Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:24:21.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spinoza on the Eternity of the Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2016

MOGENS LÆRKE
MOGENS LÆRKE*
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a reading of Spinoza’s theory of the eternity of the mind in light of his theory of essence and existence. Opposing in particular recent Platonist readings of this theory, rejecting the dichotomy between formal essence and actual essence, upon which they mostly rely, I argue that Spinoza’s conception of the eternity of the mind must be grasped in terms of different aspects of one and the same existence. I moreover suggest that, for Spinoza, the mind was both sempiternal and eternal, without, however, those two aspects of the mind’s existence being identical.

Dans cet article, je propose une interprétation de la conception spinoziste de l’éternité de l’esprit à la lumière de sa théorie de l’essence et de l’existence. En m’opposant en particulier à des interprétations platonistes récentes, et en réfutant la dichotomie entre essences formelles et essences actuelles sur laquelle elles reposent pour la plupart, je maintiens que la conception spinoziste de l’éternité de l’esprit doit être comprise en termes des aspects distincts d’une seule et même existence. Je maintiens en outre que, pour Spinoza, l’esprit est à la fois sempiternel et éternel, sans pour autant que ces deux aspects de son existence se confondent.

Keywords

Spinozaeternitysempiternitydurationimmortalityformal essencenon-existence
Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 265 - 286
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alquié, Ferdinand 1981 Le Rationalisme de Spinoza. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles 1968 Spinoza et le problème de l’expression. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Donagan, Alan 1973 “Spinoza’s Proof of Immortality,” in Green, M. (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, Garden City: Doubleday, p. 241–258.Google Scholar
Garber, Daniel 2005 “A Free Man Thinks of Nothing Less Than of Death,” in Mercer, C. and O’Neill, E. (eds.), Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 103–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Don 2010 “Spinoza’s Theory of Scientia Intuitiva,” in Sorell, T., et al. (eds.), Scientia in Early Modern Philosophy, Dordrecht: Springer, p. 99–115.Google Scholar
Garrett, Don 2011 “Spinoza on the Essence of the Human Body and the Part of the Mind that is Eternal,” in Koistinen, O. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 284–302.Google Scholar
Gueroult, Martial 1968 Spinoza I: Dieu. Paris: Aubier Montaigne.Google Scholar
Klein, Julie 2014 “Something of it Remains: Spinoza and Gersonides on Intellectual Eternity,” in Nadler, S. (ed.), Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 177–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kneale, Martha 1973 “Eternity and Sempiternity,” in Green, M. (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, Garden City: Doubleday, p. 227–240.Google Scholar
Koyré, Alexandre 1950 “Le Chien, constellation céleste, et le chien, animal aboyant,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 55:1, p. 50–59.Google Scholar
Lærke, Mogens 2008 Leibniz lecteur de Spinoza. La genèse d’une opposition complexe, Paris: Honoré Champion.Google Scholar
Lærke, Mogens 2015 “Leibniz on Spinoza’s Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione,” in Melamed, Y. (ed.), The Young Spinoza. A Metaphysician in the Making, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 106–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lærke, Mogens [forthcoming] “Aspects of Spinoza’s Theory of Essence. Formal Essence, Non-existence and Two Types of Actuality,” in Sinclair, M. (ed.), The Actual and The Possible, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marrama, Oberto 2014 “Alexandre Koyré: The dog that is a heavenly constellation and the dog that is a barking animal (1950): Introduction and Translation,” The Leibniz Review 24, p. 95–108.Google Scholar
Matson, Wallace 1990 “Body, Essence and Mind Eternity in Spinoza,” in Curley, E. and Moreau, P.-F. (eds.), Spinoza: Issues and Directions. Leiden: Brill, p. 82–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreau, Pierre-François 1994 Spinoza. L’expérience et l’éternité. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Nadler, Steven 2001 Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadler, Steven 2006 Spinoza’s Ethics. An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict 1925 Opera, Vol. I-IV, ed. Gebhardt, Carl, Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict 2002 Complete Works, ed. Morgan, Michael L., transl. Shirley, Samuel, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett.Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict 2011 The Vatican Manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethica , eds. Spruit, Leen and Totaro, Pina, Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict 1985–2016 The Collected Works of Spinoza, Vol. I-II, ed. and transl. Curley, Edwin, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Diane 1981 “Spinoza’s Theory of the Eternity of the Mind,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11:1, p. 35–68.Google Scholar