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39Spinoza, Emanation, and Formal CausationJournal of the History of Philosophy 61 (4): 603-625. 2023.Some recent scholars have argued that Spinoza's conception of causation should be understood in terms of the Aristotelian notion of a formal cause. I argue that while they are right to identify causation in Spinoza as a relation of entailment from an essence, they are mistaken about its philosophical pedigree. I examine three suggested lines of influence: (a) the late scholastic conception of emanation; (b) early modern philosophy of mathematics; and (c) Descartes's notion of the causa sui. In e…Read more
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92Spinoza on Action and Immanent CausationArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102 (1): 29-55. 2020.I address an apparent conflict between Spinoza’s concepts of immanent causation and acting/doing [agere]. Spinoza apparently holds that an immanent cause undergoes [patitur] whatever it does. Yet according to his stated definition of acting and undergoing in the Ethics, this is impossible; to act is to be an adequate cause, while to undergo is to be merely a partial cause. Spinoza also seems committed to God’s being the adequate cause of all things, and, in a well-known passage, appears to deny …Read more
University of Toronto, St. George Campus
PhD, 2018
Santa Barbara, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Baruch Spinoza |
Early Modern Scholasticism |
Areas of Interest
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Animal Ethics |
PhilPapers Editorships
Animal Experimentation |
Spinoza: Philosophy of Action |
Spinoza: Freedom |