G. H. R. Parkinson: “Hegel, Pantheism, and Spinoza” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1977), pp. 449-459. “Hegels acquaintance with the philosophy of Spinoza was of long standing. Soon after he went to Jena, the first collected edition of Spinozas works was published there in 1802-03. The editor was Paulus, the professor of theology, and Hegel informs us (GP 3, 371) that he collaborated with Paulus in the preparation of the edition. This means that, relatively early in his philosophical career, Hegel was brought into close contact with Spinozas doctrines. They evidently made a considerable impression on him, and are discussed at length in the Wissenschaft der Logik, Part I of the Encyclopaedia, and in the lectures on the philosophy of religion and on the history of philosophy. “This is not to say that Hegel had a deep and scholarly knowledge of Spinoza. Paulus edition was not a good one—indeed, it failed to meet the most elementary critical standards—and it appears that Hegels part in the work was only a modest one. Yet it remains true that he valued highly what he understood, or thought he understood, of Spinozism, which he declared (GP 3, 376) to be ‘in essence, the beginning of all philosophizing.’ A study of Hegels criticisms of Spinoza can therefore be helpful to the student of Hegel, in that Hegels own doctrines, which in themselves may seem formidably abstract, are given a concrete manifestation in these criticisms. Such a study is also valuable to the student of Spinoza. Hegel may not always provide the Spinoza scholar with satisfactory answers to problems of interpretation, but his objections to Spinoza are shrewd, and it is important to see if they are fair. “When Hegel discusses Spinoza, the issue of his supposed pantheism comes up repeatedly; Hegel asks in what sense Spinoza can be called a pantheist, and what defects there are in the pantheism that can properly be ascribed to him.... “The first task must be to settle the meaning, or meanings, of the term ‘pantheism’ that Hegel recognizes. The term ‘pantheism,’ he says, is ambiguous (PR II, 1,128). One associates with pantheism the doctrine that God is ‘hen kai pan’ (literally, ‘one and all’). Now, this may mean that God is the one-all (das eine All), the all that remains simply one. But ‘pan’ can also mean ‘everything’ (alles), and to speak of pantheism in this sense is to speak of the view that everything is God. This, says Hegel, is the doctrine of the ‘everything-God,’ not of the ‘God who is all’ (die Allesgötterei, nicht Allgötter ei). To be more specific: the doctrine of the ‘everything-God’ is the view that God is all things, where ‘things’ are regarded as individual and contingent. It is the view that ‘God is everything—he is this paper, and so on’ (PR 1.2, 195). Hegel asserts that pantheism of this kind is not to be found in any religion, far less in any philosophy. In this sense, then, Spinoza is not a pantheist. “However, Hegel asserts that there is a sense in which Spinozism can be called a pantheism. He says repeatedly that Spinozas philosophy is an ‘acosmism’; as such, he declares it to be a pantheism (E, par. 151, Zusatz). Hegels concept of ‘acosmism’ has two elements, a negative and a positive. The negative element is the view that the world, the ‘cosmos,’ does not exist; it is a mere phenomenon, lacking in true reality. When Hegel speaks of ‘the world’ in this context he has in mind the totality of individual things (Alles), Spinozas acosmism, seen from its negative side, is the denial of the real existence of individual things. Individuality, and indeed distinction of all kind is obliterated; everything is thrown in an abyss of annihilation. The positive element in Spinozas acosmism is the view that what does exist, is God, to whom everything is reducible. Individual things are the ‘modes’ of God; fundamental differences of kind—in particular, the distinction between mind and matter—are seen as different ‘attributes’ of God. “It is obvious that acosmism is the very opposite of the doctrine of the ‘everything-God.’ Far from saying that God is the world, Spinoza (as Hegel interprets him) says that the world does not exist; only God exists. This raises two main questions, the answers to which will occupy the remainder of this paper. (1) How, according to Hegel, does Spinoza argue for this acosmism, and what is the value of these arguments? (2) Is Hegel right in ascribing acosmism to Spinoza?... “According to Hegel, the thesis that the world is a mere phenomenon follows from Spinozas principle that every determination is a negation (Omnis determinatio est negatio). It is important to realize that Hegel does not regard this principle as false; on the contrary, he says that it represents a ‘true and simple insight,’ and that in following this principle Spinoza was on the right track.... Applying the principle that determination is negation (Hegel argues) Spinoza concludes that finitude, extension, and thought are all negations, and that therefore none of them is real. “...It seems that Hegel would say (though he does not make this explicit) that Spinoza is accepting the principle enunciated in The Phenomenology of Mind as ‘The true is the whole.’10 In so doing, Hegel would argue, Spinoza was right; consequently, he was right in rejecting dualism and saying that in a sense everything is one (GP 3, 373). H e was wrong, however, in thinking that this ‘one’ must be a wholly undifferentiated unity. “It now has to be seen how Hegel thinks that Spinozas acosmism is to be refuted. In outline, Hegel argues that Spinozism is faulty in that it remains at the level of what he calls ‘understanding,’ an abstract, non-dialectical way of thinking whose deficiencies can be remedied only by ‘reason,’ i.e., by the exercise of dialectical thinking (GP 3, 230).... “All this has been stated in very general terms. The specific error that Spinoza committed was, according to Hegel, that he regarded negation merely as determinacy or quality, and failed to grasp it as self-negating negation (WL II, 164).... In sum, to speak of the negation of the negation is to speak of a kind of movement among concepts, a kind of self-development.... ... “...A mode is defined there [in Spinozas “Ethics”, Y.O.] as ‘That which is in something else, through which it is also conceived’ (Eth. I Def. 5).... “To see more clearly what Spinoza has in mind, it will be helpful to concentrate on the modes of extension. Spinozas views about these modes can roughly be summarized as follows. Just as a cubical shape is to a cubical body, so is a particular body to extension as a whole. A cubical shape has no separate, independent existence; similarly, a particular body has no separate, independent existence. The question now is, exactly what Spinoza means by this. His views about ‘bodies’ {corpora) are complex, in that he uses the term ‘body’ in two senses. Sometimes he uses it to refer to what he also calls an ‘individual’ (Def. after Ax. 2, following Eth. II 13 Sch.), that is, a complex entity consisting of smaller bodies. Sometimes he uses it to refer to a corpus simplicis-simum—a ‘most simple body’ or ‘corpuscle’—that is, one of the basic physical entities out of which ‘individuals’ are formed (Sch. after Lemma 7, following Eth. II 13 Sch.). Neither an individual nor a corpuscle (Spinoza argues) can be called a self-dependent entity, a substance; but the nature of their dependence is not the same. A body in the sense of an ‘individual’—say, the human body—is a transient form of the corpuscles that constitute it. It is a way in which they are organized; a form which they display for a certain period of time, but which they have not always displayed, and will not always display. As this is so, the human body may be said to be dependent on the corpuscles which make it up; it could even be said that it is the way (modus) in which certain corpuscles are organized. But this does not seem to be what Spinoza has in mind when he uses ‘mode’ as a technical term; for a corpuscle is itself a body, and is therefore a mode (Eth. II Def. 1; I 25 Cor.). In what way, then, are corpuscles ‘in7 extension, and in what way cannot they be conceived without extension? It seems that we must see Spinozas views in the context of his rejection of the doctrine of atoms and the void (cf. Eth. 115 Seh.; Gebhardt ed., 59). The ultimate corpuscles recognized by physics, Spinoza argues, are not independent substances moving about in a vacuum; they are forms of a single attribute of substance, extension, differentiated simply in respect of what Spinoza calls ‘motion and rest, speed and slowness’ (Lemma 1 after Eth. II 13 Sch.).... “So far, it has been argued that Hegel was wrong in thinking that Spinoza held a doctrine of acosmism; that is, that he believed that all differences—whether the difference between extension and thought, or the differences between various particular things—are merely illusory. But it still remains open to Hegel to argue that this is at any rate what Spinoza ought to have held.... ... “...Spinoza says that it is evident that matter as a whole {integram materiam), considered as indefinite, cannot have a shape; to talk of shape makes sense only {locum tantum obtinere) in the case of finite and determinate bodies. The determination of shape, then, does not belong to a thing in respect of its being, but belongs to it in respect of its not-being {est ejus non esse).... “It is now time to consider another part of Hegels critique of Spinoza. It was mentioned earlier that Hegel argues that the concepts of logic must be self-generating, if logic is not to contain any element of contingency. But Spinoza (according to Hegel) does introduce an element of contingency, in that he is unable to deduce from his concept of substance the different attributes and the various modes, and so has to treat them merely as given. It is interesting that a similar objection was put to Spinoza by Tschirnhaus, a German mathematician who was a friend of Leibniz. Tschirnhaus objection concerned the modes. He asked Spinoza (Ep. 82; June 1676) how the variety of things can be deduced a priori from the attribute of extension; how, that is, a variety of bodies can arise out of infinite extension, taken by itself. Spinoza replied (Ep. 83) that the variety of things cannot be derived from extension alone, and for that reason Descartes definition of matter in terms of extension was a bad one; instead, matter must be explained by ‘an attribute which expresses eternal and infinite essence.’ This can be confusing, in that Spinoza himself refers to an attribute of ‘extension,’ and it is not immediately clear why Descartes should be blamed for defining matter in terms of extension. However, the point that Spinoza is making is made clear by a remark at the end of a previous letter (Ep. 81). Descartes conception of extension, Spinoza says, is of a merely quiescent mass (molem . . . quiescentem); consequently, he has to import motion from outside (a causa . . . externa) by viewing it as a result of the action of God. For Spinoza, on the other hand, matter (i.e., the attribute of extension) has to be viewed as essentially dynamic, and hence as generative of the various forms that it takes.... “Let us, in conclusion, offer some general remarks about the way in which Hegel went wrong in his interpretation of Spinoza. Gueroult has argued (op. cit., p. 466) that Hegel saw Spinozas philosophy through the distorting medium of the philosophy of the young Schelling, which he rejected in the Preface to the Phenomenology; in other words, Hegels attack on Spinoza is in effect an attack on a Schelling who is projected back into the seventeenth century. There is much truth in this suggestion. The famous remark in the Phenomenology, ‘the night in which all cows are black’ (Hoffmeister ed., 18), which is usually taken to refer to Schellings absolute, is roughly paralleled by a remark about Spinoza, to the effect that everything goes into the unity of Spinozas substance as into the eternal night. More than this: Schellings absolute is said in the Phenomenology to be an identity, the ‘A = A’ (op. cit.y 19). Now, in describing Spinozism, Hegel speaks of the ‘abyss of an identity’ (GP 3, 408); Spinozas substance, he says, is self-identity of an abstract kind (PR 1.2, 199). “But there is more to be said about Hegels erroneous interpretation of Spinoza than this. It can also be argued that Hegel is at fault in that when he tries to place Spinoza within his intellectual context, he places him in the wrong context. He is apt to compare Spinozism with the thought of the East. He says that in Spinoza, the oriental intuition of absolute identity is introduced into Western thought (GP 3, 368; cf. 376); that in his philosophy, all content sinks into emptiness, into a purely formal unity, much as in Indian thought Siva is the great whole, not distinguished from Brahma (WL I, 338). It it is objected that there is no evidence that Spinoza knew anything of Indian thought, Hegel would reply that he understands ‘oriental thought’ to include Jewish thought. Now, what is at issue here is not the large question of how much, or how little, Spinoza owed to Jewish thought. What is at issue is the very different question of what he owed to Jewish or oriental thought as Hegel understood it; that is, to that view of things ‘according to which the nature of the finite world seems frail and transient’ (E, par. 151, Zusatz, trans. Wallace). In effect, Hegel is here suggesting that Spinozism has to be connected with a religious vision, of the type to which the adjective ‘mystical’ is often applied. Hegel is not the only one to have made this suggestion; but it has been one of the themes of this paper that the suggestion is mistaken, and that Spinoza should rather be connected with a way of thinking—a way that is intimately connected, not with the religion, but with the science of his time.” uchebalegko.ru/docs/8/7268/conv_1/file1.pdf
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 09:26:17 +0000
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