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Spinoza Stuff Middle of God: Spinoza has very much stalked these Essays on Bleak House. Perhaps here in the conclusion it is time to explain why. Or at least to formally account for what I have been doing with the Spinoza across these essays. Perhaps the best place to start such an accounting, a set of phrazes tht have haunted these essays – namely middle of/for/in/with – another. My claim is that this slightly quixotic (well to be honest extremely quixotic) use of the word Middle) is traceable back to Spinoza. I do not mean that Spinoza ever uses the word – to my knowledge he does not – but rather that it captures in modern language something of the essence of Spinoza. The staring point I guess could be his definition of God. God he famously defines as ‘ a being (which0 is) absolutely infinite, that is a substance consisting of infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses eternal and infinite essence’. For me then the point about this definition is what is being avoided, namely any sort of unity or continutity. God is not, as God, unified in the attribute – whose role it is to express his essence – that is his very irrepressible essence (which can never be confined or number –or restricted in any way 1/12). Likewise God is not unified in himself – a ‘he’ merely is an absolute infinity of expression- a sense that one ism pitched in the middle of expression itself. Now in itself this refusal of unity to the concept of the Godhead is not unique to Spinoza. In a sense Plotinus makes the same kind of move when he locates the God he speaks of outside any formal unity – as a One so perfect it is beyond all existing. And yet, of course to make this move Plotinus uses the resources of the transcendental, which Spinoza specifically rules out when considering his Godhead (1/18). So what is this God – what is never one,( ep 62?0, and therefore unique rather than singular (1/14)? My answer is that one always needs to let the paradox of Spiniza’s God stand. What Spinoza is saying is that we are wrong to think of the real in terms of a continuum of division (however they are understood), rather what is real is simple being within the middle of something. God/substance is therefore the posting of reality based not on any single thread (be it duration, or matter, or even difference), but rather a simple self positing middle. Such a middle is then formally ‘the cause of itself’. That is, it is the cause of its own sense of being within the middle- its own self posted being caught up with others. Morover Spiniza is very carefully as he defines this sense of absolute middle. In the first ten propostions he aims to show firstly that such a being cannot be causes or limited by others in any way or for. If I express a middle therefore I must essentially always be caught up in being that middle – in fashioning it – and I cannot step beyond it – or be created by another without losing something of my status as the middle maker (1/7). Likewise every expression of a middle is infinite (1/8), in that as it is caught up in giving itself –in arranging itself across the divisions it makes – it cannot of itself be divided up- or made to conform to the rigours of some external force. What is more there is a clear priority between the sense substance which constitutes itself in the middle, and the single attributes in which this constitution is expressed. He argues therefore it is not the unity of a single attribute which defines substance (and could therefore include in it one that one substance), but the substance that defines the attribute (a sense of being singular –1.5 and 1/8s). Moreover Spinoza suggests once one accepts that God has nothing to do with being either continuity or singularity, but is rather a being pitches within an absolute middle (with others), I makes no sense to restrict God to a single expression, that is a single attribute (1/9); That is, so long that is as each attribute is understood in themselves – that is as they are always caught in expressing God’s Middle (1/10). From which it follows that God the absolute sense of being in the middle which comprises God, cannot be located with any one attribute or even a set of attributes, but rather comprise of an absolute sense of being in a middle –a sense within includes within it an infinity of differing expressions (1/10s). Spinoza’s move them is to challenge the way one understands what is real in the universe. Maybe he says the universe is not made of either things or again of continuums- but rather the very middle which both these elements apparently express. What would the world look like, Spinoza asks if substance was such a middle? How could I think that world through the eyes of that middle alone? Could I understand indeed? And what must be also thought to allow such a middle free existence? Spinoza answer to this last question is highly complex – and takes me way beyond this essay. But essentially it might be reducible to two points. Firstly, Spinoza is clear one cannot think a middle without, at some level hypothesizing the existing of a continuum in which that middle it expressed. Secondly he is equally clear if reality is a middle, then that is going to change the way we have to understand the intellect, and why it is that we grasp things, and not the middle as such. I will very briefly tackle each in turn, before bring the argument back on focus of Bleak House. It is less a paradox and more a truism that every middle implies a continuity, and if it did not, at some level operate within one it could both be in the middle of itself (1/12-13). And yet it is also (by 1/5) axiomatic in Spinoza that this continuity needs to be subservient to the middle, and not visaversa. If the unity came first then a things could be thought of as creating its own sense of being in the middle. This is of course why Spinoza is so very careful to say that an attribute is how the intellect perceives the essence of substance (1 def 4). The perception here – which Spinoza is passive, is not ‘intellectualist’. It is not the mind that creates the attribute or the essence which underpins it. It is rather the case that this perception denotes something ‘limited’ in the attribute. The Attribute does not grasp god in his full glory –as a middle, but rather locates that middle within a continuum, across which it is arranged. God might therefore be a simple absolute middle, and yet the attributes will express/ fix that middle within a continuity. But then – the question immediately needs to be asked, where does this continuity come from? How does it relate to the middle itself? Spinoza answer here is very original. It is not a property of the intellect, an its perception, but rather a property that arises from hat it means to be expressing a middle at all. Such a middle must necessarily exist (1/7), and therefore ones expression of it needs to include that existence as a part of it (1/19). An attribute therefore must, as part of its very expression of substance’ essence give that substance as necessarily existing. An attribute will therefore bind up all its expression of Substance’s middle within a single existence - that is a single species on continuity. And yet (1/20) what this existence is – and how it has a reality is not separate from the sense that God is in the middle of himself. God is not bound up in a single expression being that single expression somehow adds something of its own to Go – but rather because it is I the very nature of a middle, and as it is expressed in being in a middle to be caught up in itself – a single way of being middle- a single manner of existing. The Attribute therefore gives in one glance – in one expression God the sense that God is always in the middle, and also because be is always in this middle must be existing – and gathered in one expression as one way of giving that middle. When Spinoza says that it is the attribute that proofs ‘God’s existence and essence are one and the same’. This is a far from weak principle. It might pertain to the essence of God to exit (1/7), but only the attribute ensures that this existence is given in the same expressed in the same breath that his essence is expressed –and expressed therefore in one being. Attributes perception/expression add therefore a unity to God – which a mere absolute principle of being in the middle (which is restlessly creative and eruptive) would have lacked. I would claim therefore that attributes locate substance in the middle in another. This ‘In’ is both a weak principle (substance is In attributes), but also a far stronger one. The Substance is in attributes but as it is in them itself existence and essence are being given in a single throw. From which it follows what it is to exist can have nothing to do with being anything fixed or static (or even relate to occupying a slice of a continuum), but rather it is to be what is constituting (and constructing) that which changes. Any one unity (be it a body or a continuity) will therefore is constantly interrupted and pulled elsewhere – even as it is in existence. One cannot therefore argue therefore from the properties of a continuum (namely that it can be divided up into other continuums) that substance itself is divisible- as substance is equally present in orchestrating the difference between these continuities, as it is in setting up any one continual (1/15s). Likewise one cannot argue that because water can be created or destroyed that corporeal substance can be similarly created or destroyed. The part that water shared in substance was not as water itself, but rather as a means across which a series of difference can be constituted (ibid). It is no wonder therefore that Spiniza argues that God’s power is identical to his essence (1/34). God does not simply ‘exist’ (as a passive one) but rather as a way all things are in the middle of others – and caught up in constituting a change for others, and being changed. This in turn explains why for Spinoza the basic constituent parts of reality are relations of motion and rest. These relations (as simple bodies) have two states. They can (as the ‘essential are) always in others, and always erupting across others, and moving them elsewhere than it seemed they were going. Likewsie any individual; change only has its current existence as a certain body (a certain movement) as it is caught up by all the rest – made to exist by them, and their actions. Simple bodies (the direct expression of the attribute) are therefore doubly in another in both their ‘essence’ (which is to be in another as a constituting change) and there existence (which is given in all the others that are). To be contained within an attribute is to be caught in being in the middle in another, that is it is to be a form of constituting changes across others – and thereby pulling them in direction that were never there own. It is then no wonder that Spinoza hooks up attributes( 2/45) to God’s power. God’s power is his essence. It is therefore his ability to always be erupting from things as they are, and pulling (even as he exists) elsewhere. The Attribute expresses all existence (therefore unity) as the sense one constitutes a change (in another) – and therefore directly expresses what this power actively is as well as why it must be. However a caveat needs to be put in here this does not mean that God’s power is identical to either the attribute or his essence. Spinoza says neither. The closest he comes to saying anything of the sort is probably 3/6. Here he argues that an individuals essence cannot express the attribute in some ‘certain and determined way’, without also that attribute necessarily expressing the ‘power by which God is and acts. To Express an attribute is therefore to be caught in God’s power- and its expression in being (1/25) – but that does not mean that one can simply equate God to Power (or the essence as a part of that power). God is pure essence of being within the middle – which as it is expressed in existence is necessarily powerful; while the individual is giving, as it actually exists that power – that sense of creation. But these facts preclude the relation between God – the absolute middle, and an individual essence, the fragment of that absolute from existing beyond this expression in power. A fact which stands even though the individual essence will only know God (initially) through its sharing in his power (2/45s). It is through this sharing in the attribute – and the knowledge of this sharing as a power, that one reaches to what is real beyond that power, namely the absolute middle of God, which expresses itself across it. The demonstration of 2/45 therefore runs from the knowledge one forms due one has a presence in the attribute to the absolute middle for God’s essence as defined in 1d6. Here then is first great principle of Being in the middle. As one is comprehended by the attribute one is also in the middle in another. It is of course paradigmatic for this middle that everything that occurs within it shares in its manner (its unity) of existence,. Every attribute is therefore self contained (2/6), and locates within itself both the existence and the essence of the mode (1/25). In the case of humans therefore – one essence takes up ones own body (from which it is distinct) and exists in it – as its middle (its essence).. The thing and its essence must therefore be posited together in the attribute, without of course one confusing one with other (2/10s). The role of this essence is not to simply accept the body as it is, but rather to be perpetually challenging, and changing it (3/9s). Although here of course there is a natural limit in that each challenge/ change must allow the essence (the middle) both to remain in the body itself (3/5, and 3/7); And also enriches its own sense of being in the middle of that other (3/12-13). On exist is therefore to act – that is to be in the middle of changing another – and ones existence only lasts as that ‘in’ remains possible. The Idea of a thing: However Of need not stop there Spinoza – there is clearly very different sense an absolute middle can be thought. If one goes back to perception itself (which set up the unity of the attribute) one could set up a middle for these very perceptions themselves. To perceive is not to be in the middle in another, but rather to be that which is always in the middle of another. Such a middle exists in two distinct senses. Firstly any perception (of an object) is always in the middle of differing objects – each of which will grasp that singular perception according to the rhythms of their own bodies (2/16c2). Secondly within any one body what is expressed in a single perception is by no means fixed (3/51). Or the contrary the exact impression that one creates will vary as an individuals bodies is changed (including as it is change by the very perception itself) . Moreover this change can certainly be conterminus with, and indiscernible from the expression of the perception itself (3/15-16) Perceptions therefore are constantyly reaching out to other perception (3/27), or embody themselves across others, and as temporal order (and through hope or fear –3/18). Moreover this sense that perception in the middle of another is nothing accidental. It a native feature of God – that he is not only in the middle of existing, but also thinking (2/1s). Or to put it another way, one easily imagine (and Liebniz starts with just this point) an absolute middle (a universe) which was not real it itself, but merely composed of a myriad of shifting perception across diverse ‘others’, and whose power therefore existed composed of the power to think an infinite number of thinks in an infinite number of ways (2/1 s). What is more, of course Spinoza’s move to God –as absolute middle, changed the criteria on which things exist. To be able to exist (to have ones essence posited) is be able to be the middle for some kind of change/challenge. From which it of course follows, that as the idea of God (that is God’s perception of essence/his being an absolute middle) is indeed given in being a necessary (and absolute) middle, then the idea must exist (2/3). It is worth noting in passing that the idea of God is unifed at a very different point to the attribute the attribute was unified in that it expressed God’s middle as his sense of existing (and so pitch ever existence into a being in the middle). In Contrast God’s idea is unitied through God’s absolute essence alone: And it is because God is unique that all parts of the idea are caught up in one another – and realteble to one another (2/4). Being a perception in the middle of something else clearly has a very different rhythm, that merely being in the attribute. A mode in an attribute as it creates in always creating within something else – one is essentially therefore an affect. If however one then wants to think about the nature of the existence of any one affect – the rules suddenly shift. Its existence is immediately pulled out of itself, and into everything else, of which it merely becomes an effect ( 3/13s l2-l3). For any individual finite mode therefore, what it is that makes exist is always a matter for something else, and is therefore essentially an ‘abstract (2/45s). What matters in the individual mode itself (what is in God) is not the individual formal existence of a thing, but rather what that thing as it accts does, what it transforms and makes. In contras Objective ideas must proceed from the actual existence of things, as God does not have an idea of individual modes existing prior to their presence in a certain specific attribute (2/5-6s and 2/8c). The power of thought therefore pitches itself at a point the attribute (the power of existing) is least formed and most ‘abstract). Under the power of thought the abstract property of actual existence is taken up within an absolute middle of thinking, which sees that perception always in the middle of others. It therefore exists in any one mind as a way of being caught up in another’s change – while what exactly that change is, and what it does will itself alter both in differing minds and within a single mind. The merest existence of a thing , provokes God’s intellect ( (2/5 reading 2/3) to grasp at its inclusion in this essence in an infinite ways and across infinite modes (2/3). Existence is the attribute (having a force for existence) revolves around action and creation. It have such an existence is always in be in the middle in another, another whose nature one is changing in some way. One is therefore essential challenging what is existing, and endlessly forcing it to become another to itself. Each Mode therefore directly share (as it exists) in God’s very power to act – that is his power to recreate the being, and be perpetual in the middle of giving it (2/45, but also of course 1/18), with existence necessary then following this giving (as God’s unity it to be in the middle in existing). Ideas in contrast that up the unities of existing (things as they actually exist) and erect a productive middle in that apparently unproblematic existence – which is then made to resonate across myriad modes in God’s intellect, as it resonates across the middle of others. The Power of Phenomology: One needs at this point to understand very carefully where objective idea fit in within the wider Spinoza framework. This is commonly simply understood through the smoky mirror of Parallelism (which is of course Leibniz Term). Deleuze perceptively point out that one need to think phenomological parallelism, as quite a separate entity from ontological. That is one needs to distinguish very carefully the fact that all attributes are in accord (as they all involve the expression of substance) from idea of God, that holds is a unique objective idea, a record of all that occurs within the differing attributes. But then Deleuze pulls his account of the objective powers of thought too far in the direction of formal reality. He therefore argues that his distinction of powers allows one to partially understand the famous paradox of parallelism. This paradox comes down to the fact, as Tschaurinus points out the Spinoza (ep) that thought appears to be extended beyond all other attributes (as it alone is capable of grasping the others). Deleuze then argues this is true, and thought is specially privileged, but only objectively – not formally. The modes of thought can then objectively grasp any other attribute (formally) and yet remain – in themselves formally a mode (that is bound up in the causes of the mode). This argument certainly takes one forward. And yet is curiously unsatisfactory. As ones reads it, one is left wondering exactly what objective thought is, and why it can be in absolutely infinite, and yet contained within a single attribute (that of thought). The aim of the above discussion was to answer the former problem. Objective thought is the perception of a thing – a perception which always occurs in the middle of another. The aim of this section is then to answer the second problem of how objective ideas exist within formal attributes. My aim being to account for the divine synthesis of powers (thinking and acting) that Spiniza clearly think he has produced in 2/7c. It also needs to be stated throughout this enquiry that my starting point is very much what Spiniza did not say, and not what he did. The fact is that When Spinoza faced with Tschanaurius question he does engage with it. Here one could argue this silence testified either of two options. Eitheer the problem could be a real one and Spinoza knows it, or even more bizarrely is to daft to know it. His silence is therefore the silence of failure. Alternatively he might violently object to Tschanaurius reading, and yet think it not worth his while (and the risk of Friendship) to query it. He could therefore be indulging in the silence of tact. It is this latter interpretation, that I would advocate. How then does objective truth already imply formal? Spinoza – the post Cartesian as a very answer. God might be able to concoct within his being an idea of himself which is pitched within an absolute middle of perception – and yet that idea itself implies it’s a being beyond it – namely a being of thought ( 2/1 and 5). The idea of things therefore necessarily implies a middle in which these ideas can exist. From which it in turn follows that as God cannot have an intellect before he thinks, be cannot separate out that intellect from the attribute of thought itself. The Intellect will therefore only come into existence as it is produced through the action of thought, and as thought expresses God by being in the middle in itself. The Intellect is therefore part of Natures nature, and not naturing nature (1/31). An Immediate corrolary arises from this last point, that it is impossible for Spinoza’s God to be a deceiver. What is true about such a God and the creation it gives, is its ability to be always in creatively in the middle in itself. There is no criteria therefore beyond the being in the ‘middle in’ – upon which truth is based. Any idea – insofar as it makes any mode in the middle of itself is therefore true . Spinoza will therefore insist that there is nothing integrally false in thinking about the reality of a winged horse (2/49)l the Winged horse as it is in the middle of the mind is true. What is not true however is that this reality pertains to anything beyond the mind (3/1). The intellect’s starting point is therefore always the truth is uncover (the act existences) within the formal reality of thought it finds its within . And the truths it uncover are then true if (and only if) they relate to the sense in which the attribute is always caught in the middle in itself. However one needs to have care here. In a sense truth has nothing to do with the attribute itself. God,as he is in the attribute cares nothing or external ‘objective’ (both senses) truth. Moreover, if anything the attribute necessarily acts to problematize truth,. The attribute as Being ‘in the middle in another’ constantly warps any simple existence, and erupting for it of pulling it elsewhere. Spinoza recognises this much in his discussion on the sense an intellect could attributed to God (1/33s). In the course of this argument Spinoza suggest that to attempt to understand the intellect as something free and yet separate from God is pointless, as such an intellect would loose any possibility of engaging in reality. This is because there would be nothing stopping God from constantly undermining any ‘truth’s found in the intellect, and not only those that were given, but also those that appeared to be well founded. From which it follows that it is not the essence of God itself that needs truth, but rather the intellect that only knows the world as it is able to establishing for itself, within an attribute, something to call a truth. The need for cause has a second profound aspect. In 2/8 Spinoza suggests that as a thing is comprehended in God’s idea, or in the attribute God has no idea of it as having existence from the himself. Things only then stand out from the attribute (or the idea) as they actually exist – and there idea involves duration (2/8c+s). The exact sense of the former point should be know clear enough. Any essence, as it is comprehended in the attribute exists as a middle in another. Such a middle in is essential non’ personal,; as its essence an power lies in the disruption of something else. Likewise its objective essence lies in changing others as they have a perception of it- and not in itself. Each essence (and objective beings) and never therefore the property of things – but rather a way the way things are muddles up and changed (or challenged), in someway: That is they are integrally a power to place another in the middle of a certain change. As such the never could be said to formally ‘own’ such a power in themselves (as they are something finite). The power they express (as they exist) is therefore always comprehended (whether they exist or not) in the attribute of God, whose essence is actively expressed within a necessarily infinite capacity to be in the middle in others. Individual essence whether they exist or not are therefore never in themselves (any more that a rectangle in a circle is in itself 2/8s), but rather are always comprehended in the attribute, as an aspect of the way that the attribute is always in the middle of changing others. Any Particular actually existing essence gains another aspect to its being. As it exists it no longer just an abstract force for change, but rather also becomes associated within something else, something it is challenging (and thereby being the essence in). it therefore stops being merely expressed merely in the power of God to be in another, and becomes given in a particular expression, a particular being in the middle of something else. As such is will have existence as something separate to all the rest, and as something distinctive in it own right (2/8S). Likewise the idea formed of it, in others will become something real and distinctive, as the challenge it gives is perceived across it actually manifested change. However one needs to note a clear difference clear in what this existence means for attribute and idea of God. In the attribute the actual existence of an essence very much represents the end of a process that distinct from the expressing essence itself. This the process in which the ‘another’ in which an essence is given, itself comes into existence. Moreover is a very peculiar one, for Spinoza., as it is a process that can never be collected (or expressed) in any one ‘essence’, any one being in the middle in another. To explain actual existence is therefore to be pitched into the middle of God, as he is always constituting difference between things, and is quite unlocateble in creation as such. Or to put it another way, to ask why a thing actually exists, s to be pitched into causation. Every mode will appear as a transitionary point in the process – both cause for another, and effect of another (1/28), and will do so infinitely, and without any possibility of resolution. So that the actual existence of a thing certainly does expressed in the attribute.. And yet that expression itself is unknowable by any in the attribute, and rather relates to God as he in is the middle in them all. To ask why they a thing actually exists in the attribute, is therefore to be caught up on a a middle in which included every in that attribute (up to this point0, and cannot be formally expressed in any one of them. And yet, it is course it is just this existence that the idea of God requires in order that he can give a perception in the middle of itself at all. At this point comes up against one the of hidden subtlies in Spinoza. Perhaps the best place to start in 1D7. This is the definition in which Spinoza suggest that to be free is to be acting from the necessity of ones own nature. Freedom therefore, in terms of the above in being in the middle in others, and as one expresses one nature is these others. God is therefore always free. All is action (and his existence) involve his being in the middle in another – and as a way of changing others. Form which it then follows that there is noting is in nature that is contingent. To be contingent is to be understood as something cut of from some creative middle, and thought in itself (4 d3). That is, it is to loose sight of what is real in the world. For something to exist therefore it must (at some level) be bound within a creative middle in God. From which it of course follows that it is bound up in some species of necessity. That is, someway God is perpetually regiving and reaming his own nature. Spinoza will therefore claim that everything in Nature follows on from the necessity of divine nature ( 1/29). However one needs o note here what Spinoza has not then said. He has not said that God has destined anything to be, or even that a certain set of causes must follow from one another. All he has claimed is that what is real are middle in, and middles in, as they operate a way to transform others cannot be thought of as contingent (and so do not enjoy the freedom of the contingent thing). Spinoza’s argument therefore comes down to the observation that reality does not constitutes of things – but rather middles, and middles very freedom lies in there not being random. As far as God is concerned this is not predestination so much as creation, which is restlessly carried out irrespective of the consequences. Predestination does not therefore pertain to the essence of God, and yet if one takes the last two points together, it is obvious why for the intellect it will appear so. God as he perpetually recreates the universe moves forward in endlessly diverting way. The Intellect however understands nothing of this formal diversity, and sees only things as they actually exist. As such, it is located not in the creative process that produces the effect itself, but rather in a sequence of effects in which every mode can be pitched, and yet whose essence (whose middle) is external to any them all. Each individual will then exist in this impersonal middle, as a particular giving of a continuum. A slice whose actual existence expresses, in its being a singular part in a continuum, all the movements, all the actions that have led up to it. Moreover each such individual will itself exist (by 1/36) as a cause for other things. And yet this cause itself will not be contained in its own essence, as it relates to God as he is always between individuals (that is in the pure sequence of causes itself). Each mode therefore express (by its actual existence) all the causes that has lead up to it. While it itself represent a break – of other things beyond is, which they then express in their existence. Each man therefore can be united in essence (as they formally are), and yet, as they are caught up in the flux of existence remains distinct and separate (1/17s). Each mode expresses all the cause up to its existence now, and yet in expressing this flux break it (in some way) and becomes a cause for what follows. It is no wonder then that Spinoza thinks of actual existences in terms of duration (2/8s). In order to understand the subtly of Spinoza’s argument here it is necessary to bare in mind why he needs it. Spinoza famously rejects all teleology. In the appendix to the first part o Ethics, Spinoza argues that one cannot understand God in terms a lack, as this would compromise God’s perfection., and flatters Man’s vanity, and inverts the true order of things. Gods is not an end he argues, but an efficient cause. His immediate (and effects) is not found in individuals’ but rather physical forces for modifying in another (motion and rest), the perpetual change these individuals themselves then provoke (the infinite mediate mode- nature itself – 1.21-22 and 2/13s). The effect then of this rejection of Teleology is that Spinoza needs to locate how differing, and apparently unconnected modes come into existence. His answer is then that this coming into existence is always the unintended consequences of the action of other modes. He gives therefore an example of a man dying when a stone fell from a roof. Human naturally face the catastrophe by asking why? And yet this question is fundamentally unanswerable. One might say the stone fell because the wind blew, and yet then be asked why it blew then, and then why the sea (which Spinoza suggest could make it blow) did so at that time, and so on ad infinituum. That matters in this inquiry into why a thing actually exists is not then the modes themselves (merely saying the wind blew – is not thought by ones questioner to be an adequate explication). What matters is not what each mode in itself, but rather the way that in being at all it sparks of (accidentally) other beings, and has other effects than are given in its immediate expression. Seen from such a perspective, each mode’s actual existence expresses the reality of actual existing causes before it ( so the stone falling, expresses the wind, and the sea…), : Each mode itself will then (as it acts) have an unattended consequence of its own (a man’s death), which will then likewise express in its occurrence the actual existing of that mode. The Sequence of ‘actual existence’, is then ridding piggy back on the Modes. Each mode acts (and always acts in another), and therefore always has effect (in others). The sequence of actual existence understand this ‘being in another’ not as it is in itself, but rather as each such being must be itself produce in others, (and so actually existing), and itself productive (as so a cause) for others. Being in another, therefore becomes expressed in being across causes. A being in which every mode might have a place, but never have that place as itself it. It is merely a point whose being expresses a truth elsewhere (in other modes), and whose action is merely an explication of a subsequent truth. Or to put it another way, from the perspective of God as he arranges himself as a middle in actually existing things, each modes maters not in what it is, but merely as it was a role to play in the expressing and giving of something else. Here then is a paradox. For God (as he arranges himself across nature), what matters is real (what gives a middle) in the fact that he is always in between any two modes. No mode can therefore expresses this middle. For them it exists merely in terms of a continuum, in which there is locate in someway. From which it follows that for each actually existing mode, God’s existence is not a matter of being in the middle, but rather involves a being a part in a continuum – whose actual middle remains elusive and in expressible – and does so even as it includes all other things. For modes therefore God’s infinite creation becomes not a creative middle, but a unity, which situates itself as the perpetual product of this middle. This is then of course the exact point that the idea of God sets of from. It stars therefore at the sole point in creation, where God’;s nature is given by a continuum (and therefore can be thought of as unifed). It starts therefore this the very sequence of cause – a sequence it then assumes expressed God’s nature. It is then this unity- that the idea of God itself takes up – and provides a middle for. Essentially this starting place for is should come as no surprise giving Spinoza commitment to immanence. If God is immanence in his creation (1/18) then clearly do not relate to anything ‘Real’ that is beyond that creation, but rather must be located within specific effects within it. For me to perceive something is therefore for my body to be affected by another existence in someway and for sometime. Moreover, what is relevant in this affection for perception is very particular. To perceive my body must be affected in some way (2/16). And yet the perception I then produce will relate more to my body that the external body itself (2/16 c2); and will do so, even though the perception itself will appear to me to relate to an external actually existing body whose presents I will continually affirm, until some other (equally external) change occurs in my body, that precludes my embodying of is reality (2/17). Perception does not have a neutral ‘presence’ is reality. On the contrary Spinoza is arguing that, if God is immanent ion his creation, then perception must be related to a very particular (and strange) physical set of circumstances. His point then being that these circumstances are only provided in God at one point – namely as he is in the middle of actual existence, and so no directly considering the reality of any one existence. All perception (which deal with the affections of bodies) are therefore pitched between things (and as all share in the common order of nature– and therefore cannot provide any adequate knowledge of thing themselves (2/25 and 27, see also 2/29c). For Spinoza therefore, immanence implies that one needs to uncover the physical substrate that is capable of supporting external; perception. His argument is then that is substrate is a very particular one, that both, as it always resonates across the common order of Nature (God as he is between things), can give adequate knowledge of things themselves nor separate out these things from an external locus of causes, by which they are given as perceivable in the first place. Moreover there is a second aspect in this move. What is ‘real’ is perception is not the external object itself – but the very process of Perceiving itself. that is the process physical changes within me, that lead to my perception of it. There is therefore nothing stopping perceiving objects that are not there, so long as my body has changed as if they were (2/17c). These process then resonates in God in two differing ways, and therefore its understanding has two different aspects. Firstly this process resonates in God as he is constituting the common order to nature itself. If I grasp these affection therefore in terms of this order (and therefore as they relate to external reality) my mind will be pulled beyond itself, and forced to conform to an order in which no individual as such exists. Secondly I cold understand the movements which produce these perceptions not as something real (and external) but rather in terms of how they exist in my body, and therefore how I am (partially at least) the cause of them. If grasp this way Spinoza suggests (and I will come back to this point in chapters below), then one grasps at them adequately as one understands them for what they are, rather than what perception would make of them (2.29s). What is real in a perception, is not an actually existing external thing (or the thing as it is in itself –2/7s) – but rather the physical process (in actual existence) across which that perception in my body. From which it follows that cannot treat these actually existing things as if they were somehow directly related to real and singular events in the world. What is real is perception is not never simply another’s singularity as such, but rather a sequence of movements that radiate from it (as it actual exists) and rip across other actually existing things (5/5-9), It is therefore meaningless to ask why God could not have created this actual existence differently. God, as he operates in actual existence does not reckon up with things as such (as he is always in the betweens of things). Any one singular actual existence is therefore always the product of action elsewhere, and not be torn apart from this action. Here a brief contrast can be usefully made with Leibiz. Leibniz sets of from the position (perhaps made to counter Spinoza’s argument) that it is perception is that which is real. He will therefore take any set of perception, For example Adam living in Garden of Eden, and suggest that this single event could be part in numerous alternative universes. Freedom is therefore a very real property of Monads, and their perceptions. Each perception opens out (in itself) upon a myriad of universes, and each monad if only I was attuned aright (and took enough care in itself perception) could understand this fact (Leibniz???). What then guarantees the universe singularity is the morality of God (rather than any inherent principle of the universe itself). Thus Morality being no accidental feature of the Liebnizian God, but rather a very condition that is necessary for him to at all (Liebniz???). The fact that there is one universe (as opposed to many), and that it is the best of all possible ones, is therefore predicated upon God, and arises as a natural consequence from the very conditions which led to God (and through God to the universes) creation in the first place (Liebniz???). What Spinoza rejects is this explication is the first move. For him, from his immanent perspective, perception cannot be made to stand apart from actual existence. To perceive is therefore to be the world in certain way, and therefore to be in a certain position in relation to what is active free within the world . Spinoza argument then being that one only perceive the world as one pitches that perceptions after the world as been actively re-created. Perception therefore follows on (objectively) from what is already real. It cannot therefore (as it is perception) provide the framework to question reality (is someway), an if one attempts to do so, what invariably looses sight of what is real. Spinoza therefore makes the very strong claim that if one asks why actually existing thing could be different one precludes, by that very question the adequate perception substance itself (1/33). This is because one can only ask this question by transgressing the very uniqueness of Substance itself (his reference in 1/33 is therefore 1/14c1). That is, one can only demand personal freedom for ones perceptions, by loosing sight of how those are themselves a product of something else. One thereby not only looses sight is what is actually real (the middle in another), but also of ones place in that middle, and therefore the true freedom one can enjoy (2/49s). Leibniz can only answer this point by arguing that Substance does not relate to God at all, who is transcendental, and not immanent, whom (alone in all of creation) has no body, and is just a divine intellect. God can therefore hold within his mind the myriad possible universes, without compromising his being (Leibniz ???). Thus far, Leibniz God certainly is freer that Spinoza’s. And yet of course, when is comes to actually creating a universe, Liebniz’s God has no freedom at all – and must (by the very necessity of his existence create the best of all possible world. In contrast Spinoza’s God is free as he actually exists -, the only restriction being that he is always in the middle in another. There is then in the parts of God considerable freedom in how on understand – and locates oneself in this middle. For example, Human, can therefore understand is affects inadequately, and therefore as they locate it in the middle of others, other adequately (and as they relate to its body alone 5/4). Spinoza’s God, as he expresses himself in individual things, is therefore free in a way that Leibniz’s God could even dream of being.; That is, it is free to actively be recreating the universe its actions, and therefore (unlike Liebniz God) free to constantly re-create its mind. Leibniz and Spinoza represent polar opposite in their position upon the importance of perception,. For Spinoza, what is free is the world itself, and perceptions of that world are already determined by actions that have occurred within it. One cannot therefore sensibly assume these perceptions somehow represent what is happening, and is free in the world (and therefore could be different), as one can only perceive others, as one is already determined is some fixed way by then (2/17). And what is real are not perceptions – or even the actually existing things that a perception appears to relate to, but rather the process of being re-creative in the middle in the world itself. Leibniz by contrast assumes that one must start from perception and the monads/mind that are capable of containing them. These minds are themselves then free, as they are able to rework, and rethink their perceptions (and draw different consequence from them). So that, in Leibniz it is the endlessly possibilities that a single perception of an event can open one up to that makes one free. And yet he can only make this move by sacrificing both he freedom of the world (which is fully determined by the actions of monads) and the freedom of God (who must as he is create the best of all worlds). Here then one is present with a very choice., Either one can think ones perception (and the mind that holds these perception) is what is free; Or the world can be free, and perception merely an adjunct to it. Or to put it another way, one can either be, with Leibniz in the middle of events (as they are perceived); or in an absolute middle (with Spinoza) which only contains itself within it, and knows nothing of the actual existence of events. I will return to this argument below, when I consider Spinoza’s relationship with Deleuze. However before I continue to develop Spinoza’s theory of parallelism, I will briefly contrast Spinioza’ position with those of Hume and Kant, and thereby hope to nuance out further subtlies in within it. Kant bases his account on the fact that a manifold of perception cannot itself provide a principle for necessary change (B234). This is not because such a manifold is not constantly changing, but rather because it is (B235), and yet still lacks any principle for deciding what changes are necessary to the forming of a concept, and what are merely accidental (B236). Thus far Spinoza (and for that matter Liebniz) would agree. It is in the very essence of (what are for them ) objective ideas, that they lack a formal principle in themselves. Where the rationalists and Kant differ is how they then build upon this lack. Here Kant can be seen as pitched between Spinoza and Leibniz. He accepts with Spinoza that the mind as it perceives is passive. Individual perceptions are not therefore there the active construction of individual minds – but rather relate to something ‘other’, than the mind (B250). And yet – at the same time he accepts with Liebniz that perception (or more specifically alteration of the manifold of perceptions) are what comprise the ‘true substance of the universe itself (ibid, and B233). He therefore argues that in perception of causes something singular occurs, in that the very order of perception comes to matter. A subsequent perception then only becomes apprehendable if one has a certain perception prior to it (B237),. The second perception can only be apprehended if the mind attributes to the first a concept perception the category of cause, of which this second perception is then the effect (B241). However for spiniza such a move is simply not necessary. For him, it is simply paradigmatic that perceptions both do not themselves represent reality, and yet are caught up in what is real (in actual existence). He wil ltherefore not conclude (as Kant does) that from a lack in a perception of a thing one needs an internal principle (in the mind) to make good that lack. Perception as they are objective always do lack something. Nor is it so mysterious for him that perceptions pertain to different durations. On the contrary he would argue firstly ( Metaphysical thoughts) that all perceptions involve necessarily involve duration as part a necessarily element within there very perception, their ideas therefore involve necessary existence (2/8c). This is then where Kant then differs. He will of course accept that every perception occurs in time (B254), and that it will therefore contain a manifold of perceptions in its (238), but then suggests the former point is being problematized by the latter. He thereby implicitly assumes that the manifold of perception contains within it theorectically separate elements – whose connection need to be explained – in someway. Spinoza in contrast needs to make no such move. As for him exactly what is happening in a perception, whether the manifold of perceptions are giving (as they are perceptions) a singular entity or a necessary temporal order, is itself the product of the external formal cause, and not the actual objective perceptions themselves (2/9c and 4/5). It will of course be noted that Spinoza can only make this move as he has already assumed a formal parallelism to exist between differing attributes. Spinoza can therefore only make this move as he is able to attribute to the attribute of thought a formal existence which differs from the objective existences it gives, and is free therefore to be in full accordance with other modes in other attributes (hence the Spinoza’s eagerness in 2/5 to show that the ideas could both be thought of as modes of thought, and yet also objective ideas about the world). Moreover, in terms of Spinoza argument Kant’s jump to temporal order actually obscures a critical feature of perception. For spiniza there is clear difference between two kinds of cause. On the one hand there are the causes that Kant considers – the causes of duration. An actual existence will therefore demand to be embodies across a certain duration. And yet there is also a secondary cause which occurs when mode which embodies this first actual existence, is thought of as having causal properties of its own, that will be expressed by another mode. To take for example the roof tile which falls due to the wind. The Tile – as it actually exists in falling, is expressing something of the winds essence. And yet when hits a mans head, and kills him it expresses a reality of its own. It was not the wind that killed the man, but the hardness of tile, The Tile falling in the wind (as a man walks) stands on the cusp of cause and affect – as the effect in one series, and the cause in the other. But being on such a cusp, the falling tiles gives, as it were a second sense to temporal order (one lacking in Kant). If the first order was integral to any perception, this second order hooks up, in the falling tile, two set of perceptions (wind and grief) which have no other link than the tile which is the effect of one and the cause of the other. Nor does is this second order restricted to events in the world. On the contrary, Spinoza is very interested in how affects involve just such a transition. For example Joy, which itself merely a passage into a future, finds expression in love (which thereby exists as its effect 3/12). But once love (and hate) are formed within the mind, they immediately become the causes to numerous other very distinct affects (such as hope, and favour). However another very subtle point follows on from this duality in order.. The dual theory of order effectively, and irrevocably breaks duration up for Spinoza, and transmutes into tense (a move he carries out in 2/44s). However the argument here is very complex, and takes one far from the current discussion upon parallelism. And yet one cannot simply ignore this move, as I doubt one adequately understand the way Spinoza uses immanence without it. In order to that I give some account of the argument here, without breaking frame too badly, I shall introduce it is the context of contrast between Spinoza and Hume. My aim being then to show that in spite of their very great difference both share this same double move in causation- and both draw the same consequence, which is so problematic for identity from it. .Both the similarities and difference between Hume and Spinoza have often been notes. The differences are far more obvious of the two. Hume frequently lampoons Spinoza’s concept of a single substance, and uses it as a touchstone of idiocy: If he really dislikes an idea then he frequently attempt to show that is merely Spinoza-ism (Hu 243-244). And yet, on another level they are in deep accord when it comes to considering perception, and imagination (what are for Spiniza the first type of knowledge). Here they agree that this type of knowledge comes in two forms. Firstly there are manifold perceptions (which crowd out the mind with images); Secondly there are impression (Hume calls the ideas), I make from these perceptions, which run orchestrate many of them (and lead eventually to universal notions such as being 2/40 s1-s2, and Hu7-10). Both will likewise stress the randomness of experience (3/15, Hu173-175) the importance of associations in forming ideas (2/18. Hu111), and repetition in doing likewise ( 2/18 and 5/13, Hu 155). So Great of are similarities between Spinoza’s first type of knowledge and Hume, that one commentator has even remarked it is no great distortion to understand Hume an being almost entirely framed within Spinoza. This is fine as far as it goes, but it misses another much deeper accord between Spinoza and Hume, one that goes to the hear of the relationship both establish between cause and identity. In order to develop this connection, I will start with Hume. Hume himself sets out very firmly from a mystery. In our mind e suggests there are two things, sensations that cannot be explained, and the impression of reflection that we draw from those sensations (Hu 7). He former are therefore (and remain) beyond any comprehension. Moreover this mystery is in a sense a double one. Not only are these ideas ‘mysterious’ in the origin, but they are also nuanced in their relations to space and time. Here one needs care not to drown Hume’s actual words under a Bergsonian-Heidegger howl against Vulgar Time. What matters in Hume’s argument is not the sequence of impression – so much as the paradoxes that he deliberately allow to stand in his explanation. Hume therefore argues that there must be limit to the divisibility of time and space for them to be at all (Hu 30), and that limit cannot empty of content, but rather contain a vivid impression of its on (Hu 38). A Superficial reading of Hume might suggest therefore that time and space a form of counting. And yet Hume is clear almost the opposite is the case. In his discussion on identity he suggests that an object is thought to have an identity if we comprehend across an unbroken period of time. The time in this unbroken period could Hume thinks be thought in two ways. Either I could take any two moments in this time, and combine them in a single instance. If I do I will immediately perceive these two point as separate, and derive from that difference a concept of numbered progression which contains it. Or I could concentrate on the identity of the idea itself, as it straddle differing times – and held them together, in a single unity. In the both these moves time is not counted- but rather forms a reservoir of plurality, in which either the difference between two distinctive moments, or the difference necessary to think a unity can be thought. If time is not just counting in Hume, then sensation is not simple unity awaiting counting. Hume carefully draws the difference between a unity which is derived from a multiplicity of separate elements which are united in one, and true unity of the moment. What characterizes the second unity is its very indivisibility (Hu 31). From which two further point must follow. Firstly that Hume is here agreeing with Aristotle – that the Now is no part in time. But secondly, and more interestingly this very indivisibility implies that every perception is complete, and therefore finished even as it is given. If this last point was not the case, an perception would simply revert to being an identity (and therefore would be in time, and so quite unable to compose it). Each sensation finishes with itself even as it is given, so as it is given in mind in both moves itself off into imagination (where its image can be retained), and provokes the mind to a new perception (a new instant), the Mind cannot grasp at sensation without then pitched into time. Or perhaps (in terms of the language I have been developing in the context of Spinoza) one might say a mind is what always inhabit the middle of perceptions. From which it follows, that time is neither an impression alongside all the rest – or even a synthesis, and therefore an idea hic can exist as something distinct from its parts (HU 36-37). The mind does not produce new ideas to think time, but rather composed its idea of time out of sensation themselves, and the manner they make an appearance (ibid0. If one compares Hume’s move with Kant something very profound comes immediately obvious. Kant thought time in terms of a synthesis, produced immediately by apprehension and recollection, and guaranteed in perception ( The I/it Thinks). Experience was therefore mine for Kant, as all perception assumes unified synthesis. Such a unity is then objective- and external to the mind, and an empirical self was internal to it. In contrast Hume has no such underlying principle (albeit a transcendental one) either unity or identity. For Hume therefore any change however small will in fact compromise identity (Hu 255), and so absolutely. For Hume therefore the problem is to explain why we have a fixed notion of a thing in spite of the fact that it changes. Here he suggest various solution in relation to external objects, but these really come down to two possibilities. Firstly, If a change is very small (relative to a whole) and/or very slow, our mind will register any particular difference, and therefore regard the object as the sane, and do even if, over time if very form is radically altered. Secondly, if a change does occur bit the subsequent idea is identical in form or purpose to the pervious idea, we will likewise argue that the two represent the same basic things. Identity is therefore arbitrarily attributed by me to things – and represents no unity in the things themselves. Hume then extends the argument to include personal identity – which he likewise argues can involve no synthesis of perceptions, but rather is the composition of the imagination alone (Hu 259), Hume then two of his three forms of association which he argues are pecualirly associated, through memory with personal identity. Firstly there are resemblances. Each human carries in them many memories, and is, through resemblances, forever applying these memories to a current situation. Thus very appliance Hume suggests will give any individual feeling of the unity of there experience, and so a notion of identity. ( Hu 261). The second relation that Hume suggest matter is that of cause and effect, whereby a necessary connection temporal connection is forged between successive sensations. Memory matter here , in that one a past , and thereby creates a domain in which the interlinking of successive sensations become possible. However once the idea of cause and effect is fixed in the mind, then Identity will run beyond memory, as one can infer ones own existence in times one cannot necessarily exactly remember. Memory does not produce identity, so much as discover it (Hu 262). Here then are two very different elements in the product of identity. The latter case one has what might be called the macro and very abstract conditions whereby the very notion of identity becomes possible. If the argument runs I can take all my shifting dispositions and relate them together in a temporal sequence – where one must follow the other I have an identity. This process therefore clearly neither involves synthesis or any form of unit; but rather is the process by which a mind comes to understand itself as being in the middle of a life. The accord with Spinoza here is marked. For Spinoza ones essence involves just this feeling of being caught up in the middle of a life. From which Spinoza concludes that if an individual ceases to feel a part of a certain set of memories, and attributes to anothers life, then no matter what they pertain to another essence: Spinoza therefore argues that a case of permanent amnesia be it due to illness – or mere childhood implies separate essences(4/39s). The former case (that of my resemblance in memory) represents as it were the opposite extreme. From this perspective to have an idenity is to still have a past it is useful to draw upon ones current life. Idenyity is therefore no longer anything abstract and formal – but comes down to the reuse of experience. Identity therefore in Hume has a double root, it is both at once abstract, and all embracing; and yet also personal and particular, given in the reuse of one memory. It is perhaps in the implications that run from this idea that the link between Hume and Spinoza is at its deepest. This link has two aspects; the first of which refers to the position of causality in the argument; and the second, the nature of the dissonance what both Hume and Spinoza are smuggling into their conception of identity (albeit is differing ways). I will very briefly tackle each in turn before retuning directly to Spinoza, and the implication this accord has for his parallelism. Firstly, the essence of Hume equation of abstract identity equals causation, clearly is pitched very close to Spinoza equation that actual existence demanded external causes. Both are at one then in demanding that not only is identity itself a problem (and never a solution); but also each equally demand that every identity (including personal identity) is the product of something external that is operating to produce, via causation some kind of unity in the mind. Where of course they apparently differ is the nature of the action of this external cause. For Spinoza this action is very much a physical one, which has bound a body in a certain set of changes – which it then must give (2/16), while for Hume the external reality are the perceptions themselves act together, to produce an impression that the mind must grasp in terms of a cause and effect (Hu 73-74). And yet even here the difference can be exaggerated, Spinoza, by very acceptance of parallelism certainly think that as mode’s being gripped by another’s cause reality should be a mental as well as physical phenomena, whose mental aspect is conveyed to the mind in perception. To be gripped by another cause is therefore for Spinoza to be experiencing a whole sequence of perceptions over which one has no control or influence, and that give the action of the other in the imagination (that is as the mind is affected by that other – 3/12-13). Secondly and much more profoundly there is clear dissonance operating in both Spinoza’s and Hume’s conception of the individual. Hume cheerfully claims that an individual more a commonwealth than anything else. Each individual can (and will) change radically therefore, and involve not just shifting impressions, but changes in character and disposition (Hu 261). He therefore argues that there is no homogeneity in the individual across a life. Moreover, beyond the instance of impression, there is no naturally unity within experience itself. From which it follows, that there is no integral reason why the mind should view any one set of impressions as either giving a simple identity or a diversity of inter-connected objects (Hu 254). Indeed Hume suggest the mind is usually confused on this point, and oscillates between the two. A situation that in turn leads to the invention of such categories as the soul or substance or self, or other even more hidden principles to either obscure or explain this oscillation. From the last point above that any concept such as duration, that can straddle the divide between parts and wholes, is for Hume suspect. However here is it worth talking a little time to show exactly what is being suspected at this point. The absolute creator of difference within Hume is of course the impression, each of which must exist alone (Hu 233), and as indivisible in itself (31). All impressions are therefore complete in themselves, and therefore to have grasped one is to have already, by that very completeness, to have been propelled into another. As I mentioned above the role of impression is to convey a double sense in mind the mind is in the middle of the world: Firstly, one is in the worlds middle as one is pitched within unsynthesised impressions; Secondly, one is in the middle as every impression is itself full of something, and places one in the middle of an already rich experience. Nor is it only the generator of difference that is absolute in `Hume’s system, the same is also true of memory. Hume suggests memory always retains within itself the order of impression (Hu 9). Memory is therefore always involves direction – and therefore to a degree duration. And yet Hume does not (as Kant does at this point) set up a privileged relationship between memory and what gives difference. The reasoning here is simple enough. For Kant, what mattered was the synthesis the mind worked upon impression, as it gave itself the world. He therefore needed a principle across which difference could be first given to the mind, and then held in a single representation (apprehension and recollection). Memory is therefore inseparable from the process that gives the mind difference (apprehension). Hume, in contrast, does not need such an exalted role for memory. Memory merely records the Order (and not the content) of ideas. From which it of course follows that is role will be different, as the order changes. Hume is therefore very happy with the idea that ones experience of being within duration is highly changeable, and varies as sequence of impression vary (Hu 35). Here one needs considerable care. It is clear what Hume is not saying. In is not agreeing with the Post-Kantian Maxim that humans are internal to time. But he maintains this position not because thinks that there is an eternal soul that is somehow external to time, but rather because he thinks the very lack of the soul implies a lack of singular and synthetic time. Here of course, one needs again caution. Hume is not arguing here that such a linking of time and the self in not possible, On the contrary, as I argued above there is an absolute link between time and identity, via causation. However from this absolute link does not itself provide a synthetic principle for all the difference that are located within it. If anything the opposite is the case. Ones ability to give an identity that is arranged across time depends on already having within that identity many shifting difference to arrange. For Hume, therefore, neither duration nor identity are adequate concepts to contain the difference that impression create. From which point two others follow. Firstly, one can both only have an adequate notion of oneself in thought, and feeling, through ones engagement with others; Secondly, there need be no constancy in the way other times are thought in the mind; so that to think the past or the future might involve the mind in very differing acts. I will very briefly consider each of these moves in turn before returning to how each find differing resonances within Spinoza. Hume draws a sharp difference between the way one thinks about having an identity, and the way one feels the same (Hu 253), so that while ones posting oneself as a logical identity is always either a mistake or merely abstraction empty of real content, the same is not true for Passions. But, of course, Hume cannot (and does not) argue that one can simply intuit an intensive self that somehow is at odds with the extensive, as to do so would necessitate him ‘rediscovering’ at some level very subject he had tried so hard to destroy. Hence to understand the self, is not to grasp at substance itself, but rather to uncover what habits of the mind could come into play which prevent the mind running from disperate impression to disperate idea, and back again ( Hu 8), so that the mind might be fixed by set of impression/ideas, in which the self had a role (Hu 283). Hume argues that this only happen is very particular set of circumstance (which he associates with pride). To be proud of something is to be fixed between two ideas; Firstly there must be an idea of comes subject which excites this passion; and secondly the feeling of pride itself implies a self. Pride is therefore the effect of the first idea – and the cause of the latter one (278). A feeling is not internal to the soul, but the soul the product of the way a mind understands a feeling (Hu 286). The Notion of a self, as it arises from pride, can Hume suggests gain only gain some sort of permenance, If two further things happen. On the one hand the cause of that pride must itself be linked to the self which is produced by it. So that as I think of myself I actively produce a notion of what I am (Hu 286). On the other hand, the cause of the pride itself must independently trigger other affects of pleasure, which resemblance pride, so that as I experience the former, the latter spring to mind (Hu 283). Once this occurs, then ones impression Hume argues gain a permenancy, each naturally flowing into the other, and thereby form a stable feeling of Being a selfhood (Hu 288). Hume goes on to argue that other relatively stabl affects, such as Love will similarly the product of another double relation (this time involving another rather than the self – Hu 331). And yet, this stability is hard won, and difficult to defend. One an only keep it if one can maintain an exclusive relation with that of which one feels pride. Not only is the exclusivity difficult to maintain in itself, (Hu20-291); but also the very fact that the thing of which we are proud is external to us (and often itself has a shorter duration), can of itself under,line the provide we feel (Hu 292-293). In Hume, quite as much as Spinoza, the actual existence of an identity is nothing without an external cause to determine it. From which it follows, that each actually existing pride will be utterly distinct from all the rest , and therefore any one individual will embody whole variety of complex ‘selves’, of varying extent (and externality). One can Hume suggests be as proud of internal facets of ones nature (vice and virtue), as much as beauty or wealth (Hu 291-316). Nor do these relations need to be external from one another. I can be proud both of my wealth, and my external circumstances (which will include my wealth). If this occurs – then (and Hume does not directly consider the case) one would end up with a highly textured and inter- related (and yet not synthesized) self. Each pride (and each self) would be associated with its own particular domain, and yet the domains themselves were associated withy one another, and therefore to think about one self, could well trigger another, which would, as long as the bond lasted, create a causal relation between the two. But just as easily such a bond could strip each pride of the very exclusivity necessary for their formation, and so undermine the self, even as it posted it. Moreover each distinctive self-consciousness will involve its own distinctive voice – a voice as distinctive as the affect from which it is produced. One cannot therefore infer from any one take on the self, anything about the ’self’ in general. Here the affinity with Spinoza is marked. For Spinoza, all conception of selfhood are caught up in affects (2/23). Self consciousness therefore represent the idea of the idea of an affect (2/20). As such it expresses the affect in terms of the attribute of thought (rather than the extension in which it was defined) of thought (2/21). As such it will be united directly with the affect itself (2/22s). From which it will follow that the one self consciousness of ones affect is particular to the affect itself (4/8), and that no generalised action will follow from it (4/14-19). Both Spinoza and Hume are therefore at one in arguing that the self is diverse, and full of externally created slivers of conscousness, that cannot be cross related – or synthesised. This is not to say that there is not a considerable difference in how theses slivers are created (For Spinoza hey are inevitable, for Hume particular creations), and yet they are at one in how it is these slivers that make the ‘self, rather than the other way around. Nor is this accord between Spinoza and Hume accidental. In a sense such an accord is inevitable as soon one breaks the bond between ideas and the soul, and attempts to set up perceptions of a thing as involving some separate being of perception. The Problem then that both Spinoza and Hume have to face up to, is how to derive fixed ideas (identities) within a medium of perception which has no natural need to form any fixed idea, either of the object in which those perception occur, or even that ostenisive subject which one is perceiving (2/8, Hu 283, using subject and object in sense of Hu 228). Moreover both are at one in rejecting the Kantain/Liebnizian suggestion that synthesis is the answer, as for both (in their different ways) synthesis implies Soulhood, and the primacy of an ‘It’ which can, as some level, be doing the thinking. Such a fixing is for both only possible if one envisages a relationship with something external, and different to either the perception or the ‘self’ that perceives it. And yet for both the status of the external reality is problematic. The very attempt to uncover the ‘external’ reality dominated not by the actual reality of the thing, so much as the need to hold the myriad perceptions one forms of it, in a single idea. From which it follows that the property that one purports to uncover in another, is never one that could be owned by that other itself – or even in any sense belong to it as it is anything in itself. But, and here the contrast between Spinoza/Hume and Kant is marked, nor does this make it my property. For neither Spinoza nor Hume is this a matter for some simplistic ‘Me-Not Me’ Dichotomy, but an own going challenge to what it means to actual exist with others. Hence Spinoza argues that the perception of a things actual existence necessitates the thinking of a layer of reality in which all actual existences are contained but only as they reach out to affect others. This move will allow Spinoza to explain Both why all the shifting perceptions of a thing, as still all caught in a single idea (of that things actual existence); and why this idea can only last as long as the thing does. Or to put it as Spinoza actually does ‘ God’s power of thinking is equal to his actual power of acting: That is, whatever follows formally from God’s infinite nature, follows objectively in God from his idea in the same order and connection’ (2/7c). However, at this point it is worth pointing out what this quote does not say. It does not say that God’s actual power in each mode is equal to his power of thinking. This qualificaton matters because Spinoza habitually draw a very sharp distinction between God’s infinite powers, and his powers in individual finite modes (see 2/11, and 4/4 et al.) . From which it follows that is perfectly possible to imagine a power of thought that are not confined to any one mode (2/11), and therefore in God (objectively) as he is affected by the ideas of a great many (formal) singular things, . The accord of thought and things involves the very certain cases of desire (3/28, and 4/4), and adequate ideas (3/1, 4//26)., rather than the norm for all cases. All that 2/7c commits Spinoza to is an accord between God’s actually infinite power to interlink modes (as they actually exist), and his power to have a perception of these objects. Two consequences immediate follow on from this last point On the one hand, each mode as it is perceived, is emersed in the chain of causes, across which its formal being’ is defined (2/7 s – makes just this move). On the other, as far as individual modes are concerned these causes are fictous (and something utterly abstract 2/45s). Each mode discovers in another only that ‘cause’ that carried God from one to t’other, and so determined its own being, it thereby has no of that other essence –or of ‘things are they are in themselves’ (2/7s see also 2/30). It is no wonder then that Spinoza argues that perception of the reality of external things is always confused, and inadequate (2/29c). Hume cannot follow such a root, as he has divorced his thought from all the assumption about the outside world that are necessary to think it. Thence he merely contents himself at various is a resort to the ‘natural’ (and in terms of spirits) at critical points in his argument – a natural he cannot of course think of (or even logically sustain – see for example Hu 280). That aside, his very methodology means that he needs to understand this ‘external’ reality as itself an immanent construction within perceptions (which will determine a sense in which perception are in the middle in another). The way he attempts his was discussed fully above. How all that need be noted is that this manufactures external house three aspects. Firstly in involves two separate ideas, each of which could be thought of as expressing something about the other (Hume calls them necessarily related –Hu 285). For example, the idea of a fine house implies something about it owner’s nature; while that owner’s nature itself is expressed in the house. Secondly the subject of a perception (the house) and the object (its owner) must be linked by the passion of pride. Thirdly this passion of pride should itself become indeterminable (via resemblance) with another passion produce by the subject (the house), which it closely resembles (joy). From this third point it follows that the self will take up as expressive of itself both the passion of pride (in which it is idea is given), but also the other passion (the joy) in which the original subject produced. The union of passion will then impose on ideas a paradoxically demand. On the one hand it needs thee ideas to remain separate. Hume is very clear on this point. Pride and affect requires an external cause to excite it, and languishes without such a cause ( Hu 288) – the ideas therefore must for pride to be at all, be separate from on another. On the other hand, it is this very separateness is its problematic. If the relationship between the two is two weak, then no pride will be possible (Hu 291). Each impression therefore must constitute the other as its peculiar another. That is the idea in which it is somehow peculiarly supposed, even as it remains separate from it, and as something distinct. And yet, in the very externality of this distinction, potential problems lie. An impression cannot demand of another that the relationship continues, and it is always utterly possible that the ‘subject’ impression is suddenly whisked of, and taken elsewhere, and its special relationship with the self, thereby punctured. This is then an immanent constitution for externality, a constitution that itself has two dimensions. One the one hand it relates to the setting up of this particular relationship between two ideas that nevertheless remain distinct in themselves, and related as much by there difference (by the way one leads to the other) as by any direct similarity. On the other hand this relationship is volatile and unstable. One cannot therefore simply suppose that one perception is external to the other, without also allow for the fact that the relationship can very easily be disrupted either through other perceptions (which disrupt the specialness of the relation –Hu291-292); or that the relationship itself might by its very use unwind itself, and what was thought originally to be special (and something to be proud of) becomes by its very use something humdrum and everyday (Hu 293). For Hume therefore to set up a special relationship between different perceptions, is not only to constitute each perception as somehow the privileged ‘another’ to the other, but also open out that relation to a wider outside, or even the possibility that use could tumble this relation outside its own giving. It will be clear that this relation is far from dialetic in character. It is not that there is a self, and a not-self which have somehow been pitched against each other. Nor is the idea of the self itself anything specially privileged: it is quite as much the ‘another’ of the accompanying idea, as that idea is its another . All that is privileged is a feeling, in which a ‘self’ is both generated, and expanded (as the feeling includes a domain beyond the self); and a particular union which itself is necessary for this feeling to be at all. Indeed one needs to go further than this, and claim that the feeling of selfhood being agued for here is an anthema to the very possibility of dialectic either occurring or it did occur resolving itself. Starting with the last point first . The feeling of selfhood (pride) that is at one with a feeling of otherhood (joy), by no means resolves the dialetic. On the contrary this union is only possible because at another level the two objects involved remain separate (and yet related) . It is no synthesis therefore, but rather a feeling that thrives in the lack of synthesis. Likewise the initial juxtaposing of the self and other is no difference to be resolved, but rather gathers its very power through that difference. Moreover Hume’s account is equally irreducible to the synthesises of Liebniz and Kant which seek to respect the difference, but still make them subsist within a different (inclusive) relationship. For Leibniz this is move involves expression, Every monad might contain every difference, and yet they do not contain these differences equally. A certain set of movements (of differences) might well be expressable from very many possible point of view points, and yet still clearest from any one of them. Liebniz has here as his example that of a boat in motions prow moving water aside and thereby creating a wake, It is perfectly possible Liebniz argues to understand the movement of the boat, and the formation of the wake from the perspective of all the movements within the water itself. However such an explaination would both be confused, and complex (as one would needs to consider all the movements of all the parts of water involved). In contrast, if one considers the boats motions, then all these motions can be directly expressed by a single idea, which directly comprehend them all; From which one deduces Leibniz says that it is the boat, and not the water which is the cause of the motion involved. What is cause, and what is effect thereby become synomous with expression,. A monad is said to be the of events in others, if by its actions, and perceptions, it offers the clearest expression of them all. Sop one might well say that for Leibniz, while a single cause does not obscure difference, it will collect it within itself as it expressed it. The greatest causes therefore involve the greatest number of differences gathered in a single expression. This move is very much repeated by Kant. He likewise respects differences, and wishes to let then remain (in some form), and yet can only understand then as there are all drawn up into a single ‘ It’ in which they are located. It is this action which in turn constitutes another (the empirical self) whose actual existence is arranged across these differences’.. Such moves are for Hume quite unnecessary, in that they both assume that reconcile an person with the external world, one needs to invoke an externality that I more profound than any which could be experienced, through which the individual can both be felt a part in every else, and yet also themselves alone. However for Hum such a move is unnecessary as the genesis of ‘externalising’ relations and the self happen in one and the same double-headed move. The first move sets up an open and transient external reality that is set up between two ideas. The second move then being the creation of a single affect that will give itself that which somehow inhabits the gap between these two perceptions. Or to put it another way, Hume wants to argue that from perception which always locate one in the middle in the world, it is quite possible to think/create a self which is in the middle in the world. Such a self is then given in an affect that has both taken up into itself other feelings (from which it is now quite indeterminable), and located itself as the middle of a set of distinctions. There is not synthesis involved in the process. Even the feeling of selfhood that combines two different affects in it, is not a synthesis (as the feeling are never directly united) so much as a indeterminacy. Each affect remains distinctive in itself, and yet caught up (by resemblance) with the other from which it cannot be separated, and thought apart. At the crux of Hume’s argument lies the denial of the necessity for synthesis, as the myriad perception of the mind require no extra synthetic principle to then up in diverting ways. The imagination does not run through and together impression, but rather merely exists within, and orchestrates the shifting difference of perception. Or indeed is an idea difference in kind from a perception. The mechanism in the mind is the same, all that differs is the fact that perceptions are more vivacious that ideas. And yet such a move, for all its interest will fail, on two very simply points. Firstly it is paradigmatic in Hume that in every idea are in any idea a multitude of different perceptions, all of which could be torn from any one idea and take up into another. Each single idea will contain implicitly an indefinite number of other ideas, and the difference it captures in one imagining could likewise all have a part (with yet others) in still other ideas. This is all well and Good, but then Hume cannot provide a principle why any one set of idea should become the norm in one mind – let alone across numerous other minds. Or rather the only principles he can provide effectively come down to viewing the mind in terms of its ‘natural history’. This natural history then having form forms of itself own. One the one hand Hume gives us a natural history of mind based upon the body. We will link up certain impression rather than others, and come to think certain things over others because of the way our body, and its organs are disposed to give us a world (Hu 287). On the other hand Hume present a natural history for ideas themselves. Certain idea are imply naturally related (via resemblance) to one another, and no more can be said or sot of this fact. It is merely the case, and the mind needs to accept the fact and move on. And so, ironically Hume in the end is forced back onto Spinoza. Additionally, Spinoza would no doubt argue Hume’s retreat to an untheorised naturalism was a direct consequence of his setting from perceptions. Spinoza of course argues (in 2.8 c+S), what while the idea of God can contain within it the idea of every actually existing, it cannot provide a principle in with the existence of the thing itself is given. This principle can only be thought elsewhere (in God as he creates Natures order). It should therefore come as no surprise, Spinoza could remark that the Humean system in the end needs some external system in which the perception of things were define, Indeed Spinoza would probably also remark (agreeing with Kant), that Hume’s system ultimately undermines much of the contingence and freedom he (Hume) tried to install in it, after all what is an untheorisable nature but a form of conditioning? Moreover both Kant and Spinoza Hume has failed to understand the actual nature of contingency (and freedom). So Spinoza argues (along with Hume) that the order of nature, as it is considered in terms of finite things is utterly contingent, and open, and indeed must be so (2/31s). And yet, he does not then conclude that this contingency itself provides any kind of positive (and creative) principle for individuals. This is because even if the order itself is free, the individual members still caught within it, and determined to think this or that by it. Thence Spinoza argues that genuine freedom is not located in nature order itself, and so not in idea of God (that is the world of perceptions); But rather, involves a mind itself, as it comes to realize that it in part is a progenitor of that order (5/40s). Hume thereby unwittingly (and unintentionally) illustrates the Spinozian point, that one can only give an order to perception, if first one has body and a nature. Secondly, on reading Hume one is lead to wonder whether the augmented ‘pride’ which has become utterly indistinguishable from another affect would really lead back to exactly the same self that either it used to produce (when it was just pride, and was as yet unaugmented by another other), or to the ‘self’, that was somehow related to the object causing pride. This problem is then no mean one, as Hume should have no course to any form of essential based on the single word ‘self’. So that is the process all of which cold, from different angles come together to produce different feelings of selfhood, he simply ought to accept this fact (and with it that he ha not been able to produce an explaination for the feeling of selfhood that is distinct from its abstraction). Hume could of course put of this conclusion by claiming that the merely termporal interlinking of idea will be enough to provide a principle, via cause and effect of interlinking impressions. And yet this move is equally flawed, what ought to be an issue here are feelings whose union does not link to causality (Hu 280), and that also ought to produce a single feeling of selfhood. And it is this feeling that is surely lacking, as Hume’s argument surely implies two (or more) feelings of selfhood. Firstly there is the selfhood produce by pride itself, as it exists within itself, an existence that still remains even when it is bought of into an indissolvable union with another affect. Secondly there is the selfhood created from that union itself that is pride as it is utterly confused with a joy. To which of could then add a third self that takes up these last to, as they always appear together for it (and linked by cause and effect). However once these three separate selves are allowed then the problem of there interlinking both with one another and the two ideas (of selfhood, and a related object) becomes critical. What is more, there is very little reason why the rhythms in each self should followed exactly the rhythms in another. In particular (as Spinoza clearly notes –3/26s) pride involves a very different temporality to normal joys (and their loves). It is essential in the latter that they are bounded by real events (in someway – I will come back to this point immediately below – see also 3/11 and 3/12-13). Pride however need have no such boundary. On the contrary pride is in Spinoza pitched very much against what actually is (he calls is therefore a species of madness – 3/26s). Be that as it may, the point is clear in both Spinoza but also Hume (Hu 290?) pride can endure after the pleasure itself has gone. From which it then follows that the union of the three selves must surely be shifting one, as the self which arised from pride endures both out lasts the other selves, and also gets caught up (by the laws of association) with new ideas/ impressions. Hume therefore fails to account for a feeling on unity in the self., The logic of his argument leads not to unity at all, but to a shifting diversity of interrelate, and yet very distinctive feeling of selfhood. In effect therefore Hume cannot escape his own empiricism, and the account of the self that was meant to be distinctive and different as it turned upon feeling (and not experience) in the end produces exactly the same kind of theory that experience itself generates. One might cheekily (perhaps) suggest that Hume caught up in the subtleties of Spinoza’s suggestion that the idea of God needs to be thought independently from God as he formally exists (2/3). Or to put this without the jargon, it is actually an essential feature of perception that it remains within the domain of perception – and cannot devolve into thinking it itself of reality. This is by no means a point original to Spinoza, Berekly makes just this point at the very end of his Treatise on the Human Mind. Here, Berekely makes the argument that perception by itself cannot be enough to understand the world, and there must be something other to ideas (which he calls the spirit) in which all ideas must adhere ( Be 135-136). Hume of course no doubt knows this argument well (after all he regularly cites Berkely with considerable enthusiasm), and is no doubt setting his argument up his as an answer to Berekly’s claim. And yet this is then of course exactly what he fails to do, as the theory he produces ultimately offers no new account of what this ‘spirit’ itself is, and therefore offers no sense in which it can provide a feeling of selfhood apart from abstract feeling of unity. Spinoza can no doubt go further on this last point. From a Spinozian perspective what is so wrong in Hume’s account is that he has failed to grasp that there is not one immanent form for externality but two. So that, one needs to account not only for the way that two sets of perception (my self and another) impact upon each other, but also for the way that this process actually makes me different from what I was (and does so essentially). Moreover it this then this very distinction brings one sharply back to Spinoza’s of parallelism, and a level far deeper and more complex than any so far encountered. May aim below will be to attempt to show how Spinoza’s arguments concerning parallelism need not to b understood as implying crude mechanism (which was foistered on Spinoza by Liebniz and others), but rather offer a very subtle and highly nuances exposition of the relative difference, and absolute similarity of the twin powers of acting and thinking. In the course of this discussion I will attempt to build upon the above discussion on Hume, and endeavour to show how Spinoza is both at odds with Hume, and yet also at another, perhaps deeper level, in accord with him. However I should remark before I begin that this discussion will take one very far into Spinozaism, an involve a series of very subtle distinctions, and qualification, many of which will only become obvious, to the reader when they study the rest of this work. The starting point in this discussion is 2/11. This prostion starts with a bald statement of parallelism: ‘ The Idea of anything that increases or diminishing…our body’s power of action, increases or decreases…our minds power of thinking’. The proof then cited to this proposition is either 2/7 r 2/14. Such a proposition on first reading appears to confirm the standard ‘mechanistic’ reading of Spinoza. The Mind follows body and that is it. And yet if one turns to 2/1 (and not the 2/7 one thinks one knows so well) an immediately qualification needs to be made. 2/14 is the proposition where Spinoza draw together his theory of the body, and of the mind. The sense of it reads that as the body is able to act in very many ways, the mind is likewise able to perceive very many things. Or to put it another way, what is real about the mind is nothing stable or fixed, but rather ‘an ablity to perceive many thing’. Likewise what is real about the actually existing body is not its physical form, or even what it can do, but rather its very ability to be in the middle of action. That is in Spinoza words its ability ‘to be disposed in a great many ways’. Such a proposition clearly therefore implies what is most real is not a thing nor an action, but rather the very disposition to be in the middle of many actions, many things itself. But immediately here one needs to make a qualification. Spinoza will argue in 2/24 that the parts of the body will pertain to that bodies\ essence as the comminicate their motion in a fixed and determinate way,. A proposition which appears to run directly counter to what I have just said, as after all this pertaining to the essence in terms of motion and rest would seem to imply directly imply something about form.. And yet this cannot be so simply. Spinoza clearly and absolutely rules out any move to consider the essence of the mind in terms of the form of the body in 2/19. This proposition argues that the mind neither knows what this form actually is, nor does that form pertain itself directly to the essence of the mind; the minds relation to its body is therefore indirect, as it knows it only as it actually exists (and not then as it is constituted). What is then pertaining to the ‘essence’ of the mind in any encounter (including encounters with parts of its body (2/27) is not form but rather the very disposition to be capable of understanding very many things. Spinoza makes this move explicitly in 4/38. The proposition here runs that whatever disposes the body to be affected in a great many ways is useful, and the more so the more ways it disposes one to be affected within; Likewise those things that preclude this diversity in disposition are harmful and bad. So far of course this prosition need not imply anything about essence (Deluze will have it not, or rather even more bizarrely will place it before essence). However Spinoza does make an explicit connection with essence in the cause of his proof of this proposition. This is not however the place for a full exposition of Spinoza’s theory of essence (which I will return to below). And yet some account will need to be given in order that the full radicalness of Spinoza’s move here is appreciated. What I will present here is very much a stripped down account, which is designed to highlight those aspects of Spinoza argument about essence that realte to the twin powers. His proof in 4.38 sets out from 2/14, that is from the fact that the body is disposed by certain external object to think in a diversity o differing ways. His argument then runs the more ways an external thing disposes the body to act, the more useful it is. This by itself might not seem to imply anything about the essence. However Spinoza cites in the support to this conjecture 4/26 and 4/27. These are key proposition. In 4/26 Spinoza argues that the essence of the mind lies in understanding, while 4/27 contends that we only judge a thing as good as it promotes such an understanding. Moreover it is very clearly by this understanding Spinoza does not mean anything simple or fixed. On the contrary in 5/9 he argues that understanding itself thrives on diversity and plurality (and so single perceptions imply less understand). He will go even further in 4/26 and argue that understanding itself is a form of striving, which is positive in itself only as it strives. From which it follows that it makes absolutely no sense in terms of Spinoza to delimt the essence in terms of form (or set it arbitrary amount of power. The essence is nothing ‘fixed’ – if by fixed one either means a thing or even an action, but rather involves the very ability to be constantly in the middle of recreating oneself. Hence, going back to 4/38, things are good as they allow understanding more and more ways to rework what the what it, and what it can do / be.. One then come (in 4/39) an immediate qualification here. A finite essence is not itself God. It is therefore not of itself absolute – but rather can only in the middle of itself as it has a body (2/10s), in which to be and act. The body is neither some extra which is accidentally added to a spirit, but rather something absolutely necessary in order for an actually existing essence to be at all; And yet neither is the essence itself reducible to the body itself. The implications of this highly textured and complex setting up (and setting against) of body and mind take most of ethics to unwind. All that matters in the current argument it the fact the minds dependence upon what the body gives it, effectively defines how the mind can be disposed to think more or less things. This point being perhaps clearest make in 4/39, where Spinoza makes a direct connection between the form of the body, and its way it can then be disposed to do many things. The arguments starts then from the fact that the form of the body is given by a certain fixed relation of motion and rest. However this relation is itself dynamic, and constantly changing, as all that matters for any one individual is that every new motion is communicated to all its respective parts (2/ 13 s/ 4-7 s). Exactly what a body can do is not then fixed, but rather will directly reflect the motions within it at any time. Here one must involve two mechanicalist mistakes, both of which involve thinking the essence of the body in terms of its form. Firstly one might pretend (along with Liebinz, and in a different way Blynbergh) that body which is constituted by a communication of relations of motion and rest is itself a form like any other (and therefore reconcilable with Aristolte and De Anima). The implication of such a move would be that one would think of the body as somehow distinct from all the motions that compose it, and defined in someway independently from them. Fom such a position on the one hand being a body becomes synomous with containing a certain set of relations of motion (and no other); and the other hand can be thought in abstraction, and apart from the specific and changing motions that are giving it. Blynbergh, following this line of thought will argue that the fact that the body is constantly changing ought to imply that the essence is in constant flux as well (ep 26?). And yet this is far from Spinoza argument, as the form a body takes has noting to do with substance (2/10). What exactly that form is, and what motions it contains does not pre-exist in God, but is rather then specific constitutions of a set of motions. This is then the implication of Spiniza’s remark that no one has, from the laws of nature alone determined what the body can do (3/2). Nor is such a determiation actually possible, as what that body is, and is doing is constantly shifting, as the individuals involved in it change. What is constant is absolutely not a formal form (which is thought apart from the motion) but rather a communication that is being constantly established between the motions themselves, as each adjusts how they the difference they make to all the others ( 2/13 s def. Of individual). It is no wonder then (by 2/19) that the idea of the body does not relate to any one individual but is rather constitutes in the idea of God (in the middle of) as he contains many separate individuals. Such an idea is no form (for which an idea, and accompanying Aristotlian soul could be given), but rather an immanent construction, which is set up between the ways different forms are differing one another. The two argument above could (if read too quickly) appear to contradict one another. I have after all claimed in successive paragraphs that Spinoza is arguing for both a nature which is somehow fixed by the body, and yet also then argued that the body itself is not fixed! And yet there is no contradiction here. Spinoza’s point is actually very simply. What a body is and involves constantly changes; And yet at he same time there is an external limit to these changes. It is therefore perfectly possible for the body to be changed in a way that either is not communicatable to all the rest, or is, but only at the cost of losing other motions (4/39s). Here again 2/19 comes into its fore. The point of this proposition is not just that there is nothing in God which constitutes the idea of the body. One the contrary there is. It is just this idea is not a form, and does not directly relate to forms, but ways that bodies constantly change one another. Which is in turn why Spinoza suggests (in 2/11s) that what destroys a mind is an idea which precludes an idea forming in God of that body. This preculsion does not however originate in the idea of God itself, but in the mode it is expressing., In this case extension. Nor at any point does God will an individual to cease to be. Is rather the case that a motions occur that will entail God, as he has objective ideas that straddle many distinctive individuals forming of things other than that a certain body is or not. This is of course why in turn Spinoza can argue that both death but also pain are illusionary (and do not relate Go. Of his ideas at all, a point I will come back to below. Secondly, there is an even more insidious way Aristolte can be read into Spinoza. It will be clear from what I said above that one must understand the essence not in terms of some fixed and certain ‘thing’ but rather as a way of striving – and being in the middle of change. Spinoza makes this move very clearly in 3/9s. Here he defines the essence of a human (desire) not by some fixing of an arbitrary delimination (or either or power,), but rather as a perpetual striving on behalf of the individual to change their nature in a some benefical way. Again is not quite the place to commence a detailed investigation of the nature of Conatus (indeed such an investigation is beyond the scope of this work, but I will put forward a preliminary account chapter below – see also Bleak House Book). All that matter in the current argument is that the essence that is being outlined in 3/9, and again 3/13 is not lying passively with8in the body, as something that is simply produced by the bodies ability to do many things. On the contrary it is rather the case that the essence itself is constantly striving in the world in which it finds itself to modify its own body, and in doing so to change the sense that it itself has power (hat is the ability to both act and think). Or to put it in terms of the argument above, the essence argued for here operates by being a middle in another (the body),, whose essential nature is to be creative, and also in the act of reconstituting itself ( a point I will return to below). It might seem that I have strayed very far from 2/11, and the parallelism I promised to expound. And in a very real sense the essence of parallelism itself (and the twin powers) lies in this claim of Spinoza’s that the reality of the universe itself is composed no of things but rather actually existing middles. Such middles exists in two very distinct ways. Either it relates to the power of action, that s to the fact that I can only be (and think) as I suppose myself to existing in the middle on another (some attribute of God)_. The second power then being the power to perceive itself, and the fact that perception will (as Hume knew so very well) constitute themselves as a middle in their own right (the idea of God) – so that even as I exist I am always also in the middle of another (a perception). Parallelism them offers a way to articulate the potential quite problematic relationship between these two powers. Or to put it another way, it is a highly original answer to the old philosophical chesnut ‘what exactly is it that I perceive’. The answer then involves a double move. Firstly (I have just recounted) Spinoza argues that one must reconfigure what one thinks the real actually is. The real is not the world of things (or even action) but rather the very fact that as one is, one is in the middle not only of very many things, but also actively changing (even as one acts) what these things are. The second move (which I considered in detail above) aims to locate objective perception at a certain place within existence. Spinoza argument being that to perceive another at all, is to be affect in a some certain way by another. His argument then being for perception (but not for adequate ideas) this affection can only occur in a sense ‘after’ any one individual has cease being within the middle in themselves, and is rather caught up in the way God is in the middle of many things (all of natures order). Parallelism is then far from a crude assertion of the rights of the material world over the mental (or either he other way around). On the contrary, it attempts to change what we think of as real. Or maybe better to account for it differently. Hence Spinoza develops a totally different perspective of the idealist versus realist debate. The world for him is neither simply real, or simply an idea, but rather actually comprised on the intricate accord between the power of thinking and the power of acting. Hence Spinoza argues (5/1) is the accord that is real rather than anything else. And yet one needs caution here, as the accord is not a simple phenomena. At the start of book five, Spinoza both formally states parallelinity, and yet in stating it, extends its implications. Thence he argues not just that ‘the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things’ and visa versa’; but also that ‘just as the order an connection of ideas happens in the mind according tot he order an connections of affection of the body, so visa versa the order and connection of affections of the body happens as thoughts and the idea of things are ordered in the mind’ (5/1). The second part of this proof has the effect of making parallelism an dynamic principle, in which creativity exists in the tension between the twin powers. On the one hand action might be leading the way, and thoughts will follow: On the other thoughts might demand new actions to come into existence. What is more as what is mean is also it every case the middle’ (and not the thing) it is these creative relationship that are what is real, and not the things which they may or may not purport to. Spinoza will therefore go on to argue that with care (and following the lead of thought rather than action ) one can both unpick any one present (5/2), and also make extract positive elements from even the most violent of affects (5/3). The conclusion here is then that parallelism is not only what is real, but the accord which that reality is dynamic, as each power operates in its own way, and the other power endeslly (and creatively) responds. However the last point leads to two further apparently separate problems. Firstly, it reopens the problem of exactly what an external cause is, or perhaps where it is. If, as Spinoza argues (5/2) one can with can and thought unpick most external causes, then it is simply not good enough to say (as I have so far) that external causes are fixed in natures order (once and for all). Secondly if the power of thought is allowed independence from the power of action, this will clearly reopen the problem of what this thought looks like. Or more particular it reopens the very Humean problem of whther the power of thought (perception) involves synthesis or not. And it is does not then how does one escape the problem that Hume fell into that without such synthesis it appears impossible to produce a feeling that is capable of experiencing perceptions as its own. How then can the power of thought at once give a ‘very great many things’ , and yet include in this giving a ‘self, without synthesising? The solution I will offer to both these problem here is in a sense a partial one, as (as will be indicated in the text) the full solution will only be possible at the end of this work. What I present now is therefore meant as a mere preliminary sketch. I will start with the second question first,. It is very clear that Spinoza, just as much as Hume denies that perception will of itself, form a synthetic unity. He states this absolutely explicitly in 2/15. Here he argues that the ‘formal being’ of the human mind is the idea of body; and so as the body is complex and composite, this idea must likewise be composite. This proposition clearly aligns Spinoza up with Hume. The ‘formal being’ of the mind is not an act of synthesis but rather composition, in which all the composite parts still have some kind of presence And yet in offering this solution Spiniza presents one with two new paradoxes. Firstly what is ‘formal being’? This phrase is unique to this proposition (although Spinoza uses in 2./8 the contrast phrase ‘objective being’, and will of course talk in 1/25 about the Being of modes). However the paradox goes deeper than this. The very idea that the ‘formal being’ of the mind is an idea of the body, appears an oxymoron. A Formal Being ought to relate to the attribute in which the being subsits , and thereby be contrasted with ‘objective being’ that relates ideas to things, and yet Spinoza appears here to argue the contrary position, and define formal being in terms of an objective reality. Secondly, This proposition seems to fly in the face of 2/19 and 2/24 which explicitly rule out the idea that the mind contains any adequate knowledge of the parts of its body.. This is not the place to fully develop these paradoxes ( I will return to the first one in the final section, and the second in the subsequent section below). But here I will then only offer a provision suggestion. My contension is that Spinoza is arguing in his own way the same point as Hume. Any idea he is saying is never simple, and never involves just one perception, but rather always pitches one into a middle of perceiving, of being caught across different impression. Indeed, for Spinoza this being pitched across differing perceptions is a much deeper phenomena that it is for Hume. For Hume there what a theoretical limit to this pitching, namely the self occluding instant, while for Spinoza there is no such limit. On the contrary (as is directly implied in this position) each perceptions is actually being given across the way that disparate individuals are changing one another (and themselves –3/17S), and so involves nothing that can be formally fixed, and called ‘singular’. However such a difference should not be allowed to obscure the similarity of approach between Hume and Spinoza, when compared to either Kant or Leibniz. For neither of the latter two thinkers (in their differing ways) was it possible to thinks this manifold in a single impression, and therefore (again in their differing way) they have recourse to ‘time’ in order to make good this impossibility. Thence Kant will argue that the manifold cannot of itself offer a unity to experience, but must be run through and held together by apprehension (and act that trigger time). Likewise Leibniz argues that the minutest of perceptions (which Deleuze likens to differentials) cannot be expressed by the monad in themselves, but must rather be gathered up into a single powerful experience ( the ocean roar). In contrast both Hume and Spinoza clearly argue that such a synthesis is neither necessary nor even (strictly speaking) possible; as it is not the self that somehow owns its own perception; but rather the self which must be thought of as located firmly in the middle of its perceiving.. As discussed above in this discussion causality has a key role to play. As I discussed above, for both Kant and Leibniz (again in their very different ways) causality was an internal principle; while for Hume and Spinoza (again in their very different ways) is external to perception themselves. And yet it was this very externality of causality that then caused Hume so much difficulty when he tried to account for the fact that the mind understands itself not merely as a composition of diverse perceptions, but also as having a certain relationship a feeling) to some of those perceptions rather than others. The problem being here that Hume cannot draw on the resource which a causality active self, and thence must resort to far more passive feelings of selfhood, which cannot themselves convincingly provide a reason for any unity in the subject. This last point is of course exactly the point both Blynbergh and Leibniz makes against Spinozsim: Namely that it lacks any that is capable of explaining the minds unity. Hence Blynberg claims that Spinoza’s system ought to imply that human essence itself was. In perpetual flux, as what it did constantly changed moment to moment. Indeed if this problem was actually the case then the problem would be far worse to Spinoza than Hume. For,. As I mentioned above at least in the instantly Hume had a degree of unity that could be gathered in a variety of different ways: the problem then being for Hume that these ways cannot be logically limited (and so he can have one single conception of selfhood). Spinoza lacks even this principle and with its at possibility of cogency at all. What is more Spinoza’s account as I have currently argued it would not even have the advantages that Hume’s systems at least offers, of understanding causality in terms through the effect rather than the cause). On contrast Spinoza appears the naivest of realists who simply contends that perception relate to something real in the world and leaves it at that. Therefore from the account so far given Spinoza appears to straddle the worst of both worlds, who sacrifices the elf to perception, but does not even gain from that insight the resource to comprise naïve realism. However if one turns against to Ethics it is clear that Spinoza’s move in relation to external cause is far more complex that I have currently suggested. Spinoza is in fact very clear that although perception inovlves an external cause, what perceive never simply reflects that cause. He therefore argues that what ever an external individual causes in a certain individual; mind relates more to the status of that individuals body than it does the external thing itself (2/16c2). Moreover at this point the resources of parallelism will Spinoza to proceed quite differently from either the realists, or the idealist or the empiricist or even the synthesis. This much is very clear in 4/5. In this proposition Spinoza argues that then essence of a passion is neither defined by the ‘force’ of our own body, or yet the force of an external body, but rather the product the comparison of the two, The key word here is of course comparison,. Comparison is normally negative in Spinoza, and yet use of essence clearly implies a positive usuage. Thence is follows that what is real in the passion is actually the comparison itself – that is the way that each nature is in the process of being changed by (and with) the other. Whence it follows that Spinoza is no realist in the conventional sense, as the very act of perception, involving as it does a comparison, change the reality of both the perceived and the perceiver – and what is more it is this change which itself is real. By the same logic Spinoza is clearly no empiricist, as it is impossible to simply learn about the world without changing it (3/51). Nor yet is he clearly an idealist, and is not even thought he will agree with idealism in that all perceptions are internal to the mind/mode which experiences them, and do not have an simple accord in the real external world. And yet, the same resources of parallelism also precludes the Nietszhian/Deleuzeian synthetic move at this point. This is an argument I will return to in the section three below. For now what I will say that the problem for Spinoza of the Deleuzian-Neitzschian move (that makes the real turn on the comparison rather than the mode is a twofold one. On the one hand Spinoza would think such a solution was pitched at the wrong place. What is creative in this comparison is not so much the comparison itself, but the modes. It is the modes that are using the comparison within their own middles, and reworking what they are across it (that is re-giving the senses that they are in the middle of themselves). The reality of the comparison then does not have any existence in God outside the modes involved. Hence God’s intellect does not contain a separate idea of events themselves, but only perceives things across all the individuals involved (2/11c). Indeed Spinoza might have remarked that the Deleuzian Nietzschian postions till smelt of Kantian synthesis, in that it lacked confidence in the modes to be in the middle of themselves (and so saw then as quanta of power), and had to then invoke something beyond the modes, the will to power (that is the comparison itself). On the other hand the Deleuzian Niethzscheian move is only possible if one allows for the fact that joy and pain have equal value in God. Spinoza of course absolutely and completely reject this move (4/67-68). His reasoning (which I will return to) is that Being within a positive affect is utterly different (and strictly not comparable) with being in a negative. The captialization of Being is deliberately, as Spinoza clearly argues that pain involves an absolutely different kind of Being than Joy (ep 24?), a point I will return to in due course. How then does Spinoza envisage this comparison? And how does he tie the individual mode back to the external reality without the need losing sight of ether individual mode (of Hume does) or yet external cause (as kant and Liebniz do). In answering this question, another point needs first to be considered: namely the condition for the union of powers in thought and action in Spinoza. Here one runs against the problem that the full explaination of this argument will have to wait into the final section below, were I directly consider the fourth type of parallelism (which is composed of this union. However this full expostion will not be needed to follow the move made here. My starting point is 3/28. In the the course of the proof of the proposition Spinoza makes a very clear statement of unity as one strives of the power of thinking and the power of acting: the two As I desire he says are one and the same. Now the exact condtions of this union is a point I will return to, for now want to examine both effect of this union, and the conditions/ sense in which it could be thought to break down. Firstly, the effect of this action is simple enough. As I desire, the diversity of perception, and action are one and the same thing, and so by (3/28) as I am in the middle of composing an action, and also at the same moment in the middle of composing a perception of that action. Spinoza’s call’s the idea involved in the process adequate. These are ideas that are in God as he constitutes a particular essence. But as God himself always re-creative (1/36), then this constitution will not only itself be productive, but will also be known in God (and the mind by 2/11c) as the adequate cause of this effect (3/1). Additionally, it needs to be remembered that it is axiomatic in Spinoza that a cause is distinct from it effect (1/17s)/. From which it follow that an adequate idea in necessarily giving itself as a cause is very locating itself within in the middle of an act of recreation, across which it, it its existence creates what differs from it. However One needs caution here, as he habitually loose sight of this difference within the net of time. Spinoza however explicitly rules out this move, claiming that, as well as being productive adequate, ideas are also eternal (2/44 c2) and therefore not related to time as such ( by 1/17s, but see also 2/44 c1+S). I will investigate the full implication of this move in the section below (and how it is possible to think the reality of a difference which is composed of non-temporal difference). For now I will say that in that one cannot of course understand this eternity in terms of perpetual presence in a divine intellect (Spinoza of course rules this move out in 2/11c, and the claim that God does not pre-think the nature of things). It is rather the case, he argues (in 5/7) that adequate ideas are eternal simply because that cannot be ever confined to one present, but rather will be over-spilling it, as they are always locate one in the next.. Hence Spinoza argues ( 3/8) that striving cannot be fixed within duration. Again one needs to understand this move carefully, Spinoza’s claim is not just that striving is itself always self positing, and so does not define itself in a limited duration. But, rather, his claim, is the far stronger one that striving’s very being involves implies that one cannot delimit its existence within another form of differing, On the contrary, for Spinoza one must start with essence in God as he is eternal expresses something of himself (5/22-23). That is, with essence whose very being is to constitutes its own way of differing. Striving then expresses expresses this self constituting difference as it actual exists, and as a power (3/7). From which it follows that even thought an individual finite essence does have its existence in another (the attribute) and can only expresses itself through that other as it exists, it is still not bounded as it essential is by that other’s difference. This is because the attribute’s essence and existence are one and the same. And so the attibute itself does not impose upon the mode (the actually existing essence) a certain rigour of differing, but rather differs according to the way that mode itself (as it is) is establishing its own set of differences. Striving is then the essence of the indefination of time itself. as I strive I cannot be located in any one moment – but rather straddle them all. Moreover (and this is a point will return to below),, this straddling is itself not the straddling of duration (and is pitched against both Deleuze and Bergson. The exact mechanics of the argument here will need to wait for the next section. All that is needed for now is the fact that duration (as Bergson, and through him Deleuze envisage it) difference is external to any individual mode (this is why Deleuze thinks that Spinoza-ism should have turned upon the comparison of forces, and not the essence and through them substance). Such a reading will then force Spinoza’s essence within another’s form of difference, a move that Spinoza himself is resisting in 3/8. Form the perspective of the adequate idea, both the arguments of Hume and Kant are founded on a fallacy. Hume understood that perception was (and remained diverse), but then (by failing to grasp the nature of desire) cannot create from within these perception an essence which is capable of being in the middle of them all. Kant in contrast understood the need for such an individual, but then rules out the possibility that they could contain in their perception the manifold of perception itself. Spinoza in contrast argues that as I act there simply is no problem in diversity, as each Modes very essence is composed of being diverse: That is, it is naturally in the middle of its very diversity, and as it acts is always constituting that very being diverse. Thence, Spinoza argues that not only is it germane for the mind to be thinking a great many things (4/38); But (and far more radically) the mind itself essence lies in this very ability to posit itself within the middle of such a diversity (5/9). What is more, Spinoza, even more challengingly suggests that this very ability to think the multiple is itself the way the mind is active, and therefore will encourage the mind to further thoughts, and further diversity. Spinoza will then call this ability to strive in thinking the diverse understanding, and claim it as the essence of the mind (4/26), The key problem is then for Spinoza to understand what this understanding consits of, and how it is possible . Spinoza is of course, very aware that most knowledge simply is not like this and will (in common notions) provide a very complex and finely nuanced theory designed to show how (and when) this union of perception and act are possible, and how it can be developed, both of which I will examine in due course. What matter for now is that Spinoza clearly argues that in every joy, and every desire there exists at some level an adequate idea, that underpins the desire of joy itself (4.59). However of course (by its nature) this ‘adequate’ perception is does not involve a thing (as yet). Spinoza’s example in 3/59s makes this lack of thing-hood very clear. Here, he argues that the act of clenching one fist as one lifts one arm, is itself (as it relates to the body) always positive in itself. Hence it is an action that in itself it cannot be though of as something which delimited in one present (that is one context) alone: He could as I act this way be beating a man, illustrating a forceful point, and forging a plough…Likewise, in the action itself in itself (as I do it) naturally overflows and one perception, is arrange in God as he contains very many different perceptions (all of which are located in the single object, and so the single idea – by 2/9c). And yet this such the action (of fist and arm) cannot occur in itself, but will rather be framed within others. Here two such framings are possible, It would of course be possible that the action could exists within other actions, other common notions ( I could be soluting a comerade); But it could equally be framed by another’s very externality to me ( I could be beating a comerade). It is then this connection between action inself and passion in which this action exists, that gives both the sense that another can exist as an external course, but also opens out a difference in that giving between the power of thought and the power of understanding. I will therefore need now to consider it in some detail. Spinoza starting point is then 3/11. 3/11 suggested that external reality actually the sense in which an essence can be in the middle of itself. A Joy then effected a passage by which the essence, even as it was taken up by another had the number of things it could do (that is the sense it was in the middle in it own nature) increased and augmented: Likewise a pain occurred hen the same essence suddenly lost some if its ability to be in the middle of many things, and thereby lost its power to be in the middle of itself (4/39). There is here then a fine distinction between striving and joy. One the level of reason these two will coalesce, as the minds striving to recreate itself, will always increase the what it can do and be (4/59, see also 3/59). However a distinction will open out in the case of inadequate idea, where the fact that the mind’s ability to be changed by another, will be clearly distinct from the minds own ability to be adequately changing itself. But here again one needs to be careful about what is being lost. It is of course paradigmatic that the joy itself as it is within the essence will be caught up in a desire, and will itself be adequate (it itself). A Desire that arises from joy is therefore stronger than a desire from pain, as the striving itself is increased by the very joy itself (4/18). What is lacking however is any adequate idea of what this transformation itself consists of, or even why it has come into being. All the mind suddenly experiences in itself in an enriching of its nature, through a certain encounter with another, and feels an accompanying deepening in its desire. An external cause will thereby be creating a certain joy (that is a certain way the itself essence is enriched), will enframes a certain manner in which that essence itself desires (that is a way it is in the middle of a certain change). From this last point two further consequence follow. On the one hand there will a huge diversity is types of desire. Each joy is always defined by the way anothers nature impacts upon ones own (3/57 but also 4/5), and is indeed a unique construction of this impact (what there being no reason why the same impact should have the same results – 3/51). The way Desire can take up a joy, and arrange itself across it (in Spinoza’s jargon be determined to do something, from some given constitution –3/9s) will then vary by what this joy is (that is by the way that desire itself is being enriched by it –3/56). Leading to a situation where although a desire/joy might adequately exist in itself (in its very expression), but still separate from all other desires in the mind, and unable to comprehend how is hooked up to them. Spinoza therefore argues that if I am, caught by a joy and desire within a part of the mind, I will not consider the interests of the mind as a whole (4/60). On the other hand, and arising from the last point, it is clear that desire itself will be caught up with the presence or absence of another (3/12). This proposition commences from external reality, and the way it produces ideas’: Here Spinoza claims that is the body is affected with a mode that involves some external body, then the mind will necessarily perceive that body as present. And then he immediately cites parallelism, to argue that this proposition could just as easily be turned the other way around: If the mind imagines a things actual present, and it will imagine the mind to be affected by the mode. Parallelism then breaks the trap of realism: as for something to have an effect upon me, it no longer needs to be ‘actually present’ in itself. Hence Spinoza then says to imagine thing presence is to already be caught up in some positive change, in which both the minds and body power of thinking is enriched. This move then allows another reversal (this one associated with 3/6). For the mind itself, that is for its essence, this change (rather than the thing itself) that matters (and which gives its reality. The mind will therefore, by being caught up in this power (and through developing itself in it/ through it), will naturally affirm the present (the idea of something which actually exists), The mind will therefore enrich is very nature by promoting certain presents. This last remark leads to four sets of questions about the relation between this promotion, and the external cause that triggered it, and the imagination which expresses : Firstly one might wonder what is the role of the external cause in this process? Does after all not matter? Or if it does matter, how can it relate to the idea that is thought to embody it? Secondly What (exactly) is the status of the idea formed if its ‘interests’ are being promoted by the essence striving to think it? How is it being given? And what are the implications of this giving? And how can it be extended? Thirdly How is pain, and hate different? Fourthly and finally), what implications does the existence of these singular imaginings in which the minds power is trapped have in ones understanding to the minds power of action, and power of thought as a whole? After all it is clearly one thing to argue (as 3/12 does) that the mind power of action is caught up in defining a single imaging, but it is quite another to say its power of thought (which aloud that imagination to be in the first place) is similarly caught. The question will then comprise the rest of this section, as it will only be through a detailed consideration of each in turn that any adequate grasp of the nature of parallelism will become possible, What then is the role of the external cause in this process? And how is it that Spinoza is both able that each affect is unique to itself (and defined by the unique conjunction of two essences (3/57) bur yet also (as considered above) argue that everything positive in an affect could be thought of be reason alone. an could (as it is positive) be thought of adequately (4/59)? And what does he mean, when the course the latter proposition he suggests that and joy remains inadequate until it increases human power of action to such a pitch that it understands itself adequately? In a sense in a sense of course this question is clearly wrongheaded, and it implies that any individual owns the middle its itself, when of course the opposite is the case, and the middle that constitutes the individual (and not the other way around) (4/26). Moreover, as I argues above the cause itself as it is given to another does not relate to the causing element itself, but rather is defined by the effect, and the sense that it is changed by that cause (this by 16 c2). The effect of taking these two together, will be to profoundly challenge what is thought of as real in the encounter. It is neither the ‘other’ as its force in itself nor yet my own essence (prior to the change), that is real, so much as the sense that the ‘external cause’ itself is taken up in my essence (and so perceived by me), and has a reality through me. Hence Spinoza argues in 2/25 the idea of the individual external body is always absolutely separate from the specific way that individual comes to affect my body, : Is much so that the idea of these affection are merely like premises without causes (2/28) It is then this compounded reality ) that the idea of God (which always gives the idea of a thing as it is in another) grasps, and thereby gives to me as a perception. A perception that will express the nature of this sudden (and unaccountable) change, by gathering it up (and fixing it) within single present that is defined by a relation to another ( another, whose idea embodies the changes occurring within he). .This then is the sense of Spinoza’s claim (in 2/11c) that an adequate idea involves God’s perceiving something else’s nature ‘together with the human mind’: As I perceive inadequately I can only perceive myself in the middle of a change, as that change needs another to ‘effect’ (that is fix) it. However it needs to be noted here what is the adequate element in this perception, and what the inadequate. This clear as soon as one turn to 2/39 (the proposition that introduces specific common notions). Each common notion are adequate in God as he constitutes the body, but will, as such be in God as he contains every many separate ideas. And individual human will then only be able to perceive the truth’ of these common notions (and they will only exist as a particular and separate idea in God) only when affect by another (in such a way that involve them. Once such an affection occurs, the mind (or both individuals) will suddenly and completely find themselves in the middle of a change, and yet also (as that middle is the constitution of their body) experience themselves as the adequate cause for this change. This middle will then set itself up independently from any images it creates, and operate in a way that defies particular presents (5/7), and rather straddles across numerous images (5/11-13). So that, what the adequate element in the a perception is never comprised of the individual image that it triggers, but rather the fact that each perception suddenly involves one being in the middle of another. And what then separates adequate from inadequate ideas, is the ability to provide a principle to explain this always being caught up in something: When one things adequate one understands (from one internal nature) the reality of this difference from internal principle; as one thinks inadequately what attribute it to a fixed another (2/29s) Each individual then in a sense ‘constitutes’ the another force in themselves. And yet Unlike Liebniz this constitution is not adequate. A might constitutes another as my love object, and attribute t them a power to give me joy, but there is no reason for that other either to feel that power, or even if they did respond to it. On the contrary, then will form their own utterly distinct idea of me (which treats me as their external cause), an idea that may or may not be in my favour. That is, as I form inadequate idea of others (and setting them up as universal panceas inside me) I am not longer perceiving their actual nature and will cease them as any other than forces for internal change. A situation, that Spinoza thinks is far from stable, and can very easily lead to a situation were what was so loved becomes hated as it fails to live up to my dreams (3/35 and 38). Hence Spinoza arguing that it is far better to detach the active part of the affect from the image of an external thing, and attempt to set it up as an adequate idea in itself (of some affect), which is then able to create and independently of any of others (5/2). Moreover a further consequence arises form this last point. Spinoza argues that it is perfectly possible that as a passion is comprised of some other external power compared with our own, that it can surpass an individuals power to resist this affection, and the mind becomes gripped in some stubborn affect. From what has been said so far it is clear that this being caught by another is not direct (and anyway the world compare would rule out any direct relation). It is not then another traps one on its grasp, but rather that it produces in us some violent affect (and desire) which cannot then be occulded or mitigated by the other desires of the human mind (and body: the mind is thereby caught in one present, one way of increasing itself, and looses the ability to think a great many other things (4/43, see also 4/60). It is equally possible that a more violent conflict could sweep me up, with another and yet as such a violent conflict almost inevitably involves sadness and hate, I will examine it latter. How then does the idea of form of the thing relate to the external cause itself? In 3/17s Spinoza makes it very clear that the image I create of something in my imagination does not well me anything of the actual essence of the thing itself. So that as the external cause is something external it is not any sort of cause for me. Likewise the changes in me that is the changes in my body that lead to the lead, as what Spinoza calls ‘corporeal causes 4/7) which are therefore way external to my mind and can only be indirectly controlled by it). The ‘external cause’ then, as it is in my body, will firmly involve God as he has an idea of many thing: That is (by 3/17c) many different motions in my body, that determine be to move this way rather than that. What then is fixed by all this diversity, as certain disposition of the essence ( In Spinoza’s language the essence is determined, from some given affection of it, to do something – 3 Appendix. Def:1) In terms of the above argument what is determined in the way that a joy (or even a sadness) suddenly finds itself in the middle of a sequence of changes, and (as those are joy) – becomes able to rethink itself anew across them (becomes able to increase the great many ways it perceive itself by). So that what exists in God’s idea in the body (and as a corporeal cause) exists within our essence as a single and fixed disposition, by which one is made to think this rather than that. In contrast The idea then, as it is taken up an expressed in the essence (that is as my power of thought action expresses it) will exist as a singular idea. Spinoza makes this move absolutely clear in 3/12, when he calls this idea and imagination, and relates it to a present (which is locatable at a time and in a place). Thence a chasm opens up between external corporeal cause (which is in God as he has an idea of very many things), and the idea of the present by which I fix that cause within me (and embody itself to be). This in turn take one back to Spinoza’s remark that the force and growth of a passion relates the power of another’s nature compared with ones own. The Point about the ‘compared’ is in not that it represents a will to power that is pitched beyond essence, but rather the fact that what these corporeal causes are is itself compound, and runs across God as he has many ideas – and many separate thoughts. The single disposition (and accompanying desire) then express this multitude as it impact on the human essence itself (as it finds itself in the middle of itself), a expression, which finally then fixes upon a single idea in which it embodies. The ‘essence’ of the passion then lies in unthinkable comparison of powers, while the idea that embodies that compassion exists within the human mind itself, and is only able to embody an idea of that essence as it is irrevocably different to it. I will come back to this point latter. How then does this singular of another relate to the plurality of perceptions without which it cannot be thought? And how can this link between one and many be thought without recourse to some kind of synthesis (aka Kant), or (aka Hume) reality? To understand this point one needs to return to 2/9c and 2/15/ In 2/9c Spinoza clearly agues that ones being in the middle of very many perceptions need to imply that one is the middle of very many modes of thinking. On the contrary he suggests it is perfectly possible to imagine a single mode of thinking that of itself contains very many separate ways of perceiving. The key point here is that this sense of being gathered up is defined not by tan act of synthesis each individual perception, but rather by the way these perceptions are caught up in the mode itself. The mode will, of itself, (and as itself) simply include this diversity within its formal being (2/15),. That is, the mode, far from synthesing perceptions into a singular impression, will rather arrange itself across that very diversity, and thereby take up that being diverse into the sense that it (the mode) is in the middle in another. Thence an external body can only be perceived as it affects our own body in someway (2/26): that is as it impels us into the middle of a numerous of perceptions: And its identity – as such lies, not is any innate property of its own, but only that by determining the body is some fixed and determinate way (2/25), it catches up the essence in the middle of one manner of being (rather than others), and thereby determines it to do or think certain things rather than others. In this process then the idea of another is critical importance ( 2ax3), as the ones own essence only changes as it is having an idea of another. That is as is it caught in a sequence of perceptions, which taken together give the idea of something. The priority here is not a temporal priority. Thence, one does not then first have an idea of a thing and then come to love or hate it, as the joy or pain it affects us with is co-terminuns to the giving of it (as an ideas (by 3/12-13). Likewise it is not a simple logical priority, which would posit as a maxim the idea need to exist before the affect attached to it : as although 2A3 does read this way, the argument in 5/2, which suggests one can separate out an the affects of joy and pain from their external causes would suggest that there is not absolute logical connection between idea and affect. It is rather the case that the need is a compositional one, whose role is to give a sense in which all the diversity of shifting perception are caught within one individual as it has an idea of this another What the idea of another is thereby gives is not an idea of the thing itself, but rather a sense that as I think that other all the myriad shifting of perception which I experience in thinking that other can be included within me as I am having an idea of it (2/11). Therefore it is the role of the idea to directly embody in itself all the shifting perceptions (and strivings) of essence as it (the essence) is given in composing that idea. Or to put it another way, ideas are priority lies in the fact that they mark a point of composition breakage for the individual essence. It is only as the essence is having an idea, that it is being determined to do/think this rather than that, as it embodies a certain idea within itself. Here then are two very distinct principles of thought. Firstly (by 2/9c) every idea is essentially compound, and must contain within it an myriad of perception, all of which are contained (without an act of synthesis) in the mind.. Secondly (by 2/11) as the mind is disposed by these very perceptions to think this rather than that, it must embody across them a single idea of the external body which is disposing thought is such a way . It goes without saying that this second move is not dialectic in character. The individual is not some Hegelian Self that is trying to reconcile itself with the world it perceives. Indeed exactly the opposite is the case, and the individual revels in very lack of distinction between it an other, as it uses those others to constantly change the sense that it itself is. And yet , this very lack of synthesis creates a problem of its own: after all, how is it that an individual is able both to revelling (and via the strive increasing) the diversity of perceptions, and yet still giving a single idea (or some external object? What after all is being enriched in this embodying? How does striving change it, as well as give it? Here one needs to bare in mind the fact (mentioned above) that all idea are as they are in own body necessarily adequate (2/36), and therefore will give as one fixed mode God’s power of action and thinking (2/36 directly cites 2/7c). Moreover Spinoza makes it very clear that no such adequate idea can be tied down (in itself) to a single present, but will rather as it is adequate be arranged across numerous other images and ideas (5/4 then 8-13). The power of thought is not then to give any one set of perceptions, but rather defines the very sense that a certain thought cannot be confined to one perception, but rather will, even as it is being thought foisture constantly shifting perceptions upon the thinker. The idea of an external thing is then not directly expressed in one perception or even a set of perception. On the contrary by embodying a certain determination of the power of thought itself, the idea is pitched as the driving force for the very the multiplicity of perception itself. That is, to have an idea of an external thing is to be caught as the active (and creative) middle of the very diversifications of perceptions (it is no wonder Spinoza warns the reader not to think of ideas like pictures in a book 2/49s). It is no wonder that Spinoza deduces from this last point both that all ideas of a thing involve indefinite duration (2/31) and every idea itself can only be occluded by another idea that runs counter to it (and is stronger (4/7), as the idea in the idea itself that necessary straddles differences no such principle could be found. Moreover it needs to be noted at this point there is nothing to stop some other cause preclude my ability to think the presence of some particular thing (2.31), nor yet even the external thing itself acting in such a way that precludes the continuence of the idea (in me – 3/38) or yet my own body itself changing itself constitution so that it is no longer effected by this another in this manner (3/51): That is there is no guarantee that the world beyond my particular idea of it needs to continue to behave is such a way that I can posit. All then is fixed by the union of the power of thought and action in the idea, is that as I have a certain idea (and perform a certain set of actions, in the giving of that idea, I am pitched in the middle of a certain set of perceptions across which that action is composed. To go back to Spinoza’s own example the fist cannot be clenched and bought down without entailing a great number of perceptions across which a certain fixed idea is embodied. Nor is this power of prediction limited to things of my body. It I hold a hammer, or a sword, I know what it will do as I bring it down on iron air or flesh. All that then differntiates the adequate from the inadequate idea is then the response on that upon which I act, and whether my action can enrich both my nature and theirs. So to kill a man because of hate, is delimit both his of life, and my own existence (4/39) and therefore bad (4/45). While, in contrast, to act by love, in contrast, could well lead to a common notion, through both I an the other are placed in the middle of an enriching change. Or to put it another way, what differntiates the adequate from the inadequate idea is this very ability to generate new perception. Inadequate idea has not such powers beyond the the idea (o another it givies) – while adequate ideas faces no such delimting. This last remark though begs a further question about how exactly the striving (the is the essence as it actually exists 3/7), operates within such ideas: That is, what and how is my striving enriching itself in having and idea? Or to put it another way, then point of a adequate idea is that the essence, as it rides the idea ceases control of the sense that it is in the middle in itself, and manages to rework what its body is (2/38-39), and what its feelings are and do (5/4). However such a freedom is clearly lacking for inadequate ideas, which will give the composing striving no freedom in how to think them, merely determining it one way rather than another (2/25). Here one needs to make a careful distinction, The question ‘what is it the striving itself does?’ is essentially meaningless. It is quite clear from the above (and from 3/56), that what a striving is depends upon the way that the mind is being determined at a certain time, and by a certain external cause, and that there are as many different types of desire an there are causes. And yet this remark actually merely complexifies the question, rather than rendering it meaningless. As is is both still the case for Spinoza that striving all (as they are adequate) hook up together, and can be reconciled with one another (4/59), so what appeared so diverse in inadequate ideas, must have quite a different appearance for adequate ideas (this is a topic a will return to). But equally Spinoza clearly thinks there are general rules about what an individuals essence is doing as it is our essence in a particular striving some of which I will examine now (the others, which relate to consciousness I will again return to below). In Particular Spinoza argues (3/28) that an individuals striving always modifies any one affect by, in thinking it, striving to make it present or actually existing. Which of course begs the further question, of ‘in what does this being present consist’? It cannot relate directly to the affect itself, which Spiniza argues s both always actually present, and always the same (3/18s1). Spinoza’s answer to this question then comes in 4/9 where he argues that particular affects do not vary in what they do they do, they certainly do varying in ‘intensity’, which affects in the present being more ‘intense’ than those of the past or future. However, Spinoza then fails to provide any adequate theory of what ‘intensity’ is . All Spinoza does say (in 49) Is that intensity is he natural consequence of 2/17, . This proposition odes not mention intensity at all, by merely argues that the human body will continue being affected with a mode (and the mind will regard it as actually existing) until the body is affected by another mode that precludes the actual existence of the first one. The argument then seems to by (in reference to 4/9) that an affect in the present is more intense when there is nothing else in the mind stopping one perceiving a certain mode. Here 4/7 comes to hand that is however not cited directly in 4/9). 4/7 argues that any mode will continue to exist until it is restrained by the force of some stronger and opposed affect. The immediate implication being that any affect must logically, if in the present stronger than its rivals, or otherwise it would not be able to be in the present at all. However of course this answer simply begs further questions both about what exactly the nature of this force is , and how any force got be to strong or weak. in first place. In answer to the first question Spinoza three apparently incompatible alternatives. In 4/5 he suggests the power of an external affect is defined by the power of that bodies force of existence in comparison to our own. And yet such a force clearly is problematic, and is so independently of whether one accepts the argument made above In 5/2 and 5/6 Spinoza argues that such a force far from being the native preserve of the external body, could (5/2) be separated out from the body, and was (5.6) compound anyway, and always composed of other lesser forces. And so the citing of external forces by themselves is not enough without a theory then capable of thinking how and why these forces are (and in what sense they are compound) – which is the point of my above remarks. The next explication of intensity is giving in 5/5. Here, citing 3/49, Spinoza argues that any affect will appear stronger if it is exists by its self in the mind (and is therefore free). So that the intensity of the affect as it is linked to an external cause, greatness the more that affect is solely linked to that cause. Finally (and apparently running contrary to the last point) Spinoza argues (5/8) that the more causes that come together to give a certain affect, the stronger that affect then is, as the more it can do. What is then running through all these different origins of intensity is a feeling of the scale in which an individual affect is caught up in the middle of an certain affect. That is, the first two origins come down to the idea that the intensity of an affect is proportionate to the manner in which an individual feels caught p in another: If they feel (by the second origin) utterly caught in that other, and unable to do anything about that catching (or mitigate it is some way), the argument their accompanying feelings are more intense, than if then can imagine the other as an external force, and therefore mitigatable by other external forces. Alternatively (in the third origin) I might feel myself to be part of an affect that has so many causes, that I cannot escape it as such, but am always caught up in the middle of the implications. In Either case then link is being made between intenisty and the sense that an affect catches one up within it – and moves one elsewhere. With this in mind one can then easily understand what is happening in 4/9 and its link to 3/28, (and 4/7). Each Affect in itself is constant the mind, as each affect represents merely a sense that any one mind is caught up in the middle of some striving (4/7) (even thought the exact strength of that striving will not be – 3/39 and see below). What varies is then the intensity of this middle, that is the number of perceptions across which any one affect is being given. Here the above argument comes fully into play. I argued above that each affect (as it is adequate) always embodies itself across a very great many different perceptions, in which it pitched itself as a re-creative middle. Thence the minds striving will act from within the affect itself, to extend it domain over the rest of the mind – as it attempt to catch up other perceptions into giving it. In this catching up of others two quite distinct methods are possible. On the one hand one can envisage each individual caused essence striving across perceptions. Thence is role would be to constantly increase the number of perceptions, and the links established by it alone between these perceptions. Such an external cause would then seem to the mind to be free and absolute: As the mind thought in this way it could to understand how one is able to be in the middle of these perceptions in any other way that thought this thing. This is then my reading of the intensity of 5/5. It is the intensity of the ‘free’ that it alone acts upon perceptions, and gives itself as their hidden secret – as their middle. Thence love (that is being pitched within the middle of an external causes, as that pitching produces joy) would thereby become a productive schemata – is which perception where not jut related, in relation to one thing, but were created through that thing. However the ability of this cause to operate would be severely curtailed once it came up against other forces (that is other way in which a middle can operate), forces that then not only cannot be included with the re-creative love, then it will be naturally delimited (and restricted) What is more such a preclusion is made all the more likely for likely for two reasons. Firstly by its very unreason (its exclusivity) love sets itself up against the rest of the mind and the bod (which it invariably caught up in very many different thing). It is therefore likely to provoke corporeal causes in the body, which is simply determined in many other ways that the lover can imagine, and will (even as it is) endlessly pull that lover elsewhere than their love. Secondly, The love exclusivity is only possible as one mantains a single idea of a thing. It is this very being within a single idea which precludes the action of anything else, and forces upon the mind only one mode as being affected, a one element perception, upon which the express that affect. If then this idea itself split, and caught up he lover is other thoughts than this love, the very exclusivity of loving would be compromised, and the individual would be immediately forced back upon the other way an affect can arrange a middle. On the other hand any one affect need not be arranged exclusively across perception. On the contrary it is clear thought most (if not all ) affects will actually occur within other ideas, and will embody themselves across numerous different causes which caught up together by it. It is then these affect which Spinoza is arguing in 5/8 that are naturally intense, and are neither very difficult to preclude (5/10s) or cannot (is they are adequate in themselves) be precluded at all (5/7). Either way around, what the mind strives for (as the affect is positive) is intensity itself: That is, it strives to extend the domain of any one affect, spreading it across the mind, and attempting to catch up other elements in the mind by it. Indeed these two alternative kinds of striving are less simple alternative, and rather are extremes in a spectrum of inclusion, which has at one end cheerfulness, which automatically binds to every part of the mind within in its action (3/11s), and cannot be had in excess (4/42s); While at the other end are blind joys, and their loves, which deal necessarily with a part of the mind (at the expense of all the rest), and can very easily become excess, and prejudicial to the whole ( 4/43). Spinoza will then (4/40-58) build on this point, to create a lexicon of which affects take up other affects (for example cheerfulness, and hope), which do not (hate), and when this also when this use of other is bad (hope and pity)_ and when good (favour and self-esteem). Each affect will then naturally spread out its embodiements over others (which it either includes in itself or not), until it reaches a point where some other affect intervenes, and refuses to become a part of it. If then this part was itself a part of a stronger affect it may well whisk into itself the parts of the mind that had been caught up by the other affects, pulling them elsewhere, and forcing the other affect into retreat . Hence again Spinoza’s finally nuanced phrase ‘corporeal causes (4/7). These are causes that cannot be given in any one affect (which is merely in the middle of its own striving), and yet all the same catch up these affects, and sets them up against one another. At this point a further clarification needs to be made about the difference between a the determination of a desire to do something, and the intensity of that doing. As I argues above, the exact way an essence is determined relates to how the mind I thinking about external objects, with the thought of certain objects catching up the mind in certain ways and thereby determining certain actions. Such determination of the essence will then be largely self positing, that is the very thought of them will spread them through the mind, and make them ever more intense. And so, by 3/28, to strive for a joy, is to strive to want it to exist, that is to want it to be intense. And yet a careful distinction needs to be drawn between this particular striving, and the intensity that that striving itself involves. As a determination of human essence (a sense a body is in the middle) a desire has intensity, and yet intensity itself does not belong to that determination itself, but is rather the property of the human essence as it is understood in a more general sense. Such intensity, as it gives a sense that one is caught up in body, is the peculiar product of the human essence itself. It therefore offers a way in which that essence can be thought separately from the exact determination in which it finds itself, and pitched into the middle of all other determinations. It needs to course to be noted here this thinking of a different pitching is not itself a Platonic (or even Aristotlian) excerise. It is not that the intensity was always a secret part of the soul , which only needs to be discovered. On the contrary (by 2/11c) God has no specific idea of intensity as something separate from the mind until he mind itself produces this notion., and present it as something positive and creative) in its own right. Be that as it may, it is clear that intensity itself plays at a very different register to the determinations, and offers the mind new way to understand them. In particular it offers the Mind’s striving a thought which is capable of being arranged across specific determination of itself, and thinking about the sense in which it desires certain determination to increase, and others decrease. What is more, this thinking about intensity will be the norm when one is considering negative affects, and desiring their occlusion. Indeed, in a sense the negative itself only ever deals with intensity (and nothing else). The negative exists therefore not as an active principle in its own right, but rather is merely a sense in which the mind looses the power to act (that is a power to be in the middle of itself): What the mind looses therefore in a sadness is this ability to be intense. It then posits in answer its own intense affect, whose only aim is to remove this diminution of itself. The intensity of this striving being the defined merely in response to the degree of power lost, and is defined before one acts. Finally the action one then takes is all concerned with the intense or more specifically with minimising the intensity of the pain itself ( 3/37). Pain, and the intense desire that comes from it, is never something positive in itself; But all the same does offer the mind an opportunity of thinking its own nature as something separate from its affects – and to a degree pitched (via intensity) against them, and as it does this Spinoza clearly thinks it is useful, and can aid the minds ability to act, by allowing it to understands itself as something apart from its own affects (4/43s).;Something joy by itself can never do or be ( 4/60). Intensities will therefore always need to be thought of in two ways: on the one hand there are self posting (positive) affects, who the very thought of provokes (in some way) embodiment, and on the other there are intensities themselves, understood as they are gathered up in the human essence itself, The nuances set up b this duality and complex. However only three are relevant n the context of the current discussion, so I will limit my discussion to these alone. Firstly then each individual affect clearly has a highly complex relationship with the intensities from is manifested. As The idea of the affect exists in itself (is the mind) is , Spinoza says almost utterly lacking in intensity. It is merely contingent, and quite unable to manifest itself, or produce an affect (4/12). In terms of imagination, one might go further and suggest that such images existed as no more than impressions caught within he ‘softer parts’ of the brain (2/17c). What then triggers memory (in some way) is then always something else )be it real cause or merely random twitching of the brain), by which the mind as it is thinking something else, suddenly finds itself caught up in positing in some way this affect as well. These connections being frequently random, and merely the product of the physical constitution of the brain, rather than something in its own right (3./14): The mind is therefore quite unable to think one affect without others crowding in, and demanding also to be thought (3/15). However once this affect has been supposed by something in someway, the rules change – and (as it is positive at least) it will to a degree at least posit itself: that is it will attempt to embody itself across as much as the mind a possible,. What is more, as an affect does so, itself strength will increase, and with that its ability to further manifest itself is likewise increased.. Moreover Spinoza clearly argues (and this is an argument I will return to in sections below) that tense is critical in the process of positing. This importance is twofold. On one hand (from the perspective of the affects themselves, the future and the past becomes a process by which they can give a new sense of the very process of their own embodiment, or offer a way in which they are at least partly given by what is now (4/10). Each affect will the reach across times (at it were), using the past and the future, to give a sense by which, even though absence in the actual present, they can still be being posited in someway (4/13). On the other hand temporality is very much the weapon the mind itself as it has a reality of its own against its affects (as it is in the middle in itself) can use to sought localise bad affects in a certain time and place (and therefore as something that has or will pass (5/6). However this is not the place to consider all the interesting moves being made here about time and temporality (all of which I return to below): All that matters in the current argument is then that once triggered, affects embody themselves across other affects, and can use tense (that is being the future) to do so. Secondly, and arising from the last point, contingency itself opens out a disjunction between mind’s power of thinking and itself power of acting. The mind can clearly think many things, and have many diverse imaginations, and yet these imagination will not be enough to induce action, as they will lack any kind of intensity, and with it the power to change the mind in any way (4/15-17). Or to put it another way, because the power of action operates within singular ideas (which it renders intense) it breaks with the power of thought,. The power of thought might endlessly work out the consequences of actions and attempt to inspire actions with those consequences, and yet (operating as it does from the perspective of pure thought, which ranges across different intensities be quite unable to marshal in one intensity one thought capable of inspiring new (and moral) actions. Thirdly, and running in the opposite direction to the last proposition, it is clear that thought has its own powers in dealing with Affect. Any one affect will necessary be embodies across differing perception (in as argued above differing ways), and the power of thought then remains the ability to tke these perception, and pull them elsewhere that the affect itself might want to give them. Hence in book five Spinoza argues that thought can disrupt affects, by breaking into the affect singularity either directly (5/2-4) by stripping out the affect felt from external causes; or indirectly by breaking any on set of perception across the back on infinite causation (and thereby preventing the affect from claiming perceptions for its own special domain.(5/5-9). Thence what was singular in the power or thought (the one idea) was complex and creative within the power of action (the very intensity across which a thought is composed). Likewise what seemed singular to the power of action (a certain fixed determination) what the power of thinking itself multiple, and contains many separate ideas/perceptions (but I will return to this below). The singularity of an idea is therefore an immensely complex formation in Spinoza. A pat answer might be that this singularity is always composed of a single power of thought and action, which operates across the mind, and produces within it certain perceptions. And yet this operation, as it impacts upon everything else’s in the mind, preventing some things, and ensuring others. It is further complicated by the fact that many affects take up other affects into themselves (and as their perception), and be perpetually spawning as they do so yet more affects, to catch up within it: Hence hope is takes up a joy, and breeds within it a pain and a vacillation(3/18s2); or pride breeds fantasies from a joy (3/26 s). Moreover the situation is further complicated by the asymmetry between the individuals power of acting and the power of thought implicit in affect as it is inadequate. In the single affect the power of action remains volatile and creative, as it endlessly reworks the intensity of the affect itself (that is the sense everything else is caught by it): In contras the power of thought remains fixed, and determined to produce one idea (that is express one way of being affected). In contrast the power of thought remains stubbornly fixed in thinking one thing In contrast if one goes back to the external causes by which that affect was given (that is by which the essence was itself fixed in some determined way), then opposite occurs. And what appeared so singular for the essence- a fixed way runs across the myriad of shifting perceptions, and other ways it could be thought:. This is a point I trun to below. Finally for now I started this section with a question: How can one have thoughts of a thing if one does notsynthesis? The answer I ahm giving here is if at someother level what appears creatively multiplex in the mind (the powers of thought and action) is also somewhere else held necessarily to be one thing, to be one idea, whose very being is necessary in order that all this diversity can be expressed.. The Thirds set of questions I raised above concerned the role and power of the negative: How is it different from the positive? This is another very deep question in ethics. For much of the book Spinoza will argue as if there was some sort of equivalency of parallelism between joy and pain. He will therefore argue that the same basic explication that gives love will give hate (3/13), and that This last remark of cause leads to the natural question –how should one understand such this promoting? Spinoza’s answers this point at the beginning of book four. Here (4/9s) he argues that although an affect itself is fixed (by its external cause), the intensity of that affect is not. Now by intensity he clearly means (4/7) its ability to spread across the body. Moreover, it is this intensity that will ultimately determine what affects are thought of as present and what are not. Each affec The singularity here is in a sense nothing to do with the formal external thing itself, but rather relates to my embodiment (in a single idea) of it. From which three things then follow. Firstly this idea does not relate to the real world itself. That is the singularity of the imagination I give has nothing to do with the real world itself, but is rather the creation of my own individual essence. The cause of this impression might be something external therefore (in the sense that I can only form this idea by having the idea of something other than me, 2/11c), and yet need not pertain to the real world itself. Spinoza says therefore imagination as they occur in my essence are always real (and positive) the problems only start when I mistake this reality to the actual present to the thing itself (2/4/1s). Secondly the embodiment of another I am giving here is very much personal to me. It is not then the external cause itself that is in itself forcing me to act in one way rather than another: nor is it even dictating the intensity of itself effect upon me. The External cause is then more the occasion for the affect tha the affect itself. That is it is the fioxing of a change, wich it is then up to me to develop Moreover this contrast becomes even more pronounced and nuanced once one directly thinks about that is being thought here in ideas. Going back to simple bodies, a simple body has two states. It can be viewed ‘essentially’, and as a way in which every else is gathered up by a certain change, and driven to be different in some way. Each body is therefore in itself reciporically (inviciem is the Latin) defined in relation to all other bodies (3/13s l2) – it is motion whose essence is known in the way it pulls other motions along. However if one wants to isolate one motion – from all the rest, the situation immediately changes. Each one body can only be seen as here and now if its relations are held down is respect to all other motions. To Isolate one is therefore, is therefore to view all the others as single states. The connection between them is then transformed, becoming not anything any one could own, but rather a sense that all are caught (as they exist) in the middle of all the rest, as they are bound up in a chain of infinite causation (3/13s l3). Each body is then essentially in everything else (as each is in the middle of everything else); and yet as it exists, it (and all other bodies) are understood to adher within a chain of causation which none can own. An yet one needs not to make to much of this contrast,. These two states are not absolutely alternative, but merely different ways (across reason) to grasp at matter. The ‘cause’ then in the latter methodology (that is the way a body can influence another) is effectively what is essential the ‘being in another’ of the first method. What each methodology represents is an entry point into grasping the shifting realties of the infinite immediate mode of extension (motion and rest Ep 63) itself. One can either therefore start with things as the actual exist, and then come up against the paradox of a chain of causes which cannot be localised or restricted by existence, which necessary assumes assumes its action. Alternatively one can start with the essential nature of the denizens of the immediate mode, but then one will need to grasp how each such nature is not only unrestricted in itself, but also always operates within, and across others (invicem). Spinoza will then firmly pitch ideas within the chain of actual existence, and does so very explicitly. Each idea exists as a mode of thinking, and therefore determined by another mode , and that in turn by another (2/9). At this point Spinoza says something very telling. He claims that the sequence of objective ideas (idea of a thing) follows on from the sequence of causes, and therefore each objective idea will have as its cause another objective idea . This jump to a parallelism of cause (a parallelism I will return to latter) is doubly interesting. On the one hand, it needs to be confessed that Spinoza has to make this jump. Objective ideas grasp at a formal reality they do not directly share in, and yet apparently completely comprehend, so much so that the flow of their ideas reflects the flow of things as they are in themselves. This full comprehension is therefore only possible if objective ideas are somehow bound up in the chain of causes itself. Moreover, this chain of causation is exactly where objective ideas, which are pitched within existence must function, as it is just this chain which determined existence itself. Each idea therefore, had an actual existence, as it shares in the chain of cause. On the other hand it is clear that Spinoza is doing more here than derive a basic similarity between the chain of causes and the chain of objective ideas. His reference in 2/9 is to 2/7 (that is the parallelism proposition), and through that to 1 Ax 4. This Axiom (on which Spinoza bases parallelism (and so much more) argues that the knowledge of an effect depends upon, and involves the knowledge of a cause. Moreover Spinoza of course also argues that ‘what is caused differs from its cause in precisely in what it has from the cause (1/17 s). An objective idea therefore will not simply wait in the infinite chain of causes to exist or not (as Modes must), but rather uses that very chain to actually comprehend (and even fix) differences. An objective idea therefore looks back upon its cause, that is upon the actual existence whose effect it is, and grasps at the nature of the difference between itself- and that effect, even as it gives an idea of it as its cause. It thereby locates its idea not simply in the general chain of cause, but grasps (albeit objectively) at a very sense in which modes in the infinite immediate mode are essential (in another). The intellect thereby grasps, in terms of cause and effect, what is actually essential in the infinite mode itself, that is its very ‘being in another’, or the very sense that each mode essentially and perpetually changing others, Objective ideas therefore, as it were traps between two actual existence, a single instance of what is essential to simple bodies themselves, namely the ability to be perpetual in another. The difference is of course the essential element of the immediate mode is necessarily in others (all others), while objective ideas can only grasp at that being in a specific context (as it is in this other here), and therefore requires a specific set of circumstances (chain of causes and existences) to already exist. The effect of such an entrapment is to render what was most creative within the immediate mode itself, into a simple ‘unity’, that is a single perception of another, which is grasped in one glance, one objective idea. What was so creative and complexifying the infinite immediate mode itself becomes within the idea of God, what is most simple and direct. Herein lies the deep contrast of objective and formal existence. What is creative in formal existence, is the ability to be always within another, which one warps and changes. Actual existence in contrast is uncreative in itself. To simply be, is to be defined by an abstract series of causes which have little or no relevance to what one essentially is (that is ones own nature, and power 1/36). However is such actual existence which are so creative for objective ideas. Others as they actually exist, for to objective thought loci from which perception stream out (idea it has of others), and endlessly complexify themselves themselves across other perceptions (whether that involves the actually existing itself, or its links to existences). These shifting ideas are then used to entrap the very motions which are what is essential within the formal mode itself. These then become for it singular perceptions – and determinations, in which all its myriad objective ideas are caught, in giving one single perception, Ideas of things, and formal existences (things in themselves) move in a different off in a different rhythm,. What is more, this difference of rhythm have significant role to play in ones understanding of what a human mind (and essence) actively is. Spinoza takes considerable care in his derivation of the mind. This is because in the course his discussion upon it he opens up two potential disjunctions in the rhythm of formal and objective existence. The first (which revolves around (2/9c) extends objective creation into the case of an idea of a single object,; while the second he considers how as an object actually exists, it can be formally complex (and contain many ideas) but will still need a simple objective thought to hold it. He then unifies these ideas in 2/12, to create a mind that is both in the middle of objective and formal thought (and therefore a true denizen of the attribute and the absolute middle beyond it). How then can objective ideas extend beyond formal in the object? This will naturally occur Spinoza suggests once of has a single object in which there ‘happenings’. As each such happening exists within the object, God will have an idea of it as he has an idea of the object itself. Each idea is therefore in the middle of others, as those others are also included within that object. So that it is the case of happening in the object , the sense that one is in the middle on another is the sense that each happening occurred in that object. The perceptions of happenings in an object are therefore certainly creatively in the middle of one another as they are in that object. Moreover this creative middle will be equally valid whether or not these ‘happenings’ relate to the object as it is coming into existence, or as it already actually exists (2/19). However, the same set of ideas, as they have formal existence, will exist not shifting ideas of happening, but rather as they have an actual presence (or not) in modes. The question then asked of these shifting events will come down to one a matter of what mode they are included in (or not). But here of course a difference opens up. Any set of ideas of a thing is necessary include in the idea itself only as that idea is existing ( 2/8 c+s). These myriad shifting idea of happenings will therefore necessarily occur in within actually existing modes (order that they are ‘reality’ at all). From which is follows that God can easily have an idea of a body (a creative middle of) as it is being created and yet this idea that not have an actual existence itself, but rather be arranged across numerous actually existing modes. (which is after all the usual state of affairs). However it is equally possible that God can have an idea of a single existing thing, and have that idea include numerous ideas of happening within it, and yet remain single mode of thinking in which all these idea of are finding a place (2/15). The middle of another therefore is equally applicable to ideas is one body, and across a myriad of bodies, as all it need are actual existence (and/or happenings in an accrual existence) across which it can arrange itself, as it expresses God’s idea. The opposite case is potentially even more problematic. I argued above that it is in the nature of the mode to be disruptive and surprising to what exists. Moreover is also in the essence that they are reaching into and warping other modes, and therefore never single or simple in themselves. Given this, Spinoza asks how is it that these myriad of conflicting and transmutating modes can be gathered in one individual (2/11)? His answer is that all these modes are formally diverse, and yet that stop then being objectively unified. It is possible, he suggests have a single objective idea, of a certain object (the human body 2/13), which necessarily includes within it all the myriad shifting of the modes which spring out from that bodies actual existence. Such an necessarily objective idea will impose its own limits upon these modes, whose unity would become conditional upon such an idea being able to be given – and therefore on the bodies actual existence itself. The unity of modes is therefore dependant upon something no set of modes themselves would ever directly create (namely an actual existence of a certain object), and if this objects is lost, the modes will necessarily and immediately pull apart ( Bylnberg makes just this point in ep 25?). A further implication arises from the last point. All objective ideas , are of course neccssarily impersonal (ad belong always to the idea of Body): that is they are always the idea ‘of another’. To exist is therefore to be caught up in having perception, over which one has (as they are perception) no control. And yet these Objective ideas are going to clearly be of two kinds. Firstly, one can easily imagine sequence of changes that both originates in, and operates across all the myriad modes of the actual existing body. Each mode would, in such a case operate within all the others, pulling them in new direction, and being then pulled by them in return. The modes would then come to be a creative middle, which endlessly re-gave its nature. The idea then of this middle would be within God actively as he has the idea of an object. Thus far, then one single idea (that of a body) that coincided with a certain creative middle. This idea would then loose its apparently impersonal nature, as its very expression, would impel it to understand and includes as a part of t, the sense in which the creative middle of the modes were operating. The perception it gave then would be the objective expression of the formal creativity of the modes. This union will however immediately falter , and for whatever reason the modes of the mind engage in the world beyond them. Firstly as such modes reach beyond the other modes of the essence, there is nothing to keep these modes operating in the collective interest of all the rest. On the contrary, as an individual mode becomes caught up with external modes, its interests becomes linked to things beyond the body, and it can easily come to operate against the interests of the body as a whole (Spinoza makes just this argument in 4/60). Moreover, ones ability to fix in the intellect what is occurring in this process will likewise be effected. It is axiomatic for Idea of God that it occurs in a different rhythm to the ideas of the mode. The Idea of the body was special because it held down – in a certain way, the shifting world of perception. Once other objects enter the equation this unique union is blown apart, and the idea of God again operates according to its own rhythm. Spinoza is arguing here then one needs to understand that two syntheses will come together in the mind. One the one hand, in a single object there might be many happening, and many perceptions of such happenings. And yet, all the perceptions of the changes might still be (even as they are in the middle of another) caught in perceiving a single object, which naturally contains within it all these perceptional diversity. One the other hand, it is equally possible to imagine that a single idea of something that actually exists can contain within it diverse, and multi-headed modes, These modes will then only held within the single idea itself, as they affect one another. So that, if the modes engage with the world beyond the body, this union within a single idea simple dissolves. However, these synthesize are far from mutually exclusive, and can be bought together within a synthesis of their own (2/12). In the case of adequate ideas, this synthesis is very subtly nuances. So far, in what Spinoza has agues each mode of the mind operates upon all the rest, as their creative middle. The mind grasps at these moves, in terms of a single fixed objective idea in which they merely must occur. And yet, this occurrence, itself must represent a happening within the object of the mind, and therefore (by 2/9c) can be directly included in a set of ‘ideas of’ such happenings. This move effectively changes everything, as it gives a direct what of thinking about how each mode (of the essence) operates upon, and in the middle of all the others. Each mode therefore will be understood actively as it is constituting itself as the middle (for all the rest). Its means of acting then becomes innate to the minds itself (and truly expresses its essence sive nature ). The Mind therefore achieves a new and very active sense in which it can understand its own itself as a part in the intellect of God. It is not just fixed (and staid) objective idea in which formal modes ra(n)ge, but rather is itself expressive of how each mode only acts across the rest because it is in itself (and by its action), expressive of the middle (the essence) of the mind itself. All modes that therefore directly understood as they are constituting the mind itself, They are therefore understood as operating as an aspect of the way that mind is always pitched into a creative middle of itself own (of which any one mode is merely an aspect). As the mind forms an adequate idea of the body therefore it is sprung from understanding itself merely it terms of actual duration (and mere physical presence) that is merely given to it as a passive player in the idea of God (by 2/8c+s). But rather, the mind finds a way to press into service the very perceptions of God. It is through the difference innate to perceptions themselves (the middle of another) that the essence of the mind can express its modes as they exists not singularly (as a middle in the rest), but rather as particular elements in the constituting of the very creative middle (essence) of the mind itself. The sense of constitution outlined above, is double headed one. What has been accounted for so far is what might be thought of as ‘inclusion’. Each mode of the essence operates in all the rest. The sense of this ‘in’, is then adequately expressed across all the idea of it in all modes of the mind (including the one being ‘in’ itself). What it is for a mode to be ‘in’ the mind is therefore adequately expressed, as the mind gives the perception of that mode as always existing in middle of another. The ‘In’ of the mode (of the mind) and the ‘Of’ through what that mode is expressed across the mind directly coalesce. ‘Ins’ therefore spark ‘ofs’ which that it. But likewise every ‘of’ as it hooks up different modes, is will inspire these ‘ins’ themselves with some new action – some new way to express the sense that they are within the changing body. As one forms an idea of a change therefore, one express that idea across modes that are themselves ‘in’ the body, and which will respond to it by producing new changes (and therefore new ‘ofs) of here own. Modes are therefore never a singular in their expression of a middle in the body. Rather the very fact that it is in the nature of such a middle to change other ‘modes’ in the mind, will inspire these modes themselves to reciporicate: As an idea is adequate, then is stop in any sense being singular, and opens itself out (as it is given to the essence) as the middle of a constantly transmuting series of highly interrelated modes of being in the middle. The synthesis of 2/12 is therefore a profound one. As not only does in give a way that every mode can be directly understood as a middle to the body. It also, at the same time opens out to other modes, other ways the body is perpetually generating new changes within itself, and across itself. Every mode is therefore on a very deep level always with another. This ‘with’ exists in two senses. Firstly each mode as it in the body can only be given with others – that is as it is re-negotiating the senses that others are. That is, the sense it can be given at all (that it has being) as it shares that being with others (other modes of the body) across which it is then expressed. Secondly, and even more fundamentally, each mode will, even as it is given in the body spark other changes of that body, Every mode therefore will only belong to the mind as it is caught up in the middle with other modes, other ways of changing that mind. Moreover its very being with these others, will of course transform it own nature (that is what it can do), so that its being with others becomes for is a transforming experience. However a point needs to be stressed here. These modes are not events. And the essence is not a localized body without organs, and to argue that they are is to mistake something in the constituting of idea of the essence for the essence itself. In 2/11 Spinoza has not yet shown the sense that a mode is caught by the essence ( he does this in 2/12). What he is suggesting is therefore one thinking understands how he mind includes within it the diversity of formal modes. The complex synthesis of 2/12 moves him one from this formal diversity, and to a situation where what is significant in the mode is that fact that it itself occurs within an essence, and as a way (among myriad others) that essence (as it is given) is constantly in the middle of reconstituting itself. Or to put this in another way, each mode can have, even as it is in the essence no independence from it. Each mode can only express itself ‘in’, as caught up in giving an idea ‘of’ itself across the mind . This idea in turn, necessarily triggers new ways of being ‘in’ (new modes), ways that then re-negociate both there own, and the initial modes sense of being ‘in’. Each mode is therefore only ‘in’ the essence as it is itself transformed by that very process of being within – and cannot be thought as an affect that can somehow be separated out from that transformation. By the same logic the essence is no body without organs, as it’s the actions of its modes is not independent from its own being. An essence can therefore be thought of as active in a way that a Body without organs cannot be. The essence is there not a mean distribution so much as a sense that of being in the middle ‘with’ another. It is therefore the role of the essence to take up every ‘in’ even as it is expressed, and warp it into something else – forcing therefore to be with other modes