Spinoza's Ontology

Understanding Imperfection

Because of their inherent abstraction, systems ideas are not themselves sufficient for gaining scientific knowledge or solving practical problems, but they can be a source of insights into the universality of imperfection, insights which can contribute to a new scientific world view. Systems theory offers a metaphysics, or more precisely an ontology, of imperfection. Through it, we can heed Spi...

Intersections in Immanence: Spinoza, Deleuze, Negri

The connection between French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Italian political theorist Antonio Negri has drawn attention in academic publications over the last decade. For both thinkers, the philosophical concept of immanence is central to how both respectively conceptualize the world. However, in order to consider their work with regard to a metaphysical grounding, one may benefit from turnin...

E Differential Point of View of the Infinitesimal Calculus in Spinoza, Leibniz Anddeleuze

In Hegel au Spinosa:' Pierre Macherey challenges the influence of Hegel's reading of Spinoza by stressing the degree to which Spinoza eludes the grasp of the Hegelian dialectical progression of the history of philosophy. He argues that Hegel provides a defensive misreading of Spinoza, and that he had to "misread him" in order to maintain his subjective idealism. The suggestion being that Spinoz...

Spinoza's Election of the Jews: The Problem of Jewish Persistence

Spinoza , the No Shared Attribute thesis , and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

1 Introduction According to Spinoza, 'In Nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute' (IP5). 1 Call this the 'No Shared Attribute' thesis, 2 hereafter NSA. It is widely recognised (indeed, virtually undeniable) that NSA plays a crucial role in Spinoza's argument in The Ethics for his version of substance monism—for the view that there exists only one substance,...