SPINOZA AND DESCARTES - MIND, BODIES, AND ACTION
For Spinoza mind and body are the same substance. Thus, mind and body are
ontologically the same thing, the same reality or substance. The mind is inseparable
from the body, and vice versa. He says, " the mind is united to the body because the
body is the object of the mind" (Ethics 2, prop 21). But this does not mean that one
determines the other or causes effects in the other, because in reality the mind and
body are the same. They are different attributes of one fundamental reality. They
are not causally related but intrinsically related, so we cannot say that one
determines the other. Spinoza says that "the body cannot determine the mind to
think, nor the mind the body to remain in motion or at rest" (Ethics 3, 2). This is
because each acts simultaneously with the other, so it is illogical to say one
determines the other.
This unity of mind and body as one substance is in contrast to Descartes' belief that
mind and body are separate substances. For Descartes the mind and the body are
independent realities, each able to exist without the other. He proudly proves this
beginning in the second meditation when he concludes that doubt is possible as to
the true existence of the body but there can be no doubt as to the existence of the
thinking mind since this is what is either believing or doubting. The mind cannot
doubt the existence of thinking, since even the doubt itself would require thinking to
exist! But since the body can be doubted, and it is possible for thinking to go on
without knowledge of the body, then one can conclude an independent existence for
mind. Thus, a duality of mind and body. He also tries to prove such independent
substances in the sixth meditation, where he states, "there is a great difference
between mind and body", because the body is divisible while the mind is not. I can,
in my mind, divide extended things into parts, but "when I consider the mind, that is,
myself insofar as I am only a thing that thinks, I cannot distinguish any parts in me;
rather I take myself to be one distinct thing" (Meditation 6, 86).
Spinoza does make a distinction, though, between thought and extension as two
different attributes of the one ontological substance. Each thing is both thought and
extension. The thought is what is known through ideas and the extension is what
exists and is sensed physically. Thought is a mental property and extension is a
physical property. While Descartes viewed thought as the property of mind and
extension the property of bodies, Spinoza altered this view by asserting that a
mind/body reality could be distinguished into separate attributes of thought and
extension.
Yet, this altering of Descartes' metaphysics may actually be a subtle trick of
language, since instead of separating mind from bodies Spinoza separates thought
from extension -- but what is the real difference? What really is the difference
between dividing reality into two different substances or dividing substance into
two different attributes? Either way there seems to be a fundamental division.
Would not the problematic relationship between thought and extension be equal to
that of mind and bodies? The difference between the two philosophical views may
be that Spinoza views thought and extension as inseparable two sides of the same
coin. For Spinoza mind and body, thought and extension, are parallel realities, not
having independent existences or independent causal series; while with Descartes'
division there are two distinct existences with two distinct causal series.
Spinoza believed the mind and body are different conceptually but not ontologically.
They are two different ways of description, just as we could describe music
psychologically (or aesthetically) and physically (or in terms of physics). Thus,
reality can be described in terms of causally ordered physical bodies or as logically
ordered sequences of ideas. Yet, there cannot be two different causal sequences, one
of the mind and one of the body, but the same sequence conceptually viewed in
different ways. The mind and body, for Spinoza, act simultaneously, or as mirror
images of each other, so we cannot even say that one determines the other. Thought
is the consciousness of extension and extension is the manifestation of thought, and
neither has any freedom from the other.
But then, does the mind act according to mechanical determinism, as Descartes
would view bodies? Or do bodies act as imaginably as the mind? If these are
inseparable and simultaneous acts, then wouldn't my body change according to my
immediate belief or imagination? Or opposite, wouldn't my mind be always stuck in
the habits of my body with no means of escape? In Spinoza there seems to be a
resulting causal determinacy in life with no real freedom of the mind or will to alter
the monistic- materialistic chain of events. The Cartesian split at least allows for a
freedom between mind and body, and vice versa, because there is some
independence between the two.
But since Descartes divided the mind from the body, or thinking from the physical
world, he had to find some means for the mind to understand and act upon the body,
that is, an immaterial substance relating to a material substance. He had to find a
way for thought to adequately know the world of which it is separate. Since Spinoza
avoids the epistemological problems of Cartesianism, as well as those of Locke's
empiricism, he does not have to posit a bridge between ideas and the physical world
and, thankfully, he does not have to use God as the bridge builder, as Descartes
cheaply did, although Descartes later used the pineal gland to explain the link
between mind and body, though this still does not explain how the immaterial can
functionally relate with the material.
Descartes needed some assurance that a `clear and distinct' mental idea or image is
actually true in correspondence to the external reality; but Spinoza solved this
problem by abandoning the Cartesian dualism of thought and extension. Descartes,
by the way, declared as a Rationalist that the criteria for truth be found in the clarity
and distinctness of the ideas themselves, and the fact that he also demanded some
empirical verification seems a bit inconsistent. Error of true correspondence
between our ideas or images and what is real in the physical world is due to hasty
judgments of the will in attributing truth to our ideas of things, that is, not
adequately verifying the validity of our thoughts through reason and empirical
investigation.
But back to Spinoza, he avoids the epistemological problem of correspondence
between our ideas and the things of this world, because the ideas and the things
themselves (called `ideatum') are not separate entities but the same thing (thoughtobject) viewed in different ways. Every body has a corresponding idea, which could
be said to its soul, and every idea has a corresponding body-extension (ideatum) of
which it is an idea. When I have an idea of something in the world, or of my own
body, this idea is not something just in my mind but is in the thing itself, and the
idea `I have' is not representative but is identical to the idea of the ideatum. In other
words, the idea in my mind of the thing can only be the exact idea of that thing. In
another sense, I am sharing in my mind the idea in the mind of that thing, though
admittedly this may be a less than perfect way of saying it. There are not two ideas
of something but the same idea in the eternal mode of the intellect.
One really understands the reality of extended bodies through rational thought,
which seems to correlate with Descartes. Spinoza, in the beginning of the third book
of Ethics, denies Descartes assertion that error is caused by a free will making hasty
judgments upon ideas, that is, not demanding clearness and distinctness, because
error could only be due to the confused, unclear ideas themselves. We don't have a
bunch of ideas that we somehow choose from as to what is clear and distinct, but
instead we are constituted of ideas and if these are inadequate, that is, unclear and
indistinct, then we have inadequate knowledge. The ideas themselves are already
affirmations or denials, so that there is no need to posit some free will which affirms
or denies. Thus for Spinoza, the inadequate ideas are cause to error, not the
choosing or assertion. Since there is no freedom to affirm or deny ideas, it appears
that Spinoza's view is mentally deterministic. Does this then negate any possibility
for improving oneself or choosing to be more ethical? Spinoza develops his own
subtle way around this problem by supposing that inadequate ideas will necessarily
lead to confused action which will in turn force ideas to clear up and come closer to
the truth.
Inadequate ideas or confused ideas lead to inadequate, unethical action. The
healthy, active mind becomes conscious of true ideas, and this is how he defines
freedom of the mind. In contrast, the unfree mind is that which is passively not fully
awake, so has unclear and indistinct ideas. One who thus is free and awake to reality
has adequate ideas and perfected behavior. We are more free when we have more
certain and adequate ideas, and this freedom is our self-determination. We are not
free when affirming that 2+2=5; we are merely confused. So Descartes' contention
that free will is defined by one's ability to make good or bad judgments is a false way
of viewing freedom, according to Spinoza. Real freedom of the mind/body, for
Spinoza, is a self-determination made from adequate ideas, since we cannot really
fulfill any goal successfully in the world when holding inadequate ideas, and because
this self-determination is dependent upon true ideas harmonious action will prevail,
since one will then be truly and consciously united with the reality of nature. In this
way, Spinoza is not fully a determinist, because he recognizes the possibility of
freedom and self-determination, a freedom to clear up and `geometricanize' the
mind, using deductive reasoning to arrive at adequate knowledge, which is the true
corresponding thought concerning extension, so that one can live harmoniously in
the world via a true knowing of it.
The dualism of Descartes makes for a prejudice of the mind to treat the body and
physical nature as inferior or as a soul-less, feeling-less, mechanical substance to be
manipulated for mind's purposes. Personally, I don't think that manipulation of the
physical has to entail a negative connotation or that all manipulation is necessarily
unethical. The gymnast manipulates the body in ways the mind imagines; the
landscaper manipulates nature for a mental, aesthetic purpose. Yet, if we fully
believe in a radical distinction between mind and body, we (the mind) are apt to be
alienated from the physical nature and treat it with little respect. We might even
tend to misunderstand the body because of viewing it as a completely different
other.
Spinoza not only believed this ontological division of mind from body or nature was
incorrect, but he also viewed this separation as unhealthy and unethical. He believed
that a knowledge of the unity between mind and nature was essential to an ethical
life. This is a view common to many mystical philosophies, such that one is assumed
to behave in harmony with the needs of all others of their environment when the
mind realizes the interconnective unity between all things and the mind is united
with the world. This has a kind of romantic appeal and a kind of common sense,
because mind inseparably identified with nature seems bound to behave in
harmony with nature. So, Spinoza's ethical imperative is the union between mind
and nature. What is not quite clear, though, is how mind, being eternally inseparable
with nature, could ever have parted from nature, at least mentally. Spinoza is not
prescribing that mind unite with the body or with nature, because it already is
united. Instead, he seems to prescribe the realization of this union as a conscious
epistemological and ethical move. It is true and good to realize this union.