1p7 & 1p8

This is a weird one only because Spinoza insists that 1p8 follows directly from 1p7 after he has given an almost perfectly straightforward demonstration of 1p8.
1p8dem firsts reminds us that it pertains to the nature of a substance to exists (from 1p7). It then asks: OK, how does it exist, finitely, or infinitely? Well, if it exists finitely, then this must be because it is limited by something else. This is an understanding of what it means to be finite (ignore all the negation/affirmation stuff for now) that is utterly traditional. But this is where there is a bit of a slippage in the argument:
1d2 says “That thing is said to be finite in its own kind that can be limited by another of the same nature.”
Not is limited (which would be traditional), but can be limited. The question here is: how are we to take this ‘can’? Is it a logical or a material ‘can’? Given how the rest of 1p8dem plays out, it looks initially like it has to be a material ‘can’. A substance that had, say, only the attribute of extension could be limited only be another substance with the attribute of extension. But that there is another substance with the same attribute is absurd by 1p5. So because the idea of there being two substances with the same attribute is absurd, it turns out that every substance-attribute is infinite because the thing that could limit a substance cannot exist (not cannot limit it).
We could have a 1d2a “That thing is said to be infinite in its own kind when there cannot be another of the same nature.”
That’s pretty much what 1p8dem says.
But then Spinoza completely muddies the water with his claim that really 1p8 really just follows from 1p7 so long as we’re paying attention. Now this is Spinoza at his most mean as becomes quickly apparent as we follow his explanation through the rest of 1p8s2 – which is not short! But it does, I think, offer a different account (a logical or conceptual account) of why there can’t be two substances of the same nature. This is a conceptual account because it pertains to Spinoza’ account of definition. The definition of a thing (substance, attribute or mode) does not include any kind of numerical qualifier. I can define dog, but I can’t define three-dogs. So the reason for there being a number of any thing must lie in an external cause. But there is no external cause when something’s essence involves existence, so each substance must be unique (or, as I think Bertrand Russell put it: substance is not a count-noun in the Ethics). So it turns out that not only could there not be anything that could-materially limit a substance but that actually, so long as we understand that definitions do not include numerical qualifiers and that the essence of substance involves existence, then it is also conceptually-impossible for there to be two substances of the same nature.
Phew!

Infinite Modes of Thought are not Logical (Captain)

This is a sketch of an argument that I’d like to flesh out later, but am curious as to what people think about it.

The two immediate infinite modes that Spinoza names are the infinite immediate mode of Extension which is ‘motion and rest’ and for Thought it is the ‘absolutely infinite intellect’ (Letter 64). See also: “will and intellect are related to God’s nature as motion and rest are” 1p32c2. Then, in Letter 64, Spinoza also mentions the infinite mediate mode of Extension which is the face/fashion/form of the whole universe (“which, however much it [the face] may vary in infinite ways, nevertheless always remains the same”) and see also Ethics Book 2, lemma 7: “And if we proceed in this way to infinity, we shall easily conceive that the whole of nature is one Individual, whose parts, i.e., all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change of the whole Individual”.

Now a central part of Spinoza’s determinism, which is both ontological and explanatory, is that the laws of motion and rest govern both adequate and inadequate ideas. If I am the inadequate cause of some action (levitating onto a chair because I just saw a mouse scuttle across the floor) this in no way breaks or ‘disturbs’ the laws of motion and rest. I hope this is obvious and clear – the laws of motion and rest are physico-causal laws (in a proper version of this, I’d have to be a lot more careful here, but the lack of the needed nuances doesn’t invalidate what I’m saying) and therefore not the kind of law that can be broken. Importantly, in the case of inadequate cause, there is never any implication that a law of nature is being disturbed, the opposite belief is the target of continuous rebuke by Spinoza and its falsity is what makes explaining the passions possible at all.

I think this has important consequences for how we think about the relationship between modes of thought, especially given the whole ‘order and connection’ business, specifically what is going on with inadequate ideas. The question that concerns me is this: if we accept for the moment that the laws of motion and rest are physico-causal, do we think that there are equivalent ‘laws of thought’ and if we do, should we characterise them as logical laws? I think that this is historically anachronistic (which I can sloganise as: Spinoza is barely Arnauld, let alone Leibniz) but also theoretically dubious, in a way that should have been (and I think was) obvious to Spinoza.

There is one mention of logic in the entirety of the Ethics:

But it does not pertain to this investigation to show how the intellect must be perfected, or in what way the body must be cared for, so that it can perform its function properly. The former is the concern of logic, and the latter of medicine 5,Preface

For me, the message of this comment is that logic is, like health, a normative concept. We can fail to be healthy, that is sick; we can fail to think logically, that is confusedly. But, and this is a key point, when we are sick, we no more fail to observe the laws of motion and rest than when we are passionate.

I wanted to think I could express the problem in the form of a dilemma but this is what I’ve got:

1. either we never fail to think logically, in which case logic ceases to be a normative concept

or

2. we can fail to think logically

so

3. either we do disturb the order of nature

or

4. the relations between ideas is not best characterised as logical

that is if will & intellect = motion and rest (I don’t think Spinoza means that will = motion and intellect = rest, but he might, given some interpretations of ‘aquiescentia’ I’m not taking a strong position on this) then ‘will and intellect’ has to be causal or to put it another way, the relations between ideas cannot be primarily inferential. Presumably Spinoza would treat ‘healthy’ much like he treats ‘perfect’ or ‘ugly’? and would therefore treat ‘logical’ in much the same way.

This is a very long winded way of saying that whatever the ‘order’ of the ‘order of the intellect’ is, it ain’t a logical order.

Another much shorter way of putting this would be to simply point out, that if:

medicine is a means to an end, not the end itself (i.e. medicine is a means to health, not health itself), then logic is a means to understanding, not understanding itself.

Which of course means the question: so what is the relationship between ideas supposed to be? remains partially unanswered. I say partially because the ‘order of the imagination’ (not a term I think Spinoza uses) sive the order of inadequate ideas, is a result of the order of encounters (associationism). But what about adequate ideas? What exactly is the order of the intellect? because what I’ve just argued is that it cannot be intrinsically logical. In fact we get the beautiful result that logic is only extrinsically rational / reasonable (I’m not sure if there’s a difference for Spinoza). Though this relies on an unaddressed point about what Spinoza is actually on about with his intrinsic / extrinsic definition stuff (really must write that up at some point).

later added worry / clarification:

Spinoza is quite clear that the the imagination works according to ‘the order of encounters’ which means that the relationship between inadequate ideas is primarily one of association. So Spinoza is quite clear that the relationship between inadequate ideas is not a logical one. I’m not thereby saying that the relationship between adequate ideas cannot be a logical one. What I’m arguing is that whatever the equivalent of ‘motion and rest’ is for the attribute of Thought (e.g. Will and Intellect) it cannot be logic because logic does not govern relations between inadequate ideas, whereas motion and rest does govern relations between inadequate causes.

I really need to finish reading the Port Royal Logic.

Why it’s hard

OK, just started reading Hacking’s Mad Travelers. Great quote from the first chapter.

Ludwig Wittgenstein said that in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. We have more than that for the mental illnesses. We have the clinical methods of medicine, psychiatry, psychology, we have the innumerable variants of and deviations from psychoanalysis; we have systems of self-help, group helps, and counselors including priests and gurus; we have the statistical methods of epidemiology and population genetics, and molecular biology; we have the theoretical modeling of cognitive science; and we have conceptual confusion (Hacking: 10)

I particularly like the use of the semi-colon, but that is a whole different issue…

The aim of the book appears to be the justification of the idea that the dichotomy real / constructed (or, presumably real / problems of living, though Szasz is not mentioned) is simply too simplistic to capture what is going on with these transient forms of mental illness. It goes without saying that I am sympathetic to this idea and am looking forward to seeing how Hacking runs with it. From the introduction:

The most important contribution here is the metaphor of an ecological niche within which mental illnesses thrive. Such niches require a number of vectors. I emphasis four. One, inevitably, is medical. The illness should fit into a larger framework of diagnosis, a taxonomy of illness. The most interesting vector is cultural polarity: the illness should be situated between two elements of contemporary culture, one romantic and virtuous, the other vicious and tending to crime … Then we need a vector of observability, that the disorder should be visible as disorder, as suffering as something to escape. Finally something more familiar: the illness, despite the pain it produces, should also provide some release that it is not available elsewhere in the culture in which it thrives (Hacking: 1-2)

Hacking, Ian. 1998. Mad travelers reflections on the reality of transient mental illnesses. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.