither that of the pantheist or the panentheist then explain clearly exactly how it differs form both of those positions.

God is beyond any finite state, an infinite-- defined as the changeless which is not any existing state. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If you think this is Spinoza's understanding of God or substance, as I do, then you disagree with Agustino, who seems to think that substance is not static, but becoming.

Your objection to the analogy relies on misreading it. Agustino isn't claiming that existing dreams are real and that modes (which includes existing dreams) are an illusion. He's point out there are many truths (the dream's presence, its self-definition, its meaning, etc.), even though the dream illusion.

So with respect to Substance and modes, there is a truth (Substance) even though the modes are an illusion. The point is Substance doesn't rely on existing as something (i.e. it is a mode) to be true.

So with respect to Substance and modes, there is a truth (Substance) even though the modes are an illusion. The point is Substance doesn't rely on existing as something (i.e. it is a mode) to be true. — TheWillowOfDarkness

My objection to Agustino's analogy was nothing like what you say it was, so I'm not going to bother responding to that.

What exactly is the "truth of Substance" and what exactly does it rely upon, in your opinion? You haven't yet made either of these clear.

Spinoza's point is that God is outside the world. God cannot be part of the world nor inhere in the world without being, on God's own terms, finite. (i.e. "God is here, not there" and "There and not here" ). In both pantheism and panenetheism, God is "something" which changes, which is a distinction of existence.

Under pantheism, we point out a distinction of the world claim it's God. With panentheism we point out points of the world and "Ah yes, God inheres THERE." In either case, we are pronouncing were God begins and ends, inconsistent with God as infinite.

Panentheism does not fit with Spinoza because it makes God into a distinction of the world. Instead of being an infinite, God becomes split and discrete across all states of existence. We look at separate objects and say "God inheres THERE," as if God were at that point in the empirical world. Spinoza's point is God is nowhere in the finite world.

In both pantheism and panentheism, God is something in the world. Not an empirical state per se, but logically of existing states, such that they say empirical states amount to God or that God specifically manifests in states if the world. If the question of "What's is God?" is asked, both give worldly answers. The pantheist says: "All the world," the panentheist says: "That which inheres in every individual state."

Spinoza rejects both these accounts. God is only God to Spinoza, Substance, the infinite of becoming. In worldly terms, Substance is nothing at all. The "What is it in existence?" question makes no sense.

If you think this is Spinoza's understanding of God or substance, as I do, then you disagree with Agustino, who seems to think that substance is not static, but becoming. — John

I don't. Remember, Agustino said becoming was changeless.

What exactly is the "truth of Substance" and what exactly does it rely upon, in your opinion? You haven't yet made either of these clear. — John

I've told you this many times now, in one form or another. Substance is the infinite, the changeless, the self-definition, the becoming (or Being). It doesn't rely on anything. Such a notion is absurd. It would be say that God relied on something else to be, as if God were a finite state of causality.

Remember, Agustino said becoming was changeless. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That is a meaningless contradiction. There is no general "act of becoming" as Agustino suggests there is; rather there are infinitely many acts of becoming. If all that is meant by becoming being changeless is that, (as a generalization) becoming never ceases, then that would be fine, but then it really tells us nothing beyond what we experience everyday.

I've told you this many times now, in one form or another. Substance is the infinite, the changeless, the self-definition, the becoming (or Being). It doesn't rely on anything. Such a notion is absurd. It would be say that God relied on something else to be, as if God were a finite state of causality. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So, are you claiming that God is real in some sense beyond being an apophatically derived abstract notion? This is where you never give a straight answer because you know you cannot say anything that will not fatally contradict your own position.

More or less the opposite. The infinite is Real, rather than the world.

It's sort of an inversion of how we usually think about things. Usually, we think of the Real as "the world as it is," the empirical, what's happening around us, the (in Spinozian terms) the modes (particularly that affect us). Spinoza turns on its head in the context of metaphysics.

How can these finite modes, that which change and die, amount to the Real? They are only here for a moment before they pass out of existence, contingent states, never to be again. None of these modes could amount to Being, to the infinite, to that which is necessarily so. To say these were Real would be like claiming a man was God, to claim that God was born and would die.

For God to be infinite, it's the finite which must be a illusion. Modes must be a falsehood. They must masquerade as Being, only to die as the necessity of change moves-- think how any state we encounter appears present, but then is gone in a flash. The Real cannot be a measure of the world. It can only be a measure of what is other to the world, what is true regardless of modes.

The Real can only be logical (i.e. not a mode, and I suspect, in you terms "abstract"), else the infinite of Being is reduced to the finite.

How can these finite modes, that which change and die, amount to the Real? They are only here for a moment before they pass out of existence, contingent states, never to be again. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I can't see how time is relevant to the reality of something. You and I are modulations and we might be here for eighty or ninety years, or even more. If you want to say the infinite is Real, then you should be able to say how it is Real, otherwise it becomes an empty claim in a rational context, unless you admit that the Real is unknowable and the claim is not propositional, but merely expresses an intuitive or faith-based belief.

The Real can only be logical (i.e. not a mode, and I suspect, in you terms "abstract"), else the infinite of Being is reduced to the finite. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If the Real is only logical does the logical then have any existence other than as thought? If you want to say it does then what kind of existence could that be.

And don't say again that I am asking for an empirical explanation of its existence; I am asking for an explanation of what kind of existence you think it has other than the merely logical, where the logical is considered to itself have no existence beyond thought. To repeat it for emphasis: if you want to say the logical does have an existence beyond thought, then you should be able to explain just what that existence consists in, or else admit that you believe in something unknowable.

Trying to get an honest straight answer from you on this is "like trying to get blood out of a stone".

Spinoza rejects both these accounts. God is only God to Spinoza, Substance, the infinite of becoming. In worldly terms, Substance is nothing at all. The "What is it in existence?" question makes no sense. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Come on! If God or Substance or Nature or whatever you want to call it is really nothing then what difference could it make to us and why would we even bother to think about it. The question I have been asking is if it should be thought of as being real in any sense beyond our thoughts. IF the answer is 'no', as you seem to be saying then you have been arguing for nothing at all, and to no purpose, because everyone already knows that Substance or God can be thought about in the way Spinoza does, and you follow him in doing.

But the fact that we can think about God or substance that way is of utterly no import if it is considered to have no ontological relevance. God or substance can be consistently thought about in many other ways, too, as the history of philosophy amply shows. If none of the ways we think about God or substance can be shown to be inherently superior to any of the others, because their differences are due merely to different starting presumptions, definitions and premises, then the whole argument becomes a big "So what?". Unless it is presumed that there really is a God beyond our thoughts, and that our thoughts might more or less approximate to God's nature, then it becomes just a word game, and nothing more.

What exactly do you think it is in Descartes' own notion of substance that makes his substance dualism inconsistent? — John

"Substance: A thing whose existence is dependent on no other thing"
- This is virtually the same as Spinoza's definition of substance, and therefore entails the same conclusions when worked out. Descartes however (incoherently) postulated Created Substances apart from this one Substance - these were what his dualism consist of in fact. Mental and Physical Substances are created substances, and depend ultimately on the One infinite Substance - God. In fact, Descartes states this clearly:

"Created Substance: A thing whose existence is dependent on nothing other than God"

These are subsumed under Spinoza's modes - as expression of Substance.

Can you site a passage from Spinoza where he states that substance consists in becoming? — John

Again, as this has to do with the system as a whole there is no particular passage which comes to mind. I don't have the Ethics close at hand at the moment, but regardless, the idea is that Substance is generative, and the modes are not. Hence there can be no becoming of modes if there is no Substance. You have to understand how the elements of Spinoza's system define each other, and how they are related together - in other words you must understand Spinozist logic - to draw these conclusions. Without Substance the modes do not occur - they are in fact inconceivable.

In relation to your Hegelian reading of Spinoza, have you read Macherey's Hegel ou Spinoza? (PS: it comes out in favor of Spinoza :P - and I can tell you that it covers EXACTLY this ground that you're asking me to go over in a lot more detail than I can go over here)

then the becoming of substance is not real, and then what are we left with? — John

The becoming of Substance is an activity - in fact, that's all that Substance consists of - it is the Being of Becoming. The modes exist because of Becoming. The modes are things - particular states - they require some underlying activity to make them possible. Think like waves in an ocean... what is the underlying activity that makes waves possible? The current. The waves are nothing but a manifestation of this underlying activity.

You say dreaming is real and yet you say modality is an illusion. Which is it to be, you cannot have it both ways? — John

It is an analogy - drop it once you have climbed up on it. You cannot step on the other side of the river if you don't let go of the raft. Analogies are of course always imperfect. However, it seems to me that you have missed the point of the analogy. The point was to show that things (dreams) are constituted by activities [dreaming] (even at lower levels of explanation), and that modes, being things, are constituted by God - the underlying activity which alone is Real and makes them possible. Now in what does God's Reality consist? In Becoming - in the eternal coming and going of these illusory and transient modes. God depends on the modes but not on any particular mode. Indeed it is incoherent to think God without thinking the modes - Substance cannot be thought without its modes, since Substance is an activity, and there can be no activity without its products. HOWEVER - no particular mode, or set of modes is necessary for God to exist; ie the only necessity is that there is no necessity.

By the way this is a good review of the book:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/32325-hegel-or-spinoza-2/

Read it, and then if you're interested, buy the book if you haven't already! :P And don't get too scared by the "materialist" reading of Spinoza lol :P

"Substance: A thing whose existence is dependent on no other thing" — Agustino

And Spinoza actually corrected this by not calling Substance a "thing"... ;)

In relation to your Hegelian reading of Spinoza, have you read Macherey's Hegel ou Spinoza? — Agustino

That book is actually on my shelves, I picked it up cheap somewhere I imagine, and yet I have never opened it. Since Spinoza and Hegel have one thing in common; that they arguably have produced the most interesting and ambitious attempts to 'immanentize the noumenon', and since I am currently quite fascinated by this topic, I am going to read that book. After I have read it, time permitting, I will start a thread on this very topic, or if you have already started a thread, then i will participate once I have adequately refreshed my memory of Spinoza's philosophy and given sufficient thought to what Macherey has to say about its relation to Hegel's philosophy.

:)

If the Real is only logical does the logical then have any existence other than as thought? If you want to say it does then what kind of existence could that be.

And don't say again that I am asking for an empirical explanation of its existence; I am asking for an explanation of what kind of existence you think it has other than the merely logical, where the logical is considered to itself have no existence beyond thought. To repeat it for emphasis: if you want to say the logical does have an existence beyond thought, then you should be able to explain just what that existence consists in, or else admit that you believe in something unknowable.

Trying to get an honest straight answer from you on this is "like trying to get blood out of a stone". — John

That's just missing the point. To even ask whether the logical has existence doesn't make sense. It doesn't. Logic is true regardless of existence. You're doing worse than asking for empirical explanation of existence. Your approach are taking is trying to account for logic by claiming it exists. The objection just misses the entire context of my argument.

I say logic does not exist at all, but it is true (and knowable).

IThe question I have been asking is if it should be thought of as being real in any sense beyond our thoughts. — John

Our thoughts (like any other mode of our world) are not Real (they are finite states). The Real can only be beyond (the existence) of our thoughts. It is no state of the world, including us.

But the fact that we can think about God or substance that way is of utterly no import if it is considered to have no ontological relevance. God or substance can be consistently thought about in many other ways, too, as the history of philosophy amply shows. If none of the ways we think about God or substance can be shown to be inherently superior to any of the others, because their differences are due merely to different starting presumptions, definitions and premises, then the whole argument becomes a big "So what?". — John

Metaphysical relevance. Any other conception of God is shown to be a contradiction with an infinite nature. If we want to avoid logical incoherence (and so believing falsehood) in our metaphysics, God can only be Substance. Any other conception reduces God to a mere finite entity, be in our world or the transcendent realm.

I say logic does not exist at all, but it is true (and knowable). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes but is it true or knowable beyond the human domain? If you say "No' then it is just logic as understood by us, and it may have no significance beyond the fact that our brains happen to work that way. In that case why would we think we should be constrained by logic when it comes to metaphysical musings, rather than say imagination, or intuition? If you say "Yes" then you are positing transcendence or at least the transcendental.

You don't seem to be able to give any adequate answer to any of my questions, but just keep repeating the same assertions based on your apparent misunderstanding of what I am asking you.

Any other conception of God is shown to be a contradiction with an infinite nature. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You haven't shown that at all, you have merely asserted it.

The question of "domain" of knowledge or logical doesn't make sense. The infinite allows no such distinctions. If there was a split between "human logic" and "God logic," it would become finite. Our supposed infinite would end, would not be true, depending on who was thinking about it.

In one corner we would have human logic. Somewhere else, inaccessible to humans, we would have God logic. Rather than being the infinite without distinction, we would have a distinction, a starting and stopping place for both human logic and God logic.

The whole conflict of "logic constraining the world" is born from approaching logic and knowledge in empirical terms, where a logic rule acts (usually, unimaginative empirical accounts of future states, as specified by a popular tradition of the time) as a constraint on what can happen in the world, such that it is drawn into conflict with "intuition" or "feeling."

Spinoza's point is to eschew this approach. The distinction between intuition and thinking isn't present. Anything "rational" is, by definition, intuited-- understood be the expression of thought (e.g. the meaning of a falling rock) in our extension (our existing experience of a falling rock). Any knowledge or observation we make is formed by out intuition or "feelings."

The question you are asking doesn't make sense. Logic is not a constraint. When we use it, we are practicing our imagination and freedom, holding and understanding that which is not a state of existence. We literally imagine logical truths. They are not present objects in front of us. In this respect, there is only logic, which is why it cannot be broken. No matter what we imagine, it's always going to be itself. A truth not defined by a constraining force (e.g. "logic says you cannot to that" ) from the outside, but from the thing-itself. No matter what is true, whether it be a miracle working god in the sky, a cold universe or distant realms we cannot access, each is always itself.

Yes but is it true or knowable beyond the human domain? — John

How can the standard of truth (Logic) be itself true? That would be a category error. Rather, the standard of truth inheres (is immanent) within truth itself.

Spinoza states "even as light displays both itself and darkness, so is truth a standard both of itself and of falsity"

Thus falsity is either a half-truth (in that it is an incomplete truth - which is only revealed by the Truth) or it doesn't even exist. This is very important - falsity doesn't even exist metaphysically speaking.

Yes but is it true or knowable beyond the human domain? — John

No. The human domain (phenomenon) is part of the world (noumenon), and therefore being knowable in the human domain (phenomenon) is being knowable in the world's domain (noumenon). In fact, there ultimately is no gap between the noumenon and phenomenon.

The "materialist" supposition sees to the truth of this. The working of the brain cannot fail to be real - because our brain is embedded within reality itself - its working cannot be distinct from reality. Part of reality (us) is knowing a different part of reality (the tree in front of us). There is no schism between humans and the world as Kant postulated - no thing-in-itself looming beyond our knowledge - because both ourselves and the world are constituted by this very thing-in-itself - constituting us and the world is exactly what the thing-in-itself does

— Agustino

No. The human domain (phenomenon) is part of the world (noumenon), and therefore being knowable in the human domain (phenomenon) is being knowable in the world's domain (noumenon). In fact, there ultimately is no gap between the noumenon and phenomenon. — Agustino

The "materialist" supposition sees to the truth of this. The working of the brain cannot fail to be real - because our brain is embedded within reality itself - its working cannot be distinct from reality. Part of reality (us) is knowing a different part of reality (the tree in front of us). There is no schism between humans and the world as Kant postulated - no thing-in-itself looming beyond our knowledge - because both ourselves and the world are constituted by this very thing-in-itself - constituting us and the world is exactly what the thing-in-itself does

This is all fine, it is just the realist presupposition. I am basically a realist myself. But the point is there is no need at all for substance or the absolute in this picture.

I have begun reading the Macherey book and I have found early on that Hegel's criticism of Spinoza's notion of the absolute is exactly the point I raised earlier; that is is not conceived by Spinoza as an absolute personality or subject. It is a static non-entity, a nothing, an indifference. Of course, Macherey is going to try to show somehow that this view is mistaken. I am very interested to see how he will attempt this seemingly impossible task.

If the answer is going to be along the lines of the one you gave earlier, that the personality of God consists only in the personality of its modes, then this would not amount to saying anything more than that personality has emerged and evolved as a mode of being in a material world. But we already know this; it is a mere truism. So, if not an Absolute Personality, I cannot see how God is not become useless; a nothing, a merely formal difference that makes no difference, a non-entity that could never be a source for any motivation for us.

So the issues I have at this point with what I understand to be your, Willow's and Spinoza's conception of God, or Substance, or the Absolute, or whatever you wish to call it, are:

• If not an absolute personality, God is a nothing, and thus can be of no consequence to us.

• If God is a merely formal logical entity, then it can have no experience of its own. There is then no infinite subjective experience of an infinite subject, but only the finite subjective experience of finite subjects. There is then no Divine Will regarding humans, no Divine Goodness, or Omniscience, or Love or even Compassion. There is then no Justice, there is just us.

• The movement from an absolutely indeterminate substance to determinate attributes and their modes is unfathomable, and thus the noumenon remains unknowable, which is to say it retains its noumenal status.

• God is held to have infinite attributes, which are held to be unknowable to us, and hence (most of, since we can know only two attributes) the noumenon remains unknowable. And to reiterate, since it is also unknowable how an absolutely indeterminate Substance could give rise to the attributes we do know, in postulating that it does so, we are postulating precisely nothing, and in fact have no grounds for such a postulation at all. So again, the noumenon retains its noumenal status.

I have begun reading the Macherey book and I have found early on that Hegel's criticism of Spinoza's notion of the absolute is exactly the point I raised earlier; — John

Yes, that's why I recommended you the book. Let me know what you think when you finish it. Even if you disagree you'll at least understand the interpretation.

If not an absolute personality, God is a nothing, and thus can be of no consequence to us. — John

Why do you think God needs to be an absolute personality (in the same sense that you are a personality) for God to have significance to us?

If God is a merely formal logical entity, then it can have no experience of its own. — John

But the interpretation isn't of God as merely a formal logical entity - but rather as the noumenon itself which gives rise to the modes... It is an activity - certainly not a non-entity or a formal logical entity. It is dialectical - Spinoza is more dialectical than Hegel himself, which is one of the points that will be made. However, in my opinion Spinoza's dialectic is hidden. It's not overt, like Hegel's...

The movement from an absolutely indeterminate substance to determinate attributes and their modes is unfathomable, and thus the noumenon remains unknowable, which is to say it retains its noumenal status. — John

Not if you conceive of Substance dialectically, which is implied in Spinoza's notion. I also suggested this a little to you by saying that Substance needs the modes and the modes need Substance... :P When I said I found Spinoza harder to read than Hegel this is what I meant. Spinoza you can't take for granted - you actually have to understand the relationships within his system. It's not enough to know the elements which make it up. That's merely formal and abstract knowledge. You need to understand the relationships between the elements, because it is those relationships which make the elements what they are ultimately - truth is its own standard. 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.

God is held to have infinite attributes, which are held to be unknowable to us, and hence (most of, since we can know only two attributes) the noumenon remains unknowable. — 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.

There is a lot of misreading of Spinoza, and there aren't many Spinozists around either. Even at old PF it was just dunamis, and 180 who had good knowledge, and out of them two, only dunamis identified as a Spinozist.

Why do you think God needs to be an absolute personality (in the same sense that you are a personality) for God to have significance to us? — Agustino

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.

But the interpretation isn't of God as merely a formal logical entity - but rather as the noumenon itself which gives rise to the modes... It is an activity — Agustino

But since we cannot say what that activity is it is not really an activity at all for us. It is a purported, and yet incomprehensible, 'activity'; so it ends up being 'no-activity', an unknowable X, a formal identity.