| Phi 109-01 Fall 2013 |
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Spinoza was born about 1200 years after Augustine died, so we are moving some distance. But Spinoza’s views are strongly influenced by those of the first great modern philosopher, René Descartes (who lived during the first half of the 17th century), and Descartes was himself strongly influenced by Augustine. Although Spinoza draws much from Descartes, he also criticizes much, so Spinoza is a fairly natural counterpart, and indirect opponent, for Augustine.
The selections in this assignment, which are not the whole of Pereboom’s selection 6, come from the ends of each of the first two of the five parts of Spinoza’s Ethics. The full title of the work adds a phrase in Latin pointing the book’s use of the style of a mathematical treatise. You will see some trace of this in the assignment, but that consists mainly of the freer comments (‘scholium’ means ‘note’ or ‘comment’) that are interspersed in the more formal development. (If you’d like to see the rest, an older translation, by R. H. M. Elwes, is freely and widely available on the web.)
These selections focus on two main topics, one in the appendix to part I (pp. 62-68) and the other mainly in the long scholium from the end of part II (pp. 70-75). (I’ve also assigned the material appearing in Pereboom just before the latter, which provides some context and background for it.)
• The broad topic of the first selection is an attack on the idea of a “final cause.” This is the traditional English term for one of several forms of explanation distinguished by Aristotle, explanation (hence ‘cause’) in terms of purpose or the end to be achieved (hence ‘final’). Our main interest in this material is Spinoza’s discussion of the illusory character of free will. The appendix is mainly critical; to get a positive sense of Spinoza’s views, you will need to read its first sentence closely: Spinoza there summarizes much of the content of Part I of the Ethics.
• The scholium that ends part II of the Ethics is mainly a defense of the corollary that precedes it against four objections, several of which represent key views of Descartes. Probably the best approach to this material for our purposes is the obvious one: think about each objection and Spinoza’s reply to it and ask yourself which side seems stronger. (In stating the fourth objection, Spinoza alludes to a traditional example that came to be named after the late medieval philosopher John Buridan, probably because it was used to attack his views. In one common version of the example, an ass, whose behavior is assumed to be determined solely by the relative values of the alternatives it must choose between, starves when faced with a choice between two bales of hay at equal distances in different directions.)