Wisdom And Philosophy

The Distinction of Attributes, The Unification of Modes: Reconsidering an interpretive controversy concerning the nature of Attributes in Spinoza's Philosophy

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Zahra Amini
Mustafa Zali

Philosophy Department, Faculty of Humanities and Literature, University of Tehran

https://doi.org/10.22054/wph.2024.78472.2228
Abstract
One of the challenges faced by Spinoza's commentators is the problem of the nature of attributes; That is, the answer to the question of whether attributes are distinct from the substance (objective interpretation) or not (subjective interpretation). The main difficulty concerning the above-mentioned problem is that any answer to it, leads to another problem, that is, the relation of attributes to each other, and any answer to this later problem also implies an inconsistency; for while claiming for a real distinction between attributes in Ethics, Spinoza believes in the unification of modes arising from various attributes. This issue leads to the following interpretive challenge: if the distinction between substance and attributes is conceptual, the real distinction of attributes remains unjustified and if the real distinction between attributes is to be acknowledged, other difficulties will arise, concerning how to justify the unification of modes. On the other hand, if the ontological implications of the real distinction are to be ignored, the ideas- things parallelism will be lost. In this article, it will be argued that solving the problem of the nature of attributes according to Spinoza depends on the justification of the relationship of attributes with each other, and since the answer to the latter problem is faced by the aforementioned inconsistency, the former problem also will not find a consistent answer in Spinoza’s Philosophy.

Keywords

Spinoza
Substance
Attribute
Mode
Real Distinction
Subjects
Bennet, J. F. (1984). A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics, Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.
Carriero, J. P. (1995). ‘On the relationship between mode and substance in Spinoza's metaphysics’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (2), 245-273. DOI: 10.1353/hph.1995.0026
Curley, E. M. (1969). Spinoza's metaphysics: an essay in interpretation, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Delahunty, R. J. (1985). Spinoza, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Deleuze, G. (1990). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated by M. Joughin, New York: Zone Book.
Della Rocca, M. (1996). Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza, New York: Oxford University Press.
Descartes, R. (1984). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Donagan, A. (1973). ‘Essence and the Distinction of Attributes in Spinoza’s Metaphysics’, in M. Glicksman Grene (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Books.
(1989). Spinoza, Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
Eisenberg, P. (1990). ‘On the Attributes and the Alleged Independence of one another: A Commentary on Spinoza’s Ethics IP10, in E. Curley and E. Moreau (eds.), Spinoza: Issues and Directions, Leiden: Brill.
Gueroult, M. (1968). Spinoza 1.Dieu, Hildesheim: G. Olms.
Haserot, F. S. (1953). ‘Spinoza’s Definition of Attribute’, Philosophical Review 62, 499-513. DOI: 10.2307/2182457
Huenemann, C. (2014). Spinoza's Radical Theology: The Metaphysics of the Infinite, London: Routledge.
Jarrett, C. E. (2008). ‘Some Remarks on the Objective and Subjective Interpretations of the Attributes’, Inquiry 20, 447-456.
DOI: 10.1080/00201747708601827
Kessler, W. (1975). ‘A Note on Spinoza’s Concept of Attribute’ in E. Freeman and M. Mandelbaum (eds.), Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation, Chicago: Open Court Pub, 191-194
Lennon, T. M. (2005). ‘The Rationalist Conception of Substance’ in A. Nelson (ed.), A Companion to Rationalism, Oxford: Blackwell.
Macherey, P. (2011). Hegel or Spinoza, translated by S. Ruddick, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Melamed, Y. (2013). Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parchment, S. (1996). ‘The God/Attribute Distinction in Spinoza’s Metaphysics: A Defense of Causal Objectivism’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 13, 55-72.
Scruton, R. (1986). Spinoza, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shein, N. (2009). ‘The False Dichotomy Between Objective and Subjective Interpretations of Spinoza’s Theory of Attributes’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17, 505-532.
DOI: 10.1080/09608780902986631
Spinoza, B. (1994). A Spinoza Reader: Ethics and other Works, translated and edited by E. M. Curley, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wolfson, H. A. (1934). The Philosophy of Spinoza, Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 
Wisdom And Philosophy
Volume 20, Issue 79
Summer 2024
Pages 177-196

Home

Editorial Board

Submit Manuscript

Contact Us