Synergy, Synergism, Synergetics

'Synergism' is a traditional Salvation doctrine, according to which Salvation of the individual Soul consists in a combination of personal and divine processes.  It is opposed to doctrines that focus exclusively on one or the other, e. g. that Salvation is earned through deeds, or that it is a unilaterally determined by divine dispensation.  Its origins are in Catholicism, but it can be recognized in Kant's Rationalist concept of the Highest Good.  So, while 'Synergism' can connote an a priori doctrine, 'Synergetics', popularized by Fuller in recent decades, connotes an empirical study of systems in which a multiplicity of influences combine to produce effects that are greater than the sums of their parts.  So, Synergy, per se, has received little systematic Philosophical attention, primarily because the usual locus of study has tended to be Atomist and sedentary, beginning with perceptual processes, e. g. Descartes and Locke.  Accordingly, the concept of 'working together', has typically been conceived as derivative and extrinsic, if conceived at all.

Substance and Synergy

The concept of an immanent deity eradicates the chasm between not only God and Nature, but also between Nature and the Human world.  Thus, the intelligent creating of a device by a watchmaker is not analogous to the intelligent creating of an organism by a deity, it is an extension of the latter.  Conversely, Human co-creativity, whether procreation, artistic collaboration, or the history of the species, expresses the divine Synergy of such a deity.  But, because Spinoza does not consider the possibility of Modal immanent co-creativity, even in his Political Philosophy, he does not consider that Synergy might be an attribute of Substance, or even the fundamental principle of Substance, from which Thought and Extension are analyzed out.

Teleological Argument, Intelligent Design, Immanent Creator

The most enduring of the Medieval Proofs of the Existence of God has been Aquinas' 'Teleological Argument', according to which organization in Nature is evidence of its deliberate creator.  The argument has faced some formidable opposition: Hume rejects the inference from finite creation to infinite creation that is implicit in the argument, while Kant removes Teleology from Theoretical Reason, in order to incorporate the proof into his own Practical argument.  Nevertheless, the Teleological Argument has survived, though under the rubric of 'Intelligent Design', and has been a staple in recent Theological defenses against Darwinism.  Now, though apparently not recognized as such, the name change signifies a more substantive variation--a shift from the attribution of Teleological Causality to the deity, to the attribution of Formal Causality.  But, as such, a different counter-argument is suggested--not one that disproves the existence of a deity, but one that proves the existence of a deity other than Aquinas'.  That alternative deity is Spinoza's, and, perhaps that of some Stoics--an immanent principle that self-creates via Formal Causality, the structures of which are what Aquinas and his successors perceive as Natural organization.  Furthermore, on that basis, the analogy from finite to infinite that Hume challenges is inverted--finite creativity is a Mode of infinite creativity in Spinoza's doctrine.  So, Evolutionists have at their disposal a further counter to persistent Theology, even if they do not draw upon Hume or Kant for it.

Self-Determinism and Evil

The Modern Free Will vs. Determinism debate has three main roots: 1. Aristotle's Voluntary-Involuntary distinction, which he attempts to define for modest jurisprudential purposes; 2. The concept of human freedom of choice, posited to absolve a creator of responsibility for the existence of Evil in his creation; 3. The concept of corporeality as a soulless mechanism.  Now, the common misclassification of Spinoza as a Determinist misses his repudiation of the premises of the debate, beginning with #3.  For, he does conceive Corporeality as mechanistic, but as a divine Rational mechanism.  Accordingly, his concept of human behavior, as a Mode of that divine Rational mechanism, is, more accurately, Self-Determining, to a greater or lesser degree, i. e. as more or less Adequate, or, equivalently, as more or less strong.  Furthermore, on that basis, Evil means Harmful, relative to a person.  Now, on that basis, there is a potential for defining the traditional Free Will vs. Determinism debate as derived from an Inadequate concept of Corporeality, or, equivalently, from an expression of relative weakness.  But, while Spinoza never pursues this analysis, Nietzsche does, in Genealogy of Morals, via Beyond Good and Evil, i. e. with Master Morality as Self-Determinism, Slave Morality as deficient Self-Determinism, and Evil = Harmful vs. Evil = Powerful.  Unfortunately, the subsequent hijacking of this work by Nazis has obscured its own actual descendence from Spinoza's heterodoxy.

Dionysian and Individual

In the first section of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's description of the Dionysian experience, "He is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all nature reveals itself", has more in common with Spinoza's description of the experience of Intuition, and Kant's description of the experience of Genius, than with the drunken oblivion that is connoted by the common use of 'dionysian'. Now, the instantiation of a universal power is nothing other than the process of Individuation.  Thus, the Apollonian principle, according to which an entity is isolated from all other entities, is, properly speaking, not an Individual, but a Singularity, as has been previously discussed.  Likewise, the fictitious "one" of the Gay Science #1 is a Singularity, not an Individual.  Finally, like Spinoza, Nietzsche misses the possibility that the Dionysian experience is, in fact, an Organic one, of which the celebrants are Parts, not either Individuals, in the proper sense of the term, or nonentities, as might be the case in some drunken mobs.

Singular, Individual, Part

The concept of a Singularity entails essential independence of one Singularity from another.  The concept of Individuality entails a commonality of type between Individuals, but independence otherwise.  As has been previously discussed, Spinoza's concept of a Mode is Individualistic, a deliberate critique of the concept of a Person as a Singularity, common to both some Theologies and naive experience.  A third possibility, of which Spinoza's Mode is itself an inadequate concept, is the Part, which entails an essential coordination between Parts.  Spinoza does not seem to recognize that two Modes are actually Parts when engaged in procreative activity.  The prominent example in Philosophy of a person conceived as a Part is Plato's Republic, which is a Polis that is organized on the basis of natural ability and natural need, which are equivalent in that model.  The closest modern example of a person as a Part is entailed in Smith's concept of Division of Labor, usually overshadowed by his concept of a person of a person as a profit-seeking Singularity.  But that example, in contrast with Plato's, is a contrivance, rather than natural.  However, the modern concept of a person as naturally a Part is entailed in, but pervasively unrecognized as such, any concept of Humankind as governed by some principle of History, i. e. which entails that each plays some role in the unfolding pattern.  Furthermore, the emergence of the concept of a Species as the fundamental subject of History, i. e. in Darwinism, specifies that the concept of a Whole that is the correlate of the concept of a Part, is, more precisely, that of an Organism.  Nevertheless, despite the widespread at least nominal acceptance of Darwinism, the predominant concept of a person remains the Singularity, though the persistence of that predominance may be challenged as the globalization of human society continues in the coming centuries.

Singularity and Free Will

The standard concept of Free Will is Singularist.  For, Singularity connotes absolute independence, and Free Will connotes behavior that is absolutely independent of any external influence.  Singularity is properly a characteristic of a moment, so that some entity can exercise Free Will does not entail that it is Singular at other moments.  Now, Free Will is usually considered to obtain in two main contexts.  First, ordinary behavior is often conceived as Free, especially in an Economic context such as shopping.  Second, Free Will is essential in some Theologies, in order to explain the existence of Evil--which cannot be ascribed to a Good deity, so must be ascribed to a creation that possesses a Will that is independent of the Will of its creator.  In both cases, the Singularity is momentary, since the exerciser of Free Will is otherwise dependent on some external influence for its existence.  So, Spinoza's Individualist critique of Singularism--that the appearance of a Mode as sui generis is an inadequate representation of its Individuality, i. e. that it is actually an instance of Universal Substance--has both targets.  His critique of naive experience is often better recognized by scholars than is its Theological heterodoxy.  In any case, as an instance of Universal Substance, the behavioral principle of a Mode is Self-Determination, rather than either Free Will or Determination, as they are usually conceived in the traditional debate.

Singular, Individual, Atomism

The Logical Quantity entailed in the concept of the Logical Atom is not Individual, but Singular.  While the former is the product of Individuation, i. e. of an instantiation of a Universal, the latter is sui generis.  Likewise, the Existential Quantifier of Modern Logic is Singular, not Individual.  Thus, an Individual of some type has an inherent relation with another Individual of the same type, whereas the relations between a Singular entity and all other entities are external, which is what is attributed to the Logical Atom.  Hence, Social Atomism is, properly, Singularism, not Individualism, as is the absolute independence from other members of a society that is often attributed to each.  Thus, the standard concept of Free Will, according to which some behavior is absolutely independent of any external influence, is a thesis that is both Psychological Atomist and Singularist.  Accordingly, one of Spinoza's aims is to undermine Psychological Atomism, by exposing the naivete of the presumption of Singularity in the everyday behavior of what, is, in fact, an Individual entity, though he leaves undeveloped his own concept of Individuation, as has been previously discussed.  The continuing lack of subsequent influence of Spinoza's project is regularly expressed in the continued presumption of Singularity in many dimensions of contemporary life, especially in the U. S.

We, Abstraction, I

The complementarity of male procreative organs and female procreative organs means that a concept of one or the other in isolation is inadequate.  Thus, in Spinoza's Parallelism, at least part of the I of an individual Mode is derived from a We.  But if at least part of an I is derived from a We, then perhaps all of an I is derived from a We, i. e. that all behavior of a Mode, and not merely procreative experiences, inherently has its complement.  Such a possibility is not antithetical to Spinoza's doctrine; to the contrary, the possibility exposes a fundamental inadequacy in it--the representation of what might be Diversification as mere Individuation.  Likewise, he does not consider the possibility that the epiphany that is the peak moment of the doctrine, as presented, also is inadequate--the representation of inter-Modal complementarity as a merely individual modification of Substance.  Furthermore, the inadequacy is not peculiar to Spinoza's Parallelism--even granting Descartes his Dualism, that Sum is not derived from Sumus, regardless of whether or not it is caused by a deity, is not precluded by his procedure, just never considered.  So, more generally, the adequacy of the Social Atomism that has predominated for centuries has yet to be established, i. e. that an Individual person is abstracted from some more complex entity is always taken for granted, never proven.

Immanent Alteriority and Reproduction

As has been previously discussed, Kant's concept of Genius entails that of what can be called 'immanent alteriority'--the existence of others in one's creative experience--insofar as it entails an impulse to communicate the product of creativity to others.  Thus, Immanent Alteriority can also an ingredient in Philosophical writing designed to be published, regardless of the Atomist content of the work, of which it is thus a counter-example. But, in Spinoza's doctrine, Immanent Alteriority is part of the content, though merely incipiently, insofar as Kant's concept of Genius is an instance of Spinoza's concept of Intuition, i. e. in which Spinoza leaves undeveloped the entailment of the existence of other Modes in the awareness of the existence of an immanent deity.  However, it is also incipient in a less rarified stage of his doctrine.  For, according to his Parallelism, a part of a Mind corresponds to a part of a Body.  Now, some parts of the human body plainly connotes Alteriority--the reproductive organs.  Hence, Immanent Alteriority is a constituent of the human mind, but is commonly inadequately understood as such. For example, Freudianism reduces the reproductive drive to Id or Libido, and, hence, to a merely intra-organic experience.  The reduction thus suits prevailing Social Atomism, according to which each person is inherently independent of each other, a scheme that has roots in the concept of an individual Soul that is independent of any other.  Likewise, prevailing Social Atomism easily obscures any potential scholarly recognition of Immanent Alteriority in Spinoza's concept of the Mind-Body relation.

Communication, Intuition, Immanent Alteriority

For Kant, Communication explains the inter-personal sharing of Subjective Aesthetic Judgments.  However, he misses how Communication is a factor in his concept of a divine reward for Virtue, i. e. the transmission of approval.  He also misses that artistic creation, like Philosophical creation, can be an instance of Communication, i. e. insofar as it is produced with an audience in mind, e. g. published.  Thus, his concept of such creativity exposes an inadequacy in Spinoza's concept of Intuition.  For, according to Kant, artistic creativity is inspired by Genius, the ultimate source of which is Nature.  But, in Spinoza's doctrine, Nature is divine.  Hence, an element in his Intuition, which consists in the Modal awareness of itself as divinely creative, is Communication, and, hence, the awareness of the existence of others, i. e. of addressees of Communication, an element that Spinoza thus misses.  Similarly, like Descartes before him, and probably like most publishing Philosophers since, the existence of others is entailed in the inspiration that motivates him to create.  Nevertheless, such immanent alteriority usually remains absent from the content of their creations, a structural flaw insofar as they are presented as comprehensive accounts of Existence, and antithetical to any presumed Atomist content.

Reflective Judgment and Communication

According to Kant, Reflective Judgment is the source of any imputation of Purpose to a phenomenon, i. e. a Purpose cannot be empirically discerned, but might, nonetheless, have value if so imputed, e. g. in linking the functions of different parts of a living body.  But in one case, this faculty has more than mere value; for, according to Kant's doctrine--it is necessary.  This is the case in when fortunate circumstances can be interpreted as a 'divine reward for Virtue', the possibility of which is required by Pure Practical Reason, and, thus, also required is there being a cognitive capacity for recognizing it as such.  So, Reflective Judgment is that capacity.  He also applies Reflective Judgment to explain how judgments of Aesthetic Taste can be Subjective, yet universally valid, which, while interesting, seems extrinsic to the primary systematic problem of grounding the interpretation of an event as divinely caused.  However, he misses its potential relevance to a more germane issue that emerges in the process of his development of the concept of Taste.  That issue is entailed in the concept of "communicability", that he analyzes as an element in such judgments.  For, the concept of communicability entails the concept of Communication, one dimension of which, i. e. that one is the addressee of a communication, is the imputation of Purpose to words spoken, being looked out, etc.  Now, focusing on the plain routine fact of interpersonal communication exposes Kant's concept of divine communication, that is entailed in his concept of a divine reward, as derived not from Pure Reason, but from ordinary empirical experience.  It also exposes, as Buber and Levinas tackle more than a century later, the moral questionability of ascribing to an esoteric faculty such as Reflective Judgment the mediation of interpersonal relations, e. g. a mother's awareness of a crying baby.  Furthermore, Kant leaves unexamined the entailment of a concept of Communication in the cardinal moment of his doctrine--the "you" of his Categorical Imperative.  Instead, as Buber and Levinas imply, the elimination of Purpose from Cognition, which Spinoza develops and Kant accepts, entails the treatment of a person as a 'thing', i. e. the words of whom can only be 'effects', and, hence, as Morally forbidden.  Perhaps it is because his attention to Aesthetic Reflective Judgment is only a late development in the elaboration of his architechtonic, that Kant does not recognize that he has a response to Spinoza's doctrine that is potentially more powerful than the one that he does present.  However, such recognition could also lead him to jettison the premises of his own doctrine that he shares with Spinoza, e. g. that Purpose is not be found in the Natural world.

Anthropocentrism and Superstition

At first glance, Spinoza's doctrine seems theologically orthodox insofar as it entails that everything that occurs in the world is an expression of the will of a deity.  However, the primary heterodox detail is the elimination of any Anthropocentrism, i. e. that an event is specifically addressed to humans, e. g. that a rainbow is a divine message to humans.  Spinoza classifies such Anthropocentrism as 'Inadequate' Ideas, but a less specialized term is 'superstition'.  So, because in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant concludes that it is Rational to believe that Happiness can be a divine reward, the fundamental task of the Critique of Judgment is to restore dignity to a superstitious interpretation of events.  He accomplishes that by introducing the faculty of Reflective Judgment to human intelligence, as the source of the imputation of Purpose to events.  However, he does so without acknowledging that the validation of such Anthropomorphic superstition is contrary to his Copernican Revolution that presumably follows Spinoza in rigorously developing the Epistemological implications of the new epochal Heliocentrism.

Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Others

Knowledge of a deity via a proof of its existence is knowledge mediated by a Rational procedure.  Knowledge of a deity via what is commonly called 'intuition' brings the knower into direct contact with it.  In contrast, what Spinoza understands better than most of his predecessors and successors is that the most intimate knowledge of a deity is to become as a deity.  Thus, to best know a deity the fundamental characteristic of which is its creativity, one must become a creator oneself--this is the knowledge that Spinoza calls, perhaps misleadingly, 'intuition'.  This knowledge may be impossible insofar as a deity is transcendent, but not insofar as it is immanent, as is the case in Spinoza's doctrine.  Thus, because Kant is committed to the concept of a transcendent deity, he cannot recognize in his concept of artistic Genius an example of Spinozist knowledge of a deity, even as he recognizes its cause to be a super-human power, i. e. "nature". But, what Spinoza does not entertain is the evidence in the most familiar example of human creativity, procreativity--that also revealed in such intuition is that the process can be multi-personal.  In other words, in his doctrine, Knowledge of God can also be Knowledge of the existence of others, the problem of which has stymied most Philosophers, before and after, e. g. even for Zarathustra, an other is an "afterworld".

Extension, Event, Action

Spinoza's adaptation of Descartes' concept of Extension remains unexplained until his introduction of his concept of Parallelism, in II:vii of the Ethics.  There, he more precisely characterizes the relation between the two attributes of Substance, Thought and Extension, as that between the "power of thinking" and the "power of action".  Thus, his alternative characterization of the latter, the "order and connection of things", slightly, but significantly, misrepresents it, by reifying 'action' as 'thing'.  He thereby replaces a potential Ontology of Events with the more traditional Ontology of Things.  Instead, the first notable development of an Ontology of Events is Kant's concept of Knowledge as constituted by his temporalized Categories, the products of which are diachronic propositions, or, equivalently, events.  Thus, 'S is P' is not an a-temporal ascription of P to the static entity P, but a relation between two events, one more permanent than the other.  One significant application of that analysis is to 'I am', which, thus, entails diachronicity, and, hence, as Kant argues against Descartes, in his B edition Refutation of Idealism, requires the existence of some external object.  More recently, probably Whitehead has gone furthest in developing an Ontology of Events, while his erstwhile colleague and his peer, Russell and Wittgenstein, reify it as an Ontology of Propositions, and of Facts, respectively.  But none of these have gone so far as to consider an Ontology of Actions that is implicit in Spinoza's concept of Extension, in which everything that occurs in a universe the immanent deity of which is the Seminal Logos, is a deliberate event, i. e. an action.

Deity, Immanence, Love

Kant does not explicitly address, and three centuries later it seems to remain unrecognized, Spinoza's radical departure from the premises of Medieval Theology.  The departure does not emerge in some intricate proof, but is plainly asserted at the outset of his doctrine--the thesis of an immanent deity, that has more in common with the Seminal Logos of some Stoics, than with the the Abrahamic deity of Medieval Theology and thereafter.  However, Spinoza himself, perhaps deliberately, out of prudence, contributes to the subsequent obscuration of his heterodoxy, by not explicitly developing what is entailed in the concept of an immanent deity--that its creatures are parts of it.  Accordingly, the Intuition of the deity, by a creature, consists in the creature's awareness of that immanence, i. e. that it is a part of the deity, i. e. it is not a mere location of a passing visitation by the deity.  Instead, Spinoza compounds the obscuration, again perhaps deliberately, by further characterizing Intuition as constituted by a "love" of the deity.  For, he defines 'love' as "pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause", which contradicts the concept of a deity as immanent in its lover.  So, centuries later, the concept of a Human as organically a part of a whole, whether of Substance/God/Nature, or of a Species, remains undeveloped.

Reason and Hope

Spinoza's Rational concept of an Emotion is very different from the popular one, which is Sentimentalist, according to which an Emotion is an irreducible Sense-Datum, distinguished from other Emotions as a color might be distinguished from other colors, and evaluated as such.  In contrast, he conceives an Emotion to be either simple or compound, with the two simple Emotions Pleasure and Pain.  But those two are not irreducible data; rather they are each representations of an increase or decrease in strength, and evaluated on the basis of the criterion that an increase in strength is Good, and a decrease is Bad.  One notable, and historically significant, example of Spinoza's version is Hope, which he analyzes as entailing Fear, and, hence, as constituted by an admixture of Pleasure and Pain.  Accordingly, the value of Hope is much lower in his doctrine than its common often exalted status in other doctrines.  Hence, Hope is not an Emotion that Reason promotes.  Thus, according to Spinoza's Rational Ethics, Kant's question, 'If I do as I ought, what can I hope for?' is not a question that Reason would pose.  Likewise, Kant's answer--Happiness in accordance with Virtue--is not an answer that Reason would give, nor, therefore, is such Happiness part of a Rational Highest Good.  Thus, the concepts of Religion and Deity that Kant bases on the latter are not Rational, which in conjunction with Kant's own refutations of traditional proofs of the existence of that deity, completes the severance of Reason from Medieval Theology.  Now, Kant's rejoinder to Spinoza--that such Happiness is greater than that which inherently accompanies Virtue--even if true, is a posteriori, and, hence, inadequate to what is an a priori analysis.  Its shortcoming begins with a failure to address the basis of this Spinozist challenge--that according to Rational Ethics, Hope is deficient--a problem that will likely continue to be ignored in contemporary popular culture.

Substance, Modification, Diversification

As has been previously discussed, Spinoza's concept of the modification of Substance must be one of self-modification.  Now, corresponding to the existence of multiple Modes must be multiple instances of the process of Substance Self-Modification.  Furthermore, corresponding to differences between Modes must be a principle of differentiation entailed in each instance of Self-Modification.  Indeed, modification is logically equivalent to differentiation of some given.  In other words, Modes must be the products of a principle of Diversification inhering in Substance, or, equivalently, a principle of Self-Diversification.  If so, then Spinoza repeats what is among the commonest errors in the history of Philosophy--abstracting a concept of Individuation from a concept of Diversification.  He thereby also repeats the failure of not providing of a Principle of Sufficient Reason for a Principle of Individuation, i. e. an explanation of why a substance or a deity would create distinct individual entities beyond itself, a significant failure in an erstwhile Rational system.  In contrast, a justification for Diversification has more recently been offered--according to Darwin, Variation has potential Evolutionary value, i. e. qua Mutation.  So, Spinoza's concept of Modification has potentially far-reaching implications that remain unexplored in what has been a general lack of analysis of it.

Substance, Modification, Will to Power, Evolution

What Spinoza means by 'modification' is not completely clear, with 'individuation' one possibility.  But because Substance is the only dynamic principle in his doctrine, the modification of Substance can only be the self-modification of Substance.  On that basis, Self-Modification can be conceived as anticipating two 19th-century principles--Self-Overcoming, i. e. Will to Power, or Evolution.  Accordingly, the conatus of any Mode of Substance must likewise be Self-Overcoming, Will to Power, or Evolution, rather than mere persistence in its being, with Intuition a salient moment of development.  But this far-reaching potential of Spinoza's doctrine, easier to discern in hindsight, gets obscured by his reliance on more contemporary terminology, e. g. 'Thought', 'Extension', and, especially 'God', which is understandably prudent in the context of both Judaic and Christian hostility.

Ethics, Well-Being, Knowledge

At heart, Spinoza's Ethical doctrine is an update of Aristotle's.  The highest good of the doctrine is Well-Being, understood as Health, as much as as Happiness.  Knowledge is an ingredient in the doctrine in two respects.  First, it distinguishes what is truly conducive to Well-Being from what is mistakenly taken to be.  One source of error is Sense-Experience, which is inadequate as an indication of what is truly healthful, e. g. sensory stimulation.  Another is superstition, a main variety of which is Religion, the neutralizing of which is the primary function of the Pantheistic elements of the doctrine.  The application of Bio-Chemistry to Medicine is an example of how Knowledge can conduce to Well-Being.  Now, the source of such Knowledge is Reason.  But, there is a second respect in which Knowledge conduces to Well-Being in Spinoza's doctrine, as well as in Aristotle's, regardless of the scientific advances available to the former.  By applying Knowledge to one's behavior, one is also self-determining, the awareness involved in which is Intuition in Spinoza's doctrine.  So, since self-determining is self-creating, Intuition is constituted by the awareness that one is a Mode of immanent creative Substance, aka 'God', so-called primarily to neutralize the more common use of the term in the promotion of superstition.  So, the more usual classifications of the Ethics as Epistemology, Metaphysics, and/or Theology, tend to distract what the title of the work plainly expresses to be its primary topic.

Rational Psychology, Sentimentalism, Heliocentrism

The standard contemporary focus on Spinoza's Epistemology distracts from what is the perhaps most distinctive element of his Rationalism--the concepts of Pleasure and Pain as indications of an increase or decrease in strength.  This thesis is opposed to a fundamental principle of Empiricism, or, more precisely, of Sentimentalism--the irreducibility of Sense-Data.  In other words, perhaps his Rationalism is most important as not Epistemology or Metaphysics, but as the topic that constitutes much of the Ethics--Psychology.  Furthermore, it is in these passages that his thesis that a Mode instantiates Substance can be perhaps most clearly discerned--the concept of Modal behavior as an instantiating laws of Physics.  Now, Sentimentalism, according to which the fundamental aims of behavior are the seeking of Pleasure and the avoidance of Pain, is thus a variety of Egocentric Psychology.  But Egocentricism underlies Anthropocentrism, which underlies Geocentrism.  Thus, the challenge to Sentimentalism that Spinoza presents in the Ethics is part of his drawing out the Moral implications of the supplanting of Geocentrism by Heliocentrism, i. e. in which Human behavior can no longer be conceived as at the center of the cosmos, e. g. that the World is the arena of the Fall and Redemption of the Human Soul.  Kant's attempt to rescue that centrality in the Critique of Judgment at least recognizes this implication of Spinoza's doctrine, even if his merely a posteriori rejoinder does not suffice.

Anthropomorphism, Anthropocentrism, Mind-Body

The repudiation of Geocentrism by Heliocentrism entails the repudiation of Anthropocentrism, and, hence, threatens a Theology according to which the World is the stage for a Human drama.  Thus, one of the tasks of most Modern Philosophy, still under the influence of Medieval Theology in some regard, is to recover Anthropocentrism in some respect, the one notable exception being Spinoza's doctrine.  Now, a dimension of Anthropocentrism is Anthropomorphism, according to which the structure of the perceived World is derived from that of Human perception, a dimension that is not fully recognized as such until Kant.  But, Spinoza implicitly recognizes it, when he re-conceives Descartes' Anthropomorphic concept of the Mind-Body relation, aptly characterized by Ryle as 'ghost in the machine', as derived from the Thought-Extension relation of Attributes of Substance, perhaps as that of Form-Matter.  So, his allowing the possibility of a Modal Mind surviving the death of its corresponding Body undermines the premise of a Thought-Extension correspondence.  Instead, it does derive easily from Descartes' plainly Anthropocentric methodology, thereby suggesting a lapse from an Ethical doctrine that otherwise seems to aim at an adjustment to the new Heliocentrism.

Parallelism and Soul Salvation

'A and B are parallel' means both 1. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the parts of A and the parts of B, and 2. A and B do not interact.  Thus, Spinoza's doctrine is often characterized as Parallelism, because in it, he posits that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the parts of Thought and the parts of Extension, and that there is no interaction between Thought and Extension.  However, he is more consistent with the second than with the first, because in part V of the Ethics, he attempts, with arguable success, to explain how a Mind can survive the death of the Body to which it corresponds.  But, without that instance of #1, his Parallelism threatens to lapse into a variety of Ontological, and, hence, Theological, Dualism from which his Pantheism presumably diverges.  Furthermore, as has been previously discussed, he conceives a Mode as having a relation to God that is independent of the existence of other Modes.  Thus, despite the apparent radical heterodoxy of his Immanent Pantheism, in violation of one of its premises, he accepts the possibility of the fundamental thesis of a Theological doctrine which his seems otherwise to repudiate--the Salvation of an Individual Soul from a divinely cursed Species.

Free Will, Determinism, Intuition

Spinoza's illustration of the belief that there is 'free will' as an image of a falling stone believing it is flying, seems inconsistent with his thesis that bodies have the capacity to move themselves, thereby suggesting a distinction between Free Will and Self-Determination.  Regardless, a different image is suggested by Intuition, i. e. the realization that one is a Mode of Substance, which is the peak experience of his doctrine.  That image is of a finger realizing that it is an extension of a hand, not a discrete entity, with relative, but not absolute, freedom of movement.  The image also illustrates a shortcoming of his doctrine.  For, the realization of a finger that it is part of a hand includes the realization that other fingers are also part of the same hand, and likewise, that movements of all have a ground that can coordinate them to varying degrees.  But, Spinoza does not include in Intuition the realization that others are also Modes of Substance, and inherently related as such.  On the basis of that realization, his concept of Nature as a concatenation of Atoms gets replaced by that of Nature as an Organism.  Similarly, the foundation of his Political Philosophy would be commonality of origin, rather than Individual Right.  In any case, at minimum, the image illustrates that exhaustive rigidity of the alternatives of absolute Free Will and absolute Determinism falsifies the range of Volition that is revealed in Intuition.

Intuition and Procreation

For Spinoza, in general, Rational Knowledge is of Universal propositions, and Intuitive Knowledge is of Individual entities qua Individual entities. The paradigmatic example of the former is Mathematical propositions, while the significant example of the latter is one's awareness of oneself as a Mode of Substance.  Now, also for Spinoza, Will and Knowledge are identical.  Hence, Rational Knowledge must be Techne, i. e. an exercise of Will determined by a Universal proposition.  Likewise, Intuitive Knowledge can only be one's awareness of oneself as a creator in the act of creating.  Thus, Intuition can occur in what Kant conceives as an act of Genius, which he then subordinates to Reason.  More commonly, it occurs in the creation of a new Mode, i. e. in the act of Procreation.  But, Human Procreation is a collaborative process.  Hence, Spinoza's Intuition can entail the existence of others.

Rationalism and Deity

In addition to Epistemological Rationalism and Methodological Rationalism, previously discussed, there is Ontological Rationalism, according to which reality is Rational.  That there is more than one variety of Ontological Rationalism is signified by a distinction between Spinoza's version and Leibniz's--between the concept of the identity of Logical Necessity and Causal Necessity, and the concept of a pre-established Harmony.  That distinction can be signified as the difference between Atomist Ontological Rationalism, and Holistic Ontological Rationalism.  Now, there has been some confusion involving Epistemological Rationalism and Ontological Rationalism, as exemplified by a vacillation in the targets of Hume's Skepticism--between the absence of an Empirical ground for the attribution of Necessity to a given sequence of events, e. g. linking the striking of a billiard ball with its subsequent movement, and the taking for granted that a pattern of past sequences is fixed, e. g. that daytime will follow night.  Regardless, Spinoza is plainly an Ontological Rationalist, and a Methodological Rationalist, though, because of the superiority of Intuition to Reason in his doctrine, not clearly an Epistemological Rationalist.  Now, his concept of immanent Pantheism is antithetical to the standard Theological representations of the Abrahamic deity, though he attempts to soften the contrast, perhaps more out of prudence in a hostile atmosphere than as rigorously developed.  But there is one concept of a deity that seems to fit Spinoza's concept of dynamic Substance that is the fundamental principle of his doctrine--the 'Seminal Logos' of some Ancient Stoics, which functions as the immanent generative process in a Rational reality.  However, perhaps out of prudence, Spinoza never explicitly recognizes it as such.  In any case, because only such a deity can be the source of a completely Rational universe, the recognition of any other deity falsifies the classification of a system as Ontological Rationalism.

Rationalism and Method

Unlike either Descartes or Locke, Spinoza sharply distinguishes Method from Epistemology.  On the one hand, his privileging of Intuition over Reason signifies that he is not an Epistemological Rationalist.  But, on the other, he is an exemplary Rationalist in his deductive Method of developing his doctrine.  Notable in that regard is that the fundamental entity in his doctrine is initially neither 'God' nor 'Nature', but 'Substance', one of Aristotle's Categories.  Indeed, the former two are extrinsic to the doctrine, as is, therefore, the classification of it as 'Pantheistic'.  But, this Methodological Rationalism does not preclude Intuition; rather, immediate cognition is implicitly required for the positing of an Axiom, and of Substance as such.  Thus, what appears in the exposition as a deduced 'Knowledge of God', must signify a reconstruction of the moment that grounds the entire doctrine--a dynamic Intuition of Substance.  Thus, the classification of the doctrine as either Theological or Physicist, i. e. on the basis of characterizing Substance as 'God' and/or 'Nature', is, in Rational terms, accidental.

Transcendence, Immanence, Atomism, Organicism

The concept of a dynamic immanent God/Nature does not mean that divine creativity is the inner dimension of merely the world of human experience.  It further entails that divine creativity is also the inner principle of human behavior.  Spinoza's concept of Intuition consists in one's realization of that principle, not in an inert beholding of a deity, as is entailed in the usual concept of such Intuition as merely contemplative.  Thus, he anticipates an implication of Evolution other than the ones previously discussed--that an individual human functions not as an independent Atom, but as Part of a Whole--in this case of the Species, in particular, rather than of Nature, in general.  So, the standard classification of Spinoza as a Rationalist completely misses how the concept of immanent divinity entails the possibility of a replacement of an Atomist concept of human behavior with an Organicist concept of human behavior.

Mind, Fitness, Evolution

As has been previously discussed, Spinoza's immanent Pantheism has more in common with 19th-century Vitalism than with the Rationalisms of his own era with which he is usually associated.  He also offers systematic support for some other significant later developments.  On the basis of his Mind-Body Parallelism, he attributes the presumed Mental superiority of Humans to a corresponding Physical superiority--being "more fitted than others for doing many actions", in the note to Part II, Prop. XIII, of the Ethics.  So, a concept of Mind as essentially Practical or Technical anticipates several later doctrines, while the term 'fitted' plainly signifies a potential application in Darwinism.  In turn, the discovery in the latter of the pivotal Evolutionary function of the Human thumb specifies the Physiological basis of Human Mental superiority, which also grounds the Marxist thesis that the tool-wielding capacity facilitated by that thumb is the distinctively Human characteristic.  Now, unlike Darwinism, Spinoza seems to adhere to the concept of a Species as fixed, and, hence, offers no concept of an Evolutionary dynamic.  However, on one interpretation, such a principle can be derived from the elements of his system.  For insofar as his God/Nature is dynamic, so, too, must be its attribute of Extension, which is thus more accurately characterized as Extending.  Furthermore, to Extend can mean to increase in Complexity, or, in other words, to Evolve.  Accordingly, a Mode of Extension, i. e. an individual Body, is not an inert compound of smaller inert parts, but a center of multiple Actions.  So, the rudiments of Evolutionism can be found in Spinoza's doctrine, though without being recognized as such two centuries earlier.

Deity, Immanent, Transcendent

In a system in which a deity is conceived as monotheistic and transcendent, creator, creating, and creature are distinct.  In contrast, those distinctions collapse if a deity is conceived as pantheistic and immanent.  Instead, they are often replaced by a distinction that can most generally be characterized as inner-outer.  For example, in Spinoza's system, the contrast is of 'Nature Naturing' vs. 'Nature Natured'; in Schopenhauer's, Will vs. Representation; in Nietzsche's, Dionysian vs. Apollonian; and in Bergson's, Elan Vital vs. Matter.  Now, in the latter three, the second of each pair is conceived as ontologically inferior in some respect: illusory, by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, degenerate, by Bergson.  But, for Spinoza, they are each divine aspects, so Nature Natured, as the object of Reason, can constitute adequate Knowledge.  Still, Spinoza shares with the others a significant shortcoming--no explanation of how a unitary force becomes multiple, whether real or sub-real.  This is not a shortcoming exclusive to this theological variation; lacking in all the traditional varieties is an explanation for why a presumably perfect deity creates beyond itself in the first place.  So, that question remains unresolved in the efforts to distance Theology from the Medieval Dualism that continues to influence Philosophy.

Rationalism and Vitalism

The standard classification of Spinoza as a Rationalist, in a continuum with Descartes and Leibniz, is accurate insofar as he conceives Thought to be superior to Sense, and because there is in their works an explicit overlap of common topics.  However, the classification is misleading, for three main reasons: 1. His concept of Reason, unlike those of the other two, is fundamentally Practical; 2. He recognizes a cognitive faculty superior to Reason--Intuition; and 3. The fundamental principle of his doctrine is more accurately classified as Vitalist, aligning him with Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Bergson, of whom he can be recognized as a forerunner.  That #3 is easily overlooked is understandable, given that Spinoza only briefly alludes to it explicitly in the Ethics, in a mere note that he adds to Proposition 29 of Book 1, of Part 1.  But that principle, 'Naturing Nature', which he contrasts with 'Natured Nature', is systematically prior to the traditional Dualisms that he explicitly treats--God-Nature, Mind-Body, and Thought-Extension.  Instead, that pair is the forerunner of Schopenhauer's Will-Representation, Nietzsche's Dionysian-Apollonian, and Bergson's Elan Vital-Matter contrasts, a kinship that Nietzsche likely recognizes.  But that kinship does not hang on an obscure passage--it is more plainly evident in the concept of an immanent deity that they share, and which Spinoza's presumed fellow Rationalists do not.