Gianluigi Segalerba
IEF – Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos, Universidade
de Coimbra, Portugal
The
human condition in Spinoza
A central theme of Spinoza’s Ethica is the
description of the individual’s exposition to the emergence of passions. The
individual’s mind is constitutively liable to being passive in relation to the
influences exercised on the individual’s mind by reality: these influences are
exercised on the mind since the mind is a part of the whole nature. Since he is
a part of nature, the individual is exposed to the influences of the outside
reality; he is constitutively passive in relation to nature. Being passive, for
the individual, means the emergence of passions in the individual’s mind:
passions bring about in the individual a condition of mental enslavement. Thus,
any individual is, at least initially, a slave as regards the constitution of
his mind. The question is whether the individual is condemned to the condition
of slavery, or whether he can find a road to liberation.
Spinoza tries to find a way out of the passions
and a method of an at least partial liberation from the condition of mental enslavement:
through the analysis of the structure of reality and through the inquiry into
the structure of the individual’s mind, Spinoza shows that the development of
knowledge of reality in the mind is the solution to the process of liberation
of the mind. The possibility, for the individual, to reach an authentic power
of mind consists in the acquisition of the knowledge of reality. The
acquisition of knowledge corresponds to the development of dispositions present
in the individual’s mind: it is a development of the individual’s nature.
The knowledge of God, which corresponds to the
knowledge of the whole reality, immediately increases the power of the
individual’s mind: this knowledge therewith contemporarily diminishes the
influence of the passions on the individual’s mind. Reaching the knowledge of
God means, for the individual, the empowerment of the mind against the
individual’s constitutive exposition to passions. Through the knowledge, the
individual becomes able to counteract his being acted on by the external
reality: he becomes able to conduct his own life instead of being steadily
conducted by the influences coming from outside.
The human condition appears, in Spinoza’s Ethica,
to be constitutively disadvantaged, since men are, due to their essence, exclusively
modifications or exclusively modes of the only substance, i.e., God: consequently,
men are ontologically dependent entities.
The individual’s being a mode implies the
individual’s being a part of nature: consequently, the individual is exposed to
external causes which he does not know (at least not immediately). A long way
of mind education is needed in order that the mind can achieve knowledge. The
mind’s condition of the individual is exposed to an at least initial condition
of ignorance of the external causes which exercise an influence on the mind.
Therefore, the individual is liable to form confused and inadequate ideas of
the processes of reality. Since inadequate ideas are, for Spinoza, passions,
the individual is constitutively exposed and subjected to passions. This
disadvantaged condition is constitutive of men; it is, as such, not eliminable,
since it is a direct consequence of the individual’s being a mode.
Throughout Spinoza’s Ethica,
the process of transformation of the individual consists in the development of
the individual constitution from having only inadequate ideas as regards the
structure of reality to acquiring adequate ideas as regards the structure of
reality: through the education process, the individual becomes an entity which
has greater and greater levels of being active. The
individual develops himself through knowledge: the component of his mind
represented by the active part increases: therewith the proportion existing
between being active and being passive progressively changes to the advantage
of being active. The condition of the individual is therefore not statical: it
is not immutable. Likewise, the essence of the individual is not immutable: the
transformation brought about by the acquisition of knowledge changes the
constitution of the individual; the individual who reaches the knowledge of
reality is no longer the same individual as the individual who is in the
condition of ignorance.
The individual has specific limits which correspond to his being a mode;
nonetheless, through the process of acquisition of knowledge, the individual
can limit his being passive and can progressively increase his being active.
The individual’s condition is to be seen as potentially dynamic. Liberation is a process, it is
not a definitive condition: since the individual is a part of nature, and since
the individual is in nature, the individual cannot reach a condition of perfect
liberation. The individual will always be and always remain an entity having
elements of passivity and exposed to the formation of passions.
In order to develop a programme
of education for the individual, an investigation into the whole reality,
therein including the individual’s mind, is needed. The individual needs to
learn the organisation of reality in substance, modes and attributes; he needs
to learn what he constitutively is; he needs to learn the notion of adequate
and of inadequate ideas; he needs to know the definition and the formation of
passions and of actions. The individual needs to learn the way of functioning
of his mind: the notion of imagination, reason and intuitive science should
necessarily belong to the individual’s orientation as regards his relation to
reality and his cognitive development. Any aspect of reality needs to be
inquired into in its completeness: the duty of the individual consists in
becoming aware of his condition and his position in reality.
The fundamental characteristic of Spinoza’s way
towards knowledge is Spinoza’s conviction that to become moral the individual
needs to know the structure of reality. The individual needs to reach the
knowledge of reality and of his position in reality. Being active means having
adequate ideas, i.e., it means reaching the knowledge of reality. The passivity
of the individual can be eliminated through the process of learning the
structure and the organisation of reality.
-
The individual who does not know the structure of
reality is the prey of his passions: he fluctuates since he has no fixed point,
no internal constitution, and no mind organisation.
-
The individual who knows the structure of reality
can understand the cause and origin of his affects and is in the condition of
putting his affects under control.
Knowledge is
indispensable. The
individual begins to master himself by becoming aware that he has affects. The
first step towards mind development is the acquisition of the awareness of one’s
nature. The individual, before beginning the investigation on the structure of
reality, does not know the nature of the affects; he does not know the limits
of his mind. The first step for the transformation of the individual consists
in the individual’s becoming aware of his position in reality.
The
progressive acquisition of knowledge of the principles of reality, which brings
about the transformation of inadequate ideas into adequate ideas, changes the
condition of the individual. The individual whose mind has inadequate ideas is
more exposed to passivity than a mind which has adequate ideas. A mind which
has inadequate ideas fluctuates in ignorance: it is not master of itself; it
cannot react to the influence from outside. A mind which
knows the structure of reality is, on the contrary, able to control and
neutralise passions. Knowledge of reality means control of reality
since knowledge of reality means awareness of the external influences and capacity
to eliminate the external influences.
The individual possesses a disposition for
knowledge and for the development of the mind. Through knowledge, the
individual becomes able to understand how his mind functions, what his
dispositions are, and how affects are produced: the knowledge consists, among
other things, in the analysis of the individual mind’s structure. Thereby, the
individual becomes able to understand his position in the reality. Through the
hard work employed in understanding the mechanism of his affects, the
individual can see whether and how affects can be controlled.
Being active is caused by knowledge. Knowledge
will not come alone to the individual: the individual ought to reach knowledge.
To have a development in one’s mind, the individual ought to be engaged in the
acquisition of knowledge. No development of knowledge in the individual’s mind will
come about without the due engagement of the individual. The engagement of the
individual will be always and constantly needed.
Bibliography
Curley. E., The Collected Works of Spinoza. Edited and Translated by Edwin
Curley. Volume II. Princeton. Princeton University Press 2016.
Garrett, D., (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Edited by Don Garrett. Cambridge.
Cambridge University Press 1996.
Spinoza, B., The Chief Works of Benedict De Spinoza,
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Introduction, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Tractatus Politicus. Revised
Edition. London. George Bell and Sons, 1891.
Spinoza, B., The Chief Works of
Benedict De Spinoza, Translated from the Latin, with an Introduction by R. H.
M. Elwes. Vol. II. De Intellectus Emendatione – Ethica (Select Letters). Revised Edition. London.
George Bell and Sons, 1901.
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Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung,1925.
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