NB: In this context, the term "illusory" means X is not as it appears to be (re: sub specie duriationis - i.e. a Predicate appearing to be a Noun) rather than 'X does not exist' (re: sub specie aeternitatis - X exists but is not Real (i.e. Mode, or how Substance - what is - is); Substance alone - sui generis - exists and is Real (i.e. what is); where Real = causa sui).



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Perhaps the best way I've heard it put is that the modes have an adverbial nature, rather than a substantival one - they expresses not “what” but “how” being is. — StreetlightX

Nice, I think that expresses the point exactly!

NB: In this context, the term "illusory" means X is not as it appears to be (i.e. sub specie duriationis) rather than 'X does not exist' (i e. sub specie aeternitatis). — 180 Proof

Agree.

NIce explanation, but irrelevant. Please give me an example of anything (X and Y) that satisfies 1), 2) and 3).

My affections are not a constitutive part of myself, they are activities, but they are real nonetheless. — Janus

the modes have an adverbial nature, rather than a substantival one - they expresses not “what” but “how” being is. — StreetlightX

So the substance is either "watering" (Janus) or "exists waterly" (StreetlightX). Apart from the blatant inconsistency of the two ways of expression (verbal or adverbial?), I wonder if you could support your interpretation by pointing to textual evidence where Spinoza says such fancy things.

If I could bring myself to believe that by citing chapter & verse textual corroborations - do the rigorous yet nuanced hermeneutics for you - I'd edify you, bobo, then I'd bother.

Is this your culture of argumentation? I'm sick of your ad hominem remarks. I have presented a number of arguments, while you are apparently unable to answer them, trying to cover up your incapability by putting yourself on a high horse.

X is dependent on Y, but it is not dependent simply notionally, it is dependent ontologically, without Y there would be no X. When he defines substance as "that which is in itself" he does not mean that it is contained in itself, but, as you say, it is not dependent on anything else. It follows that everything that is dependent on it is not what it is in itself but in light of or as a consequence of or dependent on something else.

Looking for examples must fail because there are no examples of Y. Anything that serves as an example must be an example of some X, that is, some dependent thing.

So the substance is either "watering" (Janus) or "exists waterly" (StreetlightX). Apart from the blatant inconsistency of the two ways of expression (verbal or adverbial?), I wonder if you could support your interpretation by pointing to textual evidence where Spinoza says such fancy things. — bobobor

The adverbial is a function of the verbial, or in other words expresses the way something is in terms of its activities (as opposed to say, its parts or its qualities) so there is no inconsistency. Are you wanting to explicate what you think Spinoza actually thought and meant to convey, or what you, according to your own preconceptions, think are the logical entailments of what he said?

In any case you have provided no argument against what I said in my last response to you. To repeat it, what I said was that in your assertion that there is an inconsistency in Spinoza's thought, or that modes must be considered illusory, you are equivocating between what it is to be a part of something and what it is to be an activity of something. Are you claiming that if something is thought to have no parts, that it must therefore be thought to have no activities? If so I don't see how that would follow.

Are you claiming that if something is thought to have no parts, that it must therefore be thought to have no activities? — Janus

Yes. Exactly. If something has activities, it necessarily has temporal parts. Activities are events and as such they take place in a specific period of time. So It will have temporal parts "filled" with different activities.

The quantum vacuum is not thought to have "temporal parts"; and yet from that quantum vacuum spacetime emerges. Is spacetime an activity of the quantum vacuum according to you? And exactly what is your argument that something that has no parts cannot have activities? All we have from you so far are assertions.

The quantum vacuum is not thought to have "temporal parts" — Janus

Maybe you don't think it has, but it does nevertheless.
"According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space".[1][2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state
So the quantum vacuum clearly have temporal parts insofar as it contains "fleeting" particles and particles "popping into and out of existence". These expressions refer to temporal intervals, no matter how tiny they are. And the vacuum is something that contains them, so, when conceived as an individual entity, it has temporal parts dated to these subatomic events.

And exactly what is your argument that something that has no parts cannot have activities — Janus

My argument is that the concept of activity presupposes an actor (or an undergoer background, if you claim that subatomic events are "activities") that must have temporal parts or temporal slices. This is because all activities start and stop at specific times and therefore they occupy temporal intervals during which a temporal slice of the actor exists.

When virtual particles appear, or their effects appear, in spacetime of course they must be thought to have the duration of that appearance. But they "pop into and out of existence" from our perspective, defying the Laws of Thermodynamics. That their existence in spacetime is so brief is what is thought to make this possible. But none of this provides any justification for thinking that the quantum vacuum itself is spatio-temporal.

In any case you have offered no argument yet to support your assertion that an entity without parts cannot be active. I have not argued that the manifestations of its activity are not spatio-temporal, but that this fact gives no ground for claiming that that from which the manifestations emerge must be spatio-temporal.

If you claims that the modes of substance are illusory, then you would be claiming that spacio-temporalilty itself is illusory, but then there would be no activity at all. How would the total lack of activity produce the illusion of activity? Surely even the illusion of activity is activity, no?

The other point against your position is a dialectical one: the idea of illusion only gets its sense in contrast to the idea of the real. If nothing is real then the idea of illusion is meaningless.

I like that you are thinking about processes and the importance of time to them, but I don't like that you are leveraging a notion of time which you have not explicated, and a relation of time to events which you have not explicated. You have also not explicated how these themes relate to Spinoza's work through exegesis of his ideas. A greater interpretive weakness is that Spinoza frames discussions of physical time in terms of motion, extension and rest of bodies rather than an infinitely divisible time flow in which all bodies inhere as if they were separate from it. There's a hierarchy involved here.

Motion (and rest) are something bodies do, bodies are something extension does, extension is something substance does. The discussion of motion and rest comes after.

From The Ethics:

PART 2 DEFINITION I. By body I mean a mode which expresses in a certain determinate manner the essence of God, in so far as he is considered as an extended thing. (See Pt. i., Prop. xxv., Coroll.)

PART 2 PROP. II. Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.

PART 1 DEFINITION VI. By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

God consists in infinite attributes of which one is extension and extension is expressed determinately in bodies. Bodies cause other bodies to do stuff, substance causes itself which does all stuff.

An interesting line of inquiry for you might be how your idea of temporal parts relates to Spinoza's idea of duration.

In this context, the term "illusory" means X is not as it appears to be — 180 Proof

By way of comparison:

Maya, (Sanskrit: “magic” or “illusion”) a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy. Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion. By extension, it later came to mean the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real to which beings are bound by ignorance (avidya).

God consists in infinite attributes of which one is extension and extension is expressed determinately in bodies. — fdrake

God however is a being, or being i.e. not an objective ‘substance’ but a knowing being, is he not?

the quantum vacuum itself is spatio-temporal. — Janus

There is no such thing as "quantum vacuum" because there cannot be states with zero energy. You mistake the subject of a thought-experiment for reality.

this fact gives no ground for claiming that the entity from which the manifestations emerge must be spatio-temporal. — Janus

Quite contrary. this fact gives ample ground for claiming that the entity from which the manifestations emerge must be spatio-temporal. Your use of the word "emerge" is telling. You cannot say that these activities are caused, because ordinary causation is spatio-temporal. Instead, your choice of word "emerge" is close to "emanate", a verb with mystical overtones. There is absolutely no evidence for this kind of "emergence" or "emanation" (as distinct from causation) in our world. I seriously doubt that it is conceptually (logically) possible to have activities without actors, as their logical form must contain a placeholder for something that does the activity. And even if it is logically possible, it cannot be what Spinoza had in mind, because he says that water (or watering, waterly, etc.) IS substance under one aspect. So it does not "emerge" from substance, it IS substance itself, according to him.

God however is a being, or being i.e. not an objective ‘substance’ but a knowing being, is he not? — Wayfarer

To a first approximation, God = substance in Spinoza. Not some agent.

But ‘substance’, as I noted earlier on, is the Latin translation of Aristotle’s ‘ouisia’ which is elsewhere translated as ‘being’. So, quite different to ‘substance’ in naturalism, having a first-person attribute or connotation.

There is no such thing as "quantum vacuum" because there cannot be states with zero energy. You mistake the subject of a thought-experiment for reality. — bobobor

I am not claiming there is any such thing, or that there isn't, and I certainly didn't claim that it is spatio-temporal, as the snippet you quoted and responded to suggests. All I've been trying to address is what is logically entailed by the idea.

And I don't agree with you that idea of emergence in this context entails causality as we ordinarily understand it in an empirical context, because if it did that would dissolve the whole idea substance.

Spinoza's God is not "first person" in the common theological sense. In fact that is precisely what he argues against in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Spinoza says that God does not, can not, love us, but that we should love God. For Spinoza God is nature (Deus sive Natura) so his philosophy is naturalistic. Nature cannot love us, but we should love nature. Poor us! :cry:

All I've been trying to address is what is logically entailed by the idea. — Janus

No one can know what is logically entailed by that idea because no one can know if it is logically coherent in the first place. If it is not -perhaps because the idea of anything that is physical logically entails the presence of some energy - who can say with certainty that it doesn't just because he seems to be able to imagine it without energy? - then anything can be entailed by it because of the ex falso quodlibet rule.

I don't agree with you that idea of emergence in this context entails causality as we ordinarily understand it in an empirical context, — Janus

That is why I wrote that once you deprive emergence of causality, the remaining concept turns into a mystical one like that of emanation in the philosophy of Plotinus. Is this what you're claiming?

Spinoza's God is not "first person" in the common theological sense. In fact that is precisely what he argues against in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Spinoza says that God does not, can not, love us, but that we should love God. [ ... ] Nature cannot love us, but we should love nature. Poor us! :cry: — Janus

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Amor Dei Intellectualis.

Yes, and dilectio intellectualis naturae. :nerd:

"God does not, can not, love us, but that we should love God."
This is because Spinoza's God is deeply narcissistic. "God loves himself with an infinite intellectual love." (Ethics 5, P36.)

Spinoza's God is deeply narcissistic. — bobobor

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The supposed force of the statements of the author in question are beside the point, if you understand them & thereby their flaws.

“It also means, paradoxically, that extension, when truly conceived by the intellect, is at once infinite AND indivisible AND identical with thought (and all the other infinite number of attributes of the one substance).” — This directly opposes the view of the author in question (I don’t know, where’d you get this from?); &, moreover, is the crux of where your problem lies, as well as the author’s, in defending his view.

(“The Ethics”, Part 2., Prop. VI, Proof.) “Each attribute is conceived through itself, without any other;” — So, you see, no two attributes, namely, thought & extension (the only two that Spinoza ever refers to [thereby, inadvertently, positing a latent dualism]), is or can be conceived by “the intellect” as being identical with one another, like you claim; indeed this directly contradicts Spinoza’s statements (specifically the one quoted above), in as much as each attribute is conceived through itself, i.e., is distinguishable from another, & therefore incapable of being the same as, identical with or identified by, any other, in thought or conception, i.e., in “the intellect.”

Understanding that, now, my thing is, what’s the relationship between the conception of an “attribute” or “attributes” to that of “substance”? If it’s simply claimed that the latter is in-itself or independent of the former, this would, then, render its conception (that of “substance”), speaking as logically as is possible, merely negative, empty & void; that is, if it’s only distinguished or defined as being in-itself & independent of any particular attribute’s conception, then no conception of it is ever formed but only as in a negative relation to attributes, i.e., it not being these & independent of them, thus, leaving one without any actual knowledge or conception of what it is which is independent of these or them (but just that “it” [“substance”] is so).

if it’s only distinguished or defined as being in-itself & independent of any particular attribute’s conception, then no conception of it is ever formed but only as in a negative relation to attributes — aRealidealist

According to Spinoza substance has infinite attributes, and those attributes are necessary. But substance cannot be conceived through any one or even number of those attributes, and it is obviously not possible to conceive through all of them.

It does not follow that the relation to attributes is negative. What would a negative relation of something to an attribute even look like, except to say that it does not have it?

What does it mean for an “attribute” to be “necessary”?

My point in the post of mine which you’ve quoted, is, that, merely stating that it “has” them, without explaining, how it has them? Or that they’re “in” it, without explaining, how they’re in it? Plus that it’s independent of them, i.e., not conceivable through them, provides no positive knowledge or information about the identity of that (“substance”) which has or is independent of these attributes. Our knowledge of it, in this way, is entirely negative; since it’s only known or recognized as being something that’s not any attribute, or, which is not dependent on any attribute.

Accordingly, you’ve asked what would a negative relation of something to an attribute look like? Nothing, it doesn’t have to look like anything, in as much as concepts are invisible, even if, they’re not imperceptible; & therefore the idea of it only involves the thought of the negation of certain distinguished attributes, without any image for it, as the idea of death only involves the thought of the negation of certain distinguished attributes, without any image for it. Correspondingly, as I’ve stated in the paragraph above, negative determinations provide no actual knowledge or information about identity apart from relatively distinguishing itself from the negated; & so are empty & void by definition.

"thought & extension (the only two that Spinoza ever refers to [thereby, inadvertently, positing a latent dualism]), is or can be conceived by “the intellect” as being identical with one another"
For Spinoza, conceiving attributes is kind of seeing aspects of the same drawing. You can see a duck or a rabbit, where in reality there is only a single drawing out there. The duck or rabbit are interpretations, they have no real existence. The simile is not perfect, though, because attributes are conceived as expressing the essence of substance, whereas the duck and rabbit are not essences. This also shows that their distinctness from each other and from the substance itself is illusory, for the substance cannot have more than one essence.