Ursula Renz

Relying on the assumption that Spinoza makes a double use of the principle of sufficient reason, Michael Della Rocca has defended a reconstruction of Spinoza’s approach as a metaphysical outlook according to which all particulars vanish in the only and one divine substance. This implies nothing less than a radical attempt to suggest a new and completely revisionary form of metaphysics. After a short discussion of Strawson’s distinction between revisionary and descriptive metaphysics and an exposition of the basic principles of Della Rocca’s interpretation, I critically assess his attack of the use of intuitions in analytic philosophy. After discussing the extent to which the first book of Spinoza’s Ethics is appropriately described as a revisionary project, I conclude with an argument for the necessity of both descriptive and revisionary elements in metaphysics.

This article addresses the question whether or not, in his Ethics, Spinoza is committed to a naturalized epistemology. In the first step, the cognitive psychological principles involved in the concept of imagination are discussed. It is shown that Spinoza does indeed suggest a causal account for the contents of human thought, yet, in contrast to many psychologist views he does not privilege physicalist explanations, but allows for historical as well as for linguistic accounts. In the second section, a similar differentiation is made in regard to the theory of common notions. Whereas in claiming that human minds necessarily have adequate knowledge of certain properties of things, Spinoza does rely on certain psychological facts, his concept of common notions can better be explicated independently of psychological assumptions. A conclusive argument against a naturalist interpretation of Spinoza′s epistemology, however, is given in the third section via the analysis of the concepts of 'truth′ and 'true idea′. It shows that Spinoza not only embraces the idea of an epistemic normativity, but moreover admits the irrecucibilityof this normativity to natural properties. Since, in respect to moral normativity, Spinoza exhibits quite a different attitude, it can be assumed that he never wanted to provide naturalized epistemology

The article reconstructs some of the basic decisions underlying Hermann Cohen′s theoretical philosophy by drawing a line to some claims of Winfrid Sellars′ and to one aspect of Robert Brandom′s philosophy. The first part is concerned with a comparison of the main theses of Cohen′s book Kants Theorie der Erfahrung and Sellars′ early essay entitled “Some remarks on Kant′s Theory of Experience,” both authors reading the Critique of Pure Reason as the discovery of a new, holistic concept of experience. The second part discusses some of the parallels between Cohen′s and Sellars′ respective critique of the myth of the given, and it is shown how Cohen′s later critique of Kant can be understood against this background. In the third part I suggest interpreting Cohen′s logic along the lines of Robert Brandoms inferentialism. It is the declared intention of both philosophers to explain the origin of the content of epistemic claims without making use of any claim about mental representations. The article ends with a comparison of Cohen′s and Sellars′ visions of the systematic character of philosophy. It is argued that while both assume the compatibility of scientific realism with an irreducibly normative ethics, Cohen′s approach is more ambitious, insofar as it requests ethics to develop its own ethical theory of man, the task of which is to overcome the mythical presuppositions of our common sense views on morals

This chapter suggests a new interpretation of Spinoza’s concept of mind claiming that the goal of the equation of the human mind with the idea of the body is not to solve the mind-body problem, but rather to show how we can, within the framework of Spinoza’s rationalism, conceive of finite minds as irreducibly distinguishable individuals. To support this view, the chapter discusses the passage from E2p11 to E2p13 against the background of three preliminaries, i.e. the notion of a union between mind and body as it appears in Thomas Aquinas’ refutation of Averroism, Spinoza’s views on knowledge of actually existing things in E2p8c, and the phenomenological character of E2a2-4. It argues that while this view on the human mind does not undermine radical rationalism, it does require its amendment by some irreducibly empirical concessions.