Axiom 3 makes sense to me. "Whenever there is a mental state such as love, desire, or anything else that can be called an ‘affect’ of the mind, the individual who has it must also have an idea of the thing that is loved, desired, etc." I can't imagine feeling any distinct, powerful emotions such as love or anger without any corresponding target as the idea. Someone is always in our thoughts when we feel love towards them. The very thought is the corresponding idea to the initial "affect".
Proposition 1 states: "Thought is an attribute of God; that is, God is a thinking thing." Well, I guess if so many of us exist and we utilize thought all of the time...then I guess God is indeed a thinking thing. God is everything and everywhere, after all. Though, I think it's interesting that with a modern astronomy outlook, we only know of the Earth to contain life. So the Earth, a minuscule part of the universe, is known to have thinking organisms. If God is the entire universe, then we can conclude that his faculty of thought comes from the Earth. The universe may very well have other areas that contain life but it is not known yet, obviously.
1. As soon as I started reading the propositions of the Ethics part II, Spinoza already gained my attention again with his belief about intrinsic ideas being caused by God. It is evident that if God is the only substance, and everything in Nature is just attributes and modes of his substance, he would believe that our ideas are caused by him, as he is both the cause and the effect of everything. Nevertheless, I think it is interesting how it includes that the idea that you have about things was not caused by the things themselves. In other words, it makes me believe that experience would not play a role in the making of ideas, according to Spinoza. On the other hand, I cannot understand how if God’s substance is (in) everything, why it would be weird if our ideas came from those things directly from experience, as it would still come from God in one way or another. I believe Spinoza hides behind his idea of God being a thinking thing, concluding that because he thinks, and we are parts of him, our thoughts come from him. Nevertheless, he continues his propositions and the connection between the mind and body confuses my understanding about his beliefs about the idea of human bodies.
2. Spinoza provides many statements to explain the relation that mind and body have according to his beliefs. He states, “I have shown that what united a mind to its body is the fact that the body is the object of the mind; and so by the same reasoning the idea of the mind must be united with its own object. i.e. with the mind itself, just as the mind is united with the body” (34). He reasons that thought is the attribute that conceives the mind, while the body is conceived under the attribute of extension. The philosopher claims that God possesses attributes, and that while one is thought and the other one is extension. Nevertheless, because the mind possesses innate ideas, it contains ideas of the bodies which exist as an extension. Therefore, the body is the object of the mind.
1. In the seventh axiom, Spinoza states "The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things." I like this particular axiom because as Spinoza states, it gives God's idea's and God's action the same power; I too believe this.
2.Another axiom that caught my eye is axiom 10, when Spinoza writes, "The being of substance does not pertain to the essence of man; that is, substance does not constitute the form of man." This axiom, in my opinion helped me understand Spinoza's idea of there being only one substance. Following this quote, Spinoza writes how since there is many men existing, then man cannot be the substance in which creates man. This part just kind of made everything click for me. I do too think that since there are so many humans in this world then we must have came from a greater form of being.
1. I wonder if I am misunderstanding what Spinoza means when he says "God's power is nothing but God's active essence." For me, this seems to connote some sort of limit to God's will. Being that God's power is limited to what God's essence delivers onto it, doesn't this mean that God cannot do infinite things but instead only do things that can be derived from its essence? More so, if God does one thing, doesn't it do that thing necessarily? Meaning that God, given its essence only is able to do things through which its essence allows, and what it does, it cannot have done otherwise?
2. This same question is brought up again for me when Spinoza says "God's power of thinking is equal to God's power of acting. That is, whatever follows intrinsically from God's infinite nature follows representatively in God from God's idea in the same order and with the same connection" Doesn't this limit God's power over what it can do/cause/create?
I was having a hard time following proposition eight. "The ideas of particular things (or modes or ways of being) that don't exist must be comprehended in God's infinite idea in the same way that the essences of the particular things (or modes or ways of being) are contained in God's attributes." Is Spinoza trying to trace a parallel between the reality of ideas that comprehend with infinite intellect and the reality of things that God produces, being bodies as modes of extension?
I found Point 17 confusing "If a human body is in a state that involves the nature of an external body, the ·corresponding· human mind will regard that external body as actually existing, or as present to it, until the body is put into a state that excludes the existence or presence of that body." Does this mean that our minds could trick our thinking of an extended physical thing which is our body?
1)I believe I understand the first Axiom in the second part of Spinoza's ethics. Spinoza writes "the essence of a man does no involve necessary existence..." Spinoza explained in the first part of his ethics work that in order from something to necessarily exist, its existence must be apart of its essence. And we know that the only that necessarily exist is God. Also unlike God, we are compelled to live, we have all things things we need to follow in order to survive. 2) Proposition 29 helped clarify some things. When Spinoza writes "The idea of the idea of any state of a human body doesn't involve adequate knowledge of the human mind." Anything that has an effect on your body that comes from a outside source will never be understood as clearly as something that started within you.
1. In the beginning statements in Part II Spinoza states, "Only those that can lead us by the hand, as it were to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest happiness". To me, what Spinoza is describing a student and teacher relationship. We as human beings, we are constantly learning something new or getting better at a new technique. It seems that Spinoza goes into more detail later in the text.
2. While I was reading Proposition 9, Spinoza discusses the idea of actually existing and God considering to have some type of cause. Spinoza states "It doesn't have God for a cause just because God is a thinking thing but because God has another determinate mode of thinking". I did not understand what he was trying to explain. He goes on discussing the three modes of thinking but it is not made clear what were the first and second modes were.
1. I liked how Spinoza connected the mind and body in propsition's 14- 17. To sum it up, he said that the mind's perception expands the more it's body is interacting with other. So it's like you are gaining knowledge and from other people. Since you interact with all these other indivuals you would not deny their existence.
2. I enjoy how Spinoza writes, he referes back to his previous points and exannds on them. So it seems he is always prooving himself right, and one idea will always connect to another.
While I am not a fan of Spinoza geometric method, this is just a stylistic discrepancy. His ideas on the other hand are fascinating. The notion that the mind is the mirror of the material world is fascinating. I am reminded of the theory of consciousness known as integrated information theory. Where it has a similar element of pan-psychic of the mind being the mirror of the material, and consciousness as we understand it occurs when the information is integrated within the physical system.
While I do not agree with the rationalist and empiricist divisions within Spinoza's thought, and I do still think that it is possible that the material world could still be finite and not necessarily infinite. This idea of mind being the mirror of matter is both fascinating, and as evidenced by the advent of integrated information theory, practically applicable.
1. I find Spinoza's parallelism between the body and minds runs much better in theory than does Descartes implication that the body is just a vessel for the mind to rationalize and reflect. Although I find the lack of causal interaction between them odd in Spinoza's theory, considering the coincidental relationship between them, I do think he points in the right direction. I do find one other thing hard to explain though: "By ‘attribute’ I understand: what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence" (p. 1). Is he saying that substances have multiple essences? And if so, why not just leave the word essences instead of attributes, unless by 'perceive' he means what appears to be?
2. Another aspect that I appreciated in the Ethics that I had qualms with Descartes is that Spinoza avoids the obvious contradiction in the former's ontological argument. Spinoza doesn't infer existence as some sort of property of God; it's already a given in his logic. ": By ‘substance’ I understand: what is in itself and is conceived through itself.."(p. 1).
Axiom 3 makes sense to me. "Whenever there is a mental state such as love, desire, or anything else that can be called an ‘affect’ of the mind, the individual who has it must also have an idea of the thing
ReplyDeletethat is loved, desired, etc." I can't imagine feeling any distinct, powerful emotions such as love or anger without any corresponding target as the idea. Someone is always in our thoughts when we feel love towards them. The very thought is the corresponding idea to the initial "affect".
Proposition 1 states: "Thought is an attribute of God; that is, God is a thinking thing." Well, I guess if so many of us exist and we utilize thought all of the time...then I guess God is indeed a thinking thing. God is everything and everywhere, after all. Though, I think it's interesting that with a modern astronomy outlook, we only know of the Earth to contain life. So the Earth, a minuscule part of the universe, is known to have thinking organisms. If God is the entire universe, then we can conclude that his faculty of thought comes from the Earth. The universe may very well have other areas that contain life but it is not known yet, obviously.
1. As soon as I started reading the propositions of the Ethics part II, Spinoza already gained my attention again with his belief about intrinsic ideas being caused by God. It is evident that if God is the only substance, and everything in Nature is just attributes and modes of his substance, he would believe that our ideas are caused by him, as he is both the cause and the effect of everything. Nevertheless, I think it is interesting how it includes that the idea that you have about things was not caused by the things themselves. In other words, it makes me believe that experience would not play a role in the making of ideas, according to Spinoza. On the other hand, I cannot understand how if God’s substance is (in) everything, why it would be weird if our ideas came from those things directly from experience, as it would still come from God in one way or another. I believe Spinoza hides behind his idea of God being a thinking thing, concluding that because he thinks, and we are parts of him, our thoughts come from him. Nevertheless, he continues his propositions and the connection between the mind and body confuses my understanding about his beliefs about the idea of human bodies.
ReplyDelete2. Spinoza provides many statements to explain the relation that mind and body have according to his beliefs. He states, “I have shown that what united a mind to its body is the fact that the body is the object of the mind; and so by the same reasoning the idea of the mind must be united with its own object. i.e. with the mind itself, just as the mind is united with the body” (34). He reasons that thought is the attribute that conceives the mind, while the body is conceived under the attribute of extension. The philosopher claims that God possesses attributes, and that while one is thought and the other one is extension. Nevertheless, because the mind possesses innate ideas, it contains ideas of the bodies which exist as an extension. Therefore, the body is the object of the mind.
1. In the seventh axiom, Spinoza states "The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things." I like this particular axiom because as Spinoza states, it gives God's idea's and God's action the same power; I too believe this.
ReplyDelete2.Another axiom that caught my eye is axiom 10, when Spinoza writes, "The being of substance does not pertain to the essence of man; that is, substance does not constitute the form of man." This axiom, in my opinion helped me understand Spinoza's idea of there being only one substance. Following this quote, Spinoza writes how since there is many men existing, then man cannot be the substance in which creates man. This part just kind of made everything click for me. I do too think that since there are so many humans in this world then we must have came from a greater form of being.
1. I wonder if I am misunderstanding what Spinoza means when he says "God's power is nothing but God's active essence." For me, this seems to connote some sort of limit to God's will. Being that God's power is limited to what God's essence delivers onto it, doesn't this mean that God cannot do infinite things but instead only do things that can be derived from its essence? More so, if God does one thing, doesn't it do that thing necessarily? Meaning that God, given its essence only is able to do things through which its essence allows, and what it does, it cannot have done otherwise?
ReplyDelete2. This same question is brought up again for me when Spinoza says "God's power of thinking is equal to God's power of acting. That is, whatever follows intrinsically from God's infinite nature follows representatively in God from God's idea in the same order and with the same connection" Doesn't this limit God's power over what it can do/cause/create?
I was having a hard time following proposition eight. "The ideas of particular things (or modes or ways of being) that don't exist must be comprehended in God's infinite idea in the same way that the essences of the particular things (or modes or ways of being) are contained in God's attributes." Is Spinoza trying to trace a parallel between the reality of ideas that comprehend with infinite intellect and the reality of things that God produces, being bodies as modes of extension?
ReplyDeleteI found Point 17 confusing "If a human body is in a state that involves the nature of an external body, the ·corresponding· human mind will regard that external body as actually existing, or as present to it, until the body is put into a state that excludes the existence or presence of that body." Does this mean that our minds could trick our thinking of an extended physical thing which is our body?
1)I believe I understand the first Axiom in the second part of Spinoza's ethics. Spinoza writes "the essence of a man does no involve necessary existence..." Spinoza explained in the first part of his ethics work that in order from something to necessarily exist, its existence must be apart of its essence. And we know that the only that necessarily exist is God. Also unlike God, we are compelled to live, we have all things things we need to follow in order to survive.
ReplyDelete2) Proposition 29 helped clarify some things. When Spinoza writes "The idea of the idea of any state of a human body doesn't involve adequate knowledge of the human mind." Anything that has an effect on your body that comes from a outside source will never be understood as clearly as something that started within you.
1. In the beginning statements in Part II Spinoza states, "Only those that can lead us by the hand, as it were to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest happiness". To me, what Spinoza is describing a student and teacher relationship. We as human beings, we are constantly learning something new or getting better at a new technique. It seems that Spinoza goes into more detail later in the text.
ReplyDelete2. While I was reading Proposition 9, Spinoza discusses the idea of actually existing and God considering to have some type of cause. Spinoza states "It doesn't have God for a cause just because God is a thinking thing but because God has another determinate mode of thinking". I did not understand what he was trying to explain. He goes on discussing the three modes of thinking but it is not made clear what were the first and second modes were.
1. I liked how Spinoza connected the mind and body in propsition's 14- 17. To sum it up, he said that the mind's perception expands the more it's body is interacting with other. So it's like you are gaining knowledge and from other people. Since you interact with all these other indivuals you would not deny their existence.
ReplyDelete2. I enjoy how Spinoza writes, he referes back to his previous points and exannds on them. So it seems he is always prooving himself right, and one idea will always connect to another.
While I am not a fan of Spinoza geometric method, this is just a stylistic discrepancy. His ideas on the other hand are fascinating. The notion that the mind is the mirror of the material world is fascinating. I am reminded of the theory of consciousness known as integrated information theory. Where it has a similar element of pan-psychic of the mind being the mirror of the material, and consciousness as we understand it occurs when the information is integrated within the physical system.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not agree with the rationalist and empiricist divisions within Spinoza's thought, and I do still think that it is possible that the material world could still be finite and not necessarily infinite. This idea of mind being the mirror of matter is both fascinating, and as evidenced by the advent of integrated information theory, practically applicable.
1. I find Spinoza's parallelism between the body and minds runs much better in theory than does Descartes implication that the body is just a vessel for the mind to rationalize and reflect. Although I find the lack of causal interaction between them odd in Spinoza's theory, considering the coincidental relationship between them, I do think he points in the right direction. I do find one other thing hard to explain though: "By ‘attribute’ I understand: what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence" (p. 1). Is he saying that substances have multiple essences? And if so, why not just leave the word essences instead of attributes, unless by 'perceive' he means what appears to be?
ReplyDelete2. Another aspect that I appreciated in the Ethics that I had qualms with Descartes is that Spinoza avoids the obvious contradiction in the former's ontological argument. Spinoza doesn't infer existence as some sort of property of God; it's already a given in his logic. ": By ‘substance’ I understand: what is in itself and is
conceived through itself.."(p. 1).