Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T13:15:54.173Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Spinoza on Necessity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2010

Olli Koistinen
Affiliation:
University of Turku, Finland
Get access

Summary

Many passages in the Ethics give the impression that Spinoza accepts necessitarianism. This is the doctrine that everything that is the case is necessarily the case or, in Leibnizian terms, that the actual world is the only possible world. Some of the passages that produce this impression are the following: “(1) . . . there must necessarily follow from the necessity of the divine nature an infinity of things in infinite ways (that is, everything that can come within the scope of the infinite intellect). (1p16d) / (2) Nothing in nature is contingent, but all things are from the necessity of the divine nature determined to exist and to act in a definite way. (1p29d) / (3) Things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case. (1p33) / (4) . . . I have here shown more clearly than the midday sun that in things there is absolutely nothing by virtue of which they can be said to be “contingent” . . . a thing is said to be “contingent” for no other reason than the deficiency of our knowledge. . . . (1p33s1) / (5) Whatever is within God's power must be so comprehended in his essence (1p34) that it follows necessarily from it, and thus necessarily exists. (1p35d) / (6) . . . all things follow from God's eternal decree by the same necessity as it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles. (2p49s)”

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×