Spinoza On Substance Monism

Stoicism is the belief that virtue and the highest good is solely based on knowledge. It also has to do with letting go of other people's beliefs and focusing entirely on oneself. Being able to focus on only what is in our control is essential when it comes to stoicism because that is the only way to reach happiness. Epictetus wanted to get rid of any and all desires. Stoics are strong believers that nothing is eternal and that everything in due time will disappear. Therefore, n

Humes said that we have no access to substance; only perception. Substance cannot be derived from impressions of sensation such as a color, smell, taste or sound; neither can it be derived from impressions of reflection from passions or emotions; so, “there is, properly speaking, no idea of substance at all.”

The two philosophers, however, had some differences in regard to the number of substances and their attributes. In spite of the fact that Descartes’ definition presents God as absolutely faultless; this presentation does not see him as more of a substance than every other finite substance. Descartes does not show God as the only substance, but he holds that there are other finite substances. Accordingly, the term ‘substance’ is not applied universally to God but as well as, to all other creatures. While some created things need only the normal concord of God to exist (in that case substances), others can only exist with the help of other created things. Such things are referred to, as per Descartes, attributes of substances.

The first supporting argument which I will present to support substance dualism is Divisibility. In earlier writings, Descartes divides the objects of our perception into two main classifications: mental substances pertaining to the mind and physical substances pertaining to the body (Alanen, L., 1996). Any substance with mental properties has an absence of physical properties and any substance with physical properties has an absence of mental properties (Rodriguez Pereyra, G., 2008).

In this essay, I will discuss and formally analyze the opinions in approval of substance dualism and conclude that substance dualism is without a doubt an accurate way of thinking. Firstly, it is important to describe what exactly what I mean by substance dualism. Basically, it asks a very menial question such as: what kind of thing is our mind? According to substance dualists aka Descartes, "the mind and the body are composed of different substances and that the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects such as size, shape, location etc." [Descartes] Substance dualism is then tested by different opinions which in return vouch for its soundness.

Substance dualism is a never ending argument in the Philosophy world as it’s been going on for decades. It is the view that the universe contains two important types of entity which is mental and material. The structure of this paper is that four main argument leads to one conclusion. Firstly, I’ll argue about Descartes’s ‘separability argument’ which stands as the definition of Substance Dualism. Secondly, I’ll argue that mental and physical have different and perhaps irreconcilable properties. An argument is not complete without a counter argument which in this case the “pairing” problem that exists in Descartes theory is highlighted and where is the interaction of material and immaterial takes

Substance dualists say that there is no relationship between physical and mental entities, that persons and bodies are distinct. This leads to a conflict because mental entities such as our beliefs, feelings, inner thoughts, and any other mental attributes are usually thought to cause changes in physical events in the world. Actions would seem to be physical events that were caused by mental occurrences. For example, I experience hunger, so my body reacts by getting food. Another example is my body feels cold, and that causes me to shiver to maintain homeostasis. If actions are physical events with mental causes based on these examples, then persons, entities capable of mental properties, would have to interact causally with bodies, entities

The most compelling theory of mind to me so far has been Churchland’s arguments for eliminative materialism. Churchland argues for eliminative materialism, which contends that our common sense psychological framework is incorrect, and should be rejected (Essentially that many of the mental states I believe in do not exist and will not likely correspond well with biological processes). Though I at first found this claim startling, Churchland’s rhetoric and presentation of his argument is clear and he effectively supports his argument that eliminative materialism is more likely to be true than other theories of the mind by appealing at times to neuroscience and arguing that what mankind needs to successfully explain the mind is beyond our reach.

     Spinoza’s staunch, pantheistic monist view of the world establishes that the mind and body are not separate entities in themselves, but only two of an infinite amount of attributes of the same and only substance in existence – God. One can relate this reasoning to two attributes of a red-hot poker – red and hot. Does this entail that red and hot are always dependent on a poker and that they are in essence the same thing? Although this is not a likely conclusion, Spinoza raises the important question of how far we can analytically separate parts of a world that are always interacting with each other. Try getting a metal poker to glow red without heating it, or heating a poker without eventually having it glow red. This is improbable, albeit possible in theory. The mind and body may be two separately identifiable things, but one will more than likely find the two cooperating with each other as attributes of the natural world.

While both authors acknowledge humanity’s inherent struggle with creation and stability, their philosophies clash when elaborating on the concepts of isolation and morality.

Spinoza claims that in order for God to act in the world for a specific end, it must be that he is trying to bring about something which he lacks in himself. This is because God created all things for himself and on his own behalf, for to act on behalf of anything else would be impossible since nothing else existed at the time of creation by definition. As such God must have lacked these things and have desire them. It then follows that he no longer has all perfections. Instead, Spinoza wants to maintain that nature acts of its own reasons according to principles of necessity and not according to a specific end appointed by God (Spinoza 112). Furthermore, Spinoza asserts that things which exist as direct causes from God are more perfect than their effects. This is due to the premise that

The poem, ‘The Ecstasy” is one of the more well-known works written by John Donne. In the poem, Donne seems to agree with the philosophy that true love can only be available on a spiritual level and explains what the process is to get there. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how the poem expresses the unique ideas of love and how two people make connections through different pathways, aside from just the physical bonds.

The advantage of Spinoza’s substance monism over Descartes’ substance dualism in terms of his metaphysics of God/Nature, is that Spinoza’s God is one that supports his entire system. Where Descartes’ Meditations is built on doubt, Spinoza’s Ethics is built on certainty and on a series of definitions.

a) Complementary: This kind of thinking believes that the two opposing or different forces complement one another. They depend on one another and there exists the mutual support. Without the existence of one force, the holistic state cannot be achieved either in humanity or the situations in the universe. For example, if there were no violence, the society could not understand the need for peace.

    Many of John Donne's poems contain metaphysical conceits and intellectual reasoning to build a deeper understanding of the speaker's emotional state. A metaphysical conceit can be defined as an extended, unconventional metaphor between objects that appear to be unrelated. Donne is exceptionally good at creating unusual unions between different elements in order to illustrate his point and form a persuasive argument in his poems.