Daniel Schneider

In his recent article, “Everything is Conceivable: A Note on an Unused Axiom in Spinoza's Ethics”, Justin Vlasits carefully analyzes parallels between the first four propositions of the Ethics and Spinoza’s correspondence with Henry Oldenburg to argue that Spinoza intended to appeal to E1A2 in E1P4dem of the Ethics. In this short response, I identify a problem with Vlasits’ analysis. Vlasits insists that the scope of E1A2 is not determined by what is conceivable, and I show that this creates a logical lacuna within his reconstructions of Spinoza’s arguments for the claim that “outside the intellect there is nothing except substances and their affections”. However, I show that on the conceivables interpretation of E1A2 that Vlasits' rejects, Spinoza’s argument for this claim goes through. While my analysis undermines Vlasits' attempt to identify the role of E1A2 in the Ethics, it sheds substantial light on this axiom, and shows how conceivability and being are intertwined in Spinoza’s thought.

This paper resolves some puzzles regarding Spinoza’s appropriations and rejections of various aspects of Bacon’s methodology, and uses these solutions to resolve some long-standing puzzles concerning Spinoza’s modus operandi in the TTP. We argue first that, appearances to contrary, Spinoza takes a consistent line in his assessment of Bacon’s epistemic approach. We argue that Spinoza follows Bacon in grounding his overall epistemic method in a “historiola mentis” (a brief account or history of the mind), and that differences between Spinoza’s and Bacon’s respective historiola mentis can explain Spinoza’s embrace of this inductive method for his interpretation of Scripture in the TTP, as well as his general abandonment of Bacon’s inductive method in the metaphysical investigation of the Ethics. In short, we argue that the “historiola mentis” constructed by Bacon depicts the intellect as an error-prone faculty that needs be continuously restrained by observation and experimentation—a depiction which motivates Bacon’s reformed inductive empiricism. Spinoza accepts this depiction in regard to a subset of the mind’s ideas—the ideas of the imagination, and hence sees the inductive method as suitable for interpreting Scripture. But contra Bacon, Spinoza’s “historiola mentis” also shows that the human mind includes a subset of ideas that yield true, certain knowledge of things “infinite” and sub specie aeternitatis. Spinoza finds these “intellectual” ideas to be quite useful for systematic metaphysics, but of limited use for interpreting historical texts like Scripture.

This book is a collection of essays that relate in some way to the notion of a principle as it appears in early modern thought. Essays by James Franklin, J. C. Campbell, Alberto Vanzo, Anstey, and William R. Newman provide a survey of the usage of principles within particular subjects: the principles of early modern mathematics, equity law, corpuscularism, and chemistry or alchemy, respectively. Other essays, by Kristen Walsh and Michael LeBuffe, clarify a particular early modern thinker's understanding and usage of the term 'principle.' Walsh's essay concerns Newton's usage and understanding of the term, while LeBuffe's concerns Spinoza's. Other essays, by Daniel Garber and Kiyoshi Shimokawa, clarify how an early...

in his second letter to spinoza, William van Blyenbergh expresses his dissatisfaction with Spinoza’s approach to philosophical inquiry. He writes,Before I proceed to ask you to resolve certain other difficulties, you should know that I have two general rules according to which I always try to philosophize: the clear and distinct conception of my intellect and the revealed word, or will, of God.1Spinoza does not share Blyenbergh’s concern that the intellect may lead us astray from the divine truth. He responds,But as for myself, I confess clearly and without circumlocution, that I do not understand Sacred Scripture, though I have spent several years on it. And I am well aware that, when I have found a solid...

It is argued first, that Spinoza's Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is best seen as an auxiliary premise and not as an axiom of the Ethics; second, that Spinoza held the PSR to be a self-evident truth that indicates a necessary condition for clearly and distinctly representing the existence or non-existence of a thing; and third, that this interpretation of Spinoza's PSR explains the near absence of the PSR within the demonstrations of the Ethics as well as the importance of the principle in Spinoza's thought