Introduction to History of Philosophy

Introduction to Modern Philosophy

Spring 2015
Patterson

Week 6: Spinoza on virtue and the power of understanding

Insofar as the affects are passions, if clear and distinct knowledge does not absolutely
remove them (see P3 and P4S), at least it brings it about that they constitute the smallest
part of the mind (see P14). And then it begets a love toward a thing immutable and eternal
(see P15), which we really fully possess (see (IIP45), and which therefore cannot be
tainted by any of the vices which are in ordinary love, but can always be greater and
greater (by P15), and occupy the greatest part of the mind, and affect it extensively.
(VP20S)
Spinoza identifies rationality, virtue, power and freedom. IVDef8 states that virtue and
power are the same. IVP28 says that the absolute virtue of the mind is understanding, while
IVP68 says that those who are free are led by reason alone. Indeed, the free man is not led
by fearbut acts, lives, and preserves his being from the foundation of seeking his own
advantage (IVP67Dem). Spinozas view contrasts with Hobbes. Hobbes holds that our
reason enables us to discover the virtues (or dispositions) that foster peaceable and sociable
living. The virtues are good because their practice by all enables each of us to seek our own
advantage, including our self-preservation, while being protected against the incursions of
others. Hobbes lists Feare of Death as the first of the passions that incline us to peace
(Leviathan Ch. 13). For Spinoza, fear is a form of sadness which involves a decrease in our
power; when we fear, we are acted on (passive). So for Spinoza, the free man loves life
rather than fearing death (A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is
a meditation on life, not death IVP67).
Spinoza holds that we are active (rather than passive) when we are guided by
reason/understanding/adequate ideas. How can the power of reason free us from the bondage
of subjection to the affects? He undertakes to explain this in the first part of Part V of the
Ethics, up to and including VP20.
The remedies for the affects
Spinoza lists the five remedies for the affects in the Scholium to IVP20. Since the passions
are confused ideas, all these remedies in some way involve a decrease in the confusion of
our ideas via an increase in our knowledge of ourselves and of the system of which we are a
part. The first remedy Spinoza discusses is clear and distinct knowledge of the affects. This,
he claims, can remove them altogether: An affect which is a passion ceases to be a passion
as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it (IVP3).
How is this supposed to work? Spinoza seems to say that an affect is a passion if we
are not its adequate cause (IIIDef3). But, it has been objected (e.g. by Bennett), this seems to
mean that we can stop an affect being a passion only if we can alter its cause; and how could
we do that at all, still less by forming a clearer idea of it? One response we might make on
Spinozas behalf is along the following lines (see Marshall 2012). Suppose we can gain
control of the passion through forming a clear and distinct idea of itby developing a clear
and distinct knowledge of it. Of course it remains true that the original passion had an
external cause, but we have now made ourselves capable of being its cause by bringing it
under our control. But how could forming a clear and distinct idea of it bring it under our
control? Spinoza says that we have inadequate knowledge as long as we perceive things
empirically, from the common order of nature (IIP29Cor). This is contrasted with the kind of
theoretical understanding we get by grasping the general laws of nature and the way in

which all things flow by necessity from the nature of the one substance, God/Nature. When
we do this we understand how the affections (alterations) we are subject to are simply the
result of the unfolding of laws that operate throughout nature. Perhaps Spinozas thought,
then, is that understanding our affective (emotional) response as an instance of the operation
of these general laws alters the affective response itself. Our understanding has a distancing
effect that can dissipate the emotion we felt. Furthermore, Spinoza thinks the act of
understanding itself brings a satisfaction or joy that, unlike the pleasure we get from
transient goods, is durable and increases by being shared with others.
The power of the intellect
When we are subject to the passions, to passive desires, we react to the constant impact of
external things upon us, without clearly understanding what is happening. Spinoza believes
that intellectual understanding has the power to transform passive desires, passive striving,
into active desires, active striving. We are active to the extent that we act from adequate
ideasthat is, from a clear and distinct (and true, E IIDef.4) understanding of the impacts of
external things upon us. For example,
If we separate emotions, or affects, from the thought of an external cause, and join them
to other thoughts, then the love, or hate, toward the external cause is destroyed, as are
the vacillations of mind arising from these affects (E VP2).
If we can understand, for example, that the thing we think of as the sole cause of our sadness
(and that we therefore hate, and seek to injure) is not its sole cause, we will cease to hate it.
In general, Spinoza holds that
Insofar as the mind understands all things as necessaryand to be determined by an
infinite connection of causes to exist and produce effectsso to that extent [the mind]
brings it about that it is less acted on by the affects springing from these things
(EVP6).
This follows from his analysis and is confirmed by experience, he claims; when we realise
we could never have kept the good we have lost, our sadness at losing it diminishes.
As we saw, Spinoza also holds that the act of understanding itself generates affects, and
that these are more powerful than the affects related to things we imagine (and therefore
hope or fear), since they are more enduring. The greatest satisfaction of mind we are capable
of arises from knowing God/Nature, that is, understanding the essence of particular things as
modes following from the nature of God/Nature according to eternal law (EVP27). But any
increase in understanding increases our power of acting and brings joy. Since the order and
connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things (EIIP7), as thoughts
and ideas are ordered and connected in the mind, so the power of actingthe power to
persist in beingof the mind and body increases. In effect, the more we understand
God/Nature, the more we approach to the kind of understanding that God/Nature has of
him/itself and of us, and the greater power we have to act effectively to preserve ourselves in
being. This increase in power brings (indeed, is) an active form of joy that is more durable
than the passive form of joy arising from the confused perception of the effects of external
things upon us. The more the mind understands God, the greater its active power and the
closer it approaches to freedom of mind or blessedness. Blessedness is not the reward of
virtue, but virtue (freedom) itself (E VP42).