Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 16:07:01 -0500 (EST) From: Kelly Timothy Lynch <ktlynch-AT-vex.net> Subject: Inkonsequenz Spinozas (5 of 11) (5 of 11) (II cont) Nietzsche also speaks of the necessity of falsity, at least for us, as a condition of life, and as necessarily determined by our nature and by our perspective within nature as a whole (see, eg., sections 4, 10, and 11 of _Beyond_Good_and_ Evil_). We should, however, be very careful here; for Nietzsche is not Spinoza. In the demonstration of propostion 7 in _Ethics_ III Spinoza equates the power of a thing with its conatus and refers to the previous proposition. In the demonstration of proposition 6 the power of a thing is not explicitly spoken of; instead, the power of God is spoken of and we are referred to proposition 34 of Part I. Proposition 34, which opens a small group of propositions concluding Part I, equates the power of God with God's essence. Although Spinoza does not define the term "power", despite the rigorous geometric method, the immediate context of proposition 34 tells us a bit about the meaning of this term. The demonstration of proposition 34 is based on God's necessary and infinite causality; propositions 35 and 36 stress two fundamental aspects of this infinite causality, namely its absolute necessity and its active productivity. These two aspects are again mentioned in the opening sentence of the demonstration of proposition 7 in Part III, which speaks of the productive causality of things (referring in fact to Part I, Prop. 36) and the necessity of this causality. What a thing does, what it can do, and what it endeavours to do necessarily depend on its power, which is the thing's essence or conatus. At the level of power, all appearance of final causality seems to disappear. All things--we are almost tempted to say "all powers"--in nature necessarily draw their consequences at each moment; but nature has no end in view. Outside of Deus sive Natura there is and can be nothing. Here we should note, however, that the wording of proposition 6 of Part III contains a qualification: each thing endeavours to persevere in its being "to the degree that it is in itself" ("quantum in se est"). Strictly speaking, no finite thing is in itself absolutely; for all things are, in one way or another, dependent on other things. Hence its being in itself is a matter of degree. From this it follows that not everything which a thing actually does is a consequence of its power or canatus, that is, its essence. This is the point of Spinoza's important distinction between "action" and "passion" in definition 2 of Part III. To the degree that what a thing does is a consequence of its own power, conatus, or essence, it is active and powerful; to the degree that what a thing does is a consequence of the power of other things, it is passive or powerless. Thus the power of a thing, in Spinoza's sense, must not be confused with, say, brute physical strength. As his definition of "affect" (Part III, Def. 3) indicates clearly enough, this point is crucial for understanding his psychology, not to mention his ethics. A vulgar mind will read Spinoza--or, for that matter, Nietzsche--in a vulgar way, thereby failing to understand their thought. [Note added Jan 1998: It may be of interest to some that the short Spinoza quotation in my sig is in fact _Ethics_ I, prop. 34.] Kelly Timothy Lynch || "Dei potentia est ktlynch-AT-vex.net || ipsa ipsius essentia." Toronto, Ontario, Canada || Spinoza --- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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