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30. - Cause of Itself

from C

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Olli Koistinen
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The definition of cause of itself (causa sui) is the first definition given in the Ethics: “By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing” (E1def1). Because God is the only possible substance in Spinoza’s metaphysics, there is only one causa sui, that is, God. God is his own cause. Interestingly, Spinoza holds that causa sui is a key to understanding how God causes all the things there are: “God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause of himself” (E1p25s). That God is the cause of himself is important for Spinoza because he wanted to argue for the total intelligibility of the world, and for Spinoza understanding consisted in knowing the causes.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 76 - 79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Miner, R. C. (2002). The dependence of Descartes’ ontological proof upon the doctrine of causa sui. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 58, 873–86.Google Scholar
Garrett, D. (1979). Spinoza’s ‘ontological’ argument. Philosophical Review, 88, 198–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gueroult, M. (1968). Spinoza, vol. i: Dieu (Éthique, 1). Aubier-Montaigne.Google Scholar

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