Matthew Homan

Resolution plays a defining role in Descartes' conception of virtue, but it is not obvious why resolution has such a prominent place in Cartesian ethics, and what Descartes says on the matter admits of different interpretations. I survey three ways of explaining the importance of being resolute for Descartes: (1) the decision-theoretic analysis, according to which resolution optimises decisional outcomes in a proto-decision-theoretic manner; (2) the deontological analysis, according to which in being resolute we fulfill our duty to properly exercise our free will; and (3) the psychological consequentialist analysis, according to which resolution secures psychological tranquility by promoting contentment and avoiding the psychological turmoil of irresolution, especially that associated with regret. My central contention is that only the third, psychological consequentialist analysis ultimately explains the importance of being resolute in Descartes. As such, my argument brings out what I take to be the Epicurean underpinning of Descartes' ethical thought.

This chapter addresses the question of the ontology of mathematical entities, particularly geometrical figures (though I also touch on numbers), in Spinoza. I discuss the status of mathematical entities as beings of reason and mount a case against mathematical antirealism by linking it with acosmism. Despite the fact that geometrical figures per se are beings of reason, I argue for a realist interpretation of geometrical figures as the determinations of finite bodies. Advancing this argument requires me to examine Spinoza’s discussions of physical individuals in the Ethics and elsewhere. In addition to marshaling textual evidence for my interpretation, I address some questions regarding the property ontology of geometrical figures.

In this chapter, I provide an interpretation of Spinoza’s scientific method and discuss the interaction of reason and imagination in Spinozan science. I address a number of interpretive issues pertaining to reason, including the nature, origin, and adequacy of common notions. I also address the issue of the adequacy of the findings of Spinozan science raised by the role of the imagination therein. Ultimately, I argue for a hypothetico-deductive interpretation of Spinoza’s scientific method, stressing the role of hypotheses in bridging the epistemic gap between nature’s most general laws and singular things.

The topic of this chapter is Spinoza’s notion (or, more accurately, notions) of essence. I argue for a spectrum interpretation of essences in Spinoza, distinguishing between common essences at the level of attribute and infinite mode at one extreme, singular essences at the level of finite individuals at the other extreme, and species essences in the middle (which, I argue, exist only as beings of reason). I also clarify Spinoza’s notions of formal essence and actual essence and address the sense in which the essences of finite things enjoy non-durational (or eternal), as well as durational, existence. I argue that the essences of finite things exist both durationally and non-durationally as finite, not infinite, modes.

This chapter motivates my general strategy of approaching interpretive issues in Spinoza’s epistemology, especially the natures of the three kinds of knowledge, via an interrogation of the ontology of mathematical entities. I provide relevant background regarding the “mathematization of nature” in the seventeenth century, contrasting different forms of mathematical realism and antirealism, and canvassing the respective views of Descartes, Galileo, Gassendi, and Hobbes as representative of the intellectual landscape. I outline my argument for attributing a geometrical realist position to Spinoza and overview the chapters of the book.

This chapter argues that a due consideration of the nature of true mathematical ideas and the use to which Spinoza puts them against skeptical disputation suggest that his philosophical methodology is more Cartesian than has often been appreciated. The discussion of this chapter allows me to introduce a number of the major concepts and themes that scaffold the discussion of ensuing chapters, in particular, the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic features of ideas, the key epistemic notions of adequacy and truth, the foundational role of God in Spinoza’s system, and the question of the reality of mathematical objects.

This chapter addresses the nature and scope of intuitive knowledge, Spinoza’s emphasis on its superiority over reason, and the knowledge of essences of which it is capable. With the help of a geometrical example modeled on, but more suggestive than, Spinoza’s fourth proportional example, I argue for a “method interpretation” of the distinction between reason and intuitive knowledge, according to which they differ only in their respective methods of arriving at the same knowledge content. According to my particular version of the method interpretation, intuitive knowledge is best understood as the perfection of reason. I conclude that although adequate knowledge of the individuating essences of singular things is impossible for finite intellects, we can aspire, nevertheless, to know common essences and species essences.

This chapter is devoted, in part, to developing an example of Spinozan science in practice, and exhibiting the role of geometry therein. In this regard, I offer a reading of Spinoza’s epistolary writings on optics and his treatment of a question of optimal lens shape. I also address a further objection to my realist interpretation of geometrical figures stemming from Letter 12, as well as the difficulty raised by the incompleteness of Spinoza’s thinking about physics for any interpretation of Spinozan science.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of Cartesian irresolution by clarifying its relation to akrasia and wantonness. It argues that irresolution (qua passion) is the same as neither akrasia nor wantonness, but is, like them, a kind of weakness of soul. If akrasia consists in having what Descartes calls ‘firm and decisive judgments’ (F&D judgments) but failing to act on them, and wantonness consists in not having any F&D judgments at all, but acting completely at the behest of the passions, then irresolution can be understood as a state between akrasia and wantonness: the irresolute lacks F&D judgments (like the wanton) but (unlike the wanton) actively strives to attain them.

This book interrogates the ontology of mathematical entities in Spinoza as a basis for addressing a wide range of interpretive issues in Spinoza’s epistemology—from his antiskepticism and philosophy of science to the nature and scope of reason and intuitive knowledge and the intellectual love of God. Going against recent trends in Spinoza scholarship, and drawing on various sources, including Spinoza’s engagements with optical theory and physics, Matthew Homan argues for a realist interpretation of geometrical figures in Spinoza; illustrates their role in a Spinozan hypothetico-deductive scientific method; and develops Spinoza’s mathematical examples to better illuminate the three kinds of knowledge. The result is a portrait of Spinoza’s epistemology as sanguine and distinctive yet at home in the new Cartesian and Galilean scientific-philosophical paradigm.

the view of spinoza as a scion of the mathematico-mechanistic tradition of Galileo and Descartes, albeit perhaps an idiosyncratic one, has been held by many commentators and might be considered standard.1 Although the standard view has a prima facie solid basis in Spinoza's conception of the physical world as extended, law-bound, and deterministic, it has come under sustained criticism of late. Arguing that, for Spinoza, numbers and figures are mere beings of reason and mathematical conceptions of nature belong to the imagination rather than the intellect, recent commentators have cast doubt on the applicability of mathematics to natural science in Spinoza and challenged the association of him with the Galilean and...

ABSTRACTIn answering the circularity charge, Descartes consistently distinguished between truths whose demonstrations we currently perceive clearly and distinctly and truths whose demonstrations we merely remember having perceived clearly and distinctly. Descartes uses C-truths to prove God’s existence, thus validating R-truths. While avoiding one form of circularity, this introduces another circle, for Descartes believes that God’s existence validates R-truths even when itself an R-truth. I consider Newman and Nelson’s grounds enhancement strategy according to which this problem is solved when God’s existence is rendered axiomatic. I argue that since it is still possible to doubt axioms when not directly apprehending them, this strategy cannot work; having to reproduce the argument for God’s existence in face of sceptical doubt is unavoidable. Drawing both on Newman and Nelson’s notion of grounds enhancement and on repr...

Spinoza’s mind-body thesis states that the mind is the idea of the body. At the same time, Spinoza is clear in affirming that we have ideas of external bodies. There is a question, therefore, of how to reconcile two contending objects of perception: the human body qua object of the mind, on the one hand, and the myriad bodies external to ours, on the other. After evaluating various commentators’ attempts to address the issue, I make two primary claims: the object of sense perception in Spinoza is the human body only ; and the tension in Spinoza’s account of representation stems from its relationship to his doctrine of the attributes

Since modes of the attribute of thought are ideas of the modes of all the other attributes in Spinoza, the scope of thought appears to be equal to that of all the other attributes combined. This suggests that thought is exceptional, and threatens to upset Spinoza’s doctrine of parallelism, according to which thought is just one among an infinity of attributes each expressing the divine essence in its own unique way. After providing an overview of attempts to solve the problem of thought’s scope in the literature, I outline two reasons why the problem is not the problem it has been taken to be: (1) quantitative comparisons have no place between attributes, and (2) with knowledge of only two attributes, it is impossible to speak of norms and anomalies. I also explain how my view undercuts debate about where Spinoza lies on the idealism–dualism–materialism spectrum, and refocuses attention on the identity of the order and connection of causes regardless of the attribute under consideration.