The Importance of Spinoza for the Modern Philosophy of Science: Can the revival of Spinoza’s naturalism refute cultural relativism? 9783110319590, 9783110319194

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Nancy Brenner-Golomb The Importance of Spinoza for the Modern Philosophy of Science Can the revival of Spinoza’s naturalism refute cultural relativism?

Nancy Brenner-Golomb

The Importance of Spinoza for the Modern Philosophy of Science Can the revival of Spinoza’s naturalism refute cultural relativism?

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Contents Foreword. The Purpose of this Book 7 Introduction. 9 Chapter I. Spinoza’s Methodological Approach. 41 Chapter II. The Correspondence between a Comprehensive Structure of Science and a Comprehensive Structure of Nature. 85 Chapter III. The Necessary Distinction Between Science and a Presupposed View 105 Chapter IV. The Structural View. 115 Chapter V. The Notion of Essence in Modern Science. 131 Chapter VI. Intuition, Certainty and Innate Ideas. 141 Chapter VII. Free Will, Choice and the Power of the Mind. 171 Chapter VIII. The Connection between an Appeal to Reason and Rational Choice. 187 Chapter IX. Intermezzo: Imagination and Reason. Metaphors and Logical Analysis. 205 Chapter X. Note on the Timing of the Inversion of the Cartesian View 225 Chapter XI. Political Freedom. 247 Chapter XII. The Indirect Effect of Reason on Culture 259 Part I 262 Part II 269 Chapter XIII. The Assumed Central Role of Language in Science and Moral Philosophy. 301 Chapter XIV. A modern view in the spirit of Spinoza. 333 Concluding Remarks. 365 Bibliography. 407 Index 413

Note on References. Where I write [see p.#], the reference is to another page in this book. The references to Spinoza’s work are indicated in the text, using the following abbreviations: C. – The Correspondence of Spinoza. E. – Ethics. MT – Metaphysical Thoughts. PCP – Principles of Cartesian Philosophy. PT – A Political Treatise. ST – Short Treatise on God, Man and his Well-Being. TCU – Treatise on the Correction of the Understanding. TPT – A Theological - Political Treatise. The page numbers of these references are in the editions listed in the bibliography. Abbreviation used in notes are indicated in the bibliography. Finally, I wish to thank professor R. Griffin for his time-consuming reading of, and commenting on, an earlier version of the manuscript, and professor Y.S. Brenner for his continual support accompanied by a demand for clarity. Not least I am grateful to Dr. Eli Brenner and G.J.W. Wiselius for helping me overcome the mysteries of the computer.

FOREWORD: THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK. Reading Spinoza’s work I was struck by his coming so close to the modern view of natural science, and in particular of physics after Einstein. This prompted me to examine whether Spinoza’s approach to philosophy – which in his time was not differentiated from science – is also important for scientific disciplines dealing with human affairs. The question acquired a greater importance when I noticed that the recent interest in Spinoza appears to be related to the emergence of the Enlightenment as a most influential European cultural movement, which – as Jonathan Israel has shown – can testify to his influence. However, this influence is not prominent either in today’s philosophy of science or in cultural studies. This fact seemed to me curious because the most serious critical appraisals of the approach to the scientific enterprise – seen as a product of the Enlightenment – were addressed by Spinoza. One point of criticism, which is the essence of today’s cultural relativism, says that propositions which scientists accept as self-evidently true, are in fact ‘habits of thought’ which are so deeply entrenched in our way of thinking that we fail to notice their origin in a particular culture. The expression ‘habits of thought’ was coined by Hume when he criticised Descartes’ suggestion that ‘clear and distinct ideas’ could be taken as the foundation of knowledge. Hume was clearly part of the (Scottish) Enlightenment, and before him, Spinoza did not ignore this possibility which is endorsed today by cultural relativists. In the PCP he explains that Descartes knew that from our earliest days we are imbued with many preconceptions from which we are not easily freed. This was the reason, he says, that Descartes looked for those ideas which we cannot but affirm, and only then, if we take such ideas as axioms in science, they guarantee truth. Spinoza’s objection was to Descartes’ confidence that every person knows that “he has the power to control the will and thereby bring it about that it is restrained within the limits of the intellect" [Meditation 4, 35-42, quoted in PCP p.11]. Spinoza’s rejection of this assumed power of the

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intellect was based on his conception of human nature, by which he assigns different functions to the will and to the intellect. The essential point is that he derived this solution from his conviction that both functions – or rather all aspects of human nature – must contribute to the maintenance of human existence. Since this view fits so well the evolutionary view of life, I asked myself whether it was possible that the reason that the influence of Spinoza is not prominent in the domains of understanding humanity, is due to the lingering influence of the Cartesian differentiation between science, which according to him dealt exclusively with the explanation of the material world – the world extended in space – and the realm of thought, by which human affairs should be understood. I wrote this book with the intention to examine whether the history of the philosophy of science supports this possible explanation. The importance I see in answering this question is that the rising influence of cultural relativism endangers the very survival of science as a whole. Hence the subtitle of the book.

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INTRODUCTION Following my purpose of writing this book as stated in the foreword, I try to show that the conception of knowledge associated with the Cartesian differentiation between science and human affairs eventually led to cultural relativism in the philosophy of science. I emphasise ‘eventually’ because obviously I do not ascribe this intention to Descartes. Even if my suggestion is correct, that it is his view – that science applies only to the physical world extended in space – that generated the historical process which eventually led to cultural relativism, it is absurd to blame him for the influence his ideas have had on later generations. A general problem involved in writing a book like mine is that if one wishes to understand philosophers who wrote more than three centuries ago it is imperative to consider the problems they faced in their own time. However, this does not mean that we have nothing to learn from their philosophy concerning problems we face today. What it does mean is that we must distinguish between the essential propositions in their philosophy, the rejection of which is the rejection of their whole approach, and those propositions which we may reject or ignore on the ground that they only responded to ideas of their time. This, of course, applies also to Spinoza. Even if Spinoza’s naturalistic philosophy is as important for our time as I suggest, it does not mean that all his propositions can remain intact more than three centuries after his death. One example of necessary change is in the trust, which he shared with Descartes, in the unique status of Euclidean geometry as the only possible correct description of space. Another example is proposition XXVI in the appendix to the fourth part of the Ethics [E. IV], which says that we may destroy anything in nature according to our need to maintain our existence because it is natural for us to do so. This proposition is based on the assumption that planet earth is an unchangeable constant. Therefore it is reasonable for us to reconsider its validity in view of recent knowledge about the possible effect of human behaviour on climatic change or on the depletion of the earth of other forms of life, which are

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likely to affect our existence. Another example, concerning his political science, is found in propositions 3) & 4) of the last chapter of his Political Treatise [PT], in which Spinoza argues that in a democracy women should be excluded from eligibility to any official position in the dominion, on the ground of their natural weakness. He argues that the subordination of women to the authority of men is unlikely to be due to social [cultural] institutions alone because had this been the case there would surely be found some nation in which they would be held of equal rights with men. This example contradicts his own claim that even if, in this case, the natural capacity of women to govern is equal to that of men, it does not mean that it cannot be suppressed by people in power, namely by men. Nevertheless, for three reasons these propositions in Spinoza’s philosophy do not diminish the importance of his approach to the philosophy of science. First, because although Spinoza agreed with Descartes that some concepts or basic principles can be understood by reflection alone, the reflection is always on what we know. For example, in his Treatise on the Correction of Understanding [TCU IV] he explains that our knowledge that the sun must be much larger than it seems to be is acquired by reflection on everybody’s experience that when a thing moves further away from us it looks smaller. In general, his conception of objective knowledge is not the same as what is meant by objective truth, and it certainly does not mean independence of human experience. From Spinoza’s definition of the mind follows that objective knowledge is knowledge derived from ‘objects of perception’[see p.19], and truth is a judgements of reason. His deviation from Descartes in this respect is clearly stated in a corollary to proposition eight of the Principles of Cartesian Philosophy [PCP], where he comments on Descartes’ theory of vortices. He rejects Descartes’ idea that one can derive knowledge of the real world from abstract assumptions about it. In a letter to de Vries [C. IX], he explains that the main advantage he sees in his recommended method, as opposed to Descartes', is that it compelled him ‘to attribute existence’ to anything conceived by reflection alone. An advantage, he writes, "to which I award the prize.” The attribution of existence’ means

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that, if philosophers, or scientists, postulate concepts or laws of nature by which reality can be understood, they ought to find entities or events in space-time that correspond to them. ‘Correspond’ in the sense that, for example, the mathematical formula of a parabola corresponds to the essence of a path of every projectile. This example is of particular interest because although, like Descartes, Spinoza considered the principles of geometry to be the best way to understand the essential structure of the world, unlike Descartes, he thought that there was no way of knowing a true essence of a thing without first knowing the thing itself. And this applied also to mathematical objects. He explains that we would not have had the clear and distinct idea about the essence of a parabola – its general equation – without first knowing parabolas. And we know parabolas because they exist [PCP III p.99]. The second reasons that our rejection of some particular propositions in Spinoza’s philosophy does not diminish the importance of his approach to science is that ‘reflection on what we know’– namely on changes in science which occurred since the 17th century – implies that such changes have a necessary effect on changes in meta-scientific abstract concepts. A modern example, which uses arguments similar to Spinoza’s, is Einstein’s idea that his conception of space-time is derived from his new knowledge of this ‘object’ [see p.158 in chapter VI]. The third reason is that the main criterion Spinoza recommends for accepting any scientific method is not whether it can answer all questions, but whether it is the best way to look for such answers. This is explained already in his Metaphysical Thoughts [MT VIII]. After stating a series of questions troubling his contemporaries, like Why are the impious punished if they are created by God's decree? Spinoza notes that for such questions neither he nor Descartes have an answer, but adds that their purpose is not to explain these troubling questions but to inquire into what can be attained most certainly by natural reason [MT pp.125-126. See also his Correspondence, ©. LXXV)]. In summary, Spinoza’s rationalism does by no means imply a complete reliance on reason as opposed to empirical evidence. The

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evidence provided by objective knowledge – in his sense of the word – is necessary because, as explained in TCU VIII, even in the best logical system, its postulated axioms are conceivably not true. And this is because a postulated essence of a thing does not imply its necessary existence [E. I prop.XXIV]. And the same applies to the study of humanity. In the PCP, in the section The will should not be confused with appetite, he comments on an argument [of an opponent of Descartes] that the faculty of the will cannot lead one to want what is contrary to the good prescribed by the intellect. He says that the claim that a person cannot judge something to be bad for him and yet will it, is contrary to experience. And as philosophers, we should acknowledge the fact that a person can very well will what he knows to be bad for him, and look for a natural explanation for this fact [see p.12]. Spinoza’s letter to Oldenburg concerning Boyle’s work [C. VI] makes clear that his objection to the empirical method developed in England was not to the conduction of experiments per se – he himself reports on experiments – but to the method’s neglect to acknowledge that these experiments do not prove a mechanistic view of the world but presuppose it. And this presupposition is reached by rational reflection. Yet, as stated at the beginning of this introduction, we must distinguish between those propositions which, in view of the development of science, we may reject, and the essential propositions, the rejection of which implies the rejection of the whole approach. The latter are the principles which, had they replaced the Cartesian conception of science, as dealing exclusively with the explanation of the material world extended in space and time, might have prevented the emergence of cultural relativism. Alternatively, had the present rising interest in Spinoza recognised that his philosophy was essential for all branches of science, including social and political science, this might have led to the rejection of cultural relativism. My support of these implications is the topic of this book. In the following pages I summarise those propositions in Spinoza’s

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philosophy which cannot be changed without rejecting it altogether. In these summaries I emphasise, on the one hand, how they depart from Descartes [if they do], and on the other hand, their interpretation in modern terms, when this is possible. The latter turns out to be readily possible concerning what is called today natural science. In order to show why this seems impossible concerning his theory of mind and his socialpolitical theory, I add two propositions which though not stated by Spinoza, are implied by his conception of human nature. Substance and Attributes. For Descartes, the universe consists of God and two independent substances, Thought and Extension. The natural world is the material world extended in space and time, and is the only domain of scientific study. For Spinoza there is only one substance, the conception of which is introduced in two definitions in the first part of his Ethics. Definition I says that substance is its own cause, and definition III says that substance exists and is conceived through itself. These definitions mean that the laws of nature are not God's Thoughts imposed on inert matter, but are the internal dynamic force of material existence – its conatus.1) God and Nature are the same and the only substance. There is nothing outside Nature. The structure of this substance is discussed in chapter IV. Spinoza agrees with Descartes that the attributes of thought and extension must be distinguished, but only as distinct ways by which the same substance is conceived [E. I, note to proposition X]. They are distinct because neither can be understood in terms of the other. In a letter to Oldenburg [C.II], Spinoza explains this difference by reference to the then familiar problem of universals: the actual births of Peter or Paul

1) In a note to proposition 17 in the PCP [p.68], Steven Barbone and Lee Rice say that while Descartes wrote that every body that moves in a circle tends to move away from the centre, Spinoza changed the verb "tendere" to "conari" in accordance to the importance he assigned to his dynamic conception of internal power – the same conception of conatus in physics and psychology.

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cannot be explained by our abstract knowledge of ‘humanity.’ A modern example is the distinction between understanding the abstract gravitation law and understanding particular movements in space under the influence of this force. For neither of them knowing the other is sufficient. In modern physics since Einstein, the notion of matter-energy-inspace-time, where the hyphens indicate the unity of these components, can be seen as a recovery of Spinoza's idea of substance. It replaces the conception of each of these components as independent of the others as it was in Newtonian classical physics. By Spinoza’s analysis, the separation of these components is due to the possibility to conceive them independently. Under the attribute of thought, these separately conceived components appear in the mathematical expressions of the laws of nature which account for their interactions. But, metaphysically speaking these interacting laws characterise the dynamic, self causing, nature of the universe. In modern cosmology this means that in an early stage in the history of the universe it was the internal forces of nature which caused its material formations, which Spinoza calls the modifications of substance. The necessary distinction between substance and attributes [as explained in the earlier mentioned note to E. I proposition X] is due to the possibility of understanding Nature in many ways. Spinoza proposes that the number of attributes of God (Nature) is infinite. This can be understood as saying that Nature is conceivable, and therefore explicable, in an indefinite number of different ways. My replacing ‘infinite’ by ‘indefinite’ is derived from Spinoza's explanation that whenever the concept of infinity is applied to human understanding, it means indefinite [PCP pp.53-54]. In a letter to Meyer [C. XII], he contrasts this notion of infinity to its interpretation as ‘not finite.’ A thing can be finite only when limited by another thing of its own kind [TCU XV (III & V) and in definition II in E.I], and in the PCP [p.111] he explains that this notion of infinity applies to God because there is nothing of the same kind, outside God (Nature), by which it can be limited. But, concerning the number of attributes, this meaning does not apply. According to Spinoza, all we can say about the number of attributes is that we can conceive of only two

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ways of explaining the modifications of substance (of matter-energy-inspace-time). We can understand any event either in terms of falling under some concept or law of nature, which is an explanation under the attribute of thought, or as caused by another event in space-time, which is an explanation under the attribute of extension. But whatever the number of ways by which understanding is possible, for knowledge to be correct, the different ways must be in agreement with each other [E. II prop.VII]. In other words, an explanation of an event by its proximate cause must agree with its explanation by the laws of nature, as shown by the example of the force and law of gravitation respectively. What Spinoza continues to find correct in Descartes' reliance on thought alone is that knowledge of those things which have no place outside the mind – like knowing that ‘nothing is produced from nothing,’ or that ‘all phenomena are governed by mechanical principles’ – are understood only under the attribute of thought, by reflection on what we know under both attributes. To abandon this idea of Spinoza means to reject him completely. Essence. Spinoza defines an essence as a property without which a thing can neither exist nor be conceived [E. II, definition II]. The discovery of an essence of any particular thing is the discovery of the dynamic forces [conatus] by which that thing exists. Understanding this essence is understanding an abstract principle, or law, distinguishable from understanding any instance of the thing’s existence. The place of the concept of essence in modern science is discussed in chapter V. Here, it is sufficient to point out that Spinoza explains the natural origin of the concept by his analysis of perception. I think that this can be best understood by considering the distinction between Reality and realism implied by an analysis corresponding to his distinction between substance and attributes. ‘Reality’ is Nature as it is, and ‘realism’ is the way we perceive and understand it. From Spinoza’s conception of the attributes follows that all things and events are understood by means of abstract concepts and laws

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of causation. This way of understanding characterizes realism. It does not apply only to science and philosophy, but also to ordinary perception when conscious thought is not involved. He considers, for example, the identification of Peter [TCU VI]. Since the appearance of the real Peter changes all the time, the mind must abstract some essence of Peter by which we recognize him. ‘Must’ is emphasised because we do not know what this essence is, but we do know that without an unconscious recognition of such an essence we would have been unable to recognize Peter as being the same person in spite of his variable appearances. In chapter IX Dawkins explains the same idea in genetic terms in the animal world. Reality is the continual existence of the universe in all its details [E.I, note to proposition xxviii]. To speak of essences as expressing God's Thoughts, as if these abstract concepts are more real than perceivable phenomena, is to speak anthropomorphically [E. II, note to proposition III]. If we insist on thinking in this way, we may think of God metaphorically as a Being whose self-knowledge is so complete, that being aware of all interactions in all places at once, he does not need to reduce the objects of its self-knowledge to their essential features in order to understand them. We need to classify things and events as similar in some respects – i.e. as described by some universal property or law – because we are not capable of grasping the indefinite number of interactions which give rise to them. For example, we can grasp the activity of the force of gravity only by conceiving this essential principle as underlying all motion in space, but we cannot possibly grasp its simultaneous interactions with other forces in all particular objects or events. We cannot grasp them because although this law represents a principle by which all these objects and events exist, in Reality each of them is unique because the number of different interactions of essential principles is indefinitely large. In short, realism is our way of understanding Reality by abstracting essential features by which we perceive similarities or regularities, as explained in TCU V. Spinoza did not explicitly state the distinction between Reality and

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realism, but its implication is important because it clarifies that the natural way by which the human mind classifies things as similar in some respects provides the possibility of understanding, which at the same time limits it. This limitation is because a natural classification is confined to the way by which natural things act upon us [MT p.130]. This is clarified in the next section on the place of thinking in human nature. Here, it is sufficient to point out that, while rejecting the distinction between Reality and realism is a total rejection of Spinoza’s conception of essence, any particular conceived essence can change in the light of knowledge of new things which affect us. For my purpose in this book, the latter is important because when some aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy were revived in the 19th century, this distinction was largely ignored. For example, Hegel’s conception of the Absolute Spirit seems to be an interpretation of Spinoza’s conception of conatus. Like Spinoza, Hegel thought that philosophical understanding is understanding the essential features of the world without reference to the particular relations between perceived objects, which obviously take place in particular places and time. In Hegel’s philosophy, understanding the self-causing world where humanity is concerned, is understanding the process by which the Absolute Spirit is self-realised. The process is described by the essential phases of History. In other words, Hegel’s conception of History postulates an overall ‘plan’ inscribed into it, irrespective of the influence which the interactions of the people living within the particular societies in each phase might have on its structure. This is discussed in chapter XI, in connection with Marx’s correction of Hegel’s idealism which is closer, but not identical, to Spinoza’s view. The place of thinking in human nature . In the PCP Spinoza tells us that, while resolved to doubt everything that can be doubted, Descartes concluded that what he could not possibly doubt was the existence of himself doing the doubting. Hence, in "I think therefore I am" he found a proof of the existence of his own thinking-self.

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Spinoza's first comment is that, though true, this most certain assertion is not a logical proof, because it is discovered without reference to any other premise [PCP pp.9-10]. Instead, thinking is recognised as an essence of our natural being, discovered by introspective self-awareness. The similarity between the derivation of this essence from what we know about ourselves and the derivation of the gravitation law from what we know about motion is that neither can be derived from other known premisses. They are, therefore, propositions which must appear as axioms in a theory of mind and a theory of the physical world respectively. The difference between them is that only about the former we cannot have any doubt, in spite of its being discovered by reflection alone. This conviction, that there is some knowledge which can be known by reflection alone, keeps Spinoza's place in the ‘rationalist camp.’ Yet, there is an important difference between his and Descartes’ rationalism. According to Spinoza, even this knowledge is derived by reflection on ‘objective knowledge,’ namely on what we know about ourselves. The second comment of Spinoza on Descartes' cogito says that, since he discovered that thinking is our essence – namely a property by which we exist and understand ourselves – a better formulation of his conclusion would be "I am as long as I think." And an even better formulation is derivable from the note to proposition xiii in E. II, that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has: "I am a human being, capable of all the variety of interactions with my environment which my nature permits, as long as I think". The last formulation is discussed in chapter IV, where The Structural View suggested by Spinoza’s naturalism is discussed, and in chapter XIV, on Damasio’s view in the spirit of Spinoza. Here it is sufficient to note that these re-formulations of the cogito express Spinoza’s conception of what he calls the active mind. The ‘objects’ of the active mind are ideas. Not all mental operations are modes of thinking. As shown by the perception of Peter, we are not even conscious of ‘the idea’ that is Peter’s essence. In TCU XI he explains that perceiving an image or a memory differ from modes of thinking because they can be understood under the attribute of

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extension, namely by causal processes in the brain’s space [see also MT I, Of Real Being, Fictitious Being and Being of Reason]. Spinoza’s definition of the mind is stated in E II, proposition xiii. “The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body or a certain mode of extension actually existing and nothing else.” In order to understand this proposition we must first note that ‘the idea constituting the human mind’ means the concept of the mind by which we understand our mental experience. The ‘nothing else’ is to be understood by his claim that any idea we have must ‘correspond’ to our knowledge of its object under the attribute of extension, where the notion of ‘correspond’ is as explained on p.11, in connection with knowing parabolas. We can understand the meaning of ‘the object of an idea ... is the body’ by considering consciousness of feeling too hot or being hungry. The feeling is what we are conscious of when certain physical changes occur in the body. However, while modern natural scientist equate these feeling to the processes in the body which produce them, on the grounds that they are fully explained when these processes are understood, Spinoza objects to this identification. According to him, these feelings are categorised as kinds of pain – a general term describing transitional states of the body by which its power of action is reduced [E. III, Definition III and the explanatory note]. They are always combined with an idea of its cause and a desire to restore the body to its natural capacities. Together they constitute the complex idea whose object is the tendency of a person to behave as to relieve himself from the heat or assuage the pain of hunger. Note that while the feelings described above enter a theory of mind as universal, common to all human beings independently of their particular experiences, the actual behaviour for relieving excess heat or assuaging hunger depends on knowledge how to do so. Hence, the objects of the ideas constituting this knowledge are ‘certain modes of extension actually existing’ outside the mind. The specialty of ‘having more mind’ is that this knowledge cannot be universal. If it were universal to our species, it would have meant that perception of these modes of extension outside the

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mind was sufficient for survival. This is important because the same applies to the distinction between the universal capacity to think logically, and rationality: if having more mind is a result of more interactions with the world, then rational behaviour must mean taking account of one’s own specific interactions. This is discussed in Chapter VIII. ‘A mode of extension actually existing’ applies to what Spinoza describes as a cause of an emotion. Comparable to a natural scientist’s identification of feeling warm or hungry with the physical processes which cause it, modern psychologists identify, say, falling in love with hormonal states of the body, and the external causes of these body-states. For example, some of them identify the cause of these hormonal states as ‘chemical affinity’ of the smell of the beloved, say, with its pleasing effect on the lover. However, the conscious feeling of love is certainly not consciousness of either hormonal or chemical processes, even if these correctly describe its causes. The feeling, as Spinoza says, is of loving the perceived cause of the emotion, namely another person existing outside the mind. And the same applies to other emotions. They are partly an effect of universal processes in the body and partly the effect of particular perceived causes. In short, the concept of ‘the mind’ is an idea by which we understand ourselves – our conatus – as thinking beings. It is an essence of our being because it characterizes one of the forces, or processes, by which we preserve our existence. The correspondence of the mind to our conatus is stated in proposition xi in E. III: “whatever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the power of action of our body, the idea thereof increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the power of thinking of our mind.” For example, it is consciousness of pain [the idea] that reduces the power of thinking. An inherent function of the mind is to reduce pain. But as explained in connection to feeling hungry, the capacity to reduce pain depends on knowledge how to do it. Creating this knowledge is a major function of thinking, and it ought to be the purpose of science [TCU II]. A generalization of this example is that, in its capacity to create the

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knowledge needed for maintaining our form of existence, the essence of the mind is to create and maintain a coherent system of true ideas. Spinoza derives this essence of the mind from his remarkable correction of Descartes’ reliance on the existence of God as a condition for his rationalist methodology [PCP pp.11-14]. The essence of this correction is that what we need to know in order to make sure that our created knowledge is true, is not that God exists, as Descartes thought, but that without a true idea of God we cannot be certain of anything. Not even of the truths of mathematics. Only with such an idea of God, which in modern terms is equivalent to the idea of the Unity of Nature, can we trust our understanding of any other idea which, as he says, has no room outside the mind. This applies not only to the truths of mathematics but also to beliefs such as ‘the world is mechanistically explicable’ or ‘nothing is created out of nothing.’ We can trust such ideas, in spite of reaching them under the attribute of thought alone, because they are central to the creation of a unity of science – an idea whose ‘object’ is the unity of Nature. With this correction of Descartes's conception of God, Spinoza discovered an essence of understanding: a basic tendency to understand the world as a unique structured system, as he explains in TCU VII. This is discussed in chapters II to IV. And concerning mathematics, it is discussed in chapter VI. Needless to say, Spinoza did not know what can be the ‘object’ in the body – or the process in the brain, as a modern neurologist would say – which corresponds to the tendency to create a unified system of ideas. If pressed for an answer, by analogy to his explanation of a hidden, innate, knowledge of an essence of Peter, all he could have said would have been that his naturalist metaphysics implied that such an ‘object’ must exist. What he claims to have discovered is the fact that the creation of knowledge is guided by this tendency, which includes the tendency to turn to reason when one becomes aware of inconsistencies in the created unified system. He discovered that ideas occur involuntarily in the mind, and that the function of reason is to reject those which are ‘guilty’ of creating inconsistency, as the first axiom in part V of Ethics says. This is

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discussed in chapter X. The modes of thinking which must be retained if Spinoza’s approach is adopted are those which have an essential function in preserving human existence. These essential constituents of the mind are ‘intuition,’ ‘the will,’ ‘free will,’ ‘the intellect’ and ‘the principle of justice and charity.’ The latter is at the roots of moral philosophy. Intuition. According to Spinoza, knowing something by intuition is knowing it with certainty, even if we cannot prove it either empirically or logically [E. II, note II to proposition xl, and proposition xliii]. With this conception he intended to correct Descartes’ assertion that we can be certain about our clear and distinct ideas. Descartes was not oblivious of the effect of prejudice on understanding. In fact, his recommendation to start from doubting everything that can be doubted, stemmed from his recognition of this effect. But he thought that starting from ideas appearing clear and distinct in his mind provided a guaranteed escape from these effects. Spinoza rejected this assumed guarantee because he distinguished between ideas that cannot be doubted because they are naturally known – ideas which may be described as innate – and ideas that are not doubted due to the external influence of other minds. According to him, only the former are known by intuition, and since they cannot be doubted, only these ideas can guarantee an escape from the influence of those minds which have the power to impose their own ideas on others. The difficulty is in discovering which are the ideas known by intuition. This is discussed in chapter VI. Here it is sufficient to note his explanation in TCU VII, that to say that a true statement is known by intuition does not mean that it is in the forefront of everybody’s thoughts. It only means that if somebody stumbles upon it by chance, as he says, he knows that no argument or evidence are needed for ascertaining its truth. This is the meaning of its

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being self-evident.2) For example, by reflecting on what we do when we infer something which we have not known from something we know, we discover the principle of inference. Our certainty stems from the fact that we use inference even without being aware of this principle [TCU XIV]. In other words, anticipating the criticism of cultural relativists, Spinoza’s argument is that we discover the principles of logic by reflecting on what we must have intuitively known when we used them. A particular person may or may not discover them, and the skill of logical reasoning may or may not be dominant in a culture of any particular society. But there is no culture in which people do not use the principles of inference and negation, which together are the basic principles of logic. According to Spinoza, the natural tendency to use reason must stem from a natural desire to know the correct causes of things. Unfortunately, as explained in later theses characterizing the modes of thinking, this desire is often suppressed by other desires of the same or other people. The Will According to Spinoza, the will is the power of the mind to produce actions. It is a natural drive that is active in every behaviour experienced as voluntary. But just as the force of gravitation does not exist separately from all bodies which ‘experience’ it, so the will does not constitute a separate faculty of the mind in which freedom might reside [E. II note to proposition XLVIII]. Nevertheless, the necessary distinction between the conception of the will from the experience of the drive of willing, is concisely explained in Spinoza’s correspondence with Oldenburg [C. II]. ‘The will,’ he writes, differs from this or that state of volition, as the concept ‘white’ differs from this or that perceived white thing, or as ‘humanity’ differs from this or that man. Since ‘the will’ is a concept, it

2) The use of self-evident axioms was criticized also by Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum, but, his criticism being so early, is irrelevant for my purpose. For Spinoza's view of Bacon's criticism see letter II in his correspondence. All my references to his correspondence are correct for any edition after 1882.

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is as impossible that it causes this or that act of volition, as it is impossible that ‘humanity’ causes the birth of Peter or Paul. ‘The will’ is ‘a concept which the mind forms by reason of its being a thinking thing.’ It represents an essence by which we understand ourselves, and, like any other known essence, we know it under the attribute of thought. However, he adds, it is obvious that if there were no acts of volition, the concept of ‘the will’ would be empty.3) The concept, then, is not empty because acts of will exist that are characterized by the concept as their essence. Since we know that every event in space-time is determined by a cause, we know that such acts of will need causes in order to occur .And we also know, that because the act is determined by a cause, it is necessarily as it is. That the will is to be conceived as part of the mind is explained in the MT (p.137), in the section Why some think that the will is not free? There, he responds to some followers of Descartes who thought that the will was not free because if acts of will were causally explicable as any event in the body, they had to be distinct from the mind. Spinoza rejects this view because to say that a person is a thinking being means that whenever an idea is involved in the determination of an action, reason may deny it if necessary. In general, we are conscious of desires and of the will to satisfy them. We perceive causes of pleasure and pain, and are conscious of the will to reinforce the former and reduce the latter. These are the same reasons given against the physicists’ identification of feelings with processes in the body [see pp.19-20]. It follows that an explanation of an act of will is not exhausted by a causal account of movements in, or of, the body. It includes the feelings, the desires and the perceived causes involved. In such cases, reason may interfere by denying their perceived causes. The phrase ‘whenever an idea is involved’ is emphasised because, 3) This is reminiscent of Kant’s famous idea that concepts without sense-perception are empty but sense-perception without concepts is blind. Incidentally, with his explanation, Spinoza resolves the notorious problem of universals - that they do not refer to anything real - because he explains what is meant when we say that such concepts correspond to the facts [see p.11].

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according to Spinoza, the mechanistic view of the world can explain many human drives without reference to consciousness, let alone to reason. In the Ethics [E. III, note to proposition II ] he points out that “no one has yet been taught by experience what the body can do merely by the laws of nature in so far as nature is considered merely as corporeal or extended, and what it cannot do, save when determined by the mind.” And he explains further that “the body can do many things by the laws of its nature alone at which the mind is amazed... no one knows in what manner, or by what means, the mind moves the body ... when men say that this or that action arises from the mind which has power over the body, they know not what they say...". In his example of perceiving Peter [see p.18] the idea of his essence is not involved in the determination of our actions concerning him. Only by reflection we know that our brain must derive this essence while we remain ignorant of the process. Free Will. In the same section of the MT cited above, Spinoza explains that, while an act motivated by a passion is determined by external causes, when the mind turns to reason for affirming or denying any idea, it remains free because "no [external] thing has the power to destroy its essence [as a thinking being]". [This explanation reappears in E. II propositions 48&49 and notes]. Freedom is acting by the necessity of one’s nature alone [E.I, Definition VII]. And turning to reason when problems arise is in the nature of man. Hence, when a person turns to reason he is free, even though exercising reason is also acting by necessity: while an event in the body is necessarily determined by other events causing it, an idea is necessarily determined by other ideas. This is further discussed in chapter VII. Here it is only necessary to note that one way to understand Spinoza’s conception of free will, or possible choice, is to relate it to the role he assigns to reason in human nature. The role of reason is different from that of ‘the will,’ but like all properties of the mind, it must be understood as necessary for survival.

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This necessity is derived from Spinoza’s assertion that the more one interacts with one’s environment [in various ways] the more mind one has [see p.18]. More mind means more ideas, some of which might contradict others. Thus, some ideas must be rejected or modified if the ultimate function of the mind is to guide behaviour consistently. According to Spinoza, once we accept his naturalistic metaphysics, we are bound to accept that free will means no more than freedom from external influence. Surely, he argues, everybody agrees that God is free. But from the identification of God with Nature follows that this freedom only means that nothing outside Nature has any effect on God’s actions. By analogy, we are free only when we act according to our natural capacities without external influence. His favourite example is that we are not free to reject the idea that the sum of the angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles. But neither can the origin of this knowledge be anything but our own understanding. The crucial point is that the mind is not free to reject an idea which follows logically from something which we accept as known. The acceptance of a new idea depends on the status of what we have already accepted as known. It follows that the difference between systems of reasons rests on whether we start from premisses which we cannot reject – namely with necessarily true premisses – or from premisses which seem to be necessarily true but might have been imposed on our minds by external influence [TCU section VI]. For example, contrary to the theorem about the triangle, a person may accept reasons which lead to the denial of the importance of riches for happiness. And if he does so, his change of mind about the causes of happiness affects his actions. Spinoza’s example of a seeming true premiss is found in the appendix to part I of the Ethics, where he explains how people have come to a mistaken conception of God, as imposing his will on nature, implying that he can do otherwise in response to prayers and worship. The importance of this example for Spinoza’s philosophy of science is that it is the power of institutional religion which makes sure that this mistaken conception of God remains well established in people’s mind as a standard

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of truth for all other ideas, not only moral but also philosophical, or scientific, propositions. The Intellect. ‘The intellect’ represents an essential human capacity to understand things under the guidance of reason alone. Like the concept of ‘the will,’ the concept of ‘the intellect’ would have been empty without instances of being guided by reason alone. Its influence on human behaviour is due to a capacity to keep the mind on reason. Since we are free only when we follow reason, it follows that this capacity and free will are the same. In the TCU Spinoza explains that with his attribution of the power of reason to human nature he does not claim to improve on the idea that everything proceeds from cause to effect. His claim is that just as events in space are caused by other events in space, so reasons follow from other reasons, resembling a spiritual automaton. He does not call this mental process ‘causal’ because the concept of ‘a cause’ is reserved for events in space and time. In the realm of thought we call it ‘a reason,’ because we do not know the ‘instrumentality’ [of the brain] which corresponds to it. In a letter to de Vries [C IX] he explains that the difficulty of understanding the activity of the intellect is in the fact that this understanding as well as the reasons (the ideas) upon which the intellect acts are in the realm of thought alone, as opposed to instances of volition which can be understood under the attribute of extension as well, namely in terms of events in the brain. The influence of the intellect on human behaviour is limited because it rests on the function of reason to resolve contradictions between current ideas. In a letter to Oldenburg [C. II] Spinoza objects to Bacon’s statement that the will is free – for reasons already explained – but accepts his argument that it is wider in scope than the intellect. This is also explained in a letter to Blyenbergh [C. XXI]: if the power of our will were not extended beyond our limited power of the intellect, he wrote, we would not have been able to eat a slice of bread or to move a single step,

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because all things are uncertain and full of danger. Two points are important. One is that while the capacity to keep the mind on reason represented by ‘the intellect,’ is – like the capacity to turn to reason – common to all humanity, most human thoughts are as particular to one person as are acts of will, or even as particular events in a person’s body [E. I, note following Corollary II to proposition xvii, and its appendix]. This is the explanation of subjectivity. The second point is that the power of the mind to accept or reject ideas can apply only to variable ideas because, concerning either ideas known by intuition – which, as explained in the section about it can be interpreted as innate – or those derived from them by reason, we have no choice but accept them. Only ideas whose source is external to the mind can be variable. And most important for the philosophy of science, is his explanation that this also applies to an accepted standard of truth which seems to be necessarily true, although it is based on the mistaken conception of God, imposed on the minds of most people by the external power of institutional religion. This is an important theme in the Treatise on Politics and Theology [TPT]. An important aspect of the distinction between the function of reason and the function of the intellect – of keeping the mind on reason – is that only by keeping the mind on reason philosophers and scientists can become aware of the tendency of the mind to create a unified system of ideas. Only by keeping the mind on reason, they can become aware that the purpose of science is to make sure that this created system is of true ideas, and that this is only possible if its premisses and standard of truth are correct. This is explained in the TCU and summarised in section VII. However, he also explains the difficulty to reject a well established standard of truth even if it is false. He explains that it was from his mistaken conviction that the human soul was part of the substance Thought, that Descartes derived his confidence that, once a philosopher keeps his mind on reason, the true thoughts which God inserted in his soul were bound to appear clear and distinct to him. Therefore he concluded that we can refrain from error provided we undertake to affirm nothing except that which we either perceive clearly and distinctly or that which

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follows logically from such premises. [PCP Prolegomenon, about doubt and part I Proposition 14]. According to Spinoza, the difficulty is shown by the fact that even ‘the illustrious Descartes’ did not reject the mistaken idea of God. In the modern philosophy of science [without reference to Spinoza] this idea has been generalization by Thomas Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm.4) The generalization says that even when engaged in science, one always starts with some well established view which is taken for granted. In short, Spinoza’s postulated natural function of reason is to distinguish between true and false ideas as they occur, so to speak, one at a time. The function of keeping the mind on reason is the task of philosophy. The task of intellectuals is to discover false ideas presupposed in a paradigm, to correct them and thus create a correct comprehensive understanding of the world which can correctly guide the creation of true science. This is the topic of the TCU. The title of the TCU is "on the correction of the understanding" because, according to Spinoza, although starting from a taken for granted view is natural, by reflection we can correct it even if initially only under the attribute of thought. The idea to this effect is found in a note to PCP I, 14. In this note, he responds to the claim of critics of Descartes, that since everything is caused by God, having an erroneous idea is also caused by God. This was supposed to imply God's responsibility for errors. Spinoza’s answer is that there is no error involved in asserting a perception of even an imagined unicorn. The error is in affirming its real existence. By experience we know that we affirm many things that we have not deduced from the certainty of first principles. And since we also know that this is a source of error, we know that there is a good reason for God’s giving us the power of reason. Replace ‘God’ by ‘Nature,’ and we have a natural explanation for both the willingness of some people to keep their mind on reason, and the 4) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962

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reluctance of most people to do so. Spinoza explains that the former follows from a natural desire to seek knowledge which would increase our power of action [see p.20], and the latter follows from the natural desire of a social human being to conform to common views. Both are bound to be observed in all cultures. But while it is from this observation that cultural relativism is derived, Spinoza explains yet another mode of thinking which underlies them. The Principle of Justice and Charity In part IV of the Ethics, proposition xxxvii says: "The good which each one who follows virtue desires for himself, he also desires for other men, and the more so the more knowledge he has of God". In two notes to this proposition Spinoza explains, that in this case, knowing God [Nature) is knowing that people are naturally driven by conflicting emotions and that only if driven by reason, can these conflicts be overcome. To be driven by reason is possible because consulting reason is a natural way for judging whether things are true or false, which in this case means truly good or bad for our social life. In these notes he argues that, had individuals lived in isolation, it would have been natural for them to consider only their own advantage, so that no action would be considered morally good or bad. The origin of morality is the intuitive knowledge that we need each other's help. The principle of justice and charity is an abstract concept representing a universal desire of social beings to live in a society which satisfies this need. This is the function of morality. In the second chapter of his Political Treatise [PT], Spinoza repeats his explanation in these notes, that morality, with its concepts of sin and virtue, as well as politics with its concepts of law and justice, apply only in civil society. Their importance is to maintain the integrity of the state by imposing obedience to its laws. The same applies to religious rites. The problem dealt in his political writing is that the same intuition, that we need each other’s help, is also the origin of the natural tendency of people to succumb, or conform, to social pressures. By analogy to his

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argument in TCU I [discussed in the next chapter], people are ready to succumb to the laws of their society, not because they consider this behaviour good, but they consider them good because they desire the peace and security which only these laws can provide. In the cited notes in E.IV, Spinoza explains that the source of the need for social regulation, involving a degree of inevitable coercion, is due to the universal [psychological] tendency to refrain from doing evil only in fear of a greater evil, and the readiness to forgo an immediate good is only in expectation of a greater good. Therefore, law and order can only be maintained by acknowledging this law of human nature. This is why all political decisions – even if supported by reason – must be enforced by ‘prizes and threats.’ In PT II [13-14] Spinoza explains that people’s knowledge that they need each other’s help means knowing that together they have more power than they have separately. Being more cunning than other animals, they also know that when guided by their passions they are natural enemies for each other. However, in response to Hobbes' postulated social contract, by which people willingly surrender their rights to the sovereign state, he explains in a letter to Jarig Jelles [C. L], that the difference between him and Hobbes is that he [Spinoza] preserves the natural rights of people intact. A ‘natural right’ is a concept the object of which is an actual natural power, which in this case means the natural power of reason. Spinoza’s assertion in the letter, that he preserves peoples’ natural rights is his assertion that only when people do not lose their natural power of reason, they can see the advantage of surrendering to the power of a state. Only then, the natural right of the state, namely its actual power to impose its laws on its subjects, is accepted by agreement. This, he says, is the difference between subjects and citizens [PT III 1]. It is worth adding that as far as the philosophy of science is concerned, the principle of justice and charity is at the roots of social science, which in

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Spinoza’s time was included in moral philosophy.5) His thesis that understanding nature – the universe as a whole – and understanding ourselves are mutually related convinced him that moral philosophy, namely social and political issues, ought to be included in the same scientific project. As pointed out above, the only difference between being guided by the authority of truth in the natural sciences and in the socialpolitical sciences is that in the latter a proposition is true when it proposes what is truly-good for enabling us to live by our natural powers in peace and security. Judging what is ‘truly good’ is the same as making a rational choice. In PT, III, 6, he explains that the occasional need to do something against one's own good is in this case offset by the greater good derived from the existence of a civil dominion. It follows that the purpose of moral philosophy is to discover the best way to live in society, while taking account of human nature. It also follows from Spinoza’s conception of science that the idea that science is value free is a misunderstanding. The value of the authority of truth, as outlined in TCU III, is the value of discovering the laws of nature which are independent of human actions. But the value of discovering what is truly good for us does depend on human actions. What Spinoza discovered is, that although the basic universal desire underlying this value is to live by one’s own powers in peace and security, the basic obstacle to its realization is that people in positions of power tend to use their power for imposing the idea on other minds that the best way to satisfy their natural desire is to adopt a policy which is advantageous for themselves, i.e. to the people in power. In TPT XVII he says that a powerful sovereign is one who induces his subjects to believe what he believes, to love what he loves and share his other emotions.6) In his PT [chapter V 5] he generalizes to all people in power, and concludes that 5) Adam Smith still taught what today we call economics under the title moral philosophy. 6) Max Weber (1910) defined the concept of charisma as the impact of a visionary leader which transforms the outlook of his followers and induces them to identify with him from a humble distance.

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every political theory should aim at the prevention of this wickedness. The question is what he means by ‘wickedness,’ because in the first chapter of the PT, he states that he does not treat the passions as vices but as natural motives of behaviour. He explains that his intention is to demonstrate that a sound political science can and ought to be based on what is known of both human nature and political practice. What his study of human nature taught him is that passions are stronger than reason. Therefore, what he means by the wickedness of people in power is that when they design the rules for preserving the integrity of the community, they can never be free from subjection to their passions.7) Before embarking on stating those theses of Spinoza which cannot be changed without rejecting his whole philosophy [see p.13], I said that these are the propositions which, had they replaced the Cartesian conception of science as dealing exclusively with the explanation of the material world extended in space and time, the emergence of relativism might have been prevented. Alternatively, if the present rising interest in Spinoza will recognise that these principles are essential for all branches of knowledge, it might lead to the rejection of cultural relativism today. Therefore, what I need to show in this book is, on the one hand, that the inclusion of all knowledge in the scientific project is the main difference between Spinoza’s and the modern conception of naturalism in the philosophy of science, and on the other hand, I must show how it happened that the Cartesian conception of science prevented Spinoza’s naturalistic approach outside the natural sciences. ‘The one hand,’ is discussed in chapter II. Here I want only to add the following notes. First, the essence of Spinoza’s meta-scientific 7) That this assessment of power does not apply only to social affairs can be seen even in the current preoccupation with the apparently pure scientific problem of global warming. Apparently, because the controversy whether or not human activity has any bearing on it, and if it does have an effect on it, what actions are necessary or possible for reversing the trend, is complicated by the suspicion that people in various positions of power try to ‘persuade’ the public that the best policy is that which is advantageous for themselves.

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approach is that understanding nature can be improved, but being a long term social enterprise, this improvement can only be achieved if the benefits as well as the social and psychological obstacles to this improvement – i.e. to the creation of science – are understood. And the latter can only be understood with a greater understanding of human nature. This is the topic of his TCU, of which the subtitle is And on the way in which it may be directed towards a true knowledge of things. Therefore, since it is the approach to science, rather than his particular propositions, that is important for combatting relativism [see p.9], in chapter I, on Spinoza’s methodological approach I put a greater emphasis on the TCU than one would do if the purpose was to elucidate his views. This is worth noting because at the end of this essay, the editors who published Spinoza’s work after his death considered it unfinished and added the remark ‘The remainder of this Treatise is wanting.’ However, whatever were the editors’ reasons for adding this remark, none of Spinoza’s other books indicate that he changed his mind about the approach recommended in this essay. The second note is that Spinoza’s emphasis on the psychological and social conditions for carrying out the scientific project successfully suggests that the relativists’ emphasis on the influence of culture on all thoughts should not be simply dismissed, as most natural scientists tend to do. Instead, we should follow Spinoza’s example of his response to the skeptics’ criticism, in TCU VIII, and seek natural explanations for the relativists’ valid criticism. Apart from the criticism of Descartes’ reliance on clear and distinct ideas, mentioned in the foreword, other critics today centre on important social issues. Some of them observe that the growing relationship between science and technology obliterates the humane aim of science, and thus has a bad influence on our desired way of life. They accuse scientists of their preparedness to collaborate with powerful sections of society which utilize their knowledge to the detriment of society at large.8) And other critics accuse scientists of undermining 8) This criticism is voiced mainly by post modern critics in the German-French tradition. In this book I deal mainly with authors who wrote in English simply because

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traditional (moral or religious) values. This social criticism is addressed by Spinoza in his political writing, where the abuse of power is a central issue. And third, it is also worth noting that the current view of science ignores these critics on the grounds that, being cultural phenomena, their criticism does not belong to the domains of science. This view of science, represented in this book by Feynman [discussed in chapters II and V], says that its methodological principles are exclusively derived from science itself, where ‘science itself’ means the natural sciences alone. In other words, what we call today psychology and sociology, are excluded from science. In fact, however, it is Spinoza’s approach, with his rejection of this exclusion, which can be derived from science itself. This is because, it is from these excluded branches of knowledge that he derives the necessary methodological conditions for the possible creation of all science. The mutual effects of all these branches of science is expressed in Spinoza’s proposition that the more we understand nature the more we understand ourselves, and the more we understand ourselves the more we [can] understand nature. Before summarising Spinoza’s propositions which cannot be changed without replacing his view of nature for another, I said that, when possible, I would emphasise their interpretation in modern terms. I noted that, because this seems impossible concerning his theory of mind and political theory, I add two propositions to his philosophy of science which explain this impossibility [see p.13]. Although these additional propositions are not stated by Spinoza, they are implied by his conception of the mind and his political theory. With these two propositions I propose to show ‘the other hand’ – how it happened that the Cartesian conception of science prevented the revival of Spinoza’s philosophy outside the natural sciences. I call these propositions The Inverted Cartesian View and The indirect Effect of Reason on Culture. The former explains how the Cartesian view

my knowledge of the others is restricted to secondary literature.

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of science was retained in spite of the fact that Descartes’ mind/body dualism is widely rejected among scientists. I argue that this became possible by replacing this dualism with a new one, of culture versus nature. The latter reconciles Spinoza’s mechanistic view of the universe with his methodological recommendations, a term which suggests choice, and is explained in chapters VII and XII. Together they are the topic of most chapters in the rest of this book. Before turning to these two propositions we should note that the suspicion that our postulated scientific similarities and regularities might indicate culturally accepted conventions, rather than a recognition of universal properties of nature, is not an invention of cultural relativism. As pointed out in the foreword to this book, this suspicion was raised most forcefully in Hume's criticism of Descartes. And at the beginning of the 20th century, it was still found in the controversy about the reality of the atom. Participants in the Vienna Circle discussed the argument of Ernest Mach, who in the spirit of Spinoza [but without referring to him] claimed, that the fact that a postulated theoretical concept aided understanding did not imply its existence. This was a good reason for him to insist on not accepting the real existence of the unobservable atom. This example shows that what Spinoza considered to be the main advantage of his view [see p.10] became part of the scientific method which actually developed in the natural sciences. The same applies to the acceptance of the concept of a gene. The controversy about its existence stopped only when it could be shown that a sequence of nucleic-acids in the DNA performed the task assigned to it by theory. In general, scientists accepted the methodological principle that when they postulate a concept associated with a law, they must look for real mechanisms which can explain it.9) However this could not have happened before the idea was abandoned that all of science could be derived from experiments alone, which is an indirect acceptance of Spinoza’s version of rationalism [see pp.11-12]. 9) David Marr, in his introduction to Vision, stated a similar idea concerning the visual system. Once we have an idea what the system does, he says, we can turn to find out how it does it.

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The philosophy of science known as physicalism accepts the reality of all laws of nature for which observed evidence is found. But as Spinoza argues, not all philosophical principles can be proven in this way. For example, the presupposed methodological [meta-scientific] principle that all processes in Nature are mechanistically explicable, cannot be proved in this manner. Nevertheless, as Spinoza argued in his letter to Oldenburg concerning Boyle's experimental method [C. VI], such presuppositions are indispensable for science. And in fact, in spite of a modern reluctance to accept non-testable presuppositions, Darwin's concept of natural selection was conceived as a mechanism although, not only in his time but for about half a century later, nobody had any idea what such a mechanism could be, let alone how it could work. Without the conviction of most biologists, that a correct mechanism of natural selection was bound to be discovered, simply because every natural phenomenon had to be mechanistically explicable, it is doubtful that the search for it would have been sustained for so long. The example of Darwin’s theory of evolution is of particular importance for the topic of this book because the influence of Descartes’ conception of science, as dealing with events in space alone, is conspicuous. Since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, the Cartesian distinction of the mind from the body has become philosophically much harder to maintain. However, the idea that the body alone was in the realm of nature remained so deeply entrenched in the modern way of thinking that it has proved nearly impossible to eradicate. As Spinoza would probably put it, this feeling of certainty persisted in spite of the fact that the theory of evolution should have led to the recognition that the exclusion of logical thinking from human nature was mere prejudice.10) However, in spite of the influence that the theory of 10) Had Spinoza’s naturalism been accepted, the ‘scandal of evolution’ – the denial that God created all species as told in the Bible – would not have shocked anybody. Although Spinoza's philosophy is not evolutionary, there is an interesting remark concerning its possibility in the section Of God's Power in MT [Chapter IX, pp.126127]. He explains that some people distinguish between things that are necessary in themselves, like mathematical theorems, and things that are necessary because they

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evolution has had on the two influential philosophical ‘schools,’ positivism and pragmatism, it was the legacy of Descartes' dualism which led to what I call ‘the inverted Cartesian view.’ The Inverted Cartesian View. Descartes saw in the intellect a defining property of humanity, a property which differentiated between us and the mechanically operating animals. Spinoza criticised this view when he still considered himself a Cartesian. In his MT, section the life of God, he traces the idea that the soul is Man’s intellectual activity to Aristotle’s distinction between the soul of man from the vegetative and sensitive souls of plants and animals respectively. Against this view Spinoza argues that if we understand plants, animals and men as operating mechanically, the postulated three types of souls, as representing three forms of life, are clearly seen as fiction. What we should understand by life, he says, is "the force through which things persevere in their own being" [MT p.120]. He explains that it is because this force can be conceptually distinguished from the things themselves that the idea arose that things have life, as if life is distinct from the living things themselves. Clearly, an attempt to include humanity in the animal world after Darwin, should have given prominence to this view of life, and should have included reason among all the mechanisms operating in the human body, as Spinoza explains [e.g. in TCU XI]. The inclusion of reason in an explanation of life in evolutionary terms can be derived from a generalization of Spinoza’s thesis that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has. This means that the greater role of follow God's decrees. As God's power is the power of Laws of Nature, the only meaning of attributing different decrees to God is to postulate that these laws could be different. But, if the Laws of Nature were different, the created world would be different, so that which is now true would be false. In this case, God would have given us a different intellect, and this ‘otherwise created world’ could have been understood by our different intellect. In other words, human reason would still have the function he ascribes to it, but it would have naturally evolved differently.

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knowledge in human survival can explain the emergence of the mechanism of reason – of logical thinking – by natural selection. This is discussed in chapters IV and X. Instead, the theory of evolution centred on the evolution of the body and left thought out of consideration. This is an inverted Cartesian view because, although it does away with the privileged position of the existence of mankind in God’s creation, it retains Descartes’ claim that science can only explain the physical world. This claim does not deny that the process of thinking needs a mechanistic explanation. But the thoughts are explained as cultural products which have little to do with nature. The new privileged position of mankind is in its being guided by cultures. A common version of this view does not reject the presupposed determinism of the mechanistic view but replaces it by cultural determinism. Thoughts are imposed on the mind through the medium of a language. To the extent that the application of reason is observed to have a real effect on people’s lives, it is ascribed to the invention of a logical language. Instead of human affairs being excluded from the natural world due to the mind-body dualism, they are excluded from it due to the nature/culture dichotomy, so that human affairs are excluded from science. The objection to this determinism in the spirit of Descartes is represented in this book by William James and Noam Chomsky. The proposition of the indirect effect of reason on culture [PIERC] Spinoza’s inclusion of the power of reason in human nature does not mean that the appeal to reason is sufficient for having an effect on a culture. This is because the mechanism of reason only allows one to accept or reject an idea in the light of related ideas, all of which are judged by a general view of the world which serves as a standard of truth, as explained in TCU VII [see p.28]. An appeal to reason may change one’s understanding of a cause of any emotion, and thereby affect one’s own actions. But the effect of such changes on the standard of truth is very indirect. The reason implied by Spinoza’s analysis is that even when intellectuals consider, for

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example, a correction of a conception of God, they consider it under the attribute of thought alone. And this can hardly have a significant influence on a predominant conception as long as there are people in their society with sufficient power to object to such a correction. One reason for including the implication of this proposition by Spinoza’s analysis in this book is that it explains why history provides evidence for both those who start with the nature/culture dichotomy and those who start with a naturalistic view as standards of truth. This is most clearly shown in chapters IX and X where I compare Dawkins’ and Dennett’s approach to the theory of evolution under the guidance of nature/culture dichotomy with its possible interpretation by Spinoza’s naturalism. In fact, it is the possibility to interpret the evidence to support both guiding views which explain the stubbornness of their followers. What I try to show is that only Spinoza’s naturalism provides a way to refute relativism. This is because if rationality is natural then it is possible to regain it, and with it to free oneself from its suppression by external influence. And if the natural function of a state is to provide peace and security, then we have a criterion for judging all cultures. A second reason for including this implied proposition is, that Spinoza did not think that science cannot come up with answers to the traditional philosophical question “what is the best way to live?” It seems to me that it was his confidence in the future of science that led him to believe that his political theory, might have the same indirect effect on human life which he saw in the developing sciences of mechanics and medicine. * In the following chapters, where I want to illustrate the influence of the Cartesian legacy on the modern approach, I choose one philosopher or scientist to represent it. Similarly, I chose one scientist, Antonio Damasio, to illustrate the revival of naturalism in neuro-science in the spirit of Spinoza.

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Chapter I: SPINOZA'S METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH As pointed out in the introduction, Spinoza’s approach is concisely explained in his essay on the correction of understanding [TCU]. In this chapter, therefore, I focus on it, although I also refer to his other books. His approach is explained in three parts: 1. Spinoza’s reasons for engaging in an inquiry concerning understanding in his way. 2. On the foundations of knowledge in human nature. 3. The method. Part 1: Spinoza’s reasons for engaging in an inquiry concerning understanding in his way [sections I-III]. The personal note with which this treatise begins is characteristic of what Descartes and Spinoza called an analytic method, by which “one demonstrates the true means by which the matter was methodically discovered, as it were from effect to [its] cause, if the reader wishes to follow the method and to attend sufficiently to its details.11) This method is opposed to a synthetic (or geometrical) method, which is the exposition of knowledge in a logical system, starting from general laws. Spinoza begins with saying that judging by his own experience he has reached the conclusion that things are not desired because they are judged to be good but are judged to be good because they are desired. This conclusion is the basis for many explanations in his books. In prop.XI of Part III of his Ethics all emotions are categorized as kinds of pleasure or pain. By his definition of the mind, the ‘object’ of an experienced emotion is a change in the state of the body [pp.19-20]. When such a change

11) The quotation is from Barbone and Rice’s introduction to the English translation. It is taken from Ludewijk Meyer’s preface to the PCP, referring to Descartes' Reply to the Second Set of Objections for an explanation of the analytic method. Of particular importance is to note the later change in the meaning of ‘synthetic.’

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increases the power of the body to act, the emotion is experienced as pleasure and is conceived as good. When a change decreases the power of action it is experienced as pain and is conceived as bad. The emotion, according to him, is a combination of this experience with the perceived idea of its cause, where ‘perceived’ means the experienced (rather than the understood) idea of its cause.12) The term ‘passion’ (derived from passivity) emphasizes the involuntary aspect of emotions [E. II note to a corollary to proposition xiii]. In the first section of the TCU Spinoza explains that his preliminary analysis in this essay has been sufficient for concluding that, although the attainment of riches and fame brings pleasure to those who succeed in their pursuit, the pursuit itself has serious disadvantages. First, it always involves fear and strife, which according to his definitions are kinds of pain, and therefore experienced as bad. Second, when the pursuit is frustrated, the result is a deep disappointment, another kind of pain, which weakens the capacity to think, and in turn weakens a person's power of action [see pp.19-20 or E. III, xi]. The pursuit of fame is particularly damaging because it leads people to behave so as to please others rather than follow their own judgments. In view of this preliminary analysis, Spinoza set himself the task of discovering by a deliberation from within the things that can bring the most stable happiness. ‘By deliberation from within’ he means ‘by rational analysis,’ rather than by observing the perceived causes of happiness. By 12) The examples given in the introduction, as combinations of experienced changes in the body and the perceived ideas of their causes, show that we do not necessarily perceive their true causes. It is interesting to note that this fits the modern discovery about the immune system: the experience of pain which constitutes the symptom of illness does not arise when the body is invaded by a parasite, a virus or bacteria, but when the immune system produces T-cells for fighting them. In other words, it is not the real cause of illness that we perceive [are conscious of]. The feeling of illness arises when a lot of the body’s energy is diverted from regular activities to this fight. We are not conscious of the real cause of illness, but we certainly perceive it as bad, even when modern knowledge makes us aware of the useful function of this feeling. This is important for my comparison in chapter IV of the function of reason to the immune system [see p.126].

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observation, he explains, he could only discover that fear, strife and disappointment occur when people fail to achieve what they desire. But more important, that the perceived causes of their desires are as variable as their circumstances of life. A stable happiness – peace of mind – can only be achieved by pursuing natural [innate] desires. This is why his ultimate aim is to discover how to strengthen the natural desires which lead to peace of mind. His desire to understand nature comes with the realization that Nature (God) is the ultimate cause of these desires, as it is of all aspects of human nature. He explains further that, while his preliminary reflection has been sufficient for determining the topic of his research, he has realized that had he chosen to conduct this inquiry while pursuing a normal way of life, he would have been incapable of avoiding the consideration of fame and riches as the good offered by society. Being constantly preoccupied with acquiring them, he would have had no time left for pursuing a serious inquiry. Hence, his preliminary reflection has convinced him that, unless he took the difficult decision to lay aside the pursuit of things commonly considered good, he would fail to discover the real good he was seeking.13) This short paragraph already justifies my interpretation of Spinoza's conception of choice as the determination to keep the mind on reason [see pp.27-28].Yet, his mechanistic interpretation of Nature led to the mistaken idea that Spinoza denied that choice has any place in human nature. This idea is mistaken because it implies that he indulged in a pursuit of an illusionary purpose, knowing that it was an illusion. But more important,

13) The authenticity of this personal account is supported by the little we know about Spinoza's life. In particular, in 1673, when he was offered a professorship in Heidelberg, he refused it. Although the offer was generous, it included a proviso that he should not attack the Protestant faith. Spinoza thanked them for the honour, but explained that the work of a philosopher, the search for truth, cannot be fulfilled under any restrictions. The origin of this conviction may be his doubts before turning away from his trading activities in Amsterdam toward a life of learning which, in his case, was bound to bring a loss of whatever position he had had in the Jewish community before. But for this we have no evidence.

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in the TPT [pp.57-59] Spinoza’s differentiates between laws of nature and man-made laws. He explains that laws of nature necessarily apply, whether they are laws of physics, such as the result of a collision of objects, or psychological laws, as are recollections of memories by the law of association [see p.70]. But man-made laws, like his proposed methodological rules, are not followed necessarily, even if they must be based on human nature. His mechanistic view in this respect is explained below [Ibid], and my justification for calling their acceptance ‘choice’ is discussed in chapter VII. In the TCU the point is that Spinoza was aware that his decision may be interpreted as a retreat from his explanation that the natural evaluation of a thing as good is determined by its satisfying a natural desire. Therefore he explains how he has come to the conclusion that this ‘deliberation from within’ – which is another way of saying ‘keeping his mind on reason’ [see pp.27-28] – satisfied his desire for peace of mind. When he began to devote as much time as possible to his inquiry, he says, he soon found that the inquiry itself brought with it a feeling of well being, which convinced him that he was on the right track. He explains that this is because the pleasure he experienced when pursuing his inquiry was derived from his discovery of the difference between attaining goods which enhance a person's enjoyment for a time, and attaining a permanent enjoyment of his natural capacities. The latter is the supreme good he is after because it is the attainment of perfection – of being exactly as it is natural for him to be. His notion of perfection in this case may be put as follows. A perfect person does not expect to attain more than his nature allows, but also not less. Since a passion is an involuntary association between an emotion with an idea of its cause, ‘not more’ means that, although Spinoza calls the tendency of people to succumb to the passions a weakness of the mind, he thought it unreasonable to expect a person not to be influenced by them, or by their perceived causes in their social environment. ‘Not less’ means that this weakness is not all there is to a mind. The active power of the mind, namely the power of reason to accept or reject ideas, which makes the understanding of true causes of pleasure and pain possible, is also

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natural, and so is the desire to restore the power to the mind if it had been reduced through weakness. The capacity of reason to accept or reject ideas, as explained in a note to proposition XLVIII in E.II, is the only active power of the mind because the ideas themselves arise in it involuntarily. In short, a perfect person naturally uses the power of his mind fully to his advantage, so as to accept those ideas that truly strengthen his natural ability to live as much as possible without pain, and reject those which, by weakening his active nature prevent him from pursuing his own good. What Spinoza has learned from his preoccupation with his inquiry is that the ever increasing peace of mind he derived from it is proof that the purpose he set himself follows from a natural desire. He has learned that turning to reason is a natural drive, and that its function is to improve the understanding of one’s own good. Further, he concluded that, since strengthening, or restoring to himself, the active power of his mind is the supreme good, it follows that every method leading to it is also a true good. But because no method enables a person to attain the required understanding of his nature on his own, his purpose in the TCU is to convince his fellow intellectuals of his preliminary results so that their common pursuit of knowledge will make it possible to achieve this understanding with the greatest ease and security. I emphasize ‘intellectuals’ because Spinoza was aware of the impossibility of engaging all people in this project – a fact which imposes a special responsibility on intellectuals. Finally Spinoza notes that in order to attain the knowledge required for promoting his purpose, it is not only necessary that everybody should understand its usefulness, but also that they understand the uselessness of knowledge that does not promote it. The knowledge we need, he says, is of moral philosophy; of a theory for the education of children, and of the sciences of medicine and mechanics. The inclusion of a theory for education of children is justified by the purpose that "a method must be thought out of healing the understanding and purifying it at the beginning, that it may with the greatest success

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understand things correctly" [TCU II, and E. III notes to prop.LVI, and to prop.LIX]. It is worth noting here that, while modern psychologists would say that the importance of ‘at the beginning’ is that this is the best time for ‘conditioning’ the behaviour of children – which in Spinoza’s terms means that the ideas inserted in their minds are associated with their emotions so as to become spontaneous motives for behaviour – Spinoza’s intention is the opposite. He emphasises ‘at the beginning’ because only at this early age children’s minds are not yet conditioned in this way and therefore are ready to accept ideas that are natural for them to accept, i.e. that are not yet distorted by conditioning. Medicine is included because it frees people from physical pain, which is always an obstacle to one's perfect [natural] activity. And mechanics, because its application allows the acquisition of skills which greatly alleviate the performance of difficult tasks and saves time for the pursuit of perfection. Note on Spinoza’s conception of useful knowledge. The most important point to notice is that by useful knowledge Spinoza does not mean ‘usefully applied science’ as it usually means today. His concern is with the usefulness of knowledge for self- perfection, by which he means the strengthening of the active mind – the mind governed by reason – which in all his books he identifies with freedom [see pp.25-26]. This is the supreme good he is after. Nevertheless, we ought to remember that mechanics was the rising natural science in Spinoza’s time. It is therefore clear that his argument implies that anything later included in natural science would be included in useful knowledge. Similarly, moral philosophy, which included what today we call psychology and the social sciences, would be included because, as noted in the introduction [see pp.31-32], it is from these branches of knowledge that the necessary methodological conditions for the possible creation of all science can be derived. In other words, this inclusion is necessary because, as Spinoza put it, knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of Nature are mutually dependent. What he wants to exclude from the scientific project is pseudo-

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knowledge, which is imposed on the minds of people for other reasons than the pursuit of this supreme good [see my ‘worth adding’ note on pp.17-18].14) In TCU III Spinoza recommends rules of life for intellectuals devoted to the pursuit of this knowledge. 1) When the results of scientific work are reported, the language must be comprehensible to people who do not engage in science. 2) Those engaged in intellectual pursuit of knowledge ought to accept as good only such pleasures as are necessary for the preservation of their health. 3) The previous rule implies that intellectuals ought to be satisfied with enough money or other goods necessary for the upkeep of their healthy life. Politically they must comply with the customs of society as long as these do not hinder their pursuit of truth. The purpose of the self-imposed restrictions in rules (2)&(3) is to ensure that those engaged in the scientific project are not carried away by desires related to social status acquired by riches and fame. The third rule is based on the conviction that only a devotion to the pursuit of truth can overcome, or ignore, the inevitable tensions arising in social life. Spinoza was convinced that this devotion was the reason that real friendship and cooperation were possible among intellectuals, a conviction expressed in many of his letters. The only self-interest that intellectuals ought to protect politically is what we call today academic freedom. The required compliance to customs in the third rule is discussed in chapter XII. The advantage of the first rule, according to Spinoza, is gaining ‘friendly ears’ when the intellectuals concerned tell the truth. Politically, 14) See note 5. It is interesting to note that Adam Smith argued in his On Moral Sentiments that "happiness consists in esteem in which one is held by others and in health, freedom from debt and in a clear conscience" [Quoted from the edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments of 1790, p.107]. Riches was the means to obtain the esteem. Adam Smith sought a moral science on the basis of this observation. But, unlike Spinoza, he saw no real conflict between the predominance of a person's pursuit of esteem and the freedom of thought advocated by political liberalism.

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as explained in my note on usefulness, Spinoza considered it a condition for having both the authority of truth in understanding and a liberal society, as he thought the Dutch Republic ought to have been. Or as he corrected himself later in his PT, as a democratic society ought to be. The importance of this rule today is discussed in chapter XIII. Part 2: On the foundations of knowledge in human nature, Sections IV - VII. In section IV Spinoza classifies four types of perception. The question is which of them provides the best basis for true understanding. In the Ethics the four types of perception are reclassified as three kinds of knowledge (E. II, note to prop.XL), and in a note to proposition XLIX, he explains that he speaks of perception rather than knowledge when he deals with ideas and their origins as they appear to the mind, as opposed to ideas as objects of analysis which one can accept or reject. The first of the four types of perception is hearsay, such as knowing who one's parents are, or the date of one's birth, which usually nobody doubts. The second type is knowledge of general facts learned from experience, like knowing that we all die; that oil feeds a flame and that water extinguishes it. Most facts useful in ordinary life, Spinoza says, are of this kind. This knowledge, which today we would describe as a low level of induction, is, according to him, vague because it is only useful in the context of the experience from which it has been derived. Therefore, it too remains unchallenged in the mind in spite of its being determined by chance. When Spinoza says that such an item of knowledge is determined by chance he does not mean that it has no cause. He means that its cause is a particular experience in the history of the perceiver. The third type of perception is a higher level of induction, considering the lower level as its objects – as ‘raw material’ – for further generalization. As an example, Spinoza describes our knowledge that the sun must be much larger than it seems. This knowledge is a generalization from everybody’s experience that, when a thing moves further away from us, it looks smaller. He argues that although in this particular example the

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generalization is justified, if this kind of induction is used without care, it often leads to mistakes. ‘Without care’ means without looking for the cause of the phenomenon. Spinoza’s example for using induction without care is the mindbody relation. The point of his example is that people confuse a causal explanation with an a-priory assumption. In the preface to part five of the Ethics he attributes this mistake to Descartes, who without providing any evidence, solely on the grounds of his presupposed independence of mind and body, claims that the mind obtains the necessary information about the body through the pineal gland. The need to distinguish between the scientific conception of causation and a presupposed view is discussed in chapter III. In a note Spinoza adds that people may reach an error, like Descartes’ explanation, as a result of confusion arising from the use of language. Because mental phenomena are experienced and understood differently from the felt body, he says, different names are given to them. From this distinct naming people conclude that soul and body are distinct entities, and go on assuming so even when this distinction contradicts, or at least cannot anymore be supported by the evident feeling of their union from which they had started. This note is interesting in view of today’s emphasis on the influence of language on thought, discussed in chapter XIII. Finally, the fourth type of knowledge covered by the concept of perception is knowledge of a thing by its essence, either by its essence alone, without reference to its relation to other things, or by knowing its causes. Spinoza does not give an example of deriving an essence of a thing from knowledge of its causes, but we can understand it by considering a modern example. In the theory of gases, the density (the number of molecules per unit volume) and the average velocity of its molecules are the only properties which appear in the mathematically expressed causal laws because they are sufficient for describing the behaviour of the gas. Therefore, these properties are considered to be the essence of a gas – properties that define this state of matter. In general, trying to establish

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causal relations that explain a phenomenon without taking account of its effect on us, the emphasis is on knowing what can be left out of its explanation under the attribute of extension. In the theory of gases, the smell of a gas can be left out. Although the definition says what we understand by a gas (under the attribute of thought), this follows from our understanding of the essential causal relations discovered by science. The point of adding this explanation to Spinoza’s text is that it emphasises the difference between knowledge as a product of science and knowledge of things by their essence alone, which as a product of understanding is the topic of his inquiry. His example is knowing the essence of the mind. He explains that by reflecting on things he knows, he found out what it means to know anything, thus discovering the essence of knowing. Knowing the essence of knowing is knowing an essence of the mind. Spinoza explains that except for mathematical knowledge, we know very little about knowledge derived by reflection on the essence of things alone. Therefore he can illustrate what he means by considering a mathematical example. If people are shown the numbers 2, 4, and 3, and are asked to find a fourth number that is to the third as the second is to the first, almost everyone will find the answer. But, their explanations will vary. Some will quote their teachers who taught them that 6 is to 3 as 4 is to 2, thinking that they learned this by hearsay. Others will rely on the method of calculating the result and explain that the method was learned from experience, based on the second type of perception, and then generalized into an axiom by the third type (induction). But, to a mathematician it is clear that the method is derived from a principle of proportionality which can only be known by intuition. It is comparable to perception only in the sense that its truth is introspectively perceived, without being inferred from anything else, let alone be proved empirically. Having such intuitions must represent an essence of knowledge, and therefore an essence of the mind.15) 15) It is to this theory, still discussed at the end of the 19th century, which William James and Frege addressed themselves. since I chose them as examples in this book,

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The example is interesting because, without refuting Spinoza’s notion of intuition [see p.22], mathematicians differ about its content. For example, following Leibniz, it would be more reasonable to assume that what is known by intuition is a logical substitution law, from which the notion of equality is derived, and from the latter proportionality is derived. Two mathematical expressions are equal if they can be substituted for each other in all operations. Thus, 6/3 can substitute 4/2 in 4/2=2 without changing the equality. However, this does not alter Spinoza’s point that whatever is the principle known by intuition, it is presupposed in learning numerical relationships. It explains experience, rather than is learned from it. Spinoza mentions two other examples to which I come back in chapter VI. In TCU V Spinoza concludes that the modes of thinking we need for perfecting our understanding, namely for realizing its full natural capacity, must fulfill the following requirements: I) We must be able to differentiate between the laws of Nature embedded in our minds – our true nature – which we cannot change, and our thoughts which we can change. Concerning all other things we must distinguish between their true nature and what we think of them. II) We must understand in what way these other things agree, differ or oppose each other; in what way they are categorized as being the same or distinct, and if distinct, whether they are variations of the same or different in kind. III) Since we know the nature of other things to the extent that they have an effect on our understanding, we need to know to what extent our perceptions of them are passive. In other words, whether these perceptions are possibly influenced by other minds [see p.22]. IV) We must compare these perceptions with those obtained by the power of reason. In the light of these requirements it becomes clear to Spinoza that from the experience of certainty derived from hearsay we can only learn

their opinions are discussed in later chapters

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about the history of the perceiver's acquisition of knowledge, not about the things perceived. Although accidentally known facts, learned by low level of induction, remain unchallenged in the mind, we do not really understand them unless their essential mutual relations are understood. The higher level of induction – postulating such relationships and ordering them in a logical system – can lead to real knowledge, but only to the extent that the postulated premisses are correct. Since our perception of these premisses is passive this method can lead to error. It follows that the best way to perfect our understanding is to start from premisses whose source is not external to the mind. But these premises can only be known by rational analysis. In other words, the only form of understanding that never leads to error is a logical system which starts from premises known by their essence alone. Hence he turns to this mode of understanding. Or rather, to prove that we must have access to such premises. Spinoza argues that although we must justify any suggested method of inquiry, we must realize that such a justification must stop somewhere. We cannot require a justification for every justification without leading to an infinite regress, which inevitably leads to the conclusion that true knowledge can never be attained. He shows the absurdity of this conclusion by an analogy. In order to work iron, a hammer is needed. But, in order to produce the hammer another hammer is needed, and so indefinitely. The conclusion must be that no iron can be worked at all, which is obviously false. The refutation of this absurd conclusion is to observe that by using our muscles, our natural instrument, simple hammers were created, and with these, more efficient ones were made, with which in turn even better tools were produced. Similarly, with the natural instruments of the mind, methods could be developed with ever increasing efficiency of reasoning. The correctness of the analogy, he argues, can be tested by first discovering what are the natural instruments of the mind from which this process started, and then show that the production of all our better instruments of reasoning could indeed proceed from there. The problem with Spinoza’s analogy is that while in the case of

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hammers it is reasonably clear that they could have been created as an extension of the natural power of the arms’ muscles, as long as we do not know what is natural in reasoning it is less clear that logic and mathematics could have been created by extending these natural ‘instruments of the mind.’ What Spinoza does prove with his analogy is that if we accept his naturalistic conception of the mind, we must admit that some innately known true idea(s) constitute a starting point from which mental tools developed. Once his naturalistic metaphysics is accepted, his argument remains valid in principle, even if his discovery of the true ideas, which is his purpose in the first part of his method, were to be proved wrong. This is important because throughout the history of epistemology, a common argument about the comparable merits of deduction and induction has been that while logical deduction guarantees the preservation of truth, it cannot provide new knowledge. And while induction provides new knowledge, it cannot guarantee its truth. But, Spinoza is dealing here only with knowledge of the nature of understanding. And in his opinion, we are not dealing in this case with acquiring new knowledge, but with becoming aware of knowledge which forms part of the natural equipment of our mind. Spinoza justifies his reliance on a proof which is valid only in principle as follows. The idea of a circle is distinct from an actual circle in space. The idea does not have a circumference, a centre and a connecting radius. Having a true idea of a circle is knowing (under the attribute of thought) that these are the essential properties of actually existing circles (under the attribute of extension). However, this does not mean that we must first know that this relationship between the idea and its ‘object’ – between the attributes – exists before we can know circles. If this were true, we would have to explain how we know that this relationship is true, which would have led again to an infinite regress. In fact, he says, we first know circles, from which we derive knowledge of their essence. The stated relation between the idea of a circle and real circles does no more than articulate what we mean when we say that we

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know a circle [see pp.10-11 for a generalization of this example]. According to Spinoza, this order of discovery does not apply only to mathematics, where we can easily grasp the difference between an idea and its ‘object.’ It also applies to ordinary perception. Our knowledge of Peter is different from the real Peter. From the knowledge that Peter’s appearance seldom remains the same we conclude that the mind must abstract some essence of Peter by which he is recognized. But from this understanding does not follow that we must know this essence, or even know that our mind abstracts such an essence, before we recognize him. In fact, in order to know that the mind must abstract such an essence we must first recognize him as being the same person irrespective of his variable features. As in the case of the circle, we become aware of this meta-knowledge by reflection on what we know. Spinoza concludes that to be certain that an idea is true is to know that it expresses the essence of its ‘object.’ This is the principle which underlies my interpretation of his conception of realism [see pp.15-16]. It is important to notice that Spinoza’s proof that some true ideas must be a natural equipment of the mind – comparable to instincts in modern science – the concept of truth belongs to the characterisation of reason. Already in his MT [chapter VI p.107], when he was still a follower of Descartes, he refers to the question whether truth is in the idea or in its object (its ideatum). He explains that when we say that a thing is false, uncertain or doubtful, we speak figuratively. The real reference of ‘true’ is to an idea, and – as we may say – its function is to remove all doubt. At the end of TCU VII, Spinoza summarizes what he has so far achieved. First, he established the aim of his inquiry, which is to restore to the mind those natural capacities which have been weakened by external pressures of everyday life. Second, he established that the best mode of perception by means of which he can achieve this endeavour is to concentrate on the essence of things, including the essence of these mental capacities. Third, he has learned that in order to make sure that the method starts from correct premises, he has to discover those ideas for the truth of which no external evidence is needed [described in the Ethics as the third kind of

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knowledge]. As a result, he concluded that the method has to afford the following steps. First, it must provide a way to distinguish true from nontrue ideas. Second, it must provide rules by which we can move from the known to the unknown [described in the Ethics as the second kind of knowledge]. And third, it has to make order in our knowledge so that the mind will not be overburdened with useless details, which is an explanation of the concentration on the essence of things. I put the ‘inclusion of our mental capacities’ in italics in order to emphasise that the construction of the rules of logic is also based on the discovery of knowledge for which no evidence is needed. By reflection on the fact that we use inference even without being aware of knowing its essential principles, we conclude that it is the reflection on what we intuitively do when we infer one truth from another which leads to the discovery of these essential principles. As noted in the previous page, these principles are certain because they are discovered only in the sense that we become aware of them as being natural equipment of our mind. To these three parts of the method, Spinoza adds the need to recognize an ultimate standard of truth [see p.28], which he finds in his conception of God as a most perfect being that acts exactly as its nature dictates, which he identifies with his conception of Nature. Following his definition of the mind, this means that science as a whole is the idea whose ‘object’ is this perfect being. The final aim of the creation of science is to reduce all knowledge to one complex idea which reflects this unity of Nature. This is the meaning of saying that the conception of Nature is the standard of truth by which science is judged. Spinoza adds that this is methodologically important, because its recognition will speed up the achievement of our aim. What we may add is that science is a way of approaching the understanding of nature. Therefore, science depends on what we understand by nature, or natural. This is discussed in the next chapter. Note on the conception of the ultimate standard of truth. As told in the introduction, Spinoza reached his conception of the ultimate

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standard of truth by correcting Descartes' reliance on the existence of God [see p.21]. In his PCP I, the section Liberation from all doubts Spinoza refers to Descartes' worry that he might be mistaken even about clear and distinct ideas because these might have been inserted in his mind by a creator who meant to deceive him. Descartes suggests that he can free himself from this doubt, and achieve the certainty he seeks in science, by reflecting on the nature of the perfect Being who is his creator. This reflection led him to the conclusion that to deceive him would contradict God’s perfect nature. Therefore he was prepared to trust all things which God inserted in his mind, like the truths of mathematics. Descartes' opponents argued that if 1) We cannot be certain of anything until we have a clear and distinct idea of God. And 2) We cannot trust our clear and distinct idea of God as long as we do not know that God exists and is not deceiving us. Then 3) We cannot be certain of anything because 2) is not self evident. Spinoza agrees that had certainty depended on (2) we would be obliged to conclude that we cannot know anything with certainty. Therefore he suggests an alternative argument that, in his opinion, is better because it is comparable to Descartes' correct certainty about his own existence, based on the fact that in whatever direction we turn our thoughts, we cannot possibly find a reason for doubting our existence as thinking beings. This certainty remains true even if we take our creator to be a cunning deceiver. But, concerning other truths, even the truths of mathematics, we do have a reason to doubt them if we think of God as a possible deceiver. We must, therefore, concede that except for our own existence as thinking beings we can doubt everything, unless we realize that the conception of God as a supremely truthful creator is the content of (1). "The whole matter hinges on this alone, that we are able to form such a conception of God as so disposes us that it is not as easy for us to

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think that God is a deceiver as to think that he is not a deceiver" [PCP pp.11-13]. The essence of this correction of Descartes' argument is the replacement of his reliance on the existence of God by a discovery of yet another natural ‘instrument of the mind,’ a tendency to create a comprehensive view of Nature. With his conception of God Spinoza claims to have discovered the natural basis for understanding the universe as a self-creating structured system, in which humanity is included. This is discussed in chapter IV. As far as the method is concerned, he notes that an important aspect of understanding the role of his conception of Nature in creating knowledge is the realization that the more we correlate true ideas to ‘their objects’ in extended reality, namely the world in space and time, the more it becomes clear that things that are logically dependent (or independent) are also causally related (or unrelated) in reality; and conversely, the more we observe that things are causally related (or unrelated) in reality the more we understand that they must be logically related (or unrelated) in thought. The more this unity of thought and extended reality is understood, the clearer it becomes that the more comprehensive the Laws of Nature which we discover, the more we understand both Nature as a whole and the general principles underlying the creation of knowledge. In this section Spinoza raises the question, if his conception of God is natural, why is it not self evident? His explanation is that to say that a postulated truth is self-evident means no more than that if somebody stumbles upon it by chance he needs no argument for ascertaining its truth. The need to discover it arises from the improbability of such chance occurrence. Luckily, he says, we can overcome this improbability with the help of our reason. Yet, he enumerates several reasons why true ideas which need no evidence are not self-evident to everybody even after their discovery. One reason is the extreme variability of human ways of life which lead to different directions of inquiry. In other words, this reason is the variety of cultures. Another reason is the labourious thinking needed for distinguishing them from apparently self evident truths. And yet

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another is prejudice, which is often reinforced by people in power. To the explanation given in the introduction [see p.22] we may add the following According to Spinoza, although the desire to know the correct causes of things is natural, it is often suppressed by the influence of other desires, of one’s own or of other people. This explains, for example, why Spinoza’s conception of useful knowledge turned out to be useful for some people at the expense of others [see p.40]. In general, Spinoza makes a distinction between a natural, and therefore a universal property, and its distortion by a social power. This is best explained by his distinction between faith and religion. In his Theologico-Political Treatise [TPT pp.184-186], the experience of faith is explained as a feeling of moral certainty. Certainty is an experience which accompanies an intuition [see pp.22-23]. The intuition in this case is the [innate] knowledge that we need each other’s help. The idea expressing this intuition is the principle of justice and charity [see p.30]. This knowledge is the source of the desire for a secure social life. We do not desire it because we think it is good, but we think it is good because we desire a peaceful cooperation with others. The desire is universal, but the tendency to interpret particular social conditions as just or good is not. This is because such an interpretation is largely determined by external influence, for example by the institutional power of religion. However, as a matter of method, according to Spinoza, it is wrong simply to deny a religious doctrine which gives so much comfort to people, nor should we ignore its usefulness to the state. It is folly, he says, to reject a doctrine only on the grounds that it cannot be mathematically [= scientifically] proven [TPT XV p.197]. Moreover, in TPT V [p.78] he says that a person who is neither moved to adopt a just and charitable plan of life by reason nor by the moral doctrine taught by Scriptures, is less than human. In the Ethics Spinoza gives the same argument concerning the emotion of pity [E.IV proposition L and note]. Therefore, as he argued when explaining the will [see p.23], a philosopher must acknowledge religious experience and look for its explanation in human nature. His

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purpose in writing the TPT was not to dismiss faith as a natural basis for morality, namely for finding the best way to live with other, but to refute its distortion by institutional theology. As a matter of method, he explains at the beginning of chapter V of the TPT [p.76], that if one wishes to persuade others for or against any idea that is not self-evident to them, one must start from premises accepted by them and continue from there to show that their arguments contradict what they consider self-evident. This can be shown by contradicting evidence derived either from experience or by logical deduction. Evidence derived from experience is never as convincing as logical deduction, especially in spiritual matters which have nothing to do with the senses. But, any systematic knowledge obtained by deduction from a few self evident axioms is labouriously acquired, and requires caution, acuteness and self restraint – qualities which most people either lack or prefer to avoid. Most people are more likely to be persuaded by experience. This is why anybody who wishes to convince whole nations – let alone all mankind – must resort to this [narrative] method. Otherwise, a doctrine may reach only a very small proportion of mankind. This is why the Bible was written in the form of stories which appeal to people even if they lack the intellectual power needed for philosophy. Spinoza argues that this method does not detract from the importance of the Bible’s moral teaching, which according to all the prophets is the essence of religion. About this essence there is no controversy among them. In TPT VII [pp.99-100] he explains that this essence, as taught in the Bible, can be derived by the same method used in science. Just as in science the universal laws of motion and rest were found, from which we can derive the less universal laws, so for finding the essence of morality we must look in the Bible for the most universal doctrines held by all prophets from which we can derive the less universal. Moreover, in view of his postulated need to recognize an ultimate standard of truth which guides one in constructing a doctrine [see p.29], he summarises the prophets’ ultimate standard of truth and their derived essence of morality in TPT XIV [pp.186-187]. The summary says that God

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exists. That he is a supreme judge to be obeyed. That nothing can be concealed from him, and that his dominion over all things is absolute. That a virtuous worship of God consists of loving one’s neighbour as oneself, and that this is the essence of justice and charity. That only those who obey God in this way are saved, but those who live under the sway of their pleasure are lost. That God is merciful, and forgives those who repent. Although Spinoza rejected this ‘personalisation of God’ as a standard of truth, his point is that all prophets, as well as the compilers of the Bible, recognised that ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ was the moral essence of religion. This shows, he says, that although they experienced their certainty about this essence as a revelation, it is in fact not different from his own explanation about its being an expression of a natural intuition that we need each other’s help. This is particularly important because both explanations imply that people ought to be judged by deeds rather than by their beliefs about the nature of God. In this sense, he adds, it makes no difference whether God is conceived as a spirit, as light, as fire or in any other way. In the preface to the TPT Spinoza explains that his purpose in writing this book is to convince his readers that without freedom of thought and freedom to say what one thinks, neither piety nor the public peace can flourish. In the context of the present note, the important point is that piety is not living by the teaching of theologians, who are influenced by their pleasure in possessing social power, but being guided by faith, by the essence of morality described above. And in PT [IX 14], he explains that the importance of freedom of thought and speech – in both moral philosophy and science – lies in the fact that men’s natural abilities are not acute enough to discover everything on their own. But by consulting, listening and debating, they grow more acute and can reach the right conclusions. This argument is as in TCU II, that because no one can attain the required understanding of nature on his own, he wishes to convince his fellow intellectuals to join him in a common pursuit of knowledge which will make it possible to achieve this understanding [see p.47].

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It is worth adding here that the idea that the task of religion was to impose obedience to the moral law was widely accepted in and before Spinoza’s time. Throughout the middle ages, in the feudal social system, something like a ‘balance of powers’ was postulated, where the task of religion to impose obedience to moral laws provided a guarantee against the abuse of power by kings or the military aristocracy. Neither Descartes nor Galileo rejected this task of religion, except where science was concerned.16) The important insight of Spinoza was that, like any institution of power, an institutional religion was bound to deteriorate into a self-serving one, where the wish to retain its power was stronger than its task to guard a morality based on personal faith. The best ‘weapon’ by which religious leaders could retain their power was ‘persuading’ others that the best way to guard morality was to obey those policies which were advantageous for themselves. Invariably this meant a distortion of natural faith. Spinoza suggested that the only remedy against this ‘wicked’ abuse of power [see p.33] was to guard peoples’ natural rationality. According to him, only with freedom to think and say what one thinks rational people are able to follow reason when thinking of both their own good and of the good of society. This was the rationale for his rules of life to intellectuals. Part 3: The method. The first step is considered in TCU VIII- XI. This step deals with the way to distinguish true from not-true ideas. It is not concerned with a causal explanation of how we come to have true or non-true ideas [it does not deal with the neural processes involved]. This explanation, Spinoza says, is the task of philosophy [in which he includes science]. His concern in the TCU is with a preliminary inquiry about the method we should employ to distinguish between true and non-true ideas. The only philosophical assertion he has found necessary to establish in this preliminary inquiry is that some of our ideas must be true. This is 16) Galileo was a devout catholic. What he required was that the Bible should be revered as moral teaching, not as a source for learning astronomy. Spinoza also argued that the intention of Scripture was moral, not philosophical or scientific teaching.

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necessary because it is a common phenomenon that people becoming aware of having untrue ideas start suspecting that all their ideas might be false. Among the not-true ideas, Spinoza distinguishes between fictitious, false and doubtful ones. Fictitious and false ideas are often perceived as vividly as ideas whose ‘objects’ are real. But by reflecting on them it becomes clear that they are not necessarily true, just as doubting an idea does not necessarily mean that its ‘object’ is impossible. An idea is (perceived as) impossible if its (assumed) existence implies a contradiction. And it is (perceived as) necessary if its non-existence implies a contradiction. It is (perceived as) possible if no contradiction is implied whether it does or does not exist. The role of an accepted standard of truth for judging these [modal]-logical judgements is explained by considering the possibility of the non-existence of God. This thought, he says, is only possible because people have a fictitious idea of God. Once they understand the real nature of God (as he explains it), the possible non-existence of God disappears together with the fiction. Yet, he adds that even with his correct conception of God we know all things only by their essence. The more general the essence the more vague our knowledge. The more specific our knowledge of a thing the more clearly we know it. Complete knowledge of a thing means that we cannot attribute its set of properties to anything but to itself. This, he says, "is worthy of note". Again, this is contrasting the knowledge of Reality to realism [see pp.15-16]. In order to understand this in modern terms, consider our knowledge of a cell [I discuss this in chapter IV]. We understand the essential features of a cell when we know the laws which regulate the sequence of events starting from transcribing the information embedded in the DNA molecule to the organized production of specific proteins. Full knowledge of all transformations in a cell means knowing the specific functions performed by each enzyme in this sequence of events and of every protein within various processes at different times. Yet, even then, we still only know the

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essential features of a cell. If something goes wrong in a particular cell, we must know more details about its particular interactions with other cells and with external events. Only when all relevant details are known we can say that our knowledge (or true understanding) corresponds to reality. And then there is hardly room left for postulating other possibilities. It is the impossibility of knowing all the necessary details that defeats complete understanding [see p.16]. What Spinoza adds to this generally accepted idea in modern science is that the same applies to knowledge of a person, provided we include the mind in his nature. Some elaboration on his example of knowing Peter may clarify his intention. Suppose I know that Peter is a Plumber, and in the morning I asked him to repair a leaking pipe in my house. If later I am told that he had left his house, I assume that he is on his way to mine. But suppose I also know that Peter is a lover of music and that there is an attractive concert in town. Then I may think it possible that he went to the concert. I know that these are two possibilities because none contradicts what I know about Peter. But if I also know that he is very conscientious in his work, I know that ‘the forces’ by which these two desires may determine his behaviour are not equal. So the likelihood that he is on his way to my house rather than to the concert is greatly increased. The more detailed my knowledge about him the more accurately I can predict his behaviour. I can never know all his characteristics, let alone all the events in his life which have led to his particular way of thinking. I cannot know all that is necessary for the elimination of the possibility that in spite of his conscientiousness he went to the concert. This, however, is not due to the non-deterministic nature of Peter's behaviour, but to my inevitable ignorance. For knowing that Peter's love of music will not overcome his sense of duty we need a more detailed knowledge than for recognizing his face. In all cases, incomplete knowledge makes the consideration of contingency, namely the merely possible, inevitable. And this increases the influence of imagination. Therefore it is very important to distinguish

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between the psychological process of imagining a possible thing and contemplating it as a hypothesis within investigations. One can imagine a fictitious speaking tree by the psychological process of associating the recalled memories of a tree together with speaking. But when we imagine a candle burning in a vacuum we dissociate our image of the candle from memories of its burning. The purpose of the dissociation is to determine the necessary circumstances that affect burning. This purpose is to assert truth even if it arises out of an imagined fictitious situation. In a note Spinoza relates this explanation to his warning not to make inductive generalization without care [see p.49]. The purpose of the note is to warn that even in a convincing planetary theory an axiom remains a hypothesis as long as the real nature of planets is conceivably different. In fact, what has become the first axiom in Newton's theory was derived from Galileo's demonstration that the less a body is hindered by friction the more freely it slides on an inclined surface. The derivation of the axiom involves imagining the supposedly impossible frictionless motion. Spinoza ’s point is that when we postulate an axiom in a scientific theory the possibility that we err is always present. We are seldom aware of a true essence of a thing, therefore we are prone to attend to its accidental aspects merely because they are clearly imagined. And then, explanations which follow from such an axiom will also be mistaken. As he explained to de Vries, constant testing of the correspondence between abstract explanations and observed causal relations is his most important correction of Descartes’ methodology [see p.10]. We may add here that Popper’s proposed solution of the problem of induction may be seen as an interpretation of this insight of Spinoza. According to Popper, no problem arises if generalizations by induction are considered hypotheses, and both the ‘accidental’ observations from which they have been derived as well as their deduced consequences are considered tests of validity, rather than a source of knowledge.17) Spinoza explains that the only natural restriction on the influence of

17) Objective Knowledge p.28

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imagination is the fact that nothing can be conceived in imagination except by combining previously perceived things. This is a restriction on the power of invention which follows from his definition of the mind [see p.19]. This power is strongest when we perceive things without understanding their essence, and without ordering them in logical systems. Its power is reduced with the creation of science, because then we cannot pretend that what we know to be impossible is possible, let alone true. This is contrasted to the states of mind in which due to ignorance of the nature of things one can imagine trees speaking, men turning into stone, ghosts in mirrors, gods changing into men and much more. In view of the modern popularity of cultural determinism, Spinoza’s criticism of skeptics – their 17th century predecessors – is most interesting. Skeptics, he says, claim, on the one hand, that our minds are free to invent any proposition which suits us and, on the other hand, that once invented, such fictions resist rejection. Spinoza’s argument is that these skeptics claim to know that invented myths impose themselves on the minds of people, but they deny that true ideas impose themselves on the minds of rational investigators who discover them. They fail to notice that the same denial must apply to their own claimed knowledge, because surely they consider it a discovered truth! They fail to notice that being bound to accept any invented nonsense contradicts their postulated freedom, unless their denial of the possibility to distinguish between truth and error means that they freely impose this restriction on themselves. The view of cultural determinism is discussed in chapter II. Nevertheless, in spite of the paradoxical arguments of skeptics, Spinoza claims to draw a true conclusion from their mistake. To say that a fictitious idea imposes itself on people’s minds is to say that it occurs involuntarily in their ‘mental machinery.’ This is what is right in the skeptics’ claim. However, if one pays attention to such an idea, and examines everything that can be deduced from it, then, if it is false, its falsity becomes evident. And if there is some truth in it, this too becomes evident by removing the false parts. This is the function of reason. It is because of the latter that we should not be afraid of proposing speculative

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hypotheses that are initially invented ideas, provided we formulate them in a subject-predicate form – which in Spinoza's time was the only logical form considered – rendering them open to examination. He explains that the tendency to believe in fictions is a result of attending to many things at the same time, without taking into account that this is the source of incoherent complex ideas which confuse the mind. Therefore the essence of the first part of his method is to analyse every complex idea into its simpler components, until we reach the simplest components that cannot be further analysed. It is not possible to know a simple idea partly, because it does not have parts. If these simplest ideas are known to be true, and all other ideas are deduced from them, all confusion vanishes. As an example of simplest ideas formed by intellectual analysis alone, Spinoza considers the idea of a sphere. We may arrive at a concept of a sphere by imagining a rotation of a semicircle about its centre, causing the appearance of an image of a sphere in our minds. If we were to think of our created concept of a sphere as being derived from knowing real objects, we would have to look for spheres formed naturally in this way. Alternatively we would have to think of such a rotation as an inherent property of a semicircle, which is clearly false. As a result, the concept would have to be recognized as false. However, in spite of this conception of a sphere being formed in thought alone, we do not risk error because it is formed by combining the known simpler ideas of rotation and semicircle. And both are derived from simpler ideas. Spinoza concludes that since we can form true ideas in this way, it must be in the nature of ‘a thinking being’ to do so. Finding the simplest ideas in the realm of intellectual understanding is the topic of the last section in the TCU. According to Spinoza, the only difference between a false and a fictitious idea is that a false idea is conceived to be true. He explains that as far as the method is concerned, we must keep in mind that a false idea can be taken to be true because even our best knowledge is based on abstractions, and we should not confuse abstractions with reality. It is true, he says, that we understand the world in general abstract terms better than

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we understand ordinary objects or events, because this is the nature of human understanding [as the distinction between realism and Reality suggests. [See pp.15-16]. The reason that we can easily err when formulating abstract axioms is that (significant) differences between real things are often so small that they escape our attention, and are mistakenly included under the same generalisation. This possibility to err, he adds, does not apply to our intuitive conception of Nature [of God] as the unique origin of all natural things because there is no ‘something else’ to which it could be compared and be too similar for the difference to escape our attention. This is why, we can avoid false ideas by taking this conception of Nature as a standard of truth, as he suggests in section VII. In section X Spinoza turns to doubtful ideas. A genuine feeling of doubt is a state of mind which precedes the activation of reason to accept or reject an idea. A judgement by reason is called for when one idea causes doubt about another. For example, doubt about the idea that the sun is as small as it is seen cannot arise unless one first has the idea that the senses sometimes deceive us [see p.48]. But once the ‘instrumentality’ of vision, as Spinoza says, becomes clear – once we understand how the senses deceive us – all doubt disappears. This explanation, he says, might raise the idea that his intention is to improve on the ancients who had already claimed that true science proceeded from cause to effect. But, in fact, his only addition to their explanation is that understanding by reason acts according to similar laws, and it resembles a spiritual automaton. In other words, the acceptance of each idea is determined by other ideas. We do not call this mental process ‘causal’ only because the concept of causation is reserved for events in space-time. In the realm of thought we call them reasons. Perhaps because we do not, and according to Spinoza cannot, know the ‘instrumentality’ of the brain which corresponds to it. The role of a standard of truth for removing doubt is again illustrated by Spinoza’s comment on Descartes’ idea, that he may doubt even the clearest ideas if he could believe that they might have been inserted in his mind by a deceiving God [see pp.56-57]. He says that although this

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possible doubt was raised by Descartes in order to reject it, it was rejected for the wrong reasons. The very idea of a deceiving God can only arise when God is conceived as external to Nature, an idea which had a strong influence on the balance of reasons in Descartes’ mind. With his own conception of God, Spinoza says, the idea of a deceiving God cannot even be contemplated. Spinoza concludes that the best method is to start by clearly defining a [limited] domain of investigation, formulating the problems before attending to their solutions, and proceeding without interrupting the investigation by possible connections with other domains. In this way, reason does not only remove false ideas but also those ideas which raise doubt. The idea that the sum of the angles in a triangle is two right angles does not raise doubt because we reached it by this method. Finally, in section XI, Spinoza concludes this first part of the method with an analysis of memory and forgetfulness. Although not belonging to the method of distinguishing between true and non-true ideas, he finds it necessary not to neglect anything which contributes to natural thinking. The principal point he makes about memory is that it is independent of understanding. He proves this by showing that memory can be strengthened with or without the support of understanding. That understanding strengthens memory is shown by two facts. That the more intelligible an idea is the better it is retained in memory, and that it is easier to remember a number of things or ideas integrated into a story than to remember them in a list of unrelated ones. That memory is strengthened without the support of understanding is shown by the force with which the so called common sense is affected by individual corporeal things. Common sense should not be confused with understanding, he says, because the former does not involve the active power of reason. That it is affected by ‘individual things’ does not mean material objects. If one would know only one love story, he explains, the concept of love would stay in memory as it is in this story. But since there are many love stories they get confused in memory and the concept of love in common-sense is also confused. And he says ‘corporeal things’ because, like imagination,

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memory and common sense are causally determined by things existing in space, including heard words. Spinoza concludes that it is clear from these examples that memory is not part of understanding. Memory is consciousness of impressions on the brain accompanied with a thought which determines the duration of the sensation. Why the thought is an attempt to determine this duration is explained in a note. It says that we have learned from experience that without including the duration of the sensation in a memory it is prone to be forgotten. This is supported by the fact that if we want to remember something we are told, we often ask where and when it happened. Moreover, the attempt to remember involves the aid "of some measure of motion." In Spinoza's time every change under the attribute of extension was interpreted as motion [appendix to E. I, p.35]. Hence this explanation means that a thing is better remembered when we think of it as having caused, or being caused by, some change in a situation or event. And most important is his explanation that the duration of a memory is not the same as the duration of the real remembered thing. This can be understood by an example [not his]. Something which angered me may have lasted mere seconds. But my memory of the event may last much longer. This is a good reason for including memory in an explanation of thinking, though not of understanding. For a detailed explanation of memory Spinoza refers the reader to his Ethics [E. II, propositions xvii, xviii and notes]. However, he says, it is not essential that his readers accept his explanation of either memory or the imagination. For accepting his suggested method, it is sufficient to acknowledge the difference between their passive nature as opposed to the active nature of understanding, and to agree that with the aid of reason we can free our minds from these passive confusing effects. In fact, he adds, he himself arrived at this methodological conclusions before he arrived at his explanation of the imagination. In other words, Spinoza was aware that his approach to science was the main issue, not particular scientific theses about which he may err. His intention with including his explanation of memory and the imagination, was to incorporate the working of the mind

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in the same explanation of the natural world where everything is necessarily as it is. Spinoza's explanation of the imagination and memory is similar to the empiricist theory of mind which was developing in England at about the same time. According to the latter, the objects of the ‘mental machinery’ are perceptions of external things, recollections of these perceptions retained in memory, and associations of such images and memories which form complex ideas. The difference between this conception of the mind and Spinoza's is that empiricist philosophers excluded the function of reason from this ‘machinery.’ But, according to Spinoza, reason must be included in it. What he demands from his readers is to accept that his postulated power of reason can correct ideas appearing in the causally explained part of the mind. He argues that only his conception of the mind explains our capacity to imagine things that are strongly opposed to understanding, and understand things that are not imaginable. Only this conception of the mind allows us not to worry about the inevitable confusion arising out of false or fictitious ideas, provided we understand that imagination and understanding function according to different laws. The former according to causal laws and the latter according to the laws of reason. This should not worry us if we understand that the imagination is passive (caused by external events), but understanding is not. Spinoza’s analysis of language is explained by the same distinction between passive learning and active judgement. Passively learned words form part of the same involuntary machinery. It is therefore not surprising that they are the cause of many invented concepts and errors, unless we take the greatest precautions with them. The use of language, he explains, is a natural phenomenon, where the speaker suits his pleasure and appeals to the imagination of the listener. Hence, it is not surprising that – as Wittgenstein ‘discovered’ more than two centuries later – the meaning of words in ordinary language is determined by their use. Spinoza finds evidence for this in the fact that words whose meaning can be known only through the intellect usually get names of a negating form. For example,

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words like independent, uncreated, immortal, infinite, incorporeal, are expressed as negating their opposites only because these opposites are much easier to imagine and thus had been learned first. This is almost a modern behaviourist interpretation of languageacquisition, except that while behaviourists say that this analysis exhausts the explanation of verbal behaviour, for Spinoza this is only part of the explanation. A language is a source of errors because, since we do not know how it came about that words obtained their meanings, we take language-use to mirror realism and consequently take the false to be true [see p.49]. Yet, it is also the possession of a language that allows us to affirm and deny such ideas. In the Ethics he explains that if thoughts are to be accepted or rejected by being reflected upon, they must be made explicit in words [E. II, note I to prop. XL and note to prop. XLVIII]. And in his preface to the TPT Spinoza explains that words allow us to invent ideas for a variety of purposes. One purpose is the ordering of the objects of thought. And his analysis of religion implies that another purpose is to distort ideas. These explanations are important for my suggestion that the natural time for reviving Spinoza’s conception of knowledge was after Darwin [see p.38], because they suggest that memory and imagination and the capacity to correct their confusing effects must have evolved together with the capacity to speak. And also that the natural selection of reason, which made it possible to correct them, must have evolved together with the growing place of language in human life combined with the variety of ways people interact with their human, as well as with their natural, environment. As already noted, this suggestion is summarized in Spinoza’s statement in a note to proposition xiii in part II of Ethics, that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has. Spinoza’s last remark in this section is that failure to distinguish between understanding by reason and the familiarity of ideas whose source is in imagination and common sense is the failure to distinguish between the

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simple ideas which ought to be the starting points of our inquiries, and ideas that because of their familiarity are taken to be simple or self-evident starting points. It is a failure to realize that, if familiar ideas are true, they can and ought to be understood as derived from simpler ideas and thus appear later in a correctly structured understanding. If we fail to take this approach, and take familiarity and ease of remembering to indicate true understanding, he says, we fail to structure our knowledge in its correct order. The idea can be illustrated by the way various concepts have been introduced into modern physics. The phenomenon of apples falling down was familiar before Newton introduced his concept of gravitation. Newton’s innovation was in abstracting from such phenomena a simple concept – simple in the sense that it cannot be understood in terms of simpler ones – from which the motion of all objects could be derived. Only the discovery that not all motion could be explained by this force brought with it the introduction of other forces. Newton’s conception of inert matter was familiar for more than two centuries, before the discovery that matter and energy were interchangeable, and therefore not separately simple. The idea is reminiscent of Spinoza’s insight that the differentiation between inert material substance and the forces of nature which govern its modifications was an error. The same applies to the differentiation of the material content of the universe from the space it occupies, the denial of which is central to Einstein's theory of relativity [see p.14]. Similarly, Spinoza’s explanation that, since we are seldom aware of the true essence of things, we often neglect essential differences and attend to some accidental aspects simply because they are familiar, can be applied to the classification of plants and animals. The classification of plants common throughout history before the advent of the theory of evolution was based on their familiar uses by herbalists in medicine. An approach describes in the appendix to book I in the Ethics as a conception of nature as if God had created it for the benefit of mankind. The classification of animals in the Bible according to their living in water,

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land or the air, was also based on familiarity, and the story that God assigned to Adam the task to name them is based on the same conceived central place of humanity in God’s creation. In the 18th century Linnaeus attempted to construct a natural classification of plants independent of this anthropomorphic bias. But only with the theory of evolution was this approach generalized. For example when a whale was classified as a mammal rather than a fish. I am not suggesting that Spinoza had these modern ideas in mind. Obviously he did not. But the very possibility to think of energy and matter as something that can be essentially the same, involves at least the consideration of an abstract entity like energy as representing a real feature of nature. Einstein, who by his own testimony knew and appreciated Spinoza's conception of God, initially considered energy as a mathematical tool, a rate of exchange in calculating some transitions in material things. But when he realized that matter can be transformed into energy and vice versa he concluded that both must constitute the same substance. In contrast to Einstein, Feynman, who implicitly accepted the inverted Cartesian view [see p.38], emphasized that we do not know what energy is (the emphasis is his). All we know, he says, is that this abstract quantity has many forms; that it can be calculated in each of them, and that their sum total is constant, which is The Law of Conservation of Energy.18) Concerning evolution, the projection of human experience on nature was not immediately rejected. Initially, the intentional behaviour of animals trying to adapt to circumstances [the notorious long neck of the giraffe!] was considered the driving force of evolution. It was the triumph of the inverted Cartesian view as a standard of truth that removed this Lamarckian interpretation of natural selection from biology, which resulted with the removal of both the function of reason and of purposeful action from human nature. Such exclusion contradicts Spinoza’s assumption that every experience must find its explanation within a view of nature [see pp.12 and 58]. I come back to this point in later chapters. 18) Einstein and Infeld: The Evolution of Physics, Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 1967 paper edition, p.46, and Feynman's Lectures on Physics 4-1.

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The second step in the method is considered in TCU XII- XIV. Given that the first step allows us to determine the true premisses from which understanding should start, the second step is to make sure that only ideas which follow logically from these true premisses are included in science. These rules should lead us to the final aim of creating a unique logically related system of knowledge whose ‘object’ is the structure of Nature as a whole [see p.57]. If successful, this step disposes of the third part of the method stated in the plan, to order our knowledge so that the mind is not overburdened with useless details. Hence, the whole plan is completed by providing rules by which we can move from the discovered true premisses to unknown new truths. Spinoza reminds us again that in order to make sure that our understanding should contain knowledge of Nature as it is (including our own nature), we must minimize the number of things that can be understood by their essence alone, namely by thought alone. In a note he explains that since only God, namely Nature as a whole, is its own cause, only its properties can be understood by its essence alone. The reason for both italics is that although things caused by other things are also understood by their essence, in their case it is possible to relate a discovered essence to causal explanations, making sure that an abstract essence represents real ‘objects’ [see p.11 for the example of the parabola]. Nevertheless, he warns that also in the case where we must resort to properties understood by their essence alone, care must be taken that an explanation is drawn from "some particular affirmative essence, or from a true and legitimate definition" [section XII sentence 93]. The term ‘affirmative’ means, as he explains concerning ‘the will,’ that some real cases are explained by it [see p.24]. In a letter to Blyenberg [C. XXI], Spinoza says that any explanation must follow from properties that are actually present, or from interactions of such properties. That a causal explanation ought to be drawn from a true and legitimate definition means that the essential properties postulated as sufficient for explanation must be correctly defined. Such is the already given example of the interaction of volume, velocity and density in the modern explanation in the theory of

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gases [see pp.49-50]. Spinoza concludes that "the cardinal point of all this second part of the method" in creating a theory concerns the formulation of good definitions, which he states in section XIII, as follows. Following the distinction he makes between properties of things that can be understood by their proximate causes and properties of Nature as a whole, which can be understood by their essence alone, their definitions are formulated separately. The former are called ‘created things’ because they come into existence by something else within the dynamic system characterizing Nature as a whole. This is why the latter is called ‘uncreated.’ For created things: I. The definition of a thing must be based on the comprehension of its proximate cause. II. All other properties of a thing, when considered in isolation rather than through its relation to other things, ought to follow from its definition. For uncreated things: I. No object outside it should be needed for explaining its definition. II. When the definition is given, no doubt should remain about whether or not it exists. III. It must contain no substantives which can be turned into adjectives. Spinoza explains that this is the same as saying that the thing ought not be explained through abstractions. IV. All its properties should be concluded from its definition. Condition I for uncreated things means that, since the only possible ‘object’ to be considered is Nature as a whole, a concept used in the definition can only be understood by its [Nature’s] essence alone. This is comparable to the idea in modern science that a ‘primitive concept’ can only be defined indirectly by a related axiom. For example, the definition of inert matter is indirectly defined by the first axiom in Newton's theory. The concept of a straight line in plane geometry is indirectly defined by the axiom that through two points only one straight line can be drawn.

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With the acceptance of these definitions, condition II says that they are adequate only if we do not doubt that matter is inert, namely that any change in it must be caused by an external force, and that straight lines actually exist. Condition III says that the definition must not postulate entities which in fact characterize our understanding rather than Nature. This applies, for example, to a concept like ‘truth,’ which although the word has a substantive form, it should not be understood as belonging to a description of Nature because it is derived from our judgements of our perceptions as true or false, which are adjectives. It is appropriate to remark here that no scientist will accept an analysis based on grammatical properties of language. Nevertheless, condition III is somewhat reminiscent of the methodological rule known as Ockham's Razor. In modern science, it is conceived as a means for reducing the number of assumed substantive entities only to those which science absolutely cannot do without. And together with condition IV, they reflect a modern approach. Consider the example I gave in the introduction of feeling warm [see pp.19-20]. The postulated substance heat turned out to be superfluous for explaining the phenomena of being ‘hot’ or ‘cold,’ which are adjectives. Contrary to this exclusion of a substance, is the inclusion of photons in physics. The word ‘photon’ is a noun, denoting a substance. This introduction is justified by Spinoza's requirement because all the properties of light expressed as adjectives, like ‘bright’ or ‘red,’ are properties derived from the definition of light as photons. Obviously no scientist will reason in this way. My purpose with this remark is to show how modern Spinoza's conception of science was in spite of his 17th century language. Most important concerning the definition of uncreated things is his remark that, as for created things, conclusions in science ought to be drawn from "the essence of a particular thing" because "the more specialized an idea is, the more distinct it is, and therefore the more clear" [see pp.36 and 6263]. However, in the case of uncreated things, the particular things must

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be substantive properties of Nature which cannot be missing from any part of it. By particular things, he says, he does not mean mutable objects used in experiments, but ‘fixed and eternal’ things [in modern terms this may mean, for example, mass or energy]. This explanation is directed against empirical scientists who think that they can derive a complete view of Nature from their experiments alone [see p.27]. He explains that the need to start from such eternal particular things – which is equivalent to the methodological need to start from a general view of Nature – is a result of the fact that any event in which mutable things are involved follows from a complex interaction of these fixed and eternal things. Our concentration on universal causal laws is due to the fact that mutable things used in experiments are so dependent on them that without them they can neither exist nor be conceived. It is only because the human intellect is too limited for grasping all such interactions, that we have no choice but concentrate on the laws by which these physical ‘fix and eternal things’ are understood. He also explains that because the ‘fixed and eternal’ things are present everywhere, and their power is universal, they are understood as universal concepts rather than as real properties of substance as a whole [see p.37 for comparison]. Spinoza does not dismiss the experimental method [see p.12]. According to him, observing mutable things in experiments tells us something about the circumstances under which universal laws operate. The correct realization is that in order to discover the separate effects of the fixed properties of Nature, which in Reality appear simultaneously, special methods have to be devised. However, he adds, the TCU is a preliminary analysis, and is not the place for dealing with such methods, because we can best deal with them after having "acquired a sufficient knowledge of eternal things and their infallible laws, and until the nature of our senses has become known to us" [sentence 102]. This point is explained also in a letter to Oldenburg [C.II], where Spinoza’s criticism refers to Francis Bacon, whose plea for empiricism was to focus on observation. The task of the scientist, according to Bacon, is to assemble as many facts as possible and refrain from premature speculations.

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Contrary to him, Spinoza’s objection was to a premature confidence in considering a description of experience as if it is Reality. The last section, XV, on the power of the understanding and its properties, is supposed to round off the method. As argued in section V, the best method is that which perfects our understanding, where perfecting means restoring to it its full natural capacities. From condition II of created things follows that in order to achieve this purpose, all these natural capacities ought to follow from a correct definition of human understanding [see p.75]. But we have no rules for finding correct definitions without knowing first the things to be defined [see p.53]. Without such knowledge, we must either conclude that "the definition of the understanding must be clear of itself, or that we cannot understand anything" [sentence 107]. The first possibility would vindicate Descartes' view, and the second would confirm the clearly false view of the skeptics. But according to Spinoza, the definition cannot be clear and distinct ‘of itself’ – it cannot be selfevident – for the following reason. We can define, say, ‘inference’ by considering what we do when we use this instrument of the mind. In the same way we discover that the function of reason is to distinguish between true and false ideas. In general, a self-evident definition is derived by reflection on what we already know about it. However, unless a false idea causes doubt, it is presumed to be known [sentence 66]. Moreover, concerning the properties of understanding, as he explained to de Vries, there is nothing outside the realm of thought to which this presumed knowledge can correspond, and thus tested [see p.27]. Consequently, we cannot be certain about our knowledge. Yet, in view of the importance which Spinoza assigns to this knowledge, he claims that we have no other way to arrive at the required definition of ‘understanding’ than to start from his current preliminary analysis. ‘Start’ is emphasised because by his own proposed method it can be corrected when our knowledge of it is increased. I come back to this emphasis in my final comment. In this last section, then, Spinoza starts with a list of what he has so

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far discovered about the nature of understanding. A definition should be derived from this list, and its adequacy should be tested by applying the second property of a good definition of created things, namely by an examination whether all listed and later discovered properties follow from it [see p.75]. His list is the following: I. Understanding involves certainty. This means knowledge that the understanding under the attribute of thought is derived from the knowledge of the essence of its object [see p.54]. II. Some things are perceived absolutely, namely independently of other things, and other things are perceived as derived from others. Spinoza’s example is that the idea of quantity is perceived independently of any other idea, while the idea of motion depends on having first the idea of quantity. By the idea of quantity he means quantitative change, as becomes clear in the following property. III. Ideas formed absolutely are infinite [in the sense of being indefinite, see p.14]. But determinate ideas are formed from others. For example, a line of finite length can only be perceived as being formed by its boundaries. It is true, Spinoza explains, that we can imagine an infinite line as being formed by extending a finite line to infinity, but we would not be able to imagine this if we did not have first the conception of the infinite line along which the finite line moves. Similarly we can conceive of an infinite plane by imagining the motion of an infinite line, but this presupposes the infinite plane on which the line moves. And we can imagine an infinite three dimensional space by rotating an infinite plane only by having first the idea of an infinite space. It is interesting to notice that while, according to Spinoza, the concept of space is perceived absolutely, because we can neither explain it in terms of other concepts, nor can we be mistaken about its ‘substantial’ existence [see p.75], there is nothing in his arguments that excludes the possibility of perceived quantitative changes of measurements in space according to newly acquired knowledge. Einstein’s replacement of the Galilean by Lorenz' Transformation Laws correspond to properties II and III.

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IV. The ideas formed by understanding are always positive rather than negative. ‘Positive’ is equivalent to ‘affirmative’ in specifying the conditions for defining created things [see p.76]. To its explanation there we may add that as far as the present list of the properties of understanding is concerned, the capacity of the mind to negate ideas is positive, in the sense that it is a real property of the mind, of which we become aware when reflecting on what we know about the use of reason [see pp.23&55]. V. When ideas are formed by understanding, the mind regards all things under ‘certain species of eternity,’ without considering their duration or number. This is contrary to things imagined, when the mind perceives them as having a definite spatial extension, duration and number. This is a generalization of III. Spinoza's idea of ‘certain species of eternity’ is comparable to the generalized notion of dimension in modern analysis, to mean any variable property that can be conceived independently of any other variable property. For example, the conception of time as a fourth dimension in modern physics. Just as length delimits any of the three dimensions in space, so duration delimits an indefinite extension in time. The analogy of duration delimiting time to delimiting spatial dimensions is clearer than the idea that actual numbers delimit ‘a certain species of eternity.’ However, the latter is quite similar to the definition of natural numbers in set theory, where any particular number is conceived as defining one variable aspect of classes, namely of having the same number of members. For example, a particular class of apples can be classified as equal to a particular class of books in having the same number of items, which is the only property they have in common. This definition presupposes an abstract concept of number, which is the required dimension. VI.

While confused ideas are formed in the mind against our will, clear

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and distinct ideas seem to depend only on our own mental power, on our natural power to distill them from the involuntary images formed by association. Spinoza explains his saying ‘seem to depend’ because this is true only when the clear and distinct ideas are actually formed by keeping the mind on reason, when the ideas become clear and distinct after apparently-clear ideas are rejected. In other words, this happens after using the positive power of the mind to negate false ideas – as stated in property IV – in order to create a comprehensive system of true ideas. VII. Derived ideas – ideas defined in terms of other ideas – can be determined in many ways. For example, the plane of an ellipse can be determined by imagining a possible way to produce it by a moving pencil held in place by a cord fixed in two points, or by a cone being cut by an oblique plane. It can also be conceived abstractly as an infinite number of points having the same relation to a given straight line, and in any number of other ways. VIII. "The more perfection of an object ideas express, the more perfect they are". As an explanation Spinoza says that we do not admire the architect of a chapel as much as we admire the architect of a temple. In view of Spinoza’s proposition that a thing is perfect when it is exactly as it must be, this example seems odd. It seems to me that the only way to relate it to a property of the understanding is to relate the admiration to the natural capacity of people to apply to a task knowledge which is as complete as possible. In a building ‘more perfect’ may mean that the architect who builds a temple uses a more complete knowledge of the essential principles of building than the architect of a chapel. Spinoza concludes this section with two notes. The first is that he excluded from the list any properties of the mind which have nothing to do with the nature and power of understanding. He explains that these can be excluded, because “when [the understanding’s] perception is removed, all these [others] vanish with it". This explanation follows from his

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definition of a perceived emotion as a combination of consciousness of a state of the body and an idea of its cause [E. III, preliminary explanation]. It is the perception of the idea of its cause which turns the emotions into mental experience. But without our awareness that these causes can be perceived correctly or incorrectly the effect of awareness of the cause would disappear, because we would respond automatically to the stimuli of these states of the body. This is part of his correction of Descartes' cogito from "I think therefore I am" to "I am [human] as long as I think" [see p.18]. The second note explains that he excluded all the properties of false or fictitious ideas from the list because these ideas tell us nothing about the essence of understanding. On the contrary, these ideas – as he repeatedly explains – are imposed on the mind by external influence. What we need to know are the natural [namely real] properties of understanding, which he calls its positive properties. Therefore, when trying to reach a correct definition of the nature and power of understanding we must concentrate on its listed positive properties, and discover what they have in common. Then we should examine whether what they have in common satisfies condition II for a good definition of created things: whether by granting that these common properties are the essence of understanding, all the listed properties necessarily follow [see p.75]. But Spinoza does not proceed to derive this essence of understanding from his list. Therefore, the editors who published his work after his death considered it unfinished and added the remark ‘The remainder of this Treatise is wanting’ [see p.34]. Did Spinoza considered his essay to be unfinished? It seems to me that his conviction, that the more we shall know about Nature the more we shall understand ourselves, and the more we shall know ourselves the more we shall understand Nature, suggests that he might not have intended to finish it as these editors expected. This is my reason for emphasising ‘start’ when Spinoza's conclusion is stated that although we cannot be certain about our knowledge of the properties of understanding, we have no other way to arrive at a definition except by starting from

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current knowledge [see p.78]. The support for my opinion is found in the list itself. In the given list, only items II to VII are comparable to Descartes’ certainty proved in the cogito, in the sense which Spinoza explained it in the PCP. Namely that we cannot doubt our existence as thinking beings even if our creator is a cunning deceiver [p.12]. It is in this sense that, for example, no matter whether our knowledge of the positions of particular objects are true or false, we cannot doubt our knowledge of their underlying concept of space. Similarly, no matter whether our knowledge of their duration or number are true or false, we cannot doubt our knowledge of their underlying concepts of time and number. The discovery of these underlying concepts of our knowledge, as Spinoza explains in TCU VI, is acquired by becoming aware of these instruments of the mind when we reflect on what we know about them. Item VIII indicates a psychological inclination. It might raise the suspicion that the tendency to admire a unified system of knowledge does not necessarily follow from a natural property of understanding. In fact, his replacement of ‘having a concept of God’ – representing a unity of Nature – for Descartes' reliance on the existence of God [see p.57] may suggest that this inclination has nothing to do with grasping a real unity of nature. Such a suspicion occurred to William James and found its place in his characterization of pragmatism. This is discussed in chapter XII. However, there is nothing in Spinoza’s later work to suggest that he shared this suspicion. In particular, there is nothing to suggest that he changed his mind about his basic methodological conviction that the more we shall understand Nature as a whole the more we shall understand ourselves, and the more we shall understand ourselves the more we shall understand Nature as a whole. The crucial reason for the abrupt ending, then, must be item I, that the definition should involve certainty. According to Spinoza, this is only possible for knowledge by intuition. It means that if one becomes aware of this [innate] knowledge one needs no evidence or logical argument for ascertaining its truth [see p.57]. This means that the list of properties is

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correct only if one accepts his naturalistic approach. But his approach also says that by a process of repeated correction of our understanding a better list can be acquired, and therefore the same must apply to the first item in the list. Yet this suggests that the definition ought to be seen as a hypothesis – or as he says, a preliminary idea – within his naturalistic paradigm, to be tested by reflection on whether all theories constituted by its guidance form a coherent system of knowledge. For the theories themselves we must turn to ‘his philosophy,’ namely to his Ethics, as he repeatedly tells his readers to do. In short, it is quite likely that, from the start, this section, like the rest of the TCU, was not intended to go beyond leading to a correct approach to any inquiry. It is possible that it purports to show how we should go about deriving a hypothesis about the nature of understanding, as ‘an instrument innate in us.’ What we may conclude from the abrupt ending of the TCU is that although Spinoza, like all his contemporaries, did not distinguish between science and philosophy, the distinction between a theory and an approach to its creation is implicit in this section.

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Chapter II: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN A COMPREHENSIVE STRUCTURE OF SCIENCE AND A COMPREHENSIVE STRUCTURE OF NATURE. In his summary of his proposed method, in TCU VII, Spinoza says that it is methodologically important to be guided by his view of nature as the correct standard of truth [see p.55]. As explained in the previous chapter, Descartes’ suggested method for constructing a comprehensive science relied on the existence of God. And Spinoza derived his view by replacing the reliance on the existence of God with a reliance on a natural drive to create a unified system of knowledge which he identifies with having a conception of God [see p.57]. For both Descartes and Spinoza the system of knowledge so created articulates a conception of the unity of nature. Nevertheless, Spinoza asks himself: if the tendency to create a comprehensive system of knowledge is natural why is it not self-evident? His answer is that being natural does not mean that we can discover it without careful inquiry, just as we cannot understand the functioning of our body without careful scientific study, in spite of the fact that nobody doubts its being natural. In the appendix to part I of the Ethics, Spinoza explains how it came about that his contemporaries and predecessors came to hold a comprehensive view of nature dominated by their conception of God, as a guiding view for understanding all knowledge. His explanation is based on three premises which, as he says, "must be admitted by all": 1) people are born ignorant of the causes of things; 2) all people have a desire to acquire what is useful to them; and 3) all people are conscious of this desire, which is experienced as free will. From the first premise follows that whatever we know about causes is learned. But, because nature is presupposed to be causally determined, the third premise leads to the attribution of free will to the soul rather than to human nature. This, he says, explains why it never occurs to people that

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their desires have natural causes. Since people pay attention to things with a purpose in mind, and judge the results of their actions according to their usefulness for this purpose, the second premise explains why they see a purpose also for all things in nature. Since they find plenty of things in nature that they had not made, they conclude that there must be a far more powerful being than themselves who is able to produce all these things for his purpose. In short, the reason why they cannot think of nature as selfcreated is that they project what they know about themselves onto the whole universe. From this they conclude that the powerful creator they have postulated must be persuaded to run the world for the satisfaction of the needs of his worshippers. Although this explains why general views of the world which guide the approach to the creation of systems of knowledge differ, his thesis, that the tendency to create them is natural, implies that it must be universal. In other words, ignoring his argument that the creation of science – understood to be the best way to understand the natural world – ought to be guided by the correct view of nature, Spinoza’s thesis can only be supported or discarded by an exhaustive examination of whether throughout the ages peoples created comprehensive systems of knowledge which explained what they conceived to be natural. Since such a project is beyond the scope of this book, I confine myself to the examination of the two views of nature which evolved since Spinoza’s time, and have prevented the acceptance of his view. As pointed out in the introduction, Descartes’ view of the scope of science was replaced after Darwin by the nature/culture dichotomy [see pp.39-40]. Therefore, One system of knowledge I consider is that of modern science and the second takes science to be a product of a comprehensive view of a particular culture. Does the history of modern science support Spinoza's assumption that the pursuit of knowledge is guided by a universal tendency to create a comprehensive view? Until about the middle of the nineteenth century physicists believed that all phenomena would eventually be explicable by Newton's laws. As

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Helmholtz put it, all problems “of physical material science ... (will be solved by reference) to unchangeable attractive and repulsive forces whose intensity depends wholly upon distance.”19) The discovery of electromagnetic phenomena forced physicists to admit the existence of an additional force. And the later discovery of the sub-atomic world did not only introduce the strong and weak forces, but quantum mechanics, the theory which successfully interprets phenomena on that level, proves to be incompatible with the general theory of relativity, which in the meantime gained acceptance as a correction of Newton’s physics. Nevertheless, physicists continue to be guided by their belief in the unity of nature. This is shown in the attempts to create a ‘theory of everything,’ meaning everything that can be explained by physics. Moreover, in spite of a strong commitment to the empirical method, these attempts have induced many physicists to accept a greater scope of speculation than before, as seen for example in the postulated string theory or the theory of many universes. The only justification for this relaxation of their commitment to keep either to the empirically testable or to the logically proven is their belief in the unity of nature. Feynman’s view confirms that this guiding principles reigns also without these exotic theories. For example, in his explanation of the wave-particle characterization of elements on the sub-atomic level, Feynman says that all phenomena, from electro-magnetic fields, radio waves, visible light, X-rays and gamarays, are manifestations of the effects of streams of particles which differ from each other by the frequencies of their oscillations. Their wavecharacteristics are evident when the frequencies are below 1012 cycles per second. Above this frequency, for example for X and gama rays, only their particle nature is evident. The wave characteristics of these high frequencies, he notes, were never observed. They were deduced from the energy of the particles according to a rule based on the assumption that all elements in the range he describes manifest both wave and particle

19) Quoted in Einstein and Infeld: The Evolution of Physics, p.54.

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properties20). The wave-particle characteristic, as an essence of all these elements, he explains, is postulated because it is inconceivable that they would differ in such a fundamental property, even though it is not observable. Admittedly, Feynman tells us that this a-priori status of this particular property is a temporary hypothesis, until new discoveries may either prove it or force us to abandon it. But the temporary status of this essential property is based solely on the presupposed unity of nature. Any replacement will have to abide by the same presupposition. In Feynman's opinion the hypothesis is not to be considered a mere speculative imposition on the observed phenomena, because the apparent failure of some of them to exhibit both characteristics, namely that some elements are detected only as waves and others only as particles, is due to the equipment we use for detecting them. In other words, the failure depends on our limitations rather than on the phenomena we try to explain. Most important for the thesis concerning the relation between the unity of science and the assumed unity of nature is Feynman’s argument that the enormous success of the quantum theory is in increasing the unity of science. The advantage of the possibility to explain the whole of chemistry in terms of quantum mechanics is weighed against the previously accepted principle, that in order to accept a theory, a detailed description is required of what goes on in every experiment. This advantage, he says, shows that we are on the right track, in spite of the fact that quantum theory does not provide an empirically clear and testable description of the sub-atomic realm, and in spite of the fact that so far this unified explanation fails to include a theory of gravitation. That the nature/culture dichotomy is Feynman’s guiding conception of nature, is shown by his statement that if – through quantum mechanics – chemistry can be reduced to physics then the whole of life can be reduced to it as well. This is because by ‘the whole of life,’ Feynman means biology, and according to him, the most important hypothesis in biology is that there is nothing that living things do that cannot be

20) Feynman's Memorial Lectures pp.2-5 to 2-7

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understood by seeing them as made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.21) When Feynman concludes that the whole of life can be reduced to physics, he clearly takes the inverted Cartesian view of science for granted, where only causally explained processes in the body are included in the hierarchy of sciences. As pointed out in the introduction, the inverted Cartesian view succeeded to maintain the correspondence of a comprehensive system of knowledge to its view of nature by including the evolution of the human body in biology, but excluding thought from human nature [see p.39]. Thought is obviously not excluded from the construction of science – the so called physicalism includes abstract thoughts like the laws of nature in reality – but thinking is excluded from the natural properties of humanity that are to be included in the unity of natural evolution [This is discussed in chapter IX]. It is worth noting that philosophers in the 17th century, who accepted the empirical approach to science, attempted to include the mind in human nature. For example, Locke did so with his conception of the mind as a tabula rasa – as a ‘wax slate’ on which every ‘impression’ caused by external sources was retained. In our time, evolutionary psychologists reject Locke’s interpretation of the natural mind because according to them, basic psychological traits that are essential for explaining learned behaviour must be inscribed in this ‘slate.’ Therefore they do not make a sharp distinction between biology and psychology. For the same reason evolutionary sociologists do not make a sharp distinction between psychology and sociology. If some form of social behaviour which benefits others rather than oneself is essential for survival, it must also be inscribed in the natural mind. This may be seen as a revival of Spinoza’s analysis of an emotions like nobility [Ethics III, note to prop.LIX]. However, one reason for the remaining influence of the nature/culture dichotomy after Darwin is the idea that, where a property is special to mankind, it cannot be natural, because by the theory of evolution any property that

21) Ibid, section 3-3 p.3-6.

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characterizes a particular species must be shown to have emerged from the modification of some properties of its ancestors in evolution. The claim is that this is not so in human behaviour. For example, soldiers who try to save their wounded comrades by endangering their own life, do so on moral grounds which contradict the most basic drive of self-preservation, common to all animals. And so do devotees of an ideology who sacrifice themselves for ‘the good of the cause.’ In both cases the behaviour is based on judgements which cannot be attributed to animals. It is on these grounds that morality continued to be excluded from human nature even after Darwin.22) The objection is not so much to emotions, which can explain the tendency of parents to protect their offspring or even a readiness to cooperate in protecting one’s social group, which are implied by Spinoza’s analysis, but to his thesis that moral judgements are judgements of reason. This topic is discussed in chapter VI. Here the emphasis is on the comprehensive view of nature which excludes judgement from human nature. Two kinds of explanations for the exclusion of judgement from natural behaviour are worth mentioning. One includes moral experience in human nature, without interpreting it as a kind of judgement. Following Nietzsche, moral judgements and their basic concepts of good and evil are cultural inventions designed for enslaving us to society. Proof is the observation that, although egoism is expected to be detested in human behaviour, in fact we admire a genius for creating beautiful or clever things irrespective of his/her egoism.. This shows that the natural experience of admiration is independent of the moral judgement of egoism imposed by society.

22) Recently, however, this view has been challenged by Frans de Waal, who claims to have found the roots of morality in the behaviour of other apes. De Waal’s explanation fits the interpretation of Spinoza’s thesis in the light of evolutionary theory. I discuss this interpretation in my concluding remarks.

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Another solution was proposed by René Thom23) dismissing the experience of decision-making, which according to him, we mistakenly take as following a judgement. In 1972 he developed a statistical theory that describes what is known as ‘the fight or flight’ experience in animals. This is an observed momentary hesitation which looks like a preliminary to making a decision when, for example, a dog confronted with another dog stands still before it either runs away or attacks. Thom constructed a three dimensional probability distribution of this stimulus-response phenomenon, showing that the observed hesitation indicates no more than a delayed action caused when reaching a fold in the 3-D diagram of the probability distribution. According to Thom, the interpretation of human behaviour in this way explains the illusion of a thoughtful decision. The same applies to the acceptance and rejection of thoughts, without assigning any role to the application of reason in human nature. Needless to say, Thom did not think that his own theory was formed by this kind of illusionary decision. But, this is not a problem when the use of reason is seen as a product of a culture dominated by science. Concerning Spinoza’s assumption, that the creation of a system of knowledge is guided by a comprehensive view of nature, what all these examples have in common is that they depend on what is included in one’s view of nature. In spite of restricting the validity of science to the physical world, most scientists think that political decisions can be accepted on moral grounds because morality is independent of nature, and therefore independent of science. In this respect the modern view is continuous with the view developed in the seventeenth century. Not only with Descartes view but also with Locke’s. When Locke rejected Hobbes' interpretation of the right of kings, he did not think that this objection contradicted his theory of mind because he took for granted that the acceptance or rejection of the right of kings was not inscribed into the tabula rasa of either the king or his subjects. Thus, his political analysis did not belong to ‘the new science.’ 23) René Thom: Structural Stability and Morphogenesis. Published in English by W.A. Benjamin, Inc. Reading, Massachusetts. 1975.

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Does cultural determinism support Spinoza's assumption that the pursuit of knowledge is guided by a universal tendency to create a comprehensive view? This view can be seen as one interpretation of Locke’s theory of mind, where the content of the ‘tabula rasa’ is determined by a culture. The modern philosophy of science that represents this explanation can be illustrated by the view of Bruno Latour. According to Latour, the desire to make sense of the world by creating a comprehensive system of thoughts is indeed a natural desire, but its aim is not to create knowledge of an objective world. In his opinion, the idea that science is guided by the authority of truth is a product of our particular culture. Hence a postulated power of the mind to distinguish between truth and falsity cannot be a natural, i.e. a universal, guide to its creation. Nor do sociology or anthropology support the idea that true knowledge of the world has a central place in it. The idea that this guidance has a natural basis is a self-deceiving illusion. Latour explains that scientists do not discover objective facts, but in their attempt to create a comprehensive view of the world, they construct them. Scientists agree that a theory is constructed, in the sense that it is a conceived (or imagined) explanation of how the phenomena come about. Not only how what we see, hear, or otherwise perceive to come about, but also how they are related to each other and to observed events. But, because a scientific theory is, in this sense, the creation of the human mind, scientists insist that a theory is, and ought to be, accepted only if its predicted consequences come true. According to them, innovations in science are corrections of earlier scientific explanations which failed to fulfill this condition. But, according to Latour, a change of explanation is not merely a scientific correction. This is because the scope of the comprehensive view of the world which people construct within any culture is much wider than that which scientists construct. A scientific theory, in Latour's opinion, becomes true, or a discovery becomes a [perceived] fact, when these become part of our habitual way of life. His explanations are not always easily distinguishable from

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explanations of sociologists in the ‘scientific camp.’ For example, the latter agree with Latour that had Pasteur’s discovery of the existence of microbes not been accepted by the community of scientists of his time, this discovery might have been lost, and the existence of microbes would not have been considered a fact. But Latour says that the existence of microbes in fact became part of the constituents of the world only when Pasteur's work introduced the practice of sterilization into hospitals, and these found their counterparts in everyday life, for example in practised hygiene. The essential difference is seen in his question, how can the claim that Ramses II died of a disease caused by a microbe if microbes were discovered only in 1882? The question implies that ‘discovered’ means ‘invented,’ and therefore it makes no sense to suppose that microbes existed before they were invented.24) In short, according to Latour, a scientific innovation is not a correction of understanding, as Spinoza thought, but a change in people’s thoughts caused by a change in their way of life. Our thoughts reflect a change in our culturally created reality. When our practices of health-care changed, the existence of microbes became true. There is in his opinion no other truth than ‘true for us.’ If you want more objective truth, he says, look at what is done in research-institutions. The ‘product’ of research institutions defines what is true and objective. And the preoccupations of these institutions determine what is valuable research, where valuable means relevant to the culture. Latour compares this anthropological interpretation of science to farming. If you want more milk, he says, look at the way farming is done.25) According to him, it is our cultural history that must explain the illusion of scientists about their objectivity, namely their ‘view from nowhere.’ He

24) The implication and the quoted rhetorical question are taken from an article published in La Rechercher 1998, quoted by Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmout: Intellectual Impostures. I thank Lex Bouwmans for pointing out to me this article. 25)This is a near quotation of his words, but unfortunately I cannot give the reference because I heard him saying it in an interview. Most of my report of his view comes from this interview which I recorded but did not note down its place and date

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explains that in the 18th century, when scientists wanted to free themselves from the power of the church, they created a sub-culture that was not to deal with power but only with truth. But in fact, this independence never existed. The interaction of scientific institutions with institutions of power is an inevitable social fact, essential for the created comprehensive view of the world. Galileo was very well connected. He could not ignore his association with the Bible, the Pope and the church when his scientific preoccupation was with falling bodies and the telescope. Scientists can never think of objects differently from the way other people think by breaking their associations with them. No matter how we define objectivity, he concludes, it is not the product of a disinterested mind. In summary, while the inverted Cartesian view achieves its unity by excluding judgements of reason and morality from nature, cultural determinism achieves its unity by including a view of nature into a particular culture, excluding the possibility of a view of the world independently of it. The central idea of the latter is that people live in a cultural environment and create myths, stories or theories which maintain the cohesion of a culturally created system. In their opinion, all theories and practices, from the invention of agriculture to the invention of mathematics and the advanced technologies of today, are inevitably submerged in other cultural factors. The practice of agriculture was for a long time associated with the belief that prayers have a decisive effect on harvests. And this belief constituted what they considered to be an understanding of ‘the world as it is.’ Only when for some culturally determined reasons a distinction between technology and religion was made, could prayers be taken out of the theory and practice of agriculture. According to Latour, no matter how much they try, scientists cannot escape this unifying aspect of a culturally created comprehensive view. How do these two views compare to (can be judged by) Spinoza’s view? As a preliminary observation we should note that in modern science – as

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it was for Descartes – the correspondence of science to nature applies only to the physical world, namely to knowledge of things and events in spacetime. Contrary to this conception of nature, Spinoza’s conception of nature includes humanity and its cultures, and therefor science must include them. But most important, this inclusion is crucial for Spinoza’s assessment of the methodological conditions for the creation of all science. Figuratively speaking, the difference concerning the sciences included in the project of the first view, is that modern scientists see themselves as looking at their created ‘picture’ of the natural world from outside it, which is their conception of objectivity. The adherents to cultural determinism – the second view – deny the possibility of having such an objective view. They claim that scientists, like any other observer of nature, are firmly anchored in their cultural environment, which shapes their point of view. Without relying on Spinoza, holders of this view agree with his postulated tendency to create a unified view of the universe. But according to them, a mythological description of the universe can be as comprehensive as a scientific system. Figuratively speaking, their view of themselves and of nature are so firmly located in their own culture that they cannot see them from any other perspective. Contrary to both, the whole point of his method is to enable us to move the point of view from its position within a culture to a position in the scientifically created view of nature. According to him this can be done by starting the creation of the picture with moving our point of view to that within us, seen as creatures of nature rather than of cultures. When this is done, scientists can look at cultures from outside, and judge them by observing whether or not they satisfy the natural needs of humanity. As stated on the first page of this book, this is his purpose. However, my purpose in this chapter is to derive a comparison of these two conceptions of science from Spinoza’s criticism of skeptics [see pp.34 and 65] and from his notes on the acceptance of false ideas [see pp.62-67]. As far as the physical world is concerned, the disagreement of Spinoza with modern science is minimal, not only because the physical domain is the same, but also because their agreement includes that part of

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Spinoza’s methodology which applies to the explanation of this physical world. For example, in TCU VII Spinoza explains that once he has reached the conclusion that the form of a comprehensive understanding of Nature is to be revealed by the correspondence of its logical and causal structures, it became clear to him that the more universal the ultimate principles by which we understand Nature, the more they lead to the final aim of creating a correct comprehensive conception of Nature. This conclusion is accepted in modern science, though with its limitation to the conception of nature by the nature/culture dichotomy. Frege's logic is considered better than Aristotelian logic because it enlarges the scope of knowledge to which logic applies. And Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity expands the universe to which physics applies. Admittedly, Einstein's unification of space-time can hardly be characterized as an essence without which space and time cannot be conceived [see p.11]. Nevertheless, judging by Spinoza's consideration of the concepts of time and duration [see pp.80 and 83], it is clear that he did not think that their scientific conception can, let alone must, be the same as their natural perception. This is explained in his MT [chapters I and X]. The essence of his explanation of the difference between the natural perception of a thing’s duration and its scientific conception is that while the former is an effect of these things on the mind, its [scientific] conceived duration is a distinction of reason. However, just as space cannot be conceived without perceiving material things, so time cannot be conceived without perceiving durable things. From this Spinoza concludes that, while the concept of duration presupposes created things, the concept of time presupposes both created things and thinking men [Ibid p.129]. The presupposition of created things follows from his conception of the mind, where the ‘object’ of an idea is always an existing thing [see p.19]. The presupposition of thinking men follows from the dependency of the creation of the correct view of nature on the intellect [see p.27]. We should note that Spinoza’s analysis applies to himself. The possibility to overcome the limitations of human perception were known in the seventeenth century through the invention and use of microscopes

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and telescopes. Since Spinoza earned his living by producing lenses, it is quite reasonable to attribute to him the idea that, due to the expansion of the range of known ‘objects,’ a scientific conception of the universe ordered by reason is different from a conception formed on the basis of natural perception alone. For example, although modern scientific conception of matter-energy-in-space-time may be seen as corresponding to Spinoza’s conception of substance, these four components are conceived clearly independently of each other when based on natural perception. In fact, this may explain our inability to imagine, let alone perceive, many consequences of the new physics. More to the point, it can explain to some extent, the reluctance of natural scientists to think of reason as of a natural ‘instrument of the mind,’ because scientific concepts are often anti-intuitive. I come back to this point in chapter IX. Here it is sufficient to point out that from the early development of modern science no physicist doubts that the unifying concepts of physics represent how nature should be understood. However, the most important difference between Spinoza’s naturalistic approach and modern science is in Spinoza’s inclusion of an explanation of the acceptance of false ideas due to the support given to them for political reasons. This was his main consideration in his political writing. In other words, in his comprehensive view of science he purported to describe not only laws of nature which we cannot change, but also beliefs and social values which can be changed. What the introduction to his PT says is that, if his proposed method is to be rational, rather than a fanciful utopia, it had to be based on knowing the nature of men as well as the observed external influences which had been actually tried throughout history for sustaining beliefs and values. In Spinoza’s comprehensive view, moral values ought to be based on a correct, i.e. non-distorted, intuition, in his sense of the term [see p.22]. In other words, if Spinoza’s postulated intuitive knowledge of the basis of morality is its essence, then throughout history, it ought to have guided moral doctrines which were not motivated by power-structures. And indeed, long before Spinoza, the Jewish rabbi Hillel claimed that the

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moral essence of religion was "Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you". And what Spinoza argues in the TPT is that although the Prophets in the Old Testament as well as Christ interpreted their recognition of this essence as revealed by God, they realized that this essence was thwarted by political power. They appealed to their intuition without being aware that it was natural knowledge [see p.60]. And the same may be said about Kant's principle of morality – act only by principles that you may wish to become universal laws. Concerning cultural determinism, we may note, first, that the adherents to this view and Spinoza agree that familiar ideas are those which are endorsed by a culture. This idea is equivalent to Spinoza’s claim that the essential reason for accepting even false ideas for granted is the universal tendency of people to succumb to socially accepted ones [see p.30]. Moreover, according to Spinoza, even philosophers find it difficult to avoid the consideration of familiar ideas as adequate premises from which they can proceed to create new knowledge [see pp.28-29]. From this observation follows that Spinoza’s thesis that the more we understand nature as a whole the more we understand ourselves must include ‘the more we understand our cultural environment the more we understand ourselves. Spinoza’s argument in the introduction to his PT for including political science in his scientific project can be seen as derived from this conclusion. Second, it is from this agreement that Spinoza derives the conclusion that it is due to the strong influence of a culture that perceived causes of things do not spontaneously form a correct unified view of nature. And it is from this fact that his thesis can be derived that, the more survival depends on correct knowledge the greater the necessary inclusion of reason in the essence of man. Nevertheless, although according to Spinoza, the basic principles of logic are intuitively known – namely are innate – and the desire to increase one’s power of action, which provides the natural incentive for developing logic as an extension of this natural instrument of the mind is equally innate, it is also true that the creation of a scientific comprehensive view of nature is a social enterprise [see p.60]

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and therefore it cannot be maintained without its becoming part of the culture of a society. According to Spinoza’s analysis, this is what is true in the claims of cultural determinism. We should note that as a criticism of the scientific approach – without reference to Spinoza – the claim of cultural determinism was also raised by some modern scientists. It was raised, for example, by S.J Gould’s critique of the way the theory of evolution is interpreted. Gould argued that when Darwin developed his theory he could not free himself from the influence of his belief in progress, an idea dominant in his cultural environment. He could not prevent this non-scientific idea from creeping into his theory. Gould’s criticism is addressed to the followers of Darwin, who fail to notice that this external cultural influence introduced an internal mistake into the theory in the form of a presupposition that evolution is a process of increasingly better adaptations.26) Gould argued that this external influence on the theory of evolution distorts its correct understanding, which he calls ‘the contingency of natural history.’ In his opinion, this internal mistaken presupposition introduced the hypothesis that every surviving property must be advantageous in some respect. This hypothesis is mistaken, he says, because in fact, there is always a plurality of interacting causes which affect evolution, and properties often survive because they are tied to other selected properties, thus allowing for ‘accidental by-products’ of evolution (for example, that sickle cell disease which, in spite of its being deadly, is common in Africa due to the immunity to malaria it provides). Like all scientists, Gould was convinced that any controversy about internal hypotheses can be resolved either by empirical evidence or by logical deduction. Like all scientists he believed that the real obstacle to such internal solutions lies in external influence. This, he wrote, was his purpose in pointing out Darwin’s mistake. Another independently proposed criticism of science which does not

26) Gould: LG chapter 14.

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mention Spinoza although it is equivalent to his criticism of empiricism, was raised by Thomas Kuhn. He argued that in their day-to-day pursuit of science – which he called ‘normal science’ – scientists take for granted a paradigmatic view of nature. As pointed out in the introduction, with this concept Kuhn revived Spinoza’s thesis that a general view of the world guides them in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. The relativism which the adherents of cultural determinism derived from Kuhn’s idea is discussed in chapter XIII. The point here is that Kuhn indeed wanted to correct the assumption of modern science that every scientific hypothesis is always well tested. He pointed out that a paradigmatic conception of the world is not put to empirical test, and that its compelling power is derived from its endorsement by a scientific community. The important difference between Spinoza’s naturalistic approach and that of cultural determinism is that, according to Spinoza, both the unquestioned acceptance of a paradigm and the possibility to correct it by the application of reason must be understood as natural properties of the mind, even if the correction of a paradigm is a long social process. I think that the best way to understand both this difference and the points of agreement between them is to compare Kuhn’s conception of a paradigm to Spinoza’s idea that the final aim of the creation of science is to reduce all science to one complex idea which reflects this unity of Nature [see p.55]. Kuhn described the concept of a paradigm on many levels. Consider, for example, the basic paradigmatic distinction between objects and space. This distinction was the guiding principle when the question was raised about the nature of light. Is light composed of particles moving in a straight line, as Newton postulated, or is it a wave, implying that it is a movement in a medium through space, as Huygens did? No optical phenomena known in the 17th century could answer this question and Newton’s paradigm prevailed. Quite possibly it was Newton’s prestige which was decisive. However, eventually, when it became possible to prove that light did not move in a straight line, Huygens’ proposition was accepted, and the search for ether, the required medium began. An even

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greater step in changing this paradigm was brought about in 1905, when Einstein – in his famous photo-electric experiment – proved that the units of light were particles after all, the anti-intuitive hypothesis was accepted that these elementary particles must be waves as well [see pp.87- 88]. This example contradicts Latour’s postulated impossibility to overcome the influence of an endorsed paradigm.27) However, from the same comparison of a paradigm to Spinoza’s idea that the final aim of the creation of science is to reduce all science to one complex idea which reflects the unity of nature, it is possible to conclude that the more general a paradigm which serves as a standard of truth, the harder it is to test whether it can be ‘reduced to reflect the unity of Nature.’ An example is the replacement of Euclidian geometry, which everybody, including Spinoza, believed to reflect the nature of space. It was on the basis of this paradigmatic conception of space that Galileo formulated his transformation laws of measurements from one co-ordinate system to another. And it was a result of Einstein’s failure to find experimental support for the new observations when judged by this standard of truth which forced him to question the latter and replace the Galilean with Lorenz' Transformation Laws [see pp.79-80]. This example shows that two millennia were needed for changing this paradigm. However, the example also shows that once this change in paradigm

27) It is worth noting a paradox in Latour’s view. On the one hand he claims that scientists can never avoid the influence of their own culture, and therefore can never achieve a general view of the world that is independent of this influence. On the other hand, it is exactly this independence that he claims for his own anthropological theory of science. He claims that, by observing the behaviour of scientists in our society, he discovered their inevitable preoccupation with gaining financial support for their research. And, since this support can only be given by social institutions, which in our democratic society depend on the support of the public, it is futile to expect that this complex interdependency will have no effect on the attitude to research. Therefore, he concludes that it is pointless to insist that scientists should engage in disinterested research when this cannot be done. But he does not claim that this is a discovery about our own culture. He claims to have discovered a universal fact about science! [See note 24].

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has been established, it enlarged the difference between science and the perceived world to such an extent that it introduces a new aspect to Spinoza’s postulated function of reason, which fits the inclusion of humanity into evolution without excluding the human mind [see p.96]. Yet, the inverted Cartesian view which confined human evolution to the body alone remained the paradigm of biology, in spite of the idea – as Spinoza suggested – that the mind evolved to cope with the conditions of human survival. From Einstein’s argument follows that ‘the conditions of survival’ means the survival on our planet [see pp.39 and 98]. Einstein’s arguments when he justified his special theory of relativity support this view. He argued that his theory represented a better view of nature than Newton’s because while the latter explained our naturally perceived world, his own [Einstein’s] theory included observations which went beyond it. He acknowledged that Newton's concepts, and not his own, were intuitively grasped. He claimed that his theory did not render Newton's laws false, but shows them to be good approximations to his own theory, where measured velocities corresponded to human perception. This is shown by observing that, when items in his equations which include a measured velocity divided by the velocity of light [v/c], which are too small to have any effect on our lives on earth are omitted from his equations, they yield Newton's equations. Einstein insisted that this was a condition for accepting his explanations. The assumption that it is natural to strive for a comprehensive view of nature remains intact. [see note 66 on p.158]. A conclusion from this comparison is that the most general paradigm, namely science as a whole, which will reflect nature as a whole, can only be achieved with complete knowledge of all partial paradigms. Although this most likely means that it can never be achieved, it can be the purpose to which science strives, a purpose which guides a continual process of corrections which characterise increasing knowledge. But most important, it explains the proposition of the indirect effect of reason on culture and justifies my claim that it is implied by Spinoza’s philosophy [see p.55 and 39-40 respectively].

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Finally, if this chapter supports Spinoza’s view that the drive to create a comprehensive view is natural, it also implies that, since such a created view – even if mistaken – serves as a standard of truth for science, then it is of utmost importance to distinguish between that which we presuppose and that which we include in ‘science itself.’ This distinction was not made in the 17th century. It is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER III: THE NECESSARY DISTINCTION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND A PRESUPPOSED POINT OF VIEW While the previous chapter deals with Spinoza’s thesis that the systematic construction of knowledge is always guided by a presupposed unifying view of the universe, this chapter deals with the methodological importance of distinguishing between this presupposed view and the scientific theories constructed under its guidance. First, we should remember that although Spinoza agreed with Descartes that the presupposed unifying view can be discovered by reflection alone, the reflection is always on what we know. But, as shown by the comparison of his proposed to a paradigm, ‘what we know’ includes constituents of the previously accepted guiding view of nature. That this was Spinoza’s method we can clearly see in his writing. Reading his PCP we can see that he reached his naturalistic view by reflecting on his previously accepted principles of Cartesian philosophy. And in his last book [PT II 6] he contrasts his corrected view with the Cartesian idea that the human mind constitutes a separate domain within Nature. It is from his criticism of Descartes’ presupposed metaphysical view that he reached his conclusion that the universe causes itself, and that an essence of each thing in this universe, including human nature, is what maintains its survival. By reflection on what he knew about mental activities, but under the guidance of his naturalistic view, he concluded that the natural function of the mind was to preserve our existence. And he drew three further conclusions about the function of the intellect. First, that while the power of reason is confined to the correction of ideas one at a time (for example, to one’s assumed cause of a pain), the task of the intellect – of keeping the mind on reason – is to relate all corrected ideas in such a way that they form one system of knowledge that increases a person’s natural powers of action [see p.28]. Second, that ideas which appear clear and distinct to the mind might need correction because they

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might have been acquired by what we call today social conditioning [see p.46]. And third, that because some such ideas appear self-evident even to philosophers, it is important to distinguish between a guiding presupposed view and science. The third conclusion is the topic of this chapter. Spinoza’s example of the failure to distinguish between assumptions and scientific proofs is that those who, contrary to the Cartesian view, claim that the body and the soul are causally related, do so without having a slightest understanding of this causal relation. They make this claim solely on the basis of inferring the cause from what they a-priori consider to be its effect. [see p.49]. In view of the recent interest in the study of consciousness, it is interesting to observe that this criticism applies today to John Searle's argument against the computer model of the mind. In a thought-experiment, Searle invites us to imagine a team of English speaking interpreters, equipped with dictionaries and grammar books of Chinese which enable them to translate every sentence presented to them in Chinese into English. A similar task can be assigned to a computer. They are comparable because both carry out all the processes required for translating sentences in Chinese into sentences in English. Supposing that both perform the task successfully, Searle asks, does it mean that either ‘the Chinese room’ or the computer understand Chinese? According to him, the answer is clearly negative because understanding is a function of a conscious mind, and neither the complex entity – containing the room with the people and the books – nor a computer can be conscious of what they are doing. Both lack whatever it is in the brain that causes consciousness.28) Note that the claim that the brain causes consciousness is justified by Searle by comparing it to the scientific explanation of liquidity. We cannot prove, he says, that the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen cause liquidity. But we accept it because we know that it is from the structural organization of the molecules that this property emerges. Indirectly, he

28) Minds, Brains, and Programs. Reprinted in The Mind’s Eye, p.355.

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adds, we admit that we do not know how this comes about. All we know is that it happens, and all we can do in the way of proving it is to observe that nothing except structural features are added to the atoms when they turn into water. Several points should be noted for justifying the need to distinguish between presuppositions and scientific discoveries. 1) Since Searle’s argument is addressed to those who take the computer as a model for the mind, we should note that the issue is indeed his assumed claim that it is the brain that causes consciousness,29) and not the mechanistic conception of the mind or the assumption that structure is central to this conception, because those who propose the computer model agree with both. What they claim is that if biological structures are physical structures governed by physical laws – as it is assumed by the nature/culture dichotomy guiding view – and if it is nothing but the structural organization of the brain that causes consciousness, as Searle claims, then a similar organization of different constituents, not necessarily of flesh and blood, should have the same effect.30) In their opinion, all processes in a structured system which are governed by physical laws are computable. Namely describable by inter-related transformation laws that can be formulated as algorithms. Therefore, if only a certain level of organization of a neural system is necessary for consciousness to emerge, the question is not whether a computer which simulates the brain’s performance will eventually become conscious, but 29) In fact, even with Searle’s assumed causal relation, it is more reasonable to say that, as Spinoza would say, the body, not the brain, causes consciousness. Does not lack of oxygen cause loss of consciousness? 30) Adherents of the computer model also argue that the objection to their view arises from the fact that while processes in the computer are transformed into print on the screen (or into actions of a robot), events in the brain are transformed into sensations and feelings which seem mysterious. But, in fact, although we do not know how these transformations occur, they are on principle comparable to the transformation of the movements of a needle on an old fashion gramophone-disk into music. In the latter’s case we take for granted that nothing is added to the physical transformation, even if we do not understand [or before we understood] how it happens This is a central thesis in D. Hofdtsteter’s book, Gödel Escher Bach.

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what form and degree of organization are sufficient before consciousness comes into existence. However, if the mind, including consciousness, is conceived in terms of the theory of evolution, it implies that even if there is no fundamental difference between the physical and chemical processes which take place between neurons and between components of a computer, the emergence of consciousness in organisms must be seen as dependent on its function in keeping them alive. This argument is further discussed in chapters IX, X and XIV. 2) What Searle ignores is that for computer scientists in the positivist tradition, ‘consciousness,’ like all concepts, represent posited properties or ‘entities.’ The emphasis in their conception of science which guides their work is that science does not explain what basic ‘entities’ are, or how they came into being. What theories explain is how they function in the universe. This, as pointed out already [see p.73], is accepted by Feynman, who emphasised that we do not know what energy is. All we know, he says, is that this abstract quantity has many forms; that it can be calculated in each of them, and that their sum total is constant.31) Similarly, we cannot deny our own consciousness, but even in this case all we can achieve scientifically is to understand how it works. This is one way to understand Daniel Dennett’s explanation of consciousness. In his book Brainstorms, Dennett distinguishes between two senses of consciousness. One is a basic sense, like a state of alertness of an animal when pursuing its prey, and the second explains how the former works within the structure of a mind. This is the main topic of. his Consciousness Explained.[CE]. Dennett derives the distinction between the two kinds of consciousness from his objection to the mind/body dualism. His objection is to the idea that the soul obtains all the information processed by the brain as an observer in a theatre. This idea, he says, raises the familiar problem of a ‘homunculus’ – of a central I, located somewhere in the head. For refuting this idea he relies on brain

31) Feynman's Lectures on Physics 4-1.

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research. He argues that we can understand mental experience better if we consider it as a product of the activation of consciousness, in the basic sense of the word, as it is dispersed in the brain when carrying out its tasks. This is what is comparable to the dispersed activation of a computer when carrying out software programmes in parallel. The result is a structured system which is the second sense of consciousness. With this way of understanding, Dennett says, the notorious homunculus is replaced by a multitude of ‘homunculi.’ And he predicts that, as our understanding of the brain will increase, the functions of these homunculi will be shown to have such trivial tasks that they can easily be understood as mechanized. The point of replacing the Cartesian homunculus by a multitude of homunculi is that the possible formalisation of their dispersed activities would show that no ‘spiritual force’ [soul] needs to be postulated. And the point of taking the computer as a metaphor is that the functional explanation of the brain can be best understood by comparing it to the network of interrelated algorithms, namely totally formalized programmes operating in a computer. In this case, what we call a mental experience is shown to be consciousness of the output of processed information carried out by some correlated activities in the brain at any particular moment. With this conception of science, Searle’s ‘Chinese Room’ can be seen as a structure which metaphorically describes how neurons work together, where consciousness appears only in the translators’ minds. Searles objection is to Dennett’s explanation in his book Kinds of Mind [KM]. In this book Dennett explains that what makes a mind powerful, which is the same as what makes it conscious in the structural sense explained in CE, is not what it is made of, but what it can do. Can it concentrate? Can it be distracted? Can it recall earlier events? Can it keep track of several different things at once? Which features of its current activities can it notice or monitor? If we can answer these questions, he says, nothing extra has to be known for telling whether a creature is

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conscious or not.32) 3) Concerning the consideration of consciousness under the guidance of positivism, it is interesting to note that nominalism, which is a central paradigmatic principle within it, applies to the arguments of computer scientists. This can be clarified by comparing their conception of a model to that of realist scientists. Suppose that scientists create a computer model which simulates a machine in which its operations work according to the electro-magnetic force as postulated by their theory. According to nominalism, ‘charge’ is a name attached to components of the model which behave as predicted by the posited concepts in the theory. Positive scientists know that using the model for building an actual machine requires that those components must in fact be charged. They also know that in order to make sure of the adequacy of the model, they must have a method for testing whether a particular thing is charged. It is this possibility that scientifically supports the reality of their posited model. This realistic interpretation of positivism is not available for creating a model of the mind. As behaviourists claim, being subjectively aware of our own conscious behaviour, we posit that other people are also conscious because they behave as we do. But we have no proof beyond this behavioural similarity. And computer scientists argue that if conscious behaviour is attributed to human beings due to the kinds of response they exhibit to certain stimuli, there is no reason not to give the same name to a computer which responds to similar stimuli in the same way. Their use of the Turing test is based on this assumption. As soon as an observer will not be able to distinguish between the responses of another person and those of a computer, the computer must be assumed to be conscious. 4) Spinoza’s criticism of an argument like Searle’s is not that he should not have a presupposed view of consciousness. On the contrary. In his letters to Oldenburg [C. II and VI] he criticises Bacon for failing to acknowledge that the mechanistic view of the world is presupposed by empirical scientists, and he criticises Boyle for thinking that he can prove

32) KM p.210.

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the mechanistic view by his experiments [see pp.77 and 12 respectively]. What his arguments make clear is that some propositions about human nature are derived from a presupposed general view of nature alone, and these differ from scientifically derived knowledge due to their different role in scientific inquiries. Concerning consciousness, Spinoza makes a distinction similar to that which was later made by Dennett, between its basic ontological meaning and the way it works [see point 2)]. Only that unlike Dennett he explains that the basic ‘entity’ must be a constituent of Nature. This is explained in the next chapter. Concerning Spinoza’s explanation of the increasing role of consciousness in determining human behaviour – as a result of the complexity of human life – of particular interest is the distinction he makes between judgements of reason, which presuppose the conscious activity of keeping the mind on reason, and the ‘amazing’ subconscious activity of the body [see p.25]. Moreover, although we are certainly conscious of perception, this kind of consciousness is included among the ‘amazing’ achievement of the brain. This is of particular interest in the present context because Spinoza derived his conclusion that this achievement must be carried out by natural processes from his presupposed naturalistic view alone. He pointed out that, if science will be guided by his naturalistic view of Nature, the day may come that we shall understand the working of our senses scientifically [see pp.67&77]. And, as shown in the previous chapter, this happened in what is today considered natural science. For example, the scientific explanation of the visual system shows how it combines the effect of the interaction of light – its intensity and wave-frequency – with the surfaces which reflect them, through the eyes, onto the retina, and produces the conscious perception of colours, without our having any awareness of the process. It is worth remembering that concerning the ontological status of consciousness Spinoza agreed with Descartes that we have all the evidence we need for being certain about its existence [see p.18]. But this certainty does not apply to our postulated axioms in a natural science, about which we may be mistaken no matter how unlikely it seems [see

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p.67]. For gaining this knowledge we are compelled to be satisfied with a method which starts with a general view (paradigm) that guides its development, in the hope that the resulting science will justify its presupposed status, as described at the end of chapter I. 5) Spinoza’s statement in TCU VII, that acknowledging his presupposed views is methodologically important [see p.55], is implied from the fact that different presupposed points of view lead to different questions, which direct further research. This is shown by the example of Darwin’s postulated natural selection is given in the introduction [see p.37]. This methodological importance is even greater today than it was in Spinoza’s time. It is because, due to the growing diversity of science, scientists can never acquire a complete knowledge of even their own discipline, let alone other fields of research. If physicists and biologists accept each other's claims it is not because they grasp all the arguments, but because they trust that these follow from the methodological approach they have in common, and are convinced that these methods are the best way to acquire their knowledge. This is the modern interpretation of Spinoza’s proposal in TCU VII, that it is their common view of the unity of nature that provides them with an ultimate standard of truth. This methodological importance has a political implication. If scientists cannot be expected to be acquainted with all the arguments supporting scientific results, the general public can be even less expected to have this knowledge. Spinoza's recommendation to use an understandable language when reporting scientific results to the public is a political recommendation [see p.47]. The importance of this recommendation is that only in this way scientists can hope to convince the public that their method is the best possible for deriving practical benefits from research. If people believe in all kinds of supernatural forces, their rejection of science is obviously not merely due to ignorance of scientific arguments or of the available evidence. The need to gain a general support for science by communicating its results to the public applies only when people agree, or on the whole are likely to agree, with the view of nature accepted by scientists. What is necessary is not merely

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the communication of beneficial results of research but also the communication of the meta-scientific understanding that the best method does not mean magical successes. It follows from Spinoza's view of the power of emotions, that if the public does not understand that, say, in spite of searching for cures for cancer failures are bound to happen, then it is inevitable that the disappointment caused by such failures leads to the kind of resentment against science that we see today [see pp.34-35]. Finally, if we compare the points described above we notice that all of them accept the mechanistic view of nature, and its presupposed structural view. The latter is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER IV: THE STRUCTURAL VIEW The present chapter compares a modern conception of a the structural view with the conception of such a structure which follows from Spinoza's philosophy. The structural view has two aspects. The first is metaphysical and the second concerns the necessity of constructing a hierarchy of scientific domains. Spinoza’s central metaphysical aspect is his rejection of the idea that the universe – and all things in it – is passively affected by an external force. He replaces it with his idea of the self-causing universe, where everything in it is so structured as to actively preserve its existence. The central idea concerning the second aspect is that its necessity follows from the structure of human understanding. Concerning the metaphysical aspect, where Descartes wrote ‘every body that moves in a circle tends to move away from the centre of the circle’ Spinoza changed the verb ‘tendere’ to ‘conari,’ in accordance with the importance he assigned to the internal conception of its conatus, the postulated self-regulating internal power.33) The idea of conatus, as an internal power of any living thing, is clearest in his definition of life as "the force through which things persevere in their own being" [see p.38].We can understand the importance of this change concerning the structure of an organism by noting that, if its structure is conceived merely as a kind of static map, there is no difference between a living organism and one which has just died. But by the dynamic structural view, the difference between them is quite clear. In a living organism the dynamic processes which keep it alive are functioning, while in an organism which just died these processes ceased to function. In other words, the essential characterization of a living organism is not its structure per-se, but the dynamic function of its components and its transformation laws. In the

33) As pointed out in note 1), this is pointed out by the editors of PCP, Barbone and Rice, in a note to proposition 17 in part II..

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Ethics Spinoza generalizes the idea of conatus to all things. Lemma IV, in the set of lemmas in E.II (after prop.xiii), states that all things tend to behave so as to sustain their own survival [this lemma appears also in proposition VI in E.III ]. This is what he meant by saying that all things are to some extent animated. Part of this conception is retained in a modern definition of a structure as a self-regulating and self-contained organized system.34) Self regulation means that while responding to internal or external stimuli, particular states of the system change in accordance with transformation laws. Contrary to causal laws, which are defined independently of each other, the mark of transformation laws is that they determine a systematic sequencing of changes within a given structure so that the overall organization of its components is maintained. In other words, although the number of possible interactions of causal laws is practically infinite, their number operating within a structure is drastically reduced by its selfregulation. That the organized system is self-contained means that the transformation laws which regulate and maintain its overall structure are distinct from the transformation laws which govern the self-regulation of other systems. In particular, they differ from the transformation laws which govern its self-contained components, if these components are themselves structured.35) An essential assumption in the modern version of a structural view is that the evolution of a structure occurs ‘from the bottom up.’ In other words, the properties of its components give rise to it, as opposed to ‘from the top down’ which means that a structure has a role in determining the properties of its components. As an example, consider the structure of a cell.

34) See for example Jean Piaget: Structuralism p.5. 35)What I call a structure is often described today as a network. The brain is a network of nerve cells activated by operating axons. A cell is a network of molecules connected by chemical reactions. A language is a network of words connected by syntactic rules, and a society is a network of people connected by various relations, like family, friendship, professional or economic relations.

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The description of the sequence of operations needed for reproducing this structure starts with the assertion that all the information needed for creating a working cell is provided by the DNA molecule. The transformation laws which perform its reproduction start with an enzyme in the existing cell that selects a short sequence in the DNA and transcribes it into a molecule called messenger-RNA (m-RNA for short). This short sequence contains the information needed for the creation of a protein or for activating other genes. The transformation of the information encoded in each m-RNA into a protein is performed by other RNA molecules which assemble its components in the existing cell. In this way it is ensured that, although the DNA in every cell is the same, only the genes coding for proteins needed in any particular cell are activated.36) The ‘bottom up’ principle in this example says that, although the selection of the parts of the DNA needed for each step in the process described above depends on the molecular shape of an enzyme, the transformation laws that govern this function of the enzyme have no role in producing its shape. This shape is exclusively determined by the laws of chemistry. In order to prove this, or rather in order to disprove a hypothesis that a vital force of the cell is responsible for creating the shape of the enzyme – a shape designed for this purpose, so to speak – molecular biologists removed the enzyme into a test tube, heated it so that it lost its shape, and allowed it to cool down outside the cell. As a result, the enzyme regained its 3-dimensional shape, proving that there was nothing in the structure of the cell that contributed to its formation. Its function turned out to be like the function of any other catalyst in chemical processes, namely to induce a process which would be unlikely to occur had it been dependent only on the probability that the necessary components would meet by chance. Thus, vindicating the bottom-up principle, by which this chemical property gives rise to a property of a structure on a higher biological level. The purpose of the biologists who performed the experiment 36) For this and the proof of reductionism described in the following paragraph, see John Cairns: Matters of Life and Death, pp.101 and 94 respectively.

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described above, was to discredit the teleological metaphysical view implied in the idea that a vital force in the cell affects the structure of its components ‘from the top down.’ In other words, the controversy is about a view of nature as a whole, which, as Spinoza put it, provides a standard of truth. The meta-scientific idea underlying this principle is, that once the basic components of chemistry are shown to be deduced from the laws of physics (or quantum mechanics [see p.88]), and all other chemical properties can be derived from the interacting properties of these basic components, it is shown that chemistry is ‘reducible’ to physics. The meaning of this reductionism is that the hierarchical order of layers upon layers of such domains of investigation will constitute a complete understanding of nature as a whole.37) The consideration of the whole of nature as self creating, and therefore as a self-regulating structure, is clearly a metaphysical idea. But self regulation in biology is observable and therefore scientifically acceptable. In complex organisms, sub-systems are themselves selfregulating. Homeostasis is a mechanism observed in the self-regulation of body-temperature; in the supply of oxygen to all parts of the body by the circulation of blood; in the immune system, and in other sub-systems in the body, where autonomous self-organization involves maintaining their own survival. On the level of a whole organism, self-regulation ensures the smooth functioning of all its parts in harmony. It is in this sense that natural selection describes mechanisms of adaptation, a process by which an organism can survive not only when it can cope with external conditions but also when all its sub-systems are adapted to each other. However, the notion of adaptation is controversial because it seems to introduce purpose into evolution. I come back to this controversy in chapter IX. Here the point is that, as far as the comparison of the modern 37) This unity of nature should not be confused with the physicists' attempt to find ‘a theory of everything,’ where all known forces of nature will follow from more fundamental principles in physics [see p.87]. The unity assumed in science as a whole presupposes that physics, even before being so unified, provides the basis for all other levels in the hierarchy. Feynman points this out in his remark about the most important reductionist hypothesis in biology [Lectures on Physics pp.1-8 to 1-9].

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structural view to that implied by Spinoza’s, the bottom-up principle retains Spinoza’s statement that Nature has no purpose. And, although Spinoza did not think in evolutionary terms, in the last paragraph in the appendix to E.I he explained that in principle, “material is not wanting” for the creation of an infinite number of modifications of substance, because the laws of nature can interact in infinitely many ways. But the task of science is to explain how actually existing modifications of substance maintain their existence. In view of today’s interest in the place of consciousness in a theory of mind, it is important to note that when Spinoza said that all things were animated to some extent [see p.116], he did not attribute a soul to all things. On the contrary. He proposed that what we commonly conceive as a soul should be understood as a natural power which applies to all things. An internal power to preserve the thing’s integrity. This is the reason why he thought that the mind cannot be excluded from human nature, implying that consciousness cannot be excluded from a person’s conatus. In MT XII, when he discusses In what sense is the human soul mortal and immortal, he argues that when we contemplate the destruction of the body we clearly do not conceive it as reduced to nothing. This is because substance cannot be destroyed. And he adds, that although we have no similar understanding of the destruction of the soul, as philosophers we only ask questions that can be answered by understanding the laws of Nature, and the laws of Nature tell us that nothing can be destroyed completely. This, he says, forces us to look for an explanation in what sense the soul is immortal. This sense is found in his Short Treatise on God, Man and his Well-Being [ST], written after the MT, but before Spinoza decidedly abandoned Descartes in the Ethics. In the ST he explains that the body “causes the soul to become aware of [itself], and through it also of other bodies.” Since causation can only be explained by motions in the body, “whatever else comes to the soul [namely the ideas] besides this awareness, cannot be caused through the body” [ST II chapter 19]. Again, we can understand this in modern terms. First, he does not

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say that the body causes either the existence of the soul or of consciousness but that it causes the way by which the soul affects or is affected by the body. This can be understood as saying that the soul is the ‘carrier’ of consciousness, comparable to the explanation of electric charge being a ‘carrier’ of the energy in – or the force of – an electro-magnetic field. In this case, the soul is immortal, in the same sense that charge is conserved by the laws of physics. But the soul is mortal in the sense that after the body’s death, there is no question of the survival of the particular effects which this carrier of consciousness has had in a body before its death, just as there is no question of the survival of the effects which the electro-magnetic energy has had in the brain before the body’s death. In agreement with the description of an organism in modern biology, postulate I in E. II says that the human body is composed of many components, each of which is also composed of many parts. And this multiplicity of parts is extended to the mind [E.III, note to prop. xvii]. Thus, the will is an internal power that keeps us alive, which is not subject to the power of the intellect, as distinct from free will which is identical to it [see pp.24 and 27 respectively]. The will is not described as a power of the body alone, because it is related to the function of the multitude of emotions, each of which includes it perceived cause. The power of the intellect (of reason, or of free will) is another part of the human conatus, the function of which is to restore to ‘the thinking being’ its original powers of survival distorted by the impact of external pressures. It follows from this conception of the intellect, that its function is limited because it constitutes a self-contained sub-system of the mind confined to the realm of thought. Nevertheless, this power of the mind cannot be excluded from the human conatus because it contributes to the maintenance of its existence.38) 38) It is interesting to note that in 1874, Brentano defined ‘intentionality’ in a way reminiscent of Spinoza’s proposition that includes perceived causes in his definition of emotions. Intentionality, according to Brentano is the property of a perceptual system to be directed to objects outside ourselves. This definition applies to a perceptual system of any organism. But, an important point in Brentano's explanation of human intentionality is that, unlike objects of conscious perception of organisms which,

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Here is the point to explain the reason for writing information in italics [see p.117], namely the reason for the current interpretation of structured entities as information-processing systems. The essential reason for this interpretation is that the same event has different effects on a structure at a different time and place, let alone on another structure. For example, photons which enter our visual system affect us very differently from photons absorbed by our skin, and their effect is totally different when absorbed by plants. Sound waves absorbed by our auditory system function very differently in a bat, which produces them itself so that the returning echoes constitute for it signs for locating the presence of objects in its way. In terms of the structural view this means that a response of a structured thing to any additional input of matter-energy depends on whether this input enters where and when it is needed for its transformation laws to determine the required sequence of operations. This is the rationale for interpreting an input as a signal for, rather than a cause of, an output. A signal means coded information. The interpretation of a structure as an information-processing system does not contradict its explanation in terms of absorbing or releasing energy. For example, the effect of charged particles on the electromagnetic field that surrounds them can be conceived as causing a change in the distribution of energy in this field. And this is what causes their subsequent movements. Or, the particles entering the field can be conceived as exchanging signals which bring about their movements according to the transformation laws of the field. As long as the concerned particles and the field between them are considered in isolation, the equivalence of both descriptions is easily seen. However, this is not so in

following the inverted Cartesian view react only to real external states, an object of consciousness to which a human mind reacts need not be real. They include what Spinoza describes as feigned and false ideas. In fact, Brentano distinguished between three kinds of intentionality. The first is thinking about an object of consciousness, which corresponds to having an idea in Spinoza's description of the mind. The second is emotional intentionality, which basically means loving or hating this object, and the third is intellectual intentionality, which characterizes judgment – accepting or rejecting this object of consciousness.

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my example of the cell, let alone in a complex structure like the immune system. As far as our understanding of the latter is concerned, we must first recognize it as a sub-system within our bodies, the function of which is to recognize that some input [a signal] is foreign to the body. But our full understanding depends on the further discovery of the process explaining the particular positions and timing of capturing the signal by particular receptors and the response of the system to the invader.39) By Spinoza’s definition of essence [see p.15], the first explains how we conceive it and the second explains how it exists. Obviously the notion of recognition is very different when attributed to the immune system and to our understanding. In Spinoza's terms, the immune system’s recognition represents part of our conatus of which we are not aware [see p.111]. Similarly, unless we grant reading ability to a cell, the idea that DNA is an information-bearing molecule implies that the coding and the ‘reading’ of this information form part of the conatus of the cell which maintains its structure and its various functions. The important point is that – metaphysically speaking – our commonly used notion of information must be explicable as having emerged out of the generalized notion described above. The function of the mind is to transform perceived signals (information) into knowledge. The transformation laws which govern the performance of those aspects of our conatus of which we are not aware are laws of Nature embedded in the body. Modern biologists would certainly agree with Spinoza’s assertion that the body can do many things by the laws of its nature alone without the intervention of the mind. Spinoza saw these laws as ‘Nature’s wisdom,’ embedded in all ‘non-thinking animals’ which Descartes described as complex machines. Biologists give many examples of this ‘wise machinery,’ like a flower turning to the sun, a female animal responding to a male delivering a sign of its presence; an animal reacting to a chemical sign left by another animal and a host of other examples. In 39) The first recognition is a necessary step preceding a causal explanation. It is described by David Marr in the introduction to Vision (see note 7), and also by Einstein and Infeld in their The Evolution of Physics.

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Spinoza’s opinion, we are not different from these animals in a wide variety of our behaviour [E.III, note to prop.ii]. These examples can be understood as complex extensions of his conception of animation [see p.116]. In the introduction I suggested that at least after Darwin the time was ripe for reviving Spinoza’s philosophy. By the theory of evolution, awareness must have emerged from this kind of sensitivity. We do not know at what stage of evolution this happened. We do not know, for example, whether a bat is aware of sending sound waves, the echoes of which signal to it the presence of an obstacle, thus enabling it to avoid it. We do not know this because its behaviour is equally explicable with or without postulating its awareness. Is awareness essential when behaviour indicates expectation? A cat waiting at a rabbit's hole anticipating its emergence is not a direct response to hunger. It is a response to an expected way to assuage it. However, the cat need not be aware of expecting, or predicting, the rabbit’s behaviour. Memory of previous ways of assuaging hunger may be sufficient. In other words, the difference between the cat’s response and that of a ‘lower’ animal may be only due to the more complex pattern of its neural structure. Is prediction required when a chimpanzee uses a stone to crack a nut, or is a more complex association of memories sufficient? It seems that at least when it uses the method for the first time, it requires the recognition of a similarity of the expected impact of its action on the nut to a remembered impact of a stone on other objects. The notion of recognition in this case is a simple form of inference, and not a reliance on memory alone. Therefore it justifies the attribution of prediction to a chimpanzee. And if prediction is considered to be part of an operational definition of understanding, then the attribution of understanding to a chimpanzee is justified. However, the chimp need neither be aware of itself as an inventor of a tool, nor need it realize that without this tool the task would be beyond its capacity.40) This 40) This is not to be confused with a simpler self-awareness, shown by an experiment: putting a red sign on its forehead, and showing it a mirror. The chimpanzee touches the sign, recognizing that it sees itself.

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kind of self-awareness may be particularly human and may be sufficient for the characterization of people as thinking beings. This may be a rudimentary description – not an explanation – of the evolution of sense perception from mechanistic sensing; which involves a state of consciousness that is not more than a state opposed to sleep, from which a more active role of consciousness evolved, finally leading to thinking. The point of this speculative paragraph is that if biologists have enough evidence for accepting Darwin’s theory of evolution as a guiding standard of truth then, even without knowing how consciousness evolved, it is legitimate for them to assume that like other aspects of the evolving species, the evolution of consciousness is tied to its role in supporting survival. Concerning the body, this has been a guiding principle in explaining natural selection. Obviously Spinoza did not think in evolutionary terms. But the assumption stated above fits his definition of perfection. An animal is perfect if it behaves exactly as it is natural for it to behave. This definition, Spinoza adds, is in fact the way we understand animals. We admire wars among bees or jealousy among doves because we apply this concept of perfection to them. We detest the same behaviour among men because with this kind of behaviour they exhibit lack of moral judgement, which we take to be the essence of man [C. XIX]. We are perfect when we behave exactly as it is natural for us to behave. Having purposes, like having the capacity to judge things as true or false or as good or bad, are included among the essential properties of mankind because without them people can neither exist nor be understood. And by the theory of evolution, these properties ought to be explained in evolutionary terms. In fact, had the inverted Cartesian view not been so dominant when the modern structural view was developing, these properties could have been seen as an interpretation of Spinoza’s assertion, that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has [note to proposition XIII in E. II]. By the theory of evolution, this assertion must mean, that while most animals are perfect in the sense that their behaviour is fully coordinated with their perceived stimuli – the information – the variety of the effects of perceptions on human beings

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makes it impossible for them to recognize directly which patterns of behaviour are appropriate for survival. From this follows the importance of perceiving the causes of passively raised emotions, and also of the evolution of a desire to know the true causes of things together with the evolution of reason, which is the appropriate instrument of the mind for achieving this knowledge. By the theory of evolution, all these properties of the mind must have evolved by natural selection because survival would have become impossible without them. This does not mean that they evolved ‘by design’ anymore than the responses of other animals did. What it means is that although natural selection is a mechanism without purpose, it gave rise to purposeful behaviour in people. Had Spinoza's view been considered in Darwin’s time, the emergence of purposeful action, with its related possibility of choosing one action rather than another, would not have been rejected, provided the concepts of purpose and choice got appropriate definitions. In justification of this explanation we may add an argument used by Spinoza concerning the will [see p.12]: to deny that people have purposes is contrary to experience. Therefore, given that every mental property must be natural, as philosophers we should not dismiss purposeful action but look for a natural explanation for it. This is discussed in chapter VII: On Free will, Choice and the Power of the Mind. Contrary to this naturalistic explanation, those who hold the modern version of the structural view explain both purpose and reason as products of a culture, where culture is independent of nature. This new dualism is supposed to resolve an apparent complication which would have arisen had human nature, including the mind, been included in the hierarchy of structures. The complication concerns the reductionist assumption that a structure has no effect on its components [see p.116]. If the mind is included in human nature this assumption is violated by the clear influence of a society on the minds of its members. Spinoza clearly accepts this influence. Moreover, in chapter III of PT he explains that the power of a society to maintain itself – its conatus –

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depends on this top-down effect on the minds of its members. The greater its power, the more limited is the power of its individual members. The potential power of society over its members is explained in the two notes to prop.xxxvii in E. IV [see pp.30 and 34]. In these notes Spinoza explains that individuals are driven by contrary desires, the desire to live by their own understanding and the desire for social life. These are contrary because the latter drives them to be carried away by ideas which give them the feeling of belonging to their society. And in turn, this allows leaders of a society to exploit this social drive for increasing their own power to live by their natural drives as individuals.41) Spinoza concludes that since natural desires are always the same, the correct balance between these contrary desires and the stability of the state can only be achieved by the power of reason. In the context of the structural view, this means that just as the function of the immune system is to preserve the balance between the autonomy of the body and its dependence on its natural environment, so the function of the application of reason to human affairs is to preserve the balance between the autonomy of an individual mind and its dependency on its social environment. In the present context, the problem is that the latter depends on understanding and can only be achieved by education – in the widest sense of the word – which is certainly a topdown influence of society on its members. This contradiction of the bottom-up aspect of the reductionist view of modern structuralism seems to be the source of the nature/culture dichotomy, by which rational understanding cannot be included in human

41)It is interesting to note that, although in his On Moral Sentiments Adam Smith based his theory on an individual’s psychology [see note 14], in his An Inquiry into the Nature and causes of The Wealth of Nations (p.250), he says the following: "The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce ... ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined ... [because it] comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

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nature. But according to Spinoza, the methodological aspect of the structural view, namely the necessary construction of science in a hierarchy of separate domains does not follow from the structure of reality but from the structure of human understanding [see p.115]. This aspect is explained by Spinoza in the appendix to E.I. If a person is killed by a falling stone, he says, science can only explain separately the essential laws which explain the falling of the stone as the cause of death, and the reason for the man's walking in the direction he did. This necessary separation of disciplines is based on a property of logic. Namely that logical consistency of a system of knowledge can only be secured if its terms keep their constant meaning throughout its development. Today we know that consistency is essential because it can be meta-logically proved that in an in system anything can be proved.42) The imposed constraint on the organization of knowledge in a hierarchy of logical systems necessarily excludes those spheres of knowledge where contradictory propositions must be included, like those described in the previous paragraph. However, according to Spinoza, science ought to include all aspects of nature. Even when the explanation cannot be formulated in one logical system, as is the case for understanding ourselves and society. As with any other science, for understanding them separately, we must discover their essential properties in terms of which all situations and events can be understood. The question is whether we recognize the correct essential properties. These can only be discovered by reflection on what we know, and judged in the light of our standard of truth – our view of Nature as a whole. Spinoza’s example is his analysis of religion. In it he points out that religious leaders exploit the natural faith of individuals for maintaining their personal power [see p.61], but as social leaders they function as educators: they see their duty to install the obedience to the decrees of God

42) Spinoza does not state this meta-logical reason. Nevertheless, the idea that logic imposes limitations on science is not a modern discovery. What is modern is the proof. The idea itself is found in Aristotles’ Nicomachean Ethics 1094b, where he discusses precision.

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in the minds of their congregations. Their conception of this function follows from their metaphysical view of the universe. Contrary to them, Spinoza deduces from his conception of the universe that a social structure is most likely to maintain its existence when its civil laws satisfy the natural desires of individuals to live according to their nature, including their social nature. He assigns to a state the function to educate people to citizenship [PT V 2], as a result of which everybody can understand the advantage of obedience to the civil law. ‘Everybody’ includes the leaders’ own understanding that not only this satisfaction – the perfection of man, in his sense of perfection – is best served by this obedience, but also their own power and the stability of the state are best secured by a consensus about its advantage. Although Spinoza’s point is clearest where human concerns are at stake, his thesis that the scientific structural view depends on the structure of human understanding can be illustrated with the structure of mathematics. Here we may consider Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. [Frege’s case is discussed in chapter VI]. In 1931 Gödel proved that, if a logically formulated system as complex as arithmetic is consistent, it must be incomplete. For example, it cannot include those true propositions which are necessary for proving the meta-arithmetic ones. As opposed, for example, to propositional logic, where the only meta-logical rules necessary for its whole derivation are the rule of negation and one of the other rules of logic – the rule of inference, conjunction or disjunction – and both appear in the system itself. Gödel’s proof suggests that a hierarchy of logical systems, where one serves as a meta-theory to another, may solve the problem. But he proved that this is not the case. That there will always remain unprovable truths. Gödel thought, that since we know these truths, his theorem confirmed Plato’s postulated Ideas. But from Spinoza’s naturalistic view follows that such non-provable knowledge is derived from becoming aware of its being innate, and hence in no need of proof. For example, the propositional logic is complete because its metarules are the innate capacities of reason [see p.98]. In other words, if we start with Spinoza’s naturalism it is reasonable to conclude that since the

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basic rules of logic are based on the structure of human understanding, this imposes constraints on the thinkable world just as the visual system imposes constraints on knowledge of the visible world. * In a symposium held in 1969 about the reductionist conception of the structural view, Arthur Koestler, in his contribution, described the universe as a hierarchical structure of structures, each of which being ‘Janus-faced’: facing its own elements, a structure behaves so as to preserve its own existing integrity. But facing the system of which it is a part, its behaviour is geared to the preservation of that system. He called such structures ‘holons.’ In Koestler’s view, not only people are holons within their societies, but structured parts of society, like families or other institutions, are holons. Organs of a body are holons, and so is a cell and the DNA molecule in it. For example, among the variety of RNA molecules coded by DNA, there is one kind whose function is to repair damage in the DNA itself, and there is another kind whose function is to interfere with RNA transcriptions that damage the cell. The former is a mechanism by which the DNA preserves its own structural integrity, and the second is a mechanism by which it protects the structure of which it is a component. The crucial point is that unless both aspects of a holon’s behaviour are performed, the structure breaks down.43) It is tempting to generalize this view even further to include Spinoza’ view of the self-creating universe, governed by two global selfregulating laws. One law describes the increasing order in the creation of structures upon structures, and the second is the second law of thermodynamics. When natural laws describe a pattern of behaviour, fluctuations around this pattern are always observed. Hence, natural laws 43) Koestler A. and Smythies J.R. (ed): The Alpbach Symposium, Beyond Reductionism [BR]. The only participant who mentions Spinoza is Viktor E. Frankl, who refers to Spinoza’s view concerning the need to have a unified view of the world. The problem with the sciences, he says, is that “it is becoming more and more difficult to arrive at a unified world view” [p.404]. Koestler’s explanation of holons is in pp.196-198.

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can be seen as internal forces of all structures to maintain themselves, pulling back the ‘dissenting’ fluctuating components. And the second law of thermodynamics can be seen as expressing the tendency of all holons to escape the systems in which they are enclosed. This is entropy. In these terms, the first law of thermodynamics, the law of conservation of energy, says that the existence of complex structures, and their possible selfpreservation, can only be maintained at the expense of other structures in their environment. This is shown not only by animals eating other animals or plants, but also by breathing or by absorbing the energy of the sun, so that the total quantity of matter-energy (of substance) does not change. Only organisation (modifications of substance) changes. The difference between this and the similar assumption of Searle [see p.106] is that they are derived from different general views which serve as standards of truth. It is possible to argue that the assumption of a self-regulating universe has been implicitly introduced into the development of the classical ‘mechanisation of the world.’ This is because when Newton created his mechanistic view, his metaphysical assumption was not only that laws of nature were imposed by God on inert matter, but also that since planets could be seen to deviate to some extent from their mathematically described orbits, he insisted that God was also the caretaker of the universe. In his opinion, this assumption was scientifically necessary because without the interference of God he could not explain how planets remained in their orbits in spite of their observed fluctuations. The later idea, that once God created his masterful clockwork, he left it to run its own course seemed possible only by assuming that the stability of planetary motion was not affected by random fluctuations. Thus, when Laplace was famously asked by Napoleon about the place of God in mechanics, his answer that he did not need this hypothesis implied an implicit assumption of a ‘self-regulating power’ of the planetary system by which all ‘irrelevant fluctuations’ could be ignored.

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CHAPTER V: THE NOTION OF ESSENCE IN MODERN SCIENCE. One reason why the concept of ‘essence’ is considered with suspicion in modern science is its traditional association with Plato's notion of ideas as the blueprint of the world. Plato's metaphysical notion of ideas was already rejected by Spinoza when he wrote the MT. At the end of the second chapter about essence, existence, ideas and potency he argues that, when an essence of a thing is conceived as existing outside the human mind, it may be thought of being ‘a self-generated entity.’ But, he says, nothing conceived as an essence of a thing can exist independently of the thing it characterizes. An epistemological reason for the rejection of the concept of essence is the assumption that it can be grasped independently of empirical knowledge. In other words, it is an objection to the assumed a-historical character of ‘clear and distinct ideas’ implied by the Cartesian view of reason. According to Spinoza, the concept of essence cannot be eliminated because it characterizes human understanding. In this chapter I try to show that the concept of essence has not been eliminated from science, and that in the philosophy of science the objection to it stems from the observation that what is considered essential at any particular time turns out to be a mistake in understanding. I try to show that the correction of such a mistake leads from time to time to a correction of a meta-scientific assumption, without necessarily abandoning the conception of nature as a whole [see p.11]. Finally, I try to show that all these considerations follow from Spinoza’s postulated mutual relation between science and philosophy of science. In Spinoza’s own writing, an example of this mutual effect is found in his definition of hardness, of what today we call a solid state of matter. In the PCP he defines hardness as that property of a thing which prevents the movement of our hands through it [PCP II, axioms 3 and 12]. Implying

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that its essence is derived from the way hardness affects us. But, in his Ethics he reverses the explanation. The effect of a solid body on the movement of our hand through it is explained as a result of its structure [E. II, axiom III in the second set of axioms, after the note on proposition XIII]. In other words, knowing how this state of matter affected him, was a first step in his inquiry. That this step was necessary follows from his conception of the mind [see p.19]: had these structural patterns of organization not been ‘objects actually existing under a certain mode of extension’ he could not have arrived at the definition in the Ethics. But, since modern scientists start from the nature/culture dichotomy, mental properties are not an essential part in their philosophy of science. For example, Feynman’s explanation of the wave-particle characterization of elements on the sub-atomic level, [see pp.87-88], relies on a presupposed conception of the unity of nature, but he did not think that this had any relation to a mental property. This is because, according to him, a unified science which reflected the unity of nature included biology but excluded thought [see pp.88-89].44) It is this view that reveals his inverted Cartesian view of nature. I shall come back to this aspect of his view at the end of the chapter. The concept of essence is derived by Spinoza from his postulated human tendency to understand the world in general abstract terms, which I described as his conception of realism [see pp.15-16]. This is what was shown in my example of the theory of gases [see p.49]. Spinoza explains that changes in what is considered essential at any particular time occur because, since we derive an essence from ‘objective knowledge’ – namely from the actual ‘object’ which it characterizes – we can easily err. And this is because significant differences between real things are often so small that they escape our attention, and lead to mistaken generalisation [see p.67 or 72]. This explanation is clearest in biology. Biologists reject the notion of essence because, according to them, it presupposes a constancy of

44) Feynman's Lectures on Physics Commemorative Issue, Vol. I pp.1-8-1-9.

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species which does not exist in reality. Their objection to Plato’s idea, that variability is mere appearance, obtained a concrete significance when the theory of evolution has shown that the variability of individual organisms within a species is a result of the real process of inheritance. Since a mathematical expression of essential laws in science is so important, the latter is not difficult to show. If the number of genes in an organism of a certain species is n, there are 2n possible combinations of an offspring’s genes, where each is inherited from one parent. So, ignoring the structural constraints on such combinations [see p.116], even without mutations the remaining number is sufficient for explaining real variability. The important point is that the introduction of real variability to biology has been a discovery of a neglected essential feature of life: a feature which became an essence of evolution due to its role in explaining natural selection. Natural selection depends on the fact that some combinations of genes are beneficial for survival, some are damaging or even lethal, but many others are neutral with respect to survival. The idea is that because those organisms which carry damaging properties often die before they reach the age of reproduction, their genes tend to disappear from the species. Mutations alone cannot explain the process because they are regularly incorporated into the genomes of organisms and add to the neutral properties which account for variation. What counts is that under specific circumstances, any neutral property may become beneficial for survival. In this case they account for the emergence of a new species. In short, the evolutionary view of life did not eliminate the notion of essence. Variation, mutations, dominant and recessive genes, and natural selection, are all newly discovered essential properties by which evolution exists and can be understood. Moreover, the introduction of these abstract ideas into a scientific theory introduced with them a new conception of statistical methods. This is what also happened when the new differential calculus of Newton and Leibnitz was introduced into physics, and in both cases the new methods led to new scientific discoveries. The mutual dependency of newly discovered essential properties and

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changes in methodology can be illustrated by R.A. Fisher’s45) development of a method of scientific research which he called The Theory of Experimentation.46) Working at the Rothampsted agricultural research institute, Fisher encountered the difficulty to comply with the then methodological desirability to test causal laws one at a time. Therefore, assuming that the effect of each causal law is constant, he thought that in order to test the effect of a particular causal law he had to perform several tests, where the effects of other causes of variability are eliminated by distributing them randomly among the tests. The assumption being that thereby their average effect would be neutralized and could be ignored. This method was based on an analogy with astronomical measurements based on a mathematical description which Gauss called ‘a curve of errors.’ According to Gauss, the curve described a variation in measurements due to inevitable human errors randomly distributed around the real measurement. According to Fisher, this apparent fault of having to use this method turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because due to this practical solution, he discovered that the interaction between the causal effect he wished to test – e.g. the type of seeds – with some of the effects which he wished to eliminate – e.g. quantity of water or fertilizers – was so important that it had to be considered a new essential feature. In other words, Fisher discovered, or confirmed, an essential feature of all organic structures. In turn, this discovery changed some conceptions in the statistical theory on which the experiments were based. In the first place, the assumption which was accepted well into the 19th century, that all variation in measurements was due to human error, had to be discarded. The discovery of real variability introduced a new meta-scientific rule: observed fluctuations around a trend are only to be considered random if they are known to have no effect on it. And the other way round: a trend discovered in irregular variability can be regarded a real causal relation 45) I chose Fisher as an example due to the relation between his work in statistics and in finding the mechanism of natural selection [see p.37]. 46) This is explained in his book Design of Experiments.

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only if this can be proved. All texts on statistics warn that observed correlations alone should not be considered sufficient for inferring causal explanations. But similarly important became the new warning that, if it should turn out that a change in a particular variable, which is initially ignored as a random deviation, does have a significant effect on a trend, care must be taken to discover which essential interaction has been overlooked. In fact, from what we learned about complex structures, where various causal laws interact, we know that fluctuations in a particular variable often remain without effect within a certain range of variation, in the sense that they leave other variables unaffected, until a threshold is reached where even a small extra change in this particular variable causes a considerable change in the others. In this case a new causal law is discovered.47) Similar arguments apply to Feynman’s conception of philosophy where physics is concerned. Feynman accuses philosophers of science of trying to impose general methodological principles on science as if they a-priori know how knowledge is related to reality.48) His example is their characterization of good science by the requirement that the results of experiments must be the same everywhere. But this requirement, he says, is clearly untenable. If an experiment conducted in Stockholm turns out to indicate a different value for the gravitational acceleration g than one performed in Quito, we do not conclude from this that the experiment was not scientific. Instead, we look for reasons for the discrepancy. A metascientific requirement, he says, is determined by nature itself, and not by an a-priori philosophical reflection. It is true, Feynman says, that scientists used to expect that their theoretical hypotheses should predict precise results, and that their

47) This is the idea of those biologists who claim to correct the theory of evolution by introducing the analysis of a system into the explanation of natural selection. See for example, Kauffman: Origin of Order, Self Organization and Selection in Evolution, or the summary of his view in Complexity. And Brian Goodwin: How the Leopard Changed Its Spots. 48) Lectures on Physics, Vol. I, 1-5].

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experiments should provide tests for them. But this expectation turned out to be false. When an experiment is designed so that photons are emitted, we cannot predict which atom will emit them. This non-predictability is fundamental in the conception of the sub-atomic realm, but is also found when molecules escape water in the process of evaporation.49) In such cases, nothing can be predicted about individual components, and statistics – a method based on probability theory – replaces mathematics in describing the events. A philosophical problem in science, he says, is a problem which is not confined to particular statements of a particular theory, but introduces a new approach to science. But, according to him, as the examples given above show, this new approach is derived from science itself. He draws three such philosophical conclusions from Einstein's special theory of relativity.50) The first is the new conviction that no proposition of physics can be accepted as final. All scientists readily accept that we were wrong to take for granted the convictions of the past. But, he says, we ought to accept the same possibility concerning our own convictions. For example, we should not exclude the possibility that the concept of an absolute space may come back into physics if one day in the future an experimental way will be found to detect one coordinate system relative to which all others are either moving or at rest. The second conclusion is that strange ideas, whether we like them or not, must be accepted if they are consistent with both their mathematical description and with well conducted experiments. The special theory of relativity, he explains, has been forced upon Einstein as a result of Michelson and Morley's attempts (1887) to measure the speed of light. Einstein's conclusions led to the recognition that the Galilean transformation laws, which were based on Euclidean geometry, were in fact of limited validity [see p.102]. The assumption of Euclidian geometry, that the spatial relations between objects are the same wherever they are

49) Ibid vol. I, pp.2-6 to 2-7. 50) Ibid, Vol. I, chapter 16-1.

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measured in space, is presupposed in the Galilean transformation laws. They are expressed in terms of Descartes’ translation of Euclidian geometry into analytic geometry, in which the assumption remains that the distance between two positions in space is the same irrespective of the coordinate system [CS] within which it is measured. Another assumption that is taken for granted by considering Euclidean geometry as a description of real space, and is retained in the Galilean transformation laws, is that the properties of space are independent of time. Thus, time does not enter the equations used for measuring the distance between two positions even in a remote CS. Until the Michelson and Morley's experiments to measure the speed of light, nobody could imagine that these intuitively self-evident assumptions could be wrong. Most scientists had a particular difficulty accepting Einstein's counter-intuitive conclusion from these experiments that the flow of time cannot be independent of such measurement. However, Feynman argues, this conclusion has been forced on scientists because it was confirmed by countless experiments. One of these ‘countless experiments’ which Feynman cites is the strange observation of the muon. When this elementary particle is created by an accelerator it is known to disintegrate after an average lifetime of 2.2 millionth of a second. It follows that even at the speed of light a muon cannot travel more than 660 metres before disintegrating. Yet, in fact, some muons, that are naturally created some 10km up in the atmosphere, reach detectors in the laboratory as cosmic rays. Surely, he says, these apparently contradictory observations are equally real. The only explanation which can reconcile them is that the muon's lifetime is so short relative to its own CS (which is recreated in the laboratory), but when the life-time of travelling muons created in the atmosphere is measured relative to our CS, it increases by a factor of 1/%(1-u2/c2), which is sufficiently large if the velocity of the muon approaches the speed of light ©, as sometimes is the case. It is important to note that ‘the strange ideas’ which, according to Feynman we are compelled to accept, are only those that arise logically within physics itself. He derides philosophers [like Latour] who, relying

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on anthropological or historical observations, claim that ideas within science may come from sources external to it. Like Einstein himself, Feynman is careful to show that all the strange ideas introduced into relativity theory, which replace Newton's principle of relativity,51) are forced upon us by carefully conducted experiments. Note again that Feynman’s rejection of any a-priori assumptions concerning knowledge of the world, agrees with Spinoza's warning that we cannot deduce a real form of existence from a postulated abstract idea [see p.10]. Note also that in Spinoza’s terms, Feynman’s example concerning the change in the conceived constancy of the gravitation parameter g, means that, though the abstract idea of a constant g had been proposed by reflecting on what we knew about natural phenomena, its conception had to be changed in view of the experiments cited. What has been discovered with the change in the assumed constancy of g is that, as in the cases cited for biology, significant differences between the real measurements of the force escaped our attention and the force was mistakenly taken to be constant [see p.134]. The gravitational parameter remained an essence of nature, in the sense of being a property by which motion exists, and on account of which it cannot be left out of equations by which it is understood. But the discovery also means that previously formulated equations failed to take account of some other essential feature. And the same applies to his note on replacing mathematical with statistical methods. Feynman’s third conclusion derived from the special theory of relativity is that, just as in classical physics, some essential properties of nature are found in this new physics that do not change by the transformations from one CS to another. The speed of light is such an invariant property. The importance of this conclusion is that, contrary to a mistaken common belief, the theory of relativity does not claim that

51) Newton's principle of relativity, which relies on calculations based on his own mechanics, says that it is impossible to tell whether a coordinate system relative to which measurements are taken is moving with a constant velocity or is at rest relative to another CS.

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everything is relative. A central purpose of any scientific theory, Feynman says, is to discover those constants of nature that are not dependent on the particular way they are measured. This is the essence of the classical idea that a real property of the universe is independent of the human mind. But, Feynman explains, that as with all discoveries, there is never a guarantee that what is at one time considered constant will not later be found variable. This possibility is included in his first conclusion. His third conclusion is drawn from the newly-found constants of nature. So far I tried to show that the notion of essence did not, or rather could not, disappear from science. This supports Spinoza’s view that this is because it characterises the only way by which we can understand reality [see p.16]. However, Feynman considered only the cited aspects of the philosophy of science because for him a unified science reflects the unity of nature as postulated by the inverted Cartesian view [see p.132]. Parallel to this he considers the essence of science as "a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show." These ‘how’s’ clearly cannot be derived from his conception of ‘science itself.’ But, according to him, they do not belong to philosophy of science. They characterize a culture in which "...if you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world ... It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge, and are willing to take the consequences." 52) Yet, most important is to note that the quotation given above is preceded by the remark that if you are a scientist you cannot stop atomic research. Feynman ignored that this 52) Both quotations are taken from Gleick: Genius: Richard Feynman and Modern Physics, pp.285 and 209 respectively.

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‘cannot stop’ was not only the result of his and his colleagues’ desire to understand the secrets of the atom but also of the support by the military establishment. The military were convinced of the usefulness of letting scientists deal with their scientific concerns without interference. They knew that by letting scientists get along with their concerns, they – the military – would be free to use the results of their inquiries as they wished. Admittedly, after there are 53) some participants in the Manhattan Project, including its director Oppenheimer, realized in retrospect that at least this knowledge may not be used for the benefit of mankind, and that scientists are not allowed to take the consequences as they saw fit. It became clear to them that even if on the whole knowledge is of intrinsic value to humanity, there are two contrary essential properties which determine the meaning of valuable knowledge. Its value for strengthening people’s natural powers and its value for people in power [see p.58]. The discovery of the essence of understanding which may strengthen our natural powers is the topic of the next chapter.

53) Not after Hiroshima when they believed that using the bomb was needed for ending the war. There were of course earlier cases of the same kind. One example is Haber's crucial role in the production of poisonous gas as a weapon in the First World War. To his critics he answered that the use of this weapon was less devastating than other weapons and that it would shorten the duration of the war [see Fritz Stern: Einstein’s German World, p.120]. The latter argument was used for producing and dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. This, of course, in addition to the effort to produce it in the first place, motivated by the fear that Nazi Germany would have produced it first.

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Chapter VI: INTUITION, CERTAINTY AND INNATE IDEAS. Spinoza’s conception of intuition, its possible interpretation as innate ideas, and his conception of certainty are explained in the introduction [see p.22-23]. In order to examine whether this explanation still holds today, I concentrate in this chapter on his thesis that the [culturally] created logic and mathematics are extensions of the natural [innate] instruments of reason, just as hammers are extensions of our arms’ muscles [see pp.52-53]. Spinoza explains that this can be shown by discovering what are our natural capacities from which the creation of all our created intellectual instruments could indeed proceed. It is not difficult to imagine that stones were first used to increase the force of the arms’ muscles, and hammers were developed by improving this use in consecutive steps, as Spinoza suggests. The analogy of mental tools to this process involves the following considerations: 1) The analogy requires first to show that we are naturally endowed with the initial instruments of reason which are sufficient for the development of better deductive instruments. However, since deduction by reason is an instrument of the mind which preserves truth, it follows that unless we can be certain of the truth of some premisses, deduction alone leads to an infinite regress of justification. Therefore we must also show that our minds are equipped with knowledge of some premisses about which we can be certain. All this is explained in chapter I [see pp.52-53]. Spinoza justifies the assumption that knowledge of the rule of inference is innate by observing that people use it even if they are ignorant of its logical formulation [TCU XIV, sentences 104-105. See also pp.23 and 55]. He postulates that the rule of negation is intuitively known in his tentative definition of understanding [see pp.83-84]. And modern logicians know that indeed the whole propositional logic can be derived from these premisses. However, his proof in the cited pages, that we must know some true premisses, is

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only on principle. It says that since we in fact have logical systems of knowledge we must know some truths which break the infinite regress. A similar proof follows from his naturalistic view of the mind. Given that reason is part of the natural mind, and that the application of ‘true’ and ‘false’ are its essence – namely that without them the function of reason could not exist – we may conclude by analogy to his argument concerning ‘the will’ [see p.24], that without having some true ideas we would not have had a concept of truth. It follows from his definition of the mind that, since the use of the concept ‘true’ is natural.– i.e. intuitively or innately known – some true ideas must also be naturally known. The problem is, that both versions only prove the necessary existence of such true ideas on principle. But such knowledge is not sufficient for creating logical tools like arithmetic, for example. For this creation, true premisses must be actually known. Hence, 2) A complete proof of the analogy to the hammer can only be justified if some innate knowledge can be discovered. And 3) created mental tools are adequate for understanding the world only if they are shown to have evolved from true natural knowledge. I shall deal with these three considerations in the stated order, and show that while their acceptance depends on accepting Spinoza’s naturalistic view of the mind, the modern objections to them arise from the acceptance of the nature/culture dichotomy. 1) Must there be innate knowledge of natural truths, of which we can be certain? A modern challenge to this argument is found in Quine's comment on, and objection to, the belief that the basic propositions of logic and mathematics are innate. In the introduction to his Methods of Logic, Quine explains that the source of this belief is the [rationalists’] conviction that the principles of logic are accepted a-priori because they are necessarily true independently of any experience. Contrary to them, empiricist thought that the objective truth of a theory as a whole must be established by evidence [see pp.11-12 and 37]. Therefore, he says, it has been a decision

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of empiricist to allocate priority to statements with empirical content. However, according to Quine, empiricist ignore that there is never a unique system of statements that is compatible with all the ‘empirical content’ of the evidence. When a theory implies a disturbing result, it is always possible to change it in a way that the offensive result disappears. Therefore, we are never forced to accept or reject any particular statement in a theory. Quine concludes that there is a more fundamental principle than empirical verification, and it is this principle that leads to the acceptance of propositions as necessarily true. This pragmatic principle says that the more central either a logical proposition or what is believed to be an empirical fact in our conceptual system of thoughts is, the less likely we are to choose it for revision. In his opinion, this principle is "a conservative preference for revisions which disturb the system least." An all-pervasive fact or theoretical hypothesis which in the past has served us well is psychologically too ‘expensive’ to be discarded. The principles of logic are so central to our Western ‘conceptual scheme’ that in practice they enjoy immunity from revision. Therefore they seem to us as being inherent to the mind. Note that the pragmatic principle is a thesis in a theory of mind that agrees with Spinoza’s postulated tendency to create a unified system of thoughts. It explains, for example, that it is due to the centrality of the idea of God in people’s conceptual scheme that it has been, and for many people still is, the last to be corrected, let alone abandoned, even in modern times. Note also that the postulated tendency must presuppose the natural capacity to maintain the consistency of a unified conceptual scheme. And this is all that is postulated by Spinoza’s [as opposed to Descartes’] rationalism. His postulated natural function of reason, with its innate capacity to negate any proposition [see p.141] and to infer one proposition from another, is not refuted by the historical fact that theories of logic and mathematics have been tools developed only in some cultures and not in others. Nor does the latter refute Spinoza’s argument that the natural knowledge of the principle of inference is shown by the fact that all people use it even without being aware of its formulation. The validity

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of Quine’s exclusion of reason from his version of a natural mind depends on considering all knowledge, including the evaluation of its validity, as cultural creations. And this attribution presupposes the nature/culture dichotomy. Quine defends his challenge to naturalism empirically, by his theory of ‘radical interpretation’ of a language.54) According to this theory, understanding any kind of sentence depends on the meanings of its component words, which in turn depend on the interpretation of previous sentences. I shall return to this challenge in chapter XII, dealing with its effect on relativism. Here it is only necessary to point out that this defence of his challenge also depends on the acceptance of the nature/culture dichotomy. His theory suggests that understanding verbally expressed ideas is not essentially related to natural forms of perception which evolved earlier in humans and are also found in other organisms. This is important for justifying my claim pointed out in the introduction that the nature/culture dichotomy replaced the distinction between mind and body [see pp.39-40]. The conception of nature retained Descartes’ view that animals are naturally complex machines, but thoughts and language are products of cultures, in the plural, and thus exclusively human. This view makes a clear distinction between mental properties and biological processes, even if the latter are necessary for sustaining them. Knowledge is a mental phenomenon which implies awareness of the difference between external signals and their meanings. The best example is knowledge of a language, considered to be the most basic creation of culture. In a language we are clearly aware of the difference between a sound-signal and whatever it signifies. Nobody mistakes the sound ‘Amsterdam’ for the town, or the expression ‘the capital of The Netherlands’ for the geo-political status of this town, even if understanding the sentence ‘Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands’ depends on the ‘decoding machinery’ of the brain. The same applies to the use of language: in order to communicate knowledge the speaker must use

54) Indeterminacy of Translation Again.

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vocal signs. And according to Quine’s radical interpretation theory, this involves the possibility that the recipient of signs may interpret them differently from what the user means, because the recipient infers the meanings of words from the meanings he had attached to them in the past. Moreover, from the words one uses we may infer that he cleverly used reasoning, but in fact he may have repeated the words without understanding them.55) In short, Quine’s point concerning the uncertainty of interpretation follows from the assumption that there is no unique interpretation of any signal – internal or external to the mind – which can anchor a signal to a signalled. Contrary to this view, Spinoza’s explanation of the recognition of Peter [see p.54] does suggest a continuity of the interpretation of ‘verbal signs’ to perception. His explanation that although we are not aware of it, our minds must abstract some essence of Peter which makes his recognition possible, is similar to the explanation of recognition by animals, which are ‘perfect’ in the sense that their perceptual systems and responses to them are attuned to their survival. This perception leaves no room for different interpretations. According to him, we differ from animals – or as we would say, from other animals – in the variety of our interactions with both our natural and social environments [see p.124]. And it is this variety of interactions which introduced the dependency of a response on the perceived cause of any ‘signal.’ It is also this variety of interactions which had made clear that the interpretation of signals by their perceived causes is open to different interpretations. Since many of these are mistaken, this made humanity increasingly dependent on correcting them [see p.98]. Given that the modern standard of truth in the lifesciences is the theory of evolution, Spinoza’s description can be 55) In his preface to the PCP, Ludewijk Meyer wrote that he was delighted when Spinoza formulated Descartes' work in the synthetic (logical) way, and clarified difficult metaphysical questions which remained unsolved in Descartes' writing, because many who call themselves followers of Descartes were not acquainted with either the analytic or the synthetic methods of proof. Therefore, they merely committed Descartes' arguments to memory and were unable to use his method themselves, let alone communicate them to others.

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interpreted as an explanation that the function of reason to correct variable interpretations must have evolved by natural selection. Another challenge to the idea of innate knowledge is found in Wittgenstein's correction of his earlier proposal that there must be some basic true ideas from which science should start. In his Tractatus Wittgenstein states that the basic components of knowledge of the universe are facts, not things. The function of a logical proposition is to articulate the essence of a fact. When he wrote the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thought that some such propositions were ‘objects’ in the sense that they are perceived without doubt. At the time, he thought that his postulated ‘objects’ may provide the foundation for the creation of some true knowledge by a logical language. This is similar to Spinoza’s postulated intuitive knowledge of true premisses. But, as shown in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, he changed his mind about the existence of such ‘objects.’ His important influence in the philosophy of language is discussed in chapters XII and XIII. Contrary to these challenges to Spinoza’s thesis that innate knowledge must exist, Chomsky’s theory of language supports this thesis, although he claims to have a Cartesian view of the mind. The logical structure of Chomsky's support of the necessity of postulating innate knowledge of what he calls universal grammar [UG] is quite similar to that of Spinoza’s argument that only the assumption that the mind abstracts an essence of Peter can explain our ability to recognise him. According to Chomsky, a language is a structural system consisting of distinct levels, each of which is based on distinct parts of UG. The recognition of perceived sounds, the phonemes, is distinct from the recognition of the components of grammar, like noun- or verb-phrases, on which the transformation laws of grammar operate [see pp.122-123 or 136-137 for comparison]. Chomsky postulates that competence of speech can only be achieved because the innate knowledge of the principles of UG bridge the gap between the meagre information children obtain from verbal experience and their ability to convert it into knowledge of the structure – the grammar – of their language. ‘The meagre information’

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refers to the impossibility to derive from it the rules of grammar by induction. In his opinion, this information is only necessary for triggering the selection of the particular grammar of their language from all the grammars allowed by UG. No introspection can help in the discovery of UG because neither the knowledge nor the process by which an actual grammar is selected are accessible to consciousness.56) Its necessary function can be discovered by a rational reflection alone, and its content must be discovered by the science of linguistics. It seems to me that in spite of the similarity of Chomsky’s justification of the necessary assumption of UG to Spinoza’s argument concerning perception, he does not refer to Spinoza because his argument is directed against those who adhere to the inverted Cartesian view. But although he does not refer to Spinoza’s objections to Descartes, he offers his own correction to Descartes’ rationalism. He explains that, while Descartes claimed that animals did not develop a language because they lacked the type of intelligence that humans have, he (Chomsky) thinks that such development is not found in any primate other than humans because they lack the specific neural structures necessary for it.57) No rationalist today, he says, denies that such ‘potential capacity’ is necessary for the development of any aspect of the mind. The crucial question is whether these capacities are passive, as behaviourists claim about learning a language, or active systems. He thinks that this does not apply only to the acquisition of linguistic competence but also to other systems of knowledge and beliefs. This, he says, is the distinction which Descartes made in his meditations [1- 191] between a passive faculty of perception and an active faculty capable of forming and producing ideas.58) In Chomsky’s opinion, knowledge of UG is a mental phenomenon, even if 56) I use the word ‘selected’ instead of his ‘chosen’ because the selection does not indicate choice in Spinoza's sense of the concept which is related to his conception of free will, where both are related to the application of reason. The choice of the child is clearly not an appeal to reason. 57) RL p.40 58) RL p.216

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it is not open to introspection, because it guides children in acquiring a language and in their subsequent acquisition of knowledge.59) Therefore he thinks that, to the extent that the discovery of UG will lead to a better understanding of children's ability to acquire a language with all its complexity, it will also contribute to the understanding of other cognitive systems. This is because he thinks that the selective function of UG in learning a language is a precursor to the function of reason to accept some ideas and reject others. Although the selection of a grammar is not made consciously, it may represent the first manifestation of an active mind in Spinoza's sense of the word, namely an activity that is not dependent on external influence [see pp.18 and 46]. It may represent a protodevelopment of judgement. Chomsky’s claim to adhere to Cartesian rationality is based on his conviction that only by maintaining the rationalist tradition we may preserve both our scientific and political achievements. I come back to this point later in this chapter. 2) Given that on principle we must have some innate knowledge, can it be discovered? Before turning to this question we should note that Spinoza was well aware of the hypothetical status of postulating any such knowledge. He says that only "that which is contained in the intellect objectively must of necessity be granted in nature" [E. I, proof to proposition xxx]. This means that, for example, postulating that any property of understanding is natural, as he does in TCU XV, can only be justified if it represents an actually existing property of, or process in, the intellect. Moreover, this very general innate knowledge ‘granted in the nature of understanding’ must be distinguished from innate knowledge needed for creating specific mental tools that are comparable to the creation of material tools, as suggested by the analogy to the hammer. This is because we cannot derive the premisses of, say, arithmetic from knowing that no arithmetical knowledge could have been obtained without presupposing that the

59) RL p.227

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conception of number is a property of understanding. For proving the analogy of the development of arithmetic to that of a hammer, the premisses postulated to be known by intuition must be specific to arithmetic. Only their discovery can show whether the whole of arithmetic can be derived from them [see p.79]. We must turn now to this discovery. Among the examples which Spinoza gives in TCU IV to illustrate intuitive knowledge is the knowledge of 2+3=5. That we know it by intuition means that understanding it is knowing the essence of addition, and that once we discover this essence, we are certain of its truth [see p.50]. It also means that we know it ‘by reflection alone,’ namely that we do not derive it from experience. ‘Derive’ is emphasised because learning by reflection does not mean that it is independent of experience. On the contrary, grasping that the principle of addition is an essence of arithmetic, is grasping at the same time that it is also the essence of grouping things, and that both are not affected by the order they are carried out. This follows from his definition of the mind, by which the activity of grouping is the ‘object’ of the principle. As he argues concerning the principle of inference [see p.23], to be certain that we know it is to become aware of having used it even without being aware of the idea.60) All these points can be supported by observing today’s common behaviour of shoppers in a supermarket. When people go to the cashier to pay for their purchases, they know that the order things are taken out of the cart makes no difference to the total cost even if they are not aware that ‘a+b=b+a’ and ‘[a+(b+c)=(a+b)+c]’ are two basic principles of addition. Similarly, every shopper knows that if the price of two things is doubled it makes no difference whether the double price of each is calculated first and then added, or if the old prices are first added and then the result is doubled. This is known without knowing that this is represented by the distributive principle of addition, that [a(b+c)=ab+ac].

60) We may add, that it is also knowing that the ‘identity’ of addition to grouping [see pp.20 and 120 for the meaning of identity] distinguishes between adding numbers in counting and, for example, adding two liquids where the mixture is not equal to the added volumes.

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Another principle of arithmetic is that for all x [x+0=x]. Like the former principles, it corresponds to experience, if we take ‘zero’ to mean ‘nothing.’ When counting, one knows that if one has x things and nothing is added to them one remains with x things. Or in the example of shopping, one knows that if the cashier puts y too much on the price-list but then subtracts it, the total is correct because it is as if nothing has been added. But the place of zero in mathematics is more interesting than that, because it turns our attention to Spinoza’s postulated innate drive to create a comprehensive system of ideas the ‘object’ of which is Nature as a whole. The symbol of zero, whose ‘object’ seems to be ‘nothing,’ was introduced to Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century when arabic numerals replaced the Roman notation. In ‘102,’ for example, the zero shows that there are no ‘tens’ in this number.61) But with the development of arithmetic the conception of zero and the way it functions in mathematics have little to do with its meaning ‘nothing’. This strengthened the conviction of some philosophers that mathematical principles have nothing to do with experience. But concerning Spinoza's postulated drive to create a unified science the interest lies in the acceptance of the ‘anomaly of zero.’ The unity of science, in this case, presupposes the unity of mathematics. ‘Presupposes’ because, at least since Galileo, mathematics is believed to represent the language, or the syntactic structure, of nature. We have no evidence for the unity of mathematics, but all mathematicians take it for granted. And this presupposition guides its development. The presupposition is seen in many arithmetical operations. For example, by assuming that the same principles established for natural numbers must apply to fractions, we define the rather counter-intuitive rule for dividing by a 1/4. We readily find examples which illustrate that the operation we have defined is correct, in the sense that it corresponds 61) The symbol as an empty place-holder appeared first in Cambodia in the 7th century. The Chinese used an empty space for this purpose earlier but introduced a special symbol in the 13th century.

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to realistic calculations. But, the central motive for formulating the definition in the first place is the assumed necessity that mathematical rules must be universal. That this is the drive is best shown by the definition of raising a number to the power of 0, a definition that has nothing to do either with equating ‘0’ either to ‘nothing’ or to the definition of the power of any other number. That this definition is based on the presupposed unity of mathematics alone is clear, because we can find no example that can provide a realistic meaning to raising a number to the power of zero. The definition is accepted purely on the grounds that it satisfies the requirement that any mathematical operation should agree with related ones: ab: ab = 1 because the division of any number by itself is equal to one. But by the rules of powers a b : a b = ab - b = a 0 Hence a0 = 1 It is well known that the development of mathematics after the introduction of the symbol ‘0’ has been incomparable to its earlier development when the Roman notation was in use. This is the source of the suggestion that the notation alone [the language of mathematics] is responsible for this development. But as the example of raising to the power of zero shows, it is unlikely that this progress in the development of mathematical theory would have happened without presupposing the unity of mathematics. Moreover, mathematicians cling to the presupposed unity of mathematics in spite of some embarrassing consequences of its acceptance. Such a consequence in arithmetic is the necessary exclusion of division by zero from its operations. This necessary exclusion is due to the fact that x:0= y is impossible because there is no y which satisfies y . 0 = x. The exclusion is embarrassing because it must either be taken as evidence against the universality of the rules of mathematics, or it must be

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conceded that this universality – a necessary condition for the unity of mathematics – can be accepted only by admitting an exception to it. It is a fact that mathematicians do not doubt the unity of mathematics and accept the exception. This can be taken to be evidence for Spinoza’s postulated property of the mind to create a unified conception of nature, if mathematics is supposed to describe its structure. In the context of the present chapter it is worth repeating that, according to Leibniz, the validity of 2+3=5 depends on the validity of the rules of logic alone. Equality in arithmetic is derived from the logical rule of substitution. The terms ‘2+3’ and ‘5' are understood to represent the same number because we can substitute each for the other in any arithmetical expression without affecting its truth. It follows that, if there is innate knowledge, the logical rule of substitution is a better candidate for it than any principle of arithmetic. Since logic is totally in the domain of reason, so is arithmetic. But, according to Spinoza, knowledge by reason and knowledge of causal relations supported by experience are two aspects of knowing the same reality. Moreover, in order to discover the essence of any particular ‘object,’ including an ‘object’ of mathematics, we must first know this ‘object’ [see p.74]. The specialty of mathematics, in his opinion, is that we can derive such an essence by considering current knowledge at any time. And this is because mathematical knowledge starts from naturally [innately] known premisses and by using inference – the natural instrument of the mind for preserving truth – proceeds to acquire knowledge of new truths. In other spheres of knowledge we can never be certain about an essence which is discovered by considering what is currently known.62) In particular, according to Spinoza, current ideas in the 62) Starting from what is currently supposed to be known is starting from what Bertrand Russel called naive realism, and Spinoza calls common-sense [see p.69]. Naive realism is based on knowing objects and facts with which we are acquainted. From there, Russell says, we can proceed to create a scientific view. But, he argues that science often shows that our current concepts are wrong, and this may lead to the far reaching conclusion that knowledge of the universe cannot be based on natural perception. Hence, he concludes that if naive realism is the basis of scientific realism,

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social and political doctrines are often based on the distortion of naturally known truths. In this respect it is interesting to consider again Chomsky’s adherence to Cartesian rationality as a condition for preserving both our scientific and political achievements [see p.148]. In his Knowledge of Language, its Nature, Origin and Use, Chomsky distinguishes between two central problems in the theory of knowledge: Plato's problem is, how we can know so much on the basis of very little evidence; and Orwell's problem is, how do we know so little in the face of so much evidence. The solution of Plato’s problem is his theory of linguistics, by which children can acquire a competent knowledge of their language relying on a very meagre evidence [see p.146]. Orwell's problem represents the universal social phenomenon, of the capacity of a society to impose beliefs, or dogmas, on individual minds even in the face of ample contrary evidence. Chomsky points out that the problem is not created exclusively by totalitarian regimes, which impose conformism and intellectual passivity by mechanisms of coercion. Democratic states regularly achieve similar results without coercion. Had Chomsky considered Spinoza’s naturalism, he would have explained the universality of Orwell’s problem as a result of the universal tendency of people in power to persuade others that their conception of the best way to run a state, for example their interpretation of justice, is the correct one, thereby perpetuating their own power.63) ‘Persuade’ is emphasised because it is the method of persuasion that makes the difference between regimes. This is discussed in chapter XIII. Here it is sufficient to note that Spinoza’s analysis of religion can be generalized to and scientific realism proves that naive realism is wrong, then scientific realism is wrong. Spinoza would point out to him that the mistake is to assume that realism must start from naive realism. 63) Orwell's analysis of the psychological aspects of ideology - its compelling nature, as well as the possibility, but difficult task and moral duty to resist it - can be found, for example, in his article Notes on Nationalism. I thank Yoad Winter for pointing out this article to me.

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all dominant ideologies, because the devotion of people to an ideology, like their devotion to religion, is more often than not guided by the predominance of their drive to belong to their social group at the expense of their striving to discover the true premisses of their ideology. And, the predominance of one ideology in any society is maintained when, like religious leaders in Spinoza’s analysis, leaders in any society succeed in convincing a sufficient portion of its members that the premisses of their ideology lead to the best form of human existence. According to Spinoza’s political theory, it is the suppression of the power of reason which prevents the discovery of the laws of human nature underlying the behaviour of both rulers and the ruled, in all political systems. And in this case, as Chomsky characterizes Orwell's problem, thousands of pages which demonstrate the non-validity of an ideology are to no avail. According to Chomsky, it is the availability of a language that provides a vehicle for free thought. The Cartesian doctrine about the place of the intellect in human nature, he says, is the source of the quest for freedom in both liberalism and Marxism.64) Or, as Spinoza would say, both the quest for freedom and the use of language for this purpose, depend on turning to reason, namely to one’s active mind, rather than succumb to conventions imposed by a particular social structure. Spinoza’s view to this effect is discussed in the next two chapters, Free Will, Choice and the Power of the Mind, and The Difference Between an Appeal to Reason and Rational Choice. My reason for devoting so much space to Chomsky’s view of rationalism is, that in spite of the similarity of his arguments to those of Spinoza, they illustrate the central role of a current approach to the acquisition of knowledge not only on its development– as Spinoza maintained – but also on attempts to correct it. We must remember that Chomsky introduced his theory when behaviourism was dominant in psychology, and the very idea of innate knowledge was totally unacceptable. Or, rather, it was

64) RL. P.131.

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unacceptable in psychology but taken more or less for granted by mathematicians. Mathematicians are often self-declared Platonists. Of course they acknowledge that the full range of mathematical knowledge is a social product, because it includes much more than any individual can produce by his/her own mental powers. But they believe that the capacity to grasp mathematical ideas must be an innate endowment of the mind, because in spite of its fundamental assumptions being unprovable they are readily accepted by all. Chomsky’s idea that a particular language is learned by exposure to triggering experience is like Plato’s argument that led by the right questions an ignorant slave boy may discover the Pythagorean theorem. It is this conception of rationalism, which implies an innate power of reason that led Chomsky to think of himself as Cartesian. As pointed out already, his appeal to Cartesian rationality, rather than to a natural one like Spinoza’s, has been determined by his objection to the inverted Cartesian view of human nature, coupled with the cultural determinism implied by behaviourism, which are the dominant current standard of truth in our society. Nevertheless, the relevant point for assessing the importance of Spinoza’s philosophy to our time is Chomsky’s conviction that it is the mistaken guiding view of the world, the view which serves as a standard of truth, that is at the roots of many persisting mistaken explanations. Like Spinoza in his time, Chomsky thinks that the view of culture dominant in our time poses the main danger to the preservation of both humanity’s scientific and political achievements. 3) Can a theoretical knowledge be an adequate tool of understanding only if it is shown to have evolved from natural knowledge? A positive answer to this question, like the previous two, is shown by Spinoza to depend on the view of the universe which serves as a guide to science. This is found in his statement of the conditions for a definition of uncreated things, namely of basic properties of Nature as a whole [see p.75]. Condition I is comparable to the idea in modern science that ‘primitive concepts’ can only be defined indirectly by a related axiom. For

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example, the definition of inert matter is indirectly defined by the first axiom in Newton's theory. And the concept of a straight line in plane geometry is indirectly defined by the axiom that through two points only one straight line can be drawn. With the acceptance of these definitions, condition II says that the theories developed from these definitions are adequate tools of understanding only if we do not doubt that matter is inert, or that there are straight lines as described. These conditions stem from the assumption that the natural function of theoretical knowledge is to satisfy the need, and therefore the natural desire, to know the true causes of things. In this respect, there is hardly a difference between Spinoza’s conception of science and the modern conception, except for the fact that the latter accepts its restricted Cartesian scope of validity to the physical world [see p.39]. Yet, it is important to note that, although the rejection of the identification of the adequacy of a theory with its truth is clearest when psychology and the social sciences adhere to the relativism implied by the nature/culture dichotomy, this identification was also challenged within the scientific approach. A best known example arose concerning geometry, which was Spinoza’s paradigm of true knowledge of space. As is well known, the challenge was raised with mathematicians' doubts about the self-evidence of Euclid’s fifth axiom, which in its original formulation says that if two lines are cut by a third, so that the sum of the interior angles is equal to two right angles, then the two lines will never meet. This axiom was challenged already in Hellenistic times, but I confine myself to the modern era. Apart from Spinoza’s examples of intuitive knowledge already cited [see pp.50 and 149], his third example says that from a point outside a given straight line only one parallel line can be drawn to it. This is one of the many unsuccessful attempts which had been made to reformulate the fifth Euclidian axiom in a way that seems self-evident. Gauss proved that the five axioms were independent of each other, implying that the only way to prove the need to accept the fifth was by showing that its negation will lead to an inconsistency of geometry. Two non-Euclidian geometries

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were developed for this purpose, based on the two possible negations of the fifth axiom: by Lobachevsky (around 1830), that more than one line passing through a given point could be parallel to a given line, and by Rieman (1854) that no such parallel could be drawn. Both systems turned out to be logically consistent with the other four. What was undermined by this discovery was the conviction that Euclidian geometry was the only possible description of a physical space. But the separation of the notion of an adequate description of space from a true description came with the discovery (1915) that, while Euclidian geometry was adequate for representing spatial relations on earth, Riemann's geometry was adequate for representing Einstein's new physics. Does this development undermine Spinoza’s proposition that the creation of geometry, like the creation of a hammer, is both adequate and true only if it can be shown to be derived from our naturally conceived idea of space? Although the question was not put in this form, the challenge to it is in the idea that arose at the time, that the choice of one of these consistent geometries rather than the others had been a cultural convention. And that this convention can be changed if another choice proves to be more adequate (more useful) for a purpose. Einstein did not think so. In 1921 he gave a lecture to the Prussian Academy of sciences in which he rejected the implied arbitrariness in Poincaré’s version of conventionalism.65) He was convinced that a physical theory was only adequate when it provided a true description of reality. Like Spinoza he argued that we are entitled to accept our abstract ideas only in conjunction with their verification by experience [see p.10]. Therefore he thought that we cannot dismiss Euclidian geometry as a convention, just as we cannot dismiss Newton's physics as simply false, because both are good

65) The lecture “Geometry and Experience” is reprinted in Einstein’s Ideas and Opinions, p.232. For the conviction stated see also a quotation from 1914 in A. Pais: Subtle is the Lord (p.235): “Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belong to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.”

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approximations for describing human experience. According to him, any new theory must show that it does not contradict these approximations.66) This is certainly a meta-scientific correction in Spinoza’s conception of certainty. It shows that even naturally known concepts can be mistaken under circumstances beyond their natural function. But it does not imply a negative answer the question whether theoretical knowledge is adequate only if it is shown to have evolved from natural knowledge. This is because what Einstein has shown is that the natural identification of the adequacy of theoretical knowledge with its truth holds only if the concepts used in its premisses are understood on the scale of experience in the natural world we inhabit. In other words, the justification is justified if this aspect of Spinoza’s naturalism is judged by the theory of evolution, because our natural concepts evolved under the conditions of living in this small part of the universe we occupy. Einstein’s meta-scientific correction of the coordinate system used – when he introduced his special theory of relativity – takes account of this [see p.136]. The identification of adequacy with truth remains intact. Nevertheless, it is important to remind ourselves that according to Spinoza, certainty applied only to knowledge by intuition. The certainty means that if one becomes aware of this [innate] knowledge one needs no evidence or logical argument for ascertaining its truth [see pp.57 and 83]. However, this does not apply when axioms are postulated in theories about the nature of the world, because in this case significant differences between real phenomena often escape our attention [see p.132]. When we consider logical or mathematical theories, the difference between Spinoza and modern logicians turned out to depend on the views which serve them as standards of truth. This can be shown by considering Frege’s attempt to show that the possibility to construct a complete mathematical system, adequate for describing the essential structure of the 66) The latter is shown by the factor %(1-u 2/c 2) which is introduced into Newton’s laws. Since u, the regular velocity encountered in human life, is negligible compared to c, the speed of light, Newton’s equations are recovered.

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universe, depended on proving that mathematics can be derived from reason alone [see p.152 for comparison to Leibniz]. Frege concluded from the discovery of different geometries that the confidence in the absolute truth of Euclidean geometry – a confidence taken for granted on the grounds of being intuitively true – was inspired by its agreement with human imagination rather than reason. He explained this in his criticism of Kant’s claim that mathematical truths were both synthetic and a-priori.67) Kant explained that mathematics could combine synthetic with a-priori knowledge because the mind provided the necessary a-priori knowledge of basic features of the world. For example, knowledge of space was given directly to the mind, independently of any particular spatial experience. It was this a-priori knowledge of space that generated perceptions of spatial relations, rather than being derived from them. It was this a-priori knowledge that was articulated in geometry, and this was the reason that the propositions of geometry were necessarily true. Kant thought that with this explanation he provided a synthesis of empiricism and Cartesian rationalism, thereby refuting Hume's skepticism about rationalism [see p.7]. Frege’s objection to Kant’s synthesis, was to its implication that scientific theories described in mathematical terms depended on the human mind, and to Kant’s conclusion from this implication, that since our scientific knowledge is of perceived phenomena, we have no access to ‘things in themselves,’ namely to knowledge of the universe as it is. It is worth noting the similarity between Kant’s claim that, for example, the nature of space was known a-priory, and Spinoza’s claim that it was known by intuition [see p.79]. The fact that Kant attributed the certainty of a-priori knowledge to a Cartesian conception of reason, and Spinoza attributed it to becoming aware of natural knowledge, did not

67) FA p.4. We must note that the meaning of both ‘synthetic’ and ‘analytic’ changed from Spinoza's and Descartes’ time [see p.41]. Analytic came to mean a justification of a proposition by logic alone, by elucidating the meanings of terms A synthetic justification came to mean that the truth of the proposition depended on knowledge of the world.

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affect the consideration of Euclidean geometry by both as a paradigm of true knowledge of real space. However, by the time Frege dealt with his attempt to find the logical foundations of mathematics, he knew that Euclidian geometry was not the only description of space that was logically possible. Therefore, it became less obvious to him that one particular geometry could provide a-priori knowledge about real space. He agreed with Kant that scientific knowledge was confined to perceived events, and therefore is always an a-posteriori mode of knowledge. In other words, it lacks the generality provided to mathematical knowledge by it’s a-priori logical basis As a result, the generally accepted conviction, that the foundations of Euclidian geometry were intuitively discovered, led him to a revision of the notion of intuition. From a source of knowledge it became a product of the imagination, a psychological state not to be trusted. Like Spinoza, Frege thought that knowledge gained by reason is an adequate tool for understanding only if it provided a true description of the understood. But, unlike Spinoza, he thought that the identification of adequacy with truth was possible only because reason was independent of psychology – the experimental science that dealt with motivation – but not with thoughts derived from reason alone. In support of this independence he argued, that contrary to the content of psychology, the truths of logic and mathematics do not depend on history. The fact that the discovery of these truths has a history, he said, does not mean that the truths themselves have a history. If the theorem of Pythagoras is true, it was true before Pythagoras discovered it. A true mathematical proposition remains true even if nobody has ever thought about it. For similar reasons Frege rejected his contemporaries’ ‘formalism’ in mathematics, the theory which concluded from the development of different geometries that a proven truth shows a property of an invented language, rather than real spatial relations. He considered the idea of dependency on language as strange as assuming that because we can see microbes only after microscopes have been invented, microbes are a property of the microscopes rather than constituents of the world. [see

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p.93, for comparison]. He argued that the meaning of mathematical terms, as well as the formulation of truth-preserving rules of logic, are derived from the known truths which they represent, and not the other way round, as ‘formalism’ claims. It is of course true, he says, that a thought can only be expressed and communicated in some symbolic form, but this must be distinguished from ascertaining its origin.68) According to Frege, equating a concept to its linguistic expression is due to the empiricist tradition of psychologists to equate the meaning of a word to a mental image, rendering all meanings a subjective notion. This criticism was directed against the influence of J.S. Mill on his contemporaries. Frege’s objection to J.S. Mill was to his assertion that all knowledge was obtained by induction. According to Frege, this was true in psychology. A farmer motivated by his dependence on the weather seeks means for predicting it. If he comes to believe that the weather is connected with the phases of the moon, psychology can explain why every confirmation of this belief will make a greater impression on him than one contradicting it, and will therefore be better remembered than its refutations. As a consequence, the farmer will think that from experience he knows that this belief is true.69) Frege’s objection was to Mill’s view that also mathematical truths are basically generalizations by induction, learned from experience. In his A System of Logic, Mill indeed argue against Kant’s claim that the truths of mathematics were a-priori. He says that in fact these truths are also established a-posteriori. For example, the concept of the number ‘2’ is derived from the fact that a pair of horses is a physical phenomenon perceived differently from one or three horses.70) I emphasize ‘basically’ in Mill's assertion that all knowledge was reached by induction, because he obviously did not claim that 100 horses were perceived differently than 101 horses. But he thought that the

68) CP, pp.355 and 360. 69) PW, pp.2-3. 70) SL, III, 24, 5.

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definition of each number in terms of its predecessor, as Leibniz proposed, was a generalization from experience with small numbers. The definition allowed us to apply the a-posteriori derived knowledge to cases where direct perception was not sufficient. According to Frege, Mill was mistaken for several reasons. In the first place, the important point in the proof of Leibniz is that the same principles are used for ascertaining that 2+2=3+1 as for ascertaining that 100+2=101+1. Second, Mill failed to take account of the universal aspect of the notion of number. He failed to notice that numbers denote one aspect of classes, namely the number of their members, which does not apply only to classes of perceived physical things but to anything that can be grouped according to this similarity alone. For example, in this respect a pair of horses belongs to the same class of two classes: the class of all men and the class of all women. And third, induction can always be discovered to be false by a contradictory observation. And this "stands in sharp contrast to the determinacy and stability of the concepts and objects of mathematics."71) In his opinion, the history of mathematics shows the compelling nature of its concepts, and this suggests that the empiricist' idea that its concepts are created by human minds must be mistaken. Again, my reason for this excursion into Frege’s ideas is the considerable similarity of many of his and Spinoza’s arguments. A similarity which stems from the fact that Spinoza agreed with Descartes that understanding by reason and understanding causal relations must be treated separately, as two ways of understanding , none of which can be derived from the other [see p.13]. For example, Spinoza could agree with Frege’s first argument against Mill that it is the intuitive, natural, knowledge of the principles of arithmetic which underlie the understanding of numerical relationships even if one is not aware of it. He would agree with the second objection, as seen by his inclusion of ‘number’ as an independent property of understanding [see p.80]. As he argues, these are the two aspects of understanding which allow us to create

71) FA pp.v-vi.

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arithmetic as an extension of this mental tool. And Spinoza’s objection to induction is also similar to Frege’s [see pp.48-49]. Like Spinoza, Frege realized that the examination of the validity of knowledge gained by reason must eventually reach some truths which cannot be justified except by the fact that their truth is transparent to the mind. But, while Spinoza looked for these initial concepts in human nature, Frege agreed with Descartes’ equating this transparent certainty to clear and distinct ideas, provided they were the products of reason alone. Like Spinoza, Frege thought that all true propositions referred to ‘The True’ by which he meant the abstract conception of the universe as understood by reason, and not by experience.72) But, by Spinoza’s definition of the mind [see p.19], the correct point which Mill made was that the discovery of the abstract principles of arithmetic, would have been impossible without the initial perceptions he describes [see p.11]. The important point is, that while both Spinoza and Frege claimed that concepts derived from pure reason are not derived from knowledge of the world, only Frege maintained that this means that they are independent of experience. Although Spinoza agrees that these concepts, or principles, cannot be derived from knowledge of the world, he insisted that the two ways of understanding – by reason and by empirical science – were different modes of understanding the same experienced world. However, Frege’s view of psychology [see p.160] led him to insist that the products of reason cannot be based on anything we know naturally. "In arithmetic" he says "we are not concerned with objects which we come to know as something alien from without through the medium of the senses, but with objects given directly to our reason and ... utterly transparent to it."73) This was his adherence to the Cartesian view of reason. Of particular interest

72) CP p.162 73) FA p.115. Frege did not refer to Spinoza, but an objection to his naturalisation of reason can be found in his criticism of Husserl's phenomenology. In spite of the latter's attempt to explain how thought made it possible to transcend the evidence of the senses, Frege accused him of turning arithmetic into subjective knowledge, depending on experience.

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is his rejection of the idea that evolution could have had any effect on concepts obtained by reason. This is because, in his opinion, this implies the totally absurd idea that at some level of evolution people may reach a conclusion that 2x2=5 rather than 2x2=4.74) It is Frege’s second objection to Mill, or rather his conception of classification, based on the property of number alone, ignoring any connection to knowledge of the world, which proved devastating to his project. As is well known, when his book on the foundations of arithmetic was already at the printer, Frege received a letter from Bertrand Russell showing a paradox in his theory. The paradox shows that Frege ignored natural classification. The concept ‘cat’ is the name of a class of all cats. This class is clearly not a cat, and therefore is not a member of itself. Russell argued that Frege’s definition of a class as independent of this understanding ignores the relationship between a concept and a class of things described by it. Therefore, he suggested to consider a class C, of all classes that are not members of themselves. If C itself is not a member of itself, then it must be included in C. But then it is a member of itself. In other words, Frege must either exclude C from his logical system, in which case his system is not complete, or, if it is included, his system is inconsistent. Frege considered this discovered paradox a disaster because he was convinced that by showing that mathematics was based on logic alone he provided a consistent and complete description of the structure of the real universe. He intended his project to provide the guarantee for the possibility to achieve an adequate mathematical model to the whole of science. The note about Gödel’s later discovery of the necessary incompleteness of any logically formalized knowledge [see p.128] applies equally to Frege. Had he considered logic an extension of a natural ‘instrument of the human mind,’ as Spinoza did, he would have noticed that the logical mode of human thinking imposes constraints on the thinkable world, just as perception imposes constraints on the visible

74) FA pp.vi-vii.

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world. Yet, neither Frege nor Gödel drew this conclusion due to their Cartesian conception of reason. It is not surprising that there is so much similarity between modern natural science or logic to Spinoza’s analyses, because both agree with the necessary separation of understanding thought and explaining physical phenomena causally. However, those who relegate the understanding of humanity to understanding culture [see p.39] dismiss all three propositions stated at the beginning of this chapter. In other words, they reject the analogy of mental tools to the hammer. The first two propositions are dismissed with the argument that even if it were true that the development of any aspect of a culture must have started by extending the capacities of natural endowments, the invention of mental tools created such a variety of ways of life that it has become impossible to trace this starting point. And the third proposition, that theoretical knowledge is adequate for understanding one’s world only if it is shown to have evolved from natural knowledge, is dismissed by the argument, that since we cannot but use concepts available to us, cultural differences cannot be overcome. According to them, the adequacy of mental tools for understanding the world is not only restricted to the small part of the universe we occupy, as the theory of evolution might explain [see p.158], but is also restricted by the cultural functions for which they are created. The latter is best illustrated by Skinner’s behaviourism.75) According to him, a correct theory of human psychology consists of a classification of patterns of responses to classes of stimuli. A discovery of a stimulusresponse pattern means that enough is found in common to be classified as a type of behaviour which enables observers to predict typical responses to a class of stimuli. It follows that types of verbal behaviour need not be based on a natural classification of things. There is no logical reason for not classifying, say, birds and aeroplanes as one class of stimuli, of flying things, if this is customary in a society. The very need to classify

75) See Paul T. Segal, Skkiner's Philosophy.

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stems from the impossibility of knowing all the actual stimuli which lead another person to respond to them in a particular way, because these are different from one person to another due to their personal history. According to Skinner, the expediency of classifying stimuli and responses, according to some essential features, tells us nothing about the nature of the human mind. Nor does its adequacy for prediction has anything to do with truth. Skinner argues that his scientific theory is based on the same operational principles common to all science. When biologists study organisms, they observe what the organisms do and then invent a theory about the properties which might be driving them to do so. This, he says, is also the way physicists explain how an object moves or affects other objects. In all cases, the aim is to predict and control the observed objects. Concerning people, for example, the observed behaviour of a soldier in battle may be characterized as courageous. This adjective tells us nothing about human nature. What it tells us is that in a particular situation this type of behaviour is found adequate [useful] for the survival of society, and is therefore valued in its culture as a means for controlling its members. One crucial point in this explanation is that mental tools are not adequate if they are shown to have evolved from true natural knowledge [see p.165], but are considered true because they are adequate for a social [cultural] function. Another point of the explanation is that it puts the science of behaviour of individuals and societies in the hierarchy of the natural sciences. The latter may also apply to the description of changes in complex systems. Scientists dealing with such systems emphasize the effect of structural organization on interacting causal relations [see p.116].76) They call attention to the fact that in all such complex systems, small changes in some factor may cause a cascade of changes in other factors leading to a change in the system as a whole without planning. In complex material

76) Those referred to in note 47.

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systems this is seen, for example, in the replacement of horse-driven carriages by the invented car, which introduced a host of related changes: stables, horse-farming, road-inns for changing horses etc. were replaced by car-factories, asphalt roads and petrol-pumps along them, traffic rules and traffic lights as well as traffic police and courts. All these changes show a reorganization introduced into the social system from ‘the bottom up.’ The impression of central planning is created by the fact that unless this cascade of changes occurs, a disintegration of society would follow. By analogy, it may be suggested that the same applies to a system of ideas. If something like Spinoza’s postulated ‘spiritual automaton’ [see p.27 or 67] constitutes such a system, it may correct itself without requiring the interference of an active power of the mind. It is possible that what was naturally selected was exactly the automatic reorganization of this system. And that observing this fact, Spinoza interpreted it as the result of rational thought. I emphasize ‘may’ because by the theory of evolution, Spinoza's proposed power of reason is more reasonably interpreted as a human capacity which evolved together with the ‘spiritual automaton,’ as a response to the increasing number of dangerous situations which threaten survival if the system of perceived causes of emotions, as well as failures to respond to changed circumstances, are not corrected. This proposed capacity can be seen as supporting Spinoza’s hypothesis that the more a creature interacts with its environment the more mind it has [E. II proposition xiii]. The evolutionary advantage of this emerging capacities can be seen, not only as tied to the growing number of dangers caused by the growing number of possible interactions with these environments, but also as essential due to the pace of cultural change compared to biological change. Hence the increasing role of conscious thought in human behaviour. However, the point in the present context is that in both explanations, a change in the ‘spiritual automaton’ can be adequate only if it actually increases the chance of survival, namely if it is true. Finally, we may ask whether it is important for science to start from a reliance on natural properties, as Spinoza claims [see p.55]. Is it not

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sufficient to acknowledge the advantage of some aspect of a culture, in particular of a policy, without asking whether it is, or is not, based on natural inclinations? Again we may consider Skinner’s argument for an answer. Skinner argues that on moral grounds behaviourism is superior to the assumed innateness of natural constraints on behaviour. This, he says, is because to the extent that innate constraints are real we cannot do anything about them. But we can do something about social conditioning.77) This argument is only convincing if we assume that we can do something about social conditioning without our motives being themselves determined by conditioning. The question is who are ‘we’? Consider again Skinner’s explanation of ‘courage,’ which according to him is promoted in order to enhance the survival of the group.78) Does ‘we’ refer, for example, to parents who are most likely to impart any conditioning? Surely they are least likely to do so unless they are themselves socially conditioned? Consider again Spinoza’s definition of courage as "the desire by which each [individual] endeavours to preserve [protect] what is his own according to the dictates of reason alone" [Ethics III, note to prop.LIX]. He distinguishes it from the concept of nobility, which according to him, is similar to courage, but is directed to the preservation of what is of others rather than one's own. According to him, ‘we’ refers to everybody. Courage and nobility are universal natural properties which all people

77) See his Why I am not a Cognitivist, chapter VIII in Reflections on Behaviourism and Society. 78) The attempt to explain courage in terms of the theory of evolution is a puzzle because, while animals exhibit courage when protecting themselves and their offspring, a behaviour which can be explained as resulting from natural selection, human beings are ready to fight for protecting social groups whose members do not carry their genes. This is a puzzle because the stronger the readiness of individuals to fight, the higher their chance to die before producing offsprings. Since natural selection is supposed to work only on genes, the explanation is delegated to culture.

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possess to various degrees. The natural source of nobility is people's recognition that when they unite, their strength exceeds that of any individual [PT I 13]. This is another way of saying that moral concepts are based on the recognition that we need each other’s help [see p.58]. With this recognition of their social being, the rationality of accepting the need to fight for one’s country is part of the rationality of accepting a civil law which protects individuals [PT III 10]. Had Spinoza used the concept of conditioning he would have said that its function is indeed to make sure that when a person consults reason the weight of the advantage of obeying the civil law always exceeds the weight of disobeying it. This is why courage is not needed for accepting most social customs. Courage is needed, for example, when an individual refuses to go to war, not due to fear but as a result of a consideration of its disadvantage to the social group [E. IV proposition LXIX and corollary]. Such a refusal can only be a result of rational thought and, according to him, this is why it is socially advantageous to encourage the application of reason when educating citizens [PT V 2]. But ‘encourage’ means that the appeal to reason is a natural activity, in which every person engages to some degree. In short, ‘we’ refers to all of us, provided our natural properties are not totally distorted by conditioning. Spinoza disagreed with the claim that nothing can be done about natural constraints. Had he been confronted with Skinner’s claim, he would have pointed out to him that his readiness to propose to do something about conditioning on moral grounds is due to the encouragement he got in the culture of his society to apply reason to customary behaviour. According to Spinoza, what we cannot change is that people are mostly driven by emotions, in particular by fear and hope. Nor can we change that there will always be people who are powerful enough to exploit these emotions for their own benefit, just as there will always be people who inspire feelings of obligation or nobility in others. His answer to the question, how his postulated ‘spiritual automaton’ can change by the interference of the active power of the mind, is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER VII: CHOICE, FREE WILL AND THE POWER OF THE MIND. In the seventeenth century, the problem of choice and free will was raised in religious terms. If everything is determined by God, how can the obedience or disobedience to God’s decrees be attributed to choice? The ‘free thinkers’ among Spinoza's protestant contemporaries, who were attracted to the new science, could resolve this problem by appeal to Descartes’ philosophy, because when they turned to reason – to the realm of thought – they were free from the mechanistic determinism of the material body. Spinoza's criticism of Descartes' metaphysics did not allow him to accept this solution. By analogy to his comment about the denial of the possibility of willing things that are bad for us [see p.12], he would say that the denial of the possibility of choice is contrary to experience, and as philosophers, we should acknowledge the experience, and look for a natural explanation for it. As noted in the introduction [see pp.38-39], after the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the problem of choice and free will remained because it contradicted the mechanistic view of natural selection.79) The solution to this problem is at the roots of splitting the explanation of human behaviour into its natural part, explained by the inverted Cartesian view, and its culturally determined part. Everything considered natural must be causally explained. To the extent that the ‘spiritual automaton’ is included in a science of natural behaviour, it must be explained without requiring any postulated power of the mind which might interfere in the process of its creation [see p.167]. Of course, those who adhere to this view, like anybody else, take the possibility of choice for granted. What they claim is that as far as human nature is concerned, the experience of choice and free will must be an illusion.

79) There were of course other attempts to solve this problem but, since these remained under the guidance of God’s creation, they are irrelevant here.

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One such argument was discussed in the previous chapter, namely René Thom’s explanation that the experience of choice is determined by chance [see p.91]. A chance event can be either understood as an event without a cause, or as an event of which we cannot know its cause. Spinoza clearly thought that the second is correct. According to him, nothing in Nature occurs without a cause. But the very nature of understanding, which requires us to reduce knowledge of a thing to its abstract essence, stems from our inability to grasp the complexity of its causes [see p.16]. It is not impossible that his total rejection of chance events is one of the meta-scientific ideas which might have to change in view of discoveries in science, for example by quantum mechanics [see pp.87-88]. But even if such a change is accepted, it does not apply to what Spinoza called the active mind, because to act according to a decision is to act by reasons, namely by another deterministic system [see p.67]. In an aside it is interesting to ask ourselves whether acting by reasons is a chance event in the sense this term is used in modern genetics. This may be suggested by Spinoza’s explanation that a chance event is not without a cause, but its cause is a particular event in the history of the perceiver [see p.48]. When geneticists speak, for example, about the birth of three girls in one family being a chance event, they do not mean that the determination of the sex of each offspring has no cause. What they mean is that the heredity caused by the chromosomes in one birth has no effect on the heredity in the following birth. But one’s reason for taking a decision does depend on previously used reasons because these have changed the balance of reasons in the spiritual automaton. As explained in chapter I, the only reason for not saying that these previously used reasons cause the new one is that the concept ‘cause’ is reserved for events in space [see p.67]. In chapter X I discuss the argument that a choice is an illusion, in connection with Daniel Dennett’s explanation of consciousness. He does not refer to Spinoza, but his explanation implies that Spinoza could not

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refrain from thinking as if he could choose, and that he did not notice the contradiction with his mechanistic view of human nature. However, As pointed out in chapter I [see p.44], Spinoza was aware that his decision to search for the best way to discover the good things in life may be interpreted as a retreat from his mechanistic explanation of the evaluation of a thing as good by the desire it satisfies, rather than the other way round. Therefore, he turned to explain how he came to the conclusion that his ‘deliberation from within’ – which is another way of saying ‘keeping his mind on reason’ [see p.29] – satisfied a most fundamental desire for peace of mind. In other words, it is unreasonable to interpret Spinoza’s view as a denial of the possibility of choice, let alone attribute to him an indulgence in an intellectual pursuit knowing that it is an illusion. In my opinion, judging by Spinoza’s definition of the mind, the fact that having a concept of choice is universal should suggest that the experience of choice is an awareness of the universal capacity of the mind to remain focussed on reason in order to resolve contradictory mental states. The emphasis on ‘remain’ is intended to distinguish it from the more elementary function of reason, which is always motivated by encountering a contradiction. Not all appeals to reason challenge current desires or perceived causes of things. Keeping the mind focussed on reason is motivated by the discovery of a contradiction which suggests that a more fundamental idea than an ordinary mistake is at stake. As was, for example, Spinoza’s realization that the current conception of God was mistaken. Keeping the mind on reason is embracing a detachment from the driving force of emotions. A detachment through which the certainty obtained by his interpretation of intuition may be achieved. This detachment is the power of free will, an activity of the mind free from external influence [see pp.26-27]. It seems to me that my suggested interpretation is correct because it follows from Spinoza’s own explanation of the deterministic mind. In a nutshell, the mechanistic explanation of choice consists of three parts. First, showing that a mechanistic explanation of the drive to keep the mind on reason is comparable to the explanation of the drive to seek food when

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hungry. We are conscious of the drive but not of the causal processes in the body which correspond to them [see pp.19 and 24]. Second, that within the realm of thought, reasons are like causes. And finally, that these mechanisms are the source of freedom. In the rest of this chapter I try to show that this is the solution implied by Spinoza’s philosophy. Spinoza explains that the difficulty of understanding decisions is due to the fact that we are conscious of our actions but ignorant of their true causes. But, in the context of explaining the meaning of self-evident truth, he says that self-evidence means that if somebody stumbles upon it by chance he needs no argument for ascertaining its truth. The need to discover self-evident truths arises from the improbability of such chance occurrence. Luckily, he says, we can overcome this improbability with the help of reason [see p.57]. The difficulty in understanding this ‘luck’ is that, by his definition of the mind, the drive to turn to reason must be explained as consciousness of ‘a certain mode of extension in the body.’ [see p.19]. In modern terms this means a certain set of neural configuration in the brain which causes it. However, although by analogy to the explanation of hunger, we are not conscious of these causal events, we are conscious of the compelling drive which in this case means the need to resolve contradictions. And, provided we accept his naturalistic view, this is sufficient evidence that the underlying causal process must exist. This is comparable to his argument about the perception of Peter [see p.18]. The ‘luck,’ then, is in the capacity to turn to reason. The important point is that turning to reason is turning to "the faculty by which the mind affirms or denies what is true or false, and not the desire by which one takes a liking or an aversion to anything" [E. II, note to proposition XLVIII]. The importance of keeping the mind on reason is the permanent need to maintain the consistency of one’s system of thoughts. This is because although it was clear to Spinoza that it was natural for people to strive to understand Nature and themselves, it was also clear to him that there were natural obstacles for the fulfilment of this striving. In chapter I [see p.57] the natural obstacles mentioned are

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the labourious thinking needed for distinguishing naturally known truths which ought to be the premises of a correct system of thoughts from apparent ones; for distinguishing valid reasons from prejudice, often reinforced by people in power, and the extreme variability of human ways of life. As he explains to de Vries the difficulty of understanding the activity of the intellect, namely, the function of keeping the mind on reason, is in the fact that this understanding, like the reasons (the ideas) upon which the intellect acts, are in the realm of thought alone [see p.27]. This is the important relationship between the need to keep the mind on reason and free will, as distinct from the will. According to Spinoza, ‘the will’ is a self-regulating mechanism of our conscious body which keeps us alive [see pp.23-24 and 120]. The will, as generating behaviour, is always activated by an emotion associated with the idea of its cause. The source of an idea of a cause is mostly external to the mind. He calls these ideas passions because they are passively absorbed by the mind [see p.42]. ‘Free will’ is distinct from this general definition of the will by not being activated by external influence. The intellect represents the active capacity of the mind to reflect on ideas independently of their perceived external causes [see p.148]. In short, the first step in reconciling Spinoza’s mechanistic view with the existence of choice is, that although we are not conscious of the causal process underlying ‘turning to reason,’ we know that it must exist. The second step is his claim that after turning to reason the acceptance of each idea is determined by other ideas. We do not call this mental process ‘causal’ because the concept of a cause is reserved for events in spacetime. In the realm of thought we call them reasons. But, just as behavioural responses in the body are determined by proximate causes, so ideas are determined by closely related thoughts. Spinoza explains this when he describes a system of thoughts as a ‘spiritual automaton’ [see p.27]. The third step, which explains that the first two mechanisms constitute the power of the mind and the source of freedom, is the topic of

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the fifth part of the Ethics: the power of the mind. It is based on the proposition that the function of what Spinoza calls the active mind is not to find reasons for any action. We always find such reasons. Its function is to base our actions on good [correct] reasons. In the preface to the fifth part of the Ethics, Spinoza states the problem. Since the intellect operates only within the domain of thought, to the extent that it can have an effect on behaviour this can only be explained by its ability to correct the perception of causes of emotions, and thereby restrain or moderate their effects. In a note to prop.XX, he explains that the power of the emotions over us is so strong due to the greater external influence on our behaviour compared to the internal influence of the intellect. The mind's power is only in correcting assumed knowledge. Hence the strength (or weakness) of the intellect’s influence can be measured by its success (or failure) to resist the influence of inadequate ideas obtained by external influence. True knowledge cannot change the fact that our emotions are largely determined by external influence, but under the influence of the active mind it can change the ‘balance of reasons’ within the ‘spiritual automaton,’ thereby reducing the influence of inadequate ideas in it. This is because true knowledge reinforces itself. This self-reinforcing is due to the pleasure associated with the self-confidence derived from the certainty accompanying the possession of true knowledge. The greater this self-confidence the less one is subject to the influence of the adverse effect of external influence, namely the passions. The argument in E. V starts with two axioms. In fact, these axioms are derived in E. III. They are here stated as axioms only because they are starting points for clarifying the function and power of the intellect as a sub-structure of the mind: I. "If in the same subject two contrary actions are excited, a change must take place in both or in one of them until they cease to be contrary." II. "The power of an effect is determined by the power of its cause in so far as its essence is explained or defined through the essence of its cause." The first axiom means that since we are only conscious of an idea

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of the cause of an action, the resolution of contrary actions is achieved by resolving the contradiction between their perceived causes. The second axiom says that this is best achieved by replacing an inadequate idea of the perceived cause by its real cause. This is because to be certain that an idea of a cause is true is to know the essence of its ‘object’ [see p.54]. While the first axiom expresses the rationale for turning to reason, the second says that the essence of this rationale is our knowledge that an emotion whose cause we understand is stronger than one we accept without reflection. And, it is strongest when our understanding is necessarily true, because in this case it is conceived as impossible to replace by another. The core of Spinoza’s explanation [E.V propositions I -VII] is that the function of any emotion is to cause an action that alters the current state of the person. There is no modification of the body of which we cannot have some, though not necessarily a true, idea of its cause. Therefore the replacement of a passion by a response which follows reason is always possible to some extent He explains that it follows from axiom II that it is always the passion that gives way to the emotion whose cause is understood by reason. But he adds that this is so provided the knowledge of this real cause does not remain in the realm of reason alone. This is because the effect of an idea present to the mind as a cause of an emotion is stronger than abstract knowledge alone, even if the latter follows reason. However, once perceived causes are replaced by conceived causes which follow reason, the result is that in the long run a ‘spiritual automaton’ comes to be governed by true reasons, and it is stronger than one governed by the passions. Four major theses explain the process by which such an ideal ‘spiritual automaton,’ can be created, and thus increase the power of the mind. The first thesis concerns the effect of clear and distinct ideas on the balance of power within a system of thoughts. Clear and distinct ideas, Spinoza explains, are ideas associated with causes of many things. Those listed in the TCU as properties of understanding are of this kind because

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they are connected to properties of all things [see pp.79-81]. However, within the ‘spiritual automaton’ clear and distinct ideas appear as images, rather than ideas obtained by reason. His example is the image of God common at the time. An example from our time can be ‘the clear and distinct idea’ that self-interest is the only universal cause of behaviour, derived from the image of people in a competitive society. This is not Spinoza's example, but it agrees with his explanation that the more such images are connected to other images in contributing to the consistency of a ‘spiritual automaton,’ the stronger their effect. Both, his example and mine, call our attention to Spinoza’s warning that apparently clear and distinct ideas are no guarantee that a coherent ‘spiritual automaton’ can be created, let alone that it is true. In the proof of proposition IX in the same chapter, Spinoza explains that the harm done by an obsession, namely by a single assumed cause that ‘captures the mind,’ is that it prevents us from understanding both ourselves and the world.80) In particular, it prevents us from understanding real contrary motives or other natural phenomena [see for example p.70]. Such obsessions are contrary to the natural function of the active mind to replace the apparent causes of emotions with an ordered system of true causes. The importance of this thesis for the process of increasing the power of the mind is, that although no thought can be changed unless by other thoughts, the fact that a modification in the balance of reasons can be brought about even by a change in a single idea of a cause – depending on its connection to other ideas – explains the occasional effect which the intellect may have on the power of action even if only indirectly. The second thesis, which according to Spinoza is important for understanding the way to increase the power of the mind is, that although 80) The harm done by an obsessions in the case of economics can be illustrated by privatization of public utilities like energy supply, means of communication or health services, which according to Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, ought to be distinguished from the usefulness of competition in private business. The obsession is in considering competition a nearly holy value, neglecting the difference between public and personal rationality [see p.126 note 41].

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in the process described by the first thesis, a constructed coherent system of thoughts is usually incorrect, it is better to construct a system that is only partly correct than refrain from constructing any. He says ‘it is better’ only to combat those who claim to refrain from constructing any such system on the grounds that they cannot be sure of its correctness. But, he argues that people cannot refrain from constructing a coherent system of thoughts because they need it in their everyday life. The difference between created systems is in their degree of adequacy. People who love freedom ought to endeavour, as much as they can, to obtain true knowledge of what is essentially good for them. They must understand that lack of freedom is slavery to the passions. This does not mean that they can avoid being guided by passions. For example, by hope and fear [C. LXXV to Oldenburg]. As explained in part III of Ethics, hope (fear) is an uncertain pleasure (pain) arising from the idea of a thing the occurrence of which we still doubt to some extent [E.III definitions XII and XIII respectively]. The doubt implied by hope of a future pleasure means to imagine something that might destroy it, which is the cause of fear. Similarly, the doubt implied by fear of a cause of pain is to imagine something that may destroy it, which is a state of hope. Slavery to the passions means the uncritical acceptance of other people's ideas of the causes of their own states of mind, or conditions of life. The important point in this thesis is that the conceptions of free-will, choice and the power of the mind apply to the nature of every individual. Every ‘thinking being’ can discover the principles of reason; everybody can understand that the interpretation of choice and free will described above constitute a natural power of their minds, because they can neither be imposed on or be eradicated from their minds by any external [cultural] influence. In contrast to such natural knowledge, an idea whose origin is external to the mind can always be rejected, even when it is well established in it, if it turns out to contradict other ideas assumed to be correct. And, according to Spinoza, assumed knowledge can be replaced by true knowledge only by an inquiry which requires keeping the mind on reason.

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The psychological importance of this thesis is that, while a false idea that is well established in the mind weakens its active power, the endeavour to correct it, as he explains his own choice of keeping his mind on his inquiry, is to achieve peace of mind, which is the supreme good for every individual [see pp.44 and 46]. In the TCU he explains that when he began to devote as much time as possible to his inquiry, he soon found that the inquiry itself brought with it a feeling of well being, which convinced him that he was on the right track [see p.44]. In other words, what he discovered was that the drive and the instrument of the mind we call choice and free will must be seen as geared to achieve this supreme good. The third thesis is that once the mind focuses on reason there is no difference between this faculty of the mind and, for example, the circulation of the blood which ensures the unity of the body in all animals [PT V 5]. In view of today’s knowledge of the body, a modern version of this thesis would compare the faculty of reason to the immune system, the function of which is to recognise ‘unwanted’ invaders to the body and reject them [see pp.122 and 126]. The difference between an immune system and the ‘spiritual automaton’ is that in the latter, a conscious intervention of the mind is possible when the unity of thoughts is in doubt. This is the only sense of saying that choice means that it is up to us to do something. But, ‘up to us’ does not mean that the result of turning to reason is a matter of choice. If we correct a previously perceived cause of suffering, a change occurs in ‘the balance of reasons,’ and the experience of deciding what to do is consciousness of the response to the activity of this mental ‘immune system.’ The response itself is determined by the new balance of reasons. The fourth thesis, important for understanding the way turning to reason increases the power of the mind, is that it is not a complete system of knowledge that has a salutary effect on behaviour, but the process of creating it [E.V note to proposition X]. Suppose, Spinoza explains, that by observing the harm done by reciprocating the effect of hate by equal hatred, we come to the conclusion that it is a good idea to formulate a rule

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like ‘you ought to respond to hatred by love.’ This rule can reduce the damage only if we devise ways to apply it often so that it comes to mind whenever needed. He explains that such a rule will work due to the natural satisfaction that people derive from achieving what they conceive to be the right way of life. It is clear that in a society in which people accept such a rule hatred of others will occupy a smaller part in their minds than otherwise. This explanation may refer to the utility of religion for the installment and preservation of morality [see pp.61 and 127]. But the need to devise ways to apply such rules often, so that they come to mind whenever needed, can also refer to his recommendation to include a theory of education among the required sciences which constitute the condition for increasing freedom, namely the influence of free will, in Spinoza’s sense of the word. In the same cited note to proposition X, the role of natural reason is accentuated by pointing to the possibility of selfeducation. If a person is eager for honour, but at the same time does not ignore reason, he would do well to contemplate the truly good things that give him honour and pursue them. This [sublimation of emotions, as Freud would say] will prevent the common phenomenon that people who strive but fail to get what they crave for, tend to declare that all is vanity, and abuse others for craving anything. Apart from craving for honour, Spinoza's examples are, that poor people who long for wealth but fail to get it declare wealth to be either worthless or the enemy of the people, and that disappointed lovers may turn into haters of all members of the opposite sex. All this practical advice belongs to the understanding of rationality, discussed in the next chapter: It is important to note that Spinoza does not deny that a ‘spiritual automaton’ is largely influenced by the culture of a society. In particular, he does not deny that a conceived morality is culturally influenced. But, according to him, this applies to moral customs. Moral judgements are a kind of understanding. In a letter to Oldenburg [C. LXXVIII], Spinoza writes that if people are sinners, they remain sinners as long as their intellect is not developed enough to gain the understanding needed for

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relieving them of their misfortune. By ‘their misfortune’ he means their failure to achieve the peace of mind which they could have gained by understanding their own good. But the main point of the four theses is that they apply to all people in all cultures, and can always increase the power of the mind. It is in this spirit that we should understand the last part of the fifth book in the Ethics [from proposition XXIV] dealing with understanding the concepts of salvation and blessedness. Most probably, he used this terminology of theology, which is so alien to his philosophy, because his arguments were directed to those who feared that the pursuit of knowledge, which dissociated natural philosophy (i.e. science) from theology, would sever the relation between knowledge and morality. I come back to this probable reason for using this language in chapter IX. Here I concentrate on his intention to show, first, that the desire for peace of mind is the natural basis for the desire for salvation and blessedness, which people hope to obtain by piety, and, second, that there is no necessary contradiction between faith and reason, provided these are considered natural properties of humanity. In a note to proposition XXXIX, Spinoza says that people see a contradiction between his claim that the Love of God arises from an intuitive knowledge that God is the ultimate cause of everything, and his claim that this love increases with knowledge. However, he explains, these claims are not more contradictory than saying that perfection – the power to utilize fully one’s own natural capacities – increases with understanding and at the same time claiming that this perfection is rooted in human nature. Blessedness is clearly the achievement of perfection. But it is also clear that if the mind can rise to such a state at all it must be endowed with the [potential] capacity to do so from the start. In a note to this proposition he explains that in the course of our lives we move from a state of an infant who is hardly aware of himself or of God [of nature], and whose body is capable of very few activities, to a state of an adult who enjoys his mind and body the more he is capable of

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many activities. On the whole, an unhappy life is a life that ends without achieving the higher possible states of a thinking-being. This is the best interpretation of saying that happiness lies in increasing the possibility of choice, which is the same as increasing freedom. In conformity with the first section in the TCU, Spinoza argues in this part of the Ethics, that we do not rejoice because we overcome lust, but we overcome lust because we rejoice in doing so. He explains that equating virtue to the love of God in religion, may be seen as equivalent to his own idea, provided both his conception of God is entertained, and the meaning of virtue is based on our natural understanding that we need each other’s help. In this case, blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but is the joy experienced with understanding that God is the cause of our natural virtue. In all this explanation his identification of God with Nature, namely nature with its conatus, should be born in mind. The importance that Spinoza attributes to his explanation in natural terms is in its implications. The first implication is that among the emotions which move people to action is the acceptance of necessity in Nature. This is a constant emotional attitude, which is the essential drive to pursue knowledge. No social pressure can destroy this emotion which he calls the natural Love of God. The second implication is that there is no contradiction between the desire to lead a good life and the desire to be guided by reason [proposition XL]. A person who reaches his maximum capacities feels that he has led a good [happy] life and does not fear death. The fear of death and the desire for salvation in the next world is a distortion of the natural desire for peace of mind, the source of happiness in this world. The moral point of this explanation is that for acquiring a conception of a right way of living one does not need to refer to the independent existence of the soul in the theological sense. It means that even after acquiring the knowledge that only in the sense he explains it, the soul was immortal [see pp.119-120] one can continue to hold a moral attitude to life [proposition

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XLI and note].81) The third implication is that the joy, or happiness, reached in attaining one’s maximum capacities is the feeling of freedom. It is the feeling that the achievement has been of one’s own doing. But the important implication concerning the philosophy of science is that, while principles of any particular religion [or culture] belong to those ideas which might only appear to be clear and distinct to the mind, and thus are in need of verification or rejection, his postulated meaning of virtue, like all intuitions, are common to all mankind. And as of the evidence for all intuitions, the evidence of the meaning of virtue can be obtained by anybody who becomes aware of it by self-reflection. In a note to the last proposition in Ethics Spinoza asks himself, if his conclusions rest on his claim that they are based on human nature, why are they so seldom concluded by others? In this note he answers that it is because all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. But in fact he explains this rarity in both the TCU and in E IV. In the first two sections of the TCU he explains that reaching his conclusions required him to devote most of his time to a philosophical inquiry, a way of life which, as he explains in section VII, cannot be chosen by most people who are forced to cope with everyday life. And in the Ethics, the rarity is explained as a result of the duality in human nature: an appeal to reason stems from striving to maintain one's freedom, which is the same as maintaining one’s

81) The idea that without religion morality is bound to disintegrate is common to this day, and has been forcefully advocated for example by Dostoyevsky, and by Solzhenitsyn against the communist idea that morality can be supported by a social ideology. The idea was common also in Spinoza's time, and he himself despised the kind of atheism which undermined morality [C. Letter XLIII]. R. Griffin pointed out to me that at Yale university, during the last quarter of the 19 th century, “Taylorism” fostered a theoretical separation of religion and ethics. Noah Porter, president of Yale and a Taylorist theologian, taught that ethics must be derived from human origins. Under Porter’s direction, Thorstein Veblen successfully defended his doctoral dissertation “Ethical Grounds of a Doctrine of Retribution” (1884). This humanist view of the origin of morality and law, shared by early pragmatists, was compatible with Spinoza’s view.

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free will. But succumbing to current dominant ideas in society stems from the desire to feel part of it, and from the exploitation of this desire by those in power [see pp.126]. One result of both explanations is that most people turn to reason only on occasions of pressing conflicts in their immediate circumstances of living. It follows that we must distinguish between natural rationality, which varies according to such circumstances, and the universal property of appealing to reason. This is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER VIII: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN APPEAL TO REASON AND RATIONALITY. Reason differs from rationality as the in the visual system, the capacity to see differs from looking – the tendency to observe things. Reason is the universal capacity to judge thoughts: the capacity to reject false ideas, and infer new from already known true ideas. Rationality, like observation, is a kind of behaviour. It is the tendency to turn to reason for judging thoughts. The essence of rationalism is the intuitive [innate] knowledge that, by being guided by reason it is possible to reach the best way out of adverse circumstances. The emphasis on ‘circumstances’ is the important aspect of Spinoza’s version of rationalism. It says that a rational decision is the best result obtained by the application of reason to ‘objective knowledge’ – which by his definition of the mind means knowledge derived from ‘objects of perception.’ [see p.10] – in everyday life as in philosophy and science. My purpose in emphasising this aspect of rationality is to clarify the distinction between the elementary function of an appeal to reason from the suggestion made in the previous chapter that keeping the mind on reason is embracing a detachment from the driving force of emotions [see p.173]. The elementary – quasi automatic – appeal to reason does not normally challenge current desires or even perceived causes of things. Therefore, although it also leads to an action guided by reasons, it lacks the detached state of mind needed for freeing itself from external influence. Natural rationality. A case of rationality applied in everyday life can be illustrated by a simple example. Suppose Isabel wakes up after midnight hearing footsteps in the hall. These might be John's steps who is coming home. But why is he not coming upstairs? Perhaps it is a burglar? She puts on the light: this may scare off an intruder. Should she phone the police? But, how ridiculous

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she would look if it is John! These thoughts influence her decision because they express her perceived causes of her fear. The decisive effect of her fear is exacerbated if recent burglaries had occurred in the neighbourhood. But if she has expected John to come home after midnight, she may ignore the steps in the hall, go back to sleep, and find her house burgled in the morning. This trivial example illustrates not only the close connection between Isabel’s reasoning and her emotions, but also the relation between using simple logic for taking rational decisions based on what she knows about the circumstances. Simple logic means the principles of reason which according to Spinoza are known to her even if she is ignorant of the invented tools of logic. Interpreting the sound she heard as a sign for entering the house is already an inference based on knowledge, and her doubt whether it is John is based on his failure to come upstairs as expected, which is her motive to turn to reason. Her rationality consists of taking account of the consequences of her response: if it is an intruder, she hopes that switching on the light will frighten him. If she phones the police, she might make a fool of herself. All these thoughts form part of an imagined scenario created in her mind. Her response is rational because she tries to take account of all the circumstances known to her. What are the known circumstances? Although Isabel took into account only what Spinoza describes as ‘accidental knowledge,’ more general knowledge which had been acquired rationally in the past, often becomes part of a tradition and thus counts among the circumstances that people take into account when making new rational decisions. Such is Spinoza’s example of farming. The meaning of acting rationally, he says, is shown by the difference between cultivating a field in a traditional way and finding the best way to do it [PT V 1]. The difference between the explanation of the latter by Spinoza and by those who consider it as a product of culture alone, can be illustrated by Latour’s view, which in chapter II I chose as the representative of cultural relativism. For both Spinoza and Latour, the idea that, say,

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hygiene is a major factor in the determination of health, is taken into account when seeking the best response to disease, because it is so widely accepted that it is taken to be a fact [see p.98]. Latour comments that this view became so widely accepted in the late nineteenth century in Europe and America because it reached a wide public through publications in books and newspapers, and in the text books used in schools. This is also implied by Spinoza’s explanation. Moreover, Spinoza would agree with Latour that false ideas can be accepted in this way and affect public policies irrespective of their truth.82) But, according to Spinoza, when people engage in science, such a false idea can have only a temporary hold on the mind. The difference between Spinoza and Latour is, that while Latour uses such examples in order to show that the concept of hygiene is a cultural invention that has nothing to do with truth about nature, Spinoza incorporated the correction of such cultural influence in his conception of rationality. In summary, while for Spinoza, reason is a natural instrument of the mind, and the appeal to it is a universal characterization of a human being, rationality is the application of reason to what Spinoza calls ‘objective knowledge.’ Such knowledge clearly includes culturally created ways to produce food or protect health. It includes all culturally created instruments for enlarging natural capacities, hammers as well as mathematics Spinoza would accept Latour’s point that only when knowledge is ‘materialized,’ for example in farming or in books, it is perceived by its users as ‘objective knowledge.’ To which we may add that the more complex these invented skills the more their use depends on their external representation in material form. The essence of cultural determination of behaviour is that invented skills can, and most often do, change modes of thinking irreversibly. Not because human nature

82) A false idea may occasionally have the same effect as a true one. For example, in nineteenth century London, the belief that disease was caused by the stench of open sewage was an incentive for changing the sewage system, thus contributing to public health in spite of its erroneous reasons.

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changes, but because these invented skills turned into components of the circumstances which have to be taken into account when making rational decisions. According to cultural determinism, the rejection of these skills in our culture is as unthinkable as the rejection of agriculture or industry in our way of life. And according to Spinoza, this is because the effect of these perceived causes of their responses are supported by emotions, and therefore are stronger than any abstract understanding of causes, even if the latter is materialised in books. But this does not change his view that in the long run a ‘spiritual automaton’ in which the causes of the emotions are perceived as the understanding of Nature’s dictates, is stronger than a ‘spiritual automaton’ governed by the passive acceptance of cultural influence. The possible achievement of, or failure to achieve, this state of mind ‘in the long run’ is the essence of The Indirect Effect of Reason on Culture, discussed in chapter XII. The present chapter deals with Spinoza’s understanding of rationality which is important for the philosophy of science. Rationality in the creation of political science. The first point to emphasise is that by rationality Spinoza means a human property. According to him, the idea that God created the best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz argued, as if God had to appeal to reason in order to find the best way to create his laws of nature, is absurd [E.I proposition xxxiii and notes]. ‘A best possible’ is a normative judgement of people, which ought to be understood by reference to human nature and human needs. The dependence on human nature includes the social aspect of humanity. This is clearly seen in his criticism of Hobbes [see p.31]. Spinoza’s criticism of Hobbes was to his assumption that the human mind could come up with an idea of a social contract while living in a state of nature which, according to Hobbes, was prior to living in societies. Spinoza agreed with Hobbes that succumbing to any kind of government was better than the prospect of chaos and misery expected when living alone. But his conception of the mind implied that this idea could not have occurred to people who did not already experienced a

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social life. He also agreed with Hobbes that without the enforcement of obedience by a political power, peace and security were impossible to achieve. But he thought that this correct conclusion is derived from the universal human tendency to refrain from taking an evil decision only in fear of greater evil, and the readiness to forgo an immediate good only in expectation of a greater good. From this psychological fact follows that by applying reason people could discover the advantage of succumbing to the power of a state in spite of the fact that law and order was imposed by force, because the expected peace and security could be provided only by the state. However, this did not abolish their desire to live according to their natural drives. In other words, Spinoza’s objection to Hobbes was not to his observations of human behaviour, with which he mostly agreed, but to his failure to recognize that the contradictory drives of people to live by their own nature – “Homo Hominy Lupus” – and their acceptance of being restrained by political power, are both natural. In a letter to Jarig Jelles [C. L] he explains that concepts like virtue and justice, which are used for justifying a legal system, could not have been formed in the minds of people who had not already lived in an organized society. And in his PT he explains that these concepts are rooted in the social aspect of human nature, and therefore are found in all forms of society. In the first chapter of the PT, Spinoza states his methodological principles in the creation of this science. He says that his intention is to demonstrate that a sound political science ought to be based on what is known of human nature and of political practice. A science built according to this method, he says, is as rational as any other science. To be based on political practice is to support any theoretical proposition by evidence, as is done in all branches of science. And also as in other branches of science, the evidence he intends to rely upon is not accidental This is comparable to the modern argument of Feynman that if an essential quantity (g) is postulated as being constant, but experimental evidence shows that it has different values in Stockholm than in Quito, we do not conclude that the experiment was not scientific, but correct our initial

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postulate [see p.135]. The difference between this method in physics and in political science is that the latter must also be based on what is known about human nature. As a matter of method, Spinoza’s first point is that his intention is not to lament human wicked behaviour but to understand it. He does not treat the passions as vices but as natural motives of behaviour. His second point is that his own turning to reason for creating this science – namely his adopting the detached kind of rationality needed for creating a science – is not a deviation from his claim that all thought are derived from human nature. This is because he knows that people naturally wish to understand inconvenient circumstances of living, which are the consequence of patterns of behaviour, just as they wish to understand the inconvenient circumstances of the weather by inquiring into its causes [PT I, 1-4]. Therefore, when dealing with human behaviour, both their passions and thoughts must be included in the analysis. His third point is that his knowledge of human nature taught him that passions are stronger than reason. It also taught him that the selfpreserving rules of every community are designed and maintained by ‘cunning and crafty’ individuals whose decisions can never be free from their subjection to their passions. Therefore, the task of a rational political science is to find the best principles of government which will prevent this ‘treachery’ of its leaders. The word ‘best’ is emphasized because, according to him, every policy of a state is designed for maintaining the unity and safety of a dominion. [PT I 5-7]. The fourth point is that unlike the use of rationality in everyday life, in science the circumstances which must be taken into account for reaching the best policy consist of universal properties of human nature. Below I list those which have been discussed already: 1) The duality of human nature stated in the notes to proposition xxxvii in part IV of Ethics [see pp.30-31]. The essence of this duality is the contradiction between the desire to live by one’s own natural inclinations and the desire to live in peace and security within one’s social group. In Spinoza’s view, the problem is not in the need to obey the laws of the

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state, because every rational person knows that peace and security, which only the state can provide, is the condition for fulfilling the desire to live by one’s own inclinations. The problem, according to him, is in the tendency of people to accept the ideas of those ‘cunning and crafty’ leaders as if they necessarily provide the best way to peace and security. 2) The passive acceptance of ideas promoted by those leaders is explained by the fact that it is experienced as because it gives a feeling of belonging to the group. To Spinoza’s explanation, that virtue is based on a natural knowledge that we need each other’s help [see p.160], he adds in his PT that a rational person knows that as long as his independence depends on his own power to guard against the aggression of all others, freedom from aggression remains an idea rather than a fact [PT II 15]. A rational person knows that without mutual help men can hardly support life, let alone be free to live by one’s own reason. This is why a rational person understands that if he wants to actually maintain his natural right to pursue his own plan of life, he must surrender a great part of it to the state [PT II 15-16]. The problem stated at the end of the first point – namely that people tend to accept the ideas of those ‘cunning and crafty’ leaders – remains. 3) Leaders of a society must always take into account that individuals are ready to forgo an immediate good only in expectation of a greater good, and they refrain from acting to satisfy a desire only in fear of a greater loss than their lack of satisfaction [see p.31]. Therefore, a stable regime is one which makes sure that people’s preparedness to surrender part of their ‘natural rights’ – of their natural powers – to the state is based on an expectation of the greater good of peace and security, and on the fear of a greater loss if they disobey the laws of the state. However, the expected coercion involved in imposing fear of disobedience, can be seen as an advantage only if people do not lose the control of reason over their thoughts. Only the combination of obedience to the law of a state with understanding the rationality of its acceptance can secure the kind of selfregulation needed for protecting individuals and societies from competing self-interests [see p.16]. 4) Where the laws of a community are frequently broken, it is not because

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its members are naturally more wicked than law abiding citizens, but because the state has failed to fulfill its function of educating people to citizenship. People, Spinoza says, are not born to be law abiding citizens. They must learn it and understand its advantage. To conceive of oneself as a citizen is to enjoy the advantages of a dominion. Such people do not normally break the law [PT III 1 and PT V]. While mere subjection to the rules is driven by the wish to escape punishment, citizens are driven by their hope to make a good use of their way of life. 5) The power of authorities in a community, even where the power of a king is conceived as absolute, necessarily depends on the support of a large number of people. Therefore, to the extent that a political science recommends civil laws, it must take account of the best way to gain the support they need. This is the topic of Spinoza’s comparison in the PT of a monarchy, an oligarchy and democracy. In short, a well run community is that which secures a constant willingness of its members to obey the laws. The contradiction which people see between the definition of freedom as acting by consulting one’s own reason and the assertion that people who seek freedom ought to be willing to obey the civil laws, is due to their failure to understand the difference between rationality, which always depends on taking circumstances into account, and the appeal to reason, which is the natural instrument of the mind to reconcile their contradictions. Can the PT serve as a modern guide for political science? Political Science, like all social sciences, was in Spinoza’s time included in moral philosophy. In the TCU Spinoza includes moral philosophy among the knowledge we need for achieving his purpose, namely for promoting freedom [see p.46]. In other words, if we agree with his purpose, the PT could be our guide. A problem with this is that, even if we agree with Spinoza’s explanation of rationality, it is not an easy task to distinguish between universal properties common to all humanity, and properties acquired by the influence of particular cultures. The only way to distinguish between them might be a complete historical analysis [see

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pp.97 and 162], which is beyond the scope of this book. Yet, the problem and perhaps a hint of a solution may be illustrated by some examples. First the problem. I think that a historical survey may verify Spinoza’s proposition that a principle of justice and charity is common to all mankind. But does this abstract idea tell us anything about its content? Consider John Rawls’s Theory of Justice.83) Rawls argues that we should aim at a social-economic system where the criterion for accepting its laws is the protection of the least advantaged. Against the socialist suggested policy for achieving the same aim he produces the common liberal argument that socialism leads to a loss for all, because only a system that encourages the drive to free enterprise ‘increases the cake,’ so to speak. He concludes that centring on just distribution can at best lead to equal sharing of poverty. However, against libertarians, who advocate a completely free market, Rawls argues that the task of government is to prevent those who have social-economic power from exploiting it for their own advantage. A legal system, he suggests, ought to support a principle of justice that harnesses their greed. By Spinoza’s conception of rationality, these are rational arguments because Rawls takes account of the inequalities observed in his society, and judges them by his liberal principle. He argues, that had it been possible to render people ignorant of their wealth and their positions in society, they would be bound to come up with the proposal that any law which interferes with free enterprise is just if, and only if, it is to the advantage of those in the worst social position. This is because, like Spinoza, he presupposes that it is natural for people to care for the less fortunate. In other words, Rawls’ thought-experiment suggests that if only people in the U.S. were ignorant of their position, they would certainly agree that his suggested legal system is a rational choice even if it requires them to give up some of their power to maximize their own profits. However, Rawls does not say that his thought-experiment would work in his society, where his liberal principals are generally accepted at least in 83) In his cited book his arguments are not concentrated in this way but see §24, §38, §42 and §43.

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theory. Nor does he acknowledge that this thought-experiment makes sense only in a society where the endeavour to maximize one's own profits is generally conceived as a ‘natural right,’ namely the power to do so. What Rawls suggests is that with his theory of justice he has discovered a universal conception of justice. What a historical comparison of various societies might confirm is that all legal, or even customary, systems are based on some principle of justice and charity. However, a historical comparison would also show that a feudal society justifies itself by a conception of justice and charity which is quite different from Rawl’s suggestion. Not even the most rational aristocrat in a feudal society – or in any rigid class or casts society – would assign a central role to economic enterprise for securing a just society. Throughout the middle ages, institutional religion provided the dominant standard for both justice and truth. By the first two points listing the universal properties of human nature which must be taken into account [see pp.192-193], we may conclude that its leadership was responsible for the suppression of the ‘natural right’ to apply one’s rationality. But also that since the appeal to reason is a natural drive, the suppression of rationality could never be total. What a historical survey would show is that people did revolt against corruption and oppression, but when they did so they rebelled against what they took to be an incorrect interpretation of the dominant standard of justice and truth. By analogy to the prophets in Spinoza’s analysis of the Bible [see p.98] the objection of Jan Huss (1370-1415) to the corruption of the Catholic clergy was made in the name of true religion. And so did the rebellious peasants in Germany (15241525). They rebelled against the economic oppression by nobles and landlords, and demanded agrarian rights in the name of divine law. In both cases, they were ruthlessly suppressed. Huss was invited to Rome to explain his complaints but was accused of heresy and burned at the stake. And thousands of peasants were killed in the suppression of their rebellion. Spinoza does not deny the influence of a culture on the natural mind, a fact he claims to have learned from his criticism of the skeptics [see

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p.65]. He does not deny that even things known by intuition needn’t be at the forefront of everybody’s thoughts [see p.22]. A clear example is the value attributed to celibacy by the Catholic church. This example is problematic when one adheres to the theory of evolution, because obviously the celibate individuals lose their chance to spread their genes in the population. But, in the middle ages, a person whose desire for learning was strong enough was forced to choose a life of a monk simply because in his society all learning was done in church institutions.84) Spinoza’s analysis of religion implies that, since the church leaders benefited from the monks’ celibacy, they had no difficulty in persuading themselves and those who joined the institutes of learning that a devotion to the church without sinful sex is rewarded in heaven, thus perpetuating the value of celibacy together with their own advantage from it [see note 79]. What is true about the middle ages is true about the capitalist system today. When economists claim that a competitive drive characterizes human behaviour, they are right if they confine their description to people living in a capitalist system, who must take account of its structural rules in order to survive in it. However, these economists are wrong if they attribute this drive to all rational people everywhere at all times. Moreover, a social scientist may point out that even in a capitalist society, the ‘natural right’ to maximize one’s profits became central only in the minds of those people who had the power to act upon it. But they treated the majority of its members as ‘factors of production.’ In this sense, the capitalist system is not different from the feudal social system, in which

84) A similar argument can explain the very large number of jews who converted to Christianity in order to enter institutions of learning in Austria and Germany well into the 20 th century. Since these institutions were closed to them, they had to choose between conversion or giving up their studies. I mention this example because only those who possessed the rare capacity to study on their own - to keep their mind on reason without an institution to direct them - could remain jews and become scholars, with the only help of personal friends. It is worth adding that for Heine the conversion to Christianity was as insignificant as it was pointless for Spinoza, because for both the essence of all religions was the same. They differ only as instruments of power.

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peasants, warriors and priests were conceived by others and by themselves as different kinds of people. It was the awareness of this lopsided interpretation of justice which led Anarcho-Syndicalists to argue that the legal system of capitalism provided each individual with an illusion of security of life and property, but left them unaware of the full value of their labour. The illusion, they say, is in the fact, that while protecting the employers’ theft of the products of the workers’ labour, the system denies workers the security which everybody is actually striving for. Their point was that the internal logic of the capitalist system made it unassailable from within. It could only be attacked from outside.85) In other words, as long as the guiding view of society, as capitalists see it, was firmly accepted, it could not be changed. Yet, there might be a hint of a solution in Spinoza’s political theory, if we accept the generality of his characterisation of the behaviour of the rulers and the ruled, of rebels and oppressors. If we understand the difference between the universal properties of human nature, which ought to be considered as permanent circumstances which ought to be taken into account when creating a political science, and the variable circumstances taken into account in everyday life. And if we accept his thesis that the natural universal role of a state is to preserve the peace and security needed for individuals to live according to their nature, we can judge any state – barbarous or civilized, as he says in PT I 7 – according to the extent it fulfils this natural role. What we may conclude is that a political science, like all science, depends on the guiding view of the universe which serves as a standard of truth. Spinoza’s political science, guided by his naturalistic view of the universe, allows us to start from two assumptions. That the stability of every social system depends on its members having a conception of their society which seems to them both necessary and just. And that the danger to this stability lies in the rejection of this conception of society by people who understand that it is not for their own good. Spinoza’s five points

85) Christian Cornellissen: En Marche vers la Société Nouvelle, Paris1900.

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allow the comparison of cultures, by taking into account to what extent they satisfy the conditions for stability. Do the same considerations apply to the natural sciences?. When natural science is seen as Feynman defined it [see pp.88-89], scientific rationality means the acceptance of the assumption that a scientific approach is defined by nature itself, and certainly not by anything outside science [see p.135]. It is this assumption that is contested by Latour’s philosophy of science [see pp.92-94]. An important example is that, from his observation of the increasing dependency of scientific institutions on financial support of government, Latour concludes that in our democratic society it is futile to expect that this dependency will have no effect on research. This implies that rational scientists must take account of this current circumstance. However, the important point of this example is that Latour does not say that his conclusion applies to our society. He claims that the dependency of science on the present-day power structure opened his eyes to see that this has always been the case. That it is impossible to discover universal truths of science that are not ‘contaminated’ by assumed truths in other walks of life. And according to him, this universal discovery ought to convince us that science cannot be the product of a disinterested mind. It is important to note that by Spinoza’s conception of rationality, Latour’s opinion that in a democracy like ours it is impossible to preserve the tradition of the Enlightenment is not necessarily refuted. But Latour’s conclusion that a scientist, or science as an institution, can never be devoted to the pursuit of truth is a scientific hypothesis in psychology and sociology respectively. As a scientific anthropologist, he should not have been satisfied with observing his own culture, but test this hypothesis by showing that rational thinking has never played a role in introducing changes in a culture. He does not find it necessary to do so because his observation simply confirms his presupposed cultural determinism, which serves him as a standard of truth. Spinoza understood very well that the development of science did

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not depend only on the truth of its ideas, but also on the readiness of other people in society to accept them, as he explains in TCU III [see p.47]. The difference between his time and ours is only in the identity of these ‘other people.’ It is clearly a correct fact, that in a democratic society like ours, these ‘other people’ have a much greater say in the determination of the support given to science. The important question is to what extent it affects the work of scientists. In modern science this question is considered by S.J. Gould [see p.99]. In his book Life's Grandeur [LG]. Gould explains that Darwin's belief in social progress was so important to him, that he could not disregard it when he thought about evolution, although there is nothing in his theory of evolution that suggests progress. The result, according to Gould, has been that the evolutionary process dominant in biology to this day is represented as progress from bacteria to man, where man is put apriori at the top of an evolving ladder.86) But, he says, [rationalist] biologists should know that the validity of their research depends on not admitting into their own field propositions which they consider true in other domains of inquiry. In Spinoza’s terms this means that it is not the requirement to keep the mind on reason that is neglected, but the requirement to keep each discipline apart. A requirement which according to Spinoza stems from the nature of understanding [see pp.127]. Gould points out that due to the influence of the idea of progress in evolution, this theory is plagued with mistaken assumptions. For example, that a steady increase in brain-size; or an increasing anatomical or neural complexity; or an increasing flexibility of a behavioural repertoire, are essential categories necessary for survival, and therefore crucial factors in the determination of evolution. All of them, he says, are designed to put humanity at the top,87) a kind of secular version of the best of all possible worlds created by God for the benefit of mankind. Gould has no quarrel with the psychological explanation of Darwin’s

86) Life's Grandeur pp.143-144. 87) LG p.19

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mistake as a cultural influence. On the contrary. His purpose was to alert biologists to the fact that Darwin’s psychological difficulties prevented him – and them – from drawing the real lesson from his theory, that variability is the essence of the evolution of life.88) According to him, the other influence which prevented later biologists to recognize this fact is the deeply entrenched doctrine of Plato, that ideas are more real than appearances. He points out that this is evident even in statistical theories, which were introduced for dealing with real variability. In statistical analyses, he says, averages are called expected values, as if they are more real than the full extent of variation described by the frequency distribution of observed data [hence his alternative name for his book: full house. But see pp.133-134]. The mistaken neglect of taking into account the influence of culturally dependent obstacles to the acceptance of scientific theories is also addressed by the geneticist Lewontin.89) According to him, the mistake is in the belief that a logical theory well tested by available data, will convince everybody to accept it. In his opinion, the reason for the fierce animosity in the U.S. between those who take for granted that the theory of evolution must be taught at school, and those who claim equal rights for creationism, is not due to arguments about truth. It is due to the objection of the latter to the interference of official institutions with the authority of the family in education. It is in this context, he says, that creationists claim that their conception of nature is as rational as that of biologists. In other words, the argument is about whether the best way of life needs to be based on scientific knowledge or on the traditional values of the family. The ‘dissident’ status of Gould and Lewontin within the scientific community in the U.S. is due to their inclusion of such unscientific considerations in their philosophy of science. They do not agree with the claim of cultural relativists, that the truth of scientific explanations ought to be judged by the social purpose they serve. But they object to the 88) LG p.3. 89) See The New York Review of Books of 9/1/97 p.28.

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scientists' insistence that they can ignore any non-scientific assumption irrespective of its effect on people’s minds. In other words, they accept the conception of rationality as depending on taking account of all circumstances which affect decisions. Finally, it is worth adding a moral aspect of Spinoza’s conception of rationality. His recommendation to intellectuals to distance themselves from practical occupations and commit themselves to the discovery of what is truly good for them to know [TCU II and III] is not based on an assumption that scientists or philosophers are naturally wiser or more moral than anybody else. It is based on the assumption that the blessedness he describes in E.V, is a privilege that can only be achieved by those who can devote themselves to the realm of thought, and this privilege puts intellectuals under a moral obligation to see to it that it is of use to the general public. Spinoza’s recommendations in TCU III can be seen as a replacement of the older attitude of noblesse oblige. This requirement may seem patronizing, and even contradicting his advocacy of democracy in his PT. However, the rationale for its recommendation is consistent with a real problematic aspect in a democracy [PT VII 27] which is still observed today. It is the contradiction between, on the one hand, the assumption that a condition for the survival of a democratic society is that it provides true solutions to problems which affect most people, and, on the other hand, that the structure of a democracy encourages a populist tendency of those in power, which as Spinoza already observed, tends to exploit their subjects' passions for their own advantage. This is why Spinoza concludes that the most important condition for a democracy to survive is that citizens do not lose their power of reason. This is because only then rational citizens, including rulers, can understand that the most dangerous situation in a society is where ‘cunning and crafty’ leaders follow their own passions and the public accepts their treachery [see pp.31 and 192]. In fact, this is the inevitable result of the populist tendency inherent in democracy.

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If a sustainable democracy depends on the rationality of its citizens, it is essential that they receive correct information about problematic situations, and that the explanations given by the institutions of government for their suggested solutions should reinforce their readiness to trust them [PT III 5].I come back to this point in chapter XI, on political freedom. Concerning the approach to science recommended by Spinoza, the important point is that even those who acknowledge the advantage of rational thinking fail to realize that this mode of thinking is not as firmly rooted in our culture as hammers and ploughs. They fail to realize, that in order to be as firmly rooted as these material aspects of a culture, rational thinking requires a continual encouragement in education and institutions of learning [TCU II]. Unfortunately, because the predominance of rational thinking is so vulnerable, the acceptance of Latour’s conclusion, that it is futile to expect scientists not to be influenced by political pressures [see p.199], is quite likely to lead us back to social conditions in earlier times when a major reason for the absence of rational science was its suppression.

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CHAPTER IX: AN INTERMEZZO - ON IMAGINATION AND REASON, METAPHORS AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS. My reason for introducing this intermezzo is to consider the possibility that Spinoza’s conception of God can be regarded as a metaphor for introducing his conception of Nature as an Active Being. A metaphor helps us imagine reality and thereby understand it. It differs from a model of reality, which like a theory purports to show a complete isomorphic relation between its abstract logical structure and the observed reality. A ‘complete’ isomorphic representation means a representation of all and only the essential features and interactions in a described structure. For a metaphor to be helpful three requirements are essential. First, it must be familiar enough for imagining the model. Second, its similarity to the model must be sufficiently close for understanding the model’s representation of reality. And third, since the better a metaphor satisfies these two requirements the greater the temptation to consider it as a model, it must not introduce concepts that are alien to the understanding of reality. These requirements are illustrated by using the concept of information as a metaphor for understanding the structural view [see pp.121-124]. In our time, this metaphor certainly satisfies the first requirement. In the way it is described, it satisfies the second requirement because it distinguishes between signals that are essential for a transformation law to fulfill its function, and signals of particular circumstances. For example, the metaphor of information is quite close to a model representing the essential function of the immune system, when responding to invading bacteria and in an allergy.90) And, provided we do

90) An allergy is a good example in this book because it fits Spinoza’s characterization of pain as consciousness of the body's reduced ability to act [see p.19]. And indeed the pain of a person affected by a real disease or by an allergy is

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not take the comparison to the familiar notion of information literally, the third requirement is also satisfied. In passing, we may note that so called ‘dead metaphors,’ namely metaphors so deeply embedded in the very use of language that we stop thinking of them as metaphors, can be the source of errors because they violate the third requirement of a metaphor. This is seen in Spinoza’s suggestion that the use of language may have been one source of the idea that the soul is independent of the body [see p.49]. There are examples of this kind in modern science. Consider the formulation of Newton's law that two objects attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. If we do not take the meaning of attraction literally, the equation correctly represents the essence of motion in space, by which we can easily understand it. Scientists, whose view of inert matter does not allow them to attribute attraction to objects, emphasise the metaphorical use of the word. The same applies to the notion of force in mechanics. For Newton the concept fitted his conception of inert matter because the force was conceived as imposed by God. The positivist retreat from Newton’s assumption of God’s intervention led to their claim that ‘force’ is a mere name of the observed accelerated motion. This nominalism emphasises the positivist view that ‘force’ is a posited notion, because science can only describe how things appear to us. By analogy to the identification of feeling warm or hungry with the physical processes which cause it, force is identified with acceleration because the vectors measuring them are the same. Hence, postulating a force is necessarily either a metaphysical, speculative, concept, or a metaphor. Realists’ acceptance of the identification of force with acceleration is the fact that once acceleration occurs it becomes a causal force of further motion. Spinoza certainly did not consider the notion of force as a metaphor. He considered it a very real part of Nature’s conatus. But this is not my reason for introducing this ‘intermezzo.’ As pointed out at the beginning

equally debilitating.

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of this chapter, my reason is to consider whether Spinoza’s conception of God can be considered as a metaphor for introducing his conception of Nature as an Active Being. His indignant response to the accusation of atheism suggests that he did not see in his equation of nature to God a mere metaphor. It is quite likely that when he corrected Descartes’ reliance on the existence of God [see p.57], he had in mind only a rejection of the existence of God outside nature. This may also be suggested by his explanation of the way people came to conceive of God in this way, namely by using themselves as a metaphor [see pp.85-86]. He showed the absurdity of this metaphor, by which God differs from man only in the degree of power and knowledge. However, when he explained the nature of the human mind, he used this familiar concept of God as a metaphor. If people compare God’s mind to the human mind, they must assume that He is constantly conscious of all aspects of His Nature in all their details. But people can never be conscious of all the details of things they know, thus their minds must reduce the knowledge of all things to their essence alone [see p.16]. Contrary to the use of this common conception of God, he used his own conception of God for explaining his notion of freedom. He explains that one is free when the source of one’s actions is not external to oneself. Hence, the common certainty that God is absolutely free means simply that there is nothing external to Himself [to Nature] which can affect His decrees [the laws of nature]. This was supposed to explain that being free is consistent with acting by necessity. God's actions represent both absolute freedom and the absolute power of the laws of nature, by which everything is necessarily as it is. Human actions which follow reason represent the limited freedom of the active part of human nature, which is free from external influence of other minds, even if its resulting action is necessarily determined by a balance of reasons [see pp.172 and 176]. Spinoza hoped that with this explanations he could convince people that the theologians' conception of God was ludicrous. But, he also thought that even the new scientists could not reach this conviction without seeing the contradiction between their new conception of the laws of nature and

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their acceptance of the familiar conception of God. Spinoza’s hope was greatest with scientists because he was sure that they did not think that they could persuade God to change His laws for the sake of humanity [see p.86]. He thought that it was not possible to reconcile science with the theologians’ conception of God – not even as a metaphor – because their use of ‘God’s decrees’ introduced a concept alien to the scientific understanding of reality. These arguments show that Spinoza could not consider the familiar conception of God as a persuasive metaphor for understanding his new conception of Nature. But they also show that his own conception of God can be a metaphor. However, This idea fits modern atheists better that his opponents at the time. It was clearly expressed by Nicholas Steno when he wrote to "the reformer of Descartes' philosophy." What is more alien to reason, he asked, than denying the Word of God whose work is obvious to the senses? And this on the ground that Descartes’ knowledge did not agree with merely hypothetical particles! [C. Letter LXVII]. But my point in the present chapter is that the difficulty to decide whether his conception of God was or was not intended as a mere metaphor is, that if it was so intended, it was a very good one for his contemporaries because it certainly satisfied the three requirements of a metaphor [see p.205].The concept of God was certainly familiar. Spinoza’s correction of this concept very closely coincided with what he considered to be a scientific model of the unity of nature. And this correction of the concept of God removed traditional theological concepts which were alien to what he considered to be a correct scientific understanding. Nevertheless, an important aspect of his use of the concept of God is that he did not think that as a philosopher he could confine his analysis to the Cartesian conception of science, as his contemporaries did. He thought that he also had to find scientific explanations for common religious beliefs. The attempt to do this is seen in the last part of book V of the Ethics [propositions XXIV - XXXII], where he addresses the notion of salvation and the eternity of the soul. This is of particular interest because from the point of view of modern science, these concepts seem

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totally alien to science. The central idea in his argument is that salvation is obtainable by an intellectual love of God. This intellectual love is not different from any other love. When we know the cause of pleasure we love it. And reaching understanding is a kind of pleasure. Therefore, he who understands that God is the cause of all things, loves God. The greater this understanding, the more the love of God occupies the mind [Ibid propositions XV and XVI]. This notion of love of God was supposed to assuage the fear of the pious that philosophical (namely scientific) knowledge would cause a neglect of virtue. However, he argues that we must understand that God cannot be affected by any emotion. For the same reason, he who loves God cannot wish that God would love him in return because such a wish amounts to wishing that God wouldn't be God. In other words, it would amount to accepting the theologians’ image of God as a powerful and an all knowing man. The fear of the pious, Spinoza says, can be assuaged if instead of assuming that virtue is supported by fear of hell they would understand that virtue, as explained in the oft cited two notes to prop.xxxvii in part IV of the Ethics [see pp.30, 34 or 126], is our intuitive knowledge that we need each other’s help. The belief in the immortality of the soul is given in chapter IV [see p. 120 and also p.183]. The important point in the present context is that Spinoza did not only think that since this belief is so common it needed a natural explanation, but also that his interpretation of the soul as a ‘carrier’ of consciousness, and therefore also of the power of thinking, is not a metaphor. On the contrary, his assertion that all things are animated to some extent, may have been intended as a metaphor, explaining the notion of conatus in terms of the familiar conception of the soul. In summary, if Spinoza borrowed theological terms for a clarification of his philosophy only as a metaphor, this metaphor was a very good choice. For him, the choice was methodologically important because, as he argued in TPT V, if one wishes to persuade others for or against any idea that is not self-evident to them, one must start from

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premises accepted by them and continue from there to show that their arguments contradict what they consider self-evident [see p.59]. But today, even atheists can see in his methodological point a concession to the place of imagination in understanding: clearly, Spinoza’s 17th century contemporaries could not understand his idea of a self-creating universe because they could not imagine it [see p.86]. This implication is acutely felt today when trying to understand quantum mechanics. From these considerations we can conclude that the labourious process of correcting our understanding, as Spinoza says, depends to some extent on improving the chosen metaphors. If we consider Spinoza’s use of the conception of God as a metaphor, it was successful because he changed the familiar concept of God to become closer to his model of nature, without retaining the concepts alien to it. But most important in the present chapter, we must conclude that, the success in turning a general view of reality – whether it is the whole universe or, say, the realm of living organisms – into a general standard of truth by which we judge the correctness of a scientific theory, depends to some extent on the agreement of a metaphor with this general view. With this view of the use of metaphors in mind, I shall examine a metaphor that is considered good for understanding evolution by the Inverted Cartesian view. As explained in the introduction, this view was accepted after Darwin, when Descartes’ mind/body dualism was replaced by the nature/culture dichotomy [see p.39]. As in other chapters, I chose one person, the scientist Richard Dawkins, to illustrate the case.91) Dawkins claims that with his concept of a selfish-gene he wants to remove from science any teleological notion, as well as the possibility that natural selection works on organisms (on phenotypes). The latter, according to him, implies that there is a ‘top down’ influence in biology, contradicting the essential assumption that structures evolve from the ‘bottom-up’ [see pp.116-118]. He argues that although his notion of a selfish-gene is metaphorical, it is a good metaphor because it helps us 91) My exposition of his view here is based on his book Unweaving the Rainbow [UR].

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understand that the successful characteristics of any species is a result of a blind natural selection of genes throughout evolution. Metaphorically speaking, he says, a gene does not care about the survival of its carrier. An observed adaptation of individual organisms, he explains, cannot be the cause of evolution because natural selection can only work on constant units (the genes). The variability of phenotypes is caused by different compositions of these units. But the cooperation of genes within phenotypes cannot affect what genes do.92) What counts for evolution is not any combination of genes in a particular organism, but on the frequency of the appearance of any gene in all these combinations. Any cooperation due to organization must be explained as a consequence of evolution on the genetic level. If this is understood, Dawkins says, the phenomenon of cooperation of individual organisms, which causes so much controversy when thinking of organisms as the units on which evolution works, disappears. He explains that cooperation emerges from the ‘bottom-up’ because natural selection favours genes not merely when they happen to be good in performing their tasks, but also when one of them is good in switching-on the other. This is how a cooperative structure comes into existence. The importance of cooperation of genes, he adds, is not confined to particular species because what is useful for the camel may be as useful for a squid. An organism of any species, he says, is a chemical production-line in which cooperating genes fit well. But, when they move to another production line, they need not fit so well. This, he says, can be shown by observing that in hybrid animals, the beneficial effect of cooperation often breaks down. What counts in the cooperative aspect of the particular structure of a species is the interlocked survival of genes. Our intuition tells us that the cheetah, not its genome, is well adapted to its environment. But the cheetah is a killing machine produced by the programming of its genome, just as the antelope is programmed to escape 92) This has been the argument against Lamarck that acquired properties of phenotypes cannot be inherited.

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it. Why, he asks, do we have such an intuition? One explanation is the obvious fact that we see animals rather than their genes. A better reason is that even a correct description of natural selection shows that it does not only favour genes that are good at surviving within the environment of the genes-pool (genome) of their own species, but is also good at surviving within environments that include the consequences of other gene-pools. In an environment where cheetahs live, the genes of a better running antelope have a greatest chance of survival. This interdependency of genepools, he says, gave rise to the romantic view of the rain-forest as constituting a self-regulating ecological system, where bacteria in the soil break up the leaves into compost, supplying nourishment for plants, which in turn serve as food to animals etc. This romantic teleological notion disappears, he says, if we remember that bacteria perform their task of compost-making as prescribed by their genome which programmes their activities, and this programme had been selected only for the good of their own genes. The last sentence in the previous paragraph is what is meant metaphorically by ascribing selfishness to genes. And according to Dawkins it is a good metaphor because it satisfies the third requirement of a metaphor. It makes clear that if the activities of bacteria are good for other organisms, this benefit arises without introducing teleological notions into our understanding of nature. With such a sober [mechanistic] view of nature, he says, we shall resist the temptation of accepting Lovelock's idea of Gaia, as if the earth as a whole is an organism, influencing the internal behaviour of its components to boot. Dawkins accepts the structural reductionist view, according to which the nature of every structure depends on the organization of its components, provided it is understood that this organization evolves from the bottom-up. Dawkins explains that the important aspect of ecological cooperation between (as opposed to within) organisms is co-evolution. A metaphor sometimes used for co-evolution is an arms-race, as shown by the running-speed of a cheetah (a predator) and of the antelope (its prey). Their mutual adaptation is a result of the fact that if one set of genes

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produces a more efficient way to overcome the efficiency of another set, the latter must follow suit or perish. However, as far as genes are concerned there is no difference between co-evolution within and between species. Life, he says, is the totality of genes composed of chains of genomes reproducing themselves. Metaphorically speaking, organisms are artifacts that emerge when selfish genes gang together for their own purpose.93) Note that while Dawkins’ metaphor of a selfish gene removes the notion of teleology, or purpose, from Nature, this new metaphor brings it back on the genetic level. According to Daniel Dennett this is because we cannot avoid taking what he calls the ‘intentional stance.’ It means attributing a purpose to all things. I come back to this, and to Spinoza’s different explanation, in the next chapter. Dawkins objects to the use of the notion of adaptation for describing the process of natural selection, because ‘to adapt’ suggests an intentional action that is alien to a correct understanding of natural reality. Adaptation implies learning. He does not deny that learned patterns of behaviour transmitted from one generation to the next by the animals (phenotypes) have a role in what is called adaptation. But he emphasises the antiLamarckian argument, that learned patterns of behaviour cannot be inherited. This, he says, is clearly seen in the fact that, in spite of the enormous difference between the effects of learning on a chimpanzee and a human being, the difference between their genomes has remained very small throughout evolution. This is why genetics is not sufficient for explaining their different cultures, where ‘a culture’ stands for a way of life that is not determined by nature, namely by genes. Therefore, for explaining this cultural, or behavioural, difference, Dawkins thinks that the computer metaphor is more suitable than the selfish-gene. According to Dawkins, the computer is a good metaphor for explaining this difference, not because the brain works like a computer (he says that it does not), but because the combination hardware/software

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helps us to understand two things. One is the brain's capacity to create an endless variety of virtual realities, a fact that clarifies the interaction of an organism with its virtual realities – with its cultures created by different software – rather than with natural reality as it is. The second is the coevolution of large brains with the increasing role of these virtual realities in the determination of behaviour. The development of both is produced by a relatively small genetic change. He thinks that if the co-evolution of the brain/mind is understood by analogy to hardware/software, we shall also understand that the top-down effect of patterns of learned behaviour are not part of biology. In other words, the analogy provides a good metaphor for understanding the nature/culture dichotomy. Although this is not his formulation, it expresses his idea that the metaphor will explain why tool-making has had such far reaching consequences for the development of the cultural history of humanity, but very little effect on other apes. A brain, Dawkins explains, is an information processing machine. The input it processes is a wide range of wave-lengths, split by this machine into small sections, each of which is absorbed by a sense organ and transformed into information94).The song of a nightingale can be interpreted as if a male is informing a female "I am in a breeding condition with a territory, hormonally primed to mate and build a nest," but it can also be interpreted as something like a drug which manipulates the female's brain directly, inducing her to respond to his call.95) The first interpretation is our intuitive attribution of intentions to the bird, which by the second interpretation is understood to be superfluous. Does the latter imply innate knowledge? Dawkins’ answer is that the brain utilizes innate knowledge, but this knowledge is not what we call knowledge. It is not a result of

94) This is the discovery which followed ‘the unweaving of the rainbow,’ providing the name of the book. Dawkins adds the example of radios which pick up a range of wave-lengths and translate them into sound. This is added in order to show that in reality quantities of energy are translatable from one informative code into another. 95) UR pp.79-80.

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understanding, let alone reasoning. According to Dawkins, the mechanistic conception of animals means that they are natural statisticians, meaning that their brains carry out calculations that find for them a middle road between avoiding all risks, which would paralyse them into inaction, and taking unnecessarily dangerous risks. In our understanding of statistics – which according to Dawkins is a cultural invention – these are known as two types of error: rejecting a true hypothetical cause of an observed event on the grounds that the event could have occurred by chance, and accepting a false hypothetical cause because by chance an unusual event has occurred. But the brain of a fish, he says, neglects the second type of error. It automatically responds to all wiggling things as to worms (food) and thus neglects the danger of being caught by anglers. Dawkins quotes William James’s explanation that "there are more worms unattached to hooks than impaled upon them. Therefore, on the whole, says Nature to her fishy children, bite at every worm and take your chance".96) Similarly, an animal’s brain applies logical inference without understanding. It does so when the quantity of information it must process exceeds its capacity. Nature solved this problem by recording only changes in incoming information. For example, our natural visual system does not record a continuous patch of the same colour. Only a change in colour is recorded. The constant colour of the patch is inferred by the brain from the absence of recorded change within it. The same applies to perceived movement. Only deviations from expected directions are recorded. What is expected is supplied by the genome of the species. Its DNA provides it with a memory of the environment of its species which it expects to remain the same. An organism, then, needs to obtain a very small part of what we think is the input to its senses. From this scant information it completes its inherited innate knowledge into a model of its present environment.97)

96) UR p.176. 97) An innate memory of a plan, as Plato might have said.

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Although the models are virtual realities created by the brain from scant incoming information, they give a feeling of being firmly placed in the real world because the created model is as it should be. The created model – namely, the perceived reality – is metaphorically described as the product of the software which creates it. We can explain the behaviour of a frog, he says, as a bug-hunter which does not care for the identity of the bug, by the size of its brain which forces it to take its chance, as does the fish in James’s explanation. But other animals, like apes and humans, must care whose face they see. According to Dawkins, it is the enormity of the human brain's task in reconstructing a face from very scant information that is responsible for the frequency of visual illusions. It is responsible for children being terrified of the dark because they see faces of monsters staring at them from every corner, and even for adults seeing angles or imagining supernatural speakers whose voice they hear. A brain so good at reconstructing a realistic virtual reality from very scant information, he says, is inevitably also very good at constructing imaginary ones.98) His conclusion is that the more the quantity of incoming information must be reduced by coding it into manageable proportions the greater is the need for ‘re-weaving the world’ (the name of chapter 11 in UR). He sees the special suitability of comparing the human mind to software, which expresses his assumed nature/culture dichotomy, in reflecting the independence of the content of our minds from the structure of our brains. Postulating this independence is important to Dawkins because, as he says, we must admit that in highly social animals like ourselves the models we seem to produce individually are at least partly group-constructions. In other words, These models are not at all created by each brain. They are inserted in each member of a society by its culture. This amounts to an admittance of a ‘top-down’ influence of a society on the minds of its individual members. But, according to Dawkins, his new metaphor purports to show that this evident influence is not biological. What

98) UR pp.267 and 276.

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remains to be explained, he says, is first, how in spite of their independence, the mind [the software] and the brain [the hardware] evolved together, and second, how the content of the mind is determined. Concerning the first question, Dawkins explains that co-evolution is a mutually reinforcing process. This is also true of computers. The more software is developed the more is invested in developing computers. And the more developed the hardware, the more software can be programmed. This coevolution of software and hardware makes it such a good metaphor for the co-evolution of bigger brains suitable for accommodating more mind in humans. He claims that the evidence for this co-evolution being independent of the genetically determined evolution of the brain, is the fact that our brains remained as they were when they evolved under the stone-age conditions. Although we do not have such old brains to inspect, we can infer this independence from the traces of our stone-age minds in spite of our cultural achievements. For example, when we think of a person whom we had not seen for a long time and suddenly meet him again, we are prone ‘to gasp at the coincidence,’ in spite of our knowledge of statistics, by which even events whose probable occurrence is very small do occasionally occur. The reason for our gasping at the coincidence, he says, is that our intuitions (inserted in our DNA model) remained as they evolved in our ancestors under the stone-age conditions, when the tendency to see significant relations even when there were none, from which causal relations were suggested to them, was much more important for survival than rejecting such a suggestion because it could be a mere coincidence. Dawkins concludes that although when engaging in science we take account of the two types of error known to statisticians [see p.215], we do not do so naturally. The co-evolution of brain and mind is shown by the fact that the human brain had doubled its size every 1.5 million years, and this must have been triggered off by some aspect of the software. One suggested trigger is that the growing fondness of meat in the human diet required cooperation and communication for hunting. Dawkins rejects this explanation because chimpanzees also hunt in groups, and this did not

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lead to the same result. According to him, the invention of language is the real trigger. Dawkins rejects the view of some linguists, that the use of language was invented in one piece. What is special in human language, he says, is its structure. And like all structures it must have developed from the bottom-up, from those rudimentary signs available to animals, for saying ‘go away’ or ‘feed me.’ The triggering fact for the development of a structured human language is that a cultural environment with some use of language must have been dramatically in favour of individuals genetically equipped to exploit its use, thus imposing a selective pressure on genes which made an easy acquisition of language possible. The more genes were selected to survive in virtual realities generated by the invention of speech, the more the brains grew to accommodate these virtual realities, corresponding to software/hardware co-evolution. Language evolved to become good at infecting children's brains, and children's brains evolved to be good at being infected by a language. The essential argument, which according to Dawkins removes the cultural top-down influence from biology, is in the answer to the second question – how the content of the mind is determined. By analogy to genetics, the answer is found in the unit of cultural transmission, the meme (rhymes with gene).99) A meme is anything that spreads by imitation and thus replicates itself by passing from brain to brain. Memes spread because they are good at spreading. Dawkins notes that we do not know what makes them good at spreading, but for the analogy to natural selection to work it is sufficient to know that some memes are ‘infectious’ by being good at being copied. Memes, he explains, could not spread without the biologically valuable tendency of individuals to imitate each other, or even other species. This tendency of brains evolved by natural selection for good reasons. Any animal who can imitate well, learns skills much more quickly than those who have to build them up themselves. This explanation looks 99) Dawkins relies here on Dennett and Susan Blackmore, although they rely on his introduction of the term in 1976.

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like evidence that natural selection works on phenotypes, because not genes but organisms can imitate each other. But in Dawkins’ opinion, the tendency to imitate is not in itself sufficient for triggering off the coevolution of language and culture, because it is not particularly human. He tells of a recent example for this, supplied by blue tits in England, which learned to peck at milk bottles left at people's door steps. A study of the way this behaviour spread left no doubt of its being learned by imitation. But only in humans this tendency led to the invention of language. What the imitating talent shows is that the evolution of a mind started with the growth of imagination, which is the capacity to create virtual realities. The capacity to imitate became important in humans, and not in other apes whose genome is so similar to ours, because our ancestors had a consistent tendency to imitate the best imitators, by which the spread of memes is reinforced. It is quite possible, he says, that the origin of this tendency is sexual selection, which is considered a powerful force in evolution. It is possible that our ancestors impressed their mates by remembering the details of a ritual dance, as a peacock impresses its mate with its useless fan.100) In other words, the tendency to imitate the best imitators need not necessarily have conferred a direct advantage to its users. It may have been a byproduct of the selection of another gene that has switched it on [see p.211]. The result of this reinforcement of imitation has been that “genes are selected in ordinary Darwinian way for their ability to make individuals that are good at spreading memes.”101) An important point in comparing genes to memes is that genes are the carriers of the evolution of life and memes are the carriers of the evolution of cultures. The evolution of the chain of genomes which is Life [see pp.212], is supported by the evolution of the body-machines described in this book as the inverted Cartesian view. Memes too need a 100) In his Descent of Man Darwin uses sexual preference for explaining aesthetical preferences: the idea that a certain amount of hair or colour are beautiful might have co-evolved with their sexual preference. 101)UR p.308.

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supporting machinery which they parasitically find in brains. While genes build bodies for their housing and transportation, memes utilize this housing for their own propagation. When we think we have a good idea, Dawkins asks, "who knows what subconscious semi-Darwinian selection has gone behind the scenes inside our heads?" 102) The residence of memes in our brains, he says, creates our illusionary feeling of superior understanding, which is the real error of Descartes. Our feeling of understanding is an illusion because real understanding would involve efficient prediction. But, like the evolution of genes, the result of a competition among memes is unpredictable. The important point in the comparison, according to Dawkins, is the structural similarity between genetics and memetics: just as genes thrive when supported by other genes, so memes thrive in the presence of supporting memes. Just as a genes-pool of a species is a cartel of genes, so a cultural tradition represents a cartel of memes. In both cases, these cartels emerge from the bottom-up. Bodies emerge from an accumulation of mutually assisting genes that are good at surviving in the neighbourhood of other genes, and religions, ideologies, or political plans, emerge from mutually assisting memes that are good at surviving in the neighbourhood of other memes. It is within such dominant sets of memes that we, in our culture, find good ideas to be legitimate units of cultural spreading. But in fact, Dawkins reminds us, stupid jingles are better at being copied than good ideas. It follows that knowledge of the principles of reason is knowledge of a set of mutually supporting memes within the cartel of memes that dominates our scientifically-minded culture [see p.143 for comparison with Quine]. The effect of these principles on our behaviour is due to their manipulation of our brains. There is nothing in our nature that allows us to retain or discard them. His evidence that our scientific reasoning is not based on any intuition, or on innate knowledge, is that this reasoning continually discovers anti-intuitive properties in Nature. By this Dawkins

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does not mean only the theory of relativity or quantum-mechanics. Earlier discovered properties of nature, he says, like Galileo's discovery that without the resistance of air, light and heavy objects thrown from the tower of Pisa would reach the ground at the same time, is also antiintuitive. Our advantage compared to other animals is that although like other animals we are not naturally good logicians, mathematicians or statisticians, we can, as he says, use paper and pencils to make correct calculations. It is cultural evolution, Dawkins concludes, that allows us to construct correct models of the universe. Not of a universe full of spirits and magic as we are naturally so prone to construct, but a powerful model that makes some prediction possible and ‘allows us to choose.’ In other words, like Spinoza, Dawkins relates the possibility of choice to the power of reason, but in his opinion, the use of reason itself, and therefore the possibility to choose, are the creation of a culture According to Dawkins, the capacity of the brain to construct unrealistic virtual realities, which is certainly biological, was most likely the decisive step from the reliance on a constrained model inherited through our DNA to the unconstrained capacity to simulate things that are actually not there. According to him, this is the step that led to the dichotomy of nature/culture, which is not anymore a biological evolution. His computer metaphor explains how our brains accommodate the memes that constitute the content of such virtual realities we are so prone to believe. The crucial point in his explanation is that although the brain evolved biologically to accommodate a language, and although a language is the link between human nature created by genes and human culture created by memes, both bodies and cultures evolved independently from the bottom-up. His success in removing the top-down influence from biology, then, depends on his acceptance of the nature-versus-culture dichotomy. What I tried to show in this chapter is that metaphors are chosen for their familiarity, and familiarity is closely related to dominant worldviews. I tried to show that if we consider Spinoza’s conception of God as a metaphor, it satisfies the three requirements of a good one [see p.205]. What I tried to show in Dawkins’ case is that his metaphor of the ‘selfish

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gene’ is closely related to his adherence to the inverted Cartesian view of nature, with its implied nature/culture dichotomy. And the latter’s replacement of the brain/mind dualism is well represented by his ‘hardware/software’ metaphor. The problem I see in his choice of metaphors is that they do not satisfy the third condition, namely that they should not introduce concepts alien to his own model. Consider first Dawkins’ objection to the top-down influence on evolution, as being alien to a correct model of nature. He accuses his colleagues of refusing to see the point of his good metaphor of a selfish gene simply because they insist that natural selection must work on whole organisms. However, these unnamed colleagues may have good reasons for rejecting his metaphor. They may claim that as long as genes are supposed to be selected one by one – even if their selection for switchingon another gene helps explain the evolution of structure from the bottomup [see p.211] – the emergence of an organism, whose structure fits its needs for survival and reproduction, seems miraculous. This miracle has always been the source of the idea that such organized structures must have been designed according to a plan. It makes little difference whether the intelligent design is attributed to God or to Nature. The theory of natural selection is supposed to explain this miracle. And one aspect of the explanation is that at every stage in the evolution of an organism, its structure delimits the possible survival of chance mutations, thereby the ‘overall design’ becomes a little less miraculous. But it does suggest a topdown influence. The miracle is further reduced by observing that in fact, the surviving genomes are not perfect. Not all surviving properties are functionally useful. A notorious example of a harmful property being selected is the sickle-cell illness. This sickness is particularly prevalent in Africa because its genetic cause is connected to the naturally selected immunity against malaria. Dawkins claims that by changing his selfish-gene to the computer metaphor he has removed a ‘top-down’ influence from biology [see pp.214 and 221]. However, when he describes colonies of social insects, he explains that their different castes share all their genes, but by analogy to

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the development of different organs by the activation of different genes in different cells, so in a colony different sets of genes are turned on under different conditions of rearing. In this way, Dawkins says, the socialengineers of a colony create a useful balance of different castes.103) These social-engineers, he says, are genetically programmed to rear others as they do. It follows that the resulting social structure that determines the behaviour of its members, is a top-down influence, which being genetically determined, is clearly biological. Consider now Dawkins’ claim that by confining evolution to the genetic level he removed teleology from science, because Nature is shown to be indifferent to the fate of individual organisms or even to the survival of species. Yet, his metaphorical description of Life as ‘selfish-genes which gang together for their own purpose’ suggests a hidden teleology on the genetic level, contrary to his own insistence that a metaphor should not introduce concepts alien to his own model into a conception of nature [see p.205]. My reason for devoting so much space to Dawkins’ explanations is that many of his explanations could have been seen as scientific explanations of Spinoza’s naturalistic view in the light of the theory of evolution. This is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER X: NOTE ON THE TIMING OF THE INVERSION OF THE CARTESIAN VIEW My purpose in this chapter is to consider the importance of Spinoza’s suggested naturalist methodology in the light of the rising influence of the theory of evolution [see p.55 for his summary of the method]. The first and the second requirements in Spinoza’s suggested method are that all postulated propositions be tested by observation, and that knowledge of each domain of inquiry be separately organised in a logical system [see pp.11 and 127 respectively for his argument]. What the history of science shows is that – without relying on his suggestion – these requirements became part of the modern scientific method, and therefore also of biology under the guidance of the theory of evolution. In this way, the ‘routine work’ of scientists – described by Kuhn as normal science – purports to ensure that scientific research is not affected by influence external to the acquisition of knowledge. The problematic part of Spinoza’s suggested methodology is his requirement that the standard of truth for research should be determined by the correct conception of nature as quickly as possible. In the modern philosophy of science Kuhn’s idea of a paradigm expresses a similar idea of a guiding view. And both are problematic because they cannot be established by the two accepted items of scientific method. As Spinoza explains, a correct view of nature can only be reached by reflection on what we know. But what we know is judged by the accepted view – the paradigm. In practice this means that a new paradigm cannot be generally accepted before having sufficient scientific evidence to support it against its predecessor. And the history of science shows that it is very difficult, if at all possible, to protect this philosophical reflection from influence external to science, as Spinoza argues about the influence of theologians. The crucial problem is, then, that a view which prevails for whatever reasons has consequences which do not only affect the chance of another to be considered but also the direction of research. This

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consequence is discussed in chapters XII and XIII. Here I confine myself to my argument in the introduction, that in spite of the fact that the theory of evolution made the Cartesian distinction of the mind from the body harder to maintain, the idea that the body alone was in the realm of nature remained so deeply entrenched in the modern way of thinking, that Spinoza’s naturalism was too foreign for replacing it. Therefore, although when the theory of evolution started to be considered seriously it was logical to think about the inclusion of the mind in human nature, it led instead to what I call ‘the inverted Cartesian view’ [see p.38]. The phrase refers to a twist in the Cartesian tradition by which humanity was included in the evolutionary saga by considering the human body as a complicated machine, as Descartes saw animals, but everything which Descartes attributed to the human mind was relegated to the influence of a culture. In this way having a culture became the human property which retained the ‘privileged’ position of humanity in evolution. In this chapter, then, I confine myself to showing that what could have been considered sufficient evidence for Spinoza’s conception of nature is taken by most modern scientists and philosophers as sufficient evidence to support their conception of nature defined by the nature/culture dichotomy. Moreover, to this day, a naturalistic interpretation of the theory of evolution which includes even some aspects of the human mind cannot be considered self-evident before a long social ‘battle’ against it is overcome. Scientists for whom the theory of evolution is already an established paradigm, are convinced that as long as the scientific approach remains dominant in our society the theory of evolution is bound to win the battle. What I want to show in this chapter is that the combination of the theory of evolution with the nature/culture dichotomy undermines this confidence. This can be shown by the views of two champions of evolution, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. In both cases I start by showing that what could have been considered sufficient evidence for a naturalistic conception of nature like Spinoza’s, is taken by both Dawkins and Dennett to be sufficient evidence to support their conception of nature defined by the nature/culture dichotomy. And

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then I show that this approach undermines the fulfilment of what they see as the aim, or the advantage, of science. Dawkins’ arguments, based on his conception of nature, can be seen as providing scientific explanations to many of Spinoza’s propositions in the light of the theory of evolution. But Dawkins considers these explanations as evidence for the nature/culture dichotomy. This can be illustrated by several examples. Dawkins claims that the anti-intuitive discoveries of science show that these products of reason can be neither natural nor intuitive. [see pp.89 and 221 respectively]. However, neither Galileo’s discovery of the force of gravitation nor Einstein’s theory of relativity, were based on a claimed intuition. As explained in chapter II, Einstein and his contemporary community of physicists thought that the special theory of relativity was better than Newton’s planetary theory because it was more comprehensive, and not because it fitted our natural intuitions. On the contrary, Einstein acknowledged that Newton's concepts – for example the independence of space and time, or matter and energy – were intuitively easier to grasp than his own. His claim, that his theory was an improvement on Newton’s, was based on the fact that Newton’s theory was a good approximation for describing natural experience. But the increased range of the visible universe, made possible by new material tools – a generalization of Dawkins‘ reference to pencils and paper’ – required his correction [see pp.101-102]. In evolutionary terms, Einstein’s argument means that the real properties of space-time are not anti-intuitive because culture is independent of nature, but because our intuitions, which according to Dawkins are ‘coded’ in our DNA, are geared to coping with the conditions of living in the small part of the universe we occupy. But Einstein’s argument also shows that the new view of nature is acquired by keeping the mind on reason, which according to Spinoza is a natural property of a human being, as explained in chapter VII. In Dawkins’ terms, this means that, like the principles of reason themselves, this tendency is ‘coded’ in our DNA. It does not mean that the theories derived by applying reason

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are coded in it. Judging from Spinoza’s consideration of concepts like time and duration, it is clear that he did not think that the metaphysical conception of time can be derived from the natural perception of duration, let alone that such conceptions must be the same [see p.96]. This is the essence of the differentiation between reason, the natural instrument of the human mind, and rationality, which is its use under varying culturally determined situations, as explained in chapter VIII. In Dawkins’ terms, Spinoza’s proposition, that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has [E. II xiii], can be explained as a result of the fact that the growing interaction with variable environments undermines the feeling that the model coded in the DNA was as it should be [see p.216], thus increasing the dependency on knowledge. By analogy to James 's metaphor of Nature telling its fishy children to take their chances, Nature tells her human children not to trust the information they get through their senses as if it necessarily completes the information encoded in their genes. Nature tells its human children that they should employ the instrument of reason which it had given them, for selecting the virtual reality which restores to them that feeling of being firmly placed in the real world. This would imply that the best learningmethod should start with discovering the innate principles coded in the model they inherited in their DNA and proceed from there, which supports Spinoza’s recommended method. Dawkins could still insist that only those properties inscribed in the DNA can change by natural selection, but in this case, the emergence of Spinoza’s postulated function of reason would have to be included in the coding as a response to Dawkins’ proposition that the human brain is inevitably very good at imagining unrealistic worlds. In other words, his own explanation implies that the corrective function of reason was naturally selected because it became essential for survival. And most important, it could be selected because, as Dawkins says, the brains of all organisms naturally use inference and statistical calculations, so that the capacity was already present in the brains of humanity’s ancestors. This condition for emerging new properties follows from the theory of evolution, but it also supports Spinoza’s claim that the

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creation of mental tools is an extension of innate knowledge [see p.90 and 163-164]. Another argument of Dawkins for the justification of the nature/culture dichotomy is that tool-making has had far reaching consequences for the development of human culture but very little effect on other apes, in spite of their genetic similarity [see p.214]. However, this can be explained in Dawkins’ oft reference to co-evolution. This time of the coevolution of the human hand with tool-making. A rudimentary use of tools is certainly observed in apes. And by analogy to Dawkins’ explanation of the evolution of language, the genes which generate the shape of our hands were most probably naturally selected in our apeancestors due to an advantage that has nothing to do with tool-making. But once the shape of the hand evolved differently than in other apes, its final evolution was reinforced by the advantage which its increased dexterity provided for using and making tools. This explanation is analogous to Dawkins’ argument for the mind/brain coevolution. If Dawkins is right, the analogy can show how the coevolution of the hand with the development of tools could have led to an apparent independence of culture from human nature. This is because after this coevolution has been established, it could – with very little, if any, change in genes – lead to a great variety of uses, which only under special cultural conditions could support survival. My intention with this speculation is only to show that Dawkins’ speculations can be seen in the light of a naturalistic approach to the understanding of the diversification of cultures at least as reasonably as in the light of the nature/culture dichotomy. This can also be shown by other examples. When Dawkins speculates about the evolution of language he argues that it could have been triggered by an artistic drive [an explanation I did not mention in the previous chapter]. His speculation is based first, on the reasonable assumption that early human beings could infer the presence of a buffalo by seeing the marks of its feet on the ground, and second, on the known fact that cave-drawings were made very early in human evolution. These might have driven them to use feet-marks to

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represent the whole animal when wishing to signal its presence to others. The invention of language, then, might have been triggered by moving from an image of a buffalo in a cave, to a more symbolic representation of the buffalo by a representation of its feet, to a semantic representation that has no visual or other perceptual connection to the buffalo. The artistic drive itself is explained by Dawkins’ argument that the evolution of a mind must have started with the growth of imagination [see p.219]. Since he also says that our brains are like those of our stone-age ancestors, and their mental properties were still biologically determined, their artistic drive could not have been independent of genes. What is true of painting is presumably true of music, even if the only evidence we have for its being a universal artistic drive is that we do not know any culture without music in recorded history. I add music to his example because it affords me the possibility to illustrate how the variety of cultures can be explained without assuming their independence of human nature. Consider playing the piano. This occupation must be motivated by the pleasure derived from music, and its success depends also on good earhand coordination, both being natural components of human nature. But the possibility to survive in a society by playing this instrument became possible only after this instrument was invented, and more important, when the culture of a society where pianos were available included institutions like teaching music and paid-for concerts. In such a society, in agreement with Spinoza’s proposition that pleasure is consciousness of an increased ability to act, people do not distinguish between improving their ability to play the piano from improving hammers, which are more universally considered essential for human survival. In both cases, the imitating capacity, which according to Dawkins is the natural basis of learning [see pp.218-219], is converted into a process of instilling desirable skills in some children, often more desirable to parents and teachers than to the children themselves. It is the process of establishing patterns of habitual behaviour which, in a nutshell, represent the emergence of a distinct culture. Interpreting Spinoza’s naturalism in this

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light we may conclude that it is not only the case that the more people interact with their environment the more mind they have, as he proposed, but also that the more mind they have enables them to interact within their environments in a greater variety of ways. This too is explicable by coevolution, as Dawkins often explains. Spinoza includes ‘the extreme variability of human ways of life’ among the obstacles to the discovery of true intuitions [see p.175]. This can be interpreted as ‘the variety of cultures’ which is one obstacle to the discovery of the intuitively known true ideas, namely the innate knowledge which according to Dawkins must be inscribed in our DNA [see pp.214-216 and 229]. However, the previous paragraphs show that this obstacle is not sufficient for rejecting Spinoza’s naturalistic guiding view of science. In other words, Spinoza’s naturalism does not deny the influence of a culture on human behaviour. What it claims is that cultures could evolve only because, due to the capacity to keep the mind on reason – a capacity which most probably was naturally selected for much more restricted advantage, like sifting true causes from false ones where immediate contradictions or doubts arose – it became possible to extend natural capacities in various ways. All these examples make the first point, what seems sufficient evidence for Spinoza’s naturalistic conception of nature, is seen by both Dawkins and Dennett as evidence for the nature/culture dichotomy. We can turn now to the second point [see pp.227-228]. Dawkins’ arguments undermines the fulfilment of what he considers the advantage of science. This issue concerns the consequences of his memetics. In Dawkins’ terms, keeping the mind on reason – which for the creation of science means keeping to its own methods – is not part of our nature. Not only the method but also the drive are products of memes which in our culture won the competition with other memes. The advantage of this triumph, he says, is that it allows us to choose [see p.221]. It follows that there is nothing in

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human nature that can prevent other memes from winning in the future. And in Latour’s opinion this future is in fact the present. He observes that in our own culture scientists already accept the effect of ideas external to science, which undermine this triumph [see p.199], from which he concludes that it is futile to expect scientists to do the impossible [see p.203]. It follows that if memetics is taken to be a standard of truth, we are already on the way to losing our ability to choose. But if the experience of choice is understood as the awareness of the natural – and therefore universal – capacity of the mind to remain focussed on reason, a culture may suppress this capacity but not destroy it [see p.196]. This, in my opinion, is how we should understand (today) Spinoza’s opinion that his naturalistic approach is methodologically important. This is because the recognition of this aspect of human nature as a guiding view for research will speed up the achievement of our aim [see p.55], which at least for Spinoza is the advancement of freedom. Obviously, showing an advantage of a point of view is not a proof of its truth. But, if we have good reasons for accepting the explanation of the emergence of the human mind by the theory of evolution, we also have a good reason for accepting it as a guide for research. In particular, the replacement of Dawkins’ view by Spinoza’s naturalism can only be justified if research is directed to testing the truth of his postulated properties of human nature. And also whether these properties have an ancestry in the animal world. In fact, Dawkins himself shows that animals naturally infer and calculate. The main controversy is about whether there are also predecessors for morality [see p.90 and note 22], and therefore for social and political science. We can turn now to the explanations of Daniel Dennett, which do not differ fundamentally from those of Dawkins, but his dealing with the explanation of consciousness provides another perspective for comparing his reliance on the theory of evolution with an interpretation of Spinoza’s naturalism in its light. And more important, his reliance on the nature/culture dichotomy becomes more ambiguous as a result.

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Many of Dennett’s arguments can be seen as interpretations of Spinoza’s naturalistic approach in the light of the theory of evolution. This is shown in chapter III, where the important points are listed which justify the need to distinguish between presuppositions and scientific discoveries. The only points in need of repetition concern the distinction Dennett makes between the basic sense of consciousness, which is common to animals and people, and consciousness as a structural system which explains how the former works. His later book, Kinds of Minds [KM], was written as a response to critics who got the impression from his Consciousness Explained [CE] that his claim that memes are independent of genes supports the independence of the mind from the body. The essence of his response is that his proposed independence of memes from genes applies only to thoughts, and not to thinking. Thinking is the process in the brain which characterizes one of its functions, namely what we call a mind.104) Had Spinoza’s explanations of the mind been revived when Darwin’s theory had its impact on the conception of life, it is not the existence of consciousness in its basic sense that would have made the difference between him and the Cartesian view. Spinoza agreed with Descartes that about this sense of consciousness we have the most direct evidence we can have. His disagreement with Descartes concerned how knowledge of the world is obtained, which in Dennett’s terms it means how the conscious mind works. As explained in chapter III, Dennett’s whole point in his CE

104) In his CE (pp.321-322) Dennett points out, that in fact the distinction between thoughts and the mind was Descartes’ own opinion. He quotes Descartes’ answer to Antoine Arnauld (1641), who found it incredible that light reflected from the body of a wolf can enter the eyes of a sheep, activating its nervous system which causes its mechanical flight-response. Descartes' answer was that it was not more incredible than an action we know to be accomplished by our body quite mechanically, without the intervention of our soul – his term for the mind -- like throwing out our arms protectively when falling. In other words, he opposed the idea that the soul, or the conscious mind, was the ‘first mover’ of its body-vessel. The soul was only needed when understanding was the mover.

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explanation was to reject the mind/body dualism. He tried to show that mental experience can be best understood as a product of the activation of consciousness in the basic sense of the word, as it is dispersed in the brain when carrying out its tasks. As also argued there, the point of taking the software/hardware distinction in a computer as a metaphor for the mind/brain relationship is that the mind can be best understood by comparison to as a network of interrelated algorithms, namely totally formalized programmes operating in a computer. In this case, what we call a mental experience is shown to be consciousness of the output of processed information carried out by some correlated activities in the brain at any particular moment. This paragraph can be seen as an explanation of Spinoza’s assertion that the experience of an emotion is consciousness of a state of the body together with an idea of its cause. In Dennett’s terms the experience is a result of the activation of that part of the brain responsible for the state of the body concurring with the activation of another part of the brain responsible for the perceived idea of its cause. Similarly, Spinoza's claim in the first section of the TCU, that a thing is conceived as good if it is desired, means that this evaluation is carried out mechanically by the appropriate algorithm, the input to which includes the remembered effects of the desired thing on the state of the body. The last sentence in the previous paragraph agrees with Spinoza’s explanation that the difficulty of understanding the function of the intellect is due to the fact that we are conscious of our actions but ignorant of their true causes [see p.174]. Dennett explains further that if the total output of the brain’s process leads to action, we experience it as an intentional act. This is comparable to Spinoza’s explanation of the will [see pp.23-24]. In his KM Dennett calls this state of the brain ‘an intentional stance,’ the mechanical operation of which is explained as follows. When we observe a robot it also seems to have an intention to perform a task, although we know that it cannot have any intentions. He calls this performance an ‘as if intentional stance,’ and points out that it is common in nature. An organism, or parts of it, function as if they intend

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to perform a task known to them, in the same sense that Dawkins explains innate knowledge [see p.216 or 232]. In this sense, a plant which responds to its sensation of light by turning towards it, or a bear who prepares for its winter sleep as a response to its sensation of temperature, are not different from artifacts which respond to sensation, like a thermostat or any robot. A nervous system, to which these sensitivities are distributed, regulates the responses to a multiplicity of informative inputs. Against Searle and others, who sneer at this interpretation of intentionality, Dennett points out that, in fact, we are made of such robots. Every cell, organ or even a complex system which processes the input to our senses into perceptions, are such robots. These robots, which exhibit only an ‘as if intentional stance,’ are our ancestors.105) And most important, our mind also acts by knowing its tasks in a similar way. There is no way by which we can distinguish our minds from our bodies. This conclusion may be seen as an interpretation of Spinoza’s notion of conatus, which regulates the operations of any organism [see p.122]. In his KM Dennett shows that all organisms have minds in a similar sense. And by the theory of evolution, the human mind must have evolved from their kinds of mind. Of particular importance concerning the human mind, is Dennett’s explanation that all sensations are processed in the brain by ‘as if’ kinds of intentional systems. In CE he describes the phenomenon known as ‘blind-sight’ as evidence, because it shows that the visual system carries out its function even without the normally associated conscious perception.106) All these ‘as if’ intentional systems can be seen as an explanation of Spinoza’s observation that the body can carry out amazing tasks without the intervention of the conscious mind, including the recognition of a face as belonging to the same person in spite of changing in appearance [see pp.25 and 54, or E III proposition ii]. It agrees with Spinoza’s explanation of memory in the determination of behaviour [see pp.69-70], which in

105) KM p.73. For the notion of intentionality see also note 38on p.120. 106)KM p.212

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Dennett’s terms is explained as a process in the brain which integrates body alertness with memories and expectations to produce a response. According to him, every conscious perception of a stimulus which produces a response is not different from all these ‘as if’ examples because it is also carried out ‘automatically’ in the brain. So far, Dennett says, there is no problem in presupposing that the ‘as if’ kinds of intentionality evolved in a Darwinian process by natural selection. In other words, as long as what is natural is restricted to the Inverted Cartesian view, there is no problem in including humanity in the evolutionary tree. The problem starts, according to him, with our experience that with our minds we can discriminate between the overwhelming variety of perceived stimuli, and even change our environment to include better ones. In his opinion this is the source of the mistaken impression his critics of the CE obtained from their failure to distinguish between his proposed independence of memes from genes, which applies only to thoughts, and not to thinking [see p.234]. In the KM he explains that the origin of thoughts is outside the mind. Here lies the difference with Spinoza’s conception of the mind. While according to Spinoza the origin of most ideas is external to the mind, by Dennett’s memetics all of them are. When he shows that the precursors of thinking are found in animal behaviour he does not consider any ideas. The various examples he brings in order to support the ancestry of thinking he keeps to what I call the ‘inverted Cartesian view.’ Dennett says that certain animals hoard and hide food and later find it, so they must have inserted some signal to remind them of the place. This signal later becomes a stimulus for finding it. Even ants mark their trail so that they can easily return home. And more complex animals insert the odour of their urine for marking the borders of their territory. However, there is no evidence that such performances involve thinking. “Many animals” he says “hide, but do not think they are hiding... Many animals pursue, but don’t know they are pursuing. They are all the beneficiaries of nervous systems that take care of the controls of these clever and appropriate behaviours without burdening the host’s head with

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thoughts.”107) And he adds that this kind of discriminating signals without involving thoughts is found also in human babies’s response to their mother’s odour by which she is recognized.108) Dennett explains that the idea that an intentional stance is real – namely without the ‘as if’ – is based on the assumption that for manipulating the minds of others one must attribute to them an intentional stance, implying thinking. But he shows that this behaviour is found in animals which are very unlikely to think of doing so. Such animals seem to be natural psychologists, in the same sense as Dawkins would explain it, namely that this intentional behaviour is inserted in their DNA.109) One of Dennett’s examples is the behaviour of a bird which feigns a broken wing in order to lure a predator away from its eggs in a nest. According to him, the real need for thinking most probably arose in humanity due to the unpredictability in communication, which in turn arose with the use of language, when the possibility of cheating became an asset.110) The most probable explanation of the specialty of the human mind, he says, is the co-evolution of the innate capacity to use a language for communication with the environmental complexity which together increased unpredictability. In KM Dennett refers to Chomsky’s explanation of the necessary assumption of innate knowledge of UG. He explains the co-evolving environmental complexity as a result of an exploding increase in the natural tendency of animals to insert signals in one’s environment, when verbal signals become common stimuli for behavioural responses. In order to show that the possibility of cheating is a crucial triggering factor for this coevolution, he tells about an experiment carried out with chimpanzees in captivity. They were shown a source of food which they could find and use without sharing it with other chimpanzees. As a result, the owners of this information learned to avoid

107) CE p.322. 108) KM p.157. 109) KM p.138. 110) KM pp.162-163.

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disclosing this source of food, and exploit the others’ ignorance for their own benefit. But such opportunity, he says, is unlikely to occur in the wild.111) Dennett explains that in the case of humanity, the opportunity to cheat arose with the use of language. Linguistic expressions, as opposed to the natural capacity to process them, are signals inserted in the social environment by some people and perceived as stimuli by others. When language was invented, he says “the human species stepped into a slingshot that has launched it far beyond all other species in the power to look ahead and reflect.”112) Most important for showing Dennett’s adherence to the nature/culture dichotomy, in spite of the possibility to interpret his view as explaining Spinoza’s naturalistic analysis by evolution, is his conclusion that to say that a language was invented is not to say that it is the product of thought. On the contrary, he says. It means that concepts are internalized labels, the products of the use of a language.113) This means that they are not natural, but a result of having a culture.. An important aspect of his explanation is how these verbal labels, or signals, are internalized. Dennett explains the process as resulting from the increasing role of cultural influence on human behaviour. He generalizes Dawkins’ idea that pencils and paper allow us to choose [see p.221], to a variety of invented devices. From carrying out arithmetical calculations, to diagrams and maps in which pins are inserted for showing the spread of battles or epidemics, and more recently, films which convert the time-scale of events to a perceivable scale in order to understand their behaviour – for example, converting the time scale of plants’ behaviour to ours. All these devices become signals inserted in our cultural environment.114) They become external stimuli for us, and provide us with

111)KM pp.167-170. 112)KM p.171. 113)KM p.195 114) KM pp.211-213.

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‘the power to look ahead and reflect.’ This, according to him, is the essence of the emergence of intentionality without the ‘as if.’ He explains that knowledge that these devices have been invented, led to the attribution of an intentional stance to the (unknown) inventors. This creation of a second order intentional stance is the source of selfconsciousness.115) In other words, rather than assuming that the selfconscious knowledge of having real intentions led to its attribution to others, the opposite is the case. According to Dennett, self-consciousness must have been the product of the co-evolution of language with complex cultural environments, because there would have been no point in the evolution of internal symbolic systems without their being a help in our ability to discriminate between external signals. Only the latter could have been the advantage leading to its natural selection. This is the explanation which supposedly refutes the mistaken conclusion that his conception of memes in the CE implies a separation of the mind from the body. According to him, by explaining thinking as an algorithmic brain process, and thoughts as a product of a culture, he proves his point. He does so with the replacement of the Cartesian dualism by the nature/culture dichotomy. As pointed out in the previous page, the difference between Spinoza’s explanation and Dennett’s concerns the origin of those thoughts which Spinoza considers to be known by intuition, and according to Dennett are internalized labels. In other words, all thoughts are memes whose origin is external to the mind. Dennett explains that a meme can be derived from an artifact, like ‘a wheel’ from which the concept of a circle is derived, or from a natural phenomenon, like ‘flying’ from a bird, or ‘solid’ from a stone. Memes spread in a population by passing from one brain to another through the use of a language. They are, therefore, the product of a culture. One common justification of the nature/culture dichotomy is that cultural change is much quicker than genetic change, and thus cannot

115) KM pp.189-194.

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possibly be explained by natural selection. And Dennett explains why a culture is more conducive to change than nature as follows. The similarity between the way memes and genes spread is due to their dependence on replication, variation and selection. The equivalence of a meme's to a gene's replication is in its passing from one person ’s brain to another’s. Variation in genetics is due to the fact that the genes of an offspring are not exact copies of those of its parents. Apart from the effect of mutations, this is because people inherit a mixture of the genes of two parents. Similarly, memes, have more than one source and therefore they are not exact copies of any one origin. Parallel to the dissemination of genes from parents to their offspring, is the transmission of memes to the next generation. Like heredity of genes, that on the whole preserves the species, the transmission of memes preserves the survival of a particular culture, because parents tend to transmit their own memes, which have been useful to them in their cultural environment. The difference between genetics and memetics is that an important source of change in memes is a ‘horizontal’ transmission within any number of interrelated groups in a society. This is important, he says, because this form of transmission creates incomparably more opportunities for new adaptations to changing environmental circumstances than the ‘vertical’ education by parents, let alone changes which might occur by natural selection of genes. Another similarity which Dennett finds between the spread of memes and the spread of genes is that both compete for survival. And like genes, the longer each meme stays within particular memories in a brain, and the more it interacts with other memes, the more it contributes to the survival of a system of memes already ‘settled in the brain,’ and the greater its own chance of survival. This seems similar to Spinoza’s explanation that every decision is taken according to a mechanically operating balance of reasons.116)But there is a difference. According to Dennett, the balance of memes is determined solely by the competition among the memes within each person’s mind,

116) KM pp.170 and 194-195.

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independently of any natural process which is determined by genes. He says that only this independence can explain some problematic phenomena, like the presence of altruism in a person’s mind, which contradicts the spreading of genes of the same person’s body. Evolutionary psychologists try to explain this contradiction by showing the indirect advantage of altruism for genes. But this cannot explain its presence in biologically unrelated individuals. By Spinoza’s conception of human nature, both altruism and the protection of self - interest are explicable by natural emotions, namely by his postulated nobility versus courage [see pp.168-169]. These emotions, according to him, are the most influenced by reason. Their being mostly affected by reason is a result of the fact that the drive to live by one’s own nature – self-interest – and the drive to follow one’s social inclinations – the source of altruism – often contradict each other, thus leading to the appeal to reason. Nevertheless, both drives are natural, and therefore, their associated emotions must be generated by genes. In other words, the balance of power of the reasons associated with them can hardly be said to be determined independently of nature. In summary, Spinoza’s naturalism implies that if ‘clever and appropriate behaviours’ are inserted in animals’ nature [see p.237-238], then so is the innate knowledge of social human beings, that they need each other’s help. This innate knowledge, is the essence of virtue and the natural origin of altruism, which Spinoza describes as nobility. But according to him, the same social nature leads to the natural tendency pattern of behaviour in a social system. In Dennett’s terms, this tendency is the reason that, if the dominant memes expressing the beliefs and values of a society are the most frequent signals inserted in a particular cultural environment, then people pick them up more often and act accordingly. However, if it is the evolution of language which created the opportunity to install signals in the cultural environment, then it has also created the opportunity for people in positions of power to install signals which are advantageous to themselves. In Dennett’s terms this development can be seen as an explanation of the basic assumption of Spinoza’s political analysis, namely that it created the contradiction between the increasing

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opportunity of some to make sure that their signals prevail thus decreasing the opportunity of others to satisfy their natural desire to live according to their nature. And the urgent need to prevent this wickedness – as Spinoza calls it [see p.33], or this grand scale cheating, as Dennett explains [see p.238] – must have been the selecting trigger for the evolution of reason, as a device for resolving contradictions. Or, in Dennett’s terms, it must have been the trigger for the conversion of the ‘as if’ intentional use of inference in animals – which being naturally perfect, in Spinoza’s sense of the word, they do not need it [see p.124] – into an evolving conscious activity, namely the human power to look ahead and reflect [see p.240]. In Dennett’s computer model this means that the innate knowledge of both the essence of virtue and the principles of reason, which provide us with the ability to discriminate between external signals, are inserted in the hardware. If as Dennett argues, the sources of all memes are external to the mind, then these items of innate knowledge are not memes. Spinoza does not dispute that fully developed mental tools, like the devices which Dennett mentions and the creation of science are products of a culture. But, Spinoza’s proposition that a true science can only be created because we can extend our natural capacities for the acquisition of knowledge, can be explained in Dennett’s terms by the co-evolution of the environmental complexity and the resulting dependency on learning in order to cope with it. This is explicable in terms of evolution because it has precedents in the cultures of animals, if the essence of a culture is that it is based on learning, as Dennett shows in chapter 4 of KM. Finally, there is a similarity between Dennett’s characterization of a powerful mind discussed in chapter III [see p.109] and Spinoza’s explanation of the human mind. Dennett’s proposal that a mind is powerful if it can concentrate, corresponds to Spinoza’s postulated natural capacity to keep the mind on reason. According to Dennett, the need to concentrate – the rationale for its having been naturally selected – follows from the fact that the mind can be distracted due to its capacity to ‘keep track of several different things at once.’ Or, as Spinoza put it, confusion is caused by the fact that our minds attend to many things at the same time

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[see p.66]. But, according to Dennett, the capacity to concentrate is a product of a culture like ours. In other words, it is an internalized meme, and therefore is not natural. As I did concerning Dawkins, we can turn now to show that also Dennett’s explanations undermine his own aims In chapter III, the fifth point – justifying the importance of distinguishing between a presupposed view of nature and the scientific knowledge created under its guidance [see p.112] – explains that Spinoza’s statement in TCU VII, that his presupposed view of nature is methodologically important, is implied from the fact that different presupposed points of view lead to different questions which direct further research. And according to Spinoza, the major question to be answered with his scientific method is how to restore to the mind those natural capacities which have been weakened by social pressures. In Dennett’s terms this pressure is of those memes which invade people’s brains within a specific culture and thereby affect their balance of power. As noted at the end of my discussion of Dawkins’ view, the acceptance of the nature/culture guidance for science endangers the advantage which he sees in the pursuit of science [see p.232-233]. Dennett gives his own reasons for the importance of ensuring the preservation of science. His reason is that we do not yet have the answers science can provide for our major questions. However, his argument strengthens my view that his reliance on the nature/culture dichotomy is more ambiguous than Dawkins’ because his questions apply to the controversial issues raised by Spinoza’s naturalism [see p.233]. In the last chapter of KM, Dennett explains that keeping the development of science is important because, so far, science cannot answer questions that are morally important to us. For example, the theory of evolution has not yet explained the transition from those organisms which act ‘as if’ they have intentions due to their sensitivity to certain input information, to sentient creatures who are affected by suffering,

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namely by self-consciousness of their pain.117). But, he says, it is the capacity to suffer that imposes on us a moral obligation to prevent it. Therefore, only the scientific attempt to discover the transition from a merely automatic response of an organism to sense perceptions into a sentient one can help us resolve two current problems which preoccupy our society. One is the discovery of the state of development of a fetus in which it becomes sentient, thus justifying the limits of licensing or prohibiting abortion,118) and the other concerns the determination of this transition in evolution in order to decide on which animals we may carry out scientific experiments without causing suffering. Obviously, Spinoza did not deal with such problems. But his approach to science has implications which allow us to judge other problems on moral grounds. For example, the problem of judging culturally determined behaviour preoccupies our society today not less than Dennett’s examples. However, the possibility to judge the morality of other cultures than our own depends on the assumption that a conception of morality is not merely the product of invading memes – or a cultural convention – but is understood as stemming from our social nature. Or as Spinoza says, from our innate knowledge that we need each other’s help. Moreover, Spinoza’s explanation of the essence of the conatus of every society can be described in Dennett’s terms as its ‘as if’ intention to preserve its own integrity. But according to Spinoza, the success of this intention depends on resolving the permanent contradiction between the desire of individuals to live by their natural capacities, and their desire to feel at home in their societies. Therefore, to Dennett’s scientific questions not yet answered we may add that the theory of evolution has not yet explained how the intentional morality without ‘as

117) KM pp.214-223 118) In fact this is unlikely to resolve the problem. Even ignoring the religious arguments, a gynaecologist I know told me that for him, a fetus is a human being for the first moment of its existence because its potentiality is as real as its actually being sentient. The resolution can only obtained by a ‘balance of reasons’ supporting contrary decisions.

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if’ evolved as part of the evolution of reason, due to the persistence of contradictory desires. Spinoza addressed these problems with his analysis of religion, because in his time religion was the only standard of truth for morality. It provided criteria for judging the perceived causes of suffering. Not only of fear and frustrated hope, but also of shame, guilt, and more. This was the same throughout the middle ages, and is still the case today in societies dominated by religion. In Dennett’s terms, religious institutions know – in the ‘as if’ sense of knowing – how to install their signals in their social environment, so that they act causally on the minds of their congregations. By Spinoza’s political theory, but in Dennett’s terms, only freedom of thought can challenge such ‘as if’ intentions by converting them into explicit policies. And this is so even if the resulting balance of reasons is obtained mechanically. In other words, Spinoza’s explanation that animals are naturally perfect – in his sense of the word, [see p.145] – means that their ‘as if’ intentional stance is sufficient because it satisfies their natural drives. Its insufficiency in the case of humanity raised the need to turn to reason. It triggered the need to convert the ‘as if’ intentional use of inference in animals into the human capacity to look ahead and reflect [see p.240]. This is so whether this reflection is described as carried out by an algorithm or by a spiritual automaton. Finally, although Spinoza’s arguments concerning the relation between science, morality and politics centred on an analysis of faith and institutional religion, the arguments can be generalized to any ideology which maintains its power by suppressing freedom of thought. This is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER XI: POLITICAL FREEDOM. In the introduction I referred to Hegel as one of the philosophers who revived Spinoza’s philosophy [see p.17]. But I pointed out that a better example for this revival was the philosophy of Karl Marx, who arrived at it by reversing Hegel’s conception of historical necessity: it is not the history of spiritual forces [ideas] that determines the history of social structures, but the history of the social structures, with their methods of production and their levels of technological development, determine the spiritual forces, or rather the political ideas prevailing in their structure. This reversal agrees with the second part of Spinoza’s definition of the mind that “the object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body, or a certain mode of extension actually existing and nothing else” [see p.19]. The attraction which Marx felt to Spinoza’s philosophy must have been Spinoza’s decision, as he wrote in the introduction to his PT, not to deal with utopias but to base his theory on what he knew of human nature and about the social policies which have in fact been tried out throughout history. This must have been attractive to Marx because he saw the futility of the attempts of German liberals in his time, to persuade the authorities to accept their suggested reforms. The basic political conclusion he drew from their visible failure was that, since the said authorities acted according to the necessary requirements of the power structure of their society, the utopian socialism of his time – for example of Ferdinand Lassalle – was bound to fail. This conclusion corresponds to Spinoza’s explanation in the TPT that he did not hope to convince theologians of his view because they were bound to distort it. He explained this ‘wickedness’ of religious leaders as being a necessary result of the natural tendency of people to preserve their power of action, and not, or not necessarily, a conscious aim to exploit their congregations [see p.33]. In the PT, he generalized the analysis to all forms of institutional power. According to Marx, his political conclusion was derived from his

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social science, to be distinguished from an ideology. According to him, the essential difference between a scientific theory and an ideology is that, a scientific theory describes the true characteristics of a society, and an ideology is based on ‘false consciousness.’ The consciousness of people who accept the ideology is false because, as Spinoza would have put it, their perceived causes of their circumstances of living are not what they would have been had they been aware of their true nature and of what was truly good for them. In other words, what Marx calls ‘false consciousness’ is what Spinoza described as the ‘spiritual automaton’ created by people’s succumbing to the influence of ideas imposed on them by others. For Marx, the political aspect of this distinction between ideology and science was that only to the extent that workers would become aware that their deprivation is caused by their acceptance of the capitalist ideology, their corrected consciousness could become a political force. It is important to note that Marx emphasised the importance of consciousness in determining rational actions. However, he put more emphasis on the essential characterization of the structures of societies, which while undergoing changes in their internal states, they remain stable as long as the dynamic transformation laws which govern them remain intact [see p.116]. In other words, a structural social change occurs only when, due to an accumulation of the effects of contradictory developments it can no more stay as it had been. In this case, it either disintegrates or reorganizes itself, so as to resolve the contradictions. The word ‘accumulation’ is emphasized because every structure tolerates some dissent from its rules. In genetics, variability introduced by mutations does not amount to evolutionary change as long as it does not cause a disruption [in Marx’s terms, a contradiction] in the conditions of survival. Similarly, a social system tolerates variability in human behaviour as long as its survival is not in danger. The Marxist idea that economic conditions determine consciousness does not mean, for example, that a particular capitalist cannot be generous to his workers. What it means is that the extent to which such generosity can deviate from the dominant tendency of capitalists to exploit workers with a view to optimizing profits, is

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determined by his possible survival within the capitalist social structure. According to Marx, the last sentence in the previous paragraph means that no significant change in the system can be brought about by people's good will. This is Spinoza’s idea that a state whose stability depends on the good will of its subjects is necessarily unstable [PT I 6]. According to Marx, the confinement of the variability of patterns of behaviour within allowed bounds is the meaning of the identification of freedom with the recognition of necessity. As long as people do not recognize this fact they are bound to make useless attempts to reform the system while in fact remaining enslaved to it. This corresponds to the rationale of Spinoza’s recommendation to intellectuals to comply with the customs of their society, with the hope that in the long run their discoveries will have a real effect [see p.47]. The point is, on the one hand, that variability in human thoughts and behaviour is experienced by people as freedom, although in fact individual aspirations are tolerated within a narrow range of variability. As long as the general social-economic structure of a society is stable, the thoughts which express deviating aspirations have no real effect on social change. And on the other hand, the process by which the working class may gain real power to support a transition from capitalism to socialism depends on what Spinoza would have described as restoring to working people their awareness of their natural powers. In short, there is a considerable similarity between Marx’s and Spinoza’s explanations. Marx’s idea that it was natural for the working class to yield to the ideological (as opposed to the economical) power of capitalists, corresponds to Spinoza’s idea that it was natural for people to yield to the ideas of religious leaders. Marx’s conviction, that his analysis of capitalism revealed the ‘hidden agenda’ of the powerful to impose their ideology on society as a whole, is comparable to the hidden agenda which Spinoza attributed to religious leaders in his time. In this respect, the only difference between them is in the identification of the powerful. Both thought that the only way by which people could regain their (natural) awareness of what was for their own good, was due to their power of

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understanding. There is even some similarity between Marx’s famously stated aim of his theory, that “the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it”,119) and Spinoza’s statement of the purpose of science. Marx did not think that it was impossible for a philosopher to think beyond the current social pressures, and discover the essential features of a social structure, which according to Spinoza means the features by which it exists and is truly understood. Spinoza emphasised the [slow] process of replacing the ideas in a ‘spiritual automaton,’ which in his time were mostly influenced by theology, with ideas based on true knowledge – a process which in this book I call the indirect effect of reason on culture – and Marx emphasised that this replacement is only possible where the logical development of a capitalist social system reaches a state where its internal contradictions become apparent. Only in this case, the intellectual understanding of the situation can spread in the population, and support its replacement by socialism. These similarities to Spinoza’s philosophy make Marx a better example of the revival of Spinoza’s approach to social and political science than Hegel. However, according to Spinoza, Marx’s view of history is, like Hegel’s, also an abstract understanding from which no knowledge of real history can be inferred [see p.10]. His explanation, that from abstract knowledge no understanding of reality can be derived, undermines the conviction of the leaders of the Soviet Union that Marxism was the view of the world which guided their policies. In fact, it is not so difficult to see that these leaders were guided by a cultural determinism which, at least implicitly, presupposed the nature/culture dichotomy. Moreover, this fact may have been one factor which brought about their system’s collapse. I want to emphasise here that this is my only claim. I do not pretend to provide an explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union. My purpose in this book is to show why Spinoza’s naturalistic philosophy is important

119) Theses on Feuerbach, p.xi

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for all philosophy of science, including political science today. I want to show the importance of his claim that both restoring to people an awareness of their natural powers and maintaining the stability of a state depend on an a system of education which encourages rationality [PT V 2], and to suggest that acknowledging this claim might have made a difference to the fate of the Soviet Union. My suggestion that the communist leaders, who claimed to have followed Marx, in fact accepted the cultural determinism associated with the nature/culture dichotomy, is implicit in their idea that the working class will regain its true consciousness – namely its awareness of its power to live by its natural desires – under the guidance of a benevolent party whose leaders possess the philosophical understanding of Marxism. They ignored the improbable success of such a project. The essence of this improbability is explained by Spinoza where he comments on Machiavelli’s The Prince [PT V 7]. He says that contrary to the common interpretation of the purpose of Machiavelli, his real intention was to warn people who love freedom against entrusting their welfare to the absolute power of one man. This is because even if the vanity of this man leads him to believe that he really can please everybody, he is bound to be in daily fear of plots and is forced to look chiefly after his own interests rather than after the good of the general public.120) Even if by his vanity he thinks that his own interest to remain in power is best for all, the result is bound to be the same [see also p.138 or E. IV prop.4 corollary iii and notes 31 and 32] . This analysis is most probably true of Lenin, who started with a genuine consideration for the good of the Russian people. Yet, like all

120)In view of Spinoza’s analysis of the Bible, it is interesting to note a beautiful example which he overlooked, namely the story of Samuel warning the children of Israel against their wish to have a King. The children of Israel insisted on being like all other nations because they saw only advantage in the passage from being a tribal society to becoming a kingdom. But Samuel saw the social cost of central organization which they ignored. He told them in detail how the king would take their sons and daughters to be his servants, and take their fields and vineyards [Samuel 1, chap.8]. God's allowance for the people's wishes represents ‘a recognition of necessity.’

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ideologically motivated dictators, as Spinoza said, he quickly ‘succumbed to the passions raised by his personal power,’ and ended up with depriving other people of the use of their power of reason. Spinoza’s prediction was drawn by Rosa Luxenburg already in 1918 when the Soviet Union was just coming into existence. Criticizing Lenin's leadership, she argued that the effectiveness of political freedom vanishes when it is the privilege of the few. What she meant by the effectiveness of political freedom is explained in her writing that "without unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinions, life dies out in every public institution".121) She describes further the bureaucratization and brutalization of life, which according to her, was bound to happen, as indeed it did. The importance of Spinoza’s political philosophy is also in his explanation that although political power can be gained by force, its stability can only be maintained by gaining sufficient support of the population [PT V 1-6]. Had the Soviet leaders been aware of Spinoza’s warning they would have paid attention to his prediction that ultimately, a state in which people fail to follow their lead – or in general, when people fail to obey the law – indicates a failure of leaders to fulfil their duty to educate people to citizenship [PT V 2]. I emphasise ‘ultimately,’ because all kinds of states survived more than 70 years without gaining the general support of the population. The Soviet educational system failed to provide an interpretation of the natural principle of justice and charity which was consistent with socialism [see p.30]. Their failure can be clarified by comparison to the interpretation of this principle by the church. The church knew how to combine compassion, as an essential part of the Christian doctrine, with charity, as an essential part of ameliorating the potential resentment of the poor which could be a cause of social disorder. But, in societies ridden with feudal or class structure, charity soon became intrinsically connected with expected servility on the part of

121) Quoted from Rosa Luxemburg: The Russian Revolution, p.24.

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the poor. This is the type of charity rejected by socialist theory. As Maxim Gorky wrote, the essence of a socialist state is to provide dignity to all by justice rather than by condescending charity. In other words, under socialism, people should not be condemned to expect charity from the ruling classes. Instead, as Spinoza would have said, they should expect civil laws which enable them to live as citizens, according to their personal aspirations as much as it is rationally possible [see p.203]. According to Spinoza, the essence of charity is a natural emotion toward the less fortunate. This is clearly shown in his analysis of the emotion of pity [E.IV proposition L and note]. He explains that the emotion of pity often moves people to behave irrationally. Therefore, a better way to help the pitied people is to analyse why they needed pity in the first place, and act to relieve them of this need. However, he adds, this applies only to people driven by reason. A person who is not moved either by reason or by compassion is simply not human. The task of education is to combine the two. In short, from Spinoza’s philosophy follows that, since emotions are associated with their perceived causes, the actual content of the formal principle of justice and charity is different in different societies. It is natural for people in a capitalist society to have their feelings of pity contaminated with their belief that it was the fault of the poor if they remained poor. It was even natural for the poor to succumb to this idea imposed on them by the ideology dominant in their society. It was the task of philosophy [of social science] to explain poverty as a socially determined ill. It was only an intellectually reached idea, because being subject to their wretched conditions of living, the poor themselves were not able to keep their minds on reason and reach the true conclusions [see p.184]. According to Spinoza, it was certainly reasonable for a philosopher to think that a rational response to poverty was to discover its causes and find ways to prevent this evil. And it was the task of education to make sure that this discovery turned into a common perception. ‘Common’ is emphasised because only then the conception of poverty as evil becomes predominant in the ‘spiritual automaton’ of most people, and it can turn

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its abolition into a greater good in the future for which people are ready to give up some satisfaction of their immediate material needs [see p.193]. This could have been achieved in a state intent on creating a socialist society, provided rational thought was encouraged and an appropriate interpretation of the principle of justice and charity was included in its education policy. However, leaders of the Soviet Union thought, that since their economic policies would necessarily eliminate poverty, it was not necessary to encourage charitable feelings for others, which they associated with bourgeois values. Instead, they tried to create ‘a new Soviet Person’ by rewarding high production with honourable titles and medals, hoping that this would install the idea in workers’ minds that a decent life for all depended on a conception of morality which saw in one’s contribution to the rise of production a highest value. This did not work. Perhaps because, since production was regulated by the state, the policy was perceived as aiming at encouraging a total surrender of one’s aspirations to those of the state. This education neither replaced Christian charity by a socialist solidarity, nor did it encourage rationality, which could have supported the need to obey the state's decrees, even when these required giving up some of one's personal aspirations. The actual system of education could not prevent the deterioration of government into a tyranny [PT I 6], as in fact it did. It is common today to compare communism to fascism. The only reasonable comparison is found in their being dominated by an ideology which requires a total surrender to the state. From Spinoza’s political theory follows, first, that what is common to these regimes is that this total surrender can only be achieved by suppressing the self-perception of people as autonomous individuals. And second, that when this suppression succeeds, a society inevitably deteriorates into a totalitarian regime, irrespective of the content of the ideology. The ‘total’ is emphasized to distinguish it from the partial surrender, which Spinoza attributes to rational citizens. A common aspect of such total devotion is that it is obtained by intense ideological propaganda reinforced by fear of the

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consequences of rejecting it. This results not only in the suppression of people's natural tendency to appeal to their power of reason, but also in the suppression of their courage and nobility, namely the suppression of simple decency. In Spinoza's terms, it is achieved by turning citizens into subjects [see p.194]. It is only in this sense that the comparison of communism to fascism can be made. It is part of the generalization of Spinoza’s analysis of the role of institutional religion to the role of an ideology in imposing absolute obedience to a regime. Obviously there is a difference between imposing obedience to a conception of life without sin; to an ideology that secures the material necessities of life; or to an ideology that secures feelings of pride in the glory of one’s past or of superiority to other ‘races.’ What is common to a total devotion to an official interpretation of the decrees of God, to an official ideology or to a particular leader, is that all of them depend on the suppression of freedom. On the individual level it is the suppression of rationality and on the political level it is the suppression of freedom to say what one thinks. Spinoza’s claim which is important for the Soviet Union is universal. It means that only a policy which encourages the appeal to reason can give rise to the emotions of courage and nobility [see pp.168169]. The former is described by modern psychologists as personal agency, which is another name for Spinoza’s notion of free will. And nobility can be described as personal responsibility in social behaviour, which is derived from Spinoza’s understanding of morality [see p.30]. Both can become predominant in a culture only if rationality is encouraged by education [see p.45-46]. Moreover, conflicts between the desire for personal freedom to follow one’s own rationality and the stability of society can only be reconciled if these two attitudes become central at least in the minds of the enlightened part of society, including the designers of social and political science. In short, the most important aspect of Spinoza’s naturalist approach today, is his combining self-interest with a characterization of humanity as social beings. It is this combination which creates the constant contradiction between the drive to protect one’s self-

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interest and the drive to conform to the interests of society. It is this contradiction which makes the appeal to reason crucial for reconciling these constant contradiction. And it is this constancy which requires the need to encourage rationality, because only a society of rational people can ensure both, the freedom of its citizens to act as much as possible by their own aspirations – which is the essence of individualism – and the stability of their society in which they can live in peace and security. This paragraph summarises the importance of Spinoza’s philosophy to the social-political approach today. This is because the result of following the nature/culture dichotomy is that when thinking about human affairs, a tendency developed to consider only one of his postulated components of human nature as fundamental. It is either assumed that a culture has the power to preserve its own survival, and in the process it determines the apparently natural self-interests of its members from the top down, or it is assumed that people naturally follow their own desires and the social structure arises from the bottom up [see p.116]. The former is illustrated by the communist countries, but the approach is not absent in the west. For example, since the 1980's there is a tendency to judge every policy by its importance for the preservation of the social-economic system. This tendency includes scientific policy. All research, in economics; in political science; in law, and in the natural sciences, is judged by this criterion. In physics or chemistry, it is judged by its contribution to the improvement of techniques required by economic enterprises. Even in medicine, where research cannot but be directed to the benefit of individuals, this approach has taken its toll. Researchers who need financial support are forced to refer to this economic criterion and thus resort to false claims. They tend to exaggerate their successes and hide, or minimize, their difficulties, let alone their failures, so that the implied promises inevitably lead to disappointment and to the resentment towards science in general. With this approach to research, scientists still need to convince the public of the usefulness of their work, as claimed by Spinoza in the third section of the TCU, but this usefulness is not assessed by its possible contribution to general knowledge (or truth). It is assessed

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by a cost-benefits analysis which plainly means the assessment of profits, the most important criterion of usefulness in business-economics The second approach, which assumes that people naturally follow their own desires and the social structure arises automatically, so to speak, is explicitly claimed by the libertarian ideology. It deviates from the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment which were closer to Spinoza’s consideration of the relationship between individuals and society [see notes 14 and 41].122) The libertarian ideology minimises the role of a social culture – which it describes as the role of government – in social life. But the generality of this second approach can also be shown by the students' movement in the 1960's and early '70s. The experience of the tyrannies of the 20th century led to a widespread rejection of all ideologies. But the students dis not distinguish between ideology and scientific theories. When they demanded individual freedom they conceived all theories as ideologies which scientists attempted to impose on everybody else. This accusation was not addressed only to, say, nuclear scientists who according to many people colluded with military experts. It was also addressed against physicians who treated their patients as if they were incapable of knowing what was good for them. Their accusation was addressed against any ‘experts’ whose rationality, according to the students, was presumptuous. But most important, they did not rely on their own rationality. Their demand for freedom fitted what Spinoza described as desires of things "which the mind takes a liking or an aversion" without considering what is best for them [E.II, note to proposition XLVIII. See p.174]. In other words, they claimed their right to follow their passions [E.V note to proposition XLI]. They did not reject the pursuit of knowledge as such, but claimed that it 122) It must be conceded that from the beginning, the idea that allowing people to pursue their own interests was the best policy applied only to enterprising people. The vast majority of society, were excluded. The idea being that also for them the policy is best because they will get freedom from want. This was supposed to ensure the general support which Spinoza saw as essential for maintaining the stability of society. But according to Spinoza it was also the case that it was the emphasis on rationality which has made the development of a liberal society possible in the first place.

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had to be relevant for their struggle for their notion of freedom, which they understood as the only real self-interest, and which the authorities considered immoral.123)

123) It is interesting to note that the common objection to such movements both in the '60's as in Spinoza's time centred on accusing them of lax morals. In Spinoza's time, this can be seen in Oldenburg's letter [C. LXII] urging Spinoza not to write against religion and supply arguments to this generation indulging in lax morals. The students actually thought that their demands were based on rejecting a false morality.

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CHAPTER XII: THE INDIRECT EFFECT OF REASON ON CULTURE. One important reason for emphasising the implication of the indirect effect of reason on culture [PIERC] is that it helps us understand why cultural relativism is gaining ground. What needs explaining is the indirectness of the effect. The basic explanation consists of two parts. First of the indirect effect of reason on the behaviour of each individual, and second on the accumulated effect of the former on the culture as a whole.124) But since this proposition was not explicitly stated by Spinoza, I must first show that it is implied by other propositions which he did justify. The most important of these, which have already been discussed, are the following: a) ‘the will,’ understood as that component of the human conatus which generates action, is moved by emotions, and an emotion is always associated with an idea of its cause [see p.42]; b) it is an intrinsic tendency of the mind to reduce ideas into a consistent conception of one’s world [see p.57]. c) the natural way which reason functions is by removing contradictions among perceived causes of emotions one at a time [see p.105]; d) in the process of b) & c), the acceptance or rejection of ideas are determined by other closely related ideas, in the same sense that events in the body are determined by proximate causes. Together they describe the creation of the ‘spiritual automaton’ [see p.67]; e) although d) cannot change the fact that our emotions are largely determined by external influence, it can change the ‘balance of reasons’ within the ‘spiritual automaton’ by replacing their false causes with true 124) It is interesting to note that this effect is illustrated by Marx in his article about money [K. Marx: Selected Writings, pp.109-112]. In it he explains that although money had been invented as a mere means of exchange, it became so central to the capitalist system that socially and psychologically it became central in assessing the value of everything. This is interesting because Spinoza gives the same example in the appendix to E.IV, XXVIII-XXIX.

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ones, so that true knowledge outweighs ideas obtained by external influence [see p.176]. The transition from the indirect effect of reason on the minds of individuals to its effect on a culture, can be inferred from another set of Spinoza’s propositions. a) Public decisions are taken by individuals in positions of power whose wish to maintain their power is a natural drive. This drive is the main obstruction to correcting a criterion of truth [see p.32]. b). Like the beliefs of anybody else, most beliefs of people in power are largely affected by external influence. This follows from a) to d) in the former set of propositions.‘ In other words, Their beliefs are also shaped’ by their culture. c) From e), in the former set, follows that a conception of the world depends on the strength of the drive of people to keep their mind on reason. This is because only then, an accumulation of corrected ideas can affect the balance of reasons enough to undermine the accepted criterion of truth [see pp.176-177]. d) It follows from c) that such a correction can only be achieved by intellectuals who can devote themselves to the pursuit of knowledge [see pp.47. e) Their resulting correction can be communicated to the public, and this communication is most effective when it is incorporated in the education of children. This is because, in this case, these beliefs are related to their emotional experiences – the only mental state directly related to behaviour [see p.46]. f) A cultural change can emerge when some of these children grow up and become the people in power who make decisions. An important aspect of e)&f) is that even if the intellectually achieved conclusions do not remain in their own detached environment – as it was in the late middle ages – it takes time for this process to have its effect. This is the time needed for abstract knowledge to become a concrete causal effect. It is also the main argument relating the use of language to thinking. In chapter XIV, describing a modern view in the

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spirit of Spinoza, Damasio explains that without the possibility to discuss imagined strategies for survival in a group, the possibility to imagine a not yet existing situation or event would have remained a fleeting experience. Or in Dawkins’ terms this means that an evolving brain good at producing imagined virtual realities would have had no effect had these imagined realities not been ‘materialized’ in a spoken language. A crucial aspect of this materialization, or rather of this externalization of thoughts by representing them in pictures, maps or writing, as Dawkins and Dennett say [see p.239] is that after being incorporated in education, these intellectual activities become part of perceived causes of direct responses. This takes time. In part I of the present chapter I illustrate the indirect effect of reason on the conception of the world in the mind of Spinoza. The crucial point is the distinction between the development of his philosophy by keeping his mind on reason, and the inevitable effect of the culture of his time on his behaviour. The latter is shown by his turning to writing the TPT, before completing his Ethics. This event was motivated by his conviction that the rulers of the Republic were about to lose the consensus essential for the stability of the Republic because they failed to understand the importance of freedom of thought for defeating the effect of theologians [see p.47-48]. One implication of this argument is that without understanding all the propositions listed above, a culture dogmatically dominated either by religion or by another ideologically fixed conception of reality, can only be changed by rebellion or war. But the point in the present chapter is, that even if a scientific approach to understanding is accepted, the PIERC implies that the process characterized by the propositions listed above, does not guarantee the achievement of a true conception of reality. What I try to show in part II is, that although some of Spinoza’s approach has been accepted in modern science, it is the PIERC that can explain how it happened that in spite of Darwin's theory of evolution, which logically should have revived Spinoza's naturalism, led in fact to today's fashionable relativism.

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PART I Intellectuals change their ideas by rejecting or correcting the ideas of their predecessors. These ideas are of external influence even if they are not obtained by regular education. In the case of Spinoza, the process of change described by d)&e) is Illustrated by the fact that he started as a Cartesian, and his rejection of Descartes’ philosophy did not occur all at once. A direct evidence for this is found in two letters. In 1665 he wrote to Oldenburg that most of Descartes' laws of nature were true. But in 1676 he wrote to Tschirnhous that they were all wrong. But more important is the evidence derived from reading Spinoza’s Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, where we can identify those corrections in Descartes’ philosophy, which eventually led him to its total rejection. Most of his corrections were discussed in previous chapters. The most important are the following. In PCP I, the fourth definition of Descartes says that when things are presented in the mind as they are, they are formally perceived, and when they are presented by properties that are sufficient for accounting fully for our true perception, they are eminently represented. Spinoza retained from Descartes' definition that we understand reality formally, namely in terms of formal [abstract] concepts or principles. But he points out that these abstractions do not represent only true perceptions. The important correction for the PIERC is of Descartes' assumption that true ‘formally perceived’ ideas can be discovered by reason alone, without taking account of other aspects of the nature of the human mind. A related correction of Descartes is of his explanation that false ideas persist in the mind as a result of misusing free will. From this explanation Descartes concluded that the guarantee for true science was to assent only to what we perceived clearly and distinctly. And he added that "this is something that each individual can easily obtain of himself because he has the power to control the will and thereby bring it about that it is restrained within the limits of the intellect" [PCP I, section Liberation

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from all doubts].125) Spinoza’s objection is that Descartes’ own arguments refute his conception of the will, as explained below. Spinoza explains that Descartes started by doubting everything he presumed to know because he wanted to get rid of all prejudices, and he knew that from our earliest days we were imbued with many prejudices from which we were not easily freed. However, he failed to realize that the essence of a prejudice is that it is accepted as if it is self-evident, without needing proof. He failed to realize that his conception of God was a result of a most common prejudice, namely the tendency to project what we think of ourselves on God. This is explained in the appendix to part I of the Ethics [see p.85], and in his letter to Boxel [C. Letter LVI] he says, that if a triangle could think and speak, it would certainly tell us that God was eminently triangular. Spinoza found the same prejudice in Descartes’ attempt to prove the validity of those beliefs of which he felt certain, by attributing to God his own conception of perfection, namely that the possibility that God intended to deceive him contradicted God’s perfection. Moreover, this prejudice was, according to Spinoza, the reason for Descartes’ failure to realize that in fact he discovered a fundamental tendency of the human mind to create a unified view of Nature [see p.57]. In short, his power to force his will into the limits of his intellect did not rid him of this prejudice. Turning to Descartes’ discovery, that the only thing he could not possibly doubt was the existence of himself doing the doubting, Spinoza agreed that "I think therefore I am" was a standard of certainty, in comparison to which all scientific assertions could be judged. What struck him in Descartes’ argument was his failure to realize that, contrary to his claims, this conclusion did not follow logically from a self-evident idea [PCP I, The discovery of the foundation of all science]. Rather, he discovered an essence of our mind which we can know by reflective introspection alone. He agreed with Descartes about our certainty because in this case we have all the evidence we can have about this human

125) The quotation is taken from Descartes' Meditation 4, 35-42].

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essence [see pp.18 and 111]. Spinoza notes several properties of the mind which he discovered while reading Descartes’ arguments related to his declared cogito ergo sum: the wish not to be deceived by false ideas; the knowledge that he could doubt what he did not understand; his knowledge that he imagined many things against his will, and that he desired to understand things correctly. And concluded that, since all these characterized a thinking being, "I think therefore I am" should have been better formulated "I am a human being as long as I think" [see p.18]. It is a correction essential for Spinoza's characterization of human reason as a natural process of correcting other natural ways by which we make sense of experience. A process that has a corrective function, rather than being the means by which one acquires a direct understanding of Reality. All these criticisms of Descartes find their place in Spinoza’s Ethics, where he constructs a unified logical system, as his recommended method in the TCU requires. He starts with his corrected conception of God, which he identifies to a conception of Nature with its internal laws; its conatus. He passes on to the explanation of the natural origin of the mind and the emotions; to the natural servitude to the emotions, and fends with the power of the intellect or human freedom. In this construction Spinoza appeals to observations only in notes, as a necessary means for supporting the credibility of his propositions. Finally, my interpretation of choice as a natural tendency to keep the mind on reason, is also found in Spinoza’s critical reading of Descartes, namely in Descartes' refutation of Zeno's paradox about the impossibility of motion [PCP II, note to proposition six]. Spinoza explains that according to Descartes, Diogenes refuted Zeno's proof of the impossibility of motion by walking about the place in which Zeno was teaching, thus disturbing the pupils' ability to listen. When one of them complained, Diogenes reprimanded him: How dare you contradict your teacher's thesis that my movement does not exist? But, says Spinoza, according to Descartes, sense-perception can never refute arguments based on ideas of reason. Therefore, the argument of Diogenes makes sense only if it is meant for inducing the pupils to reexamine Zeno's hypothesis. In itself, his

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interference is not a proof. But contradictory interpretations of observations are always the incentive for turning to reason. The determination to keep the mind on reason for resolving a problem like Zeno's, is the only choice we can have, and is the first step in the process described by the proposition of indirect effect of reason on a culture. Although Spinoza did not formulate the PIERC, evidence that he was actually aware of its content is found in the TCU and the history of the publication of his other books. When he wrote his TCU, his rules of life for intellectuals [TCU III] reflect a suggestion that the process must start with some people's resolution to follow reason alone. But his recommendation, that except in their intellectual work they should conform to the customs of their society, reflects his conviction that they could not hope to have a direct effect on other people except for "gaining their friendly ears" for the truths they would discover [see pp.47-48]. The changes in behaviour may occur later, perhaps much later. The difference in his way of writing the Ethics and his other books shows that he followed his recommendations. Ethics is written for philosophers, in the logical style which, according to him, is most convincing. But the TCU and the TPT were written for a wider public, and therefore he used the so called rhetorical style, which according to him, most people prefer and are more likely to understand [see p.59]. The Ethics is the view of Nature which Spinoza intended to serve as the standard for accepting or rejecting the truth of all perceived ideas. But, from the PCP he learned that even a logical analysis often starts from false premises simply because they are familiar. Therefore, the creation of a rational philosophy must take account of the reasons for accepting false premisses. This is why for creating the abstract knowledge in Ethics he started from axioms about which he felt certain due to his preliminary analysis in the TCU. But when writing his other books he took account of the fact that no abstract knowledge can be sufficient for changing people’s actual thinking. Unless account is taken of the circumstances which had led to their way of thinking, the process of correcting ideas may fail to lead to the expected results.

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When Spinoza wrote the TCU, he was confident that the support of the Dutch Republic could be sufficient for the eventual acceptance of his Ethics. However, during the wars with England (1665- 1667) and later with France, his confidence in the survival of the Republic was shaken by the growing influence of the royalists. He still thought that the support of a ruling elite was sufficient for his philosophy to gain ground, but he discovered that one reason for the failure of the leaders of the Republic to control public opinion was their submission to the influence of theologians. This induced him to stop working on the Ethics and turn to his Theologico-Political Treatise. With it he hoped to convince the leaders of the Republic of the soundness of his quest for freedom of thought [preface to the TPT, p.6]. He clearly did not hope to convince his theological opponents of his ideas. In fact, he hoped that they would not read his book because they were sure to distort his opinions and incite the general public against him [C. XLII and C.XLIII]. The people he hoped to reach were those who, as he then believed, were likely to listen to him, provided he addressed them in a language they understood, as he recommends in TCU III. Concerning the PIERC, the urgency he felt in turning to the TPT suggests that he feared that the time needed for his doctrines to have an eventual effect might not be available. I emphasize ‘eventual’ because his refusal to allow the publication of his Ethics shows his belief that it could not yet convince even intellectuals. This is clearly shown in an exchange of letters with Oldenburg [in particular C. LXII and LXVIII (1675)]. Admittedly, as suggested in an earlier letter [XIII of 1663], Spinoza explained that he was reluctant to publish because he hated quarrels, and did not want to turn his countrymen into his enemies. However, his later letters show that his decision not to publish was finally taken when it became clear to him that not only theologians objected to his philosophy, but also his supposed friends. In one of his letters Oldenburg refers to Spinoza's intention to publish his five-part treatise [Ethics], and begs him not to include "anything that may appear to undermine the practice of religious virtue,"

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because "there is nothing for which this degenerate and wicked age seeks more eagerly than the kind of doctrines whose conclusions seem to give acknowledgement to fragrant vices".126) In his answer Spinoza asks for a fuller explanation for this warning because, in his opinion, doctrines that accord with reason are most useful to virtue. While [mistakenly] he thought that this might convince Oldenburg, in this letter he reports the event which actually made him delay the publication. He writes that while being engaged with preparations to publish his Treatise, a rumour has been spread that in it he endeavours to show that there is no God. Some theologians (probably the instigators of the rumour) had seized the opportunity of complaining before the Prince and the magistrates. Moreover, the Cartesians had also denounced him so as to free themselves from the accusation of supporting him. Therefore, he decided to postpone the publication. After the brothers de Wit were murdered, Spinoza came to the conclusion that he must have been too optimistic about the capacity of the existing elite to control events. Therefore, after completing the Ethics, he turned to his last book A Political Treatise, which death prevented him from completing. In the introduction to this last book, Spinoza explains that philosophers writing political theories tend to judge a political system and the behaviour of people living in it according to what they wish people to be rather than according to the way they are [see p. 248]. Here it is important to note that he did not change his mind about any essential aspect of ‘his philosophy,’ as he referred to the Ethics. He still maintained that unlike liberty of spirit and the courage of citizens, which are virtues of individuals, the virtue of a state is in providing and sustaining peace and security. He still maintained that the laws of a state, without which security cannot be kept, are ordained by men ‘of great cunning and craft,’ and also that a society whose welfare depends on its subjects' reason or good will is bound to be unstable [see pp.202 and 250]. Therefore, he concluded that although every form of government might keep the

126) See note 124.

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behaviour of the masses within fixed bounds, the important task of a rational political theory is to discover the best way to prevent authorities from using their power to satisfy their own passions [PT I 6]. Nor did Spinoza change his mind about his claim in the TPT, that, rather than endanger the public order, freedom of thought, including in matters of religion, was essential for the Republic’s survival. He did not say that the universal function of a state was to provide this freedom. He said that this was what a wise government should do, if it understood that the real danger to its stability did not come from the freedom of its citizens but from those who tried to suppress thought and censor its publication. [TPT, pp.258-259]. What is new in Spinoza's last book is that, after the murder of the brothers de Witt, he changed his mind about the range of public support needed for stability. While earlier he thought of the masses as a mere ‘receptor’ of ideas, whether these were imposed on them by religious leaders or by other elites, he came to the conclusion that the support of the masses could only be secured by their confidence that their interests were being considered. This was his reason for supporting democracy as the best way of government. Concerning the PIERC, an important point is that he did not lose his confidence in the possible beneficial effect of science on culture. It was this confidence that led him to the conclusion that, rather than try to devise a new unheard of political system, he should examine the existing systems he knows and deduce from them political principles as one does in other branches of science [PT I]. As noted already, this treatise was not completed. But from ‘a letter to a friend’ [C. LXXXIV] we know that, like the Ethics, the PT was meant to be part of ‘his philosophy,’ namely of his scientific work. Both were written in the hope that their influence would match that of the ‘new science’ the influence of which started to be visible in his time. He still thought that the first step in the long process of the indirect effect of thought on behaviour, whether of a person or a culture, was the work of reason. He still thought that, the task of intellectuals was to see to it that their understanding be of use to the general public. What changed was the meaning of ‘the general public.’

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We can turn now to the second part of my argument [see p.262], that the PIERC might explain why Spinoza’s approach to knowledge was not considered when the influence of Darwin’s theory of evolution was so favourable to its revival, and how this failure eventually led to the cultural relativism so fashionable today. PART II. When turning to this proposition it is necessary to bear in mind that one problem accompanying the guiding role of any general conception of the world is that it must, as Spinoza put it, be defended by reflection alone, before scientists have sufficient evidence for its justification. And perhaps more important to bear in mind is that the available scientific evidence is judged by the standard of truth which such general conception provides. As a result, if two conceptions of nature guide competing approaches to research, the evidence seems to support both for a long time [see p.40]. These reminders are crucial for understanding the proposition of the indirect effect of reason on culture [PIERC]. Since the evidence needed for justifying this part of the proposition involves a long history, I can do no more than point out a few ‘turning points’ in the philosophy of science which by persisting to accept the nature/culture dichotomy as its guiding principle led to the relativism which endangers the continued existence of science today.127) Concentrating on the nature/culture dichotomy doe not mean that the same does not apply to earlier times. For example, in the seventeenth century the disagreement between the participants in the debate between rationalism and empiricism was not necessarily an ‘either-or’ controversy. It was about whose approach was more reliable for attaining a reasonable

127) I wish to add here that, since I claim that the ‘PIERC’ might explain the predominance of cultural relativism, the few ‘turning points’ should have included the French-German development of its post-modern version, which involves the ‘correction’ of Marxism, and through phenomenology and existentialism also reached a cultural relativism. Unfortunately, I do not feel competent for including this history.

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degree of certainty. Apart from an increasing reliance on mathematics [see p.145, note 55, citing Meyer's introduction to Spinoza's PCP], rationalists based their arguments primarily on an introspective analysis, which was an important step for turning this disagreement into an ‘either-or’ controversy. By the eighteenth century, the triumph of empirical science was accentuated by Hume’s criticism of Descartes’ reliance on introspection, which discredited it as a method for gaining knowledge about any natural property of the mind. Although Kant claimed to have reconciled Hume’s scepticism with his own view of the mind, this reconciliation did not support Spinoza’s naturalistic version of rationalism. However, even if we start from the period after Darwin, the fact remains that no empirical evidence has been sufficient for supporting Spinoza's hypothesis that the natural function of reason is to support survival. In other words, only the presupposed inclusion of reason in human nature as following from the theory of evolution would have compelled followers of Darwin to accept this hypothesis. But in fact Hume’s objection to Cartesian rationalism which dismissed introspection as a legitimate source of knowledge remained a hallmark of empirical science, which remained central in the Vienna Circle, the influential seminar at the beginning of the 20th century [see p.36]. Scientists and philosophers participating in this seminar started with the assumption that the more comprehensive a logically ordered hierarchy of scientific domains of knowledge is, the more likely it is to represent a complete understanding of the universe. However, the more they went about clarifying to themselves the place of this assumption in the scientific project, the more they realized that, accepting it as a guiding principle of science meant a drastic modification of their formerly accepted empirical method, as recommended by Ernest Mach. Mach rejected, for example, the assumed existence of atoms on the ground that the contribution of their postulated existence to the construction of a coherent scientific project is not sufficient for justifying its assumed existence. Since atoms cannot be observed, their existence should not be accepted. His recommended method is known as the correspondence theory of truth, meaning that the

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only criterion for the acceptance of any proposition should be its verification by an observed fact. However, the participants in the seminar saw a looming difficulty with this principle which can be illustrated by the use of a thermometer for detecting a change in temperature. While the change in temperature can clearly be taken to be a fact, its detection depends on using a thermometer. But the reliability of a thermometer depends on the validity of two theoretical propositions: that, as a result of the contact of the thermometer with, for example, water, the temperatures of the water and the mercury in the thermometer become the same, and that the linear expansion of mercury on which the construction of the thermometer is based corresponds to the real expansion of temperature in water. This realization led to their suspicion that their apparently pure empirical method blurred the distinction between fact and theory. As far as the PIERC is concerned, we should note that as long as scientists were convinced that they had complete control over the distinction between directly observed facts and facts which could only be tested by instruments which depended on the validity of theories, this interdependency of facts and their theoretical interpretations did not worry them. However, when their hierarchy of theories became so complex that the number of particular propositions that could be directly tested, independently of each other, became ever smaller in comparison to those which could only be supported by some theory, they felt compelled to change their conception of truth. This happened when they realized that each of their hypotheses had to be indirectly tested by the logical consistency of a theory, where any statement supported and was supported by others. In other words, the very success of their assumed empirical guiding principle led the participants of the Vienna Circle to accept a modification of their standard of truth, which came to be known as the coherence theory of truth. This turned their positivism into logicalpositivism. The internal coherence of a theory is what Spinoza characterized as understanding under the attribute of thought. Like him, the participants of the Vienna Circle assumed that this understanding of the logical structure

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of the universe had to correspond to their understanding of causally related facts – namely to understanding under the attribute of extension. They thought, that although not all propositions in a theory could be directly tested, it was sufficient to test as many facts as could be directly observed in order to secure its correspondence to reality. Yet, unlike Spinoza, they objected to make any assumption about the nature of the human mind which would justify this methodological assumption. This objection, based on its being speculative, led many of the participants in the Vienna Circle to the suspicion that any assumption, including unproven axioms in any logically arranged theory, are chosen arbitrarily. The participants in the debates of the Vienna Circle were reluctant to discuss any assumptions about the mind because they were convinced that the success of the scientific enterprise did not depend on such assumptions. They accepted Poincaré’s argument that although we have no way to prove, say, that the law of conservation of energy corresponds to reality, it is by no means arbitrary. It is conventional only in the sense that a good definition is conventional. It is chosen on economical grounds, for being the best way to describe the unity of nature. The law defines what we mean by the concept of energy. What is verifiable is whether observations agree with our postulated law. Such laws, he said, seem to be a-priori assumptions because they are an idealization to which we adhere even when observations deviate somewhat from their mathematical expression, but they are not arbitrarily accepted. According to Poincaré’s conventionalism, the unity of Nature is supported by science as a whole without making any assumption about the nature of the mind, like equating a-priori knowledge to [innate] intuition Nevertheless, the increasing dependency of securing the truth of empirically tested theories on their internal consistency – the essence of the coherence theory of truth – led to the next ‘turning point’ in the way to cultural relativism. This was the suspicion raised by conventionalism, that the created scientific systems do not tell us which are in fact the essential properties of the world, but instead they tell us which properties are more important for us to accept. The objectivity of science turned into

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inter-subjectivity – the knowledge we have in common. This suspicion and its resolution were strengthened by the methodological need to rely on logical deduction, which forced scientists to construct specialized languages for each domain of scientific investigation. This led to the conclusion, that in spite of the fact that the aim of the invented languages was to overcome the subjective bias of individual scientists, inter-subjectivity became a source of a public bias. They concluded that once the specialized languages with their conventional terms and rules of inference have been well established in use, the original purpose to render terms and propositions of a certain theory acceptable to all is forgotten and their inter-subjective acceptance is taken to be evidence for their objective truth. As far as the PIERC is concerned, it is important to note that this conclusion did not lead to cultural relativism at once, although as noted at the beginning of this chapter, it was taken to be evidence for the nature/culture dichotomy. This is because the aspects of the world selected as most important to have in common were considered natural, as opposed to, say, aesthetical views. And scientifically speaking, natural meant more real. In other words, it was thought that the common conceptions needed for successful methods in agriculture, industry or other aspects of material existence could tell us something about human nature, but artistic tendencies could not. This is worth noting because although the common properties mentioned above were cultural creations, they could be seen as continuous with all animals’ needs for survival. Yet, the fundamental discontinuity of culture from human nature is contradicted, for example, by Dawkins’ suggestion that it was a natural aesthetical drive which triggered the evolution of language [see pp.230-231]. In fact, any visit to an archeological museum will challenge the dismissal of an aesthetic drive as being natural because stone tools are much more aesthetically [symmetrically] constructed than their usefulness requires. But this evidence was ignored. It is perhaps also important to note that the creation of specialised languages was not immediately taken to be the source of a [cultural] bias

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to the scientific approach. No problem arose as long as, for example, conventional units of measurement were invented. Their purpose to replace the reliance on inevitably subjective sense perception, like feeling warm, by inter-subjective judgments acceptable to all, was conceived as an obvious improvement on natural perception. Instruments relying on conventional units were always designed for removing subjective aspects of sense perception which stood in the way of creating an objective picture of the world. These methodological changes left the assumed validity of the agreement of a logical structure of science to the causally explicable structure of the world intact. This assumption became suspect with the discovery of alternatives to Euclidean geometry [see pp.156-157], because the different applicability of these geometries has shown that even if it was reasonable to require that a well tested scientific theory had to be logically consistent, it was not reasonable to presuppose that a consistent system necessarily represented reality. This conclusion should have supported Spinoza’s version of rationalism, as explained in chapter VIII, but it was not even considered. Most probably due to the reluctance to consider properties of the mind. Both Spinoza and Descartes maintained that rationality was a state of mind that could distance itself from the influence of ideas external to it. In fact, the difficulty in doing so was a central issue in Spinoza’s TCU [see pp.57-58 and 98]. But The ‘turning point’ leading to cultural relativism were the suspicions about the effects of language on any rational approach. However, for this we must consider separately the response to the ideas of the Vienna Circle in Europe, illustrated mainly by the influence of Wittgenstein, and the response in the U.S. illustrated by the influence of pragmatism. Wittgenstein's work in his first period [see p.146], the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, was written before his short participation in the discussions of the Vienna Circle, and his correction of this work in his Philosophical Investigations was written under the influence of this participation. Both works centred on the role of language in creating

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knowledge. In his first period, as a response to Russell's philosophy of mathematics and Frege's new logic, Wittgenstein thought that the purpose of philosophy was to create a transparent logical language. A language which, on the one hand, faultlessly separates true statements from false ones, and on the other hand, sets clear limits to what can be known by the use of language. Like Frege [see pp.161-162] he argued, that the transparent clarity of a language was to be achieved by purging it of any ‘decorative’ nuances, leaving only naked truth. In his Tractatus Wittgenstein said that the world was the totality of facts, not of things. In other words, we perceive a structured world, as perceived ‘pictures.’ A true proposition in a logical language is designed to correctly represent the relations of the elements in this picture. He thought that his comparison of the use of a logical language to a correct perception of reality [the pictures] determined the scope of knowledge that could be expressed verbally, namely of what could be said. He compared the grasping of basic truths to perception of objects, but these objects are clearly not what we usually mean by objects. They are, rather, those facts that are the basic constituents of the world. His point in calling these basic facts objects was, that like perceived objects these facts are transparently real, and therefore are transparently true. They need no testing or arguments to support or object to them. Wittgenstein did not say what these objects, namely these basic facts, were, but he claimed that they must exist if a logical language was to yield knowledge of the real world, namely a true picture of the totality of facts. This is because logic only preserves truth by deriving true propositions – logical pictures of facts – from other true propositions. With his Tractatus Wittgenstein intended to show how a ‘logical mechanism’ can be constructed [the so called truth-tables] for deriving new truths from old ones. A follower of Spinoza would have concluded that the principles of logic, the rules which govern this mechanism, must have been included among the ‘objects’ transparent to the mind because these could not be proven within his articulated machinery. But Wittgenstein does not say so.

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It was the Tractatus which appealed to the participants in the Vienna Circle. But, as pointed out above, Wittgenstein's short participation in their discussions led to his Philosophical Investigations [PI]. His response to the suspicions raised by conventionalism was that he mistakenly assumed the existence of ‘objects’ universally transparent to all minds. His intention in the PI was to warn philosophers not to introduce groundless assumptions whose source was in the use of language. Instead they should look for the source of the meaning of words in common walks of life, where each practice represented a separate language-game with its own conventional pattern of language-use.128) The word ‘game’ is, of course, a metaphor, to accentuate the conventional characteristic of the specific rules which determine the use, and therefore the meanings, of words. The notion of a language-game clearly refers to cultural creations. This is the reason for the similarity of his analysis of the acquisition of language to the behaviourist description of the same. First, he agrees with behaviourists that any mental state we attribute to another is derived from observing behaviour under specific circumstances, which concerning verbal behaviour is the essence of his idea that the meaning of a word is in its use. Concerning words denoting mental states, he explains that all we know about concepts like ‘intending’ or ‘wanting,’ is that we use these words to distinguish certain events.129) For example, between raising one's arm and waiting for the violent thudding of one's heart to subside. In his opinion, knowing the practical situations in which these distinctions are made makes the appeal to mental states philosophically [or scientifically] superfluous. Second, he agrees with the behaviourists' claim that it is the complexity of stimulus-response relations, and not the privacy of intentions and beliefs, which makes prediction of behaviour difficult, and often impossible. It is nonsense, he says, that I always know better than observers what I am going to do. If they and I are as familiar with the

128)As examples see PI 64-70, 190, 207-209, 454, 129)As examples see PI 611-615, 631-632, 654-659, 693.and PI, II v.

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language-game in which I am participating, they can predict my moves with the same certainty as I can.130) The common obstacle to prediction, he explains, is the difficulty of identifying the language-game that is being played. This difficulty is either due to the fact that language-games are too varied to be sufficiently familiar to everybody, or due to the ability to pretend to be playing a different game from the one which one is actually playing131) [see pp.238 for comparison with Dennett]. Third, he agrees with the behaviourists’ rejection of the arguments of cognitivists who insist on the need to postulate innately known principles in order to explain the capacity to acquire knowledge. According to Wittgenstein those who insist on such need fail to understand that it is their participation in a language-game governed by a naturalistic conception of the mind that forces them to think of this capacity as describing the mind’s real properties. They fail to understand that they have no evidence that, for example, the word ‘think’ describes an activity specific to a human being.132) However, the cultural relativism which has grown out of a reliance on Wittgenstein stems from his assertion that the behaviourists are as much mistaken as the cognitivists they criticize.133) Both mistakenly believe that their theories represent true knowledge of the nature of the mind. They fail to realize that no ontological conclusions can be derived from the use of language. Instead, like all theories, theirs have particular functions within their respective language-games, namely those designed for understanding humanity. Within each of them, their theories may be useful [cultural] fictions. We cannot help but attribute ‘fictional entities’ to people if we try to understand their behaviour. But, when engaging in philosophy – in yet another language-game – we ought to remember that

130)PI II xi, in particular from p.223 131) PI 249-250 and p.224. 132) PI 359-360. 133) PI 307-308.

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these concepts are the products of our language134). Since the topic of this chapter is the PIERC as an implication of Spinoza’s naturalism, four notes are of interest for explaining the road to cultural relativism. First, Wittgenstein’s agreement with behaviourism is an agreement with Spinoza’s definition of objective knowledge [see p.10 and the definition of the mind in p.19]. His rejection of the necessary appeal to the subjective I – namely his agreement with the so called third person’s knowledge of other minds – means that knowledge can only concern the public domain. That this is the common conception of scientific knowledge can be seen by applying Wittgenstein’s analysis to Spinoza’s proposition that all things are animated to some extent [see p.116]. The ‘subjectivity’ of an atom can be described as its sensing the effect of the strong force inside its nucleus and the effect of the electro-magnetic force on its electrons. But our objective knowledge of atoms is derived from observing their behaviour. In this case, our conviction that our objective description is identical to its description in terms of the atom’s ‘subjective sensing’ is based, as Wittgenstein would have put it, on our knowledge that the atom cannot pretend to follow different rules-of-its-game. Yet, as explained by the metaphor of information [see pp.122-125], the more complex the structure of a thing, the more difficult it is to predict the results of all its internal processes by observing its behaviour. But it is not this difficulty alone which applies to human behaviour. According to Wittgenstein the difficulty arises from the fact that the use of language makes it possible to pretend to play a different game than the one which is actually played. And according to Dennett, this pretending, or cheating, as he says, is central for understanding the nature/culture dichotomy [see pp.238 and 240]. Spinoza’s naturalistic approach does not deny these explanations. The difference between them is about the natural role of reason in identifying and rejecting ‘fictional entities’ that might be useful to some and not to others [see p.58]. I come back to this point in the next

134) PI 363, 366-374.

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chapter. The second note is that Wittgenstein did not exclude knowledge of mathematics from being the product of a language-game. Against both Russell and Frege he argued that knowledge of mathematics, like all knowledge, did neither have nor need a foundation [either metaphysical or in a theory of mind], because it was based solely on its acceptability by mathematicians. This objection can be equally directed against Spinoza, who also found it necessary to discover the foundations of knowledge. In his opinion, as explained in TCU VI, those truths which mathematicians cannot help accepting, in spite of their inability to prove them, testify that they must be the essence of mathematics by which it is naturally understood. This explanation does appeal to the so called first person’s perspective, but centres on its universal aspects, as modern cognitivists do. But Wittgenstein claims that an individual mathematician cannot help accepting these truths as long as they are acceptable in the language-game of mathematics. While according to Spinoza the inevitable acceptance of basic mathematical principles explains the universal agreement in the community of mathematicians, Wittgenstein's view implies that this agreement might change if for some reason mathematicians will decide to change their procedures and persuade others to follow. What must be accepted in Wittgenstein’s analysis is that Ultimately, every assumed basic knowledge is taken to be true as long as those who use it accept it. Nothing can be added to this justification. I emphasise ‘basic’ and ‘ultimately,’ because those who see the need for discovering the foundations of mathematics in human reason, do not deny that assumptions and procedures of proof can change, as they changed, for example, by the introduction of the differential calculus or statistics. The claim refers to the fundamental distinction between a naturalist conception like Spinoza’s, or even Frege’s Cartesian one,135) and the idea that mathematical conceptions are products of its language which is a crucial step leading to cultural relativism. 135) As well as a Platonic conception of mathematics. For Frege’s objection see p.161.

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The third note, concerns the very essence of the PIERC, namely, that the assumption that explanations depend on a presupposed view which serves as a standard of truth, implies that any such view can be explained away by another. For example, Wittgenstein would explain Spinoza’s conception of the mind as resulting from a language-game governed by naturalism. But a follower of Spinoza can explain the very existence of distinct language-games by observing that the more people devote their attention to a particular preoccupation on which their existence depends, the more they derive pleasure from their success in it. Mathematicians tend to think more formally than others, and they derive their pleasure and understanding from their created formal systems. The same applies to farmers whose work and produce are a central part of their life, or to carpenters who‘think with their hands,’ so to speak. But the languagegame of philosophy [and science] is a preoccupation of people who keep their minds on reason and thereby transcend their distinct preoccupations in everyday life. The fourth note is, that Wittgenstein’s description of thinking as ‘inward speech’ is not the same as the claim that the use of language is the origin of thinking. What Wittgenstein says is that thinking and ‘inward speech’ are in practice inseparable.136) And it is his emphasis on this inseparability that has been most influential in introducing the idea that the use of language constitutes the link between nature and culture. Wittgenstein's examples invariably try to show that the use of language, and by implication, the thoughts that are inseparable from it, should be correctly conceived as fulfilling a function within particular languagegames, which implies its dependence on culture, rather than on [a universal] human nature. In his opinion, although thoughts and their verbal expressions are fictions, in the sense that they have no ontological foundations, these fictions force us to draw ontological conclusions. But these conclusions are different in different language-games. According to him, most philosophical mistakes are the result of borrowing concepts

136) PI part II xi. In particular pp.211 and 220 respectively.

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common in one language-game for use in another. This borrowing, he says, creates the illusion that there is something in an ordinary language which is common to all its users. Does the history of science support this idea? It is certainly true that all fundamental concepts in physics, like force, energy, or work, were derived from other ‘language-games.’ But, although borrowed from ordinary experience, physicists have soon changed the meaning of these concepts according to the internal rules of their own language-game. The same happened in biology: Darwin borrowed his concept of selection from his knowledge of animal breeding, but the rules of selection changed together with the developing theory of evolution. Contrary to Wittgenstein’s explanation, this borrowing shows that specialized languages have been derived from a common ordinary language, and not as his analysis implies, that the process has been in the opposite direction. All these notes point out that Wittgenstein need not have had the ideas of cultural relativism in mind. As noted already, his purpose in the second period of his philosophy was to revise his conclusions from his early period, when he thought that he could provide a tool for looking at reality with a clear mind [see p.276]. In particular, he came to the conclusion that in order to acquire a better understanding of our understanding (which was also Spinoza’s purpose), we should not ask for the real meaning of a concept, because the assignments of such meanings is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of languages, in the plural. What cultural relativists derived from Wittgenstein’s analysis is, that since there is no such thing as a really common language, there cannot be a correct inter-subjective understanding between speakers, let alone between cultures. While they emphasise the inseparability of the use of language and thinking, followers of Spinoza would emphasise the need to recognise their separability. The essence of Spinoza’s relating freedom of thought with freedom of speech is found in his PT [IX 14], where he explains that men’s natural abilities are not acute enough to discover everything on their own. But by consulting, listening and debating they can reach the right conclusions [see p.60]. In other words, without the

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opportunity to discuss received ideas, serious thinking – which Wittgenstein calls ‘inward speech’ – cannot have the socially desired effect, and the predictions of cultural determinism turn into facts. This was Rosa Luxenburg’s warning of the consequence of silencing free speech [see p.253] and also Chomsky’s view that the same can happen even without being silenced by force [see p.153]. We can now turn to the U.S. where cultural relativism grew out of pragmatism [see p.275]. What I want to show in the following summary of the views of early pragmatists is that there is a lot of similarity between their observations and those of Spinoza. But while Spinoza saw in the observed diversity of ways of life evidence for the possibility of distorting even natural drives and [innate] knowledge, early pragmatists saw in these cultural differences evidence for the nature/culture dichotomy. In the second of a series of lectures delivered by William James from November 1906 to January 1907, with the title What Pragmatism Means,137) he said: “The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable.” With this he opposes the adherents of logical-positivism who were averse to metaphysics, which in practice meant an aversion to acknowledge unproven assumptions. A pragmatist, James explains, addresses the fact that such assumptions are common, and he tries to find out their practical consequences. In science, the question asked is “what experimental fact could have been made different by one or the other [metaphysical] view being correct?” James explains that his emphasis on practical consequences is a radical version of empiricism. Pragmatism gives up a-priori assumptions hidden behind observed facts, and dogmas about the finality of truths. Such metaphysical views, he says, have been found to be strongly connected to the belief in the power of words. Therefore, pragmatism seeks the “cash-value” of words: “do they stand for something by which 137)James’s lectures were originally given in 1898. All references in this book are to Pragmatism, 1950.

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existing realities may be changed?” He explains that the discovery of laws of nature gave scientists and philosophers a feeling that they “have deciphered authentically the eternal thoughts of the Almighty.” However, in time they discovered that the same laws are only approximations, describing reality from some useful point of view. It is in this sense that theories are instruments, rather than answers to difficult questions in which our minds hope to find rest.138) It is also in this sense, he adds, that, although pragmatism is primarily an attitude to research, it is also a theory of truth. This paragraph contains two points emphasising the cultural aspect of knowledge. The first concerns what James meant by ‘theories are instruments.’ And the second – which can be seen as a turning point in the way to cultural relativism – is how ‘the power of words’ has been interpreted in the light of his radical empiricism. This is clearest in Quine’s later theory of radical interpretation, defining the central role of language in misunderstanding each other’s cultures. I come to this later in this chapter. In James’s lectures we find an explanation of the first point. This first point is his interpretation of Schiller’s and Dewey’s instrumental theory of knowledge. They postulate that ideas are true “just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience.” Each individual has a ready stock of opinions. But when “in a reflective moment he discovers that they contradict each other; or he hears of facts with which they are incompatible; or desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy, the result is an inward trouble ... from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of opinions. He saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter of belief we are all extreme conservatives. So he tries to change first this opinion, and then that ... until at last some new idea comes up which he can graft upon the ancient stock with a minimum of disturbance of the latter, some idea that mediates between the stock and the new experience and runs them into one another most felicitously and expediently. This new idea is then adopted as the

138)Pragmatism p.32

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true one.”139) James explains that the new arrangement of ideas, which results from this ‘marriage’ of new experience to old beliefs, is the function of reason. According to Schiller and Dewey, he says, “there is no difference between saying that a thing is true and its being true, because ‘to be true’ means only to perform this‘marriage’ function.”140) Schiller and Dewey accept a conception of the mind as striving to create a consistent system of true beliefs, but the meaning of ‘true’ is changed. James concludes that to say that truth ought to be understood by its practical consequences means that ‘true’ is a species of ‘good.’ If the conventional meaning of truth, or the notion of truth as Divine, were not good, or useful, for us, surely these would have never become dogmas. “If there be any life that it is really better we should lead, and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would help us to lead that life, then it would be really better for us to believe in that idea, unless, indeed, belief in it incidentally clashes with other greater vital benefits.” The crux of the matter, he says, is that “we cannot keep apart the notion of what is better for us to believe and what is true for us.” James takes this to be the reason for his statement that the pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes. If the notion of God proves to be beneficial to us, “how could a pragmatist possibly deny God’s existence?”141) James explains that since Darwinism displaced design from the minds of scientists, theism has lost its role in harmonizing the empirical way of thinking with the religious inclinations of human beings. The Absolute Mind replaces God. This notion of ‘the Absolute’ refers to Hegel’s conception of History rather than to Spinoza’s God [see p.17]. But it too “remains supremely indifferent to what the particular facts in our world actually are.” His point is that pragmatism has no a-priori prejudice against theology. “If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete

139) Ibid pp.34-35. 140)Ibid pp.36-37. 141) Ibid pp.42 and 44.

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life, they will be true. For how much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relation to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.” (His italics). For believers in the Absolute, as for all minds of a rationalist temper, the idea performs a concrete function. It provides comfort because it implies that we have a right “to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.” For these minds, this is the cash-value of believing in the Absolute. This, we may add, is comparable to the comfort derived from Leibnitz’ idea that our world must be “the best of all possible worlds.” The objection to this belief, is the reason James gives for saying that the idea of the Absolute is not true, namely “to insist that men should never relax, and that [moral] holidays are never in order.”142) Charles S. Peirce, whose ideas James claims to elaborate, also says that “the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion.143) Like Spinoza, Peirce assigns to reason a corrective function. And adds that it is a most useful quality, which had been reinforced by natural selection.144) He agrees with Schiller and Dewey that its usefulness is in maintaining a system of beliefs undisturbed by doubt. However, unlike them and James, he also says that what we believe to be true depends on the methods used for settling opinions. He distinguishes between three such methods. The first is the method of tenacity, by which a person keeps to his opinions, holding them true, whatever the evidence against them. Psychologically, Peirce says, there is nothing wrong with this attitude. Only that in fact the opinions of others are bound to shake the person’s confidence in his own

142)Ibid pp.39-41 143) Philosophical Writings of Peirce, pp.10-11. 144) It is interesting to note that, although Spinoza did not argue in terms of evolution, in his Metaphysical Thoughts he remarks that, had the created world been different, so that what is now true were false, but had it remained true that God created us capable of understanding it, then God would have given us a different intellect by which we would be able to understand the different world [MT, Chapter IX Of God's Power. pp.126-127].

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beliefs. The impossibility to suppress the influence of other people is very important, not only in undermining this dogmatic tenacity, but mainly for the survival of the human species. “So that the problem becomes how to fix beliefs, not in the individual merely but in the community.” This problem is solved by the second method, namely by the method of authority, which is well documented throughout history. It is the attempt of any association of a class of men, like a priesthood, whose interests are supposed to depend on certain propositions, to prevent others from doubting them. Although this method of authority led to horrible atrocities in the eyes of any rational person, he says, it also produced spectacular achievements for the mass of mankind. As far as the survival of a community is concerned, there is no better method than this. However, by analogy to an individual, members of a community cannot help hearing beliefs of other communities which may raise doubts about rating their own views at a higher value than those of others. It is this realization, he says, that it is a mere historical accident of their having been taught as they have, which caused them to believe as they do, that led to the third method which allows for the gradual development of beliefs which are in harmony with natural causes,145) by which he means modern science. According to Peirce, the rational aspect of pragmatism is the realisation that where practical matters are concerned, experience and logical inference check each other continually. But, when people venture into an unknown field, the intellect often carries them entirely astray. According to Schiller and Dewey, metaphysical views “have been chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seemed ‘agreeable’ to reason,” where ‘reason,’ as defined above, has the function of removing doubt. This, Peirce says, “makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste. But taste, unfortunately, is always more or less a matter of fashion, and accordingly, metaphysicians ... swung backward and forward between a more material and a more spiritual philosophy.”146)

145) Philosophical Writings of Peirce, pp.12-15. 146)Ibid p.17

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The third, namely the scientific method for settling opinions is superior for eliminating doubt because it can fix beliefs “by some external permanency – by something upon which our [current] thinking has no effect.”The method indeed presupposes that the properties of real things are independent of our opinion about them, “but by taking account of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are.”147) This third method is ‘in harmony with natural causes’ because the belief that perceived things are real is an instinct that no social [cultural] impulse can cause men to doubt. Science cannot prove this realism, but it is an acceptable belief because it does not lead to contrary conclusions, and thus does not raise doubt. On the contrary, experience of the method has had wonderful triumphs in settling opinions.148) However, he adds, this method can never become as general as the other two. In particular, those in power “will never be convinced that dangerous reasoning ought not be suppressed in some way.” Societies differ in the degree of suppression, but even in the most liberal ones there are taboos “considered essential to the security of society.”149) The suppression, Peirce adds, is not totally external. People are tormented when finding themselves believing a proposition they have been brought up to regard with aversion.150) Peirce concludes that only if the third method has been chosen, an intellectual will not hesitate to demand of a Moslem to reconsider his habitual treatment of women. His basis for this demand is that “to avoid looking into the support of any belief from fear that it may turn out rotten, is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous. The person who believes that there is such a thing as truth, which if acted on it should carry us to the point we aim, and then, though convinced of this, dares not assent to the

147)Ibid p.18. 148) Ibid. pp.18-19. 149) Ibid p.20. 150) Ibid pp.20-21

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truth but seeks to avoid it, is in a sorry state of mind indeed.”151) Yet, Peirce adds that if we reason like this, we do so by accident.152) By accident Peirce means that rationality is not a natural property of a human being. It is rather the product of the aim developed in western cultures to create a correct view of the world. According to Peirce, only where this choice prevails, opinions fixed by it “are destined to be the same in the end, however the perversity of thought of whole generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation”153) So far, there is nothing in Peirce’s arguments that could not have been derived from the interpretation of Spinoza’s approach in the light of the theory of evolution. And so it is for most of James’s explanations of Peirce’s ideas. For example, James explains that in fact “different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of [scientific] investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion.” This, he says, “is like the operation of destiny.”154) And in his sixth lecture, he explains what Peirce meant by saying that the rationality of pragmatism lies in the attitude of mind to experience. “Not in the form in which a scientific experiment has been designed under this or that special circumstance, but in the form which is most directly applicable to self-control under every situation, and to every purpose.”155) For a pragmatist “true ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify.” To assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify, are processes depending on all our experience, and not only on any particular domain of investigation. True thoughts, in the conventional sense of the word, stem from excellent practical reasons. Lost in a wood, he says, the discovery of a cow-path is crucial for survival. If the discovery leads to the idea that there must be a house at the end of the path, this idea

151) Ibid p.21 152) Ibid p.7. 153) Ibid p.264 154) Pragmatism p.38. 155) Philosophical Writings of Peirce pp.261-262.

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will save one’s life. But at other times this knowledge is useless. Our memory is full of such items of knowledge that form a general stock of truths, ideas that may be useful on some future occasion. He explains that “true ideas would never have been singled out as such, would never have acquired a class-name, least of all a name suggesting value, unless they had been useful from the outset in this way.”156) By useful knowledge, James says, Peirce does not mean loose objects of belief, like dates, places, distances, kinds of things or activities. Useful true propositions are those which express regularities.157) This applies most forcefully to purely mental ideas, like the truths of arithmetic or the principle of causality. “These relations are perceptually obvious at a glance, and no sense-verification is necessary.”158) In this case, “our ready-made ideal framework for all sorts of possible objects follows from the very structure of our thinking. We can no more play fast and loose with these abstract relations than we can do so with our sense-experiences. They coerce us; we must treat them consistently, whether or not we like the results. The rules of addition apply to our debts as rigorously as to our assets. Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract; be they facts or be they principles; under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.”159) Yet, James also says that there is no difference whether we say that an idea is useful because it is true, or that it is true because it is useful. His interpretation of Schiller’s and Dewey’s thesis is that the function of assimilating a new idea into our older ones is to produce a mental satisfaction, a feeling that our knowledge is progressive and harmonious.160) In the 7th lecture On Pragmatism and Humanism, James defends Schiller’s view of Humanism. He explains that understanding the process of ascertaining truth as described above, namely as a cultural – or

156) Ibid pp.96-97 157) Pragmatism p.98 158) Ibid p.99 159) Ibid p.100 160) Ibid p.101

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as he says as a man-made – process, is justified because human motives and satisfactions lurk in all our questions and answers. It is fruitless to define the world by things which do not concern us. Hence “we ought to start as if [understanding the world] were wholly plastic, acting methodically on that assumption, and stopping only when we are decisively rebuked.”161) “Stopping when we are decisively rebuked,” James says, is the meaning of “taking account of reality,” and ‘reality’ consists first of all of our sensations, over which we have no control. “These are neither true nor false. They simply are.”162) The second part of reality are “the relations that obtain between our sensations or between their copies in our minds.” Some of these relations are mutable and accidental and others are fixed and essential “such as likeness and unlikeness. Both sorts of relations are matters of immediate perception. Both are facts.” To this second kind belong the relations expressed in mathematical and logical terms. The third part of reality is made up of “the previous truths of which every new inquiry takes account. This third part is a much less obdurately resisting factor: it often ends by giving way.” 163) James points out , that though the first and second factors in determining our thoughts are fixed, we have some freedom in dealing with them. Concerning sensations, we may attend to some and not to others, depending on our interests. Concerning the second part, the formulation of true consequences depends on the emphasis put on some facts rather than on others. This is most clearly explained in his Principles of Psychology. By attending exclusively to mechanical relations between things, he said, we appear to ourselves as inhabiting a mechanistic universe.164) His point in his lecture on pragmatism is that there is no unique way to classify or order our truths, nor to treat one as more

161) Ibid pp.116-117 162) Ibid p.117 163) Ibid p.118 164) Principles of Psychology, p.424

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fundamental than another. With this man-made choices one gives form to the third body of beliefs which he calls ‘previous truths,’ namely the system of beliefs described by Schiller and Dewey. James explains that, because this part is at any moment fixed, only the smallest and most recent fraction of the first two parts of reality that comes to us without the “human touch” can be considered as relatively independent of human thinking. Relatively, because without this fund of old beliefs “we can hardly take an impression at all.”165) This fund of beliefs, he explains, determines what we notice; what we notice determines what we do; what we do determines what we experience, “so from one thing to another, although the stubborn fact remains that there is a sensible flux, what is true of it seems from first to last to be largely a matter of our own creation.”166) James says that this does not imply idealism. He explains that Kant drew his idealist conclusion from his recognition of the impossibility of relying solely on ‘the core of sensible reality.’ Some pragmatists, he says, agree with this idealist conclusion, from which they derive the idea that pragmatism means that, since all theories are man-made instruments, they are simply declared true if they work satisfactorily. But, he says, this is not what Schiller and Dewey meant. They treat the core of sensible reality as a limit to inventiveness: “on the one hand there will stand reality, on the other an account of it which proves impossible to better or to alter. If the impossibility proves permanent, the truth of the account will be absolute.”167) In his 7th lecture, James repeats that the essential difference between rationalism and pragmatism is what is meant by ‘reality.’ “for rationalism reality is ready-made and complete from all eternity, while for pragmatism it is still in the making, and awaits part of its complexion from the

165) Pragmatism p.119. 166) Ibid p.122. 167) Ibid p.120.

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future.”168) “On the rationalist side we have a universe in many editions, one real one, the infinite folio, or ‘édition de luxe’, eternally complete; and then the various finite editions, full of false readings, distorted and mutilated each in its own way.”169) Rationalists, he says, give Reality, with a capital R, a concrete nature, a perfect standard for judging our created realities. It is certainly legitimate, he adds, to postulate the existence of such a Reality, because it is thinkable. But we ought to think of it as we think about ‘winter,’ as “a name for a certain number of days which we find generally characterized by cold weather.” This name “is a definite instrument abstracted from experience, a conceptual reality you must take account of.” It is an instrument because it allows you to restrict the probable fluctuations in temperature, and “put away your straw-hats.”170) Nevertheless, he adds that we cannot stick to facts and ignore the metaphysical hypotheses that such a Reality exists, because the concept has its practical uses. In this pragmatism differs from positivism which claims that only verifiable propositions, or concepts, have meaning. To say that the postulated Reality has a meaning means that it has a function in the realm of science. Just as to say that the Absolute has a meaning, means that it fulfills a function in the realm of religion.171) As noted at the beginning of this summary of the early pragmatist view, although there is considerable agreement between their and Spinoza’s observations, for pragmatists these observations constitute evidence for the nature/culture dichotomy and for Spinoza they provide evidence for his naturalistic view. For example, while according to Spinoza the corrective function of reason is related to the natural drive to understand the world correctly, according to James the function of reason is to maintain a system of beliefs undisturbed by doubt. Peirce agreed that the method of

168) Ibid p.123. 169) Ibid p.126. 170) Ibid p.127. 171) Ibid p.129.

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science was superior to the method of authority for improving the human condition, but his emphasis on the importance of the method of authority was most probably influenced by the widely observed diversity of human cultures in the centuries of colonialism. Spinoza did not dispute the fact observed by Peirce, that the conceptions of truth determined by authority have always been much more common than the scientific ones. Nor did he underestimate its value for maintaining social cohesion by imposed acceptance of the method. But according to him, the power of leaders to impose authority must be found in human nature. This includes the knowledge that for this method to prevail the natural drive to turn to reason must be suppressed. Hence, it is not surprising that in most observed societies, the rational method for the acquisition of knowledge is not conspicuous. Similarly, Peirce’s assertion that the method of science is only prevalent when chosen by a culture [see p.287], corresponds to Spinoza’s explanation that the appeal to reason is observable only when it is socially encouraged, because only then people feel the need to use it [TCU XIV, sentences 104-105]. Spinoza and Peirce agree that the scientific method is the best, namely the rational method for understanding nature. But while Spinoza saw in this method a way to restore to humanity its essential natural characteristic as thinking beings, thus providing a criterion for judging any culture [see p.40], its description by Peirce as chosen by accident was a step on the way to cultural relativism, taken later by Quine [see p.143]. Quine was a pragmatist, and he agreed with his predecessors in most respects. In particular, he agreed with Peirce, that, irrespective of being cultural inventions, logic, mathematics and the science created with their help, were the most reliable means for acquiring knowledge. His intention in emphasising the artificiality of invented languages, like the intention of the initiators of conventionalism [including Poincaré], was to warn scientists that the use of such languages imposed constraints of their own on further learning, and these must be taken into account. This epistemological point was emphasised also by Spinoza when he explained the constraints which logic imposed on the creation of knowledge [see

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pp.127-128]. But where Spinoza saw a natural constraint, the participants in the Vienna Circle saw a danger in trusting invented languages, and Quine’s important influence on the way to cultural relativism was his generalization of the warning to the influence of ordinary language. Quine saw that it was the invention of any language that inevitably undermined the universality of science. The important ‘turning point’ towards relativism arose from Quine’s combination of Peirce’s assertion, that we know reality only through our beliefs, because “all the sensations which [real things] excite in us emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs,”172) with James’s conception of radical empiricism applied to the interpretation of speech. Quine explains that understanding the language of others depends on translating their utterances into one's own language – into the concepts included in what James called the third part of reality, made up of previous truths [see p.292]. The correspondence sought by the interpreters of speech is not between words and the world but between the meanings of the speaker's words and their own. In other words, it is not the agreement of an assertion with external reality that matters, but an inter-subjective understanding of its meanings. However, according to Quine, this translation is never reliably unique [see pp.144-145]. His much celebrated example is that if a speaker of an unknown language utters a word which seems to refer to a running rabbit, the interpreter cannot be sure whether the reference is to a running rabbit, to a rabbit, or even to a moving object. In other words, this theory implies that uniquely correct interpretation is impossible.173) Again we should note that Quine’s theory of radical interpretation is not an inevitable step to cultural relativism. In fact Quine’s observations can lead to conclusions supporting Spinoza’s naturalism. A good example is the view of Donald Davidson, a pragmatist follower of Quine. According to him, the fact that anthropologists are quite successful in interpreting other people’s cultures is evidence against Quine’s thesis of

172) Peirce: How to Make Our Ideas Clear, in Philosophical writings of Peirce, p.36. 173) W. V. Quine: Indeterminacy of Translation Again.

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the impossibility of inter-cultural correct understanding. According to Davidson, given Quine’s theory of interpretation, the only explanation for the anthropologists’ success is that a very large number of sentences are equally meaningful for the anthropologists and the observed speakers they try to understand. And this must be so in all domains of interpretation, not just in the domain of facts external to the mind.174) This means that many of our beliefs have a common origin across cultures. Davidson claims that in spite of the variability of possible interpretations postulated by Quine, people must be able to abstract from them the essential conditions under which they are true. And it is because these abstracted conditions of truth are common to both interpreters and speakers that incidental differences can be easily corrected with practice. This, Davidson says, implies that if he is right, a primitive concept of truth must be attributed to the mind. ‘Primitive,’ in the sense that it cannot be defined in terms of other concepts. The attributed knowledge of this primitive concept to the mind seems to add a concept to Spinoza’s listed basic properties of understanding [see pp.79-81]. Davidson’s attributed mental capacity to abstract essential conditions of truth seems comparable with Spinoza’s argument that the fact that we can recognise Peter implies that the mind must abstract his essence [see p.54]. But Davidson denies that his theory is a deviation from pragmatism. According to him, his attribution of a primitive concept of truth to the mind is the only correction that he introduced into Quine’s theory,175) and it is only essential if we accept his theory. This is because the attribution of the concept of truth to each mind is the only way to explain how a language can always be understood. He explains further that, since sentences (not words) are true or false, this means that the meaning of a word must be abstracted from understood sentences in which it appears. And only when a vocabulary is learned in this way, it is sufficient for interpreting other sentences which due to different culturally determined interests have different meanings in the 174) These ideas are repeated in most articles of ITI. See for example pp.144 and 174.. 175) ITI p.225

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languages of the interpreter and the speaker. Again we must note that this argument supports the proposition that the truth of every theory is assessed by the distinct view which guides its construction. Had Davidson accepted a naturalistic view, he could have found evidence for his postulated primitive conception of truth in the way children learn their first words. In this case the concept ‘true’ would have to be considered natural in the sense that children use it before knowing the meaning of any uttered sentence, or word, including the word ‘true’ [see p.143]. Only later, when they master a language, they can discover that they use different criteria of truth in different domains of its use. But Davidson did not seek evidence for a natural human property because, as he says, pragmatism taught him not to consider a theory as anything more than one of the many possible interpretations of experience.176) He considered his postulated primitive concept of truth as necessary for removing the doubtful impossibility of inter-subjective understanding introduced by Quine’s theory of ‘radical interpretation.’ He argued that by postulating a concept that cannot be derived from empirical evidence he did not differ from any other theoretical explanation.177) All theories postulate some primitive concepts which cannot be proved, and these are accepted on pragmatic grounds. He insists that his apparent reference to the nature of the mind applies only if Quine's theory of interpretation is accepted. Another theory may not need it.178) Before turning to the crucial turning point toward relativism in the next chapter, I want to emphasise an important aspect of the PIERC related to the use of language. On the one hand, the proposition is supported by the fact that as long as scientists believed that the progress of science went hand in hand with generally approved changes in private and public ways 176) This is why Davidson thought that the study of the mind must be a common discipline of psychologists, linguists and philosophers. 177) ITI p.174. 178) ITI p.225

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of life, nobody objected to the use of specialized languages in laboratories or scientific journals. The general agreement about the usefulness of science, in spite of such diverse standards of truth as proposed by pragmatism, positivism and realism, was most likely due to the perceived benefits of science and engineering. Benefits which, as Latour explains, became so much part of a common way of life that they were taken for granted [see p.93]. But on the other hand, it is clear that while being engaged in the scientific project, scientists and the public which take their achievements for granted are likely to encounter events which are bound to raise doubt in their minds about the morality or social utility of their work. In other words, it is quite likely that the same explanation given by Latour for the influence of science – for the indirect effect of reason – on everyday life, also explains the current objections to this influence. This is because once the successes of science became common enough to be taken for granted, its failures became more conspicuous. Two conspicuous examples can illustrate the case. One conspicuous example is the creation of the atom bomb. Not surprisingly, it was the military establishment that was convinced of the usefulness of letting scientists deal with their own scientific concerns without interference because they knew that it was primarily, if not their only, intellectual interest in the knowledge they sought which moved them to participate in the Manhattan Project. They knew that by leaving scientists alone, they – the military – would be free to use the scientific results as they wished.179) Most scientists woke up to realize the 179) That the attitude of scientists who professionally keep their mind on intellectual work alone, without even considering the consequences of their work, is also shown by J. Weizenbaum’s book Computer Power and Human Reason. He tells that due to his colleagues’ fascination with the power of computers, they agreed to take part in a research project about voice-recognition paid for by the Defense Department, although they knew that its purpose was to identify ‘objectionable’ speakers by listening to their in telephone conversations. His claim is that when scientists are given the opportunity to engage in interesting topics, they usually do not refrain from accepting any financial support, without considering either the purpose of their supporters or the possible use of the results. Thus contradicting Feynman’s conviction that scientists are always willing to take the consequences of their work [see p.78]. Weizenbaum tells also about

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consequence of their work after Nagasaki [see p.140 and note 53]. Not after Hiroshima, when they believed that using the bomb was justified by causing the end of the war. Only after Nagasaki some scientists, like many other people, came to the conclusion that letting the military to pursue their own interests defied the actual aims of both science and democracy. The second conspicuous example is the misuse of genetics. The discipline started with Darwin's theory, supported with the revival of Mendel's earlier work on heredity, and by installing in 1909 a department of genetics in Cambridge. Although its purpose was purely scientific, it gave an impetus to Eugenics, a movement initiated by Galton (a relative of Darwin) whose aim was to improve the human condition by improving the genetic basis of the human species. The development of the theory of statistics by R.A. Fisher [see p.134] was to a large extent a result of his support for this movement.180) It is important to note that the initial supporters of Eugenics included socialist reformers who did not dream of the use that the Nazis were about to make of it. But the latter was certainly the main event which turned the hostility to Eugenics into a suspicion of genetics. Clearly, not less than Spinoza, the supporters of the nature/culture dichotomy like Dawkins and Peirce, disapproved of policies which used scientific work in such ways. All adherence to the nature/culture dichotomy accept the argument that it is up to a society to prevent the occurrence of the examples given above. However, the idea that moral objection to them are a product of our culture – an accident of history, as Peirce put it – means that together with this culture the objection may disappear. Contrary to them, Spinoza advocated freedom of thought and speech because in it he saw the first necessary step in the long process of the indirect effect of thought on behaviour. His hope was that eventually the influence of his Political Treatise may match the visible influence the effect which this fascination with the machine has on people's self-conception, which he discovered when his secretary used his program ELIZA, simulating a session with a psychiatrist, as if she was consulting a real person. 180) See N. Brenner: R.A. Fisher's Philosophical Approach to Inductive Inference.

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which the ‘new science’ started to have in his time, and thereby contribute to the prevention of the worst accidental events illustrated by the examples given above [see p.40]. At the same time the recognition of the effect of the ‘PIERC’ requires to distinguish between preventable ‘accidental’ events, and those which have become part of the circumstances which a rational scientific method must take into account.181) With this recognition, the real problems raised by relativists would be considered within the scientific community. And then, we would be spared the ‘war of cultures,’ between the scientific culture and the culture which today is the only culture considered humane. This is discussed in the next chapter. Here I only want to explain what I mean by the distinction between preventable accidents and those which turn into circumstances which must be taken into account. The difference is not restricted to social science. It can also be illustrated by the introduction of the arabic notation which included zero into Europe. Even if the conception of number is natural, as Spinoza maintains [see p.80], we can imagine that when mathematicians encountered the new notation they translated their meanings into their familiar Roman notation, the only language which was meaningful for them, in order to convince themselves that anything expressed with the new symbols was correct in terms of the old ones. However, their only 181) It is quite possible that had the PIERC been taken account of in approaching foreign aid to poor countries, at least one frequent failure of genuine attempts of international organizations to help these countries could have been avoided [I say genuine attempts, ignoring the more direct reason, that following their self interest, donors damp, say, their gift of rice on poor countries thus ruining the local rice producers]. What could be avoided is, for example, the neglect of the realization that when donors demand from the government of a poor country to encourage private enterprise, in the belief that this brought the prosperity to their own countries, they take no account of the conception of moral behaviour in the recipient country, which according to Spinoza, is a natural response of its members to their knowledge that they need each other’s help. When governments in these countries accept the demand of the donors, they disrupt traditional customs that connect social control to moral dictates. The result is unbridled surrender of people in power to their self-enrichment, leading to general corruption coupled with increased poverty.

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motive for adopting the new notation must have come with their realization that with it they could do more than with the old one. And, as relativists correctly claim, this realization could only take place in a culture where such an improvement was appreciated. This is the condition for adopting any innovation of another culture. It follows that, even if we accept that knowledge of human nature is essential for understanding cultures, this knowledge alone cannot be sufficient for addressing questions like, Why is it that science as we know it exists for only four centuries in a restricted part of the earth? Why were Greek discoveries, like the laws of Archimedes, expressed in purely mathematical terms, while in other centres of learning they were mixed with magic?182) Spinoza did not consider such questions, but the acceptance of his approach would have led to an inquiry about them. In particular, it would consider under what conditions our scientific development may continue to flourish, or disappear as happened with Greek science.

182) In his second book of his History, Herodotus explains that although Egyptian priests assembled a lot from knowledge about the floods of the Nile, they did not produce an explanation for it. This, Herodotus explains, is because these priests disregarded the fact that other rivers, under similar conditions which they took to be the causes of flooding, did not behave in the same manner. In other words, they did not have a correct method.

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CHAPTER XIII: THE ASSUMED CENTRAL ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY. As argued in the previous chapter, the way to relativism is related to the view about the central place of a language in the establishment of the nature/culture dichotomy as a guide and a standard of truth for research. Richard Rorty calls this turn of events ‘the linguistic turn in philosophy.’183) At the beginning of the previous chapter I pointed out that a change in such a guiding view does not mean that observations are different. It means that the same observations serve as evidence for the different views. This is as true for Spinoza’s observations as it is for pragmatism and for Rorty’s neo-pragmatism. In the present chapter I try to show that like William James, Rorty rejects cultural determinism. But unlike James he relates this rejection to this linguistic turn in philosophy. This is my reason for distinguishing between his ‘neo-pragmatism’ and earlier pragmatists. As pointed out in the previous chapter, earlier pragmatists did not reject a scientific approach to human affairs. As a psychologist, William James clearly adopted what Peirce’s characterization of the rational method for ascertaining truth. Moreover, James’s arguments confirm the proposition that a change in a guiding approach to science is brought about by continual corrections of science ‘from within.’ A short summary of James’s arguments as a scientist, as opposed to the proponent of pragmatism, will illustrate the point. But Rorty does not care about this aspect of James’s work. What he does share with him is the justification of Schiller’s view of Humanism, as explained in his 7th lecture On Pragmatism and Humanism [see p.290]. Rorty’s aim

183) The role of language in the determination of thought has been discussed in philosophy at least since Socrates, but for obvious reasons I have confined myself in this book only to the result of the special attention to it which began with the influence of logical-positivism (in the Vienna Circle) and pragmatism.

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is to create a more humane culture than the one based on the tradition of the Enlightenment. And my aim in this chapter is to show that his proposed way for achieving his aim is unlikely to succeed. I propose that had Rorty adopted Spinoza’s approach to science, his aim would have had a greater chance of success, and as pointed out towards the end of the previous chapter, we might have been spared the apparent tension between science and a humanist culture. A short summary of James’s arguments as a scientist. Like Spinoza, William James thought that a psychologist should not dismiss the experience of free will but find a natural explanation for it. In his book The Principles of Psychology James postulates that our experience of free will can be equated to conscious attention (‘equated’ in the sense explained in the introduction [see p.19-20]). In the chapter on attention, James raises the question whether a change in the ‘ideational centre’ – namely in those cells in the brain which are activated when we become conscious of ideas – is mechanically caused by changes in other cells in the brain, or a changed idea causes a change in brain-cells. He explains that if the former is the case, then changes in the brain cause attention to an idea and this is experienced as free will. And if the latter is the case, then attention must be caused by a ‘spiritual force,’ independent of the brain. James discusses these two possibilities in the chapters on attention and on habits respectively. In the chapter on habits, the ‘mechanization of the mind’ appears to be a strategy of an intentional being for managing behaviour in the best possible way. He argues that the other mechanistic explanation ignores that the more complex a structure, the greater the possibility that internal or external forces will change its behaviour in different ways. But we speak of its changing its ways only if the structure does not disintegrate. The ability of an organism to maintain its unity in the face of a multitude of such internal and external changes, he says, is "the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once."184) The mechanistic

184) W. James: The Principles of Psychology p.105

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view, he says, ignores that while this kind of ‘plasticity’ of any sub-system of a person might go against the person’s well-being, the function of the sub-system described by psychology is to regulate the person's well-being. In other words, according to James, his contemporary psychologists took the Inverted Cartesian view as a model – Descartes’ view of animals, as machines having a fixed structure – but he thought of all organisms as self-regulating structures which while responding to internal or external stimuli changes within it may occur but the overall organization of its components is maintained, as described in chapter IV [see p.116]. James argues that if the self-regulation of the sub-system described by psychology did not produce habits performed automatically, a person’s ability to do more things than those for which he has ready-made neural arrangements would not have been possible. The acquisition of a habit “simplifies the movements required to achieve a given result, makes them more accurate and diminishes fatigue.” It “diminishes the conscious attention with which our acts are performed."185) It is due to the formation of habits that tasks can be performed automatically, so that one can at the same time engage in conversation without the task suffering. The important point, according to James, is that the apparent possibility to explain behaviour mechanistically, explains in fact a device for turning intentionality more efficient. This, he says, is the reason why the automatism created by habits turns, in animals as well as in human beings, into a ‘second nature’ created by learning. The great thing in education, he says, is "to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.” This can be done by installing useful habits in children as early as possible. Otherwise people would waste their life on decisions which ought not occupy more than a fraction of their time.186) Moreover, he adds, the formation of habits is the most precious conservative agent for a society. He explains that the strongest argument for thinking of attention as

185) Ibid, pp.112 and 114 respectively. 186) Ibid, pp.122 and 125 respectively.

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caused by mechanical brain processes is that even if the power of the will is not material, the success of the strategy of an intentional being depends on the formation of neural connections grooved in our brains. Otherwise the overt expression of voluntary attention would evaporate before having a chance to be converted into action. And it must be conceded that such neural connections are subject to physical laws. Yet, a strong argument is not a proof. In the chapter on attention, James surveys the scientific experiments carried out by the leading psychologists of his time. These experiments show that the function of attention is to focus consciousness on one out of several simultaneously possible trains of action, including trains of thought. They show that even what is perceived is not determined by the object itself, but by mental processes of selection.187) But they also show that these processes are as involuntary as physiological ones. In other words, they show that responses to stimuli do not deviate from the view of mankind as part of a mechanistically operating universe. The question that remains, he says, is whether voluntary attention exists. And if it exists, whether it necessarily introduces free will, namely a will free from physical determination. In order to answer this question he turns to the possibility that attention is dominated by interests, rather than by physical processes in the brain-cells. James distinguishes between fixed interests, to which we can give an evolutionary explanation, and derived interests which depend on particular [cultural] circumstances. In this context he refers to the role of education in forming habits, and to the ‘preciousness’ of education for society.188) The role of educators, he says, is to identify the derived interests that are essential for survival in their society’s way of life, and to communicate them to those in their charge. Experiments show that this function of education does not imply the existence of voluntary attention. This is because experiments show that the identification of social

187) Ibid, p.424. 188) Ibid, pp.403-406.

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phenomena worthy of attention is quite possibly as involuntary as the movement of our eyes which causes our seeing one thing rather than another.189) If this is so, a mechanistic cultural determinism is supported. In the context of the present chapter it is important to note that James does not ignore the proposition that the use of language forms a link between the individual and the social levels of psychology.190) But according to him, this proposition does not change his argument that if there is no voluntary attention, then free will altogether disappears. This is because our experience tells us that the most we can claim for voluntary attention is that its function is to retain, or fix, ideas brought into consciousness by the [involuntary] laws of association. “But the moment we admit this, we see that the attention per se, and the feeling of attending, need no more fix and retain the ideas than it need bring them [to mind]."191) In conclusion, if the acceptance of ideas is guided by interests, and an interest is understood to be either innate or inserted in the mind by learning from experience, then the same experience which brings objects and ideas to consciousness will also determine whether they will be retained or rejected. And, of course, this applies to all kinds of experience, culturally as naturally determined. In these two chapters, then, James analysed on the one hand, the interpretation of observations as evidence for the inverted Cartesian view dominant in modern science coupled with cultural determinism, and on the other hand, as evidence for the original Cartesian view, by which voluntary attention is initiated by the spiritual force of free will. He concluded that judging by current scientific work, both interpretations are equally feasible.192) They are equally feasible because the question, whether a change in the ideational centres causes the change in the brain-cells, or it is the other way round, has not been answered [see p.303]. His

189) Ibid, pp.446-447. 190) Ibid, p.424. 191) Ibid, p.444. 192) Ibid, p.450.

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preference for the original Cartesian view is based on his conviction that the existence of free will, described as voluntary attention, is essential for understanding morality. James argues that, although his preference cannot be supported by science itself, it can be justified by a critical consideration of the method used in scientific psychology. His main argument is addressed against the methodological rule known as Ockham's Razor [see p.76], which according to the mechanistic approach to psychology says that, since behaviour and experience can be explained in a mechanistic way, and thereby the experience of volition can be disposed of, we should refrain from positing a voluntary attention to our theory of mind which clearly goes beyond necessity.193) James argues that the Ockham's Razor rule proved to be so successful in the natural sciences – namely in those explaining the physical domains – because in them scientists are committed to it only when all phenomena in their domains are explained without adding superfluous entities. In these physical domains of investigation conscious experience does not appear. But it clearly appears in psychology. Hence, by presupposing that the same mechanical model applies in psychology as in the physical sciences, we commit ourselves a-priori to neglect something that is clearly a psychological phenomenon. The model of natural science, he says, cannot explain the universal presence of moral considerations in our minds. If the effectiveness of the habitual application of moral principles depends on the same kind of processes in the brain as the habits of a drunkard, he asks, how can we explain that we recognize a difference between them? And if the recognition of the difference is imposed on us by education, how is it that, at least occasionally, education induces criticism or even rebellion? The argument that scientific psychology must include all psychological phenomena in its inquiries, is central to Spinoza’s naturalist approach. This is why his approach requires not to dismiss the experience

193) Ibid, p.448.

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of choice as an illusion [see p.171]. Also similarly to Spinoza, James argues that this inclusion is methodologically important [see p.55]. This, he says, is because only if we consider all our experience as real, experiments can be designed for testing its effects. For example, the postulated spiritual power may amount to no more than a very short prolongation of an attention that otherwise would fade away. Delaying such fading away may be critically important. For it is often a matter of but a split second of less or more attention that determines which of two chains of thought, or brain events, will develop to the exclusion of the other.194) The whole drama of voluntary life, he adds, may hinge on nothing more than slightly more or slightly less attention which rival percepts may receive. On the nature of this attention depends whether the entire notion of autonomy is real or an illusion. Yet, experiments to test this possibility will not be contemplated if the experience of free will is a-priori discarded. James concludes that the proponents of the machine model forget that the method they follow requires not to accept or reject ideas without evidence or proof. What he asks psychologists is, that because the Cartesian conception of a spiritual force is so important on moral grounds they should leave the question whether voluntary volition is or is not associated with free will open for further inquiry. In view of James’s considerable agreement with Spinoza’s conception of the mind, the question arises why did he disregard it? The answer is found in the chapter The Perception of Reality, which is the only place Spinoza is mentioned in his book. James agrees with Spinoza that faced with two contradictory ideas in the ‘ideational centre’ we cannot continue to hold both. Yet, according to him, it is up to us to choose which one to disregard.195) In this he sees the psychological basis for his pragmatist assertion that "each of us literally chooses, by his ways of attending to things, what sort of a universe he shall appear to himself to

194) Ibid, p.452. 195) Ibid, p.290

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inhabit."196) But he warns pragmatists, that this does not mean that we are unable to notice the neglected aspects of this choice. Rorty’s neo- pragmatism. Rorty claims to follow Dewey, rather than James, as representing pragmatism. Following Dewey’s instrumental theory of knowledge [see p.284], Rorty sees knowledge not as a relation between a mind and neutral objects, but as a generally accepted system of beliefs which enables us to cope with our realities, in the plural. Coping with a social reality means the ability to get agreement by using persuasion rather than force.197) In other words, he refers to Dewey rather than James or Peirce, because Dewey explained that the advantage of having a language is that it replaces fighting with fists by fighting with words. Apart from Dewey, Rorty claims to follow Wittgenstein, Kuhn and Davidson. Wittgenstein's metaphor of language games, he says, fits Dewey's pragmatism because it says, on the one hand, that the meaning of words is determined by their use in various social practices – namely various realities – and on the other hand, that taking part in such practices involves acting on the basis of shared beliefs which determine the rules of the games. These man-made rules are guided by local interests, and according to Rorty, this is the main opposition between seeing truth as correspondence to reality and seeing it as warranted ascertibility.198) Namely accepting a proposition as true if we can act upon it with confidence. Rorty sees Kuhn's description of ‘normal’ science – namely that normally scientists comply with the paradigmatic conceptions and methods as long as they have no compelling reasons to challenge them [see p.100] – as fitting the language-game metaphor because it implies, that neither the rules of the ‘game’ nor the created vocabulary suitable for a particular scientific domain, can be universally valid. With this

196) Ibid, p.453. 197) Rorty: Texts and Lumps, New Literary History Vol.17, 1985 p.11. 198) Consequences of Pragmatism, p.110.

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conception of science, Rorty says, following a method is correctly understood as the obligation to remain within the conventional rules of any particular domain of science – its language-game. The obligation in the modern scientific language game – where the game is ascertaining truth by Peirce’s described third method [see p.287] – is to be open to refutation so as not to hinder inquiry, and to refrain from letting one's hopes and fears influence conclusions, unless they are shared by all the participants in the game. This, Rorty explains, is what is meant by being rational: it imposes a balance between respect for opinions of one's fellows and respect for the stubbornness of sensation.199) With this conception of rationality, conceptions of scientific method, the justification of beliefs, or finding them true, coincide with loyalty to the values of a given community.200) Following Davidson, Rorty repeats that the correspondence sought by interpreters of speech, is not between a mind and neutral objects, but between a speaker’s words and the interpreter’s system of beliefs. According to him, Davidson reached his conclusion, that a substantial number of sentences must be held true by both the speaker and the interpreter, from two facts. One is that the beliefs of the speaker can only be derived from his uttered sentences, and the second is that people having very different systems of beliefs often understand each other. According to Rorty, the essential point in Davidson’s theory is that it is not necessary to take any aspect of knowledge [for example empirical facts] as more basic than any other [for example moral statements]. Nor is it necessary to postulate constant properties of objects for explaining mutual understanding. What is necessary for understanding each other, in his opinion, is to acquire a linguistic know-how for moving from one language-game to another. And it is for the acquisition of this know-how that an agreement about the truth of a large number of sentences is

199) Ibid pp.193-195. 200) Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism.

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necessary.201) Concerning the language-game of the philosophy of science, Rorty says that it is futile to ask for the real meaning of a [philosophical] text, because the question stems from the illusion of realists that things have a real essence behind appearances in terms of which Nature would describe itself if it could. This illusion is a result of our wish to see the history of ideas as a long conversation between different representatives of our species. But this wish, he adds, is not a universal psychological property, but a consequence of our literate culture. Being brought up in the realist tradition we want to see it this way "in order to assure ourselves that there has been rational progress in the course of recorded history"202). Since such rational reconstructions are always made within language-games of contemporary readers, each reconstruction is an attempt to ‘re-educate’ one’s ancestors. There is no reason to expect that all reconstructions throughout history should converge.203) One of Rorty’s examples of such a re-education of ancestors is the following: Descartes's concern with philosophy was mainly his attempt to liberate intellectual life [science] from ecclesiastical institutions. But because religious concerns were important to him he invented the mind as distinct from the body, where only the body was to be part of the newly constructed mechanical world. Locke turned Descartes' invented mind into the subject matter of the science of man. His problem was how we can improve our knowledge by understanding the workings of our minds. His metaphor of the mind as wax on which objects leave impressions, has nothing to do with the justification of beliefs. But, since Kant thought that the main concern of philosophy was to establish the objectivity of knowledge, he needed to show that epistemology was also Locke's and 201) Texts and Lumps, pp.11-12. 202) The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres, Philosophy in History, Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy. p.51. 203) This is a rebuke to Peirce, the father of pragmatism, who thought that progress is in ultimate convergence to the truth. See ALIPUR (ed.): Truth and Interpretation pp.336-338.

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Descartes' main concern, which led him to the reconstruction of their views. Kant, Rorty says, saw his philosophical role in unifying two traditions: of the rationalists, who considered concepts and ignored sensations, and of the empiricist, who did the opposite. Therefore, he reconstructed the Cartesian mind, making it a synthesizer of two different types of representations, sense perception and concepts.204) According to Rorty, the Dewey-Wittgenstein-Kuhn-Davidson approach provides the best way of characterizing understanding because there is no other way of characterizing anything, including an object, except by talking about it and putting it in the context of other things characterized by talking about them. Like James, he claims that the essence of pragmatism is that it rejects all dogmas [see p.283], including the dogma of empirical science. Empirical scientists, he says, think that by looking at people as if they were objects, they understand them better. But in fact, the occasional achievement in understanding each other is due to the occasional sympathetic knowledge we have of the state of mind of another person. In this way we construct an idealized Other.205) Like James, Rorty rejects cultural determinism, but unlike James, he does not base his rejection on a philosophy of science [see p.302]. Nor does he consider the possibility that this inevitability can be prevented by the application of reason, as Spinoza suggests. Instead, Rorty suggests that this inevitability can be prevented by confining Kuhn's idea about dominant paradigms of thought to each language-game separately. For example, he sees in Davidson's primitive concept of truth a useful concept in the anthropological language-game. The concept creates a satisfactory understanding of the speech of foreigners. But as a follower of Wittgenstein, he knows that the concept may be superfluous in other language-games. According to him, the possibility to reject any idea imposed on the participants of any language-game can be ensured by the freedom to move from one language-game to another, which he describes

204) Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, pp. 147-150. 205) Texts and Lumps, pp.10-11

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as changing one’s language. In each language-game, he says, its paradigm implies what is most important to its participants to hold in common, which may contradict the priorities in another language-game. Therefore, the freedom to move from one language-game to another is the freedom to choose one’s priorities, which are articulated by choosing what is talked about. But, the decision to change a language has nothing to do with truth. In Rorty’s opinion, the same applies to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. When they established their approach to knowledge they refused to participate in the theologians' language-game. They did not argue with theologians about the existence of God. They simply refused to consider God's moral demands when dealing with nature. With this refusal, these philosophers changed the paradigm dominating the preoccupations of philosophy. And theology ceased to be seen as the best way of coping with reality, including human reality. James attempted to correct the mistakes of these philosophers. But Rorty is not interested in correcting their mistakes. His purpose is to put an end to this modernrealist tradition and replace it by a better way of coping with human problems. Although Rorty does not explicitly say so, his objection to the pursuit of knowledge in human affairs as a science is due to his correct identification of the modern scientific approach with the inverted Cartesian view. What he does say is that according to the scientific approach, the concepts of truth and objectivity apply only to universal aspects of things. This implies that a scientific view of human nature can only apply to universal human properties. And it is this view that requires the exclusion of moral and other judgments from human nature, because these are observed to be different in different cultures. An important point for him is a refusal to argue with natural scientists about the nature of objective truth because this concept belongs to their paradigm in their language-game. He prefers to take part in a different language-game dominated by pragmatism, because pragmatism concentrates on problems of real people in an attempt to improve their lives, including moral

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problems, which as he says, have nothing to do with universal truths and objectivity. Therefore, he proposes to take the social sciences out of the scientific language-game. If the social sciences get rid of the traditional notions of objectivity and scientific method, he says, we shall see their task as interpreting other people to us, so as to enlarge and deepen our sense of community. We shall see the anthropologist as helping us turn a person in another culture into ‘one of us.’ The sociologist will do the same for outsiders in our own society, and the psychologist will do so for the eccentric and the insane. If we see this achievement as their most important task, we shall not object to their sharing an anecdotal style with journalists and novelists. The superiority of his proposal, he says, is confirmed by our experience that literature provides a better understanding of human affairs than any science. This is because even if the universal human properties which science discovers are true, they are irrelevant for understanding the human condition.206) The aim to persuade us to think of the other as ‘one of us’ is much better fulfilled by a novel than by science, because although the people in a novel are fictitious, it convinces us that had we found ourselves under their circumstances, their emotions and problems would be ours. In short, if social scientists will not anymore participate in the language-game of the natural scientists, they will stop worrying about their style being unrelated to the Galilean tradition, because they will not pretend to discover a hidden nature of man.207) Without relying on current intuitions about truth and objectivity, he concludes, the culture that may come into existence will eradicate the belief that priests, scientists, poets, ‘the party’ or anybody else, has a monopoly on truth or rationality.208) It is worth adding here that this view of social science can be seen as an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s remark, that if another person knows all the language-games in which I participate this person can predict my

206) Consequences of Pragmatism p.203. 207) Ibid. 208) Ibid, p.xxix.

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behaviour as well as I do. The remark implies that only personal relations can lead to real inter-subjectivity. And according to Rorty, the task of his proposal is to enlarge this inter-subjectivity. According to Rorty, this enlargement of inter-subjectivity is the achievement of literature, and for intellectuals this enlargement is achieved by the study of history. Not by a historical analysis which pretends to be a true explanation of the past. The rejection of this pretence is not based on a claim that historical truth is hard or impossible to attain. It is based on the radical empirical observation that we read history books, as we read all texts, as a support for our own moral aims. Rorty's reason for accepting this observation as a recommendation, is due to his assertion that there is no other way to achieve moral aims. This assertion is based on his explanation that morality is loyalty to the language-game in which one participates. He takes this explanation to follow Radical Empiricism because it is the observed standard which people use when passing moral judgements. The explanation extends to any judgment passed within any language-game. And it is because he rejects the inevitability of accepting any such idea – as implied by cultural determinism – that he concludes that the freedom of people to live as they choose is their freedom to participate in the language-games of their choice. This, according to him, can be achieved only by making sure that everybody is free to use and listen to every attempt at persuasion. And in the language-game of intellectuals this includes the freedom to read texts written by one’s contemporary writers as well as those written by one’s ancestors and choose one’s allies among them. An aim, he says, that ought to be supported by all those who value freedom. Discussion. At the beginning of this chapter I say that my aim is to show that Rorty’s proposed way for creating a more humane culture than that which is based on the tradition of the Enlightenment is unlikely to succeed. And that with Spinoza’s approach to science, his aim would have a greater chance of success. The first part of my argument consists of showing that by applying his own recommendations his aim is likely to be defeated. The

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second part consists of showing that had he chosen Spinoza to be one of his allies, as he says, this defeat could have been prevented. His own recommendations are self-defeating. This first part is shown by Rorty’s explanation of the way in which a change of one’s language-game occurs. According to him, Dewey's postulated function of reason as a device for maintaining the harmony in one's own beliefs [see p.289], cannot follow from any natural intuition (or innate knowledge) because any intuition is rooted in one’s dominant language, and the dominant language is confined to a particular languagegame. Rorty explains, that radical empiricism shows that from time to time, when harmony is disturbed in the beliefs dominant in any languagegame, a genius appears. who shows a new way to see the world, and provides the language to restore harmony. In our intellectual languagegame we satisfy the need for harmony in our beliefs by choosing our allies among such geniuses of the past. However, our choice of any particular genius has nothing to do with the validity of his arguments. The choice is determined by our wish to create an intellectual community throughout history to which we belong. However, this wish does not tell us anything about human nature, because it is a product of a literate culture.209) Rorty explains that his own reason for wishing to change the language-game of the social sciences is that he does not know a better way by which Dewey’s proposed replacement of fighting by fists with fighting by words can be ensured. Consider first his assertion that our wish to belong to a community extended in time is not natural but a product of our literate culture. Radical Empiricism does not support this claim. Observing the traditions of nonliterate societies today, suggests that such a wish is evident in orally transmitted stories of the past, in which essential lessons are embodied. That this has always been the intention is suggested by the fact that even after the emergence of literacy traces of this intention remained in the existence in every culture of rituals which serve as a device for installing

209) The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres, p.51.

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the memory of such essential lessons. What literacy has changed is, that while in an orally transmitted tradition new generations were exposed only to the last version of the stories, tainted with contemporary reinterpretations, historians studying literate communities can follow a sequence of interpretations, each of which near enough to its predecessor to enable them to detect changes introduced by consecutive commentaries. Moreover, this study of the past provides the best method for discovering prejudices in the present, provided we do not choose the texts for strengthening our prejudices, as Rorty’s suggested choice of allies implies. Since Rorty claims to follow Dewey we should note what he says in connection of the replacement of fighting with fists by fighting with words. His claim is that "when things are going completely smoothly, desires [for change] do not arise” and there “is no occasion to investigate what it would be better to have happen in the future.”210) In other words, a replacement of fighting with fists by fighting with words works only when things ‘go smoothly.’ But when things do not go smoothly, there is occasion to investigate what it would be better, i.e. more rational, to have happen in the future, in order to prevent fighting with fists. In fact, Dewey’s theoretical preoccupation with education was motivated by his conviction that a general agreement in society which might lead to things ‘going smoothly’ ought to be based on true, rather than on presumed, knowledge. Moreover, he clearly distinguished between his description of the role of reason in maintaining harmony in one's own beliefs by removing doubt, and his recommended policy of education. In this he did not differ from Spinoza, who distinguished between his description of the spiritual automaton [see p.67] and his political recommendation to support the tendency to keep the mind on reason. The difference is, that while Spinoza thought that his recommendation was only possible to fulfil because this tendency was natural, Dewey did not consider this question, presumably because the independence of culture from nature seemed obvious to him.

210) Dewey: Theory of Valuation p.33.

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It is not difficult to find examples in Rorty’s own society for showing that the solutions of controversial issues which raise strong emotions do not go so smoothly. Like the argument for the right of a woman to decide on abortion, against the right to life of her unborn child. Or the argument about teaching evolution at schools. The stronger the emotions, the weaker the tendency to rely on words rather than on fists. The same applies to the argument between liberalism and socialism. In Rorty’s own terms, the controversy between them is about priorities [see p.313]. There is no logical contradiction between securing a basic standard of living for everybody and securing the personal freedom to participate in a language-game of one’s choice. Socialists believe that only by securing a basic standard of living can this personal freedom turn from mere words to reality. And liberals are convinced that by ensuring this personal freedom, the secured standard of living will follow. But the history of the last two centuries shows that the emphasis put on any one of them as primary led to securing it ‘by fists’ rather than words. In general, this is the point made by Peirce, that the violence used by authorities to guard their power is ‘well documented throughout history’ [see p.287].211) Consider now Rorty’s assertion that the choice of the genius whose new language we learn has nothing to do with his valid arguments. In fact, radical empiricism shows that both the attempt to protect a dominant language-game and the attempt to change it are always based on presumed valid arguments. For example, in the 18th century, at the height of the slave trade, those who participated in this language-game justified it by holding that black people were inferior ‘to us.’ The moral objection to it indeed

211) A recent added example is the controversy between the two global needs to improve the standard of living in underdeveloped countries and the need to solve the problems of environmental damage. In Rorty’s terms, the controversy arises because the participants in the language-game of market-economics refuse to give up their own priorities. They refuse to change their language, as he puts it. Unfortunately, however, even if all parties were to agree about a reasonable way to satisfy these two needs, this agreement, as Spinoza explains, would remain in the realm of thought alone, as long as there is no power to enforce it [PT II, 12].

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tried to increase the scope of ‘who is one of us,’ as Rorty says, but the argument was based on a moral presupposition that human beings are essentially equal. This was, for example, Thomas Paine’s argument, in his article African Slavery in America (1774).212) This is a good example because Paine came from a Quaker background, and his objection to the inhumanity of slavery led him to reject the authority of the Bible – the Quakers’ accepted standard of truth – in which slavery was endorsed by the story that the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, were destined to be slaves. In other words, he discovered that the authors of the Bible did not take seriously the equality of men before God. And theologians gained authority by reading into it interpretations which increased their power, as Spinoza explained in TPT chapter VII. A more sinister example is the attempt of National Socialists to change the scope of ‘who is one of us.’ In order to exclude part of the German people from being ‘one of them’ the Nazis adopted Gallon as ‘their ally,’ and used his ideas of Eugenics for justifying their atrocities. Of course I am not comparing Rorty’s support of liberalism to National Socialism. My point is, as I argue concerning the comparison of communism to fascism [see p.256], that if we can learn anything universal – which Rorty identifies with scientific truth – from historical evidence, it is by abstracting some essential features from it, by which a valid comparison can be made. In this respect, the study of history or the social sciences do not differ from natural science, as explained in chapter V. A current example of the neglect of this point is the objection of Turkey to the accusation of having committed genocide against Armenians in the first world war. Turkey’s objection is that many Turkish people were also killed in this war. Jews also object to the comparison of mass killing to the Holocaust, on the ground that the latter was unique in being motivated by a pathological hatred of Jews. By these arguments no

212) The article was published in the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser in the 8 th of March 1775. T. Paine was not the only political figure who objected to slavery on moral grounds. William Wilberforce, who proposed the abolition of slavery, was a member of the British parliament close to the establishment.

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historical events can ever be compared because they are always unique. However, if we cannot abstract from these cases some essential lesson which can be attributed to later cases, what is the point of including such atrocities in public memory by recording them in history books? Rorty would reject all these arguments on the grounds that they belong to the language-game dominated by the ideology of the Enlightenment, which he wishes to replace with a more humane languagegame dominated by pragmatism. My claim that his aim is not likely to succeed is based mainly on his claim that the desire to change a language is not based on true knowledge, but on the persuasive power of some genius. With this claim his analysis clearly differs from that of historians of science who show that great innovators, like Newton or Einstein, certainly relied on their predecessors whose genius consisted in discovering new interpretations to empirically observed phenomena. The genius of these innovators was in choosing among their predecessors those who allowed them to construct a consistent comprehensive theory verified by the newly interpreted observations, as explained in chapter II. But Rorty’s analysis supports the suspicion of James that educators – in the widest sense of the word – may neither invent nor discover new solutions to social problems. Rather, they observe some conceived solution already present in their society, and communicate it to others [see pp.305306].Rorty’s claim that there is no other way of identifying anything except by talking about it [see p.312], in which he includes the discussions in newspapers and other publications, confirms his support of this view. According to him, there is no other way to determine what is true or right in any given culture. His claim, that there are no extra principles of reason to which one can appeal for justifying one’s ideas means that all those who convey to the public frequent commentaries on selected ideas reinforce these ideas, and thereby shape public opinion. It follows that the most likely origin of the genius who has shown a new way to see the world came from a successful language-game already existing. In Rorty’s society this is the commercial language-game, where the dominant idea is that the interests of its members are not satisfied by relying on truth or objectivity,

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but by successfully advertizing their products and services as being as desirable as possible. Radical Empiricism indeed confirms that the more successful this language-game have been for satisfying the aims of its members, the more its rules have been ‘borrowed’ by other languagegames. First by other language-games dealing with the economy, but in time their participants succeeded to persuade the public that theirs is the best method for legitimizing beliefs in all walks of life. This is evident even in politics, where public relation officials – like ‘spin doctors’ – create images of people and policies designed to raise the public's hopes and assuage its fear. The result of all these claims is that Rorty replaces what he calls the dogma of the Enlightenment with another dogma that any form of persuasion is legitimate because it replaces fighting with feasts by fighting with words. He neglects that an important aspect of the rising influence of the Enlightenment was exactly in their aim to replace fighting with fists by fighting with words.213) What he describes as their ‘according legitimacy to statements by sanctioned objectivity,’ was in fact a recommendation that the legitimation of beliefs ought to be based on inquiries based on objective truth. The tradition of the Enlightenment in science actually replaced the pronouncements of the church which ‘accorded legitimacy to all beliefs by sanctioned faith.’ And Rorty’s advocation of freedom of persuasion, is likely to reverse this achievement by according legitimacy to any justification by words,’ even if it is a selfserving pretension.214) However, Radical Empiricism shows that the replacement of the legacy of the Enlightenment by this endorsed method 213) According to Hume, good manners was an essence of Enlightenment. He did not mean just good table manners. He meant good conversation manners, of listening to opponents’ arguments, which was also a principle in the salons in Paris. 214) An example of a self-serving justification of a custom by ‘according legitimacy to it by sanctioned faith’ is found in the Bible, in the story that the Children of Israel were instructed by God to kill all the Canaanite men. An example of according legitimacy by any tradition is given by J. Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel. He tells that when the Maori invaded the Chatham Islands, they killed all the local inhabitants. Their justification was that this was their custom.

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– whether by lobbying political institutions or by the power of the media – does not fulfil Dewey’s proposal to replace fists by words. In addition to the examples already given, we may add that the government of Rorty’s own country often succeeds to convince the public that its policy of imposing Pax-Americana is intended to make others ‘one of us,’ but the execution of this ‘good intention’ is carried out by fists rather than by words. Iraq is a recent example. Obviously Rorty’s recommendations do not necessarily support, let alone are responsible for, American policy. My point is that his self-defeating arguments could have been prevented without undermining his aims. This leads to the second part of my argument [see p.316]. Had Rorty chosen Spinoza as one of his intellectual ‘allies’ his liberal aims would have had a better chance of success. In the first place, he might have accepted Spinoza’s distinction between reason and rationality, where the latter takes account of particular circumstances [see p.18]. Then he might have noticed that, as described in chapter IV, in all branches of science a distinction is made between universal truths and truths that apply only to particular structures. He might have realized that a conception of objective knowledge does not necessarily refer exclusively to universal truths. And most important, he might have concluded with Spinoza, that if we are to understand opinions and actions of other people, we must take account of their social circumstances. Not only of their material development but also of their institutional structure, as well as their personal positions within them. Second, had Rorty accepted Spinoza’s naturalism as a criterion of truth, his judgements of conclusions based on Radical Empiricism might have been different. This is because, as Spinoza would say, all societies devise some system of customs. And wherever we observe a frame of customs, whether barbarous or civilized, it is not reason which has driven them but their social nature [PT I, 7]. The reference to human nature in this case is to the fact that the self-preserving rules of every community are designed and maintained by ‘cunning and crafty’ individuals whose decisions can never be free from their subjection to their passions.

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Therefore, the task of a rational political science is to find the best principles of government which will prevent this ‘treachery’ of its leaders [PT I 5-7. See p.192]. From this follows that a liberal society whose customs are backed by civil laws should be judged by the criterion whether or not it increases the freedom of individuals to live according to their natural aspirations in peace and security [see p.32]. While according to Spinoza, the natural wish to live in peace and security stems from the natural recognition that we need each other’s help, on which the essence of morality is based [see p.30], Rorty’s observation that moral judgements are observed to display loyalty to one’s language-game, implies that a language-game limits the scope of the loyalty to ‘each other.’ In this case, the main explanation for wishing to enlarge a conception of who is ‘one of us’ [see p.314] must stem from the recognition that only the state can ensure that all citizens can live in peace and security. By analogy to Spinoza’s proposal that a wise government ought to reconcile the contradiction between the right of individuals to make their own decisions and the right of a community to interfere in such decisions [see p.269], Rorty would conclude that a wise government ought to reconcile the freedom of individuals to belong to a language-game of their choice, and the need to guard the integrity of the social-political structure Had Rorty chosen Spinoza as his intellectual ally, he would have realized that the contradiction mentioned above is universal. That it is based on the contradictory desires of all people to live by their own inclinations and live in peace and security. Had Rorty agreed with this presumed human nature, he would have concluded that the controversy in each particular case is about the priority, not the reality, of these often contradictory desires. Spinoza's political recommendations do not imply that by appeal to reason these contradictory desires disappear. What is implied by his political theory is that the function of a rational policy is to reconcile them, and that without such reconciliation the consequences of putting all the emphasis on either free individuals or on the well regulated society which guarantees security must lead either to ‘all the power to the strongest

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individuals’ or to all the power to the state, or rather to dominant social group. The second possible consequence was discussed in chapter XI, and in Rorty’s recommended policy it means that all the power is given to those who control the media of persuasion. Concerning the first possible consequence Spinoza says that the unqualified acceptance of the right of individuals to live by their own aspirations alone necessarily leads to the ruin of civil society [PT, III section 3]. The same applies to allowing the participants of each language-game to comply exclusively with their internal aims and loyalties. This is clearly an acute problem in today’s multi-cultural societies, to which Rorty’s liberalism is unlikely to provide a solution When any rule of one language-game is challenged by that of another, the leaders of a state have no choice but either suppress the challenge by the well documented method of authority, as Peirce said [see p.287], or engage the participants of both ‘language-games’ in a discussion about the rationality or irrationality of the disputed rule. Both Spinoza and Rorty think that the latter is preferable to suppression. However, according to Spinoza, this is the meaning of ensuring peace by civil laws rather than by force, and in fact, it is also the meaning of Dewey’s postulated advantage of changing fists with words. From Spinoza’s political theory follows that the stability of any form of government depends on sufficient social consensus not only about the aim but also about the means by which peace and security are maintained. The central point is that citizens must be convinced that the imposed civil laws are the best for reconciling both purposes. Consider Peirce’s example of the Moslem’s treatment of women [see p.287]. The important point is that no matter how well one understands why in a language-game of a Moslem group living in Amsterdam or London the rules may lead to a fatal punishment of a woman behaving contrary to them, the participants in other language-games living in these towns, may still object to any behaviour which contradicts the laws of the land. Therefore, the liberal citizens described by Rorty must concede that an unconditional loyalty to any ‘rules of the game’ as a justification of

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actions, is not likely to enlarge and deepen the sense of community in these towns [see p.314]. I emphasise the ‘unconditional’ because in one sense a greater tolerance to some such loyalties might be achieved by this understanding, and what I call the proposition of the indirect effect of reason on culture [the PIERC] is taken into account. In this case, some aspects of the pressures exerted by the ‘rules of the game’ on the members of religious or ethnic groups may be accepted [think of the head cover of women] provided they do not stand in the way of a policy designed to achieve the desired civil unity in due course. In summary, all these examples show that the problem of replacing fists with words is the same as Spinoza’s proposal that permanent social tensions ought to be solved by civil laws rather than by force. I emphasise ‘ought’ because neither Spinoza nor Dewey thought that they were describing a social fact. Dewey’s proposal can be understood as an interpretation of Spinoza’s proposal that a wise dominion, which understands the tensions between interests and values, can only resolve them by understanding their causes and creating a legal system which can be accepted by the rival but rational groups [PT II 21]. It means that the public morality expressed by this legal system must be based on a consensus about those interests that are essential for preserving the integrity of the state, while allowing people to satisfy their other interests as prescribed by their own language-games. The latter includes freedom of religion. An important aspect of this policy is, that if the essential interests are addressed by civil laws, religious faith is recognised as belonging to the realm of an individual’s life. In this case, allowing for common worship in a separate language-game does not allow it to become an institution of power which competes with the civil law. In other words, the separation of religion from the state ensures that the variety of religions in one state constitutes no danger to social peace. Had Rorty chosen Spinoza as one of his allies, his recommendation of unlimited tolerance, on the ground that there is no other way to achieve his moral aims [see p.314], might have been modified by considering Spinoza’s argument, that rational people know that, as long as their

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freedom to follow their own inclinations depends on their own power to guard against the aggression of others, this freedom remains a wish rather than a fact [PT II 15]. In other words, rational people know that without putting limits to tolerance, they cannot be free to live by their own beliefs. A few special notes about Spinoza’s philosophy are of particular interest in this chapter even if they involve some repetition. About the use of language. This note concerns the central idea in the nature/culture dichotomy, that the use of language is the link between nature and culture [see pp.221 and 281]. Spinoza acknowledged the power of a language in this respect [see pp.49 and 70-71]. He compares its natural use to a spontaneous emotional response which one might regret when scrutinized by reason [E. III, note to proposition II]. But, he also argues that the creation of logical language is the creation of a mental tool which improves on this spontaneity when the purpose is the improvement of understanding. Similarly, the cultivation of the art of ‘rhetoric’ is a tool which improves on the natural function of persuasion. However, he explains that the latter may serve for both spreading the acquisition of knowledge and strengthening the tendency of people in power to impose their ideas on others. Spinoza’s recommendation to intellectuals in TCU III, to report their research-results in a language comprehensible to all [see p.47], is a political recommendation based on his evaluation of these two tools which extend the power of language. In TPT V he explains that if one wishes to persuade one’s fellow men to accept anything that follows from a belief that is not self-evident to them, one must start from premises that are accepted by them, and continue from there to show the resulting contradictions. In this case one appeals to the extension of the natural power of reason, which is the most convincing method of communicating knowledge. However, this systematic method is labouriously acquired. It requires caution, acuteness of thought and self-restraint, qualities which most people either lack or avoid. Apart from those intellectuals who devote themselves to the acquisition of knowledge, people are better

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persuaded by appeal to their experience [see p.59]. Therefore, anybody who wishes to persuade whole nations, let alone all mankind must resort to rhetoric. Spinoza did not write the TPT as a logically represented treatise because he did not want to reach only philosophers. He wanted to convince all those who valued the political freedom offered by the Dutch Republic, that the best way to protect it was to ensure the ‘freedom to think and to say what one thinks.’ Had Rorty included Spinoza among his allies, he could have ‘borrowed’ this idea for recommending his freedom of persuasion. But then, he would have to consider also Spinoza’s warning concerning the tendency of people in power to exploit this skill for interpreting any social value to their own advantage. In Rorty’s society this is the skill of manipulating people's minds, not by inflicting on them the fear of hell, but by exposing them to a barrage of pseudo-information. The only difference between Spinoza’s analysis of religious institutions and Rorty’s support of any method of persuasion is in the supported advantage: profit instead of authority. Concerning the idea that a language is a link between nature and culture, it is worth adding that had Rorty included Spinoza among his allies, he would not have confined Davidson’s attribution of a primitive concept of truth to the language-game of anthropology [see p.312], but would have added it to the list of the inherent properties of understanding as a result of the increasing dependency of people on each other – a factor in the very organization of every society. He would have related Davidson’s claim, that the concept of truth applies to all spheres of life, to the growing dependency of people on receiving and imparting information, not only for finding food, water and shelter, but also for securing mutual help. This interpretation would mean, that recognizing true information imparted by speech became part of people’s essence, by which they exist and understand each other. At the same time Rorty would have to concede that, while normally speaking the truth is a necessary condition for the possibility of communication, as Davidson argued, the very importance of the development of speech opened the way for cheating

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becoming an asset, as Dennett claims [see p.238]. And it follows from Spinoza’s social analysis that it became an asset for people in various positions of power. This is how the evolution of language can be related to the evolution of power-structures in organized societies. And therefore on their cultures. A note about the study of history In the previous chapter I show that the evidence for the Indirect Effect of Reason on Culture can only be found in the study of history [see p.270]. Historians in the realist tradition, whose intention is to describe past events as they really happened, know very well that they cannot be as confident of their explanations as physicists are of events which can be tested. However, they also know that while it is the method of testing which ensures the confidence in the latter, their method presupposes a general view of the universe which cannot be directly tested. In this respect, if we include humanity in this presupposed view, the study of history does not differ from any other science. In particular, like natural scientists, historians know that without presupposing the existence of some universal properties of mankind, historical continuity could neither exist nor be understood. And neither the history of science nor the history of humanity can be told in a logical system. I already mentioned that the observed wish to belong to a community extended in time found in the traditions of non-literate societies today can be taken as evidence that stories have always been the means for transmitting lessons from the past to a present generation [see p.316]. This was Spinoza’s view of the Bible stories. His story of Moses, for example, can be interpreted today as an anthropological view of social history. Its essential point is not the personality of Moses, who may have been a mythological invention. The essential explanation in this story is that the children of Israel were an unruly crowd of ex-slaves, on which law and order had to be imposed if their social existence was to be maintained, or rather created. The Bible tells us that Moses did so by introducing the institution of arbitrating judges. He imposed laws by appeal to God as

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their origin because at the time religion was the only standard of validity. The anthropological lesson in that story is that the Israeli tribal groups could only escape disintegration by reorganising their self-regulating rules so as to keep their social integrity. The Bible tells us that Moses abolished the customary deterrent against aggression, namely the revenge taken by a victim’s family, by introducing a law forbidding such direct punishment if the guilty of aggression finds refuge in a place of worship. The rationale of this communicated ‘lesson’ is that people could not anymore be bound to each other by familiar kinship relations alone when these became a threat to the unity of several tribes. Adherents of historical determinism agree that the historical existence, or non-existence, of Moses is irrelevant to the significance of the story. They explain that this is because it is always the objective situation which imposes the idea of the solution on the mind of a leader. According to these historians, had this solution not been discovered by Moses, somebody else was bound to have found it.215) With this historical determinism, it was History that had chosen Moses. History’s choice obtains a metaphysical status [see p.17 for Hegel’s view]. But as shown by Spinoza’s comment on Machiavelli [see p.252], the moral of the story of Moses is, that the same objective problem could have been solved by a tyrant who could have imposed law and order by other means. In other words, the ‘lesson’ of the story is that by keeping his mind on reason Moses found the best, namely a rational, way of imposing law and order by consensus. By words rather than by force. Realist historians in the tradition of the Enlightenment agree with Rorty that when relying on texts, account must be taken of the intention with which they may have been written as well as of the intention of later writers who commented on them. One such intention is no doubt to persuade people to accept ideas favourable to the interests of the writers, as Rorty describes. But, had Rorty chosen Spinoza as one of his allies, he would have noted that by turning to a fresh reading of the Bible, Spinoza’s 215) The idea is expressed, for example, by Plechanov's On the role of individuals in history.

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purpose was to expose such intentions of theologians. His purpose was to convince the reader that without a fresh examination of the Bible, its use as the source of the theologians’ monopoly of truth would continue to serve their intentions. That holy books are used in this way is amply verified by history. But the ‘lesson’ which Rorty might have learned from Spinoza’s fresh reading of the Bible is that to the monopolies of truth which he wishes to rid us, he should add the monopoly of ‘the market.’ Perhaps, a ‘fresh reading’ of the justification of this monopoly, judged by the evidence provided by radical empiricism, would have led him to examine whether the principles of this new dogma are in fact the best for securing both the desired freedom of individuals he is after and the sense of community which he wishes to secure. And a note on literature. With this note my intention is to comment only on Rorty’s suggestion that literature is superior to science for understanding human affairs. For illustrating this purpose, consider understanding the emotion of jealousy which is the topic of endless novels. By Spinoza’s analysis of emotions jealousy is a universal kind of pain. But, by his definition of the emotions, its experience is always combined with its perceived cause. For Jealousy his example is the perception of a particular rival as the cause of a lost love [E.III proposition xxxv]. It follows that when western readers read a novel about people who commit crimes motivated by jealousy it is the familiarity with the emotion of jealousy that raises their sympathy with the suffering hero, even if the perceived circumstances are objectionable. For example, in a society where there is a strong connection between jealousy, family honour and a conception of women as owned by the men in the family. In other words, a novel is an efficient medium for performing the task of turning a person in another culture into ‘one of us’ [see p.314], because it brings to the attention of readers a common pressure of customs on the hero of the novel. But this is effective only because readers become aware of the permanent tension between a universal emotion and a variable response to it imposed by a culture. Moreover, the culturally

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determined response has always its roots in historical circumstances which have more influence on behaviour than reason. This argument ought to explain how it is possible that in some societies even murder of women can be justified and in another society such behaviour is conceived as a crime. However, only if readers are prepared to think rationally about the historical difference and relate this knowledge to the view that all people, including women, desire freedom to live according to their nature in peace and security, they will conclude with Peirce that a refusal to think rationally about the justification of their custom is as immoral as it is disadvantageous [see p.288]. And only then they may agree with Rorty that in this case the novel is indeed more persuasive than scientific understanding. But the moral advantage which Rorty assigns to the novel is lost when, for example, it reinforces feelings of ethnic, religious or national superiority, rather than a more universal sense of community. * Finally, I find it necessary to emphasise again, that as pointed out at the beginning of the introduction, any suggestion of what might have happened if Spinoza were more influential, can only be a guess, even if, as I hope I did, it is a well argued guess. This is because by the PIERC, no matter how important Spinoza’s or any other general view may be for guiding philosophical or scientific research, it cannot determine the course of history. In the preface to the TPT Spinoza wrote that he hoped that theologians would not read his book, because by misinterpreting it they would hinder others from understanding, and thus cause more harm than good. But, obviously, he could neither prevent theologians from reading his book, nor could he prevent their continued political influence. The same applies to my claim that when the theory of evolution entered the scene it was a suitable time for reviving Spinoza’s naturalistic view. Early pragmatists were acquainted with both Spinoza’s philosophy and the theory of evolution, but they did not reach this conclusion. One possible explanation for their rejection of Spinoza may be the greater influence which their acquaintance with a variety of cultures had on their acceptance of the nature/culture dichotomy. I emphasise ‘greater’ because

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Peirce did find an evolutionary explanation for it [see p.286]. James did not consider the similarities of his analysis to Spinoza’s because, due to his acceptance of the inverted Cartesian view of science, a naturalist explanation meant for him the same as it later meant to Quine or Feynman. And the same applies to Rorty. Only because he accepted the inverted Cartesian view of science, he could argue, like James, that a naturalistic explanation of human nature leaves no room for moral judgements. What we can conclude from this turn of events is, that if the appeal to reason will continue to decrease in our society, then the propagation of Rorty’s version of liberalism, which considers the influence of any form of persuasion as equally acceptable, is likely to undo the advantage of the encouragement of rationality acknowledged by early pragmatists, from Peirce to Quine, in the spirit of the Enlightenment.

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CHAPTER XIV: A MODERN VIEW IN THE SPIRIT OF SPINOZA. In the previous chapters I focussed on the prevention of the revival of Spinoza’s naturalism by the tenacity of Descartes’ view of science even after the evolutionary view of life was accepted. In this chapter the possible revival of Spinoza’s naturalism shown indirectly by the work of the neurologist A.R. Damasio. Indirectly, because in his book Descartes' Error (DE), he advocates Spinoza’s naturalistic view without mentioning him.216). The error in the title of the book refers to Descartes’ mind/body dualism, which according to Damasio, hindered the development of a correct scientific neurology. Damasio devotes the bulk of the book explaining that most interactions of any organism with its environment take place because they are needed for maintaining the organism’s homeostasis, a state of functional balance within the body and of the body with its environment. All organisms need to sense the environment in order to maintain these states of balance.217) He postulates that the same applies to human beings, including their basic drive for reasoning, which is functionally inseparable from other functions of the body. The human mind, he says, "results from the operation of each of [its] separate components and from the concerted operation of the multiple systems constituted by those separate components."218) In his opinion, we should understand the mind literally as minding the body. His explanation of the mind suggests a neural basis for

216) Although Spinoza is not even mentioned in this book, somebody must have pointed out to Damasio that his naturalistic ideas were expressed by Spinoza already in the 17 th century, because a short time after the publication of his book, he published another book titled Looking for Spinoza. 217) DE p.225. 218) DE p.15.

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Spinoza’s notion of the human conatus.219) As a result, a central hypothesis in Damasio's explanation of the human mind – his correction of Descartes' error – is that rationality is not divorced from the emotions. Damasio explains that evolution shaped those neural circuits which give rise to the images of which we are conscious according to the functional requisites of the human organism. Most basic of such requisites is that some neural circuits should represent the organism and others should monitor its states continuously as it is perturbed by and acts upon its natural and social environments.220) Like Spinoza, Damasio explains that "pain and pleasure are the levers the organism requires for instinctual and acquired strategies to operate efficiently."221) Pain and pleasure, he says, represent consciousness of certain changes in the state of the body. He reserves the word ‘emotion’ for the physiological or neural event underlying a conscious feeling. He explains that although there are neural configurations for perceiving pain [and pleasure] which are pre-set in the brain, suffering is the result of correlating this experienced neural basis of pain with the natural and social pressures perceived as its cause. A feeling, then, is what Spinoza calls an emotion – a combination of the effect of the physiological change in the body with an idea about its cause. For Damasio, an idea is a kind of image because by image he understands everything we are conscious of. A very central hypothesis in his theory is that a perceived cause of any feeling includes a hidden evaluation of its cause. This evaluation is generated by a somatic-marker, a biologically embedded bias according to which some feelings are experienced as good and others as bad. And these hidden evaluations either select or dismiss arguments. This is an explanation in neural terms of Spinoza's argument that we do not desire or reject something because we think that it is good or bad, but we think that it is good or bad because we desire or reject it [see p.41]. Moreover, 219) As pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, Damasio never mentions Spinoza. All the comparisons of their ideas are mine. 220) DE p.226. 221) DE p.262.

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Damasio's explanation, that the biassed somatic markers filter arguments, is an explanation in neural terms of Spinoza’s explanation of the difficulty of overcoming the power of emotions which appear involuntarily in the mind. Damasio explains that the conceptions of good and bad function as natural warnings which drive a person to maintain a state of functional balance of the body (its homeostasis), and a desire is a disposition of the body to maintain this functional balance. In Spinoza's terms, this means a disposition to maintain one's natural power of action. Damasio explains that if the function of the mind is to enhance the chance for survival, then a very efficient way to do it is achieved by "representing the outside world in terms of the modifications it causes in the body proper."222) Like Dennett [see p.235], he explains that conscious experience is dispersed in the brain because the functions of the brain in maintaining the body's homeostasis are so dispersed. But, unlike Dennett, he says that we can avoid falling into the trap of an implicit ‘homunculus’ – of a soul which ‘reads’ the states of the brain – by explaining the conception of the self in neural terms. This neural basis of the self is not a constant entity, but is a biological state repeatedly reconstructed. For this biological state of a self to occur, he says, all the interactions of the brain with the rest of the body are essential. This remark is addressed to those philosophers and even some neurologists, who acknowledge that the mind represents the way a brain functions but assume that the brain itself depends on the rest of the body only for providing it with the necessary life support. For example, the ‘brain in the vat’ thought-experiment described by H.Putnam,223) is according to Damasio, unrealistic. Not because it is practically impossible to keep a brain alive outside the body, but because lack of stimuli from the whole body would alter the working of the brain beyond recognition. Damasio emphasizes that it is not merely the dependency of the 222) DE p.230. 223) DE p.227-228. Damasio refers to H. Putnam’s Truth and History, pp.1-21, chapter ‘Brains in a Vat.’ C.U.P. Cambridge Mass. 1981

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mind on the body that is the issue. His main point is to show the primacy of the mind’s function to mind the body. In particular to avoid suffering. This conception of the human mind is similar to Spinoza's assertion that the mind is essentially consciousness of the body. But, as shown later in this chapter, it also explains Spinoza’s inclusion of reason, as a reevaluation of what is good or bad for us, namely a re-evaluation of the somatic-markers initially attached to the emotion. Damasio’s explanation of the neural basis of the self – or better, just the neural self – has three levels. When one interacts with the environment, all signals enter the body through its sense organs. In the case of vision, a signal entering the eyes performs a double role. When processed in the brain's specialized visual system, the signal tells the brain that it is external to the body. When it reaches the somato-sensory complex, where the whole body is mapped, it tells the brain that it has entered the body through the eyes. As a result, when we see something, we feel at the same time that we are seeing it with our eyes. The same applies to other senses and to the awareness of movement, or pain. According to Damasio, it is this neural representation of what happens to the body moment after moment that is the first level of the neural self.224) The emphasis on ‘feel’ can be seen as an explanation in neural terms of Spinoza’s explanation that knowing Peter by unconsciously perceiving his essence is at the same time knowing that we know him. Spinoza's purpose is to refute the infinite regress implied by the idea that in order to know Peter we must know that we know him.225) According to Spinoza, the infinite regress is refuted by realizing that in order to know that we know Peter we must first know him [see p.53]. Damasio equates this kind of knowing [Peter] to a feeling In the same section Spinoza explains that the differentiation between knowing something and knowing that we know it, is that the latter is gained by reflecting on what we know. This is expressed by Damasio as 224) DE p.232. 225) Damasio refers to this infinite regress implied by an assumed homunculus, as well as against Dennett’s argument in DE p.227.

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a distinction between feeling that we see with our eyes and knowing the same. The latter is inferred from the fact that we do not see when we close our eyes. But no inference is involved in the continuous perception of the seeing-organism. According to Damasio, it is important to realise that without this feeling – namely without the first level of the neural-self – we would have been unable to know anything about it. For example, we would not be able to know where a pain is located.226) Normally this feeling of self remains unnoticed because attention is directed to the external situations. Only pain or other discomfort redirects the attention from the perceived object (causing the pain) to the body. Brentano defined intentionality as the property of an organism's perceptual systems to be directed to objects outside itself [see note on pp.120-121]. But Damasio restores to the concept of intentionality its ordinary meaning by relating it to the property of the neural self that when necessary consciousness of any object can turn into being conscious of being conscious of it. The discovery of this neural self may, to a certain extent, provide an experimental method for testing what Spinoza thought was possible to know only by reflection on what we know by experience. However, like Spinoza, Damasio sees an important methodological merit in assuming that every knowledge by reflection must have a neural correlate because only this assumption allows him to explain what happens to the minds of patients by observing the damage in different areas of their brains. He emphasizes, however, that neither these observations nor his theoretical explanations of disease provide an explanation of consciousness as such, namely of the basic state of arousal or wakefulness [see p.108 for Dennett’s similar explanation]. When patients lose this basic level of consciousness they go into a coma.227) What he claims is that given that we are conscious on this basic level, his first level of self provides the neural basis for understanding the second level of self which we call self-

226) DE p.231. 227) DE p.238.

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consciousness. Its representation in the brain consists of relating the first level of neural self with the neural relation of the emotions to somaticmarkers. Together they constitute subjectivity. Damasio warns that this second level of self should not be confused with the first level of self. This is because subjectivity provides a consistent perspective rooted in a relatively stable, endlessly repeated, biological state.228) It is a neural representation needed for what is described in chapter IV of this book as a self-regulating system [see p.116 and 118]. Damasio explains that the repetitive reactivation of this selfregulating system involves two sets of images. One is the set of images that continually reminds us of our name and the names of friends, the city and country where we live and work, and the jobs we hold. This set includes unique facts from our past that are constantly activated, as well as recently created plans for the future. This set corresponds to Spinoza’s first kind of perception in the TCU or to the first kind of knowledge in the Ethics [see p.48] which remain in memory unchallenged, and justifies Spinoza’s inclusion of memory in his explanation of this type of perception [see p.69]. Damasio explains that these images are represented topographically by a system of neural connections throughout the brain. The second set of images, which repetitively reactivate the moment to moment representation of one's body, constitutes self-perception in the same way as the collection of representations of shape, colour, size, texture and taste represents a perceived orange.229) This second level represents whatever is happening to the body as a whole at any moment. It is the perceived now which promptly becomes a state of the past. Its constant reconstruction turns every feeling and every sensory signal in every part of the brain into an unnoticed modification of the background feeling of oneself. It is this constantly changing image of self which explains why the awareness of danger is perceived as a danger to oneself.

228) DE p.238. 229) DE pp.239-240.

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Damasio explains that this image of the self is also a feeling. It does not know anything. And, by analogy to his warning that we should not confuse this felt self-consciousness with the first level of the neural self, he warns that we also should not confuse the second level with selfconscious knowledge of the content of our mind. The latter is the third level of self-consciousness. Damasio proposes that this self-knowledge can be described as a meta-self.230) It corresponds to Spinoza’s description of our self-conception as ‘a thinking being’ [see p.20]. According to Damasio, the importance of finding a neural basis for the emergence of this meta-self is that only in this case a homunculus who knows the other selves is not implied.231) The neural conditions for making the distinction between this meta-self and the two other feelings of self are, in his opinion, the following. 1) If scientific observers could see what happens in the brain with sufficient detail, they could also describe in words the occurrence of images as a response to perturbations of the brain. 2) Their description would also explain the generated image of the self under the process of perturbations, and 3) this image of the perturbed self is displayed together with the image that triggered the whole process.232) We can understand the first condition by analogy to equating the feeling of warmth to molecular motion [see p.20]. A scientist cannot feel another person’s feeling of warmth. But, if the relevant molecular motion in the body of a person can be observed, the scientist can describe the resulting feeling. This is impossible in practice, and the much greater complexity of the interactions in brain certainly does not allow to obtain such descriptions. But Damasio’s idea is that, on principle, for the metaself to emerge it is necessary that, in addition to this ‘potentially possible 230) DE p.241. 231) DE p.242 232) DE. pp.242-244. The idea is suggested in The Scientific American of September 2003 (p.57), where it is claimed that neuro-scientists will soon be able to read concepts while being formed in the brain.

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to describe’ neural structures (1) which generates the image of the self (2), there is the third neural structure (3) which is reciprocally interconnected to both. While perception of the second structure gives rise to the image of self that is comparable to the experience of seeing an orange, the third structure gives rise to an awareness of its being perturbed as a response to the other images which caused it. It is only on this level that one can become aware of the ‘now,’ though at a later instant. If all these three ingredients are held simultaneously in working memory and attended to, then the image of the body captured in the act of perceiving and responding to the perceived objects, represents the subjective conscious perspective he has postulated. Damasio presents this idea as opposed to the idea of the mind proposed by Dennett and others.233) The point of bringing here this shortened account of Damasio's explanation of the self is first of all, its agreement with Spinoza's assumed unity of body and mind. But also because he often adds warnings to the effect that his explanations can be correct only if we presuppose his naturalistic view of the mind, and because his explanations support my claim that, although Spinoza's view was not evolutionary, his explanations can be seen as anticipating the evolutionary point of view. Damasio thinks that he can justify his analysis of the triple selves by his understanding of evolution. First, by noticing that representations of the body appear in brains of creatures which evolved earlier than the representations of the external world, and last has come the continual reconstructions of the states of these representations at any moment, the representation of the now. Second, by noticing, that while the earlier steps promote survival by having an increasingly more detailed and precise coordination of sense-perception with motor response, the last step promotes survival by providing a better appreciation of variable external circumstances. The latter makes prediction possible by imagining various scenarios. But, since it is the survival of the organism that is at stake, the 233) DE p.236.

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existence of such scenarios (complex images) would not be advantageous without a neural representation of the whole organism's anatomy in both basic and current detail. Hence, in terms of augmented adaptability, the evolution of a working self-consciousness is mainly useful in changing environments. ‘Working consciousness’ is opposed to the more basic state of consciousness which is a state of wakefulness, and it probably began by constructing the representation of the body-in-operation.234) According to him, there is no reason to presuppose that this stage is exclusively dependent on the evolution of language.235) This evolutionary description can be seen as a neural explanation of Spinoza's claim that the more an organism interacts with its environment the more mind it has. According to Damasio, the evolution of the mind as having thoughts must be understood as the ability to display ordered images internally because otherwise we could not have been conscious of them. As pointed out earlier, by images Damasio does not mean only visual ones. A sound heard is also an image (as opposed to the air-waves which hit the ear-drum). Thus a thought expressed in words is also an image.236) In other words, expressing thoughts verbally is one way of ordering them [or ordering the images they contain]. But having a language is by no means the condition for having thoughts. Damasio argues that evolution very rarely gives rise to completely new mechanisms. New mechanisms are usually old devices which can cope with new circumstances. And thinking and reasoning are such new mechanisms. A squirrel, rushing to the top of a tree to escape from a cat, needs no reasoning. Its strong emotion of fear is sufficient. The oldest decisionmaking device (commonly described as the fight or flight pattern [see p.91]) is based on a modification of older self-regulating devices pertaining to survival where the signals controlling them, the somaticmarkers, are innate and the feelings of general well-being and avoidance

234) DE pp.190-191 235) DE 243. 236) DE pp.106-108.

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of pain are sufficient for guiding behaviour. These are neural explanations of Spinoza’s notion of perfection [see p.124]. According to Damasio, the next evolving decision-making device pertains to the personal and social domains where secondary feelings – namely the interpretation of pain and pleasure which Spinoza describes as combined with their perceived causes – do not replace but modify the old ones. Although these new dispositions are modified by education – in the widest sense of social imposition, constituting adaptations to variable cultural environments – they are the prime example of mental phenomena that depend on the activation of innate dispositions. Damasio explains that when the correlation of these new and old neural circuits became possible – i.e. when the meta-self evolved – it also became intellectually possible to develop strategies for reducing suffering.237) According to Damasio, the emphasis on knowledge in analysing human behaviour is due to the insight of philosophers, of both Western and Eastern traditions, that in order to survive in their unpredictable environments, human beings have to rely on mental mechanisms beyond the capacity of their regulating instincts.238) This, in his opinion, is the realistic point which also Descartes made when he attributed to human reason a power to control the ‘animal soul,’ namely the animal’s innate inclinations. For explaining what he means by Descartes’ error Damasio quotes the paragraph which follows Descartes's "cogito ergo sum": "I thereby concluded that I was a substance, of which the whole essence or nature consists of thinking, and which, in order to exist needs no place and depends on no material thing; so that this "I", that is to say, the mind, by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from body, and even that it is easier to know than the body, and moreover, that even if body were not, it [the soul] would not cease to be all that it is."239) 237) DE pp.241-243 and 261-262. 238) DE pp.123-126. 239) DE p.249. Discourse On Method And Other Writings, p.54. (Damasio quotes from a different translation than that given in the bibliography).

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The error, then, is in the metaphysical separation of the mechanically operating body from the ‘mind-stuff.’ A separation inferred from the impossibility to understand the mind in the same mechanistic way as the body is understood. Damasio says that his singling out Descartes for illustrating this common error is due to his influence on modern science. Scientists accept that body functions, like the circulation of the blood, are totally mechanistic, but Descartes’ view of the mind seems to them in no need of examination.240) Damasio explains that it is indeed true that feelings are unlikely to play a decisive part where decisions are taken when facing scientific or engineering problems which involve the manipulation of abstract mathematical or other symbolic operations. These devices are products of rational thinking which deal mainly with the common future of individuals. In this case, the biassed feeling of individuals, the somaticmarker of what is a good (or bad) idea to entertain, is replaced by the somatic-marker ‘true’ (or ‘false’) idea, which helps in accepting or rejecting some options. Yet, rational thinking is a relatively recent development which evolved as a response to suffering. But philosophers from Plato to Descartes called this new development ‘pure reason,’ implying its complete independence of the ‘old’ somatic markers. They failed to realize that although this change of somatic markers works when dealing with the cases mentioned above, this independence could not work when a personal decision must be taken.241) Explaining thinking in evolutionary terms is seeing its evolution in stages, where any evolving system has modified its predecessor. First came the desires neurally marked as good or bad. It is about these desires that Spinoza says that "we do not desire something because it is good, but think it good because we desire it" [see p.41]. From these feelings emerged the personal-social decision-making system, where for example, the idea ‘fame is good’– or "happiness consists in esteem in which one is held by

240) DE p.250. 241) DE pp.261-262 and 169-173..

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others” [see p.47 note 14] – is accepted without reflection. And last evolved the system where such ideas become the object of reflective evaluation. It is with the latter that, as Damasio says, the intellectual possibility arose to develop strategies for reducing suffering. The ‘possibility’ is emphasised because although each evolving system had modified the earlier one, it did not replace it. This was recognized by Spinoza. Reason, he says, cannot protect us from the inevitable mistakes arising from reliance on the power of the emotions [C. II and XXI]. The important point in Damasio’s evolutionary explanation is, that contrary to the view of James, that the meaning of ‘true’ remained a species of good [see p.285], Damasio’s explanation says that with the evolution of the intellect, the possibility arose of considering ‘good’ as a species of ‘true,’ namely as ‘a truly good idea for us to entertain.’ This explanation fits Spinoza’s view [see p.58]. About concepts known by intuition we may say that we do not accept them because they are true but we are compelled to accept them because, as Damasio says, they are marked as good ideas to entertain. But according to Damasio, in the last phase of the evolving mind, the decision-making function of the brain split into a practical and theoretical systems, and in the latter the marking shifted from ‘good or bad’ to ‘true or false.’ The splitting itself may be seen as a neural modification. A response to the increasing number of possible interactions with the environment, as Spinoza proposed, when the initial situation of having ‘a true idea’ had been the same as ‘a good idea to entertain,’ became increasingly unreliable. According to both Spinoza and Damasio, theoretical knowledge is a decision-making device for evaluating automatic evaluations and if necessary for correcting previously accepted ones. This is the natural function of reason, and according to Damasio, it is this evolving function which makes possible to choose what is best for us from alternative scenarios. And according to both this choice is made by a new mechanism governed by the replacement of ‘good or bad’ with ‘true or false.’ Damasio compares the creation of the theoretical knowledge in engineering or scientific systems to mastering of skills. The skill mastered

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is the use of pure reason. Pure in the sense of being detached from the filtering bias of feelings. He explains that the comparison is in the fact that without a drive to develop it one would not acquire the skill, but the drive alone is not sufficient for mastering its potential capacity.242) This theoretical decision-making is characterised as a semi-autonomous subsystem of the mind because, as explained above, when the brain's activity switches to it, ‘true or false’ replace ‘good or bad’ as somatic-markers, implying that reasons replace emotions – or feelings, as Damasio calls them – as motives for action. As an example for comparing theoretical knowledge to a skill, we may consider again the innate knowledge of the principles of addition which I pointed out in my comment on intuitive knowledge [see p.149]. According to Damasio, these principles are marked ‘true’ rather than ‘good.’ And the dependency of the development of a skill on a natural drive means that without a drive to group and regroup things, mankind would not have acquired the skills of arithmetical operations. But the drive alone is not sufficient for the development of arithmetic, the skill which have been mastered throughout human history. To this explanation we may add that without the invented material representation of the intuitively known concepts appropriate for the development of a skill, like number-notations and the symbols of arithmetical operations, the drive would have stayed mute. This is an explanation of Spinoza’s comparison of the development of logic to that of the hammer [see pp.52-53 and 141]. Similarly, to Damasio’s explanation that the evolution of a new natural capacity does but modifies old ones, applies also to his explanation that language evolved as an extension of the function of thought, rather than thinking being dependent on the evolution of language [see pp.343 and 342 respectively]. In fact, observing a dog running along a fence until it finds a gap to pass through it suggests that the dog is capable of some

242) DE pp.245-246.

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thinking. And for people, a simple example can illustrate thinking without language. When one tries to take a table through a doorway and discovers that the passage is too narrow, one can manipulate the images of the table passing through it without translating the process into words. This is not fundamentally different from a dog’s thinking. But even after the development of the skill of logic this kind of thinking does not disappear. Einstein claimed that embarking on solving a problem in physics, he always perceives his solutions as pictures. He needs logic only later in order to examine the correctness of the pictured solution. It is only in order to produce a proof that he needs to analyse the ‘picture’ into its parts, and attend to them in sequence.243) By analogy to James’s argument, the advantage of the evolution of language may have been of critical importance for preventing thoughts from instantly fading away [see p.308]. As far as the natural process is concerned it applies also to nonlinguistic skills. A painter I know told me that he sees the entire picture yet to be painted before he starts it. The hard work, he says, starts with attending to components of the imagined picture and putting them on the canvas. The process of writing down music is similar. According to Damasio, the capacity to learn and use a language illustrate the most natural distinction between a drive and a skill which it generates. The neural basis of drives are neural patterns present in the brain from birth. Drives which do not generate images are considered biological, even when they involve innate knowledge. Having a mind is defined by Damasio as having such neural patterns in the brain which do generate images [see p.341]. Dispositions based on the latter are acquired after birth. These have neural representations in higher order cortexes in the brain. Such is the disposition of growing children who learn to speak by the rules of their particular language. This knowledge is obviously

243) Einstein: A Mathematician's Mind, in Ideas and Opinions, p.25. .

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acquired after birth.244) The explanation applies to Chomsky’s view as interpreted by the naturalistic approach of Spinoza [see pp.146-147 and 153]. By Damasio’s explanation knowledge of Universal Grammar [UG] is biological. But the capacity of children to creation the skill of using their own language, namely learning its grammar, must be considered mental because the rules they learn are images [ideas]. Like Damasio, says that it is the availability of a language that provides a vehicle for free thought, and relates this to the Cartesian doctrine about the place of the intellect in human life without accepting Cartesian dualism [see p.147]. Damasio's main concern is to convince neurologists that no matter how remote the symbolic operations of developed theories – the skills – are from the initial feeling of what is ‘a good idea to entertain,’ this biassed signal is not abolished but modified by replacing it with ‘a true idea to entertain.’ Nevertheless he thinks that finding a place for reason in a naturalistic approach is realistic because the insight of philosophers about the necessary role of thought for coping with complex environments does not imply Cartesian dualism. In his opinion, it was Freud who acknowledged this insight of philosophers and at the same time stripped psychology of Cartesian dualism. He did so in his Civilization and its Discontents, where he introduced the notion of the super-ego, which accommodates [Freud said sublimates] instincts to social dictates. According to Damasio, this idea is sound because the survival of humanity requires the intervention of society in civilizing psychological drives. He adds however, that Freud failed to explain his claims in neural terms, by which he means that a naturalistic explanation based on evolution ought to have done so.245) The same criticism can be addressed against Spinoza. But according to Spinoza, the failure is not merely lack of knowledge. According to him, some knowledge can only be acquired by reflection on what we know [see 244) This is derived from DE pp.104-113, but it can also be derived from my summary in this chapter pp.185-187. 245) DE p.124.

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pp.15, 127 and 226]. Spinoza’s main point in interpreting the attributes as two ways of understanding is that none of them can be derived from the other [see p.13]. This means that the insights which Damasio attributes to Freud cannot be derived from ‘reading’ an observed brain even on principle [see p.348]. In the case of Freud, this is because psychoanalysis relies on the ability of the analyst to solve patients' problems by bringing suppressed feelings into consciousness. However, since by Freud’s own theory patients do not know the emotional origins of their suffering, the most that the analyst can do is to confront them with possible origins, derived from their theoretical knowledge of either universal origins of suffering, or those common in their culture. But such known origins can be attributed to patients only if their suffering is not particular to them. In other words, Freud’s failure was inevitable because even if he could observe his patients’ brains, he would not have been able to ‘read’ the particular history of the neural connections which might have caused their misery. This is the reason for my comment that only to a certain extent it is possible to provide a neural basis for Spinoza’s theses [see p.338]. In order to clarify this point, we can compare Damasio’s description of the visual system to his description of the theoretical decision-making part of the brain. The function of the latter, namely the specific function of reason, is to preserve truth. And the specific function of the visual system is to preserve the identity of objects, for example of an orange or of Peter [see pp.339 (or 341) and 54 respectively]. According to Spinoza, the function of reason to secure the preservation of truth depends on the utilization of the innate knowledge of logical inference which allows one to accept or reject any proposition. And according to both Spinoza and Damasio, innate properties must have a neural basis. Another point of comparison is that just as we are not conscious of the activity of the brain which allows us to recognize Peter or an orange, we are not conscious of the activity of the brain when we infer knowledge. However, had Spinoza been confronted with Damasio’s accusation of not providing a neural basis for his postulated innate knowledge of the principles of reason, he would have

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pointed out that the comparison of the two systems breaks down when we consider the evidence for them. In Damasio’s explanation of the visual system the evidence includes both the neural basis of the varying perceptions of the same object, namely the images on the retina – knowledge which was available to Spinoza – and knowledge of the fact that barring brain defects, all people recognize objects and other people. But the way from the former to the latter is not based on knowing a neural process. Spinoza would have pointed out that he knows the latter by inference, just as Damasio explains that he knows that he knows that he sees with his eyes by inferring it from the fact that when he closes his eyes he does not see [see p.338]. Or he could have compared it to his own example of knowing from experience, that when the distance of an object from his eyes increases the same object is perceived smaller, from which he infers that the real size of the sun must be much greater than the size he sees [see p.48]. In other words, he would have pointed out that neither he nor Damasio can avoid inferring knowledge only by reflection on what they know from experience. Admittedly, given the acceptance of the mechanistic view concerning the functioning of the body, it is reasonable to presuppose that with the improvement of scientific knowledge of the brain the neural basis of the path from the image on the retina to the common experience of recognition may be discovered. However, the assumption that the capacity to accept or reject any proposition and that knowledge of logical inference are natural can only be supported [not proved] if a complete historical investigation will show that there has never been a culture where people lacked these properties [see p.23]. But even if such evidence will be obtained, the support will be an inference from what we shall know, and not a discovered neural basis for it. The same argument applies to Spinoza’s thesis that knowledge that we need each other’s help is innate. And for his postulated power of religious leaders to turn this innate knowledge into the observed tendency of people to succumb to their power. The only evidence we can have in these cases can be obtained by reflection on our knowledge of history. Its

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becoming evidence does not depend on knowing its neural representation but on knowledge comparable to knowledge by experience. Unfortunately, such evidence, like the evidence for Damasio’s idea concerning the civilizing role of the super-ego in the evolution of humanity, involves an extra difficulty. It follows from Spinoza’s analysis that the super-ego can have a civilizing effect on people only in a society where it reconciles the ego’s drive to judge one's circumstances of living according to one’s own understanding with the equally natural drive to identify oneself with the society to which one belongs [PT V]. However, this reconciliation can succeed only when citizens are guided by reason. But, where people in power succeed in suppressing the appeal to reason – as it is natural for them to do – then the ensuing judgments of the superego will not have this civilizing effect. In other words, there cannot be a decisive historical evidence either for or against these hypotheses. In an aside, in view of Damasio’s reliance on his naturalistic approach, it is interesting to compare his reference to Freud to that of Donald Davidson.246) Davidson explains that, since we understand people's actions (including our own) by attributing to them (or recognizing in ourselves) desires and beliefs; and since we assume that these desires and beliefs cause actions, these actions must be rational from a subjective point of view. An observer may think, for example, that relying on astrology is irrational. Yet there is nothing irrational in this reliance if astrology is believed to yield true predictions. It follows that irrationality must only be attributed to people when they act against their own desires and beliefs. According to Davidson, Freud's insights may explain such irrationality. Freud's first insight, he says, is that the mind is not one entity but is composed of several semi-independent parts, each of which is

246) ‘Paradoxes of Irrationality’ in Philosophical Essays on Freud. I refer to Davidson in this case because Richard Rorty, who expresses most post modern worries I stated at the beginning of the introduction, chose Davidson ‘as one of his allies,’ as he says. But, although he claims to agree with him, he crucially disagrees with Davidson's conception of truth, and therefore with this interpretation of Freud.

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characterized by distinct mental attitudes, desires, thoughts and memories. His second insight is that these semi-independent structures may affect one another. The third insight is that the dispositions, attitudes, and events which characterize these mental parts must be viewed as comparable to physical forces when they affect each other. And finally, that these mutual effects are not easily, if at all, accessible to consciousness. These sub-conscious interactions are, according to Davidson's interpretation of Freud, the causes of irrationality. This explanation seems to support what Damasio sees as a practical impossibility to show the correspondence of these insights of Freud to the physical causes in neural terms. But, for example, Karl Popper argued that Freud's theory is on principle not scientific because even if Freud's assumed insight about the existence of sub-conscious mental events seems reasonable, there is no way by which it can be tested, because no experience can refute it.247) Still, the impossibility of explaining something scientifically does not prove that it is not true. In his Mental Events,248) Davidson argues that psychology, not only Freudian psychology, is not a science for a different reason. Like James, he argues that a scientific psychology ought to include all mental phenomena [see p.307], including those affected by social, or cultural, events. This is what Davidson calls ‘the anomaly of psychology.’ In his opinion, a complete theory of mind must remain "the joint business of linguists, psychologists and philosophers." This is another way of saying that psychology cannot be a science, if by science we mean that only propositions that are at least indirectly empirically [in this case neurally] testable are acceptable. ‘Indirectly’ means that only their inferred logical consequences can be so tested. His claim, then, agrees with Spinoza’s claim, that a correct scientific approach must include reflections which cannot be empirically

247) See, for example, Popper's Objective Knowledge, note 8 on p.38, and also The open Society and its Enemies part II pp.215-216, where he compares its irrefutability to metaphysical idealism. 248) In Davidson: Essays on Actions & Events. For the support of monism, see Davidson's Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, pp.141/2 and p.314.

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tested. One such reflection is that our self-understanding depends not only on knowledge of the properties which had been inserted in our minds by Nature, but also those properties which arise out of the interaction of what we call today psychology and sociology. With this approach, neurology is included in such a ‘joint business’ of self-understanding, as Davidson says, but it does not exhaustively explain it. I already noted that it was Davidson’s pragmatism which prevented him from acknowledging the similarity of his explanations to Spinoza’s approach [see p.297]. Damasio does not consider such arguments, but is aware of his inability to explain his naturalistic view in neural terms. He explains that in spite of all the evidence which his book offers to support this hypothesis, this evidence is not conclusive. It is one thing, he says, to have direct evidence for the firing of neurons, of visible patterns of their excitation by particular stimuli, and even for some genes involved in the production of certain circuits in the brain, and it is another matter altogether to verify the interconnections of several billions of neurons in a very large number of circuits and systems of circuits, each being affected by local as well as by distant neurons, let alone by hormones and other substances arriving with the blood. The possible verification is especially difficult since the time scale of events is measured in milliseconds.249) But, as argued above, the issue is not merely practical. According to Spinoza, the very meaning of having insights is the capacity to discover the essence of things (the principles by which they exist and are understood) without knowing their neural basis. What we can conclude from this comparison of Spinoza’s and Damasio’s naturalism is that it is this insight which led them to presuppose that mental states must have a ‘correlated state in the body.’ And we can also learn that Damasio sees in the impossibility to discover this correlate in neural terms a flaw from a scientific point of view, because he shares with all scientists a methodological view, that even if we are compelled to start an inquiry with

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a functional explanation of what either reason or vision do, this understanding counts as knowledge only if this initial step can be converted into a causal explanations. Spinoza approved of this methodological ideal [see p.64]. Yet, in spite of this approval, he is considered a rationalist because he assigns a priority to reason for the adoption of any meta-scientific approach. Including the adoption of the required need for empirical testing of knowledge [see p.18]. The point is that a guiding point of view, including the naturalistic view of Spinoza and Damasio cannot be scientifically proved. Only if one starts with an assumed unity of nature; if one assumes that the mechanistic view of the universe is the basic premise underlying the scientific understanding of this unity; if one conceives of the structural view as showing how they introduce a selective limitation of the causal laws which can operate within them; if the self-regulation in each structure means keeping its integrity, and if this applies to both the integrity of a person and of society, then it is reasonable to presuppose that this naturalistic view of nature is the best approach to the acquisition of all knowledge, even if we cannot, or cannot yet, explain every aspect of human life in neural terms. This is the justification of both Spinoza and Damasio for adopting their approach. Yet, there are two reasons which explain the difference between them. One is the fact that although the arguments of both are addressed against the Cartesian conception of science, the guiding view underlying it changed from the body/mind dualism to the nature/culture dichotomy. The second is that while Spinoza, the philosopher, was thinking of an approach to science as a whole, Damasio, the scientist, thinks of neurology, his branch of science. The rest of this chapter deals with these two differences in that order. Damasio’s arguments against those who are sceptical about his naturalistic approach to neurology. These are not the skeptics whom Spinoza rejects in the TCU [see pp.34 and 65]. The skeptics addressed by Damasio are those who opt for an

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explanation of the mind in cultural terms. These skeptics, Damasio says, have pointed out to him that when they think, they are never aware of any sensing of their bodies. They argue that even if he is right that feeling the body remains in the background, as Damasio describes [see pp.337-341], so many functions of the human brain have been so thoroughly symbolized that the body involvement is no longer relevant. In other words, even if he is right that at the beginning of human evolution mental activities were as closely related to sensing the body as he suggests, this can no longer be the case. It is worth elaborating a little on the main arguments of these ‘skeptics’ which Damasio felt compelled to refute. For justifying their move from nature to culture these skeptics point out that even the perception of colours does not correspond to the universal neural determination of colour-vision. And the recognition of distinct phonetic units in ordinary languages is different in different cultures. If these most basic aspects of perception are not fixed by nature, these skeptics ask, how can we claim universal perceptions in more complex phenomena, like the skills of measurement? By analogy to Quine’s claim concerning reason [see p.143], these skeptics claim that the emphasis on measuring has become so central to modern people's cognitive system that if, as Damasio claims, neurologists can identify what parts of the brain are active when such measurements are calculated, they do not discover the natural origins of these developed skills. What they discover is the effect of a culture on the brains of its members. In short, as their argument cited by Damasio says, his postulated evolution of a theoretical brain which made the development of skills possible, has led to a new situation where the actually invented conceptions of the world are so far removed from any conception based on natural constraints, that the idea that we can ‘think backwards’ until we discover these natural starting points is neither feasible nor useful. The attempt is not useful because the history of the acquisition of these skills got us steadily further away from natural ways of thinking. Therefore, even if we could know these natural origins, this would not help us understand the culturally determined way of thinking.

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Therefore, we may just as well drop the attempt to discover them. Damasio’s first response is to admit that at the moment he cannot prove his naturalistic approach. All he can do to convince these skeptics is to show that even today, when we think of the abstract idea of space, the body remains the ground reference for it. This is because the idea of three dimensional space corresponds to patterns of body-movements represented in the brain.250) This is an explanation in neural terms of Spinoza’s inclusion of the abstract notion of space in the list of known properties of the understanding [see p.79], although Damasio was more likely thinking of Kant’s insistence that space was perceived rather than conceived, as a product of thought. According to Damasio, such a basic idea cannot be different in different cultures. His second response is his agreement with Kant that we can never know whether the real universe is as we perceive it, because our basic concepts depend on our brains' representations of the input of our senses. Therefore, the relativity which follows from this dependency is not cultural. It is a relativity common to our species, and is explicable in evolutionary terms. What we know is indeed our reality. "Frogs and birds looking at cats see them differently, and so do cats themselves."251) This can be seen as an explanation in evolutionary terms of the idea that Spinoza’s recommended method – to start with innate knowledge as premises and develop them by using logic – is the best method from a human point of view [see p.228]. That Spinoza was aware of its not being a guarantee for a correct understanding of Nature, let alone a complete one, is concisely stated in his letter to Oldenburg [C. Letter LXXV], criticising scientists who assume that they can achieve such complete knowledge. However, Damasio is not concerned with this metaphysical point. For him, the important issue is to distinguish the relativity of understanding attributed to various species from the cultural relativity

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suggested by the skeptics he criticizes. This is because the latter implies that even a scientifically inclined mind can create a view of reality that is totally independent of what is universal in human understanding. Like Spinoza, Damasio does not deny that various skills like logic, mathematics or methods of measurement may not be equally developed in all cultures. His point is that these skills could not have developed in any culture without the initial universal capacities and principles on which they are based. However, the point which cultural relativists make is that any skill, including science, develop within a particular culture where it is valued. Therefore, such a skill can be transferred from one culture to another only if the other finds it valuable, or useful for itself. The evidence for this claim is that, although scientific skills developed in many societies, the role they played in the cultures of China, Egypt, Babylonia and Greece, was different from the scientific skills developed in seventeenth century Europe. Against this argument Damasio explains that it is the fact that the neural basis of the conception of space in geometry is shared by all human brains that explains its remarkable consistency throughout history. It is the actual acceptance of skills that depends on its value for the culture dominant in a society, not its potential acceptability.252) A similar argument applies against the argument that the use of language forms the link between a culture and human nature. The skeptics addressed by Damasio claim that it is a language that imposes a structure on reality. And since languages vary in different cultures, the order they impose does not reflect nature, but an inter-subjective perception. The refutation of this claim is that, at least the participants in the Vienna Circle who introduced the idea of replacing the notion of objectivity by intersubjectivity, did not refer to the factual acceptance of any theory or method in any particular culture. What they meant was the possible

252) It is to this kind of relativism that Steven Weinberg responds with the argument that it is quite likely that "what we learn about why the world is the way it is, will [one day] become part of everyone's intellectual heritage." See S. Weinberg: Life in the Universe, in the Scientific American of October 1994.

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acceptability of such theories due to properties common to the human species [see pp.273-274]. In conclusion, Damasio’s intention is to convince the skeptics that his central hypothesis, that rationality is not divorced from the emotions, applies even after a culture like ours enables people to separate thought from feelings to a greater extent than this hypothesis suggests. But he also wants to point out to them the consequences of their relativism. According to him, their mistaken view can be traced to Hume’s rejection of Descartes. He points out, that Hume was keenly aware of the power of emotions, and would have approved of the idea that the intellect is not independent of emotions. However, his idea that our thoughts are necessarily slaves to the passions,253) led to the assumption that the evident effect of feelings on decision-making means that people are naturally so self-centred that they are incapable of having disinterested thoughts about anything external to themselves. It is this assumption, Damasio says, which leads to "a tolerance for relaxed standards of intellectual performance." 254) namely to the attitude of the [post-modern] version of relativism described in the previous chapter. Damasio’s arguments against the computer model of the mind. Damasio has no doubt that the popularity of this model arises from the Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind.255) As noted already, Damasio explains that this error was inferred from the impossibility to understand the mind in the same mechanistic way as the body is understood [see p.344]. In other words, from the difference in the way we know mental and physical phenomena, Descartes drew his erroneous metaphysical conclusion which implies that not only reason but also moral judgments and even conscious suffering might exist separately from the processes which operate the body. This, according to him, is the rationale for

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comparing the mind to software and the body to hardware. However, as noted concerning Searle’s objections to the computer model, those who adhere to this model do not reject the mechanistic view of the mind [see p.107]. In fact, according to Dennett, an important aspect of his separation of thinking (the verb) from thoughts (memes) is that the former can be shown to be a mechanism in the brain – the hardware – which processes thoughts [see pp.237 and 234 respectively], and therefore is included in human nature. It is the source of thoughts [of memes] that are independent of this mechanism. And it is this distinction which retains the Cartesian conception of science as dealing exclusively with the world extended in space, and remained the conception of nature in modern science. Thoughts are the product of cultures. As pointed out already, neither Spinoza nor Damasio deny the influence of different cultures on people’s thoughts.256) The difference between Dennett's explanation and that of Spinoza is that the former denies the existence of a natural mechanism which can interfere with this influence by accepting some and rejecting other thoughts [memes] invading the mind [see p.243]. In short, the crucial difference between the adherence to a naturalistic approach and that of the nature/culture dichotomy is whether the postulated function of reason is natural or an invention of a culture. To those who object to his presupposed naturalism on the ground that it is not scientific, Damasio says that the fact that his grounds for accepting a naturalistic view remain speculative, namely without a causal explanation, does not mean that his reasons for rejecting Descartes' view have no scientific support. The main support being that the separation of thought from other body functions cannot explain why the brain's neurons behave in the thoughtful manner that they do. And this, in his opinion, is the central scientific issue.257) This leads to Damasio’s main interest in opposing the current approach to science.

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Damasio’s arguments against the current approach in neurology. Damasio’s main interest is to change the approach of his colleagues who follow the inverted Cartesian view of science. His major purpose of writing the book I am discussing has been to convince them that although he cannot prove his naturalistic conception of human nature scientifically, they should consider the scant evidence he can provide as sufficient for considering it as possibly true in view of the damage that he sees in the acceptance of their approach to both theoretical neurology and practical medicine. The most general theoretical damage is that the separation of mind and body encourages the current exclusive concentration of neurology on physical and chemical processes. As a result, although most neurologists reject Descartes' metaphysics, their approach cannot lead to the elimination of this Cartesian error. Put in my own words, his argument is that an approach to research determines what is included and what is excluded from any inquiry. The tendency of neurologists to exclude thought from experimental work excludes the very possibility to consider the influence of thought on behaviour. But with such an approach to neurology there is no hope for eliminating this error experimentally.258) In Damasio's opinion this tendency of his colleagues stated with the either-or attitude originated in the seventeenth century as a result of the Cartesian separation of the mind from the body. It gave rise to the question whether it was reason (the rational mind) or the emotions (belonging to the body) which were decisive for determining behaviour. It is worth reminding ourselves that the ‘either-or’ attitude became much more dominant after the nature/culture dualism replaced the Cartesian mind/body dualism, than it was in the 17th century [see pp.270-271]. The argument then was about the degree of reliability. No supporter of empirical science rejected the validity of logic and mathematics, even if these were considered a-priori knowledge. And Descartes did not dismiss the usefulness of observation. He thought that the senses were a necessary

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aid to discovery, even if less reliable. To the question, how experiments can be an aid to discovery if the senses were not reliable, Descartes answered that it was absurd to suppose that God maliciously provided us with senses that systematically deceived us. In short, there was at the time at least an implicit agreement that without the reliance on a-priori principles of logic the creation of any systematic knowledge was simply impossible, but that no practical certainty was possible without relying on sense perception. Kant’s claim to have unified these views was in fact achieved by Spinoza before him. In Damasio’s opinion, it is the exclusive consideration of the human body in the conception of nature which led to the differentiation of psychology from biology, and to the exclusive concentration of medical schools on the pathologies of physiology alone. He acknowledges that an important reason for this has been that through targeting research on diagnosis and treatment of diseased organs, where the nervous-system is considered an organ, great achievements were gained in medical understanding. But the same specialization necessarily neglected both psychology and the social aspects of medicine. A neglect which may undermine the great achievement of medicine, including neurology. It is astonishing, he argues, that even where mental diseases are concerned, teaching the nervous system excludes the mind. Students get no instruction in psychology. Similarly, when psychology became a science, the study of its relation to biology is still an exception. He believes that the damage caused by this approach is not merely practical. His example is the acceptance of the placebo effect in medical practice without investigating how this effect occurs because theoretically only diseases of the body proper are considered real.259) In Damasio's opinion, the Cartesian legacy combined with the overwhelming dependency of the growth of knowledge on specialization "conspire to increase the inadequacy of medicine rather than reduce it."260)

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This is a point emphasized by post-modern critics. While some of these critics (e.g. Foucault) stress the social pressures which create this inadequacy, Damasio points out that this was not the case in earlier times. From Hippocrates to the Renaissance the separation between body and psyche was not accepted in medical doctrines.261) Then it was clear that understanding the mind required an organic perspective which meant an interaction of the biological with the physical and social environments. He thinks that it is the Cartesian legacy which prevents a correct understanding of the mind-body relation. And unlike post modern critics, he hopes that this misunderstanding is only causing a delay in the correct development of scientific medicine.262) But he also adds that what we call the human spirit, with all its dignity and unique complexity, is a state of the human organism, and we should be aware of its fragility and finiteness.263) He also points out that many critics of the medical profession focus on the confinement of each specialist not merely to the treatment of the body but even on particular sick organs. He thinks that this is an important cause for concern because he suspects that the popularity of alternative medicine is not merely due to the credulity of the ignorant. More likely it is rooted in the public's intuitive detection of a real problem, namely of ‘the wholeness of the person’ which is emphasised by these alternative methods. Unfortunately, he adds, these practitioners lack the necessary knowledge for providing effective treatment. Their emphasis of ‘the whole’ neglects the centrality of the body and the necessity to understand it. As a result, only the weakness of western medicine is revealed without reducing its cause. In his opinion, it is a mistake to assign the flight to alternative medicine to ‘a sick culture,’ and ignore its cause.264) In summary, Damasio's reasons for returning to the naturalistic

261) DE p.251 262) DE p.256. 263) DE pp. 258 and 246-247. 264) DE p.257-258.

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approach is that the study of the mind should neither assume the Cartesian unqualified faith in the power of reason, nor should it dismiss the natural effect of reason on motivation, as the inverted version of this Cartesian view maintains. Like Spinoza, he thinks that understanding the influence of knowledge on human life "requires that greater consideration be given to the vulnerability of the world within." 265) Like Spinoza, he maintains that, because the power of the passions is so strong, "we should protect reason from the weakness that abnormal feelings or the manipulation of normal feelings can introduce in the process of planning and deciding."266) He explains that his realization that feelings are essential for motivating the engagement in reasoning does not mean that he is advocating to succumb to the natural power of the emotions. On the contrary, all possible care should be taken "not [to] diminish our determination to control external circumstances to the advantage of individuals or societies," 267) which, as Spinoza explained, is the natural drive to develop cultural skills that may enlarge our natural capacities. I shall conclude this chapter with a remarks about my claim that Damasio’s view is in the spirit of Spinoza, First we must take notice that while Spinoza, the philosopher, was thinking of an approach to science as a whole, Damasio, the scientist, thinks mainly of neurology. As a modern scientist, Damasio does not even try to incorporate his view of neurology in a general metaphysical view of the universe. for example, all scientists who accept the nature/culture dichotomy as their standard of truth ignore the metaphysical question How a causally explicable world gives rise to human beings whose behaviour is intelligible in terms other than causal. But, like Spinoza, Damasio starts with the conviction, that because we inevitably understand ourselves as capable of judging our actions according to reasons and intentions, we must find explanations for this

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fact in human nature without denying the evident priority of emotions as motives of behaviour. This recognition is the main thesis of Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error and is also central in Spinoza’s philosophy. Concerning moral behaviour, replying to Oldenburg’s complaint, that with his inclusion of moral judgements in the domain of reason he undermined the role of religion for protecting morality, Spinoza’s answer was, that since we are moral beings, this property must be natural. But, he adds that explanation cannot affect moral values, because whether these values stem from human nature, as he understands them, or from God's commands, as Oldenburg thinks, their conceived desirability is the same [C. Letters LXXIV and LXXV]. The point of the answer is that while their understanding of morality may differ due to their different metaphysical views of the universe, the evident moral consequence of both is the same. A similar point can be made concerning Damasio’s view of morality. Although Damasio thinks of the mind as ‘literally minding the body’ [see p.334], he also explains that since people are social animals, moral structures must be understood as strategies for maintaining social life. He explains that some animals have such strategies built into their minds. But in human societies it is their culture which transmits moral values to their members. Since his understanding of human nature is guided by the theory of evolution, he explains that these cultural strategies evolved for coping with suffering. Suffering is opposed to physical pain [see pp.337 and 343345]. According to Damasio, the important point is that without the evolution of suffering – as a combination of physical pain with the perception of its cause – there most probably would not have been an evolution of cultures. A real difference between Spinoza and Damasio is in a generality of Spinoza’s conception of scientific explanation. For Spinoza, all aspects of human behaviour must be explained scientifically. This means that not only psychology and the social sciences, but also political science must be included in the scientific project, irrespective of the ‘top-down’ influence of a culture on its members. Moreover, Damasio’s explanation of the

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persistence in thinking of the nervous-system as a purely physical organ, which is due to the great achievements of treating the body as independent of the mind [see p.361], is, according to Spinoza, due to the structure of human understanding. This is because these explanations could only be achieved by organizing them in separate, logically related, thoughts [see p.127]. This, according to him, cannot be done by separating the consideration of a human being as an individual and as a social being, because the essence of a social-political explanation is based on his postulated contradictory drives of people conceiving themselves as individuals and as a social beings. Damasio does not consider these contradictory drives, in spite of his explanation that a naturalistic approach means taking account of the interaction of the biological and the physical with social environments [see p.362], except in a remark on the last paragraph of his book.268) However, this difference is seen in at least two of his discussions. Discussing the ‘super-ego’ he explains that this aspect of human nature must have evolved as a device for ensuring the survival of societies. Or as he says, the survival of humanity requires the intervention of society for civilizing psychological drives. But he disregards the possibility that it also introduced the contradictory drives postulated by Spinoza [see pp.348 and 351 respectively]. The second discussion showing this difference is about the modern tendency of physicians to explain their failures by appeal to their economic problems. Damasio does not deny that it is the necessary financial support of medical institutions which causes this problem. But he does not relate this modern tendency, as Spinoza would do, to the fact that physicians, like anybody else, are prone to succumb to social pressures, which in this case means the acceptance of the economic criterion for judging the value of their work, let alone their own professional survival. In other words, he does not treat it as a political phenomenon which is not confined to the medical profession.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS. My purpose in this concluding chapter is to show that contrary to the philosophy of science based on the nature/culture dichotomy, Spinoza’s naturalistic approach offers a way out from the cultural relativism which is fashionable today. This relativism claims that we cannot have a universal ethical criterion for judging customs and policies of other cultures, because our own conceptions of truth and morality are only valid in our own culture. However, if we accept that it is a natural desire of all people to live according to their nature in peace and security, and that – like all structures – a society, and its government, strive to secure their own survival, as Spinoza suggests, then we have a criterion for judging whether any culture, including our own, supports the fulfilment of both. I call this chapter ‘concluding remarks’ because I concentrate on those aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy which are important for the future of science, which I believe to be endangered by cultural relativism. Many students of Spinoza see his main contribution to modern thought in his analysis of the emotions, and in his thesis that their effect on behaviour is stronger than reason. But for the philosophy of science today the place he assigns to reason in human nature is not less important After all, the concepts of true and false are central to the function of reason, and the central role of science is to acquire true knowledge which can replace erroneous ideas which guide people in conducting their way of life. This aspect of rationalism is pertinent to all critical thinking, in everyday life as in the natural and the social sciences. In seven remarks which follow an introductory statement of my conclusion I hope to clarify specific aspects mentioned in it. The numbers in brackets point out the remark. A central idea of Spinoza’s philosophy of science is that if the purpose of science is to enable people to live according to their nature in peace and security, then it is imperative to include the study of human nature in the scientific project. This is because only this study can provide an understanding of the necessary conditions for fulfilling this purpose as

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well as of the obstacles to it. According to him, this is only possible if the nature of humanity is included in his comprehensive view of nature (1). My reason for putting ‘purpose’ in italics is to emphasise that Spinoza’s mechanistic view of nature does not exclude having purposes from human nature. With this claim I follow Spinoza’s recommendation to philosophers when he explains the meaning of ‘free will.’ Philosophers, he says, should not ignore a common experience but should find a natural explanation for it. [see p.12]. I used this recommendation for my interpretation of the conception of choice and also for having purposes. The problem with both shows why it is impossible to apply the same method to the study of human affairs as to what is called today a natural science. This is because, while the latter can be constructed as logical systems, this cannot be done when account must be taken of contradictory drives and desires. (2). A central idea in my claim that in spite of this difficulty, Spinoza’s naturalistic view can be usefully taken to be a guide for an approach to science today, including the domains of science dealing with humanity, is that both the inclusion of the ‘guilty concepts,’ with their epistemological problems, can be understood in the light of the theory of evolution (3). The ethical aspect of all Spinoza’s work is in his attempt to find the best way – which, as explained in chapter VIII, is the meaning of a rational way – to satisfy the basic desire of all people to live according to their nature in peace and security (6). This ethical purpose is found in later formulations, as the dictum that people ought to be treated as potentially free agents as one wishes oneself to be treated, which is opposed to the tendency to treat others as instruments for achieving one’s own purposes. While the former recognises conscious subjectivity as an essential constituent of a human being, the latter emphasises an empirical approach to social science. The former was seen as an essence of morality before and after Spinoza. For example by Rabbie Hillel (in the first century AD) and by Kant. But an important point in Spinoza’s analysis is that both this moral attitude and the empirical observations are naturally explicable: the moral attitude as stemming from the universal intuition that we need each

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other’s help and the empirical observation is due to the fact that in any society there are people who exploit this intuition to their own advantage. Contrary to Rorty’s definition of morality as loyalty to ‘rules of the game’ imposed by people in power. Spinoza sees morality as a rational judgement of contradictory motives when they arise. Therefore, he concludes that the best policy must, on the one hand, encourage rationality in education, and on the other hand, devise civil laws to prevent the natural wickedness of people in power. This is the political aspect of his social philosophy (7). In view of today’s prevalence of the nature/culture dichotomy, it is important to emphasise that Spinoza’s naturalism does not dispute the influence of a culture on human life. On the contrary. In the TCU he emphasises the need to include a theory of education and moral philosophy in his list of useful branches of knowledge to be pursued. According to him, education is important because the fulfilment of the aim of science depends on the encouragement of the appeal to reason from an early age. Only then there is a chance that [most] people may acquire the habit of rational thinking which will convince them that the fulfilment of this aim is advantageous for themselves. And when some of them reach positions of power this conviction may prevent them from changing this habit. The reason for calling theories dealing with human affairs ‘moral philosophy’ is explained by Spinoza in the TPT by the difference he makes between laws of nature and man-made civil laws. He explains that although civil laws should be based on the natural origin of morality, they are not necessarily based on it. His example is the principle that a man must yield part of his rights to the state if he wants to live in peace and security. The capacity to grasp this need, and the ability to design a system of laws which can ensure peace and security, are natural. Yet, the actual choice of laws are not necessarily the best because other passions pull people against it The argument against the nature/culture dichotomy which derived from Spinoza’s naturalism is his claim that the variety of cultures is a result of the variety of ways in which people can interact with nature.

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Different cultures, or as he says, different ways of life, are distinguished by different customs, often arising from peculiar prejudices.. But these have their ultimate roots in human nature (4). Only these natural roots can be established scientifically, and the knowledge so acquired ought to provide the universal conditions for choosing the best laws. An example may be Spinoza’s idea that in every society there are some people who in order to maintain their positions of power exploit the tendency of all people to succumb to the customs of their society. This proposition can be derived from a historical review of the way it has been exhibited in different social structures. Once derived, it can explain the difference between the exploitation of serfs in a feudal society, or the Marxist notion of exploitation of workers in a capitalist society, as compared to Spinoza’s explanation of the exploitation of universal faith by institutional religion. At the time, if found in all cultures, it tests the proposition that exploitation by people in power is universal, but its realization described in each case is not. Its acceptance by both exploiters and exploited depends on their acceptance of the view of society which dominates the culture of each of them. At the beginning of the PT Spinoza explains this method. He states that he intends to examine the existing political systems he knows in order to deduce from them the political principles which had actually been applied in them. From this method – which is common in all branches of science – he intends to choose the best, namely those which are most likely to fulfill the [ethical] aim of science.269) 269) From a letter to ‘an unknown friend’[C. LXXXIV] we know that Spinoza’s intention was to proceed with his plan to derive the best laws. We do not know how he would have completed his plan because his death prevented it. But it is unlikely that it could be a plan for all times. In fact, his arguments imply that a general political science could not go beyond explaining all the psychological and social conditions which ought to be satisfied when a rational design of civil laws is considered. In this respect, his plan for a rational treatise would resemble an ‘instruction manual’ for architects, where the best which can be done is to describe as fully as possible the conditions which must be taken into account when construction begins [see p.81, my comment on item VIII]. This is how Karl Popper’s suggestion that we should solve social problems by ‘social engineering’ should be understood. In his opinion, any

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A generalization of this methodology means that the evidence for all Spinoza’s propositions, which he claims to be universal but are observed to be different in different cultures, is to be found in the study of human history (5). The important question which remains is whether the second part of his suggested method, that from this knowledge the best policies can be chosen for solving current social problems, can be realized. 1) Spinoza’s comprehensive view of nature In modern terms, Spinoza’s conception of substance can be understood as the totality of matter-energy in space-time. The essence of his structural view is that a structure is not a static description. The mathematical equations describing it are transformation laws: they describe how any state of the structure is transformed into another. The ‘energy’ component represents the internal dynamic power of substance. The postulated forces which move the universe as a whole represent the various forms which this energy of nature can obtain. Basic laws of nature are represented by the mathematical equations which apply to the universe as a whole. Although these laws are abstract – namely expressed in thought alone – they describe the real conatus of the universe, namely the real way the internal energy of the universe governs all events in it. An elaboration of this view says that every structured thing which exists in the universe, from an elementary particle to a human being. is what Spinoza calls a modification of substance. Both the material existence of such a thing and its conatus are derived from matter-energy. This means that every part of matter-energy which becomes a separate structured object is moved by the energy of the universe enclosed in it. As far as the natural sciences are concerned this view is recognizable in the modern view known as ‘physicalism,’ by which essential abstract concepts and laws of nature are considered real components of physical reality. But the agreement is confined to the domains of the natural sciences alone, attempt to treat a political treatise dogmatically as a blueprint for the design of social relations for all time is bound to lead to totalitarianism [Popper 1967 part I chapter 3 (IV) p.22].

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namely to the conception of nature by the nature/culture dichotomy. According to William James, this confinement is due to the recognition of the impossibility to include consciousness in nature. James concluded that, since the consideration of consciousness is essential for dealing adequately with psychology, we must go back to the Cartesian distinction between the body and [the thinking] mind. But by Spinoza’s comprehensive conception of nature, the correct approach is to find a natural explanation for the inclusion of consciousness in it. And this means that consciousness must have its roots in the nature of matterenergy, namely in the conatus of the unique substance. Needless to say, neither Spinoza nor modern scientists are able to explain how a body operating according to the laws of physics can become conscious. All that can be said is that when matter was conceived as inert, and changes in its positions in space-time were explained by laws imposed by God who was external to it, it was reasonable to understand ‘materialism’ as representing a passive physical world. Spinoza was certainly not a materialist in this sense. His notion of ‘active matter’ is expressed by his proposition that everything in nature is animated to some extent. By animation he means a thing’s tendency to behave so as to sustain its own survival. Consciousness must be derived from this notion of animation. Perhaps we can ‘translate’ this idea into modern terms as follows. Physicists claim that the force of gravitation is universal. Yet, they also claim that its effect within the nucleus of an atom is negligible. That it is negligible means that we can understand the behaviour of these particles without taking account of gravitation. In the same way, Spinoza’s thesis of the universality of animation may mean that what we call ‘an inanimate thing’ is a structure within which the influence of its tendency to preserve its survival is negligible in this epistemological sense. His explanation of the behaviour of animals as perfect, namely as behaving exactly as necessary for their survival, without requiring the intervention of consciousness, fits this explanation. In fact, as explained in chapter IX, Dawkins’ explanation of

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‘instinct’ can be seen as an explanation of Spinoza’s notion of perfection described in his own terms according to his own conception of nature. Dawkins explains that to say that animals behave instinctively as they should in order to survive means that their behaviour is inscribed in their DNA. Ontologically speaking, we can compare such an invisible state of consciousness to the latent property of an atom in which a positive charge occurs only when an electron is knocked out of it, and thereby a force of attraction is activated. Similarly, all we know about the relationship between an activated brain and mental states is that electrical impulses in neurons are the causal correlates of mental state. But the correlate of a particular conscious experience – ‘its object in the body,’ as Spinoza put it – is a complex structure in the brain. This is how we can understand Dennett’s differentiation between a state of alertness and the way consciousness works. The inclusion of consciousness in physical reality in this way is also supported by the second part of the definition of life as ‘the ability to reproduce and to be maintained by metabolism.’ Metabolism means the conversion of nutrients extracted from the environment into internal energy. A state of alertness is certainly maintained by the supply of oxygen to the brain. Yet, while the notion of animation must be understood as part of the conatus of nature as a whole, human consciousness which has a role in determining human behaviour must be seen as an emerging [evolving[ structural system which explains how this elementary animation works within a human body [and perhaps in other animals]. Spinoza knew that a great part of the behaviour of human beings is determined without the intervention of consciousness. His thesis that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has, can be understood as saying that the more consciousness is essential for survival, the less it can be ignored. Whatever the validity of the comparison of consciousness to a force of nature, one point in contrasting the naturalistic view of Spinoza with that

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of Dawkins and Dennett, as representing those who adhere to the nature/culture dichotomy and to the theory of evolution, is that by the latter’s view, neurons, synapses and neurotransmitters, as well as the neural circuits which connect them, are real constituents of human nature, but the ideas of which we are conscious are not, because these are the products of a culture [see chapter X, starting from p.121]. In other words, as far as nature is concerned, the role of consciousness in maintaining life is an illusion. The influence of ideas in human life is the influence of a culture. But according to Spinoza’s naturalism this claim cannot be sustained, because it is the role of a consciously created knowledge which explains why the state of alertness alone, which is sufficient for maintaining the survival of most animals, is not sufficient for human survival. It explains why the creation of a system of conscious knowledge came to characterize humanity. It is this characterization which introduces the basic problem with the need to have a standard of truth, or as it is called today, a paradigm for research. In the TCU, where Spinoza summarises what he achieved so far in designing his method, he notes that his naturalistic view is methodologically important, because its recognition as the correct standard of truth will speed up the achievement of his stated aim of science. But as noted in the introduction, the basic difficulty of proving the correctness of a standard of truth, namely of a guiding paradigm, is due to the fact that the arguments supporting each view can be interpreted in terms of another. For example, Spinoza’s characterization of cultures as being dominated by peculiar dispositions and prejudices is explained by Dawkins in evolutionary terms. He explains that the human brain remained as it evolved under the stone-age conditions, when the tendency to see relations between things, from which causal relations were suggested to them, was much more important for survival than the realization that some such suggestions may be false. The problem is that while Dawkins claims that with the culturally created science our culture can overcome the limitations of our stone-age brain, Spinoza’s naturalism demands a natural explanation for this possibility.

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Similarly, neither Chomsky’s speculation that the evolution of language was a precursor for the evolution of reason, nor Davidson’s argument that since the acquisition of language depends on having a concept of truth speech and reason must have evolved together, contradict Spinoza’s naturalism. Nevertheless, Chomsky justifies his theory with his claim to be a Cartesian and Davidson justifies his with his claim to be a pragmatist. I come back to this basic problem in remarks 3) and 5.2). 2) Given that we cannot construct a science of humanity as we construct a physical science, Spinoza found it inevitable to turn to rational introspection. In the TCU Spinoza reached his view about the way he could come to know the structure of his own mind by reflecting on what he knew about its operations. From this reflection he concluded that the function of reason was to resolve contradictions between ideas representing knowledge. Since he found that the basic principles on which logical thinking depends cannot be proven, he concluded that these must be known by intuition, a concept best understood as being innate. . Before going further I must explain my reason for saying that the word ‘innate’ best expresses the meaning of Spinoza’s notion of intuition. I prefer the term ‘innate’ not only because it is implied by Spinoza’s notion of ‘intuition’ but because since his time the meaning of the term ‘intuition’ underwent a considerable change. The legitimacy of the implication is justified by the Oxford dictionary’s explanation of the adjective Naïve. This adjective was derived in 1654 from ‘nativum.’ Following the dictionary’s explanation, the term is “characterized by unsophisticated or unconventional simplicity or artlessness (i.e. free from deceit).” By this explanation, sophistication is a result of conventional cultivation, and therefore is dependent on one’s culture. In Spinoza’s terms then, equating naivety to non-sophistication means to be free from the external influence of one’s cultural conditioning. And ‘freedom from

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deceit’ fits Spinoza’s opinion that the source of this deceit false ideas is the ‘wickedness’ of people in power [see p.33]. Moreover, it is this meaning of sophistication which implies that cultural conditioning is the origin of taking false ideas for granted. According to Spinoza, a drive to free oneself from an imposed ‘sophistication’ is the motive for having ‘a fresh look’ at things, as the best way to restore to oneself the natural functions of one’s mind. Spinoza’s claim to have turned to a fresh reading of the Bible, is a claim to have freed himself from its theological false interpretation. In this sense, keeping the mind on reason, in order to find one’s innate premises, and following them by one’s own reason, can be seen as naivety. It is the denigration of such an attempt by the ‘sophisticated’ which turned the term ‘naive’ into bordering on stupidity. By reflection Spinoza also discovered that his assumed unity of nature was natural, and was the correct conception of God. Yet he observed that the prevalent standard of truth in his society was different, and that this must be a major origin of false beliefs. As a result, he asked himself How can an innate knowledge lead to an incorrect standard of truth? His answer was first, that to say that a truth is known by intuition does not mean that it is in the forefront of everybody’s thoughts. It only means that “if somebody stumbles upon it by chance he knows that no argument or evidence are needed for ascertaining its truth” [see p.57]. Second, being natural does not mean that we can discover it without careful inquiry, just as we cannot understand the functioning of our body without careful scientific study in spite of the fact that nobody doubts its being natural. And third, a failure to discover the correct intuitive knowledge was not a result of mere ignorance or stupidity. In order to show this he considered Descartes’ proof of his view of the mind by relying on the existence of God. Since he had no doubt that Descartes was intent on accepting only what he could not possibly doubt, and according to Spinoza, the conception of God existing outside nature was a distortion of its true conception underlying the innate knowledge of the unity of nature, he concluded that if even ‘the illustrious Descartes’ could make this mistake, there must be a natural

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explanation for his readiness to accept this distortion. And he finds this reason in the readiness of all people to accept at least some cultural traditions without challenge. He explains the natural readiness to accept them by their natural desire to belong to – or as it is common to say today, to identify with – their social group. According to adherents of the nature/culture dichotomy, this explanation belongs to the influence of a culture on people’s minds. 270). As far as human nature is concerned, the objection to Spinoza’s proposed discovery of innate knowledge is that, without evidence for innateness, it may have been an invention of his rationalist mind. Spinoza did not deny that a fully developed logical theory, namely the instrument of a rational mind, is a cultural creation. What he claims to have discovered is that the universal validity of its invention is due to its being based on axioms which cannot be denied because they express the natural capacity of the human mind to reject false ideas – which is equivalent to the impossibility of accepting contradictory propositions – and the intuitive [innate] knowledge of inferring new truths from old ones. A support for his argument is the fact that, in spite of modern logicians’ doubt concerning the innateness of the principle of inference – on the ground that the same logical system can be derived by taking for example the principle of conjunction as an axiom, and derive the principle of inference from it – Spinoza’s proposed constraint on the systematisation of knowledge, which is directly related to the properties of inference, is generally accepted. This constraint says that the necessary division of logically organized knowledge into separate domains of investigation is imposed by the property of inference, that derivation of one truth from another depends on the concepts used in both having the same meaning. This constraint is accepted by all scientists who consider logic as an essential tool for creating their theories. Moreover, the characterization of reason as a device for removing contradictions from acquired knowledge 270) Dawkins describes this readiness as credulity. In other words, the fact explained, namely the evident acceptance without challenge, is the same. The explanation is different due to their different conception of nature.

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is responsible for the exclusion of psychology and sociology from what is called today natural science. This, as Spinoza explains, is because our selfunderstanding must acknowledge contradictory emotional drives, as well as the contradiction between the drive of people to live by their own understanding and their drive to conform to the dominant ideas in their society. However, in spite of this impossibility to create a science of human behaviour as a logical system, Spinoza saw in it, as well as in his political theory, essential parts of his scientific project. Both were essential for establishing the conditions for creating any science. This was because, since nobody can acquire the knowledge of nature on his own, the creation of all science must be a social project. And this project can only succeed if its advantage to all as well as the natural obstacles for its achievement are understood [see 27 and 142]. Yet, as pointed out in the introduction, the naturalistic approach has not been accepted even after the theory of evolution became the standard of truth for understanding the whole domain of living creatures. Therefore today, a support for Spinoza’s naturalistic approach can only be gained by showing that his explanations can be interpreted in the light of the theory of evolution. 3) The interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of human nature in the light of the theory of evolution. According to Spinoza, the feasibility of fulfilling the task he assigned to his own method depends on realizing, first, that the ideas which are known naturally cannot be false, and second that even naturally known ideas which ought to serve as premises for science are not sufficient for knowing all the indefinite number of the attributes of Nature. In the TPT [p.202] he explains that if anything in nature seems unreasonable to us it is only because we want everything to be ordered according to human reason, but this is not so in reality. For the first argument consider, for example, Einstein’s argument

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when he introduced his relativity theory. According to him, the Galilean transformation laws – on which Newton’s axioms relied – were not simply mistaken. Rather, they were good approximations under the conditions known on the earth. The Lorentz transformation laws, coupled with a change in the conception of the relation between time and space, could have only been discovered under circumstances beyond their natural function for humanity. Similarly, Spinoza’s proposition that ‘what we know naturally cannot be false’ should be understood by the theory of evolution as saying that the intuitively known premisses were true under the circumstances which humanity evolved. The second argument is justified by the claim that the attributes of Nature which we do know are those we need for survival. The support of this claim by the theory of evolution is that to the extent that this knowledge is innate [intuitive in Spinoza’s sense], it must have evolved by modifications of innate knowledge of some ancestors in ‘the tree of evolution.’ For example, from the innate knowledge which Dawkins attributes to an antelope. Dawkins explains that when an antelope perceives a cheetah, a state of alertness is sufficient for its appropriate response, as if it knows the intention of the cheetah. For human beings the ‘as if’ must be dropped because they in fact must learn how to act appropriately under circumstances which are not so predictable, as Spinoza explains ‘having more mind’ [see pp.19-20]. But, of course, this dependency on learning must also be shown to have evolved from natural learning in animals. Dawkins explains that natural learning in all animals is basically the capacity to imitate observed behaviour. In human societies this can be illustrated by the spread of fashions in clothing, pop-music or stupid jingles. If this is as general as he says, it also explains the natural tendency of people to conform to dominant patterns of behaviour in their society. He also says that it is natural for animals to insert signals in their environment as if conveying information. And, again, for human beings the ‘as if’ is dropped. If Dennett’s explanation of the spreading of ideas, beliefs and values [memes] in a culture are ‘signals’ inserted in particular social

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situations, then it is natural for people to pick them up and act accordingly.271) Dennett also explains that the behaviour of chimpanzees did not evolve as human cultures did, because their social environment has not provided them with the opportunity to cheat. The use of language in human societies, he says, evolved by natural selection when cheating became an asset. This means that with the evolution of language people acquired the means and the opportunity to propagate ideas which were advantageous to themselves. One way to acquire and maintain positions of power, then, became the ability to see to it that such advantageous ideas had a greater chance than other ideas ‘to invade the minds of others’ as Dennett describes this propagation. This would be the interpretation of Spinoza’s proposition that a powerful sovereign is one who induces his subjects to believe what he believes. But then, if a factor in the growing role of the use of language was the opportunities it afforded to people in power, then it is also reasonable to assume that there was a natural pressure for the evolution of the use of reason as a kind of ‘mental immune system,’ which can protect people from ideas damaging to themselves [see pp.68, 70,102 and 117]. The use of ‘an immune system’ is a good metaphor because like Spinoza’s description of the function of reason, the immune system rejects local invaders, namely damage done to one organ – or sub-system – in the body without taking account of the damage to another. The interpretation of reason as a corrective system applies also to the interpretation of morality, or virtue. A modern common way to explain morality in evolutionary terms is illustrated by the explanation of altruism, namely by showing that it is consistent with the self-interest which supports the propagation of genes. While the parents’ care for their offspring can explain altruism in this way in all animals, including humanity , it is more difficult to generalize this explanation to other social

271) For a long time in human existence, in hunting-gathering and in nomadic societies, learning by imitation has been the norm. It is quite likely that the same supported the division of societies into castes or classes in later social organizations.

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behaviour. Spinoza describes the altruistic attitude in humanity in his theory of the emotions. He pairs nobility with courage. While courage characterises the desire of each individual to preserve “what is his own according to the dictates of reason alone", nobility is directed to the preservation of what is of others rather than one's own [Ethics III, note to prop.LIX]. The reason for putting ‘of reason alone’ in italics is to emphasise that the essence of morality is the recognition that when people unite, their strength exceeds that of any individual [PT I 13], which is another way of saying that essential moral concepts are based on the recognition that we need each other’s help. And in evolutionary terms this means that, just as reason must be seen as an evolving device for removing false ideas [or fiction represented as knowledge] from the understanding of nature, so morality must be seen as an evolving device for removing what is only good for people in power from the understanding of what is good for society as a whole. An important point is that, according to Spinoza, the interpretation of morality as one form of rationality implies that it is impossible to eliminate egoistic emotions altogether, as shown by his explanation of what he means by attributing wickedness to people in power. He points out that Nature does not forbid any malevolent emotion. Both the striving for power and the moral dictates of reason are due to the social nature of humanity. Concepts like virtue and justice, he says, could not have been formed in the minds of people who did not live in an organized society. But since all people live in societies, these concepts are found in all cultures. Although so far this remark shows that it is possible to interpret Spinoza’s naturalism by the theory of evolution, we must still find evidence for his thesis that his proposed intuitions are indeed innate properties of the human species. Some such evidence has already been discussed. For example, the evidence for his proposed universality of the appeal to reason is that there is no known culture where this is totally absent. Similarly, his

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proposition that people tend to succumb to social pressures, and that leaders tend to exploit this tendency for their own advantage, is well supported by human history. Nevertheless, in order to replace the nature/culture dichotomy with Spinoza’s naturalism, interpreted in the light of the theory of evolution, we must show that the variability of cultures can indeed be derived from his explanations. This is the topic of my next remark. And because the question of historical evidence is so complex, I deal with it separately in my fifth remark. 4). The diversity of cultures. We can derive a view about the diversity of cultures which follows from Spinoza’s philosophy from his reference to ‘different ways of life’ [see p.57]. This is mentioned as a fact in the TCU when he explains why intuitively known ideas are not self-evident. However, if his naturalistic view of the universe is to guide all sciences, this factual observation must be shown to follow from human nature. As my example of courage and nobility shows, his characterization of emotions by their essence, in the third part of his Ethics, suggests that to say that they are natural means that all people possess them to some degree. But from his definition of the mind follows that ‘what is their own’ and ‘what is of others’ is learned from people’s social environments. In other words, these conceptions cannot be innate. As a result, when these conceptions are perceived as causes of emotions, they have different effects on what Spinoza calls ‘the spiritual automaton.’ In addition, although by analogy to the ‘balance of forces’ in mechanics, it is the balance of reasons in his postulated spiritual automaton which leads to actions, or decision, this balance of reasons is different in different cultures, because the assessment of the importance – namely the strength – of reasons is affected by the dominant standard of truth in each culture. Most important for this effect is Spinoza’s proposition that even a natural property can be either suppressed or distorted by people in positions of power, which amounts to changing the weights assigned to reasons in the

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‘calculation’ of their balance. Spinoza illustrates the mutual effect of experience and the dominant standard of truth in the appendix to part one of the Ethics, where the standard of truth is that everything is determined by God. But the same mutual effect applies to William James’s idea, that by attending exclusively to mechanistic explanations of relations between things, we appear to ourselves as inhabiting a mechanical universe [see p.291]. In both cases different standards of truth [or paradigms] change the ‘balance of reasons’ in the respective cultural environments. In this way typical personalities are created under the influence of different cultures, at least when the societies in which these persons live are isolated, because only in such societies people tend to accept the ‘weights’ assigned to reasons without challenge. This is also the reason why the universal desire to live in peace and security is naturally dominant only within one’s own social group. This explains why even such a moral dictate as ‘do not kill,’ which to anybody living in peace and security seems to be a natural aversion to killing, can be quite easily overruled. For example, by patriotism, or when ‘one’s own group’ is the family, a violator of the loyalty to its internal relations may justify killing, dressed as protecting the family’s honour.272) 272) As an example of the latter consider again the emotion of ‘jealousy.’ Under the influence of the theory of evolution, some psychologists propose that there is a universal difference between the essence of men's and women's jealousy. Men are jealous of a woman’s sexual infidelity because they care for spreading their own genes. And women are jealous of an emotional commitment of their partners because they care for securing a provider for their children. Cultural-relativists rightly point out that, even if such an explanation is ultimately correct, it does not help us understand behaviour motivated by jealousy in any particular society. This is true because for such an explanation we need to consider the weights assigned to these essential motives. For example, in a paternalistic society the jealousy of women is suppressed, but the jealousy of men is supported by relating it to the preservation of the family’s honour. Evolutionary psychologists do not contest this claim of relativists because their purpose is not to explain particular patterns of behaviour, but to discover a natural origin of the variable observations of jealousy. Of course, the question whether this general explanation is true remains. But the independence of culture from nature is rejected.

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At the end of my second remark I suggest that Spinoza’s naturalism can replace the nature/culture dichotomy as a standard of truth only if it is shown to agree with the theory of evolution. And as pointed out in that remark, for this agreement it is necessary to show that the growing influence of a culture on human behaviour evolved by modifying the very limited natural capacity of animals to satisfy their needs by learning, a capacity which according to Dawkins is inscribed in their DNA. A simple example is that while a kitten learns from its mother a fixed way to keep itself clean, for a human being such learning involves a complex inter-related set of habits and concepts. In other words, while for other animals ‘a cultural tradition’ consists of an identical repertoire of learning for all members of the species, for the human species a culture consists of traditions which keep the behaviour of the members of a particular society, or parts of it, within the limits of their needs to maintain their distinct patterns of interactions, rather than the needs of the human species as a whole. This is a naturalistic explanation of the existence of language games. We can guess that by analogy to Spinoza’s explanation that we must keep the concept of ‘a reason for action’ as distinct from the concept of its cause because we do not understand the ‘causal instrumentality’ which determines the balance of reasons, he have said that we must keep the concepts of a culture as distinct from the concept of its causes because we do not understanding the exact causal instrumentality which connects them. However, it follows from Spinoza’s naturalism that what is common to all cultural traditions is their function of keeping the achievements of piecemeal learning. This is the conservative aspect of education. But the fulfilment of the function of maintaining the adaptation to changing circumstances by learning depends on the efficacy of a culture to apply rational judgements to all aspects of that tradition. It makes no difference whether the broken traditions are methods currently used in agriculture, in medicine, or in social arrangements. All of them involve the intervention of rationality. The importance of the conservative aspect of a tradition is emphasised by Peirce’s comments on ‘the method of authority.’ He says that in spite of

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the superiority of the rational method, the method of authority is probably much more common due to its importance for the preservation of the human species. Spinoza’s political theory does not dispute the fact that ideas taken to be true by relying on authority are much more common than those accepted by rational thought. Nor does he underestimate the value of the method authority for maintaining the integrity of the state. But according to him, this method could only succeed because it stems from the combination of the natural tendency of people to succumb to it, and the awareness of political authorities that this method can only prevail if they suppress the natural drive of their subordinates to turn to reason. Therefore, Spinoza’s naturalism implies that it is not surprising that societies governed by the authority of traditions are much more common than those governed by rationality. But it also implies that if rationality is natural then it can be suppressed but not lost altogether. In other words, while according to Peirce, the ‘method of authority’ is natural and ‘the method of rationality’ is an accidental development in western cultures, according to Spinoza, both follow from human nature. However, he too agrees that the political decision to encourage the rational method is unusual [as stated in the last sentence in the Ethics, and sentences 104-105 in TCU XIV]. I come back to this point in my seventh remark. 5) The historical evidence. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, the evidence for all Spinoza’s claims is complex. For example, the need to find evidence for his claim that the function of reason is natural, and therefore universal, requires evidence that when this function fails to be evident it is due to its suppression by people in power. This complication requires to treat several aspects of his naturalism simultaneously. Since it is impossible to do so by the methods of science, we must consider several questions separately. 5.1 Can the theory of evolution provide a justification for assuming Spinoza’s naturalism?

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This question is of particular importance if it arises when contrasting Spinoza’s naturalism with the nature/culture dichotomy. In this case, the problem is that it is not logically impossible that the use of reason had not been naturally selected due to its importance for survival. It is not logically impossible that this capacity evolved as a by-product of the evolution of language. In other words, even if the tendency to use reason as a tool for correcting ideas is universal, it is possible that it evolved like the evolution of tool-making as a by-product of the selection of the shape of the hand for an unrelated advantage [see p.230]. It is even not logically impossible, as Dawkins points out, that the invention of language itself, and by implication the tendency to create logically consistent views of the world, have been influenced by an aesthetic drive.273) Concerning humanity, Dawkins finds evidence for this in the fact that a very early aesthetic drive is found in prehistorical cave paintings. We may add that although in this case beliefs in a magical influence of the paintings could have been a motive to make them, such beliefs are not likely to be the source of the aesthetic drive seen in the creation of stone tools: as seen in every archeological museum, these tools are shaped much more aesthetically symmetrically than is necessary for the performance of their practical tasks. If this is true, then a trace of this drive is found in many mathematicians’ insistence that the elegance of a proof is an important factor in its acceptance. The point of all these speculations is that the historical evidence, that there is no known culture where the use of reason is totally absent – which supports Spinoza’s proposed universality of the appeal to reason – may mean not more than, irrespective of its evolutionary origin, the application of reason became a corrective device which is the essence of a critical approach to any available ideas. However, this does not mean 273) According to Darwin, an aesthetic drive must be related to a real advantage for survival. If, for example, a female bird is attracted to a strong orange colour on a male’s breast it is because this colour is produced by the carotin in the seeds it ate, and the strong colour indicates good health. But this is possible only if the female has a gene which makes this connection. In other words, the apparent aesthetic preference is a byproduct of the natural selection of a good protector of offsprings.

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that it was the invention of paper and pencils – namely the invention of writing – that was the origin of reason, as Dawkins explains. It is more reasonable to think of these inventions as an extension of a natural property, as Spinoza suggests, It is reasonable to see the invention of writing as a device which made the preservation of knowledge possible by becoming a kind of public memory. In other words, that by turning into perceived documents or books, people could consult this remembered knowledge, and if necessary correct it. In this way the invention of logic as a written theory increased people’s natural but limited power of reason, whatever its evolutionary origin.274) 5.2 Can the historically observed relationship between the function of reason and the general view which serves as a standard of truth support Spinoza’s naturalism? The history of science certainly provides evidence for the role of critical thinking – which Spinoza describes as reflection on what we know – for supporting this relationship. For example, Quine’s argument, that experience is never sufficient evidence for a theory, purports to correct the

274) Dawkins’ justification of his claim that the cultural origin of science is in the invention of writing depends on the validity of the argument that, in evolutionary terms, this invention is too recent for assuming that natural selection has had the time to insert reason in the DNA. Yet, concerning the invention of language Dawkins says that its origin may have been in other forms of symbolic representation. Surely this may have applied also to writing. All we know about the beginnings of writing is derived from the evidence of such clay-tablets that have survived. Who knows whether or not some precursor of this evidence existed much earlier but, because perishable materials were used, we do not know anything about it? Damasio’s theory, in the spirit of Spinoza, finds evidence for his presupposition that the skill of writing must have developed from a natural capacity, in the discovery of neurologists that injuries in particular parts of the brain lead to the loss of the ability to read or write. But, cultural relativists interpret this evidence as showing that the normal brain, before the injury, was shaped by the habitual effect of the practice of writing. This is also James’s thesis of the plasticity of the brain, although his recommended standard of truth is Descartes’ mind/body rather than the nature/culture dichotomy.

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assumption that a theory can be uniquely derived from observation, as empirical scientists [following Bacon] maintained. And Davidson’s attribution of a primitive concept of truth to each person’s mind was a correction of Quine’s explanation of ‘radical interpretation.’ However, none of them justified their criticism by appeal to human nature. Quine saw in his argument a support for his pragmatic principle, and Davidson explicitly rejected the idea that his argument was a thesis in a theory about human nature, and his rejection is based on his acceptance of pragmatism as a standard of truth. In other words, both examples provide evidence for the complication introduced by the very idea that a meta-scientific view provides a standard of truth, and this metascientific view cannot be proved by the methods used within any scientific discipline. Spinoza was aware of this complication. In the TCU he explains that this essay was a preliminary philosophical reflection on what he knew, and for scientific proofs of his particular propositions we must wait for a better understanding of the working of our senses. The importance of emphasising this complication is that it applies to any assumed meta-scientific view, which can only be proven, if at all, after accepting it for a long time on trust. And it is this acceptance on trust which provides the opportunity for external interests to influence research, namely interests different from the rational interest to increase scientific understanding. The historical evidence for the generality of this complication is its recognition by later philosophers and scientists. William James asked his readers to take his recommended return to Descartes on trust until the day we can have more evidence for it, and so does Damasio when recommending his naturalistic view. Kuhn introduced the idea for all science with his concept of a paradigm, and Gödel proved that no metatheory for mathematics can be proved within a mathematical theory. For Spinoza, taking his naturalistic view on trust did not mean that we could ignore the need for evidence. As argued in chapter III, what it means is that all through its use as a guiding standard of truth we must be aware that we start with accepting it by reflection alone. But the reflection

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is always on what we know, namely on the continual process of rational corrections of available knowledge. This means, that all the corrections accepted due to a reflection on what we know must continually support the trusted standard of truth. Such an inevitably circular proof of the accepted standard of truth is part of the long-run scientific project.275)And the difficult task of preventing external influence on the process is the task of preventing a paradigmatic standard of truth to turn into an instrument of power. This was a major purpose of Spinoza’s turning to a fresh reading of the Old Testament. According to his naturalistic approach, turning to a fresh reading of available knowledge must have its roots in his postulated natural drive to turn to and keep the mind on reason when problems arise. And the generalization of this can be understood as attributing a tendency to scientists to have a fresh look at a culturally endorsed view when evidence accumulates against it.

275) Consider the following example. According to Dawkins, the creation of a culture by memes does not have a genetic basis, which means that it is not natural. The biological capacity of the brain to construct unrealistic virtual realities – to simulate things that are actually not there – is certainly biological, but by becoming the machinery which supports memes, it led to the evolution of cultures which are not anymore biological. This, according to him, explains the emergence of the nature/culture dichotomy. However, a central methodological claim of Spinoza is that if scientists or philosophers postulate anything by which reality can be understood, they ought to find their correlates in space-time. Obviously, Spinoza does not refer to evolution, but his claim means that Dawkins’ explanation implies that cultural changes should not show a parallel genetic change. Yet, his own proposition, that an emotion is basically consciousness of a transitional state of the body – by which its power of action is reduced or enhanced, and that it is always combined with an idea of its cause and a desire to restore the body to its natural capacities – implies that any cultural change must have a parallel change in the body, which in Dawkins’ terms means a change in the person’s genome. And in fact, there seems to be such evidence. Geneticists have discovered that in a society where a lot of starch is included in its customary diet, more copies of the genes responsible for the production of starch- digesting-enzyme are found in the cells of their saliva. This, they say, suggests that local cultural variations can affect the natural selection of the number of copies of genes in a genome on a massive scale [see Scientific American of May 2009, p.32]. Isn’t this a crucial experiment which can make us choose between the two approaches?

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The evidence for this tendency is that an important contribution of Copernicus, Galileo or Kepler to the history of modern science was their courage to have a fresh look at the natural philosophy of their time, in spite of the objections of the Church. This does not change the fact that the influence of their views on science became dominant only when they were incorporated in Newton’s physics. But without them, who knows if Newton would have had his role as the creator of classical physics? The same applies to Einstein’s correction of Newton’s approach. Einstein’s correction followed ‘a fresh reading’ of the basic mathematical assumptions of Descartes’ analytic geometry, which was the basis of the Galilean transformation laws, which in turn provided the basis for the assumed universality of Newton's laws. The history of science shows that every major change in metascience, namely in the approach to scientific study, constituted a critical correction of another. Empiricism was essentially a correction of the excessive speculations of both scholastic scholars and rationalists. Although Spinoza accepted the empiricist’ required evidence for speculative explanations, his version of rationalism was a correction of their extreme rejection of rational speculations. Hume’s was a new version of an empirical correction of Cartesian speculation. It was a new version because, like the Enlightenment as a whole, he endorsed a sceptical rational criticism, which was at the same time seen as the essence of cultural tolerance. In this book I tried to show that such chain of corrections does not necessarily lead to an expected result. I try to show how the actual chain of corrections led to an opposition to the place which science was expected to have in modern life – to the so called ‘scientism’ – which emerged from the Enlightenment. It seems to me that at least part of the explanation for this opposition to science is due to the fact that the familiarity with the practical advantages of science led to their being taken for granted. This familiarity ignores that the achievement of this advantage has been largely due to the achieved autonomy of science, namely of its relative independence from influence external to its own purpose and

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methodological principles [see 5.4) below]. However, history also provides evidence for the fact that this autonomy was not a totally new invention of the Enlightenment. Rather, it was part of a long history which provides support for Spinoza’s postulated drive for seeking knowledge of the world in the face of the equally natural social pressures which obstruct it. 5.3 Does history provide evidence for the assumption that both the drive to achieve knowledge and the tendency of leaders to support or obstruct it according to their own advantage are equally natural?. The historical evidence for the relative independence of these two drives is that, even when religion was the dominant standard of truth, it was not uncommon to take some aspect of knowledge outside its domain of influence, so that it could develop relatively independently of religion. This happened, for example, in the Arab world of the 9th and 10th centuries, when Arab scholars discovered and translated the Greek classics into Arabic and brought them also to the attention of Jewish intellectuals in Spain. For Christians in the rest of Europe the same was done by the translation of these books into Latin. The enormous influence of Aristotle on medieval philosophy – the attempt to reconcile his philosophy with the teaching of the Bible – was initiated by the influence of these Moslem rational minds. And one must not forget the Arabic numerals! Only in later centuries, when the political power of the Arab empires was captured by a religious leadership which put an end to this flourish of rationality, the Arab contribution to science practically disappeared.276) A similar pattern is seen in Jewish history. Its culture shows a strong grip of religion on learning, where rationality was strictly confined to the study of religious texts. Spinoza certainly had his dissenting thoughts while still living in the Jewish community. But he felt free to develop his ideas only after his father’s death, and mainly after the community’s imposed Cherem forced him to leave Amsterdam. This pattern continued 276) See Brett 2000, Or for a shorter account, see a review of his book by Y.S. Brenner in the Journal of Income Distribution of March 2007.

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among Jews well into later centuries. In the 18th century, Moses Mendelson felt free to turn to philosophy only after he left his community and went to Berlin. His awareness that this was the condition for his turning to philosophy, and the strength of his wish to do so, are shown by his ignoring of the indignity of having to enter Berlin through a gate for animals. Similarly, the contribution of Jewish individuals to 19th and 20th centuries science was of people who left the Jewish communities. I emphasise the latter because although many, but not all of them, abandoned their faith. In Christian Europe, the way to the scientific era was different, perhaps because already in the middle ages the differentiation between natural philosophy and the rest of the church teaching was well on its way. William of Ockham was a Franciscan friar. He taught theology, logic and physics at a university from 1317 to 1324. Admittedly, he was eventually excommunicated from the church, but his philosophy of science was widely discussed in many universities and remained influential in spite of the fact that the dominant view of the universe was still that of the Church. Descartes certainly wished to support the development of what we call today the natural sciences independently of religion. Spinoza’s addition to this aim was his explanation that due to their dependency on the constraints of logic, their autonomy inevitably developed in domains independently of each other [see p.127]. Astronomy gained a status relatively independent of religion in the th 16 century, and physics – in the 17th. In both cases the process was not smooth. The book of Copernicus escaped the wrath of the Church by his pretending not to mean what he said277) and as is well known, Galileo’s recommendation to be guided only by mathematical proofs and empirical evidence landed him in house arrest for the rest of his life.278) If Newton’s

277) Owen Gingerich 2004. 278) It is worth noting that, had the origin of rational science been related to Galileo’s approach, it is most likely that Spinoza’s version of rationalism would have had a greater chance of success. This is because Galileo’s claim that mathematics was the language in which the book of nature was written certainly supported a rationalist

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adoption of Galileo’s recommendation ceased to raise objections among religious authorities, it was not due to a general change in the influence of the church on people’s minds. It was more likely because by then the Cartesian view, that science was exclusively concerned with the material world, was widely accepted. The crucial point in this sketchy historical development is that scientific knowledge gained an increasing degree of autonomy when special methods were found for establishing what counted as evidence for truth in each of them separately. I emphasise this separation of disciplines because, in spite of their presupposed ultimate unity, the method ensures that the acquisition and development of knowledge in each of them has become free from influence external to it. This is an essential feature of the method suggested in the TCU, and it remains so today. However, in the TCU Spinoza also points out the necessary social support to this autonomy, and history provides evidence that this necessary support is provided by political institutions only when its leaders see in it an advantage for themselves. And the evidence for the relative independence of Spinoza’s two natural drives is that today people in positions of power in both totalitarian and liberal regimes allow a relative freedom to natural scientists to maintain their autonomy, because by now they understand very well the advantage which this brings to them. ‘Relative freedom’ means that this freedom does not apply to scientists’ attempts to have a say about the use of the results of their science in any other sphere of life. This happened in the Soviet Union – remember Sacharov? – and is happening today in Moslem countries. But it also happened in liberal U.S. where the Manhattan Project was concerned.

approach to science. However, he was as critical of the reluctance of people to use their senses, or the telescope, which provided evidence against their uncritical acceptance of supposedly reasonable arguments supported by an authority.

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5.4 The autonomy of science. It is not surprising that the first sphere of knowledge which obtained such freedom from external social influence was mathematics. This is because mathematics is essentially a way of thinking developed by a systematic application of logical proof. The attempt to justify the trust in mathematics took many forms throughout its development. Its principles were claimed to be ideas in Plato’s sense of the word, meaning that they represent knowledge of a metaphysical reality superior to ‘mere appearances;’ The trust in its principles was justified by Descartes as being clear and distinct ideas which God inserted in his mind. Dawkins explains that some abstract knowledge inevitably had to be incorporated in an animal’s DNA with the increasing number of perceptions which results from the increasing number of interactions with the environment. This can be seen as an evolutionary interpretation of Spinoza’s explanation of the inherent way of perceiving things by their essence, as a result of his proposition that the more one interacts with one’s environment the more mind one has. And it can also explain Plato’s idea that such knowledge represents innate memory. I emphasise ‘can’ because Dawkins excludes such natural knowledge from the human mind. And so does J.S.Mill. He explained that all mathematical principles are generalizations from experience, namely obtained by the method of induction. The important point is that none of these justifications or explanations have made any difference to the uniqueness of mathematics as the most acceptable instrument for describing scientific theories. This provides historical evidence for Spinoza’s explanation that the uniqueness of mathematics is due to its starting from natural knowledge and proceeding by employing logic which is itself an instrument of the mind based on natural reason. According to him, this is the reason that it cannot fail to extend the natural power of knowledge, just as a hammer cannot fail to extend the natural power of our arms. The interpretation of naturalism by the theory of evolution has strengthened, rather than changed, this explanation.

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Concerning knowledge of the world the development of scientific autonomy was different. During the 17th century this autonomy came to mean that science should be governed by reason and verified by observation. Even Newton, who believed that God was the caretaker of the universe, who saw to it that His laws were kept, did not include his conception of God in his scientific methodology. This change of approach can best be seen in the change of meaning which the term ‘hypothesis’ has undergone after his time. Copernicus still called his heliocentric system a hypothesis, suggesting that it was a mere methodological device, an improvement on the Ptolemaic method for calculating the positions of the planets. His contemporaries, including Church dignitaries, could appreciate the usefulness of the new method of calculation because his so called hypothesis did not cast doubt on the authority of the Bible. The book of Copernicus (published in 1543) was forbidden by the church only in 1620, after Kepler convinced his readers that the heliocentric system was a reality. It was this realistic interpretation of the book which brought about a change in the meaning of a hypothesis. Newton explicitly claimed that his theory was not a mere hypothesis, meaning a mere mathematical method which though useful for calculations may have no basis in reality. In short, the modern meaning of a hypothesis, as a suggested proposition that could and ought to be tested, came in the wake of a methodological improvement which made a difference for establishing the truth of evidence. Needless to say, only in scientific circles the new discoveries provided evidence for a new vision of the unity of nature which eventually replaced the well protected Biblical view. For them these discoveries bespoke change, but not for everybody. The belief in a personal God, who responds to prayer and punishes those who disobey his moral decrees, remained in the realm of philosophy – outside science – and has never disappeared even in the largely secular societies of the west. Another change, which restricted the autonomy of science to the natural sciences alone, was the change in the conception of objective knowledge. Both Spinoza and the early empirical scientists in his time understood this term as meaning knowledge derived from human

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experience, namely from objects of perception. But with the increasing autonomy of the natural sciences, the term came to mean knowledge that is independent of human experience. A difference was established between experience and testing a theory by experiments. The result was that the autonomy of science lent support to Descartes’ distinction between science and human affairs, which later turned into the nature/culture dichotomy. This result may, at least partly, explain why Einstein’s relativity theory was accepted without the social turmoil which was raised by Copernicus and Galileo. This was because in the meantime, philosophy of science – a term which replaced the earlier ‘natural philosophy’ – lost its close connection with religion. Physics, as a dominant view of nature, became what Rorty describes as a language game exclusively for the community of physicists. Physicists think of the unity of the physical universe as central for their own discipline. They accepted Einstein’s correction of the conception of space, and his argument for replacing the Galilean transformation laws with those of Lorentz, even before they found the evidence for all the implications of his theory, because they were convinced that the unity of their view of the universe was the most important guiding principle in their scientific enterprise. But not less important for the ready acceptance of these innovations was that neither politicians nor the general public felt threatened by this changed view. This reason is even stronger where quantum mechanics is concerned. The central controversies among physicists, like the arguments between Einstein and Bohr whether Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was about reality or about our capacity to observe it, was not a cause for great public concern. Nor did the controversial place of chance in nature (Does or does not God play dice?) induce sufficient general interest to provoke social unrest.279)

279) We should note that a natural science is not always immune to public objections. This is clearly seen in the response to genetically manipulated food production. Although genetics is considered a natural science because it deals with universal properties of all organisms, the effect of the use of its knowledge on human health did

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The changed meaning of ‘objective knowledge’ may also explain why those guided by the nature/culture dichotomy insist that human affairs cannot be explained by natural science. This is because, as explained in chapter IV, an essential assumption in this version of a structural view of the natural world is that a structure has no role in determining the properties of its components. This does not mean that attempts were not made to explain social change scientifically. The memetic theory of Dawkins and Dennett is such an attempt and so is Skinner’s behaviourism. But their solutions, based on the acceptance of the inverted Cartesian view created problems. For example, William James explained that it was exactly the change of meaning of ‘objective knowledge’– related to the nature/culture dichotomy – which has motivated modern psychologists to engage in the study of perception but exclude the consideration of moral judgements, which requires taking account of [conscious] thought. He explained that the advantage which these psychologists saw in this approach was a result of their observation that the success of the natural sciences was due to it. Damasio gives a similar explanation for the neurologists’ concentration on the brain even when mental phenomena are clearly at stake. Similarly, in chapter XI I try to show that although the historical determinism of Marx was quite close to an explanation of cultural diversity in the spirit of Spinoza., the leaders of the Soviet Union implicitly presupposed the nature/culture dichotomy. This is mainly because, like memetics and behaviourism, it implies a tabula rasa conception of the mind, which in turn implies its determination by a social structure. The shift from nature to culture, which is explicit in memetics and behaviourism, is achieved by these interpreters of Marx by assuming that since the mind is a tabula-rasa they could create a new Soviet Man. All these views are inimical to Spinoza’s naturalism, according to which the mind is not a tabula rasa. His explanation of the hierarchical structure of science is epistemological. It follows from the incapacity of

cause serious public concern.

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the human mind to grasp all aspects of Nature simultaneously, and therefore, only parts of it can be separately understood by abstracting their essential features. This applies to understanding ourselves as much as to understanding those parts of nature described by each natural science. For example, economists abstract the essential principles which regulate production, exchange and work relations, and explain them as if they were free from any external influence, by their often used phrase “other things being equal.” The problem is that when dealing with human affairs – much more than when dealing with natural phenomena – ‘other things’ seldom, if ever, remain equal.280) Moreover, one permanent ‘other thing’ is the universal potential contradiction between the universal drive of people to live according to their natural capacities, which is the essence of ‘free enterprise,’ and the tendency of people to treat others as instruments for fulfilling their own aspirations. The neglect of this ‘other thing’ makes it imperative to understand this social science by ‘reflection on what we know,’ which is another way of saying that understanding human affairs is to a large extent still in the realm of philosophy, because we do not have a method for establishing truth in this domain by the conventional method of science which allow its autonomy. This, and not the independence of culture from nature, is the reason that no such science can be as autonomous as are the natural sciences. 6) The ethical aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy of science. According to Spinoza, the natural basis of morality lies in the universal intuitive knowledge that we need each other’s help. This knowledge underlies his postulated principle of justice and charity, and its innateness explains the certainty involved in faith. His objection to base morality on religion was an objection to base it on a distortion of these natural foundations. As shown in chapter XII, the nature/culture dichotomy led to cultural

280) I borrowed this example from the economist Y.S. Brenner.

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relativism. Relativity means that we cannot have a universal ethical criterion for judging customs and policies of other cultures because conceptions of truth and morality are only valid for one’s own specific cultures. But, the central point of Spinoza’s explanation of morality provides such a criterion. In the preface to the TPT Spinoza claims that the Biblical Prophets agreed with his own conception of morality even if they interpreted it as God's decrees. Although they failed to realize that their experience of revelation was in fact an awareness of their natural knowledge, they correctly saw its false interpretation by institutional religion. Spinoza took this to be evidence for the potential power of intuitive morality to combat the power of religious leaders to distort it. But, of course, the prophets themselves interpreted the same as evidence for their view of God’s moral intentions. Similarly, the examples of both James and Damasio in the previous remark show that both concluded that the approach of their colleagues was not adequate. Yet, while James pleaded for a return to Descartes’ conception of the mind, Damasio pleaded to accept a naturalistic approach. The conclusion which follows from Spinoza’s epistemological explanation in the previous remark about the origin of the nature/culture dichotomy is that a major reason for considering the understanding of human affairs as belonging exclusively to the realm of culture, is the failure to see the difference between recognizing the natural origin of morality and judging a particular moral conception. This is equivalent to distinguish between the standard of truth for constructing any science, and a standard of truth for judging what is truly good for the citizens of any particular society. It is the empirical evidence for this failure which provides the mistaken support for the nature/culture dichotomy. History provides plenty of examples showing this failure. Throughout the middle ages and well into Spinoza’s time, religion provided the predominant standard for both ascertaining the truth of

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explanatory propositions, and also for justifying or opposing all forms of suppression. This is shown by my example of the peasants’ rebellions in Germany in 1524-1525 [see p.111]: although their uprising was against economic oppression, their reasons followed from an appeal to divine moral law. This was, and still is so, in all countries where religion is the standard of truth for both the explanation of the world, for the justification of a power structure, and for protection against the abuse of power. My second example of Huss [Ibid] shows the same pattern. Huss was invited to Rome to present his case to the authority of the Church but was killed for it. The same applies when an ideology replaces religion as the guiding view for both explanation and moral judgement. For example, the Soviet leaders accepted Marxism as a standard of truth for understanding the essence of social change, namely the changing forms of exploitation [see pp.250-251]. They justified their policies by claiming to understand historical necessity. But at the same time, because they interpreted historical determinism as cultural determinism, they thought that they can impose this inevitable change on society, and genuine communist citizens accepted this imposition as necessary, and therefore justified it, even if they were hurt by this. This was the ideology which made Stalin’s atrocities acceptable to communists even when they were convicted for imaginary crimes. It illustrates Peirce’s claim – based on empirical evidence before the existence of the Soviet Union – that the acceptance of ‘a method of authority’ which, as he says, is repulsive to any rational person is not totally imposed on people, because people suffer from dissidence [see pp.151-152]. The example of communism and the explanation of Peirce support Spinoza’s idea that both the tendency of all people to succumb to social pressures and the tendency of leaders to exploit it for keeping their power, are natural, because both stem from the social characterization of humanity. But, as argued in chapter XI, contrary to Peirce’s explanation that the ‘method of authority’ is essential for the survival of the human species, it follows from Spinoza’s explanation that this method is essential only for the people whose aim is to remain in

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power. The same applies to the example of Huss. 7) The rationale for a political science. Given that the purpose of the social sciences is to understand the necessary conditions for ensuring that people can live according to their nature in peace and security, and given that this understanding cannot be achieved by the same method used for the physical sciences, Spinoza proposes to achieve this understanding by ‘reflection on what he knows.’ In the TCU ‘what we know’ refers to introspective examination of his own knowledge. But in the PT it refers to knowledge of human history. In both cases we would say today that the ‘reflection’ means a philosophical analysis, rather than a scientific inquiry. Although Spinoza himself did not make this distinction between philosophy and science, it is implied by his distinction between the explanatory part of ‘moral philosophy’ – as the social sciences were called in Spinoza’s time [see p.27] – and the rational derivation from it of the best political principles for ensuring his purpose. It is the latter which we call today moral philosophy, and this is discussed by Spinoza in his political science. Spinoza thought that a major condition for choosing the right principles is that turning to rationality becomes a common practice in society, and this can happen only where the system of government supports it. He was not optimistic about the possible existence of such a system, as seen by his statement at the end of his Ethics, where he says that all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. The main reason for this rarity is that although civil laws should be based on the natural origin of morality, they are not necessarily based on it. If he nevertheless had some hope that a political theory may be useful in this respect, it most likely came from his reflection on the beginnings of an influence which the development of the sciences of mechanics and medicine has had on accelerating the process by which reason could have an effect on a culture. As a result, he must have hoped that his political science, based on his naturalistic approach to the social sciences may eventually have the same

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effect on social life. ‘Eventually’ refers to the indirect effect of reason on culture, as explained in chapter XII. He was not optimistic because he was very much aware of the social forces which, by supporting contrary ideas – which encourage contrary emotions – may very well prevent this from happening. Therefore, the political problem he set himself was how to resolve the tension between, on the one hand, the power of rationality to create a science which could achieve the purpose he assigned to it, and on the other hand, the influential ideas supported by power structures which stood in its way. I emphasise ‘ideas’ because this, and not a general explanation of historical change, was his concern. In view of his postulated ‘spiritual automaton,’ and the important weights assigned to the reasons appearing in it by the accepted standard of truth, may put the question he asked himself as follows: how can individuals, who are under the influence of a false standard of truth, change it? The problem is not whether or not one can have ‘an unheard of idea,’ as he says at the beginning of the PT, but how can such an idea turn into an existing part of ‘objective knowledge,’ in his sense of the term. Not necessarily as direct experience but also in the form of documents which can be consulted, and about which people can debate. This is the problem of the influence of ideas in cultural history. In chapter XIII, I gave the example of the attempt of Thomas Paine to abolish slavery. Paine’s acquaintance with slavery in America was one reason for his rejection of the guidance of the Bible for his political views [see p.318]. Unlike Huss, Paine was not killed, but nevertheless his objections to slavery had no real effect in his time. Moreover, as a result of Paine’s implied denial of God’s guidance in his book The Age of Reason, George Washington – claiming that he did not know Paine, in spite of his participation in the formulation of the declaration of independence – refused to do anything to help him when Paine was imprisoned in France,. This is the kind of historical evidence for the tenacity of ideas which prevent an ‘unheard of’ approach to human problems from being considered. From Spinoza’s time, and throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, ‘romantic’ trends of thought saw in the

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scientific approach a threat rather than a promise. In other words, the resentment against science pointed out at the beginning of the introduction of this book has not started with post-modern philosophy or neopragmatism. What became clear with them is that with the acceptance of the nature/culture dichotomy as the guiding view for science – in particular as Latour sees it – this resentment risks to put an end to the scientific project. Yet, history provides also some evidence for the possible influence of ideas if they turn into objective knowledge as suggested above. Consider, for example, the French revolution. Napoleon’s defeat by ‘The Holy Alliance’ – a European coalition set up in Vienna in 1815 led by Fürst von Metternich – seemed to have put an end to its triumph. Yet, its conception of political freedom did not only remain in the minds of those who participated in the revolution, but plenty of available documents and books had their effect on new minds and eventually this idea had its effect on modern culture. Note that this does not mean, as Spinoza would say, that such ideas did not depend on having material correlates. What it means is that without the heritage of these ideas, the experience of the revolution might have been lost.281) As a more recent example, consider Fukuyama’s prediction after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the failure of the socialist revolution

281) it is worth noting that some naturalists today lament such loss of knowledge, for example, of herbs which had been used traditionally as medicines in the so called primitive societies. But in fact, this loss is explicable by Spinoza’s naturalism. In the TCU four kinds of knowledge are listed [see p.48]. Two are derived from direct experience, and although the third – the method of induction – is a systematization of the second, the evidence for it is basically dependent on direct experience. Hence, the lamented loss of knowledge is not surprising because its acquisition was based on a close acquaintance with the flora of the place up to well in historical times [see p.72]. This is lost for modern scholars who are mainly town dwellers. Moreover, their scientific method, which is the fourth kind of knowledge in Spinoza’s list, does not rely on such experience any more. The common contempt for ‘primitive’ knowledge is unfortunate but is historically explicable.

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indicates the final triumph of western liberalism.282) The possibility that the central socialist idea – “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs” – will similarly remain available to people's minds and have a similar effect on western culture in the future is yet to be seen. The belief that, due to the association of this idea with the coercion which the Soviet Union had used when attempting to implement it, this slogan of socialism is bound to disappear altogether, is refuted by remembering the methods used in France during its ‘age of terror.’ Moreover, the belief that the triumph of liberalism is irreversible is less convincing if we observe that the interpretation of ‘liberalism’ promoted by the power structures dominant in capitalist social systems, is as much ‘contaminated’ by the interests of people in positions of power as other ideologies are in other power- structures, even if the liberal methods are less brutal. The political failure of both the French and the Russian revolutionaries can be explained as a result of what Spinoza called ‘the natural wickedness’ of people in positions of power. But in the present context the point is that if people have the chance to consider such explanations they might also consider the replacement of the guiding status of the nature/culture dichotomy by that of Spinoza’s naturalism. This leads to the following concluding question Why should we want to replace the dominant nature/culture dichotomy by Spinoza’s naturalism? The answer to this question follows from the ethical aspect of all Spinoza’s work. It follows from his postulated purpose of the scientific project to find the best – namely the rational – way to satisfy the natural desire of all people to live according to their natural capacities in peace and security. Hence the answer to the stated question should be found in a comparison of the consequences of these two guiding views. 282)Although Fukuyama changed his mind, his idea about the triumph of liberalism expressed in his book The End of History remained popular in the U.S.A.

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Thinking about scientific explanations, the consequence of the nature/culture dichotomy requiring consideration is cultural relativism. Very concisely the arguments in chapter XII show that when positivist and pragmatist philosophers consider knowledge in terms of its function for coping with experience, rather than with its truth, the question whether or not basic concepts in science represent real components of the universe is eventually discarded. It is not discarded on the grounds that we cannot prove their existence, but on the grounds that it does not matter. The question whether or not a posited concept – for example ‘charge’ in the electro-magnetic theory in physics, or ‘consciousness’ in psychology – represent a true description of reality, has been replaced by the question whether they are useful for making sense of observed phenomena. As a result, an empirical science seeks evidence for the latter. For similar reasons, positive economists decided that the concept of value is not scientific – meaning not useful for coping with experience – and price was the important topic to study. Pragmatists go further. They consider whole theories as mental instruments for organizing experience. William James included not only the concept of God but also its role in understanding the world as a legitimate instrument in this respect, and concludes that if the notion of God proves to be beneficial to us “how could a pragmatist possibly deny God’s existence?” [see p.284]. And Peirce said that if we know what is the effect of a concept on our mind, there is nothing more to know.283) Once this approach to knowledge became a predominant guide for understanding the world and ourselves, it inevitably led to cultural relativism. This is because, if the source of all concepts and ideas, including the concepts of true and false and the principle of inference which underlie the function of reason, is in one’s particular culture, then there is no place for attributing to people what Spinoza calls an active mind – namely that part of the mind which being naturally governed by reason, is not dependent on the external influence of a culture. In other

283) How to Make Our Ideas Clear, in Philosophical writings of Peirce, pp.35-36

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words, taking all concepts and ideas to be memes, as Dawkins and Dennett describe them, then the very idea of a self-conscious agent who makes decisions and acts upon them, becomes totally dependent on belonging to a particular kind of culture. As far as the natural mind is concerned it is an illusion. This is the source of the commonly accepted belief in the western world that in other cultures people are incapable of rational thinking. Another political implication of accepting the nature/culture dichotomy as a standard of truth is that, if we accept the idea that it is our culture which allows freedom of choice – as Dawkins claims – it does not seem unreasonable to think that only by imposing this freedom on cultures which lack them, will help people living in such societies to be saved from their unfortunate deprivation. After all, this idea of ‘the white man’s burden,’ the ideology which accompanied the era of imperialism, is not unheard of today. Contrary to these consequences are those of Spinoza’s naturalism. In the first place, although Spinoza did not fulfil his plan to formulate the best political principles derived from his scientific description of ‘understanding ourselves,’ these principles are quite clear. According to him, the natural function of every form of government – barbarous or civilized – is to secure the possibility of people to live in peace and security [see p.321]. However, for this function to be achieved with internal peace, it must be stable. This can only be achieved by supporting the appeal to reason, because only rational people can understand that this stability requires some limitation of the freedom of citizens to pursue their own aspirations. But, if this is a condition for the survival of western liberal societies, then the refutation of the wide spread belief in the western world that due to their culture Moslem immigrants are incapable of rational thinking is essential. Of course, we must have evidence against it, and this is found in the fact that when taking part in any occupation in their host country Moslem immigrants do not show less rationality than their colleagues, even if they do not abandon their faith. I use ‘faith’ and not ‘religion’ in

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order to emphasise Spinoza’s distinction between these concepts. The political importance of the distinction follows from Spinoza’s advocation of freedom of thought in his TPT. Faith, according to this distinction – even if people do not make it today – is in the province of freedom of thought. What is required from Moslems, as from other people of distinct faiths, is to abandon their loyalty to their religion as an instrument of power, which purports to usurp the political and legal power of a civil society. The importance of not ignoring the evidence stated above is that according to Spinoza’s naturalism this evidence shows that even if suppressed, rationality can be regained. A second consequence of taking Spinoza’s naturalism as a guide and a standard of truth is that if the natural function of every form of government is to secure the possibility of people to live in peace and security, then the fulfilment of this function provides a criterion for judging any culture, including one’s own. This is a refutation of cultural relativism. In short, the rationale for wanting to replace the conception of humanity as suggested by the nature/culture dichotomy with that of Spinoza’s naturalism is that without this replacement the creation of a culture governed “by words rather than by fists” as Rorty put it [see p.315], is impossible to achieve. As shown in the previous remark, history supports Spinoza’s idea that rationality can be suppressed or distorted but not annihilated. It follows that if our purpose is to live in peace and security in a liberal society, then the replacement of the nature/culture dichotomy by Spinoza’s naturalism provides a greater chance that fighting with words might replace fighting with fists than Rorty’s suggested policy. My reason for putting ‘might’ in italics is that a naturalistic approach to psychology and to social and political science in our ‘global’ world may not be sufficient for rationality to prevail. In particular, Spinoza’s thesis in psychology that people refrain from the immediate attainment of a good only in expectation of a greater good [see p.193] can be generalized to international relations. This generalization means that,

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when some national states pose a major threat to others, an institution like the United Nations might succeed in keeping peace and security only if nation states give up some of their sovereignty. But, by analogy to the internal conditions for people transferring their natural rights to the state [see p.31], these governments might give up some of their sovereignly only if they expect a greater good from it, namely a feasible universal security. Unfortunately, even the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shows that the disastrous consequences of these events are not taken to be a sufficient reason for preferring such an international order to the alternative of “fighting with fists,” where the ‘fists’ are the increasing number of nuclear weapons waiting to be used. As with the example of abolishing slavery [see p.400], the problem is not lacking the idea of a necessary world order but the apparent incapacity to turn this idea into a feasible greater good.

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Rawls, J.: Theory of Justice, Oxford university press, 1971. Rorty, R.: Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays 1972-1980), The Harvester Press, Brighton,1982. - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton Univ. Press, New Jersey. Second printing with corrections, 1980. - Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism, Journal of Philosophy Vol.80 pp.583-589, 1983. - Texts and Lumps, in New Literary History Vol.17, 1985. - The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres, Philosophy in History, Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy. C.U.P, Cambridge 1985. Searle, J.: Minds, Brains, and Programs. In The Behavioural and Brain Sciences, Vol.3 1980. C.U.P. Reprinted in D.R. Hofstadter and D.C. Dennett (eds.): The Mind’s Eye, Bentam Books, N.Y. and London, 1982. Segal, P.T.: Skkiner's Philosophy, University press of America, Lanham, New York & London, 1981. Skinner, S.F.: Reflections on Behaviourism and Society. Chapter VIII: Why I am not a Cognitivist. Prentice Hall, 1978. Smith, A.: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, first published 1759, second edition 1790. - An Inguiry into the Nature and causes of The Wealth of Nations, book I chapter XI, Edwin Cannan edition, The Modern Library, New York 1937. Spinosa: A Political Treatise (PT), Dover Publications Inc. New York, 1951 - A Theologico-Political Treatise (TPT), published together with PT. - Correspondence of Spinoza, translated and edited by A. Wolf, Frank Cass & Co. 1966. - Ethics, Everyman's Library, Dutton: New York, 1979 edition. - Metaphysical Thoughts (MT), published with PCP. - Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (PCP). First published in

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Latin in 1663. Translation into English by Samuel Shirley. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis/Cambridge 1998, with an introduction and notes by Steven Barbone and Lee Rice (B&R). The book includes also the Inauguration Dissertation on Matter by Lodewijk Meyer (1660). - Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being (ST). - Treatise on the Correction of the Understanding, published together with Ethics, in Everyman's Library. Stern F.: Einstein's German World, Princeton Univ. Press, N.J. 1999. Thom, R.: Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, an outline of a general theory of models. First published in English by W.A.Benjamin Inc. Reading, Massachusetts, 1975. Weinberg S. Life in the Universe. Scientific American of October 1994. Weizenbaum J.: Computer Power and Human Reason, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco 1976. Wittgenstein L.: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus London 1922. - Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, edition of 1984.

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Index A Absolute, the absolute freedom absolute power abstract (n)

17 207 207, 251 10, 11, 13-16, 64 66, 73, 132, 163, 177 205, 250, 260, 265 295, 343 355, 369 abstract (v) 16, 54, 108, 145 318, 319, 396 acceptance of necessity 183 accident 286, 288, 293, 298 accident of history 298 acquisition of language 218 276, 373 active mind 18, 46, 148 154, 172, 176,, 178, 404 adaptation 118, 211-213, 383 adequacy 79, 110, 156, 158 160, 165, 166, 179 adequate 76, 98,142 155-160, 164-167,398 aesthetic 273, 384, 385 aim (or purpose) of science 20, 28 34, 55, 227, 250 365, 367, 368, 372 see also 100, 102, 298, 400 algorithm 234, 245 alternative medicine 361 altruism 241, 379 analysis of religion 71, 127 154, 197, 245 Anarcho-syndicalists 198 anecdotal style 313 animated 116, 119, 209, 278, 370 anomaly of psychology 351

anomaly of zero anthropological

150 93, 101, 138 311, 327, 328 anthropologist 199, 313 anthropology 92, 326 anti-intuitive 97, 101, 221, 227 approximation 227 Arab 389, 390 Aristotle 390 arithmetic 128, 142, 148-152 162-164, 289, 345, 410 artistic drive 229, 230 atheism 184, 207 Attribute (n) 13-15, 18, 19, 21, 24 27, 39, 50, 53, 79, 97 119, 173, 271-272 348,376 authority (see also method of -) 10 201, 318, 326, 383 391f.n. 393, 398 399 authority of truth 32, 48, 92 autonomous individuals 254 autonomy of science 389, 392, 394 awareness 82, 111, 119, 123 144, 173, 198, 232 249, 251, 336, 338 340, 383, 390, 397 awareness, as being aware 16, 23 55, 98, 143, 149 axiom 18, 21, 50, 64, 75, 132 156, 157, 176, 177, 375 B Bacon F. 22 f.n. 27, 77, 110, 386 balance of forces (or powers) 177 241,243, 223 240, 241, 243,382

414 balance of reasons

Barbone S. bias Bible

biological

biology

blessedness Blyenberg bottom-up

68,172 176, 178, 180 207, 240, 244f.n. 245, 259, 260, 380 13 f.n. 41 f.n. 115 f.n. 73, 273, 334, 345 37f.n., 59-60 72, 94, 196, 318 327-329, 374, 393 107, 117, 144, 167 217-218, 221, 223 230, 241, 334, 338 346, 347, 364, 387f.n. 73, 88-89, 120 132, 133, 200, 210, 214 218, 221,225, 281, 360 182, 183, 202 74 116,117, 119, 126 212, 218, 220-222 263 110 120, 121, 337

Boxel Boyle Brentano C capitalism 198, 249 capitalist system 197, 198, 259 Cartesian (Descartes’) conception of science 12, 33, 35 37, 208, 353, 358, 359 Cartesian dualism 9, 105 239, 347 Cartesian legacy 40, 105,360, 361 Catholic Church 197 cell 62-63, 99, 116-118 122, 129, 223, 235, 388f.n. certainty 22-23, 37, 56, 58, 60,79 83, 111, 141, 158, 173 176, 207, 263, 360, 397 cheating 237, 242, 278, 326, 378 chimpanzee 123, 213

choice

25, 32, 35, 43 125, 171-173, 175, 179 180, 183, 209, 221, 222 232, 264-265, 323 328, 344,367, 404 Chomsky N. 39, 146-148, 153-155 237,282,347, 373 Christian 198, 252, 254, 390 Church, The 94, 197, 252, 320 388, 390, 391-393, 398 citizen 194 citizenship 128, 194, 252 civilizing 347, 350, 364 civil law 128, 169, 194, 253 322-324, 367, 368f.n. 400 classification (of things) 16, 17 48, 72-73, 80, 162 164-166, 289,290 classes in society 196, 249 251- 253, 286 Classical physics 14, 138, 388 clear and distinct ideas 22, 34, 56 81,131, 163, 177, 178, 392 co-evolution 212-214, 217, 218 229, 237, 239, 242 cogito 18, 82, 83, 264, 342 coherence theory of truth 271, 272 coherent system of thoughts 179 common sense 68, 69, 71 communism 254, 255, 318, 399 competitive society 178 computer metaphor for the mind 213 217, 221-222, 234 computer model of the mind 106-110 107f.n. 242, 297, 357, 358 Conatus 13, 15, 17, 20, 115 116, 119-120, 122, 125 183, 206, 209, 235, 244 259, 264, 334, 369-371

415 conception of reality 261 See also 127, 214,290-292 294,307, 312, 355, 356 conception of science 12, 32, 33 76, 108, 109,156, 208, 358 conception of space 11, 101, 356, 394 . See also 79 conception of the mind 35, 53, 70, 89 96, , 107, 132, 190, 236, 277 280, 284, 307, 309, 396, 398 conception of the world 100, 260 261,269 conception of truth 271, 296, 350 conditions of truth 295 conform (to external influence) 30 256, 265, 376, 377 conscious experience 306, 335, 371 consciousness 19, 20,24,69, 82 111, 119-121, 124, 174, 180 205f.n. 209, 230, 334 336-339 370, 371, 372, 387 f.n. 409 See also ‘state of - alertness, arousal, and wakefulness’ as well as the italicized numbers under Dennett, Freud, James, Peirce and Searle. consciousness as a structural system 230, 233 constants of nature 9, 108, 138 139, 211 constraints of logic 127 129, 164-165 354, 375-376, 391 constraints of a structure: 133 constraints of a language: 293-294 contingency (merely possible) 63, 99 contrary motives 178 convention 157, 244 conventionalism 157, 272, 276, 293

coordinate system Copernicus

136-138, 158 388, 391 393, 394, 410 correspondence of science to nature 95 correspondence theory of truth 270 cultural conditioning 374 cultural determinism 39, 65 92, 94, 95, 98-100, 155 190, 199, 250, 251, 282 301, 305, 311, 314, 399 cultural relativism 7, 9, 12, 30, 33 36, 188, 259, 269 269f.n.272-274, 365 397, 403, 404, 406 cultural tradition 220, 375, 382 custom 320, 330 D Damasio, A. 261, 333-365 (all chapter XIV), 384f.n. 387, 396, 398 Darwin, C. 38, 99 210, 270, 384, 409 Davidson D. 294-296, 308-309 311, 326, 350-352, 373, 386 Dawkins R. 16, 40 210-223, 226-232, 235 237-238, 243, 261, 273 298, 371, 372, 375f.n. 377, 382, 384-385 367f.n. 392-393, 395, 404 decision-making device 3 41, 342, 344 definition of the mind 10, 19 41, 55, 65, 142 149, 163, 173, 174 187, 247, 278, 380 deduction 53, 59, 99, 141, 273 deliberation from within 42 democracy 10, 194, 199, 202 203, 268, 298

416 Dennett D. 40, 108-109, 111, 172, 213 218f.n. 226, 231, 232-234 235-238, 239, 240-243, 244 245, 261, 278, 335, 336f.n. 358, 371, 372, 378, 395, 404 democratic society 48, 101 199, 200, 202 Descartes’ mind/body dualism 35, 39 49, 210, 333, 361 Dewey 284-286, 291, 308 311, 316, 324, 409 dictators 252 Diogenes 264 disposition 335, 346 diversity 112, 282, 293, 380, 396 diversity of cultures 380 DNA 36, 62, 117, 122, 129 215, 217, 221, 227, 228 231, 237, 371, 382, 385, 392 dogma 311, 320, 329 duality 184, 192 duration 69, 80, 83, 96, 140f.n. 228 E economics 31, 178, 256, 257, 317 education 45, 126, 181, 201, 203, 240 251, 253-255, 260-262, 303 304, 306, 316, 342, 367, 383 Einstein A. 11, 14, 72-73, 79, 96, 101 102, 136-138, 157 and f.n. 158 227, 319, 346, 377, 388, 394-395 emotion 41-42, 44, 82, 175, 177, 183, 234, 253, 329 334, 341, 381f.n. 387f.n. empiricist 70, 161 energy 14, 42f.n. 72-73, 77, 87 97f.n. 108, 120, 121, 130 227, 272, 281, 369-371 Epistemological 398 epistemology 53, 310

essence

11, 12, 15-18, 20, 21, 24, 25 49, 52-55, 62, 64-66, 72, 74-76 79, 82, 88, 96, 97-98, 105, 122 124, 131-133, 138-140, 142, 145 149, 152, 176, 187, 189, 190, 206 207, 241-242, 244, 251, 253, 256 263, 264, 272, 276, 279, 281, 310 311, 320f.n. 322, 326, 342, 352 364, 366, 369, 379-381f.n. 385 389, 392, 396, 398 essence alone 49, 50, 52, 74, 75, 207 eternal 77, 283 eternity of the soul 208 ethical 365, 368, 366, 397, 403 Euclid’s fifth axiom 156 evolutionary psychologist 89, 241 382 f.n. exploitation 185, 368, 398 faith 58-61, 182, 245, 320 and f.n. 324, 368, 390, 397, 405 F false consciousness 248 fascism 254, 255, 318 feudal social system 61, 197 Feynman R. 35, 73, 87-89, 108, 118 132, 135, 137-139, 191 199, 297f.n. 331 fight or flight 341 fighting with fists 308, 316, 320, 406 fighting with words 308, 316, 320, 406 Fisher R.A. 134 and f.n., 298 forgo an immediate good 31, 191, 193 formalism 160, 161 Foucault 361 foundations of mathematics 160, 279 freedom of religion 324 free will 22, 25-27, 85, 120, 147f.n. 171, 173,175, 179-181, 185 255, 262, 302, 304-307, 366

417 freedom of thought 47f.n. 60, 245 261, 266, 268, 281, 298, 405 Frege 50, 159-165 275, 279, 410 French Revolution 401 Freud S. 347- 348, 350-351 Fukuyama 402 function of reason 21, 27-29, 42f.n. 65, 70, 73, 78, 102, 142 143, 146,148, 173, 228, 270 264 292, 315, 344, 348, 358 365, 373, 378, 384, 386, 404 function of the mind 20, 26, 105 122, 335 G Galileo 61, 94, 101, 150, 388, 394 Gallon 298, 318 Gauss 134, 156 gene 210-213, 219, 222, 384f.n. genetics 172, 213, 218, 220, 240 248, 298, 395f.n. Genome 133, 211, 212-213 215,219,222,388f.n. geometry 9, 11, 75, 101 136, 137, 156-157, 159 160, 274 , 356, 388 good definition 75, 79, 82, 272 Gödel, K. 128, 164, 165, 387 Gorky, M. 253 Gould, S.J. 99, 200, 201 H habits 302-304, 306, 382 Happiness 26, 42-43, 47f.n. 183 184, 343 hardware 213, 214, 217, 218 234, 242, 358 health 47 and f.n. 178, 189 384f.n. 395f.n. Hegel 17, 247, 250 Helmholtz 87

hierarchy of science 89,396 See also 127 hierarchy of scientific domains 89, 115 118f.n. 127, 166, 270 hierarchy of structures 125 hierarchy of logical systems (theories) 127, 128, 271 Hillel, Rabbi 97, 366 Hippocrates 361 historical evidence 318, 350, 380 384-389, 393, 401 historical investigation 349 historical necessity 247, 399 history of science 225, 281 327, 386, 388 Hobbes 31, 190, 191, 410 holon 129 (with f.n.)-130 homeostasis 118, 333, 335 homunculus 109, 336, 339 humane culture 302, 314 humanism 289, 301 human understanding 14, 67 78, 115, 123-127 131, 356, 364 Huss, J. 196,398, 399, 401 Huygens 100 hygiene 93, 189 hypothesis 64, 84, 88, 99-101 117, 118 f.n. 130, 143, 167, 199 264, 270, 334, 352, 357, 393-394 I idealization 272 idealized ‘other’ 311 ideology 90, 153f.n. 154, 184f.n. 245, 248, 249, 253-255, 257, 319, 398, 399, 404 illusion 43, 91-93, 171-173 198, 220, 281, 307, 310 372, 404

418 illusionary image

43, 91, 220 18, 64, 66, 70, 81, 161 178, 209, 230, 320, 334 338-341, 349 imagination 63, 65, 68-71, 159 160, 210, 219, 230 imitate 218, 219, 377 immune system 42, 118, 122 126, 180, 205, 378 indefinite 14, 16, 79, 80, 376 Indirect Effect of Reason on Culture 35, 39-40 102, 190, 250, 259, 265 269, 324, 327, 400 See also PIERC individual freedom 257 induction 48-50, 52, 53, 64 147, 161-163, 393, 402 inert matter 13, 72, 75, 130, 156, 206 infinite 14, 52, 53, 71, 79, 81 116, 119,141, 142, 292, 336 information-processing model 62 108, 109, 117, 121-122, 124 146-147, 205-206,214-216 228, 234, 243, 278, 378 innate endowment 155 innate knowledge 142, 146, 148 152, 155, 214, 216, 221, 229 231, 235, 237, 241-242, 244 315, 345, 346, 348,349, 355 374, 375, 377 insight 61, 64, 72, 342, 347, 350-352 instinct 287, 411 institutional power of religion 58 institutional religion 26, 28, 61 196, 245, 255, 368, 397 instrument of the mind 57, 78, 97-98 125, 141, 152, 180, 189, 194, 393

instrumental theory of knowledge 283 308 intellect, the 12, 27-28, 38, 70, 96 105, 120, 148, 154, 175-176 178, 234, 262, 264, 286, 347, 357 intellectual love of God 209 intellectuals 29, 39, 45, 47, 60 61, 202, 249, 260, 262 265, 266, 268, 314, 325, 390 intentionality 120-121f.n. 236, 239, 303, 337 intentional stance 234, 235 237, 239, 245 inter-cultural 295 inter-subjectivity 273, 314, 356 introspection 147, 148, 263, 270, 373 introspective 18, 50, 270, 399 intuition 22-23 28, 30, 50, 51 58, 60, 83, 97, 98, 149, 158-160 173, 184, 197, 211-212, 221, 227 231, 239, 272, 313, 315, 344 367, 373, 374, 380 invariant 138 Inverted Cartesian view 35, 38-39 73, 89, 94, 102, 121f.n. 124, 132 139, 147, 155, 210, 220, 222, 226 236, 303, 305, 312, 331, 359, 395 involuntary 42, 44, 70, 81, 304, 305 inward speech 280, 282 irrationality, causes of - 323, 350, 351 J James, W. 39, 83,215, 228 282-285, 288-294, 301 302-303, 304-305, 306-308 311,312, 319 331, 344, 346 351, 370, 381, 386f.n. 387 395, 398, 404 Jelles, J. 31, 191 Jewish 43, 97, 390

419 K Kant, I. keep the mind on reason 27, 43 173, 175, 200, 231, 242 264-265, 316, 388 Kepler 388, 393 kinds of knowledge 48, 402 Koestler, A. 129 and f.n. Kuhn, T. 29, 100, 225, 308, 311, 387 L Lamarckian 73, 213 language-game 276, 277, 279-281 308-315, 317, 319 320, 322-324, 326 Laplace 130 Latour, B. 92-94, 101 and f.n. 137, 188-189, 199 203,232,297, 401 laws of causation 15 laws of nature 11, 13, 15, 25, 32 36, 44, 51, 57, 89, 97 119, 122, 130, 190, 207 262, 283, 367, 370 laws of physics 44, 89, 118, 120, 370 laws of reason 70 learned behaviour 89, 214 Leibniz 51, 152, 162, 190 Lenin 251 Lewontin 201 liberalism 47f.n. 154, 317 318, 323, 331, 402 libertarian ideology 257 libertarians 195 liberty 267 Life, definition of 115, 213 219-220, 371 linguistic turn in philosophy 301 Linnaeus 73 literate culture 310, 315

literature 34, 313, 314, 329 Lobachevsky 157 Locke 89, 91, 310 logical judgement, 62 logical language 39, 146, 275, 325 logical-positivism 271, 282, 301 logical system 12,41, 52 65, 127-128,142, 164, 225 264, 327, 366, 375, 376 Lorenz’ transformation laws 79, 101 Lovelock’s idea of Gaia 212 love of God 182, 183, 209 Luxenburg, R. 252 M Mach, E. 270 Machiavelli 251, 328 malevolent emotions 379 man-made laws 44 Marx, K 17, 247-251, 259f.n. 396 Marxism 154, 250, 251, 269f.n. 398 Marxist 248,368 materialism 370 materialize 189,261 mathematical objects 11 mathematics 21, 53, 54, 56, 94, 128 136, 141-143, 150-152, 159-162 164, 189, 270, 275, 279, 293 356, 359, 387, 391f.n. 392-393 measurement 134, 137, 274, 354, 356 mechanism 36 37, 38, 39, 118 125, 129, 153, 173-175 275, 341-342, 344, 358 mechanistic view – of human nature 111,173 – of natural selection 37 – of nature 113, 366 – of the body 349 – of the (conscious) mind 24 35,44, 175, 358

420 – of the world 12, 110, 111 – of the universe 353 meme 218-221, 231-233, 236 239, 240-244, 358, 378, 387f.n. 404 memetics 220, 231, 232, 236, 240, 396 memory 18, 68-71, 123 123, 145f.n. 215, 235, 289 316, 319, 338, 340, 385, 393 Mendelson, M. 390 mental experience 19, 82, 109, 234 mental immune system 378 metaphor 109, 205-210 211-214, 217,221-223, 228 234, 276, 278, 308, 310, 378 metaphysics 21, 26, 53, 171, 282, 359 meta-scientific 11, 33, 113, 118, 131 134, 135, 158, 172, 353, 386 method of authority 286, 293, 323, 383 method of science 292-293 365, 368, 384, 397 method of tenacity 285 methodologically important 55, 85, 112 209, 232, 243, 307, 372 Meyer, L. 14, 41f.n. 145f.n. 270 Michelson and Morley 136-137 Middle ages 61, 196, 197 245, 260, 390, 398 minding the body.. 333, 363 See also function of the mind models created by the brain 216-217 221,303,306,307 models created by the mind 164, 205 208, 210, 221-223, 228 modification of substance 369 monopoly 313, 329 morality as loyalty to a language-game 314, 322 moral customs 181 moral doctrine 58,97

moral essence of religion 98 moral grounds 90, 91 168, 169, 244, 307, 318f.n. moral judgement 90, 124, 181, 314 322, 331, 363, 395,398 moral philosophy 22,31, 31f.n. 32, 45 46, 60, 194, 301,367, 400 more mind 18-20, 25, 38 71, 124, 167, 217, 228 231, 341, 371, 377, 392 Moslem 287, 323, 390, 392, 405 N naivety 374 Napoleon 130 national socialism 318 national socialists 318 natural basis of morality 397 natural classification 17, 73, 164, 165 natural drive 23, 45, 85, 126 191, 196, 245, 260, 282. 292 293, 345, 350,362, 383, 388, 392 natural instrument of the mind 98 152, 189. 194 natural philosophy 182, 388, 390, 394 natural right 31, 193, 196, 197, 406 natural science(s) 13,32, 35, 36 46, 111, 165, 199, 306, 366, 369 370, 376, 391, 394, 395, 395f.n. 396 natural selection 37, 38, 71, 73 112, 118, 124, 125, 133, 146 169f.n. 171, 210-213, 218, 219 222, 228, 236, 239, 240, 285 378, 384f.n. 395f.n. 388f.n. natural statisticians 215 nature of man 25, 313 nature of understanding 69 79, 84, 172, 200 Nazi 140 negation 23, 128, 141, 156

421 neo-pragmatism 301, 308, 401 neural basis of 334-336, 346, 349, 356 neural circuits 334, 342, 372 neural connections 304, 338, 348 neurons 108, 109, 352, 358, 371, 372 New Science 91, 171, 268, 299 Newton 72, 100, 130, 133 206, 319, 388, 393, 394 Newtonian 14 Newton’s principle of relativity 138 Nietzsche 90 nominalism 110, 206 non-Euclidean geometries 157 non-scientific 99, 202 O obedience 30, 61, 127 128, 171, 191, 193, 255 objective knowledge 10, 12, 64, 278 321, 351, 394, 401, 411 objectivity 93-95, 272, 310 312, 313, 319, 320, 356 obsession 178 obstacle 32, 46, 99, 123, 231, 277 Ockham, W. 390 Ockham’s Razor 76, 306 Oldenburg 12, 13, 23, 27, 36, 77, 110 181, 262, 266, 267, 355, 363 Old Testament 388 ontologically 371 operational 123, 166 Oppenheimer 140 organic perspective 361 Orwell 411 P pain 19, 20, 24, 41, 42, 44-46 105, 179, 205, 244, 329 334, 336, 337, 342, 363 Paine, T. 318, 318f.n. 401 paradigm 29, 84, 100-102, 105, 112

156, 160, 225, 226, 312, 372, 387 paradigmatic 100, 101, 110, 308, 388 paradox 101, 164, 264 passion 25, 44, 177 passive 51, 52, 69 70, 147, 190, 193, 370 Pasteur, L. 93 patriotism 381 peace and security 31, 32, 40 191-193, 198, 256, 267, 322, 323 330, 365-367, 381, 399, 403, 405, 406 peace of mind43-45, 173, 180, 182, 183 Peirce, C.S. 285-289, 292-293 294, 298, 301, 303, 308 309, 310f.n. 317, 323, 330 331, 383, 399, 404 perfect 44-46, 52, 55, 56, 81, 124 222, 242, 245, 292, 370 perfection 44, 46, 81, 124, 128 182, 263, 342, 371 personal agency 255 persuasion 153, 308, 314, 320 323, 325,326, 331 philosophy, as distinct from science 84 394, 397, 399 Philosophy of science 9, 10, 26, 28 29, 31-33, 35, 36, 92, 131, 132 139, 184, 187, 190, 199, 201, 225 251, 269, 310, 311, 365, 390, 394 physicalism 36, 89, 370, 371 physiological 304, 334 PIERC 39, 259, 261 262, 265, 266, 268, 271 273, 278, 280, 296, 299, 330 piety 60, 182 pity 58, 253 Plato 201, 216, 343 Poincaré 157, 272, 293 political freedom 247, 252, 326,401

422 political power 98, 191, 252, 390 political principles 268, 368, 400, 405 political science 10, 12, 32 98, 190-192,194, 198 232, 250, 251, 255, 256 322, 363, 399, 400, 406 Popper, K. 64, 351, 351f.n. 369f.n. positivism 38, 110, 271, 282, 292, 297 positivist 108, 206, 403 power of reason 27,29, 31 39, 44, 51, 68, 70, 105 126, 154, 167, 202, 221 252, 255, 325, 362, 385 pragmatic principle 143, 386 pragmatism 38, 83, 274 282-284, 286, 288-292 295-296, 297, 301, 308 310-313,319, 352, 386, 401 predict and control 166 predictability 136 prediction 123, 166, 220, 221 252, 276, 277, 340, 402 prejudice 22, 37, 58, 175, 263, 284 presuppose 12, 103, 111, 143, 274 340, 341, 349, 352, 353 presupposed view 55, 49, 105 106, 110. 243, 280, 327 primitive concept 295 296, 311, 326, 386 principle of justice and charity 22, 30-31, 195, 196 252-254, 397 principles of government 192, 322 priority 143, 322, 353, 363 progress 99, 151, 200, 288, 296, 310 psychoanalysis 348 pure reason 163, 343, 345 purpose (as a natural property) 28 71, 125, 154, 157, 288, 365,366

purpose (in Spinoza’s philosophy) 11 20, 32, 45, 47, 53, 59, 60 64, 71, 78, 95, 119, 125, 154 194, 250, 281, 323, 325, 329 336, 365, 366, 388, 399, 400 purpose (in the philosophy of others mentioned in this book) 34 43, 76, 86, 99, 102, 117-118, 139 150, 157, 187, 201, 213, 225, 250 251, 273-275, 281, 297, 298, 312 323, 336 382, 389, 403, 406 purposeful 73, 125 Putnam, H. 335 Q Quine 142-144 293-295, 331, 386, 411 R radical empiricism 283, 294 314, 315,317 320, 321, 329 radical interpretation 145, 283, 294 rational analysis 42, 52 32, 154, 195 rational decision 187,188, 190 rationality can be regained 405 See also 40, 196, 379, 383, 406 Rawls, J. 195 realism 15-17, 54, 62, 67 71, 132, 139, 152, 153, 287, 297 Reality 11, 15-17, 36, 57, 62 63, 66, 77, 78, 89, 93, 133 135, 152, 157, 205, 208, 210 213, 214, 250, 262, 264, 281 283, 274, 387f.n. 403 reason differs from rationality 187-189 See also 202 recognition of necessity 249, 251 reductionism 117, 118, 129, 411 religion as an instrument of power 405

423 revealed 96, 98, 249, 361 revelation 60, 397 revolutionaries 403 rhetorical 93, 265 Rieman 157 right way of living 183 ritual 219 Rorty, R. 309, 311, 314-317, 322 rules of life for intellectuals 47, 265 S salvation 182, 183, 208, 209 science, as social enter prise 61 see also 200, 376 scientific project 32-34, 46 47, 98, 270, 297, 363 366, 376, 387, 401, 403 Searle, J. 105-110 107f.n. 130, 235, 358 second nature 303 self awareness 18, 123f.n.124 self causing (universe or world)17, 115 self consciousness 239, 244 self contained 116, 120 self creating 57, 118,129, 210 Self evidence 156, 174 self evident 56, 57, 59 self interest 47, 178, 193, 241 255-256, 258, 299f.n. 379 self-knowledge 16, 339 self-perception 254, 338 self regulation 116, 118 senses 59, 67, 77, 108 111, 163, 208, 215, 228, 235 336, 355, 359, 360, 386, 391f.n. separation of religion from the state 324 servitude 264 sign 122, 123, 188 signal 121-123, 144, 145, 230

236, 336, 338, 347 simple concept 72 skeptics 34, 65 78, 95, 159, 196, 353-357 skill 23, 46, 189-190 219, 230, 326, 344-345 346-347, 354, 356, 362, 325f.n. Skinner 166, 168, 412 slavery 179, 318, 401, 406 slavery to the passions 179 social cohesion 293 social contract 31, 190 social engineering 369f.n. Social-engineers 223 social insects 223 socialism 195, 247, 249 250, 252, 253, 317, 318, 402 social pressure 183 social science(s) 12, 31 32, 46, 156, 248, 299, 313, 315 318, 363, 366, 397, 400, 406 software 109 213, 214, 216-218, 234, 358 somatic-markers of (good or bad) 334 336, 338, 341, 343 somatic-marker of (true or fals3e4) 3, 345 sophistication 373, 374 soul 28, 38, 49, 85 106, 108, 119, 120, 183, 206 208, 209, 233f.n. 335, 342 sovereign 31, 32, 378 sovereignty 406 Soviet Union 250-252, 254 255, 392, 396, 399, 402 specialization 360 Spinoza’s conception of science 32 76, 156 see also 95, 97, 231 spiritual automaton 27, 67, 167

424 169, 171, 172, 175, 176-178 180-181, 190, 245, 248, 250 253, 259, 316, 380, 400 spiritual power 307 stable regime 193 standard of certainty 263 standard of truth 28, 55, 59, 73 101, 103, 124, 127, 145, 155, 198 232, 269, 271, 280, 301, 269, 271 280, 301, 318, 362, 374, 376, 381 382, 386-388, 398, 400, 404, 405 state of alertness 108 236, 371-372, 377 state of arousal 337 state of nature 190 state of wakefulness; 337, 341 stone-age 217, 230, 372, 373 striving for power 379 structural view 18, 113, 115, 116 119, 121,124-129 205, 353, 369, 395 student’s movement 257 study of history 314,318, 327-329 subjective 161, 163f.n. 273 274, 278, 281, 294 296, 340, 350, 356 Substance 13-15, 28, 72 73, 76, 77, 97,119 130, 342, 369, 370 super-ego 347, 350, 364 supreme good 44-47, 180 synthetic 41, 145, 159 system of beliefs 285 291, 292, 308, 309 T tabula rasa 89, 91, 396 task of religion 61 teleological 118, 210, 212 theologian 184

theology

28, 59 182, 250, 284, 312, 390 theoretical knowledge 155, 156 158, 165, 344, 345, 348 theory of mind 13, 18, 19, 35 70, 91, 92, 119, 143 279, 306, 351 theory of truth 270-272, 283 thermodynamics 129, 130 the self, in neural terms 335-340 thinking without language 346 Thom, R. 91, 172 thought and extension 13 Time and duration 96, 228 tool(s)-making 214, 229, 384 top-down 126, 214, 218, 221-223 totalitarian regime 254 tradition(s) 108, 148 161 188, 199,220, 226, 302 310, 312-314, 316, 320f.n. 327-328, 342, 375, 382, 383 traditions of non-literate societies 315, 327 transformation laws 79, 101 107, 115-117, 121, 122, 136, 137 146, 248, 369, 377, 388, 395 translation 294, 342, 390 410, 411, 413 truly good 30, 32 181, 202, 248, 344, 398 Tschirnhous 262 Turing 110 type of behaviour 165, 166 type of perception 48, 50, 338 U uncreated 71, 75, 76, 155 universal grammar 146, 347 unity of mathematics 150-152

425 unity of nature

21, 55 83, 85, 87, 88, 100-101 102, 118f.n. 132, 139, 208 272, 353, 374-375, 394 unity of science 21, 88, 150 unpredictability 237 unpredictable 220, 342 unrealistic 221, 228, 335, 387 use of language 49, 70, 144 154, 206, 218, 237, 238 260, 275-278, 280, 281 296, 305, 325, 356, 378 utility of religion 181 V values 34, 97 191, 201, 241, 254 309, 324, 363, 378 variability 57, 133, 134, 175 201, 211 231, 248 249, 295, 380 variation 133-135, 201, 240 variety of cultures 57, 230, 330, 368 Vienna Circle 36, 270-272, 274 276, 294, 301, 356

view of the mind 340, virtual realities 219, 221, virtue 30, 193, 266, vision

142, 343, 214, 228, 183, 209, 267,

146, 270 358, 374 216, 218 261, 387 184, 191 241, 242 378, 379 36, 67 122, 336, 353 354, 394, 411 111, 121, 129 336, 348, 349 23, 304-307

visual system 36, 187, 215, 235, voluntary W warranted assert-ability 308 Washington, G. 401 will, the 22, 23-25, 27 58, 74, 120, 125 142, 175, 234, 259 Wittgenstein, L 70, 146 275, 277-282, 308, 311, 413 Z Zeno 264