Will and Causal Chain

Spinoza's denial of 'free will' is based on his thesis that each idea in a Mode, adequate as well as inadequate, is part of some causal chain or other. However, like most traditional concepts of 'causal chain', his entails an unnoticed profound lacuna--the gap between an idea qua, first, effect of a preceding cause, and, then, qua cause of a subsequent effect. In other words, Spinoza accepts the traditional suppression of the distinction between two moments ascribed to one and the same element. In contrast, the distinction between the terminal moment of one episode, i. e. an effect, and the initiation of another, i. e. a cause, is here one of fundamental principle, i. e. that between the Formal and the Material Principles, respectively, of the system. In the context of personal experience, the Material Principle is Will, an origination of a novel episode that is irreducible to any of its conditioning antecedents. So, whatever the merits of Spinoza's arguments against 'free will' may be, they seem to be oblivious to this volitional dimension of behavior.