Rachel Florence

Classical Modern Philosophy

Dr. Brown

Literature Review

March 8, 2001

Spinoza’s Understanding of the Mind Body Relation:

Spinoza’s theory on the relation between mind and body posits in the Scholium to Proposition 2 to Book III of the Ethics that “the mind and the body are one and the same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension.” The main problem that seems to be brought up concerning Spinoza’s understanding that thought and extension, mind and body, could be conceived of as one and the same thing is that if they are identical how does Spinoza go on to claim that they are still not causally related to each other. In Book III, Proposition 2, Spinoza claims that “the body cannot determine the mind to thinking, not can the mind determine the body to motion or rest, or to anything else.” This proposition seems to contradict the idea that mind and body are in fact the same because they would then be indeterminately related to each other. Some philosophers who have commented on Spinoza agree with his idea that mind and body can remain identical even if they are not causally related to one another, while others seem to feel that these two ideas are in too great of opposition to be reconciled in the same view of mind and body. Regardless of what their take is on the mind-body problem, it is apparent that the understanding of mind and body as different attributes of the same substance and the question of whether or not they can then be causally related present the largest problems in Spinoza’s theory on mind and body.

Much of the critical literature on Spinoza’s theory of mind and body spends a great deal of time simply trying to clarify what exactly Spinoza means in claiming that mind and body are identical and the implications of his argument that mind and body are not causally related to one another. For example, William Matson focuses his inquiry into Spinoza largely on illustrating how Spinoza’s own arguments help to prove that his criticizers are misinterpreting what he has to say. He points out the areas in Spinoza where people seem to have the most difficulty understanding and he attempts to explain how the theories of Spinoza still make sense despite some of the initial problems that are found. Douglas Odegard takes a similar approach to looking at Spinoza, however, he uses Spinoza’s rationale in order to show that if the human mind is identical to the body, that body must necessarily be a human body. It would seem that this idea would be assumed in Spinoza’s theory, but as Odegard points out, some of the language that Spinoza uses could lead to confusion.

Of those thinkers that argue that Spinoza’s distinction between mind and body is comprehensible, most point to his claim that they are different attributes of the same idea in order to explain how his theory works. For example, Jonathon Bennett claims that Spinoza’s understanding of ‘attribute’ as “that which intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence,” helps to explain how mind and body can both be seen as separate attributes of the same thing, thus making them identical. Genevieve Lloyd agrees with Bennett on this point and she argues that the parallelism between mind and body characterizes Spinoza’s view and forms an idea of the self as part of nature. Both of these philosophers focus on the importance of looking at mind and body as attributes in looking at Spinoza.

Another important issue that is raised in discussing Spinoza is that of the causal relation between the mind and the body because Spinoza claims that these attributes can have no affect on each other as one operates in the mental realm and the other in the spatial realm. One philosopher, Olie Koistinen, argues that although the mind and body cannot be causally related to each other, that all mental causal relations and all physical causal relations have to be psychophysical causal relations if mind and body are considered to be the same thing. His argument is not uncommon in the discussion of causal relations between mind and body; however, he is the only thinker that solves the problem by coming up with the idea of psychophysical causal relations. Frank Lucash also asserts that the fact that mind and body cannot be causally related to each other causes them to seem separate and presents a problem in Spinoza’s reasoning, but that since we can intellectually conceive of them as separate, Spinoza’s argument that they cannot be causally related holds true. Charles Jarrett argues along similar lines that thought and extension must be distinct from one another in order for Spinoza’s argument to make sense, but the argument works if thought is reducible to extension.

The issue of the causal relation between the mind and the body is not always so easily resolved. Michael Della Rocca argues that mind and body do in fact causally related to one another, but that Spinoza’s contexts of causation are opaque. Charles Daniels points out the limitations in Spinoza’s view that reduces the realm of humans to only a mental and a spatial one because he feels that the realms that humans are familiar with are much more complex. Peter Winch asserts that the body seems to be more fundamental than the mind because he explains the mind by first explaining the body, which is understood as its object.

Spinoza’s theory on the relationship between the mind and the body obviously raises many issues that need to be addressed and have been heavily debated among the academics that look at his philosophy. Although many different issues and problems come up in this theory of mind and body, the main problem seems to be with the idea that the mind and body are identical, yet not causally related. This issue seems to be one that philosophers and scholars could debate on for years without coming to any sort of resolution or clear way to explain this apparent contradiction in Spinoza’s reasoning. However, the issue is still quite interesting and many new perspectives have come out of the critical literature on Spinoza.

Annotated Bibliography

Bennett, Jonathon. “Spinoza’s Mind-Body Identity Thesis.” From The Journal of

Philosophy, Vol. 78. Oct 1981. Pp. 573-584.

Bennett argues that Spinoza’s definition of ‘attribute’ works to explicate his claim that mind and body are identical. This article examines the issues of substance monism and attribute dualism in Spinoza’s mind-body argument and points out that, according to his analysis of Spinoza, the attributes of things are equated with their essence thus making it possible for mind and body to be made up of the same substance. Bennett’s argument is clearly presented and straightforward in making its point and was very helpful in understanding the relationship of attributes to substance.

Daniels, Charles B. “Spinoza on the Mind-Body Problem: Two Questions.” From

Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy, Vol. 85. 1976. Pp. 542-558.

In this essay, Daniels examines Spinoza’s ideas on the relation between mind and body largely in relation to Descartes conception of mind and body. He addresses the problem with Spinoza’s theory that it is taken to be axiomatic that humans are familiar with exactly two “plena”, or realms, a mental and a spatial one. Daniels suggests that this limitation is problematic because he feels that there are many other plena that humans are familiar with, such as visual, tactual, auditory, etc., and that all of these plena can also be divided into categories of mental and physical. His argument is complex and hard to follow and he does not come to any really clear and concise conclusion; however, the information that he presents is a useful critique of Spinoza’s ideas.

Della Rocca, Michael. “Spinoza’s Argument for the Identity Theory.” From The

Philosophical Review, Vol. 102, No. 2. April 1993. Pp. 183-213.

This article examines the problems with Spinoza’s equation of mind and body. Della Rocca explores the issues of causation and the ways in which the mind causally interacts with the body and vice versa in order to illustrate the problems with Spinoza’s claim that the mind and body are identical but cannot causally interact with each other. Della Rocca points out that for Spinoza certain contexts of causation are referentially opaque and that this opacity is key to Spinoza’s argument. This argument is a little hard to follow, but it does present an interesting perspective on the issue.

Jarrett, Charles. “Spinoza’s Denial of Mind-Body Interaction and the Explanation

of Human Action.” From The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 29,

No. 4. 1991. Pp. 465- 485.

This essay aims to clarify Spinoza’s argument that mental and physical

individuals are identical but that they cannot be causally related. Jarrett also attempts to compare materialism with Spinoza’s identity theory because he feels that “a conceptually non-reductive materialism [ends] in a denial of the existence of the mental” (467). His main point is that Spinoza’s claim that mind and body are one in the same is contradictory to the assertion that there can be no causal relations between the mental and the physical. Jarrett reasons that either thought is distinct from extension or that thought must be reducible to extension for Spinoza’s argument to be comprehensible. This essay elucidates the problem with the conceptual distinction between mind and body quite clearly, although the connection to materialism seems a bit of a stretch.

Koistinen, Olli. “Causality, Intensionality and Identity: Mind Body Interaction in

Spinoza.” From Ratio: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy,

Vol. 9, No. 1. April 1996. Pp. 23-38

In this article, Koistinen explores the puzzle of psychophysical causation in Spinoza’s identity theory. He claims that although according to Spinoza mental and physical properties cannot be causally related to one another, because mental and physical events are seen as identical, all physical causal relations and all mental causal relations would be psychophysical causal relations. In his analysis, he also comments on Jarrett’s and Della Rocca’s arguments concerning the identity theory. He holds that Spinoza’s argument is useful because it clarifies the nature of the interaction between mind and body unlike other dualistic theories.

Lloyd, Genevieve. Part of Nature: Self Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics.

Reviewed by Michael Della Rocca in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 105,

No. 1. January 1996. Pp. 116-118.

Della Rocca analyzes Lloyd’s argument that according to Spinoza human beings are a part of nature. The argument that Lloyd gives is that the human body is not a substance but a mode of one extended substance and likewise that the mind is a mode of one thinking substance. The mind is said to represent the body that actually exists. Lloyd also claims that idea of self according to Spinoza is immersed in nature, unlike the Cartesian notion of self that is separated from the metaphysical world. The crucial part of Spinoza’s argument according to Lloyd is to be found in the idea of parallelism between thought and extension. Della Rocca touches on the main points of Lloyd’s analysis of Spinoza and brings to light many interesting issues.

Lucash, Frank S. “The Mind’s Body: The Body’s Self-Awareness.” From The

Canadian Philosophical Review, Vol. 23, 1984. Pp. 619-633.

Lucash examines Spinoza’s arguments on the nature of the mind and its relation to the body as well as the mind’s adequate/inadequate and true/false ideas. He argues that the problems that critics have with Spinoza are not actually problems because they are resolved within Spinoza’s reasoning. As for the problem that Spinoza claims that while minds and bodies are the same they cannot be causally related to one another, making them seem to be separate from each other, Lucash asserts that mind and body are identical, but that they can be intellectually considered as separate from one another. This argument is quite interesting because it addresses the contradictions within Spinoza’s argument and presents a different way of thinking about them.

Matson, Wallace I. “Spinoza’s Theory of Mind.” From The Monist: An

International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, Vol. 55.

1971. Pp. 568-578.

This article attempts to clarify Spinoza’s theory of mind and explain why Spinoza actually has no theory of mind. Matson argues that for Spinoza there is no Mind-Body Problem because consciousness has been explained functionally, not causally, in terms of the body. Matson points out several critiques of Spinoza’s theories and then uses Spinoza’s own arguments to show that these critiques are really misunderstandings of Spinoza’s ideas. He points out also that Spinoza does not equate mind and consciousness, which is interesting to note because it helps with understanding the connection between body and mind.

Odegard, Douglas. “The Body Identical with the Human Mind: A Problem in

Spinoza’s Philosophy.” From The Monist: A International Quarterly

Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, Vol. 55. 1971. Pp. 579-601.

Odegard argues that Spinoza’s theory that the human mind is identical to the body can only be true if it is a human body. He focuses on the language used by Spinoza in referring to soul, mind, and body to determine whether Spinoza’s argument can hold true. He begins by exploring the currently held views on the theory of the mind in order to open the issue up to the general modern philosophy of the mind and points out that currently Spinoza’s view on the mind is not popularly held.

Winch, Peter. “Mind, Body & Ethics in Spinoza.” From Philosophical

Investigations, Vol. 18, No. 3. July 1995. Pp. 216-234.

In this essay, Winch attempts to clarify Spinoza’s idea on the nature of mind and body by pointing out that ‘parallelism’ of mind and body has to be understood as the idea that every mental property has a physiological counterpart. He claims that Spinoza’s argument gives the impression that the body is somehow more fundamental than the mind because he tries to explain the mind, or idea, by first explaining its object, the body. Winch’s main problem with Spinoza’s argument is that he feels Spinoza spends too much time trying to show the parallel relation between thought and extension instead of the ways in which these two different concepts are interrelated with each other.