Questions for Spinoza:
I.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Of God
What is a substance?
What is an attribute?
Why must a substance be infinite?
Why can substance have no cause?
What is a mode?
Why can’t there be two substances possessing the same nature?
Why must there be only one substance?
Why can nothing be conceived without God?
What does Spinoza’s account of God imply about God’s nature (contrary to many
beliefs about God)?
10. Discuss the claim that ‘The more reality or being a thing possesses, the more
attributes belong to it’ (Prop. IX).
11. Explain the argument from division against the claim that God can be extended
(have extension as one of his (its’?) infinite attributes). How does Spinoza avoid
this conclusion?
12. Why does Spinoza deny that lines are made of points?
13. What is Spinoza’s principle of plenitude?
14. Why does Spinoza hold that God is the only free cause?
15. Why does Spinoza reject the idea that ‘intellect and will’ (as we have them) also
pertain to God?
16. Can God change in any way? Explain.
17. What does Spinoza think about freedom of the will?
18. What does Spinoza say about the causes of finite/non-eternal things?
19. Is there anything at all that could be other than the way it is? Explain Spinoza’s
position on this question.
20. What shows that God (though a free cause) does not act from freedom of the will?
21. What is the difference between natura naturans and natura naturata?
22. Why can’t the will be called a free cause?
23. What do we mean when we say that some things are contingent (i.e. neither
necessary nor impossible)?
24. Why does Spinoza reject the idea that God does everything for the sake of the
Good?
25. What leads humans to suppose that God acts to achieve some end?
26. What vices lead us to invent modes of worship?
27. What does Spinoza appeal to in arguing that the search for final causes for
everything (i.e. ends that we recognize and approve of) is a mistake?
28. What is wrong with supposing that God works to achieve some end?
29. Why is the perfection of God and all things not put in question by the existence of
corruption,… evil, crime, etc.?
II.
Of the Nature and Origin of the Mind
1. How does the definition of essence here relate to Spinoza’s earlier axiom
regarding cause?
2. What does adequacy of an idea come down to?
3. How are modes of thought dependent on ideas?
4. What relation does an individual thought have to God?
5. Why does Spinoza reject the claim that God’s power involves a contingent
relation between God and the things God chooses to produce?
6. How are the order & connection of things and the order & connection of ideas
related?
7. How is our existence related to that of God, and to that of other things? How is
the idea of each of us (as existing) related to God and to other ideas of God?
8. What is our essence as humans?
9. What is the relation between the human mind and the human body?
10. What is the object of the idea that first forms our mind?
11. Does this same story apply to other things as well?
12. On what condition do we perceive an external body?
13. Why are our ideas of our bodies’ affections not clear and distinct?
14. In what sense are individual things contingent and corruptible?
15. Why are ideas of features common to all bodies sure to be adequate ideas of those
features? Why must all humans have all such ideas?
16. What kind of knowledge is the cause of falsity?
17. What is the third kind of knowledge?
18. Through what do we look upon things as contingent?
19. What kind of experience might lead us to have indeterminate expectations for the
future course of events?
20. Why do all of us know that God exists, is infinite and eternal?
21. What is a volition, for Spinoza?
22. Why do we (confusedly) suppose the will to be infinite in its extent, while the
understanding is limited?
23. How does Spinoza disagree with Descartes on the source of errors?
III.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Part V.
Why is it impossible to hate God?
Why do memory and imagination depend on the continued existence of the body?
What remains of us, when the body does not exist?
Why is the third kind of knowledge a source of peace of mind?
How is perfection linked to action and suffering? (Explain what the distinction
between action and suffering is about.)
6. Why does Spinoza reject the notion that we shall be rewarded for being virtuous?
What does he offer instead, as the ‘advantage’ of being virtuous?
7. Do you think Spinoza would say that animal ‘souls’ also exist, even after the
animal is dead? Discuss.