Spinozism

Spinozism (also spelled Spinoza-ism or Spinozaism) is the 1 Core doctrine

monist philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza which denes "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, with
In Spinozism, the concept of a personal relationship with
both matter and thought being attributes of such.
God comes from the position that one is a part of an inIn a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza wrote: as to the
nite interdependent organism. Spinoza argued that evview of certain people that I identify god with nature
erything is a derivative of God, interconnected with all
(taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are
of existence. Although humans only experience thought
quite mistaken.[1] For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is
and extension, what happens to one aspect of existence
a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension.
will still aect others. Thus, Spinozism teaches a form
God has innitely many other attributes which are not
of determinism and ecology and supports this as a basis
present in our world. According to German philosopher
for morality.
Karl Jaspers, when Spinoza wrote "Deus sive Natura"
(God or Nature) Spinoza meant God was Natura natu- Additionally, a core doctrine of Spinozism is that the unirans not Natura naturata, that is, a dynamic nature in ac- verse is essentially deterministic. All that happens or will
tion, growing and changing, not a passive or static thing. happen could not have unfolded in any other way. It has
Jaspers believed that Spinoza, in his philosophical sys- been said that Spinozism is similar to the Hindu doctrines
tem, did not mean to say that God and Nature are in- of Samkhya and Yoga. Though within the various exterchangeable terms, but rather that Gods transcendence isting Hindu traditions there exist many traditions which
was attested by his innitely many attributes, and that two astonishingly had such similar doctrines from ages, out
attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Exten- of which most similar and well known are the Kashmiri
sion, signied Gods immanence.[2] Even God under the Shaivism and Nath tradition, apart from already exist[5]
attributes of thought and extension cannot be identied ing Samkhya and Yoga. Spinoza claimed that the third
strictly with our world. That world is of course divisi- kind of knowledge, intuition, is the highest kind attainble"; it has parts. But Spinoza insists that no attribute able. More specically, he dened this as the ability for
of a substance can be truly conceived from which it fol- the human intellect to intuit knowledge based upon its aclows that the substance can be divided (Which means cumulated understanding of the world around them.
that one cannot conceive an attribute in a way that leads Spinozas metaphysics consists of one thing, substance,
to division of substance), and that a substance which is and its modications (modes). Early in The Ethics
absolutely innite is indivisible (Ethics, Part I, Proposi- Spinoza argues that there is only one substance, which
tions 12 and 13).[3] Following this logic, our world should is absolutely innite, self-caused, and eternal. From
be considered as a mode under two attributes of thought this substance, however, follow an innite number of atand extension. Therefore, the pantheist formula One and tributes (the intellect perceiving an abstract concept or
All would apply to Spinoza only if the One preserves essence) and modes (things actually existing which folits transcendence and the All were not interpreted as low from attributes and modes). He calls this substance
the totality of nite things.[2]
"God", or "Nature". In fact, he takes these two terms to be
synonymous (in the Latin the phrase he uses is Deus sive
Natura), but readers often disregard his neutral monism.
During his time, this statement was seen as literally equating the existing world with God - which is why he was
accused of atheism. For Spinoza the whole of the natural
universe is made of one substance, God, or, whats the
same, Nature, and its modications (modes).

French philosopher Martial Guroult suggested the term

"Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe
Spinozas view of the relation between God and the
world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense,
in God. Not only do nite things have God as their
cause; they cannot be conceived without God.[3] In other
words, the world is a subset of God. American philosopher Charles Hartshorne, on the other hand, suggested
the term "Classical Pantheism" to describe Spinozas
philosophy.[4]

However, one should keep in mind the neutral monist position. While the natural universe humans experience in
both the realm of the mind and the realm of physical reality is part of God, it is only two modes - thought and
extension - that are part of innite modes emanating from
God.
Spinozas doctrine was considered radical at the time he
1

CORE DOCTRINE

published and he was widely seen as the most infamous denition:

atheist-heretic of Europe. His philosophy was part of the
philosophic debate in Europe during the Enlightenment,
along with Cartesianism. Specically, Spinoza disagreed 1.4 Substance monism
with Descartes on substance duality, Descartes views on
the will and the intellect, and the subject of free will. [7] The argument for there only being one substance (or,
more colloquially, one kind of stu) in the universe occurs in the rst fourteen propositions of The Ethics. The
following proposition expresses Spinozas commitment to
1.1 Substance
substance monism:
Spinoza denes substance as follows:
Spinoza takes this proposition to follow directly from evThis means, essentially, that substance is just whatever
can be thought of without relating it to any other idea or
thing. For example, if one thinks of a particular object,
one thinks of it as a kind of thing, e.g., x is a cat. Substance, on the other hand, is to be conceived of by itself,
without understanding it as a particular kind of thing (because it isn't a particular thing at all).

1.2

erything he says prior to it. Spinozas monism is contrasted with Descartes dualism and Leibnizs pluralism.
It allows Spinoza to avoid the problem of interaction between mind and body, which troubled Descartes in his
Meditations on First Philosophy.

1.5 Causality and modality

Attributes

The issue of causality and modality (possibility and

necessity) in Spinozas philosophy is contentious.[10]
Spinozas philosophy is, in one sense, thoroughly
Spinoza denes attribute as follows:
deterministic (or necessitarian). This can be seen directly
From this it can be seen that attributes are related to
from Axiom 3 of The Ethics:
substance in some way. It is not clear, however, even
from Spinozas direct denition, whether, a) attributes Yet Spinoza seems to make room for a kind of freedom,
are really the way(s) substance is, or b) attributes are sim- especially in the fth and nal section of The Ethics, On
ply ways to understand substance, but not necessarily the the Power of the Intellect, or on Human Freedom:
ways it really is. Spinoza thinks that there are an in- So Spinoza certainly has a use for the word 'freedom',
nite number of attributes, but there are two attributes for but he equates Freedom of Mind with blessedness, a
which Spinoza thinks we can have knowledge. Namely, notion which is not traditionally associated with freedom
thought and extension.[9]
of the will at all.
1.2.1

Thought

The attribute of thought is how substance can be understood to be composed of thoughts, i.e., thinking things.
When we understand a particular thing in the universe
through the attribute of thought, we are understanding the
mode as an idea of something (either another idea, or an
object).
1.2.2

Extension

1.5.1 The principle of sucient reason (PSR)

Though the PSR is most commonly associated with
Gottfried Leibniz, it is arguably found in its strongest
form in Spinozas philosophy.[11] Within the context of
Spinozas philosophical system, the PSR can be understood to unify causation and explanation.[12] What this
means is that for Spinoza, questions regarding the reason why a given phenomenon is the way it is (or exists) are always answerable, and are always answerable in
terms of the relevant cause(s). This constitutes a rejection of teleological, or nal causation, except possibly in a
more restricted sense for human beings.[8][12] Given this,
Spinozas views regarding causality and modality begin to
make much more sense.

The attribute of extension is how substance can be understood to be physically extended in space. Particular things
which have breadth and depth (that is, occupy space) are
what is meant by extended. It follows from this that if
substance and God are identical, in Spinozas view, and
contrary to the traditional conception, God has extension 1.6
as one of his attributes.

1.3

Modes

Parallelism

Spinozas philosophy contains as a key proposition the notion that mental and physical (thought and extension) phenomena occur in parallel, but without causal interaction
between them. He expresses this proposition as follows:

Modes are particular modications of substance, i.e., particular things in the world. Spinoza gives the following His proof of this proposition is that:

2.1

Comparison to Eastern philosophies

The reason Spinoza thinks the parallelism follows from

this axiom is that since the idea we have of each thing requires knowledge of its cause, and this cause must be understood under the same attribute. Further, there is only
one substance, so whenever we understand some chain of
ideas of things, we understand that the way the ideas are
causally related must be the same as the way the things
themselves are related, since the ideas and the things are
the same modes understood under dierent attributes.

Pantheism controversy

Main article: Pantheism controversy

In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinozas pantheism, after Lessing was thought
to have confessed on his deathbed to being a Spinozist,
which was the equivalent in his time of being called a
heretic. Jacobi claimed that Spinozas doctrine was pure
materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be
nothing but extended substance. This, for Jacobi, was the
result of Enlightenment rationalism and it would nally
end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed
with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual dierence between theism and pantheism. The entire issue became
a major intellectual and religious concern for European
civilization at the time, which Immanuel Kant rejected,
as he thought that attempts to conceive of transcendent
reality would lead to antinomies (statements that could
be proven both right and wrong) in thought.

3
diers from the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly
God who cares about humanity.

2.1 Comparison to Eastern philosophies

Similarities between Spinozas philosophy and Eastern
philosophical traditions have been discussed by many authorities. The 19th-century German Sanskritist Theodore
Goldstcker was one of the early gures to notice the similarities between Spinozas religious conceptions and the
Vedanta tradition of India, writing that Spinozas thought
was "... a western system of philosophy which occupies
a foremost rank amongst the philosophies of all nations
and ages, and which is so exact a representation of the
ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its
founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of
his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy
us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines...
We mean the philosophy of Spinoza, a man whose very
life is a picture of that moral purity and intellectual indierence to the transitory charms of this world, which
is the constant longing of the true Vedanta philosopher...
comparing the fundamental ideas of both we should have
no diculty in proving that, had Spinoza been a Hindu,
his system would in all probability mark a last phase of
the Vedanta philosophy.[18][19]

Max Muller, in his lectures, noted the striking similarities

between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, saying the
Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and dened by
Sankara, is clearly the same as Spinozas 'Substantia'.[20]
Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical SociThe attraction of Spinozas philosophy to late eighteenth- ety also compared Spinozas religious thought to Vedanta,
century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to writing in an unnished essay As to Spinozas Deity
materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinozas natura naturansconceived in his attributes simply and
alone; and the same Deityas natura naturata or as conideas strongly appealed to them:
ceived in the endless series of modications or correlations, the direct outowing results from the properties
the unity of all that exists;
of these attributes, it is the Vedantic Deity pure and
simple.[21]
the regularity of all that happens; and
the identity of spirit and nature.
Spinozas God or Nature [Deus sive Natura] provided a
living, natural God, in contrast to the Newtonian mechanical "First Cause" or the dead mechanism of the French
Man Machine. Coleridge and Shelley saw in Spinozas
philosophy a religion of nature[13] and called him the
God-intoxicated Man.[14][15] Spinoza inspired the poet
Shelley to write his essay The Necessity of Atheism.[14]
Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used
the word God [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional JudeoChristian monotheism. Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling,
nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according
to law....[16] Thus, Spinozas cool, indierent God [17]

3 See also
Baruch Spinoza
Pantheism
Dharmic religions
Pantheism controversy
Philosophy of Spinoza

4 Notes
[1] Correspondence of Benedict de Spinoza, Wilder Publications (March 26, 2009), ISBN 1-60459-156-0, letter 73

[2] Karl Jaspers, Spinoza (Great Philosophers), Harvest

Books (October 23, 1974), ISBN 0-15-684730-2, Pages:
14 and 95
[3] Genevieve Lloyd, Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to
Spinoza and The Ethics (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks), Routledge; 1 edition (October 2, 1996), ISBN 0415-10782-2, Page: 40
[4] Charles Hartshorne and William Reese, Philosophers
Speak of God, Humanity Books, 1953 ch 4

REFERENCES

[18] Literary Remains of the Late Professor Theodore Goldstucker, W. H. Allen, 1879. p32.
[19] The Westminster Review, Volumes 78-79, Baldwin,
Cradock, and Joy, 1862. p1862
[20] Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy.
Muller. Kessinger Publishing, 2003. p123

F. Max

[21] H.P Blavatskys Collected Writings, Volume 13, pages

308-310. Quest Books

[5] Disguised and overt Spinozism around 1700 - Page 133

[6] Della Rocca, Michael. (2008). Spinoza. Routledge., pg.
33.

5 References

[7] Michael L. Morgan, ed., Spinoza: Complete Works,

translated by Samuel Shirley(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002), 119n6.

Jonathan I. Israel. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750.
2001.

[8] Curley, Edwin M. (1985). The Collected Works of

Spinoza. Princeton University Press.

This article incorporates text from a publication now

in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907).
"article name needed ". The Nuttall Encyclopdia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.

[9] Stanford.edu
[10] Stanford.edu
[11] Della Rocca, Michael. (2008). Spinoza, Routledge.
[12] Della Rocca, Spinoza, 2008.
[13] Anthony Gottlieb. God Exists, Philosophically (review
of Spinoza: A Life by Steven Nadler)". The New York
Times -- Books. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
[14] Harold Bloom (book reviewer) (June 16, 2006).
Deciphering Spinoza, the Great Original -- Book review
of Betraying Spinoza. The Renegade Jew Who Gave
Us Modernity. By Rebecca Goldstein. The New York
Times. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
[15] Hutchison, Percy (November 20, 1932). Spinoza,
God-Intoxicated Man"; Three Books Which Mark the
Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Philosophers Birth
BLESSED SPINOZA. A Biography. By Lewis Browne.
319 pp. New York: The Macmillan Company. $4.
SPINOZA. Liberator of God and Man. By Benjamin
De Casseres, 145pp. New York: E.Wickham Sweetland.
$2. SPINOZA THE BIOSOPHER. By Frederick Kettner. Introduc- tion by Nicholas Roerich, New Era Library. 255 pp. New York: Roerich Museum Press. $2.50.
Spinoza. The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
[16] Frank Thilly, A History of Philosophy, 47, Holt & Co.,
New York, 1914
[17] I believe in Spinozas God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns
himself with fates and actions of human beings. These
words were spoken by Albert Einstein, upon being asked
if he believed in God by Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the
Institutional Synagogue, New York, April 24, 1921, published in the New York Times, April 25, 1929; from Einstein: The Life and Times Ronald W. Clark, New York:
World Publishing Co., 1971, p. 413; also cited as a telegram to a Jewish newspaper, 1929, Einstein Archive 33272, from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable
Einstein, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

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