Saturday, January 25, 2020

Inner, Outer, Holism

The revelation of inner divine Causality does not occur until Book 5 of the Ethics. So, it seems likely that the analysis of the external Causality of Bodies in Book 2 is deliberately incomplete.  Still, left undeveloped is the relation between such inner Causality, which occurs in Modes, and the concept of Nature as an individual Body, which Spinoza briefly considers in Book 2. As is, the relation is susceptible to a Noumenon vs. Phenomenon interpretation, according to which Inner and Outer are not inconsistent, but are otherwise not systematized.  A perhaps more coherent alternative is to attribute a Holist principle to Nature Naturing, i. e. by which Modes are produced not as the products of discrete, independent Individuations, but of Holistic pre-organization.  Such Holism can be a principle of the Thought that Spinoza attributes to Nature.  One potentially significant implication of this adjustment of his concept of production of Modes is that the endeavor of each to persist in its being is already systematically related to that of every other, which has profound consequences for his Ethics, and for his Political Philosophy, i. e. a social dimension is entailed in each individual endeavor. So, whether or not he would accept such a resolution of the relation of the Inner and Outer in his doctrine is unclear.

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