“god acts from the laws of his nature alone”: from the nihil ex nihilo

327 Pages·2006·1.17 MB·English

“GOD ACTS FROM THE LAWS OF HIS NATURE ALONE”:
FROM THE NIHIL EX NIHILO AXIOM TO CAUSATION AS EXPRESSION IN
SPINOZA’S METAPHYSICS

by
Francesca di Poppa
Degree in Philosophy Magna cum Laude, Università di Pisa, 1994
MA in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2000

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Pittsburgh

2006
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
This dissertation was presented

By
Francesca di Poppa
It was defended on
April 17, 2006
and approved by
Dr. James E. McGuire, Professor, Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science
Dr. Stephen Engstrom, Professor, Dept. of Philosophy
Dr. Dennis Looney, Professor, Dept. of French and Italian

Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Peter Machamer, Professor, Dept. of History and Philosophy
of Science
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Copyright © by Francesca di Poppa
2006
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“GOD ACTS FROM THE LAWS OF HIS NATURE ALONE”: FROM THE NIHIL EX
NIHILO AXIOM TO CAUSATION AS EXPRESSION IN SPINOZA’S
METAPHYSICS
Francesca di Poppa, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2006

Abstract: One of the most important concepts in Spinoza’s metaphysics is that of
causation. Much of the extensive scholarship on Spinoza, however, either takes causation for
granted, or ascribes to Spinoza a model of causation that, for one reason or another, fails to
account for specific instances of causation—such as the concept of cause of itself (causa sui).
This work will offer a new interpretation of Spinoza’s concept of causation. Starting from
the “nothing comes from nothing” axiom and its consequences, the containment principle and the
similarity principle (basically, the idea that what is in the effect must have been contained in the
cause, and that the cause and the effect must have something in common) I will argue that
Spinoza adopts what I call the expression-containment model of causation, a model that
describes all causal interactions at the vertical and horizontal level (including causa sui, or self-
cause). The model adopts the core notion of Neoplatonic emanationism, i.e. the idea that the
effect is a necessary outpouring of the cause; however, Spinoza famously rejects transcendence
and the possibility of created substances. God, the First Cause, causes immanently: everything
that is caused is caused in God, as a mode of God.
Starting from a discussions of the problems that Spinoza found in Cartesian philosophy,
and of the Scholastic and Jewish positions on horizontal and vertical causation, my dissertation
will follow the development of Spinoza’s model of causation from his earliest work to his more
mature Ethics. My work will also examine the relationship between Spinoza’s elaboration of
monism, the development of his model of causation, and his novel concept of essence (which for
Spinoza coincides with a thing’s causal power).

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................VII
1.0 DESCARTES’ METAPHYSICS: AN OVERVIEW................................................1
1.1 THE NATURE OF EXTENSION......................................................................6
1.2 THE NATURE OF THOUGHT AND REPRESENTATION.......................11
1.3 PARTICULARS................................................................................................14
1.4 THE PROBLEM OF SUBSTANCE IN DESCARTES:
“KEEPING THE DISTANCE”.........................................................................................19
1.5 THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE “KEEPING THE DISTANCE”
PROBLEM: SUMMING UP.............................................................................................32
2.0 SPINOZA’S CAREER AS A MONIST: DECONSTRUCTING DESCARTES’
METAPHYSICS.........................................................................................................................39
2.1 THE NATURE OF EXTENSION....................................................................44
2.2 THE NATURE OF THOUGHT AND REPRESENTATION.......................51
2.3 PARTICULARS................................................................................................57
2.4 THE PROBLEM OF CAUSATION................................................................62
2.5 A THEORY OF SUBSTANCE.........................................................................76
2.6 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................79
3.0 THE “KEEPING THE DISTANCE” PROBLEM IN THE TRADITION..........83
3.1 SUÁREZ: THE VERTICAL LEVEL, OR CREATION EX NIHILO.........85
3.2 SUÁREZ: THE HORIZONTAL LEVEL, OR FIRST VS. PRINCIPAL
CAUSES ...........................................................................................................................101
3.3 SUÁREZ: CONCLUSION..............................................................................116
3.4 THE JEWISH-SCHOLASTIC SYNTHESIS: ABRAHAM COHEN
HERRERA’S GATE OF HEAVEN.................................................................................119
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3.5 HERRERA: VERTICAL CAUSATION AND THE SEFIROT..................123
3.6 HERRERA: EMANATION AND EXPRESSION.......................................126
3.7 HERRERA: HORIZONTAL CAUSATION................................................139
3.8 HERRERA: CONCLUSION..........................................................................143
3.9 CONCLUSION................................................................................................147
4.0 METAPHYSICS IN THE MAKING. CAUSATION AND SUBSTANCE IN
SHORT TREATISE...................................................................................................................151
4.1 TREATISE ON THE EMENDATION OF THE INTELLECT: THE UNION
OF THE MIND WITH NATURE...................................................................................154
4.2 SUBSTANCE AND GOD IN SHORT TREATISE.......................................167
4.3 CAUSATION AND SUBSTANCE MONISM: THE ARGUMENT IN
SHORT TREATISE..........................................................................................................171
4.4 DETERMINISM, ESSENCE AND THE PRINCIPLE OF PLENITUDE.184
4.5 CONCLUSION: GOD’S PRODUCTIVITY.................................................191
5.0 CAUSATION IN SPINOZA’S MATURE PHILOSOPHY: ETHICS................200
5.1 SPINOZA’S METHODOLOGICAL UNIVOCITY....................................203
5.2 CONCRETE CAUSATION: A PRELIMINARY NOTE AGAINST THE
INFERENTIAL INTERPRETATION OF CAUSATION...........................................206
5.3 THE REVOLUTION OF ESSENCE: THE ATTRIBUTES AND THE
PRINCIPLE OF PLENITUDE.......................................................................................209
5.4 SUBSTANCE AND ITS CAUSE: A METAPHYSICS OF POWER.........226
5.5 “VERTICAL” CAUSATION: THE EXPRESSION OF GOD...................235
5.6 FROM CONTAINMENT TO EXPRESSION: A NEW MODEL OF
CAUSATION....................................................................................................................250
5.7 SUBSTANTIAL AND MODAL CAUSATION............................................260
5.8 CONTAINMENT, UNIVOCITY, AND THE DISSIMILARITY
PRINCIPLE......................................................................................................................271
5.9 TOWARD BODIES IN MOTION: A PHYSICS OF EXPRESSION.........282
5.10 CONCLUSION................................................................................................288
BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................298
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INTRODUCTION

Spinoza’s monism, the notion that there is only one substance, has been considered, especially
but not exclusively by his contemporaries, a puzzling feature of his philosophy. A few modern
interpreters went so far as to argue that Spinoza’s real modernity lies in the fact that he dispenses
with the ancient concept of substance (contrary to Descartes) and that the parts of Ethics that
matter most to the goals of the work (ethical and political philosophy relevant to human
happiness) easily dispense with a theory of substance and monism.
On the other hand, Jonathan Israel, in his Radical Enlightenment, writes:
For even the last, the mid-18th century phase in the formation of the Radical
Enlightenment, the probing towards the concept of evolution from inert matter
and of higher from lower forms of life, was derived, as its foremost champion
Diderot stressed, directly from the doctrine that motion is inherent in matter, a
concept generally regarded with horror and universally acknowledged in
Enlightenment Europe as quintessentially Spinozist. The claim that Nature is self-
moving and creates itself became indeed the trademark of the Spinosistes. Thus
the origins of the evolutionary thesis seemingly reinforces Einstein’s proposition
that the modern scientist who rejects divine Providence and a God that governs
the destinies of man, while accepting the ‘orderly harmony of what exists,’ the
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intelligibility of an imminent universe based on principles of mathematical
rationality, in effect believes in Spinoza’s God.1
Israel rightly remarks that the most radical element of Spinoza’s thought is dispensing
with transcendence while at the same time offering a concept of matter as active that overcomes
the limits of the inert matter of Cartesian metaphysics, thus opening the door to materialistic
evolutionism (which was absent from Spinoza’s own view).
Spinoza’s metaphysics was based on a self-causing Deus sive Natura, whose power is
manifested deterministically in each and every single fact of nature, and in each and every
representation of such fact (idea), as power of producing and power of thinking. Any
interpretation of Spinoza’s thought, including political thought, that overlooks this metaphysical
framework constitutes an unacceptable distortion not only of the letter of Spinoza’s texts, but of
the spirit of the kind of intellectual revolution that Spinoza wished to bring about, albeit caute2.
Spinoza did not endorse democracy and freedom of expression simply because of their political
appeal (particularly for a freethinker such as himself); he believed that democracy and freedom
of expression were political ideals that were deeply rooted in the metaphysics of things,
including human nature.
In rejecting transcendence, indeterminism, and related doctrines, such as personal
immortality, Spinoza also rejected a certain way of doing philosophy. For him, philosophers such
as Descartes (whom he deeply admired, and against whom he measured himself all his life) were
guilty of constructing a system that would follow the mathematical method of demonstrations

1 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 160.
2 Cautiously. Caute was Spinoza’s motto.
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after self-evident principles, but only to the extent that it would not conflict with revelation.
Spinoza considered the Scriptures a work aimed at imposing moral rules to an ignorant and
rebellious population, not a repository of theological and philosophical wisdom. If the Scriptures
contain any philosophical truth at all, such truth could not conflict with the ones achievable by
following one’s own reason. He made all this very clear, to his own detriment, in Theological-
Political Treatise.
Tied to the rejection of transcendence is a univocal understanding of causation and
substance. Spinoza accepted the containment model of causation, because it was based on the
universally accepted axiom “Nihil ex nihilo.” If the effect were not previously contained in the
cause, it would come out of nothing, which is absurd. The axiom and the containment model
were endorsed by a long line of philosophers, including Descartes; however, in their
philosophies, divine transcendence demanded that, containment principle notwithstanding, there
be incommensurability between the nature and causality of God and the nature and causality of
created substances. Because of this incommensurability, because of the utter dependence of
things and their powers on God, philosophers ended up accepting the equivocal use of the terms
“substance” and “causation.” Descartes explicitly stated the former, and the latter can easily be
derived from his works. In my discussion, I will label the conflict between God’s transcendence
and the axiom of causation the “keeping the distance” problem. God supposedly contained
everything that he created, but at the same time must be incommensurably, incomprehensibly
different from what he supposedly contained and created; God must keep his distance from the
world. The “keeping the distance” problem was articulated in different ways in different authors,
but we can identify common themes in the few authors I will discuss at some length (Descartes,
Suárez, Herrera).
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Spinoza’s dissatisfaction with the previous systems should not prevent one from seeing
how indebted he was to the authors he dismissed. It is often noticed how he dismisses almost all
of the previous philosophical traditions (from Aristotelian Scholastic metaphysics to Jewish
philosophers). Spinoza believed that he had achieved superior coherency because he did draw the
consequences of his first principles without being constrained by religious dogmas. Given an
understanding of substance that (he believed) any philosopher should agree on, it follows that
there can be only one substance. Given an understanding of causation that anyone should agree
on, unless misguided by religion, it follows that God and nature are one, that there is no freedom
except for God’s self-determination, and that all that we are is expressions of divine nature,
which is power and activity.
The first casualties of Spinoza’s method are a certain concept of a personal God and the
doctrines of creation and personal immortality. Consistently and uncompromisingly enforcing a
traditional concept of substance (based on complete, unconditional ontological independence)
and a traditional principle of causation (the containment principle, or the idea that nothing can be
in the effect unless it was contained in the cause), Spinoza dispenses early on with the very
possibility of created substances, of contingency, and of non-immanent causation. Whatever a
substance causes must stay in the substance itself: there can be only a modal distinction between
a substance and its effects.
In order to carry out his ambitious project, Spinoza needed a ‘remodeling’ of the concept
of causation. While he kept the traditional term “efficient cause” (as we will see, Suárez before
him had argued exhaustively that the efficient cause is the only one which is cause proper),
Spinoza had to introduce some radical innovations, in order to have a serviceable univocal
concept of causation. And yet, for causation as well as for substance, Spinoza believed he was
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