Spinoza + Deleuze
Background: Aristotle, St. Anselm, and Descartes
Spinoza takes over the concepts of ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’ from the western metaphysical tradition of Aristotle through Descartes, but he gives it a radically new, some would say “bizarre”, inflection. In Aristotelian logic every proposition contains a subject and a predicate which reflect a fundamental division in reality: substances and predicates or attributes of substances which inhere in substances. The attributes of substances can change: Dr. Wall weighs more or less 67 kg now; he weighed 3 or 4 kg at some time; about 30 kg as a youngster, etc.. The substance named ‘Dr. Wall’ must somehow endure through all the changes of attributes, otherwise there would no coherence whatsoever in the universe. That substances somehow endure change gives rise to the medieval thought that substances can be neither created nor destroyed. (Spinoza clearly adheres to this line of thinking.) In any case, from Aristotle through Descartes and beyond, substances count as the ultimate constituents of reality. Since there is a division in the universe between substances and attributes, it must then be possible—at least intellectually—to separate them and thus to determine what are substances pure and simple, substances prior to any attribution: or, what essentially are the substances with the attributes becoming then “accidents” which are dependent on that in which they inhere, and are in that sense inferior. (Spinoza clearly rejects this line of thinking.)
For Aristotle, substances are many and countable. They are divided into genera and species. But this led to many problems. Some substances were countable, others were not, and some were ambiguous. ‘Man’, for example, can refer both to an individual man (and other individual men) and also the class in which he is (or they are) included. What of ‘snow’ and ‘water’? These are “mass” nouns or mass substances: Do we say that all of water is in this bottle of water, or do we deny that water is substantial? (Spinoza was clearly alert to the issue since he will affirm the uncountability of substance altogether. Spinoza/Deleuze will say that, yes, this bottle of water, that drop of water, etc. completely express ‘water’, or completely actualize ‘water’. In order to count, you have to begin: substance does not begin; it is eternal.)
Medieval theologians became enamored of the idea of a substance that may exist necessarily; that is, a substance whose essence entails existence. The “ontological argument” of St. Anselm became the most famous of all attempts at deducing that God as prime substance must exist necessarily. The argument runs something like this:
We have a clear (if only hypothetical) idea of a being which possess all perfection—every positive attribute: God. No greater Being than this can be thought. If this Being were to exist only in our minds and not in reality, then it would yield to an even greater Being whose perfections do include real existence. But this violates the hypothesis. Therefore the idea of God as possessing existence necessarily must correspond to reality.
Both Descartes and Spinoza take over versions of this argument. St. Thomas Aquinas rejected it on the basis of Christian doctrine. Kant refuted it summarily by denying that existence is a real attribute. But the idea of a God who exists necessarily, is omnipotent, all-knowing, etc. became a powerful claim which then had to be reconciled with ideas of human freedom, agency. And, it was essential to show that at least one being, one substance must exist necessarily. Otherwise, there is only meaningless contingency which cannot explain, for one thing, the existence of language which presupposes meaning. But, on the other hand, basically, the concept of such an omniscient, all knowing God banishes all contingency from the world, and human agency or human subjectivity becomes illusion. So, western thinking is caught in an impasse.
By far, the most decisive philosophical event after Aristotle was René Descartes and the force of his thinking was immediately apparent, especially to Spinoza (and also Leibniz). Descartes simply refused to accept as true any proposition that could not be clearly proven. All science must be founded on metaphysics and metaphysics is the system of self-evident truths: truths that need no further proof than that which is contained in their premises and conclusions. Unless there are self-evident truths, nothing at all is clearly knowable. Descartes’ famous self-evident truth is the ego cogito: ‘I think therefore I am’ from the Discourse on Method. This he considered to be indubitable, and his Meditations set out to demonstrate its indubitability and the consequences thereof. For Descartes, the ego cogito was as self-evident as the truths of geometry. These truths Descartes labeled as “clear and distinct” ideas. A clear idea is one I can comprehend without the assistance of the senses, one I comprehend purely through reason; a distinct idea is an idea unmixed with any other idea. Like Descartes, Spinoza believed that knowledge must begin with fundamentally indubitable premises, not experience. In a letter to Simon de Vries he writes, “You ask me whether we need experience to know whether the Definition of any Attribute is true. To this I reply that we need experience only for those things which cannot be inferred from the definition of the thing…” [L 10]. Descartes, however, famously ended up with only the one first principle, the ego cogito ego sum; and he ended up with two radically distinct substances: res cogitans (clear and distinct) and res extensa (obscure, but “guaranteed” reality by God who would not fundamentally deceive the senses) which could have no possible interaction. (Likewise, in Spinoza, different attributes would have no relation to each other (a very important point [P2]).) As with the ontological proof, Descartes showed that there is at least one self-evident truth.
Spinoza will retain the ambitions of rationalism but radically ontologize them via the path of immanence (and of course this is what will have a major an impact on Deleuze). And, Spinoza will retain Descartes’ geometric method. His Ethics is built on axioms and definitions and then proceeds to proofs. Spinoza’s geometric method is also a response to the warnings of Moses Maimondes’ Guide to the Perplexed, in which he complains of the misleading languages of man which tend to be imaginative. For example, men tend to speak of God as perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing, but these are anthropomorphisms, as if God is Super-Man. In Letter 9 to de Vries Spinoza says that human language can get access to essences but only if there are “real” definitions at the start. And we see that the Ethics begins with the famous and notoriously obscure definition of “substance”. If there are “real” definitions at the outset, then the reader will able to grasp that which the deductions express, or, that which is immanent to the deductions.
Spinoza’s Metaphysics
The colossal and rational conclusion Spinoza draws from both St. Anselm’s ontological argument and Descartes’ self evident ego cogito is simplicity itself: There exists at most, or only, one substance:
P14 Except God no substance can be or be conceived
P15 Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God
Axiom 4 The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause
If A causes B then B is dependent on A for the very idea of B involves the idea of A which caused it. The truth of B will always refer to A, and A explains B. All conclusions are dependent on premises. Only if the properties of something follow from its own idea is it independent. To be dependent is to be ‘in’ something. Suppose we form a philosophy club, each of us contributes some money, and then we rent out a room on a monthly basis in order to meet and discuss things. We say that our club rents out the room each month; none of us individually rents out the room. It seems as if the club rents out the room; but in fact it is only because some or each of us did this or that thing—donated some cash, discussed the issue, made phone calls, signed some agreements, etc.—that the room now available for us. Thus, for Spinoza, it is not that we are in the club (he is not a set theorist), but that the club is ‘in’ us; is immanent to us, or in Deleuze’s word, the club “imminates” from/in us (and not emanates from out of us, or we from out of it: Spinoza, Deleuze are also not neo-Platonists).
D1 By cause of itself [causa sui] I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.
This is the entire content of the world. For Spinoza, that which is conceptually independent is also ontologically independent. Substance depends on nothing outside itself, and, as there is only the one substance in Spinoza, there is only the one world and nothing outside, nothing beyond, no transcendence. To the question ‘why is there something and not rather nothing?’ Spinoza answers ‘because substance necessarily exists; its very concept entails existence’. This is now no longer Aristotelian substances which can be enumerated and categorized. Scholastic and Cartesian philosophers assumed substances to be the basic constituents of the world and to be self-dependent. Spinoza merely draws the conclusion that if self-dependent then obviously self-caused and as self-caused necessarily existing (for, a cause cannot cause nothing to be; a cause always, by definition, causes something, if only itself and thus itself must exist—if anything at all exists) and, as self-existing, always existing in some mode. The mode or modification is dependent for its existence on substance for a mode can be conceived of as existing or not existing. You and I can conceivably not exist; thus we are modes of, and are dependent on, divine substance: Spinoza’s God. If we exist, we do so because of some power outside us which explains our existence.
Different from mode is attribute. Attribute constitutes the essence of substance, as thought constitutes the essence of mind. This is also how Descartes understands attribute in his Principles of Philosophy. But Spinoza adds intellectual perception to the definition:
D4 By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence.
This is not just a subjective “point of view” of substance but actually constitutes the essence of substance. The attributes are incommensurable with each other, however. Yet, each constitutes substance essentially. Thus, we can know reality, substance, the world completely in utterly incommensurable ways. Spinoza’s God is substance consisting of infinite attributes each of which express eternal essence.
That there is only one substance is not numerical data. He says somewhere (I can’t find the reference) that it is not that we begin counting up the substances in the universe and stop at one. The “oneness” of substance does not belong to the essence of substance. ‘One’ is not an attribute and the infinity of attributes is not in any way numerical. Numbers belong to the languages of man. Spinoza takes this from Moses Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed. For Spinoza, number is imaginative and is not a feature of reality.
An attribute is an essential; it is not an accident. Dr. Wall weighs 67 kg accidentally: he could conceivably weigh 68 kg tomorrow. Dr. Wall is animal: if this is changed he ceases to exist. But, still, attributing animality to Dr Wall does not constitute his essence. There is more involved, and it is very difficult to understand because God has infinity of attributes of which we know only two: thought and extension, or ideas and physical objects. Thought, on the one hand, and extension (the objects of the world) on the other are both essentially substantial and each completely explains or expresses God. Nothing else is required. The problem of the incommensurability of mind and matter (res cogitans and res extensa) does not arise for Spinoza as it does for Descartes because mind and extension are two attributes of the same substance. However, this involves Spinoza in some grave difficulties. God’s attributes are infinite. The infinite is conceived of by Spinoza as an ontological category, not a number. But there are at least two attributes we humans know of: mind and extension. Somehow, ‘infinite’ and ‘at least two’ must be compatible. I think this is at the crux of the Badiou-Deleuze debate.
Deleuze’s Spinoza
Chs. 2 & 3: Attributes, Substance, Names, Words Each attribute completely expresses substance which has no existence outside of its expressions, outside of its attributes. There is one substance and many attributes, that is to say, many essences. This is completely foreign to Aristotelian/Medieval metaphysics. Essentially, for Spinoza/Deleuze (and Negri/Hardt): essence (and not Being—not Badiuo!) is multiple. Or, essence is multitudes of existences. Substance has no existence outside its attributes, just as the philosophy club I mention above has no existence outside its members, is completely co-extensive with its members, but is not, for all that, numerically identical with its members. The club could have any number of members; no number of members could possible exhaust the club, could cause the club to be greater or lesser, better or worse, because the club is not a quantity but instead a quality. The club is potentially any number of members; it does not matter how many. Each member of the club is an expression of the club in essence, and all the members and any portion of members express the club essentially. From Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza:
What is it that exists through itself, in such a way that its existence follows from its essence? This is clearly substance, the correlate of essence, rather than the attribute in which essence has existence solely as essence. The existence of essence … [read passage] [EP 43]
In the club each member’s existence is necessary, and all or any portion of members are necessary; but the necessity does not exist in each (all, some portion) member him or herself (because this or that member (or some or all) can be replaced by another.) Also, the club is “expressed” completely in the bodies (rei extensa) of the members; and also expressed completely in the idea of, or ideas for, the club (res cogito).
Deleuze then discusses the problem of divine names, Words, and propria and says that attributes are truly Words. (He is thinking here of the Word(s) of God: “Let there be Light, and there was Light.” Does the Word create Light? Mean Light? Describe Light? No, the Word actualizes and expresses Light.). Suppose we try to understand this by shifting our example from the philosophy club to language (Anyways, this is the analogy I am using to try to understand EP 44-51). All words completely express language (but do not exhaust language) and each word completely expresses language. But, “all words” do not mean or describe language; and no word—not this word not that word—means or describes language. Neither “explains” language. All the words, and each word, are Word: the Name of language; Scripture; the voice of Language; because language is uni-vocal. (French, English, Chinese etc. would be “modes” of language is my analogy.) No matter how many words or how “well’ or “badly” we speak, the ‘nature’ of language is not exhausted and we—via words themselves except insofar as we use them, practice language, speak or write, or make signs—do not substantially approach or understand the “nature” of language. Because it is of the nature of language that its essence includes its existence which, in the case of language, entails usage because language is not something lying around (in dictionaries or grammar books) awaiting activation. Likewise, no creature of God (of substance) is an emanation of or from out of God: God is already “in” each creature just as language “in” each word, and the philosophy club is “in” each member.
Now, “all the words” and “each word” expresses, actualizes, formalizes language but neither “all the words” nor “each word” means language and thus the outlines for a ‘negative theology’ are revealed: language is, eminently, what “all the words” and “each word” are not. Likewise, according to a long tradition: God is not everything and anything we can say of Him. Nothing in Spinoza’s thought logically prevents such a reading yet nothing is further from the whole force of Spinoza’s thought which is, as Deleuze tirelessly asserts, nothing but affirmative. There can be no negation of univocal being just as language always affirms univocal existence: I may say “there is no elephant in this room” but I cannot say this, cannot negate the presence of the elephant without a prior affirmation: there is.
In reality (but not in thought or imagination) “all the words” or “each” or “any word” and language are identical just as (and I think this is not completely clarified in Deleuze) attribute and substance are in reality (but not in thought) identical. They are cross-referenced at every point:
L2 By attribute I understand whatever is conceived through itself and in itself, so that its concept does not involve the concept of another thing.
L4 By substance I understand what is conceived through itself and in itself, i.e., that whose concept does not involve the concept of another thing.
Attributes do not represent substance; they are not predicates of substance; or names for substance. Spinoza has managed to liberate what in Aristotle remained a relation of predication. This means that the relation Spinoza is aiming at is not an intellectual one; it is a real unity. Attribute is in substance and at the same time substance is in attribute but without any dependence. They are co-independent. They cooperate independently(?) Their real unity bypasses intellect. Attribute and substance share the same definitive identity univocally. That there may be more than one attribute (at least two: extension and thought) is not numerically “more than” the single identity of attribute and substance. Let us be clear, for this is something Hegel refused to read in Spinoza: there is first substance, and then modes; but there is not first substance, and then attributes. Attributes and substance are the same definition: I no sooner define substance than I concretely define attribute, and I no sooner define attribute than I concretely define substance. Hegel’s misreading from Lectures On the History of Philosophy: “What comes second, after substance, is the attributes” [259]. Hegel is attempting to confine Spinoza to classical Aristotelian predication (above) when in fact, precisely by defining attributes in the same way as substance, Spinoza “liberates” the attributes from dependence. This attempt has profound consequences of which Deleuze, Althusser, Negri and Hardt are aware.
On this point I myself cannot conceive of this ambivalence of singularity/multiplicity without thinking of Gustave Le Bon’s La psychology des foules [The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind]. The argument of that study hinges on the precise constitutional ambivalence of the “crowd” [foule: throng, mob, mass] as an undecideable singularity and multiplicity. Within the crowd everyone identifies with everyone else and thus every one at the same time every one dis-identifies with everyone else (because everyone else’s identity is not his or her own identity). The identity of the crowd is precisely its dissolving of any “one” identity. The crowd is the concrete refutation of mathematics. Le Bon’s “crowd” is the always potentially nightmare version of the club from my example above example. A crowd is another example of a nonnumerical but still distinct concrete unified reality. This unity is not a number but a condensed plethora, or ‘body’.
Although substance and attribute are concretely identical; attributes themselves are formally (that is to say, intellectually, conceptually) distinct [EP 65-66]. Attributes are ontologically singular—they are all and each substantial—but formally distinguished from each other. Deleuze’s next step is to show that this real univocity to which formal differentiation concretely refers is not inertia and indifference but is productive. For this he relies on the basic definition that opens the Ethics which includes the causa sui: There is always a dynamic causality: substance, in causing itself, is necessarily the cause of al things which Deleuze will get to in the second part of his treatise on Spinoza:
God is said to be cause of all things in the very sense (eo sensu) that he is said to be cause of himself. [EP 67].
Ch. 4 Absolute, Infinite, Virtual I’m going to bypass most of this chapter because I’m not familiar with Leibniz’s arguments on these points. I’ll only comment on the striking conclusion to the chapter: Deleuze’s assertion that the opening propositions of the Ethics are “not hypothetical but genetic” [EP 79-80]. By this he/Spinoza want to get around the standard objection made to the ontological argument of Anselm and to Descartes’ version of it; namely, that only a hypothetical God has been proven to exist because no necessity can be demonstrated of His possibility. For Deleuze/Spinoza: since God is by definition an infinity of attributes and since each attribute is independent of any other attribute then nothing whatsoever prevents their “compatibility”: thus God is necessarily possible unless something prevents His existing in actuality; but then God would not be God, because nothing can prevent God from anything; thus God necessarily exists. You may accept that argument or not, but what is important for Deleuze is the concept of “necessary possibility” which, I believe, in his later writings becomes the kernel conception of the ‘virtual’. The virtual is that which is necessarily possible, but not actual. This is exactly like death in Blanchot and Heidegger which can never be actualized in the first person and, in that way, is eternally possible (…even, in a certain way, after I die!) It is that “in” the actual which necessarily escapes, which nothing prevents its escaping by virtue of its inactualizability, or, its ability to be not-actualized (?) For Deleuze the virtual (or virtue) is power. (But it is nothing more than a power to escape power, is it not? Deleuze is so often talking about escape and ‘lines of flight’ is he not?)
The attributes, which are independent and infinite, are a virtual “composition” Spinoza calls God, the Absolute, “in which there is nothing physical” [EP 79]. We begin to see here the nascent politics which will prove so attractive to Deleuze, Negri and Hardt: each attribute must remain independent, free, and thus increase strength/power and also increase the infinite virtual multitudes which forever escape totalization.
Here, let us speak of it at last: are not ‘escape’, ‘lines of light’, and even ‘radical passivity’ just various forms of messianism, or of a perpetually “incomplete” messianic redemption? (This is the issue that Giorgio Agamben continually wrestles with.) Keep in mind that Deleuze famous called Spinoza the ‘Christ’ of philosophy and he himself was attracted to ‘philosophical orphans’: Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, Hume. I.e., those who left no “tradition” behind them as did Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel… “Bachelors”, in short…
Ch. 5 Power Power is the capacity to exist; a capacity that is necessarily possible (or eternally virtual, or—same thing—eternally escaping). I think it comes down to this: Substance is that which exists to the extent that it is affected by the attributes. To be affected is a power to exist necessarily, not a power to do this or that necessarily.. The power to be affected by attributes is also a power to preserve itself in existence. Substance, which causes itself, is a power to exist insofar as it is affected by its attributes and insofar as its preserves itself.
Attributes are the constituting power of substance which is the power to exist or to be affected and constituted by/in any number of modes which come after substance and which are constituted and which are actual. That which is preserved is not, ultimately, this or that mode (which may change) but the ability (capacity, power) to be constituted—which, for Spinoza, is existence. Do not be mislead by certain Leibnizian critics of Deleuze and Spinoza:
Reducing things to modes of a single substance is not a way of making them mere appearances, phantoms, as Leibniz believed or pretended to believe, but is rather the only way, according to Spinoza, to make them “natural” beings, endowed with force or power. [EP 92]
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