Spinoza's worldview is often equated to PanPsychism, but I think PanTheism or PanDeism or even PanEnDeism (PED) are more accurate labels. PanPsychism tends to view the "universal substance" as a multipurpose form of mechanical Energy (Chi), and is equivalent to the early human beliefs of Animism. Yet, although Baruch was an outcast Jew, he described that essence of all things as "God". However, he was not referring to the traditional tribal god-models of Judaism or Christianity, but to the abstract philosophical notion that has come to be labelled as the "god of philosophers". My own concept of a PED universal substance is "BEING". Obviously, the "power to exist" is essential to all things in reality. But it doesn't just "animate" dead matter, it also produces all other properties, including Mind, that characterize living beings. :cool:Spinoza said every object is, to some degree, animated. Isn't this panpsychism? — Eugen
Citation please. Thanks.Spinoza said every object is, to some degree, animated. — Eugen
Sub specie aeternitatis Spinoza's "worldview" is most consistent with acosmism (vide Maimon, Hegel ... Deleuze); otherwise, sub specie durationis, his "worldview" seems to me quite consistent with (as mentioned) pandeism.Spinoza's worldview is often equated toPanPsychism, but I thinkPanTheismor PanDeism or evenPanEnDeism(PED) are more accurate labels. — Gnomon
Spinoza's worldview is often equated to PanPsychism, but I think PanTheism or PanDeism or even PanEnDeism (PED) are more accurate labels. PanPsychism tends to view the "universal substance" as a multipurpose form of mechanical Energy (Chi), and is equivalent to the early human beliefs of Animism. Yet, although Baruch was an outcast Jew, he described that essence of all things as "God". However, he was not referring to the traditional tribal god-models of Judaism or Christianity, but to the abstract philosophical notion that has come to be labelled as the "god of philosophers". My own concept of a PED universal substance is "BEING". Obviously, the "power to exist" is essential to all things in reality. But it doesn't just "animate" dead matter, it also produces all other properties, including Mind, that characterize living beings. :cool: — Gnomon
which is what, in his own terms, Spinoza himself says:The "fundamental difference", Spinoza might say, is their different essences which, in contemporary computational or systems theoretic terms, correspond to (I term it) 'different degrees of functional complexity'. — 180 Proof
In other words, all modes are attributed mind but only modes at least as complex as "the human body" exhibit comparable complexity of mind (since mind is the idea of the body) — "consciousness", or self-aware intelligence. All Spinoza means by "to degrees, nevertheless animate" is that every mode exhibits the attribute of mind (as well as extension), as determined in section I On God and in the preceding propositions of section II Of The Mind; to wit:Wherefore, in order to determine, wherein the human mind differs from other things, and wherein it surpasses them, it is necessary for us to know the nature of its object, that is, of the human body. What this nature is, I am not able here to explain, nor is it necessary for the proof of what I advance, that I should do so. I will only say generally, that in proportion as any given body is more fitted than others for doing many actions or receiving many impressions at once, so also is the mind, of which it is the object, more fitted than others for forming many simultaneous perceptions; and the more the actions of one body depend on itself alone, and the fewer other bodies concur with it in action, the more fitted is the mind of which it is the object for distinct comprehension. We may thus recognize the superiority of one mind over others, and may further see the cause, why we have only a very confused knowledge of our body, and also many kindred questions, which I will, in the following propositions, deduce from what has been advanced. — IIp13schol.
The brackets to the right translate the words to the left back into the terms used in section I concerning God/Substance, etc. Your confusion, Eugen, comes from taking "animated" out of context and misreading it as "consciousness" or "sentience" instead of reading "animated" contextually as exhibiting the Attribute of Mind. So I'll paraphrase: EVERY MODE, TO DIFFERENT DEGREES, EXHIBITS THE ATTRIBUTE OF MIND. Cartoons are animated – evidently dynamic – but not, on that account, "alive" "conscious" or "sentient" BECAUSE they lack sufficiently complex bodies; or, in Spinoza's terms, it is not the essence of an animated cartoon to be "conscious".For of everything there is necessarily an idea [ESSENCE] in God [SUBSTANCE], of which God [SUBSTANCE] is the cause [ESSENCE TO EXIST], in the same way as there is an idea [ESSENCE] of the human body [EXTENSION]; thus whatever we have asserted of the idea [ESSENCE] of the human body [EXTENSION] must necessarily also be asserted of the idea [ESSENCE] of everything else [ALL MODES]. — IIp13schol. (con't)
No.Isn't this panpsychism? — Eugen
I had never heard of Acosmism before. It seems that almost every philosopher, who tries to pigeonhole Spinoza's novel belief system, comes up with a new label that is close to the interpreter's own view. That's because his god-concept contained elements that were both traditional (Stoicism, Judaism, etc) and highly original (Enlightenment Science ; God and/or Nature). Consequently, his complex god-model loosely fits several philosophical god-models, such as PanTheism, PanPsychism, and PanDeism. But, as far as I know, he never specifically presented a Hindu version of our Cosmos (Nature) as Maya (illusion). Apparently, it was Hegel, who interpreted Spinoza's view in those terms.Sub specie aeternitatis Spinoza's "worldview" is most consistent with acosmism (vide Maimon, Hegel ... Deleuze); otherwise, sub specie durationis, his "worldview" seems to me quite consistent with (as mentioned) pandeism. — 180 Proof
BEING : In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html — Gnomon
As for the earliest interpreters who deemed Spinoza an acosmist: Maimon was (mostly) a Kantian for whom the divine, or a deity, is regulative idea for practical reason; and Hegel was a pan-en-theist in deliberate contrast to Jacobi's influential, and inflammatory, (controversy-provoking) misinterpretation of Spinoza's (alleged) "pantheism". So no, Gnomon, they didn't just interpret Spinoza to pimp their own views – it was still dangerous (ruinous) in late 18th & early 19th centuries Germany to hold such a heretical position as acosmism (or pantheism), which is why Spinoza's was all but erased by the philosophical-theological establishments in Europe till the early 20th century.I had never heard of Acosmism before.
Acosmism has been seen in the work of a number of Western philosophers, including Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and British and American idealists, such as F.H. Bradley.[16][17] Solomon Maimon first uses the term to identify Spinoza's beliefs as denying not the existence of God but the existence of a universe independent of God.[18] Hegel follows in this discussion, using it to describe a form of pantheism.[19][20][21] Hegel explains that for Spinoza it is the infinitesubstancebeing which is real, while the finite world does not exist. — Wikipedia
it was still dangerous (ruinous) in late 18th & early 19th centuries Germany to hold such a heretical position as acosmism — 180 Proof
It took me almost a decade, after dozens of starts, to read through the first section to the end. Thirty-one pages. — 180 Proof
I have no formal philosophical training, and I've never read any of Schopenhauer's works. But my guess is that his notion of "Cosmic Will" is more like my concept of creative "Intention", than of static "BEING" (the eternal Potential to Exist). Although, since our evolving world is a product of that generic power-to-be, BEING must also include the creative power-to-become. Which could be interpreted as Will-Power.What do you think of Being as opposed to Schopenhauer's Will and of Whithead's process philosophy's "occasions of experience" and such? — schopenhauer1
I agree, that if the "substance" of our world was infinite & eternal, it would be God per se, as in Pantheism. However, since we have discovered, long since Spinoza's theory, that the physical universe is not eternal, as he supposed, and that its material "substance" is temporary (subject to Entropy), I conclude that our finite world is merely a small part of the Enfernal (eternal + infinite) realm of the hypothetical Creator. Since there was a creation event (Big Bang), we must conclude that the Mother "substance" (eternal essence; necessity) existed prior to the birth of our child "substance" (finite material ; contingent) .Since for Spinoza substance is infinite, or has no exterior, and eternal, or is not the effect of an external cause, and nothing ontologically transcends it, therefore substance is not "within" another substance. For this, and other reasons in Spinoza's oeuvre, "Panentheism" does not obtain. (Re: Ip5-p8, p13-p15) — 180 Proof
As I said in my previous reply, I'm not really familiar with Schopenhauer's philosophy. But I just read an article that mentioned his concept of The Will. FWIW, here's what Peter Kassan, Artificial Intelligence journalist, says about Schop's Will, in the context of Free Will :What do you think of Being as opposed to Schopenhauer's Will and of Whithead's process philosophy's "occasions of experience" and such? — schopenhauer1
OK. I bow to your authority on Spinoza's written beliefs. But, for the purpose of my own "quixotic metaphysics", I'll still consider him to be an honorary PanEnDeist (it's a small club), Yet, I doubt that he was familiar with that term, which seems to be of recent origin. The ancient notion of PanDeism --- now extended beyond the scope of our local, contingent world --- may be a development out of modern Big Bang physics, as applied to metaphysics. It portrays the logically necessary First Cause of our universe, as "Deist" (creating but non-intervening) + "Pan" -- substance of all the actual (knowable) world + "En" --- not limited to this finite world, but encompassing all possible worlds (if any). So, Spinoza would have to join the club retroactively, ex post facto. :joke:I stand by my own close textual analysis and previous post though. — 180 Proof
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