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Spinoza Quotes and Arguments On Substance

Baruch Spinoza

&NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Argument<&sol;h2>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In Part I&comma; Proposition 13 of Baruch Spinoza&&num;8217&semi;s <em><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;amazon&period;com&sol;gp&sol;product&sol;0530472171&sol;ref&equals;as&lowbar;li&lowbar;qf&lowbar;asin&lowbar;il&lowbar;tl&quest;ie&equals;UTF8&amp&semi;tag&equals;mjones34880c-20&amp&semi;creative&equals;9325&amp&semi;linkCode&equals;as2&amp&semi;creativeASIN&equals;0530472171&amp&semi;linkId&equals;ae277fe1017bcd779fcc67324eabc509">Ethics&comma; Depicted in Geometrical Order<&sol;a><&sol;em>&comma; Spinoza quotes the following argument to show that an infinite substance cannot be divisible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>If an infinite substance could be divided into equal parts&comma; the parts would either retain the nature of substance or they would not&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Due to Spinoza&&num;8217&semi;s presupposition that two substances of the same nature cannot coexist&comma; it follows that an infinite substance divided into equal parts could not retain the same nature&colon; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>If the parts did retain the nature of substance&comma; then there would be several substances of the same nature&comma; which is absurd because two substances of the same nature cannot exist in the universe &lpar;Proposition 5&rpar;&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If several substances of the same nature existed&comma; they would have to be distinguished from one another&comma; either by the difference of their attributes or by the difference of their modifications &lpar;Proposition 4&rpar;&period; If by their attributes&comma; then they could not share an identical attribute&comma; as attributes constitute the nature of substance and identical attributes would render the substances indistinguishable from one another&period; If by modifications&comma; then this would not truly distinguish the nature of the substances because substance is prior to its modifications &lpar;Proposition 1&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>If the parts did not retain the nature of substance&comma; then substance would cease to exist&comma; which is absurd because existence belongs to the nature of substance and substance necessarily exists&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Existence belongs to the nature of substance &lpar;Proposition 7&rpar; because it cannot be produced by anything else &lpar;Proposition 6&rpar; and therefore must be self-caused&period; Also&comma; it is impossible to have two substances that share an identical attribute &lpar;Proposition 5&rpar;&comma; and two substances with different attributes share nothing in common &lpar;Proposition 2&rpar;&comma; and substances that share nothing in common cannot be the cause of each other &lpar;Proposition 3&comma; Axiom 5&rpar;&period; Substance necessarily exists &lpar;Proposition 11&rpar; because if substance could be conceived as not existing&comma; then its existence would no longer belong to its nature&comma; which is absurd &lpar;Proposition 7&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Conclusion<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>Therefore&comma; infinite substance cannot be divisible&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Counter-Argument<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In Premise 2 of Proposition 13&comma; it does not necessarily follow that there would be more than one substance if the divided parts retained the nature of substance&period; Spinoza makes the following two assertions from Definition 4 and Proposition 10&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>An attribute constitutes the nature of substance &lpar;Definition 4&rpar;&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>The attributes of substance must be conceived as distinct &lpar;Proposition 10&rpar;&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Since attributes constitute the nature of substance&comma; and the nature of substance is in itself and conceived through itself &lpar;Definition 3&rpar;&comma; it follows that an attribute must be conceived through itself&period; Since substance consists of more than one attribute &lpar;Proposition 11&rpar;&comma; and an attribute cannot be conceived through anything else&comma; the attributes must be conceived as distinct from one another&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>If substance were to be divided into equal parts&comma; it would be divided into attributes&comma; because attributes constitute the nature of substance&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This brings Spinoza to the following logical assertion&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>The conception of substance is inherently divided by attributes&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Since attributes must be conceived as distinct&comma; the conception of substance is&comma; by nature&comma; divided into attributes&period; It follows that if the attributes did retain the nature of substance&comma; then there would still only be one substance&comma; because the conception of substance would be unchanged&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Conclusion<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>Therefore&comma; if substance was to be divided and the parts retained the nature of substance&comma; it would not follow that there would be more than one substance&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Counter-Defense<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Regarding Premise 4&comma; that the conception of substance is&comma; by nature&comma; divided by its attributes&comma; is absurd&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>An individual attribute can only be conceived through itself&comma; however&comma; attributes cannot be conceived as separate entities or substances &lpar;Proposition 10&rpar;&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>To conceive of attributes as separate entities would be to conceive of more than one substance&comma; which is absurd &lpar;Proposition 5&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>Attributes are only conceived as distinct insofar as they express a particular infinite nature of substance&period;<&sol;em> <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>That is to say that the conception of substance can only be a conception of one substance &lpar;Proposition 14&rpar;&period; Since substance is infinite&comma; the intellect conceives of many attributes that each express its nature in a particular way&period; However&comma; since the human intellect as a mode of thinking is finite &lpar;Definition 5&comma; Proposition 31&rpar;&comma; it cannot conceive of all of the attributes of substance&comma; or even conceive of the entirety of an attribute&comma; as each attribute is also infinite &lpar;Proposition 11&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Therefore&comma; the intellect can only conceive of finite expressions of substance and its attributes&period; Within these incomplete conceptions&comma; substance could be divided by its attributes&period; However&comma; the following premises will show that substance and its attributes&comma; by their truly infinite nature&comma; cannot be divided&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>Neither substance nor attributes can be limited by anything else&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>By definition&comma; neither substance nor its attributes can be limited&comma; because that which is infinite cannot be limited by anything else&period; This is so because a finite thing can only be conceived in relation to a larger body that necessarily limits the particular thing &lpar;Definition 2&rpar;&period; Alternatively&comma; an infinite thing can only be conceived through the absence of a larger&comma; limiting body&period; Therefore&comma; substance cannot be limited by its attributes&comma; and the attributes cannot be limited by substance&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Spinoza Quotes<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>To divide substance by its attributes would necessarily limit the substance and the attributes&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The act of dividing a whole into parts presupposes a finite whole with finite parts&period; For example&comma; a finite square can be divided into 2 finite rectangles&comma; each comprising a finite half of the square&period; However&comma; an infinite thing cannot be divided into two equal halves because the halves would necessarily be finite&comma; by virtue of being portions of a larger whole&period; This would be absurd because it is impossible to conceive of a half of infinity&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Similarly&comma; to divide substance into an infinite number of attributes would limit the attributes&comma; as each attribute would consist of a portion of the infinite substance&comma; which is absurd&comma; because the attributes are infinite by nature and cannot be limited&period; Thus&comma; substance could only be divided by its attributes if they were both finite things&comma; which is absurd&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Conclusion<&sol;strong>&colon; <em>Therefore&comma; the conception of substance as inherently divided by its attributes is absurd&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>For other essays&comma; reviews&comma; and lists concerning philosophy and film&comma; check out our <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com">home page<&sol;a>&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re interested in more Spinoza quotes and arguments&comma; you can find the entirety of <em>Ethics&comma; Depicted in Geometrical Order<&sol;em> and other works at <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;amazon&period;com&sol;gp&sol;product&sol;0872206203&sol;ref&equals;as&lowbar;li&lowbar;qf&lowbar;asin&lowbar;il&lowbar;tl&quest;ie&equals;UTF8&amp&semi;tag&equals;mjones34880c-20&amp&semi;creative&equals;9325&amp&semi;linkCode&equals;as2&amp&semi;creativeASIN&equals;0872206203&amp&semi;linkId&equals;55623e3842ae9212037cf26e0ad0c744">via Amazon here<&sol;a>&period;<br><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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