My two principal aims in this essay are interconnected. One aim is to provide a new interpretation of the ‘infinite modes’ in Spinoza’s
Some elements of Spinoza’s system are recognized to be integral to it, even if it is unclear what, precisely, those elements are. The modes ‘which exist necessarily and are infinite’ (E1p23), or the ‘things which are infinite by virtue of their cause’ (Ep. 12, G IV.53),
Nevertheless, there is consensus that there are two basic kinds of modes, infinite modes and finite modes, and that the former supply a causal link between the one infinite, eternal, necessarily existing substance and the more familiar world of finite modes. Without the link, it looks like Spinoza’s system is inconsistent. Spinoza says that finite things come to be from other finite things (E1p28), but he also says that the one infinite, eternal, necessarily existing substance causes modes that are infinite, eternal, and necessary (E1p21–23). The one substance, God, is the cause of
Scholars have answered this question in a variety of ways. Some propose that infinite modes are features of reality described by laws of nature. Finite things and these infinite modes are each necessary, but only jointly sufficient, for the coming to be of finite things; God is the cause of
Besides the view that infinite modes causally link God and finite things, another prevalent assumption about infinite modes is that whatever they are, Spinoza invented them. Yitzhak Melamed, for example, writes that the notion of an infinite mode ‘is probably the
It is undeniable that there is a sense in which these entities are original to Spinoza. That
Yet in another sense, the infinite modes do have a precursor: namely, Descartes’s concept of an eternal truth freely created by God. Others have pointed out that for Spinoza, essences—at least ‘formal essences’—are eternal, even ‘eternal truths.’
Before I say more about my aims for this essay, it will be helpful to have the Creation Doctrine in view. According to Descartes, God does not just freely create contingent, durational existents, but also necessary, eternal truths, including ‘true and immutable natures.’
You … ask what necessitated God to create these truths; and I reply that he was free to make it not true at all that the radii of the circle are equal—just as free as he was not to create the world. (Letter to Mersenne, 27 May 1630, AT I.152)
I turn to the difficulty of conceiving how God would have been acting freely and indifferently if he had made it false that the three angles of a triangle were equal to two right angles, or in general that contradictories could not be true together. It is easy to dispel this difficulty by considering that the power of God cannot have any limits. (Letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644, AT IV.118)
I do not think that we should ever say of anything that it cannot be brought about by
That God’s will was free does not prevent these truths from being necessary truths. God did not just will that it be true that triangles have three sides; he also willed—efficaciously—that this truth be necessary.
Most scholarly literature on Descartes’s doctrine focuses on modal metaphysics. Some commentators have concluded that the necessity of the eternal truths is mere conceptual or epistemic necessity, not metaphysical necessity.
What scholarly literature there is on Spinoza’s response to the Creation Doctrine centers on his rejection of Descartes’s views of divine freedom, the divine will, and necessity.
Some scholars have observed that Spinoza’s response to Descartes’s view of divine activity is not wholly negative: the ‘opinion, which subjects all things to a certain indifferent will of God, and makes all things depend on his good pleasure’ (E1p33s) is ‘nearer to the truth’ than the opinion ‘of those who maintain that God does all things for the sake of the good’ (E1p32s2).
I want to call attention to another point of agreement. Despite differences in their views of God and causation,
The rest of the essay proceeds as follows. In Section II, I present a series of issues, besides the more familiar issues concerning modality and divine freedom, that are unclear, unresolved, or problematic in Descartes’s discussion of God’s creation of eternal truths. Some questions that can be asked of Descartes concern the
In Section IV, I provide a reconstruction of the hard-to-follow demonstrations of E1p21–23. On my reading, the entities under discussion in E1p21–23 do not constitute a special subclass of God’s modes—rather, the point Spinoza seeks to establish in those propositions is that each and every effect of an infinite and eternal God is an infinite and eternal mode. For Spinoza,
Although I think this take on the ‘infinite modes’ makes sense against the backdrop of the Creation Doctrine and its difficulties, I acknowledge that it does raise big questions. Importantly, if we understand E1p21–23 as I do, then there cannot be the kind of special infinite mode (or set of infinite modes) that other interpreters have invoked to rescue Spinoza from inconsistency. No infinite mode can serve as a causal link between the infinite and eternal God and things with ‘finite and determinate existence’ (E1p28).
When confronted with Descartes’s Creation Doctrine, other questions, besides those concerning modality, come to mind. Does God cause
In his 15 April 1630 letter to Mersenne, the eternal truths Descartes mentions are those ‘mathematical truths you [Mersenne] call eternal’ (AT I.145). In the next letter to Mersenne, Descartes offers a specific example: the Euclidean common notion,
A first question regarding the range of the Creation Doctrine is whether it is so unrestricted that even truths about God fall under its scope.
Sometimes Descartes implies that although truths concerning God’s nature are especially secure and must be true in any alternative scenario, such eternal truths are outside the scope of the Creation Doctrine. As Descartes writes to Mersenne,
You ask also what necessitated God to create these [eternal] truths; and I reply that he was free to make it not true that all the radii of the circle are equal—just as free as he was not to create the world. And it is certain that these truths are no more necessarily attached to his essence than are other created things. (27 May 1630, AT I.152)
God’s essence is an eternal truth (letter to Mersenne, 6 May 1630, AT I.150). Truths concerning God’s essence
However, according to other passages, the Creation Doctrine looks completely unrestricted:
it is contradictory [
God’s indifferent will is indifferent because it is not conditioned by any antecedent ideas. The passage just quoted suggests there is
A second question regarding the range of the Creation Doctrine is whether Descartes’s laws of motion—his law of inertia, law of rectilinear motion, and law governing the transfer of motion at collision—count among the eternal truths created by God.
Although Descartes does not name the laws of motion on his lists of eternal truths, one might think that he means to include them. For example, in
But there is also evidence to suggest that we should not classify the laws of motion as created eternal truths.
There is another apparent difference between the eternal truths and the laws of motion. Consider Descartes’s proof of the law that
…. since he conserves the world by the selfsame activity and in accordance with the selfsame laws as when he created it, he … conserve[s] motion as something which is mutually transferred when collisions occur. (AT VIIIA.66)
Bodies always have moved and always will move in certain ways because God continually acts in the same way. The mathematical eternal truths, in contrast, are not true because God is conserving anything: it is sufficient for God to simply
It also seems the eternal truths are truths about essential properties of extension, while laws of motion are not.
One can also ask a third question: can Descartes even treat the eternal, necessary truths created by God as a special subclass of truths? Descartes does not want
In his 15 April 1630 letter to Mersenne, Descartes writes,
It will be said that if God had established these truths he could change them as a king changes his laws. To this the answer is: Yes, he can, if his will can change. ‘But I understand them to be eternal and immutable.’ —I make the same judgment about God. ‘But his will is free.’ —Yes, but his power is incomprehensible. (AT I.145–146; cf. AT V.166, AT VII.380)
Here we seem to get an explanation of the
Kaufman (
The following is why necessitarianism is a risk. For Descartes,
would not be supremely perfect if anything could happen in the world without coming entirely from him …. philosophy by itself is able to discover that the slightest thought could not enter into a person’s mind without God’s willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should so enter.
Furthermore, God does not
The truths concerning particular human actions, thoughts, and prayers could be immutable effects of an immutable will if they are indexed or ordered: God’s providence would then be God’s eternally and immutably willing an infinity of, say, temporally indexed truths. If, however, we assume the principle that immutable truths are necessary truths, then those indexed immutable truths turn out to be necessary truths.
And so a potential tension in the Cartesian system shows itself. If we adopt an (at least initially plausible) interpretation of the foundations of the necessity of the eternal truths, then it looks like Descartes is committed to all truths being necessary truths, a conclusion that conflicts with his assertions that some truths are contingent.
In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes points to two kinds of eternal entities. First, there is essentially eternally existing God: ‘it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle (AT VII.66). And, the Meditator says later, ‘after supposing that one God exists, I plainly see that it is necessary that he has existed from eternity and will remain [
… I find within me innumerable ideas of things that even though they may not exist anywhere outside me, nonetheless cannot be called nothing; and although they can be thought in some manner at will, nonetheless they are not made by me [
Here Descartes distinguishes the true and immutable nature of a triangle and actual triangles in the world; the true and immutable nature is still something, even if there are no actual triangles (or no extra-mental extended world at all). But it also seems the nature does not exist only in the Meditator’s mind: this true and immutable nature is not produced by or dependent on his mind. True and immutable natures are eternal truths (AT I.152). One could read this passage as evidence that Descartes was a sort of Platonist: God’s eternal, necessary effects reside in a kind of (created) Platonic realm.
The exchange with Gassendi might also be taken as evidence of Descartes’s Platonism. In the Fifth Objections, Gassendi reveals that he takes the Fifth Meditation to concern entities with reality apart from human minds, as he objects to there being any true and immutable natures apart from God (AT VII.319).
Elsewhere, however, Descartes’s view looks less Platonic.
When we recognize that it is not possible that something come from nothing, this proposition,
Here Descartes could be read as implying that eternal truths exist
Indeed, it is possible to read the Fifth Meditation passage quoted above differently so that it does not sound so Platonic. Perhaps eternal truths and true and immutable natures are just the objectively real representational contents of
However, it cannot be that
Some commentators, recognizing that Descartes’s texts pull in different directions, have suggested that perhaps Descartes subscribed to a ‘moderate’ Platonism: the eternal truths are created by God and external to human minds, but these truths are not external to God. These eternal truths can be understood as
But such moderate Platonic readings might not fit with Descartes’s claims that eternal truths are
According to Descartes, God’s effects are diversified: some effects are non-eternal and non-necessary, others are eternal and necessary. But with diversification come questions. Questions of
It is accepted that the Creation Doctrine is in the background of what Spinoza says in E1p17 and its scholium.
To begin, consider E1p16: ‘From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many modes [
E1p16 removes any question of where Spinoza might stand on the issue.
Perhaps the obstacle is an obstacle to
We can also see why Spinoza might have thought Descartes’s take on divine freedom is an obstacle to
Spinoza is concerned to argue that
However, I do not think Spinoza merely wants to establish that there are no contingent truths and no unactualized possibilia. That is a thesis merely about the modal status of effects, and is consistent with some of an eternal God’s necessary effects being
A first passage to consider is E1p17s:
I have shown clearly enough (E1p16) that from God’s supreme power, that is, infinite nature, infinitely many things in infinitely many ways [
Spinoza is drawing a parallel here between the essence of a triangle and the essence of God. Of course, it is only God’s nature that exists by nature (E1p11). But the cases are otherwise alike. God’s existence, ‘like the essence of a thing, is conceived as an eternal truth, and on that account cannot be explained by duration or time, even if the duration is conceived to be without beginning or end’ (E1def8).
Commentators tend to emphasize the
Here is a simple answer. In the triangle case, what follows from the true and immutable nature of the triangle is
On the one hand, this makes sense: all of substance’s modes are modifications of substance’s eternal reality. A wrinkle in the carpet is
I will return to the question of how the entities described in E1p28 fit into Spinoza’s system at the end of the essay. For now, I want to see what happens if we do not adjust our understanding of E1p17s in light of this later passage.
The first thing to note is that if we think Spinoza’s theorizing is guided by the Principle of Sufficient Reason, then we can expect Spinoza to argue that all of an eternal God’s effects must be eternally real. If the one and only substance, properly considered under any attribute, exists in a timelessly eternal way, what reason could there be for this eternal substance to cause some effects that are eternal and some effects that are non-eternal?
Also note that if all of God’s effects are eternal truths, then a straightforward reading of Spinoza’s statement in E1p17s that God’s omnipotence has been ‘actual from eternity’ and will ‘remain in the
God’s omnipotence is maintained ‘far more perfectly’ if God’s essence—and all that follows from God’s essence—are all always fully actual.
One might complain that this is to misunderstand eternal truths. One might say that it follows from the nature of an eternal God that some thing x will come to be at some time and enjoy non-eternal reality for a period of time. It is always true that x is non-eternally, durationally actual; an infinite intellect
I think Spinoza would resist this model, however, since it conflicts with his doctrine of parallelism.
To take stock, Descartes held that many necessary truths are not necessarily attached to God’s necessarily existing nature and are, along with contingent truths, products of God’s perfectly free creative activity. Spinoza argues that
Notice that the next few propositions do put us in a position to see that
In the next section, I argue that the point of propositions E1p21–23 is to establish the conclusion that
To begin, here is E1p21 and the beginning of its famously baroque demonstration:
1p21: All the things which follow from the absolute nature of any of God’s attributes have always had to exist and be infinite, that is, are, through the same attribute, infinite and eternal.
If you deny [that all things following from the absolute nature of any of God’s attributes are infinite and eternal], then conceive (if you can) that in some attribute of God there follows from its absolute nature something that is finite and has a determinate existence, that is, [determinate] duration, for example, an idea of God in thought.
At the beginning of the demonstration, we are asked to conceive that from the eternal attribute of thought there follows an idea that is 1) finite and 2) ‘has a determinate existence, that is, duration, for example, an idea of God in thought’ (
I propose that the ‘
In the Third Meditation, the Meditator uses his idea of God to prove God’s existence: the idea of God has
So, according to Descartes, God, who enjoys infinite, eternal formal reality, causes something infinite and eternal: an eternal truth with infinite objective reality. Yet Descartes’s God also causes something finite and non-eternal: the finite, non-eternal formal reality of the Meditator’s mind, in which there is a finite, non-eternal formally real idea that represents God.
Spinoza clearly thinks Descartes is wrong to believe God is transcendent (since God’s effects are
E1p21d is broken into two main parts: the first part is supposed to establish that whatever ‘follows from the necessity of the absolute nature of an attribute itself must be infinite’; the second part is supposed to establish that what follows must be eternal. I take up each in turn.
After asking us to conceive of the finite
[1.a] Now since thought is supposed to be an attribute of God, it is necessarily (by E1p11) infinite by its nature. But insofar as it is the idea of God, [thought] is supposed to be finite.
Spinoza reiterates that thought, as an attribute of God, is
[1.b] But (by E1d2) [thought] cannot be conceived to be finite unless it is determined through thought itself.
We have assumed for reductio that there is a finite formally real idea of God. As Spinoza reminds us in [1.b], to be conceived as finite, its reality must be limited or determined by something that is also thought (E1d2). In this demonstration, we are supposing that the only things that exist or are formally real are the infinite thinking substance and the finite idea of God.
[1.c] But [thought can] not [be determined] through thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God (for to that extent [thought] is supposed to be finite). Therefore, [thought must be determined] through thought insofar as it does not constitute the idea of God, which nevertheless (by E1p11) must necessarily exist.
‘Thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God’ can be taken to be thinking substance only insofar as it is the idea of God, the mode we are assuming enjoys finite formal reality. So understood, ‘thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God’ cannot determine the idea of God for a simple reason: the finite mode cannot determine
[1.d] Therefore, there is thought which does not constitute the idea of God, and on that account the idea of God does not follow necessarily from the nature [of thought] insofar as it is absolute thought (for [thought] is conceived as constituting the idea of God and as not constituting it). This is contrary to the hypothesis. So if the idea of God in thought, or anything else in any attribute of God (for it does not matter what example is taken, since the demonstration is universal), follows from the necessity of the absolute nature of the attribute itself, it must necessarily be infinite. This was the first thing to be proven.
Here is one reconstruction of Spinoza’s reasoning in [1.c] and [1.d].
So reconstructed, this demonstration generalizes to other attributes. The demonstration does not hinge on anything particular to the attribute of thought, but just requires that we consider the idea of God as a finite, formally real mode of substance considered under an attribute. However, this reconstruction does not clearly explain why Spinoza adds that the thought that does not constitute the idea of God nevertheless ‘must necessarily exist’ (by E1p11) at the end of [1.c]. This, somewhat perplexingly, is a common oversight, so common that I have not yet found a reconstruction of E1p21d that explains why Spinoza brings in E1p11 here.
Another potential difficulty with this reconstruction is that the absurdity is that substance is both finite and infinite; it is not clear how this maps onto Spinoza’s claim that thought is conceived both ‘constituting’ and ‘not constituting’ the idea of God. But perhaps we can accommodate this language in the following way: thought is conceived as constituting the idea of God when we conceive of the finite idea of God, and conceived as not constituting it when we conceive of what must be posited to limit that idea so that it is finite. However, this is not, in itself, absurd. It is only absurd if we supplement this claim with the claims that only what is finite can do the limiting, that the only potential limiter of the finite idea is substance, and that that substance is necessarily infinite. The text, however, suggests the argument to absurdity is more direct: the assumption leads us to conceive of (the same) thought both
I would like to propose an alternative reconstruction, one that generalizes to other attributes, incorporates E1p11, and gets to the absurdity directly. Return to this portion of the demonstration:
[1.c.i] But [thought can] not [be determined] through thought itself, insofar as [
Above we interpreted ‘thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God’ to be the assumed finite formally real idea of God: the ‘insofar as’ was supposed to focus our attention on the
Yet it is also possible to read ‘thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God’ not as the finite formally real idea of God, but rather as the
[1.c.ii] Therefore, [thought must be determined] through thought insofar as it does not constitute the idea of God, which nevertheless (by E1p11) must necessarily exist.
Again, thought can only be limited by thought (by E1d2), so the assumed idea of God must be limited by something that is also thought. We have already ruled out the possibilities a) that the idea of God limits itself and b) that what does the limiting is the thinking substance on which the idea of God depends for its formal reality (‘thought itself, insofar as it constitutes the idea of God’).
So reconstructed, the demonstration incorporates the mention of E1p11 in [1.c.ii] and gets to the absurdity directly. It also generalizes to other attributes: we could run the demonstration with a finite body, but we would again be forced to posit more than one formally real substance (this time under the attribute of extension).
I will quote the second stage of the demonstration in full:
[2.a] Next, what follows in this way from the necessity of the nature of any attribute cannot have a determinate [NS: existence, or] duration. For if you deny this, then suppose there is, in some attribute of God, a thing which follows from the necessity of the nature of that attribute—for example,
[2.b] But since thought is supposed to be an attribute of God, it must exist necessarily and be immutable (by E1p11 and E1p20c2). [2.c] So beyond the limits of the duration of the idea of God (for it is supposed that at some time [this idea] did not exist or will not exist) thought will have to exist without the idea of God.
[2.d] But this is contrary to the hypothesis, for it is supposed that the idea of God follows necessarily from the given thought. Therefore, the idea of God in thought, or anything else which follows necessarily from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, cannot have a determinate duration, but through the same attribute is eternal. This was the second thing [NS: to be proven]. Note that the same is to be affirmed of any thing which, in some attribute of God, follows necessarily from God’s absolute nature.
Spinoza reintroduces the reductio assumption: namely, that the idea of God exists for some limited time [2.a]. Spinoza reminds us that the attribute of thought exists necessarily (E1p11) and is immutable (E1p20c2) [2.b]. The situation we are assuming, then, is one in which we have a necessarily existing, immutable substance and a mode that
However, this leads to absurdity. Spinoza does not make his reasoning explicit, but I think we are supposed to remember E1p20c2’s point that it is absurd to suppose that the essence of substance could change. Spinoza reminds us that it is supposed that the mode follows
We can thus deny our assumption: the idea of God cannot exist for some limited time. Its existence is necessary (in virtue of substance’s essence being necessary), and thus eternal.
It is sometimes argued that this second stage establishes the
One might protest that making the effects timelessly eternal makes modes
Before I turn to E1p22, I want to point to one upshot of the reconstruction of E1p21d I have provided. On most reconstructions of E1p21d, Spinoza employs the same strategy for reductio twice: that is, in order for the
On my view, the demonstration cannot be condensed because the strategy in each stage’s reductio is different. In the first stage, the absurd consequence is that the same thing—substance—is both P (constituting the idea of God) and not-P (not constituting it). In the second stage, the absurdity is that we must posit a change in a necessarily existing essence (viz., substance’s). If this is how the demonstration goes, then, although we might complain that Spinoza could have made his reasoning more perspicuous, we cannot complain that he has repeated himself unnecessarily.
E1p22 is an extension of E1p21:
E1p22: Whatever follows from some attribute of God insofar as it is modified by a modification which, through the same attribute, exists necessarily and is infinite, must also exist necessarily and be infinite.
E1p22’s demonstration is short: it ‘proceeds in the same way as the demonstration of the preceding one [E1p21d].’
This demonstration does not usually get attention, but I will propose a reconstruction of it here. Like E1p21d, it proceeds in two stages. For the first stage, assume that something
For the second stage, note that Spinoza equates eternal existence and necessary existence (E1d8).
From E1p21 and E1p22, we can conclude that what is non-eternal and non-infinite cannot follow from what is infinite and eternal; all the things following either immediately or mediately from the infinite and eternal essence of God—that is, each and every one of the infinity of things following from the divine nature (E1p16)—are infinite and eternal. The infinity of things may differ in their essences, as the essence of a triangle differs from the essence of a circle, but their eternal reality is, as what is
Before turning to E1p23, I want to briefly point out that on my reconstruction, E1p21–22 can be taken to target a claim Descartes makes about the idea of reality that is finite and limited (either in time or in space). For Descartes, the idea of the infinite—that is, God’s infinite reality—is not generated by starting with the idea of our own finite reality and then just removing limits on that reality: that only gives us the
I say that the notion I have of the infinite is in me before that of the finite because, by the mere fact that I conceive being, or that which is, without thinking whether it is finite or infinite, what I conceive is infinite being; but in order to conceive a finite being, I have to take away something from this general notion of being, which must accordingly be there first. (Letter to Clerselier, 23 April 1649, AT V.356)
As I have read E1p21–22, Spinoza would say that we need to be more careful. Spinoza agrees with Descartes on the general point that the idea of the infinite is the idea of the reality that must be presupposed whenever we consider the reality of any of God’s effects, but he will insist that the reality of these posterior effects is also infinite and eternal reality—as he will point out later, each mode has its infinite and eternal reality in virtue of its cause (substance), not in virtue of its own essence.
Where E1p21 and E1p22 can be read as a priori arguments—given what the cause is like, we know what its effects must be like—E1p23 can be read as an a posteriori argument. That is, given an effect, we know what the cause must be like:
E1p23: Every mode which exists necessarily and is infinite has necessarily had to follow either from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, or from some attribute, modified by a modification which exists necessarily and is infinite [and eternal].
The reasoning of the demonstration appears to be this. Whatever is, is a mode inhering in God, the one and only substance, and nothing can be or be conceived without God (E1d5, E1p15). If something is conceived to enjoy infinite and necessary [i.e., eternal, by E1d8] formal reality or existence, it is an infinite and necessary [eternal] mode of a substance. A mode is a way its substance is modified, so this mode conceived to have infinite and necessary [eternal] reality is a mode inhering in the infinite and necessary [eternal] substance; the mode is a way eternal formal reality, or ‘existence itself’ (understood under an attribute) is modified (E1d6, E1p19). We know from E1p21 and E1p22 that whether a thing follows immediately or mediately from the divine nature, it will enjoy infinite, eternal reality;
According to my reconstruction of E1p21d, the idea assumed for reductio is the kind of
If one has an adequate idea of God’s infinite and eternal essence, one understands that God is the one and only infinite, eternal, immutable, necessarily existing substance in which everything else inheres as modes and which can be conceived through different attributes (E1p1–15, E1p19–20). One sees that divine causation does not involve a will that is free by being perfectly indifferent, since the essences of all things simply follow with necessity from the divine essence (E1p16–17). One sees that God’s effects are not modally diverse: all of God’s effects are necessary.
Furthermore, given what God’s formal reality is (infinite and eternal), one sees that the formal reality of
One sees that God is the cause of the essence of things (E1p25; see E1p16), and, since all essences follow with necessity from God’s necessarily existing nature, in causing himself to have eternal, infinite reality, God immanently causes all things to have eternal, infinite reality as modes. One perceives, then, that God is the cause of all things ‘
By Spinoza’s lights, Descartes’s Meditator got it wrong: had the Meditator had the right conception of God, then reflection on his
There is more that the Meditator can grasp. If the Meditator sees that there is no true and immutable nature that is
Importantly, with the right Spinozan idea of God, the Meditator will also see that the true and immutable nature of some body (e.g., of a circle), considered as an
The Meditator thus recognizes that his experiences of contemplating true and immutable natures and eternal truths are experiences of his own status as an eternally real thing: he ‘feel[s] and know[s] by experience’ that he is eternal; ‘for the mind feels those things that it conceives in understanding no less than those it has in the memory’ (E5p23s). He comprehends that ‘insofar as [his mind] understands,’ or has adequate ideas of properties of things, eternal truths, or true and immutable natures, his mind ‘is an eternal mode of thinking’ (E5p40s). He realizes his understanding mind is part of the infinite intellect of God, which is all of the essences following from the divine essence (E1p16), conceived as infinite and eternal modes under the attribute of thought, or
Perhaps the Meditator had thought that true and immutable natures and eternal truths created by God were merely objectively real in the divine mind.
Most commentators hold that Spinoza’s infinite and eternal God immanently causes two kinds of modes, some of which are infinite and eternal (or perhaps indefinite and sempiternal) and others of which are finite and non-eternal.
On the one hand, my interpretation has the benefit of bringing Spinoza’s mode-substance relation closer to a more workaday, familiar notion of mode and substance. That is, the reality of a mode is simply a way that the reality of substance is: as each wave in water is water, so each mode of an infinite and eternal substance is infinite and eternal. On the prevailing view in Spinoza scholarship, according to which at least some modes’ reality is not just substance’s infinite and eternal reality modified, it is hard to see how to retain the workaday notion without changing one’s conception of substance’s reality.
For example, take a view according to which there are ‘infinite modes’ of an eternal and infinite substance that are sempiternal and indefinite. If we retain the workaday notion of mode, these modes are not ways that substance’s eternal, infinite reality is modified, but rather ways
On the other hand, however, my proposal that
A first objection is that my interpretation is incompatible with what Spinoza writes to Schuller in his 1675 letter (Ep. 64). Schuller asked for some examples of the entities Spinoza discusses in E1p21 and E1p22, and Spinoza replies,
… the examples for which you ask are of the first kind [the kind discussed in E1p21] in Thought, absolutely infinite intellect; in Extension however motion and rest; of the second kind [discussed in E1p22], the face of the whole Universe [
This is obscure, and Spinoza does not offer further clarification beyond the reference to the ‘Physical Digression,’ the short treatise on body and motion in Part II of the
This letter is often cited to defend a view of the infinite modes according to which they are laws of nature; this is suggested by ‘motion and rest.’ More generally, it is cited in support of the view that the infinite modes are just a subclass of God’s modes. If Spinoza had wanted to say that
However, I do not think the examples are incompatible with what I’ve suggested above.
The essence of any body is a
The scholium of lemma 7 makes the point that there is an unchanging—that is, immutable—ratio of the infinity of individual bodies’ ratios of motion and rest. In other words, there is a true and immutable nature of the system of all things, of all the essences following from the divine nature (E1p16). Granted, Spinoza does not say that any particular ratio is also a true and immutable nature enjoying eternal and infinite reality as a mode of substance, but I do not think what he does say is incompatible with this being so.
I also do not think what Spinoza says about thought in Letter 64 is incompatible with my interpretation. The ‘absolutely’ in ‘absolutely infinite intellect’ is, I think, just a way of signaling that this ‘intellect’ is the most basic eternal truth about thought, or the most basic property of substance considered under the attribute of thought: whatever else characterizes ideas, they are
As Spinoza explains in the first half of
Again, nothing Spinoza says here is obviously incompatible with my proposal that all the modes immanently caused by God are eternal, infinite modes.
As I mentioned in Section I, other scholars, seeing that E1p21–23 commits Spinoza to the view that God’s effects are infinite, have invoked one or more ‘infinite modes’ to explain God’s causation of the limited, actual things described in E1p28. Perhaps God causes finite things by causing infinite modes that are pervasive features of the enduring world required for any finite thing to come into being. Or perhaps God causes finite things by causing the infinite mode that is the sempiternal individual that is the entire transitive causal nexus of finite things considered as a whole. According to my reading, these strategies for making sense of Spinoza’s system cannot work: the reality of such pervasive features, or the sempiternal individual, is not the kind of unlimited, infinite, eternal reality that God, properly conceived as the one Spinozan substance, causes.
Much of the
I do not think my reading renders Spinoza’s system inconsistent, but I do think we need to reexamine the fundamental structure of that system.
Spinoza holds that in order for causation to be intelligible, it must be within an attribute. This is a causal-explanatory ‘barrier’ between attributes.
God’s essence can only be properly conceived as enjoying, necessarily, infinite and eternal formal reality. Importantly, however, the infinity of essences following from the divine essence do not involve existence.
I cannot provide more defense of this proposal here.
Where G = Spinoza (
Spinoza does not use the term ‘
This is an old question. For an early articulation, see Leibniz’s (
See Curley (
According to Nadler, some infinite modes of extension are laws of Euclidean geometry (
‘Formal essences’ is a term Spinoza uses in E2p8 (and also in his description of the best kind of cognition,
This is a popular view. See Garrett (
See Gueroult (
Curley, however, sees a precursor of the infinite modes in Plotinus (
See Descartes’s
E.g., Bréhier (
E.g., Garrett (
It is likely Spinoza had access to the correspondence in which Descartes discusses the Creation Doctrine. Although it was not listed in the 1677 inventory of Spinoza’s books, in his exposition of Descartes’s
Descartes identifies essences and eternal truths in the 27 May 1630 letter to Mersenne (AT I.152).
Descartes’s Aristotelian predecessors thought that God needed to act in conformity with logical laws, but this was not seen as a
See AT VII.432, AT VII.380, and AT IV.118.
See, e.g., Plantinga (
The basic thought behind the ‘universal possibilism,’ a view often attributed to Frankfurt (
Descartes claims that we sometimes
See Curley (
See Curley (
See especially E1p32c1. For a recent survey of the extant literature, see Schmaltz (
Spinoza agrees with Descartes that
See Nadler (
See AT VII.431–443.
See E1p33s2. For Descartes, eternal truths are not supposed to be external constraints: they are not ‘known by God in any way that would imply that they are true independently of him’ (Letter to Mersenne, 6 May 1630, AT I.149). To claim that eternal truths are independent of God would be to talk of God ‘as if He were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject Him to the Styx and the Fates’ (Letter to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, AT I.145). The thesis that eternal truths are uncreated and independent of God would be objectionable to Descartes for another reason: it would make finite human minds too much like God’s mind. Human thinking and divine thinking would be constrained in the same ways, where these ways would be perfectly intelligible to human minds.
For example, Spinoza’s God can be understood under the attribute of
As will become clearer later on, I think the eternal ‘formal essences’ (E2p8) are ‘infinite modes,’ but I will part company with others (e.g.,
Presumably we can also include the other Euclidean common notions, including
See Frankfurt (
For discussion, see Wells (
Cf. the 29 July 1648 letter to Arnauld (AT V.224): ‘every reason [
Problems arise for Descartes, however, if the doctrine is completely unrestricted. For example, if truths about God are created truths, then the truth
See
Kemp Smith (
For discussion, see Chappell (
Broughton (
That is, the distinction between initial creation and subsequent conservation is a distinction of reason. See also AT VII.49 and AT VIIIA.30.
But see Della Rocca (
For discussion, see Broughton (
It may seem that the modal status of the laws of motion is explained by the immutability of God’s activity, but this may not be the case. See Kaufman (
Descartes explains the necessity of the laws of nature in terms of the immutability of divine action (see AT XI.43). If we think the laws of nature are eternal truths, and we note that the laws of nature are necessary because of the immutability of God’s will, then we may think that immutability could also be the ground of the other eternal truths.
Cf. Curley (
See AT XI.43 and AT VIIIA.61 for some textual support. Kaufman admits that it is not entirely clear from these passages that Descartes subscribes to this ‘Transfer of Immutability Principle.’
Here I set aside the debate about whether Descartes is an incompatibilist or compatibilist regarding human freedom. See Jayasekera (
See Kaufman (
Kaufman’s own account of the necessity of the eternal truths does not go via God’s immutability: ‘the eternal truths are necessary precisely because God wills that they are necessary’ (
The passage from E1p17s concerning God’s omnipotence discussed above seems to echo these passages. Spinoza combines the point about God’s necessary existence with the point about properties following with necessity from the essence of a triangle: if God’s essence is necessarily eternally real, and
See Kenny (
Gassendi advances a view according to which essences do depend on the existence of human beings and their conceptualizing activity (AT VII.321).
See Rozemond (
In the
See Gueroult (
See AT VII.117–118, AT VII.64, AT VII.189. See Carriero (
For further discussion of whether the true and immutable nature of God is to be distinguished from the true and immutable natures of other things, see Cunning (
See Rozemond (
Moderate Platonism may also conflict with divine simplicity (see
See De Rosa (
See, e.g., Schmaltz (
Descartes held that the eternal truths were created ‘from eternity’ (
By the Physical Digression, I think Spinoza has shifted to discussing what is
For more discussion of this point regarding the Creation Doctrine and laws of physics, see Broughton (
See AT VII.69, 71,77–78,141. See also Spinoza’s discussion of Cartesian
There would also not be any antecedent reason why God would create human minds with one idea of God rather than another. I return to the idea of God in Section IV.
See VII.61. See my ‘
To be clear, most scholars of Spinoza (myself included) think that Spinoza’s God’s eternity is not sempiternity, but see Donagan (
Cf. Descartes’s claim in his 7 May 1630 letter to Mersenne that the essences of created things are eternal truths (AT I.152).
Although my conclusions may differ from theirs, I agree with other scholars in thinking that Spinoza rejects bifurcations of reality that threaten intelligibility. See, for example, Della Rocca (
‘Actual’ here is actuality
If this is right, then Spinoza can be read as defending the thesis that the entirety of God’s being—God and all of God’s modes—is immutable (cf. G I.178–179, G I.255–256). More traditional theologians held that if God had modes, God would be mutable, but if God’s modes are all eternal, then the presence of modes does not entail mutability. For discussion of the issue of divine immutability in Spinoza and the tradition, see Carriero (
Descartes had said that there is ‘always a single identical and perfectly simple act by means of which [God] simultaneously understands, wills, and accomplishes everything. When I say ‘everything’ I mean all things’ (AT VIIIA.14. Cf. Spinoza’s mention in E1p17s of those who assert that ‘God’s intellect, will, and power are one and the same.’ Cf. G I.261–263). A human being may have reasons to believe that this is true (e.g., perhaps because it is a tenet of faith), but it seems there is an irremovable mystery here. As mentioned in note 60, it is hard to see how an eternal God could
I read E2p7, ‘the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things,’ to be a thesis about
Each eternal nature and truth presupposes and implies others; each truth will occupy a distinct node in an infinitely complex ordering of all eternal truths. It will thus not be the case that God is both P and not-P at once and in the same respect.
The things discussed in E1p15–18 are
The ‘moderate’ Platonic readings described in Section II.4, according to which eternal truths are merely objectively real representations in God’s mind, are also ruled out, but not until the doctrine of parallelism is introduced in Part II. The infinite intellect’s adequate representation of, say, the true and immutable nature of a circle (i.e., the nature as objectively real) and the true and immutable nature of the circle (i.e., the nature as formally real) are one and the same mode considered under different attributes. See Section IV.4 below.
From E1p20c1, we know that God’s existence, like his essence, is
We have assumed that some finite formal reality (the idea of God) follows from the ‘absolute nature’ of some attribute of God. I am taking this to mean that there is no other formally real entity assumed to be in play; we are supposed to focus on substance just as ‘existence itself.’
Cf. Melamed (
For reconstructions along these lines, see Schmaltz (
Alternatively, for there to be a finite idea, we must already have assumed a finite thing, and so a finite idea cannot follow from the substance alone (i.e., from the
Granted, it is possible that E1p11 does not do much work here. This citation might just be Spinoza’s way of signaling that if the finite idea does not limit itself, the only other option is that it is limited by the necessarily existing thinking substance. However, as I show below, there is a way of understanding the demonstration according to which this mention of E1p11 does real work.
We can also rule out that it is another mode of the same substance that is doing the limiting; positing another finite idea that is doing the limiting merely pushes the question back to what has limited
Although Spinoza does not cite it, I think we are supposed to recall E1p5, ‘in nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same attribute.’ Other reconstructions neglect to incorporate the second occurrence of E1p11 in the demonstration; my reconstruction supposes that Spinoza neglected to cite something he was, in fact, assuming. I am not entirely sure how to weigh these tradeoffs. However, I think it is likely that if Spinoza takes the care to cite a proposition, it’s likely he meant it to do important work in the proof and should not be discounted. I think he can be excused for sometimes failing to make explicit
See E1d8 for the equation of necessary existence and eternity.
See Curley (
See the beginning of the Fifth Meditation, AT VII.64.
Cf. Melamed (
In E2p10s, Spinoza explains that even though all modes must be in and conceived through the essence of substance, this does not mean that existence follows from the essence of any mode. God’s essence exists necessarily, but it is not the case that ‘anything without which a thing can neither be nor be conceived pertains to its essence.’
In addition to the passage cited in note 87, this passage from Ep. 12 has been read as implying that the eternity of modes cannot be the timeless eternity of substance: ‘… we conceive the existence of substance as of an entirely different kind from the existence of modes. This is the source of the difference between eternity and duration. It is to the existence of modes alone that we can apply the term duration …’ (G IV.54–55). For recent defense of the thesis that no modes are timelessly eternal, see Melamed (
Again, this can be eternal or necessary existence in virtue of essence (this is the eternal and necessary existence of substance) or eternal and necessary existence in virtue of substance’s immanent causation (this is the eternal and necessary existence of modes).
I think ‘what is common to all things and is equally in the part and the whole’ (see E2lemma2, E2p37), as well as the properties of things mentioned in E2p39, follow with necessity from the divine nature (while I cannot say more here, I suspect that the essences of singular things can be adequately understood in terms of these properties). I think the more ‘immediate’ modes are the more general common notions (e.g., Euclidean common notions); more ‘mediate’ modes presuppose what is more common. So the essence
I thereby disagree with views according to which ‘immediate’ infinite modes (i.e., those described in E1p21) are timelessly eternal while ‘mediate’ infinite modes (i.e., those described in E1p22) are not. Gueroult (
This is important for the Third Meditation proof of God’s existence. If the idea of the infinite were posterior to the idea of the finite, then one could construct that idea starting from the idea of the finite. But in that case, the presence of an idea with ‘infinite’ objective reality could not be used to prove the formal reality of an infinite being, God; that idea could have simply been generated from the Meditator’s idea of his own finite reality as a thinking thing.
The propositions immediately following E1p23 clarify that the fact that all of God’s effects are infinite and eternal does not imply that modes are in fact substances. The difference between the essences of things that are
This raises the question of how Spinoza does understand finite, limited reality. I will not be able to venture into this topic here, although I return to the question of where finite, limited reality fits into Spinoza’s system in the conclusion.
See Schechtman (
See notes 91 and 92. One might think that since an essence E presupposes essence F, E is in that sense “limited” (cf. note 94). Again, I do not think such presupposition results in E’s
Once the Meditator properly understands God’s formal reality, he can properly understand the formal reality of all things, and it seems this is something that could be understood
Cf. Question 1 in Section I. The Spinozan Meditator recognizes that he was able to have his adequate idea of the infinite and eternal essence of God in virtue of his having adequate ideas of infinite and eternal
In other work, I argue that E2p8 and E2p9 extend the thought introduced in E2p7: a true idea does not just represent the properties of something, but also represents the
In E5p40s, Spinoza says that it is clear from ‘E1p21 and other things’ that our mind, insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking. I have offered one way of understanding why Spinoza cites E1p21 in this scholium. Note that E5p40s does not say that the mind, insofar as it understands, is an eternal
See Section II.4 above.
According to E5p40s, insofar as our mind understands, it is an eternal mode of thinking ‘determined by another mode of thinking, which is determined by another mode of thinking, and this again by another, and so on, to infinity; so that together, they constitute God’s infinite and eternal intellect.’ As suggestive as this language is of (the uncited proposition) E1p28, I do not think the determination here is to be understood as the limitation or preclusion of infinite and eternal formal reality. Unlike finite, non-eternal reality, infinite and eternal reality cannot be understood as limited or limiting. See note 91.
For a sampling of views, see the beginning of Section I.
In other work, I clarify how the essences of modes differ from the attributes, which are just what the ‘intellect perceives to be the essence of substance’ (E1d4).
See Schmaltz (
This idea of all things conceived as eternal truths (i.e., as infinite and eternal modes of substance) is an ‘infinite intellect’ (see E1p16c1, E1p31). Spinoza calls this infinite intellect the
I work out more details in my “Spinoza’s Monism” (2019, unpublished manuscript).
See E1d2, E1p10, E2p4–5. See Della Rocca (
The distinction between durational and formal realities crosscuts the distinction between the attributes of extension and thought (and, presumably, all the other attributes that are inaccessible to human minds).
See E5p29s: ‘We conceive things as actual [i.e., as formally real. Cf. Descartes’s use of the term ‘actual’ in AT VIIIA.11 and AT VII.41] in two ways: either insofar as we conceive them to exist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to be contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But the things we conceive in this second way as true, that is, real, we conceive
See my “Spinoza’s Monism” (2019, unpublished manuscript) for more discussion.
As I read him, Spinoza can acknowledge that we can conceive of durational reality and eternal reality as really distinct, just as we can conceive of thinking reality as really distinct from extended reality (E1p10s). Spinoza can thus acknowledge the temptation to theorize along Cartesian lines and hold that there are multiple kinds of substances as well as a transcendent God. However, one might object that we need not read Spinoza as so concessive. For a recent interpretation that does not attribute to Spinoza the view that there are different formal realities at work in the system, see Laerke (
Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the 2018 conference on infinity at the University of Toronto, the spring 2018 meeting of the North American Spinoza Society in San Diego, the 2018 Lake Tahoe Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy, and a work-in-progress lunch at UC Berkeley in 2019. Thanks to everyone who attended those events for your questions and objections. Thanks also to Michael Della Rocca, Colin Garretson, and two anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.
The author has no competing interests to declare.