True Freedom: Spinozas Practical Philosophy

Ultimately, balance is restored late in the episode when Jerry breaks up with his new girlfriend. The classic example is a college roommate who begins the semester as a good friend with thoughtful, predictable behavior, but once he begins dating, morphs into a completely different person. On further reflection, however, this is a really strange expression.

How is it possible for one not to act like oneself? This seems less likely. George never claims that Jerry is acting like his girlfriend or anyone else for that matter. The first assumption is that there is a constancy to the self. The self, who a person is, somehow persists through time.

This persisting self has two aspects. Some of the qualities that de- fine who we are are given genetically, qualities like height, shoe size, or lactose intolerance. Other qualities are acquired throughout life. Many of these qualities are acquired unconsciously, hand gestures, verbal tics, posture, etc.

These uncon- sciously acquired properties are naturally susceptible to conscious manipulation, but for the most part their acquisition and deployment remain unconscious. Fi- nally, there are qualities that define us that we acquire only consciously. Learning to play an instrument or a sport would fall into this category, and for most moral philosophers so would being a good person. The self is thus this complex nexus of given and acquired traits that remain relatively stable. Philosophers have traditionally made a distinction between these two kinds of traits in terms of nature.

How- ever, her playing basketball is actually the result of years of practice acquiring the traits of a good basketball player. The acquisition of traits is usually referred to as habit. Aristotle helpfully distinguishes among three stages in the acquisition of habit. The first stage is the capacity to form the habit. Humans, for example, do not have the capacity to fly under their own power. Thus, no matter how hard they try, they cannot develop the habit of flying.

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Humans do, however, have the capacity to play basketball. The game was designed specifically with humans in mind. Having the capacity to play basketball and playing basketball are very dif- ferent things. Just because it is not opposed to my nature to play basketball does not mean that the first time I walk onto a court I will know what to do.

What is missing from my capacity to play basketball is instruction and prac- tice. I need to learn the rules of the game. I need to learn how much force is required to shoot a free throw and differentiate that from shooting a three point shot. I must actually develop my capacities in order to form a habit. On the way to forming a habit, though, I will invariably do a few things right purely by ac- cident. Everyone might cheer, but no one would confuse me for a good basketball player. Exercising a capacity prior to forming a habit is the second stage of habit formation.

Habits cannot form without prac- tice, but the practice is not necessarily, especially initially, habitual. It is only when I consistently make half-court shots that I have developed the habit and might be considered a good basketball player. It is only when playing basketball has become second nature to me—when I have developed all of the appropriate habits—that my habit formation is complete. If I continually practice and after much hard work possess the habits of a good basketball player, these habits remain remarkably engrained.

We were required to yell it whether we were in the play or on the sidelines. While my wife finds this somewhat amusing, it is also an- other indication for her of my none-too-firm grasp on reality. This short detour through habit and its acquisition leads us back to the presup- positions that we have about the self. Otherwise, the claim that one is not oneself would be meaningless. However, the second tacit assumption that makes such a claim pos- sible is that the self is not absolutely stable.

One necessarily develops habits that cover a huge range of activities, but these are not so set that one cannot on occasion act against them. He finds this intolerable and expresses real admiration for George who is only required to kiss his Aunt Sylvia hello. The lengths to which Jerry goes to opt out of the kiss hello leave him ostracized from all of the other tenants in his apartment building. He is able, however briefly, to set aside this habit and act differently to the extent that George no longer recognizes him.

Habits are overcome in the same way that they are formed, through practice. For example, everyone has a habitual way in which he or she interlaces fingers and thumbs. For right-handed people this is generally with the left thumb on top. Thus, if I continually practice interlacing my fingers the other way with the opposite thumb on top, eventually this will become my habit.

This will become comfort- able, second nature. Habits are instilled through practice and replaced by practic- ing something in opposition to the original habit. When he did this he was no longer what George expected, and George found this insufferable. Fortunately, however, the new practices he was engaged in did not replace his old habit, and by the end of the episode he is the same old Jerry. Spinoza is very interested in those points when we are not ourselves and he devotes the fourth part of the Ethics to giving an account of this phenomenon.

This seems like a strange way to begin talking about why someone is not behaving in a typical manner. No matter how powerful we are, it is always possible to be overpowered. When we are not ourselves, it means we have been overcome by something more powerful. The question of power and being overpowered returns us to the definitions of adequate and inadequate cause. When we are the adequate cause of an effect, when we act, it can only mean that we are not at that moment being overpowered by some other cause.

To be overpowered by another cause is the same as being an inadequate cause. Adequate and inadequate causes, of course, return us to the affects. Some of the effects are passions, those following from joy and sadness, and some of the affects are actions, those following from striving. From this perspective we can see that one is not oneself when one is overcome by those affects that are pas- sions. When we do our direction will necessarily change. There are innumerable ways that I can be af- fected by the world around me. Whenever I en- counter something like this that affects me, takes me away from my usual habits and into different practices, I am not myself.

While the source of love or hate is certainly an external cause, this seems different from a collision with a physical object or an infection. But, Spinoza boils all of these encounters down to their basic structure. Sometimes these encounters change our direction. The change in direction might be subtle and momentary. Nobody would claim that we are not ourselves after running into a wall. However, an illness might certainly engender this claim as well as a new boyfriend or girlfriend. The great danger, as far as Spinoza is concerned, is that the change engendered might radically alter our practices and become new habits, permanently changing who we are.

The clearest example of what Spinoza is speaking about lies in addiction. If we take alcoholism, for example, we see a case where a person changes under the power of the external cause. The person becomes dependent on the change wrought by alcohol, and the behaviors associated with its consumption become habitual. The alcoholic is a different per- son when drinking. His acts are no longer his own.

He is no longer the adequate cause of his actions, but the inadequate cause. Or, in order to explain why an alcoholic is such, we cannot explain them from his nature alone. His actions can only be explained by the combination of the alcoholic and the alcohol. Any- time we are overcome by causes opposed to our nature, we are in bondage. That is, our actions can only be explained by the combination of us and some external cause. The tempting solution to the problem of bondage is simply to remove our- selves from the influence of external causes.

For Spinoza, this is simply not pos- sible. While we will explore this more fully in later chapters, removing oneself from the influence of external causes is tantamount to removing oneself from the world. Remember, Spinoza takes it as axiomatic that we are always bumping into things and that sometimes what we bump into will overpower us. At this point it seems that we are doomed to bondage.

If we necessarily bump into things, and some of those things will overpower us, how can we ever escape bondage? Another way that this question might be posed is, are all changes bad? While we will answer these questions more fully in the following chapters, Spinoza is quite clear that bondage is not the only fate that awaits us.

It is possible to act rather than be acted upon. It is possible to affect rather than be affected. There is a path of wisdom in addition to a path of foolish- ness. First, for Spinoza since we cannot remove ourselves from the world and are in a constant state of affect- ing and being affected, the answer must lie in the affects themselves. The only possibility is replacing one affect with another stronger one. For the most part this is an unconscious process. We go through the day experiencing a range of emotions each one replacing the one before it.

So, if we imagine that I am par- ticularly sad one day, I will remain in that sadness until another stronger emotion comes to take its place. Regardless of what happens, though, the path to change, whether good or bad, happens through the affects rather than in spite of them. There are, therefore, many things outside us which are useful to us, and on that account to be sought. We must eat to live and so sating our hunger is part of our striv- ing. Going from hungry to full is the movement from lesser to greater perfection.

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Although, eating beyond fullness moves us from greater to lesser perfection. Not everything that we eat, though, is of equal value. Some foods are better for us than others, and some foods are downright detrimental to our health. If, however, I consume unhealthy food, the change produced in me is negative. In the first case, I strengthen who I am by combining with things that agree with my nature. In the second case, I weaken who I am by combining with things opposed to my nature.

Aversion to foods that sicken us is one of the few habits that can be developed almost instantaneously. Furthermore, to the degree that what one eats is agreeable not only in the short term but the long term , one is not in bondage. She is an external cause that throws him off course and makes him obnoxious to his friends. In the end, Jerry breaks up with her and his explanation is quite interesting. The new girlfriend was like delicious but unhealthy food. Candy tastes great and agrees with us in some respects, but a steady diet of it would be profoundly detrimental.

What was lacking, as far as Jerry was con- cerned was an intellectual connection. This is the shmoopy effect. Looking back at the case of road rage from the first chapter, we can see things a little more clearly. Driving almost always resulted in affects related to sadness rather than joy or striving.

In particular, hatred and anger were the most common affects. My sad- ness was dependent on the other drivers as an external cause. Furthermore, my hatred drove me to do evil to the object of my hatred. Nevertheless my road rage was an occasion where I was ruled by my passions. Or, what is the same thing for Spinoza, I was the inadequate cause rather than the adequate cause of my actions. The amazing thing here is that these actions are mostly localized in my own head. A person driving ten yards or so ahead of me with no knowledge of my existence has somehow managed to seize control of my thoughts, words, and gestures.

Do I still swear and gesticulate wildly? Do I still construct elaborate revenge fantasies? This seems wholly unlikely. The more plausible answer is that my actions cannot be explained from me alone. My actions can only be explained by my encounter, my being affected by an external cause. For Spinoza the primary ethical problem to be solved is the problem of human bondage.

How is it possible, given that we are constantly being affected by exter- nal causes, to ever be ourselves? Given the kind of world we live in, how can we act? How can we ever be the adequate cause of our actions? The answer clearly lies in replacing affects that are passions with affects that are active.

This is the only avenue open to us, since being unaffected is not an option for Spinoza. But, how do we replace one affect with another. For the most part it seems that the changing from one affect to another is unconscious. Furthermore, what would it mean to have an active affect? What exactly do tenacity and nobility look like in practice? As we saw my anger continued to spin out of control until I understood why I was cutoff. To the degree that I understood I was no longer angry. Understanding, then, must be the key for Spinoza. Understanding must be a way in which we become the adequate rather than the inadequate cause of our actions.

Before we explore what the understanding is and how it leads away from bondage, however, we need to know a little bit more about who we are and where we are. For Spinoza, we cannot know how the human understanding works without first coming to grips with the mind, and we cannot come to grips with the mind without understanding where we fit in the big scheme of things, that is, our place in the universe. In fact, we need to look at the biggest pic- ture imaginable, the picture that contains all other pictures.

Already this lands us in some conceptual difficulties. Is such a picture possible? Is such a picture think- able? It is precisely the claim that there was in fact a big picture that contained all other pictures that got Spinoza in so much trouble. A trouble that not only pursued him while he was alive, requiring him to publish some of his books anonymously and even posthumously in the case of the Ethics, but sullied his reputation after his death.

He has a pantheism, which makes God part of the universe, or more precisely makes God identical with the universe. What I want to do now, though, is look at why Spinoza thought there was only one big picture. The town is contained by the county and the county the state. The state is of course contained by the country, which is contained by the continent, which is contained by the hemisphere. All of which is contained by the earth. The earth, while a very big picture, is not the biggest picture. The earth is part of the solar system, which is part of a galaxy.

The galaxy is part of a galaxy cluster, and this cluster is part of the universe as a whole. The universe, however, seems to be the point where this gradually increas- ing vista stops. Everything else seems to be contained within the universe, but the universe does not seem to be contained by anything else. Suppose we try to imagine something outside of the universe, say, an extra-dimensional universe that lies parallel to our own. It seems that two options are possible for conceiving of this additional universe. Either it lies utterly beyond our comprehension and cannot have any contact with our universe, or we imagine it as lying alongside our universe either spatially or temporally.

In the first case, it is meaningless to talk about such a universe. Such a parallel universe could only be conceived as related to our universe in some way, which brings us to the second possibility. In the case of the second possibility, though, notice what happens. While Spinoza is clearly attempting to criticize the traditional concep- tion of substance, it is Descartes that is his immediate target. On the one hand, the fact that I think necessarily entails that I exist. It would be impossible to think and not exist.

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What follows from this for Descartes is that humans are essentially thinking things. A mind without a body is conceivable. We can imagine that our identity remains intact even without a body. On the other hand, we would not identify with a mindless body. If we imagine a mindless body the first thing that probably comes to mind is a corpse. This raises the question, though, about the nature of bodies. Even if we accept that our essence is mental, what status does the body have?

Descartes takes it as obvious that bodies are fundamentally different from minds. The properties of each seem completely opposed. Bodies are spatial; minds are not. Bodies are divisible; minds are not. And most importantly for Descartes, bodies are mortal; minds are immortal. The only way that Descartes can account for these opposed properties is by locating them in different substances. Traditionally, a substance is simply that in which properties or attributes inhere. As a result, a substance can- not contain contradictory properties. Such a substance would destroy itself.

Thus for Descartes, there must be two substances, one that contains the properties of thought and one that contains the properties of bodies or extended things. The problem that immediately arises for Descartes, and his critics were keen to point this out, is if mind and body belong to different substances precisely because they share no common properties, how can mind and body communicate? How can the spatial communicate with the non-spatial? How can the visible commu- nicate with the invisible?

How can the mortal communicate with the immortal? The problem is precisely the problem of mediation. We are required to imagine something that shares the property of both mind and body as a go between. Or, conversely, the mind would agitate the pineal gland in order to transmit its commands to the animal spirits, which would then carry them to the appropriate part of the body.

But, how precisely does this happen? Blood particles and pineal glands are material. Furthermore, vibrations are also material. How can material vibrations in space be conveyed to the non-material, non-spatial mind? Additionally, how can the immaterial mind agitate the pineal gland? Nor can it send vibrations, which are also material. Descartes has so clearly and thoroughly separated mind and body, that he cannot get them back together again.

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This is, of course, the universe as a whole, which contains both thoughts with all the characteristics described by Descartes and extended things with all the properties unique to bodies. This immediately solves the commu- nication problem. The reason that mind and body can communicate is that both belong to the same substance. Spinoza would agree with Descartes that minds and bodies do have opposed properties, so how can they coexist in the same substance? One might say that the scientific discipline of physics is precisely this kind of big picture story.

Physics assumes that the universe is physical and seeks to give an account of it purely within those terms. The reason that physics is a fruitful, progressive science is that it sees the world for what it essentially but not wholly is, a system of physical interactions. These two types of stories are not exclusive of one another.

Both may be told because both see the world for what it essentially is. The big picture contains both minds and bodies, and a true account may be given from either perspective. Furthermore, there is no conflict between these two accounts any- more than there is conflict between a novel and physics.

They are simply different orders of discourse about different attributes of the same thing. The whole universe can be thought of as a system of affections. Every- thing that happens, no matter how large or how small, is an affect of the universe. For Spinoza, it is impossible to imagine the part without first assuming the whole.

Notice, though, this is logical priority, not temporal priority. Substance always precedes its modifica- tions. If there were no whole, one could not think of the parts as parts. Or, we need the whole to think the parts as parts. Regardless of the scale though, these interactions among the parts are always thought on the basis of the whole. That is, they are all part of something larger than themselves. Thus, the definition of any object contains both its positive properties what it is and its negative properties what it is not.

Or, as Aristotle would say the definition of something lies in its specific differ- ence. We first discover what large group an object belongs to genus. In the case of humans, for Aristotle, we are animals. This is not definitive, since we are not merely animals. What differentiates us from animals is our reason. This is our specific difference species.

We are defined only by our relation to something else, how we are both similar to and different from animals. The only thing that fits this bill for Spi- noza is substance, the universe, the big picture. The only thing that follows is that the universe must contain all that is. One may view from the perspective of the parts or from the perspective of the whole. This distinction is codified for us in terms of a forest and its trees. The obverse is also possible, but more rarely invoked.

Although, Spinoza is sometimes accused of advocating the former at the expense of the latter, he would say parts and whole work together in tandem, and under- standing involves knowledge of both. For example, over the course of millions of years primates developed the ability to walk upright, use tools, and communicate using language. Here it sounds as if some outside force were ma- nipulating the development of primates, resulting in the rise of modern humans. For Spinoza, speaking in this way would be speaking from the perspective of the parts.

That is, speaking about the universe as if it were acted upon. But, God here is thought in the theistic sense of an entity that lies beyond the bounds of and limits the universe. Either God must be thought of as identical to the universe, or God and the universe cannot interact with one another.

Spinoza chooses pantheism over an infinitely distant and unthinkable God. Does this mean that the universe wills? Does the universe have its own designs and plans? It is not the case that for any effect we must think of the cause as originating in an agent separate from the effect. If I scratch an itch, then I or at least part of me is clearly acted upon. I am both actor and acted upon. Rather, we say that evolution occurs through the processes of adaptation, mutation, and reproductive isolation that the primates are unaware of.

Through these processes the flow of genetic material is governed, producing a variety of different types of primate and ultimately humans. The governing of genetic material through history, however, is not random but follows certain patterns, certain laws. It is through these laws that the universe acts on itself. Or, when we speak about nature acting, what we mean is that the universe is a lawful place, and that everything acts according to these laws. This is the way for Spinoza that nature natures. What exactly are these laws by which the universe can be said to act?

There are two basic kinds of laws for Spinoza, and these laws correspond to the attri- butes of substance. These are the laws of physics. There are also laws that govern the world insofar as it is perceived under the attribute of thought, that is, insofar as we take the universe to contain mental objects. These are the laws of logic. For Spinoza both sets of laws have something essential in common. They are both kinds of causality, and causality is unthinkable without necessity.

For Spinoza, it is crucial that the connection between cause and effect be nec- essary. If it were possible that the exact same cause produce different effects, the universe would become incomprehensible. Nothing about it could be understood. If the ringing of a bell sometimes produced sound waves and sometimes did not, how would we ever come to terms with the nature of sound or human hearing? If dropping a pen sometimes resulted in the pen falling, but sometimes hovering or flying upward, would it make sense to talk about something like a law of grav- ity?

In a situation where we cannot connect cause and effect with necessity, we cannot speak about laws at all. The same cause producing the same effect is the foundation of all scientific reasoning. All experimentation assumes the regularity of nature, that the same set of conditions will produce the same results every time. Thus, for Spinoza every effect has a determinate cause such that the relation between cause and effect is one of necessity. It is tempting to object at this point that Spinoza is working with an outmoded conception of causality, that advances in science such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory show that effects do not follow their causes with necessity.

Though we cannot predict with certainty both the speed and position of a subatomic particle, it does not follow from this that the speed and position of the particle are uncaused. Chaos theory also seems to introduce a disconnect be- tween cause and effect such that they are no longer related necessarily. But, the claims of chaos theory even the very name are place holders for our ignorance, rather than an indication that for very large systems effects do not necessarily follow their causes.

If there really were chaos, then there could not be a theory of it, because theories depend on the necessary relation of cause and effect. Even if we agree with Spinoza that there can only be one substance, that attributes are ways of per- ceiving substance, and that modes are finite expressions of substance, this seems unrelated to the way I live my life.

As we saw in the first chapter, though, the path of wisdom lies in understanding. The key to replacing passive affects with active ones lies in comprehending why something is the case. For Spinoza, the ultimate why is the big picture itself. All understanding flows from an understanding of the whole.

But, as we saw an understanding of the whole supposes that we see it as lawful. Without the necessary connection of cause and effect not only does any particular understanding become impossible, but it becomes impossible to see the big picture. Without lawful necessity one can see neither the forest nor the trees, so to speak. We saw above that thought is one of the attributes of substance and that thought works according to the laws of logic, but we did not flesh that out.

Is it just a system of impulses or is it something tangible? What is the mind, and what is its relation to matter? There cannot be two substances, one that contains thoughts and one that contains extended things. This solution makes the nature of communication between mind and body incomprehensible.

As we saw in the previous chapter, Spinoza solves the communication problem by arguing that both mind and matter belong to the same substance but are ex- pressions of different attributes of this substance. Our task in this chapter will be to explore exactly how this works. All of this, though, will be with a view to answering very practical questions about how one might walk the path of wisdom. On the relation between mind and matter, it is not entirely clear that Spinoza has solved anything. What is the difference between having two substances and having two attributes of the same substance?

First, most people would take it as common sense that the mind is something radically different from the body. Descartes agrees and goes about giving philosophical support for this. The second, and even more obvious intuition, is that no mat- ter how different mind and body are, they communicate.

Demonstrating this is simplicity itself. Notice when I describe my thought, it is in the first person, but when I describe my thought in relation to my body, my body is referred to in the second person, as if my thoughts were the real me and my body while part of me is separate from my mind. So, Descartes already has common sense on his side. The only thing he is missing is a mechanism that explains the way we already experience the world. Here Descartes fails, as his earliest critics point out, but the way we experience the world still seems to be in fundamental agreement with Descartes.

Spinoza is left in the awkward position of trying to account for our experience, but at the same time showing that the inference that Descartes draws from our experience is wrongheaded. His initial attempt does not seem promising, as it ap- pears that Spinoza makes a distinction without a difference from two substances to two attributes. His difficulty is further exacerbated by the fact that for Spinoza attributes can no more interact with one another than can substances.

If I ask how these properties relate to one another, it seems the most I can say is they are both properties of the same table. Do the height and color interact with one another? Is one the cause of the other? This is analogous to the relation between substance table and attributes color and height in Spi- noza. The attributes of thought and extension belong to the same substance, but they cannot interact with one another. Now Spinoza is in really big trouble. Not only is it not clear how he really differs from Descartes, but now he seems to be claiming that thoughts cannot af- fect bodies and bodies cannot affect thoughts.

Thus, the error of common sense is to suppose that mind and body are different things, and then ask about a mechanism for their causal relation. This is the clear difference between Spinoza and Descartes and the source of their different accounts of the mind. Different ways of perceiving do not require us to posit separate objects to be perceived. The same object can be perceived in multiple ways. Thus, for example, we talked about the differing perspectives that a physicist and a novelist might have on the world. There is no requirement that each must be talking about a different world.

Or, we could imagine the way that a botanist and a poet might talk about the same rose. Both would have a different perspective on the same object. Rather, we would rightly suppose that these are two independent discourses about the same thing. In the same way, the attributes of thought and extension are two different ways of talking about the same substance. Further- more, since every object is part of the same substance, every part of substance can also be perceived in these two different ways.

This has the unfortunate consequence of bending my toenail back the wrong way and separat- ing it slightly from the skin underneath. If Spinoza is right, I should be able to tell two stories about this event. One story would be purely material from the attribute of extension, and one story would be purely mental from the attribute of thought. While both stories need to be complete, neither story can intervene in the other. Thoughts and matter cannot be causally related to one another. The material story would go something like this: Two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

A collision between two solid objects results in the diminution of one or both. The diminution of a human toe causes the firing of nerve cells. The signal from these nerve cells travels up the leg to the spinal cord, where it causes C-fibers to fire in the brain. The firing of C-fibers sends signals back down the spi- nal column to the leg and foot, while adrenaline is released into the blood stream.

Blood flow increases to the damaged area. At the same time my vocal chords let out an involuntary yelp in addition to a few choice words. Finally, this firing of C-fibers causes the grabbing of the foot and a careful observation of the damaged area. Notice first of all that the story of the event told here is completely physical, the interaction of a neuro-chemical system with a very hard object. Second, no- tice, in line with what we saw in the previous chapter, that all of the effects follow their causes with necessity.

Damage to a human body does necessarily send nerve impulses to the brain, which causes C-fibers to fire. Now we can certainly imagine someone so stoically constituted that suddenly losing a toenail does not result in yelping or swearing, but the only change we would make to the physical story is that C-fibers firing are not a sufficient cause for such behavior. We normally do not speak about C-fibers firing. We speak about pain.

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For Spinoza we do justice to the mental way of perceiving things by not confusing it with the material way of perceiving things. So, in the case of stubbing my toe, thinking this event under the attribute of thought would go like this: The idea of stubbing my toe is followed by the idea of pain, which is followed by hatred of the door and anger at my stupidity.

These ideas are all followed by the ideas of hopping up and down and swearing loudly. The idea of pain also causes me to think about sitting down in order to get an idea of how damaged my foot is. Perceived in this way, stubbing my toe is understood purely as a concatenation of ideas.

One idea leads to another idea. Ideas never cause anything physical. The causality of ideas is only related to other ideas, and for Spinoza the causal relation among ideas is just as necessary as the causal rela- tion among physical objects. The objection begs the question. It assumes that the mental and physical are two different things and therefore assumes that a causal relation is possible between them.

Thus, stub- bing my toe does not cause the idea of pain. Stubbing my toe causes C-fibers to fire. At the same time, an idea of stubbing my toe is followed necessarily by an idea of pain. Rather, C-fibers firing and the idea of pain are the same thing talked about in two different ways, like the botanist and the poet talking about the same rose. Spinoza, thus, completely dissolves the issue of how mind and body relate.

The problem arises only when we assume that mind and body are separate things. If, in contrast to this, we suppose that humans are complex individuals that relate to the world in complex ways, and that one may account for these relations in two irreducible ways, then we get a new perspective on humanity in general. There is no longer a need to privilege the mind over the body, as has been the tendency for the greater part of Western thought, nor is it even possible. Mind and body are simply different stories we tell about the same object.

While I have been at pains to distinguish thought and extension as ways of perceiving that do not relate to one another causally, there is an important way that thought and extension are alike. Spinoza has two things in mind here. First, since ideas and things are two ways of talking about the same thing, the order of events remains unchanged.

Thus, in the order of connection among things, the firing of C-fibers comes after damage to the toe. The second thing that Spinoza has in mind by sameness of order of connection is necessity. The necessity of physical connections is easy for us to conceive. We are used to thinking chemical reactions as being necessary. Given the right set of chemical precursors, the same result always follows. We are less used to thinking about thoughts in terms of necessary causality, though. For Spinoza this is another case of confusing ignorance with randomness.

I often have the experience of being in a long conversation, and though the conversation usually starts out on some heady topic of philosophy, I find myself talking about something ridiculous by comparison, say the relative merits of one kind of deodorant over another. Or, sometimes the causes of our thoughts remain unconscious to us, and this is the insight that animates psychoanalysis. We might be subtly shaped by childhood events that we have forgotten and so the thoughts generated by these causes cannot be so easily traced.

For Spinoza, no matter how convoluted our thoughts seem, there is always an underlying logic. The first type of knowledge for Spinoza is knowledge that is dependent on images. By this he means both information gleaned from our senses and information gleaned from others through hearing, reading, or memory. If I see a particular dog, its uniqueness stands out. After seeing five dogs, the uniqueness of each begins to fade. At a hundred dogs, it becomes exceedingly difficult to talk about individual dogs. There are two problems with this. First, the universal lies.

It cannot capture the uniqueness of individual dogs, and the fact of the matter is we do not imagine a universal dog; we only have images of particular dogs. Second, our universals are dependent on our bodily disposition. If I am inclined to like bigger dogs with short but not curly hair, my universal will reflect that. If another person is inclined to fear dogs and think them vicious and dirty, his uni- versal will reflect that. The fact that universals obscure what they claim to explain and that different people produce different universals is the reason why so much controversy exists.

We argue by defending our universal against others. However, Spinoza does recognize that, while there is no universal dog, it is still the case that since everything is part of the same universe, these parts will necessarily share some properties. The kinds of properties that Spinoza has in mind here are things like objects, thought under the attribute of extension, all take up space. Furthermore, all spatial objects will share additional properties that are codified in geometry.

Notice that these common notions do not depend on a universal like dog, but look at the properties of individual things and ask if other individual things have the same property. Common notions are thus transversal; that is, they cut across the strict boundaries that we draw with our universals and ask what unique individuals have in common.

Furthermore, since these common notions concern the actual properties of actual objects, we move from inadequate ideas about things to adequate ideas about things. In the case of universals created by my imagination, the universal intervenes between me and the individual. As a result, I can easily make a false conclusion. If, on the other hand, I think about this particular dog in terms of a several sets of properties that intersect at the nexus of dog, environment, and me, some of which I have common notions, a true conclusion is much more likely. Even if I misapprehend the situation, though, it will not be because I have an inac- curate universal.

It will be because I do not have an adequate idea of some of the properties at play here. As we saw above, an adequate idea is one in which everything that it entails is clear. If my idea of triangle does not include this, then I am bound to make false conclusions about triangles. However, to the degree that my idea does include a true claim, any additional claims that follow from this are also true.

Adequate ideas are true and connected to one another with necessity. Reason thus sees the necessary connection among individual things. In contrast to this, ideas based on universals, or the imagina- tion, are necessarily inadequate. They are inadequate because through them we are unable to comprehend what follows with necessity.

So, for example, though my universal dog is a large, short-haired dog with four legs, it does not follow that all actual dogs have four legs. Nor does it follow that all dogs are large or have short hair. Precisely because these universals are inadequate, precisely because we cannot get necessity out of them, they only appear to be knowledge and are not actual knowledge.

Since reason deals in necessity, it is true knowledge. The third kind of knowledge also deals in necessity, so it is a true kind of knowledge. But, there is also a crucial difference. In these terms we could say that reason had an adequate idea of the parts and thus sees the necessary connection among the parts. Reason moves from tree to tree, so to speak. In contrast to this, intuitive knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the whole from one of the attributes of substance to an adequate idea of the parts.

Intuitive knowledge moves from the forest to the trees, as it were. What we gain in intuitive knowl- edge is a grasp of the big picture as the necessary connection of all the parts to the whole. We see that everything that is follows from the nature of the universe. For any particular thing to be different than it is now would require that the uni- verse as a whole were different and operated according to different laws. The unchanging here does not refer to a transcendent God over and above creation, but to that which makes the change possible, namely the laws that govern the universe.

Take triangles, for example. While we can imag- ine a nearly infinite number of triangles and could produce many of them over a given period of time, their production is governed by a set of laws about the enclosure of space in simple plane objects. They remain unchanged by the production of triangles in history. If being myself depends on my understanding of why something hap- pened to me, then it is clear in the first instance that this understanding cannot involve the first kind of knowledge.

Insofar as my thoughts are dominated by images, universals, I fail to grasp things adequately. Insofar as I do not understand I am in bondage. The replacement of passive affects with active ones must be the result of thinking in terms of reason and intuitive knowledge. As we saw, what these two kinds of knowledge have in common is seeing the necessary connection, either among the parts or between the whole and the parts. Surely, we expect physicists, mathematicians, and biologists to pursue the necessary con- nection of events, even if their knowledge is not always sufficient to realize it.

Furthermore, we tacitly depend on precisely this necessity in our everyday lives. We do not walk off very tall buildings in the hope that gravity may not apply.

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We expect gravity to apply every time without exception, necessarily. Our activities are organized around this expectation, this necessity. While we happily rely on necessity for our basic movements, and happily accept scientific explanations of the universe and everything in it in terms of necessity, there is one crucial realm that we reserve as immune from necessity: We are more adamant that the human will is free than we are that the rest of the universe follows from necessity.

He argues that free will is illusory, and that escape from bondage, true freedom, depends on ridding oneself of this illusion. If free will is an illusion, how did it become so widespread? For Spinoza, an unshakeable belief in free will has several sources. Humans believe that they operate under different rules from the rest of the universe. Chief among these different rules is a free will. Thus, while we can maintain that everything else in the universe follows neces- sarily, human will does not.

In maintaining free will we usually do not reflect on the radicalism of the claim. What exactly does it mean for the will to be free? It would mean that the will is not subject to the same laws of causality as the rest of the universe. Everything else in the universe follows its cause with necessity, but this would not be so with the will. For Spinoza, this is tantamount to imagining an ef- fect without a cause sufficient to determine it.

Is it really plausible to think about effects without causes? At the very least, the burden of proof is on those who would argue that the will is free, despite thinking that nothing else in the universe is. The second source is of belief in free will is a dualism of mind and body. If one could demonstrate that the mind is separate from the physical universe, then it need not be subject to the same laws as the physical universe.

Will as a component of mind could thus be free in such a system. As we saw in the previous chapter, though, a dualism of this type is untenable. A mind so separated from the body that it shares nothing in common with it, though conceivably operating according to different laws, cannot plausibly communicate with the body, because there would be no common medium through which each could communicate with the other. To solve this problem Spinoza proposes a monism in which mind and body are two different ways of talking about the same object. This solves the problem of communication by eliminating the positing of two separate things that must com- municate.

However, what follows from this is the affirmation of the human mind within the universe and thus subject to the laws of the universe. Willing for Spinoza would simply be another thought necessarily caused by a long chain of thoughts. The third source of belief in free will, and the source that makes such a belief so intractable, is ignorance. It does not therefore follow, though, that not knowing why something is done makes it random, free, or undetermined. We would not want to base something seemingly so crucial to humanity as free will on something so flimsy as ignorance.

Some will argue that Spinoza has misunderstood free will. It must mean some- thing other than he has in mind. He has erected a straw man here. Without free will, responsibility becomes meaningless. Without re- sponsibility there can be no morality and no justice. If every action is determined, how can we hold anyone accountable for anything morally or legally?

Most would argue that freedom of the will lies in making the choices that give our life direction. Thus, we imagine life as a series of choices among possibilities that are completely undetermined. A senior in high school applies to a dozen universities and is accepted to four. Surely, he is free in his choice. Of course, she must take responsibility for her choice, but the choice is hers to make.

Or, what about something more mundane? There are numerous ways I can return home from my office. Or, what about the case of road rage from chapter 1? As we examine these situations, our notion of what a free will is becomes clearer. By saying we freely choose among several possible options, the presup- positions that underlies this is that given the same set of circumstances and the same choices, we could freely choose otherwise.

This presupposition manifests itself in numerous ways, sometimes as pride in the case where a gamble pays off. I took a risk and it paid off handsomely. This seems to be at the heart of free will. We are held responsible precisely because we could have acted otherwise. The movie turns on the premise of one man, played by Bill Murray, living the same day over and over again. Many would argue that the development of his character proves that he is free.

He is faced with the same set of circumstances over and over again and continually chooses otherwise, until he finally wakes up on February third. It appears that Bill Murray is choosing freely because in the face of the same circumstances he chooses differently. There is a crucial difference, though, in each of his Groundhog Days. This difference is sufficient to change the conditions under which Bill Murray chooses.

As a point of comparison, note the way the other people in the movie act who do not remember that it is the same day over and over again. They act exactly the same every time, until Bill Murray interacts with them differently. This new interaction results in a different set of choices. The question that still remains, however, is whether or not the choice is free.

Spinoza is adamant that this is not the case. In the case of the other characters in the movie, their choices are not free because in each case they could not have acted otherwise. They chose differently because of the new cause introduced by Murray. That is, even though, it appears that he is facing the same situation over and over again, he is crucially different. He remembers what happened the last time he was faced with the situation, and that knowledge causes him to act differently.

True freedom, for Spinoza, lies in increasing our capacities. Brent Adkins is associate professor of philosophy at Roanoke College. A User's Guide Chapter 2 Chapter 1: What's Love Got to do with It? Chapter 4 Chapter 3: On not being oneself, or the Shmoopy Effect Chapter 5 Chapter 4: The Big Picture Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Chapter 7 Chapter 6: True Freedom Chapter 8 Chapter 7: Bodies in Motion Chapter 9 Chapter 8: The Body Politic Chapter 10 Chapter 9: Religion Chapter 11 Chapter The Environment Chapter 12 Conclusion: