ABSTRACT: This paper argues that Parkinson’s objections to Hegel’s criticisms of Spinoza’s philosophy fail.

This paper argues that Parkinson’s objections to Hegel’s criticisms of Spinoza’s philosophy fail.

EVERYBODY LOVES SPINOZA

Spinoza’s philosophy is a metaphysical monism. That is, he thinks that there is only one basic substance. Although there is only one substance, it necessarily expresses itself through an infinite number of attributes, and an attribute is the essence of substance as experienced by the intellect. Humans are capable of knowing only two of these attributes, thought and extension. All physical objects, ideas, and relations—Spinoza refers to all of these as "modes"—are presented through some attribute or other. Spinoza denies that a thing presented through one attribute can cause or be effected by anything presented through another attribute. Rather, each thing which is presented through an attribute has an infinite number of counterparts presented through the infinite number of attributes. Indeed, those infinite counterparts are that thing, presented through the other attributes. Substance necessarily expresses itself through the attributes and modes, according to Spinoza, and so that everything that is possible is also actual.

Spinoza’s substance expresses itself through its attributes and modes, but what occurs at the level of the attributes and modes has no reciprocal effect on substance. Like unrequited love, expression is a one-way street. Not e pluribus unum (out of many, one), but e unibus plurum (out of one, many). Unlike the relation of the states to the federal government, however, the attributes and modes do not possess a relative or circumscribed autonomy vis-à-vis substance.

Substance expressing itself through its attributes and modes is nature, according to Spinoza, and nature in turn is god. Hence, Spinoza’s god is wholly immanent within the world—for him, god is the world—and so he rejects that traditional god of theism, who transcends and is wholly independent from the world.

Spinoza rejects as illusory all notions of purpose and intention. Although individuals generally believe that their actions are performed in order to fulfill some goal, Spinoza instead maintains that human actions are entirely the result of previous happenings, and the belief that actions are done to accomplish something is entirely mistaken. He rather believes that all happenings are wholly determined, that everything happens necessarily, and that nature proceeds mechanistically, as though it were an enormous machine. Unlike all other machines, however, which have been designed for some purposes, nature has not been designed, and it has no goal.

As a consequence of this view, Spinoza reduces thought itself to mechanism. Another consequence of this view, one that Spinoza explicitly draws, is that morality and legality are both reduced to force. To have a moral or legal right to do something, according to Spinoza, is nothing more than having the physical ability do that thing. Indeed, since he believes that everything which is possible is actual, having a right to do that thing is to have done it.

As Zizek observes, it is fashionable to love Spinoza. Einstein’s name may be added to the list of Spinoza’s admirers. As a young man, Einstein expresses his veneration for Spinoza in a poem:

Some years later, when asked whether he believes in God, Einstein responds: "I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all beings, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." Einstein is correct in seeing Spinoza’s philosophy as complementing his own beliefs. Risking anachronism, Spinoza may be interpreted as accepting the notion of an Einsteinian block universe, where everything possible is fully actual, while time—although not space-time—is a subjective illusion. In discussing Einstein’s theories, De Broglie explicates the notion of the block universe:

In maintaining that "the aggregate of past, present, and future phenomena are in some sense given a priori," de Broglie is not claiming that these phenomena can be known a priori, but instead that they have equal ontological status, and all of them are fully real. Human experience is temporal. Hence, people generally believe that only the present is real, and only things in the present are actual, while the past no longer exists, and the future does not yet exist. Moreover, people frequently believe that the future is indeterminate and contingent. By contrast, in the block universe past, present, and future all exist. All events are fully determined, and none are contingent. To complete the analogy between Spinoza’s metaphysics and Einstein’s block universe, perhaps it is not too fanciful to say that the block universe necessarily expresses itself through its space-time points.

Spinoza denies that there is free will. Many philosophers are prepared to follow him at least part way here. Spinoza seems to accept the view known as "hard determinism," according to which determinism is incompatible with freedom of the will. By contrast, many philosophers now accept "soft determinism," or "compatiblism," which claims that determinism is compatible with freedom of the will. According to the compatiblists, persons act freely as long as there are no external constraints on their actions, although these actions themselves are entirely determined. It may well be that the disputes between hard and soft determinists are wholly semantic, hinging on whether the concept of "free will" is construed so as to be compatible with determinism. However, hard and soft determinists agree that all happenings are fully determined, and they both reject what is known as "libertarianism" or "agent causation." Libertarians believe that persons can exercise free will, such that their actions are not determined by anything other than their own decisions to act, and those decisions themselves are not determined. While the debates between soft and hard determinists show no signs of resolution, one or the other view must result if a mechanistic view of nature is accepted.

INCLUDE HEGEL OUT

It might appear that Hegel loves Spinoza too. In his Lectures on History of Philosophy, after all, Hegel maintains that "thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy." Moreover, Hegel immediately informs his readers that "when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation. This seeming affinity between the philosophies of Spinoza and Hegel leads Myers to claim that "the road to Hegel is shorter through Spinoza that it is through any other philosopher, not excepting Kant." In making this correct assertion, Myers mistaken assumes that conceptual space is Euclidean. As a consequence, to anticipate the discussion in subsequent sections, he and others believe that Hegel’s philosophy is close to Spinoza.

In a sense, of course, Hegel’s philosophy is close to Spinoza’s. Referring to the connection between his philosophy and that of Spinoza, Hegel observes that "the difference between our standpoint and that of the Eleatic philosophy is only this, that through the agency of Christianity concrete individuality is in the modern world present throughout in spirit." "In my view, which can be justified only by the exposition of the system itself," Hegel announces in the "Preface" to his Phenomenology of Spirit, "everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject." The sojourn from Spinoza to Hegel consists in the single step from substance to subject, or concrete individuality. Nevertheless, in a journey of ideas, the final step to the correct standpoint is always the longest. Hegel loves Spinoza, but their relationship is complicated and they have separated.

THE ABYSS OF THE ONE IDENTITY

Spinoza’s philosophy does not deny the existence of God, Hegel maintains, and so it is not an atheism. Rather, Spinoza’s system asserts God’s existence, but it also denies that anything except God exists. Because Spinoza’s philosophy denies the existence of the cosmos, Hegel refers to it as an "acosmism." Acosmism has a negative and a positive element, as Parkinson recognizes.

Parkinson attempts to defend Spinoza from Hegel’s criticisms by argue that Hegel has not correctly understood Spinoza’s view. Parkinson writes:

It is true that Spinoza does not intend to maintain that the attributes and modes are illusory, but Hegel is correct in contending that Spinoza’s philosophy results in an acosmism. Although the attributes and modes are expressions of substance, but substance’s expressions have no reciprocal effect on substance. Only substance has an ontological status in its own right, whereas its attributes and modes are wholly dependent upon substance. Spinoza’s substance could be compared to an algorithm or equation which generates results. This would be a special algorithm, one that does not require initial values or subsequent inputs. In such a case, it would be the algorithm, and not its results, which would be wholly real, in that the results depend entirely to the algorithm (and there could be no other algorithm, to maintain the analogy’s parity with Spinoza’s substance, by which they could be derived).

Parkinson has another argument against Hegel’s interpretation. Parkinson notes that attributes are the essences of substance as perceived by the intellect, and that the modes are grasped by the intellect:

Parkinson believes that this means that, for Spinoza, the attributes and modes are real, and that Hegel is wrong to believe that Spinoza’s philosophy is an acosmism.

Again, a distinction must be made between Spinoza’s intentions and the consequences of his philosophy. Spinoza intends to assert the objective reality of the attributes and modes, but his system results in their unreality. This point can be seen by noting that Spinoza gives no account of the status of the intellect which perceives the attributes and modes, and that his system oscillates between a species of idealism and a form of materialism. On the one hand, the attributes are the essence of substance as perceived by the intellect. This suggests that the attributes have no direct ontological status, but instead only exist as the result of the intellect’s perceptions. By analogy, they would be like colors (or any other of what Locke refers to as secondary qualities). Unlike light waves, which exist independently of observation, colors exist only because perceived. Moreover, the modes of extension cannot be known directly, but only through the attribute of thought, by knowing the isomorphic ideas of those modes. On the other hand, Spinoza comprehends thought by means of extension. He says, for example, that the mind is the idea of the body. This suggests that matter is primary.

NEGATING NEGATION

As Spinoza makes clear in his Fiftieth Letter, he believes that all determination is negation. Hegel agrees with this. Unlike Hegel, however, Spinoza has no concept of the negation of the negation, and so Hegel argues that it is a consequence of Spinoza’s philosophy that the attributes and modes are not real. Moreover, Spinoza’s substance must be indeterminate, and so nothing can be predicated of it. Everything is one for Spinoza, but this is an identity that does not include difference. Hegel’s absolute, by contrast, is the identity of identity and difference. No reciprocity for Spinoza.—Spinoza recognizes that all determination is negation, but he does not have a view of the negation of the negation. He does not see, as a consequence, that positivity can emerge from negation. Put otherwise, Spinoza’s philosophy remains at the level of the understanding, and does not rise to the level of reason.

Parkinson argues that Hegel has misunderstood Spinoza. Parkinson grants that Spinoza believes that all determination is negation, but Parkinson believes that this means only that if something is x, say, it also is not y:

Parkinson also believes that these same considerations hold for shape:

Parkinson is correct in thinking if all determination is negation, then insofar as something is x, it is not y or z. The consequence of this, however, is that x itself has no positive ontological status, but it only is what it is not. This point holds at both the linguistic and metaphysical level. Linguistically, x can only be defined only by distinguishing it from y and z. Metaphysically, the referent of x only exists through not being y or z. This also is the case for shapes A, B, C, etc. Since what is true of x also holds for y , z and all other modes, acosmism results. Because of this, Parkinson is incorrect when he maintains that Hegel mistakenly assimilates Spinoza’s philosophy to that of Schelling, and to the thought of the East. Acosmism is a result of Spinoza’s system. Substance is the only thing that is fully real Since only the modes are determinate, however, and substance is ineffable. This is the view which is found in Schelling and Eastern thought.

Finally, Parkinson claims that Hegel is mistaken in believing that Spinoza’s substance is static.

Parkinson is correct that Spinoza’s substance is dynamic, but—paradoxically—that dynamism is static. This is so for two reasons. First, there is no feedback loop allowing substance’s expressions, its attributes and modes, to alter substance; expression is a one-way street. The second reason is more crucial. According to Spinoza, whatever happens, happens necessarily. How substance will express itself is fully determined, and so there is a sense in which nothing really happens.

To see this point, a mathematical analogy will be useful. Consider the following simple program:

The first five iterations result in the following sequence of numbers: 4, 16, 256, 65536, 4294967296. Although it might be thought that these results are dynamic, but the algorithm that produces them itself does not change, and so the program itself is static. Given the algorithm and its initial value, the program’s results are entirely determined. While it takes time for the results to appear, the results have always already been fully generated sub specie aeternitatus. In an strictly analogous manner, it might be thought that substance expressing itself is dynamic. However, that and how substance expresses itself are necessary, and so the entire process is essentially static. Although substance expresses itself in time, it has always already been fully expressed sub specie aeternitatus. Sub specie aeternitatus, nothing happens.