A key issue concerning the views of Spinoza is whether he is a necessitarian or if he allows for the existence of possibilities. Commentators on Spinoza agree that his metaphysics revolve around, at the very least, a deterministic universe in which the laws of nature, together with all preceding causes, determine everything that occurs. There is also agreement that Spinoza does allow for doxastic (or epistemic) possibility, which involves humans being able to imagine different outcomes based on inadequate knowledge of preceding causes. For instance, humans can imagine a particular car existing or not existing. The divide among commentators occurs over the issue of whether Spinoza is a necessitarian or not. For instance, consider the existence of a black car. If Spinoza is a necessitarian, then the car could not be any color other than black; otherwise, the car could have been a different color. Due to Spinoza’s acceptance of a universe based on deterministic laws, the entire causal order would have to be different in order to produce the car in a different color. A major focus of this study, therefore, will be on whether Spinoza allows that the entire causal order could have been different. Views supporting a necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza, those of Garrett and Koistinen, will be examined as well as views supporting a possibilist interpretation of Spinoza, those of Curley and Walski, and Miller. The views of these five commentators will be examined in an attempt to determine their plausibility in regard to Spinoza’s writings as well as their plausibility in regard to the consistency of their arguments. In order to simplify the task of examining the allowance of possibilities other than doxastic in Spinoza’s metaphysics, this study will focus on Miller’s view of nomological possibility. Nomological possibility involves everything that is consistent with the laws of nature when the laws of nature are considered separately from the actual causal order. In the course of this study the shortcomings of the views defending standard necessitarianism will be demonstrated; the problems of the views espousing the allowance of nomological possibilities will also be demonstrated. A major shortcoming of the necessitarian views involves the plausibility of including one particular causal order within God’s essence, while a major shortcoming of the possibilist views will be their inability to handle the parallelism doctrine that Spinoza holds. A major aim of this study is to demonstrate that nomological possibility, when combined with IP17 in the Ethics, yields a result in which all the things consistent with the laws of nature end up actually existing. IP17 declares that “God creates everything that He understands.” If God understands everything consistent with the laws of nature, then He creates everything consistent with the laws of nature. The hybrid view, which is termed “super necessitarianism,” will be examined to sketch a way that it could fit into Spinoza’s metaphysics. The view of super necessitarianism will be considered in three variations, those of eternal, expansive, and concentrated. Eternal super necessitarianism involves all the things consistent with the laws of nature being created over the vast spans of time, while expansive super necessitarianism involves all the things being created over the vast universe. Concentrated super necessitarianism involves all the things being created within the same finite mode but expressed through different attributes. The choice will be made as to which of the three variations of super necessitarianism is most plausible, and finally it will be shown how super necessitarianism avoids some of the problems inherent in the necessitarian and possibilist views.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-09-29T12:34:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tobias A. Rosa Faria.pdf: 674601 bytes, checksum: 1bdb0f1a1125c4b712c5d86fa192f93a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T12:34:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tobias A. Rosa Faria.pdf: 674601 bytes, checksum: 1bdb0f1a1125c4b712c5d86fa192f93a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The philosopher Charles S. Peirce argues that chance is an objective principle, that is, it possesses reality. The necessitarians, however, are opposed to this, since they believe everything happens because of necessity. In defense of their position, they defend that necessitarianism is a postulate of scientific reasoning, an idea that Peirce refutes by questioning the very notion of postulate in sciences, in which discoveries occur through abduction, deduction and induction, not only through the second inference. Peirce, however, does not deny the reality of the law. On the contrary, he gives it the status of a cosmological principle, in the form of habit acquisition, still active, as well as the principle of chance, which has the same status. Furthermore, Peirce's criticism does not leave the a priori reasons which the necessitarians resort to unscathed, since he rejects them in the light of John Stuart Mill, though he opposes the justification of induction and the denial of universals presented by Mill. Then, once the arguments defended by the necessitarians have been questioned, Peirce can present his own positive reasons for the reality of chance. These reasons, unlike those defended by the necessitarians, are eminently phenomenological, so they cannot be considered a priori reasons. Chance, in addition, interweaves with the efficient cause and with the final cause, which configures a conception of causation opened to the novelty and spontaneity that only it can confer. Chance is also the genesis of variety, which is attested by phenomenology, though necessitarians projects try to deny it or preserve it without any growth. Peirce evidently refutes them, as he does, in particular, to philosophies for which chance is merely a measure of human ignorance of the causes of a given phenomenon and, in general, to philosophies, even those ones that are not necessitarians, which do not recognize in the idea of chance the metaphysical principle that it is / O acaso, sustenta o filósofo Charles S. Peirce, é um princípio objetivo, isto é, goza de realidade. A isso opõem-se os necessitaristas, aqueles para os quais tudo se dá por necessidade. Em defesa de sua posição, sustentam que o necessitarismo é um postulado do raciocínio científico, argumento que Peirce rebate questionando a própria noção de postulado em ciências de fato, nas quais descobertas ocorrem por meio de abdução, dedução e indução, não apenas por meio da segunda inferência. Peirce, entretanto, não nega a realidade da lei. Pelo contrário, confere a ela o estatuto de princípio cosmológico, na forma de aquisição de hábitos, ainda atuante, assim como o princípio do acaso, que tem mesmo estatuto. Tampouco as razões a priori a que recorrem os necessitaristas passam incólumes pela crítica de Peirce, que as rejeita na esteira de John Stuart Mill, muito embora dele se oponha quanto à fundamentação da indução e à realidade dos universais. Assim atacados os argumentos necessitaristas, Peirce pode apresentar suas próprias razões positivas a favor da realidade do acaso. Estas, ao contrário daqueles, são eminentemente fenomenológicas, de modo que não cabe considerá-las a priori. O acaso, ademais, entretece-se com a causa eficiente e com a causa final, o que configura uma concepção de causação aberta à novidade e à espontaneidade que apenas ele pode conferir. O acaso também é gênese da variedade, da qual presta contas a fenomenologia, em que pesem os projetos necessitaristas de negá-la ou conservá-la sem crescimento algum. Peirce evidentemente os refuta, assim como faz, em particular, com as filosofias para as quais o acaso é mera medida da ignorância humana a respeito das causas que regem determinado fenômeno e, em geral, com as filosofias, mesmo não necessitaristas, que não reconhecem no acaso o princípio metafísico que é

This thesis aims to show that Coleridge's thinking about science was inseparable from and influenced by his social and political concerns. During his lifetime, science was undergoing a major transition from mechanistic to dynamical modes of explanation. Coleridge's views on natural philosophy reflect this change. As a young man, in the mid-1790s, he embraced the mechanistic philosophy of Necessitarianism, especially in his psychology. In the early 1800s, however, he began to condemn the ideas to which he had previously been attracted. While there were technical, philosophical and religious reasons for this turnabout, there were also major political ones. For he repeatedly complained that the prevailing 'mechanical philosophy' of the period bolstered emerging liberal and Utilitarian philosophies based ultimately on self-interest. To combat the 'commercial' ideology of early nineteenth century Britain, he accordingly advocated an alternative, 'dynamic' view of nature, derived from German Idealism. I argue that Coleridge championed this 'dynamic philosophy' because it sustained his own conservative politics, grounded ultimately on the view that states possess an intrinsic unity, so are not the product of individualistic self-interest.

In various parts of Ethics, Spinoza explains both the existence and the necessity of the existence of things, like God, through their perfection(Proofs and Scholium to theorem 11 of part 1 and Scholium 2 for Theorem 33 of part 1). In this paper I attempt to elaborate on the suggestion made by Don Garrett, in Spinoza's Necessitariansim (2018), that Spinoza might have thought that no other world is possible but the one that expresses the greatest possible perfection. I will show that Spinoza's understanding of perfection is intimately connected with "Spinoza's PSR" and his understanding of casuality, to make Garrett's suggestion more probable. The paper is motivated by Koistinen's concerns, in Spinoza's Proof of Necessitarianism (2003), that Garrett's suggestion is too weak to entail necessitarianism. I'll show that Koistinens presented concerns can be rebutted and that the explication for the perfection of the world or "system of finite modes" that he ascribes to Garrett is flawed because it doesn't reflect how Spinoza uses the notion of perfection in Ethics. / <p>Höstterminen 2023</p>

<p>There is longstanding interpretive dispute between commentators over Spinoza’s commitment to <i>necessitarianism</i>, the doctrine that all things are metaphysically necessary and none are contingent. Those who affirm Spinoza’s commitment to the doctrine adhere to <i>the necessitarian interpretation</i> whereas those who deny it adhere to what I call <i>the semi-necessitarian interpretation</i>. As things stand, the disagreement between commentators appears to have reached an impasse. Notwithstanding, there seems to be no disagreement among commentators on the question of necessitarianism’s philosophical plausibility as a metaphysical view: the doctrine is wildly untenable. This consensus view is more relevant to the interpretive debate than few have recognized, since leading semi-necessitarian commentators take the doctrine’s alleged absurdity to be one of the most compelling reasons (if not <i>the</i> most compelling reason) to prefer their reading over the necessitarian interpretation: for, as a matter of methodological principle, great philosophers like Spinoza should not be ascribed ridiculous views in the absence of better evidence. </p> <p>This dissertation seeks to defend Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism on both the interpretive and philosophical fronts. I argue not only that the necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza is more plausible than the semi-necessitarian interpretation on textual grounds, but that Spinoza’s necessitarianism is a serviceable philosophical view whose tenability has been almost entirely overlooked and perfunctorily rejected. The principal basis upon which I build this defense is Spinoza’s rich and fascinating view of essences—what I simply refer to as his <i>essentialism</i>. Spinoza’s essentialism forms the bedrock of his metaphysics and is significant not least because it underlies and informs doctrines like his necessitarianism. Spinoza’s essentialism supplies resources to answer not just interpretive problems associated with necessitarianism, but philosophical challenges to the plausibility of the doctrine. My defense of Spinoza’s necessitarianism on philosophical grounds also offers a novel way of getting past much of the current interpretive impasse among commentators by effectively undercutting the methodological motivation for the semi-necessitarian reading. In addition to my defense on the interpretive front, then, my defense on the philosophical front provides supplementary reason to <i>a fortiori</i> favor the necessitarian reading of Spinoza.</p>