Spinoza's Parallelism

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Benedict De Spinoza, in his "Ethics", delimits the concept of parallelism as a means to overcome the Cartesian mind-body dilemma. Building his metaphysical interpretation upon the idea that there exists one single substance, Spinoza proceeds to prove through his propositions that this one substance must necessarily exist. The paper points out that this substance is perceivable through its attributes, which appear to be distinct from one another, though in actuality are different aspects of the same substance. The paper focuses on two of the attributes, thought and extension, which correspond to the mind and body. The paper concludes that Spinoza's parallelism seeks to solve the mind-body dilemma by positing that these two distinct attributes are of a single substance.

From the Paper:

"Modes are the way in which the attributes of the one, infinite substance manifests its essence; in other words, everything we know is a mode of the eternal substance manifesting in itself. An important aspect of this conceptualization is that not only the entirety of the physical universe exists as a mode, but also all thoughts, ideas and events. Spinoza's definition states that "[b]y mode I understand the affectations of a substance, or that which is in another through which it is also conceived". Existence is possessed only by substance, thus substance is in itself, while modes are in substance. Likewise, the essence of a thing belongs to the substance, not its modes, thus the mutable qualities of things are not the totality of their being. Descartes' wax analogy would be explained by pointing out that all of its observational qualities may change, yet its essence as wax would persist because that essence lies in the substance of which the wax is a mode. As Spinoza clarifies, "[p]articular things are nothing but affectations of God's attributes, or modes by which God's attributes are expressed in a certain and determinate way"."

Sample of Sources Used:

• De Spinoza, Benedict. Ethics. Trans. and ed. Edwin Curley. Penguin Books, Ltd.: New York, NY. 1996.

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