Corry Shores
Gilles Deleuze, ‘Gueroult's General Method for Spinoza,’ in Desert
Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974 (London: Semiotext(e), 2004): 145-155.
Gueroult's original genetic-structural method
"renewed the history of philosophy." He defined structure as the order
of reasons, which are "the differential and generative elements of the
corresponding system; they are genuine philosophemes that exist only in
relation to one another" (146b).
Reasons are of two types: 1) simple reasons of
an analytic order of knowledge, or 2) genuine reasons of a synthetic order of
knowledge, through which the system's genesis is as well a genesis "of
things through and in the system" (146c). These two systems are
distinguished structurally, which is a more profound distinction than mere
opposition: in analysis, synthesis' role is to determine the order of reason,
and analysis leads immediately to giving reasons of being through a progressive
synthesis (146-147).
Gueroult illustrated these orders' complication
by comparing Fichte's method with Kant's analytical one. Fichte does not
neglect the analytic method, but rather says that it works to suppress itself.
Spinoza does not begin with a presynthesized notion of God, rather he begins
with simpler ideas and moves synthetically toward God. We see he does this in
the first eight or so propositions of the ethics, which are the focus of
Gueroult's work (147b).
The order of reasons resides on the same plane
of the system and is always overtly articulated. Structure is not hidden
beneath what is said, because it is explicit and manifest. And yet, it often
goes unnoticed, because structure is the fact of saying, and it becomes
convoluted as we continue to say it (147c).
Seeing structure or the order of reasons is thus following the
path along which the material is dissociated according to the demands of the
order, and the ideas decomposed according to their generative differential
elements, along which also the elements or reasons are organized into
"series;" one must follow the chains to where independent series form
a "nexus," the
intersection of problems or solutions. (147c.d)
Gueroult proceeds thoroughly through each
smallest partition of the Ethics so to 1) bring-out the structure of
Spinoza's system, namely, its generative elements, their interrelations, and
their proper series, 2) show why Spinoza's geometrical system was appropriate
for his structure, and 3) account for each demonstration's various
characteristics, such as position, reference, and accompaniments (149-148).
The historical development of the system's
structure may be deduced from its states, so for example we may compare the
structural state of the Ethics with that of the Short Treatise to
see if they bear different structural features.
In general, a system evolves inasmuch as certain pieces change
their position, in such a way that they cover a larger space than before, even
while they more tightly control this space. (148c)
But yet a system may contain so many
indeterminate points that several orders coexist within it (as Gueroult showed
in Malebranche). Gueroult says that Spinoza's structure, like Fichte's, has
"internal surges" that "determine new dissociations,
displacements, and relations," which can be found where Spinoza discusses
God's essence, proofs of His existence, and substance's and attribute's
definitions (148d).
Because the Short Treatise is concerned
with identifying God and Nature -- and hence also substance and attributes --
Spinoza valorizes Nature, because "God is defined as Being which presents
only every attribute or substance, and a devalorization of substances or
attributes, which are not yet self-caused but only self-conceived"
(148-149). But on the other hand, because the Ethics aims to identify
God with substance, Spinoza valorizes substance itself, taken to be made up of
attributes or qualified substances, each of which is fully self-caused.
Furthermore, Nature is displaced and thus not initially identified with God,
which "aptly expresses the mutual immanence of created nature and creative
nature" (149ab). We then can see that each text not so much presents a
different structure as much as another state of the same structure.
In the first eight propositions, Spinoza
demonstrates that for every attribute there is a unique, self-caused, and
infinite qualified substance. Critics claimed that Spinoza first hypothesized
that substance was unified before later treating it as ahypothetical. There are
several reasons this problem is essential:
1) In Treatise on the Reform of the Intellect,
Spinoza supports this position by claiming that we may begin with any true idea
that may be "impregnated" with fiction so to arrive at the idea of
God "where all fiction ceases."
2) A theoretical understanding of the first
eight propositions requires we evaluate them practically. When we only regard
them hypothetically, we obtain two misreadings of what Spinoza means by
attribute:
a) in terms of the "Kantian illusion that
makes attributes forms or concepts of the understanding," and
b) as the "neo-Platonic vertigo that makes
attributes already degraded emanations or manifestation."
Although, we still wonder what aspects of these
first eight propositions are provisional and conditioned. (149b.d)
Gueroult thinks that these first eight
propositions must be categorical because they allow us to grasp how they confer
to positive and apodictic properties to each qualified substance, especially
their being self-caused. It is not hypothetical to claim that only attributes
are distinct, for there is but one substance per attribute. We only mistakenly
consider it so if we ignore the "real distinction" Spinoza makes. In
fact, just as the number one is inadequate to substance, so too are 2,
3, 4 inadequate to attributes, argues Gueroult, on a account of Spinoza's
devaluation of number in general, which does not adequately express the nature
of a mode. (149-150b)
Saying that attributes are in reality distinct is tantamount to
saying that each is conceived of itself, without negation or in opposition to
another, and that they are all therefore affirmed of the same substance. ...
The logic of real distinction is a logic of purely affirmative difference and
without negation. (150b)
"Attributes constitute an irreducible multiplicity,"
in terms of multiple attributes and one substance.
Attributes are a formal or qualitative multiplicity, "a
concrete plurality which, because it implies the intrinsic difference and
reciprocal heterogeneity of the beings that comprise it, has nothing in common
with the plurality of number literally understood.'" (150c, Deleuze quoting Gueroult, Spinoza 158)
For Gueroult, God is a motley: he is
simple insofar as he is not composed of parts, but complex insofar as he is
made up of prima elementa that are absolutely simple (150c).
God is motley, but unfragmentable, constituted of heterogeneous
but inseparable attributes. (150cd, Deleuze quoting
Gueroult, Spinoza 447)
"Attributes are quiddities or substantial
forms of absolutely one substance;" they are
1) irreducible constitutive elements of an
ontologically singular substance,
2) multiple structural elements of substance's
systematic unity, and
3) "differential elements of a substance
that neither juxtaposes nor grounds them, but integrates them" (150d).
Thus Spinoza establishes the genealogy of
substance in these first eight propositions. Although, the genealogy of
substance is not the same as the genesis of modes, because the genealogy deals
with a logical constitution of one same being's diverse realities, and the
genesis deals with the physical composition one same reality's determinations
or parts (150-151). And yet, we may speak of genesis and genealogy in the same
sense, because a mode is generated immanently in the attributes on account of
their being substance's genealogical elements. Out of this principle emerges "the
methodological unity of Spinozism as a genetic philosophy" (151a).
Spinoza's genetic or constructive philosophy
goes hand in hand with a synthetic method that determines attributes as genuine
reasons of being. Because these reasons are constitutive elements, there is no
ascension from attributes to substance;
the absolutely infinite substance contains no other reality than
these attributive substances, although the absolutely infinite substance is
their integration and not their sum (a sum would yet presuppose number and
numerical distinction). (151b)
We come to the constitutive attribute-substances
through a regressive analysis so that rather than their being genetically
constructed, they are demonstrated from absurdity. But then afterwards, the
attributes undergo a genetic construction that integrates the "analytic
process and its self-suppression" (151c). So even though we begin from the
ideas of the attributes, through the self-suppression of their analysis, we
obtain reasons of being and not just those of knowledge. And thus the
geometrical method overcomes fictional ideas and is adequate to construct the
real. So what is hypothetical or provisional is not the eight propositions but
rather substance's "analytic possibilities" to form separate substances
(151d).
Through the construction of the unique
substance, two series intersect and form a nexus: series one is the first eight
propositions "through which we ascend to differential constitutive
elements," series two are the 9th, 10th, and 11th propositions
"through which the idea of God integrates these elements and makes clear
it can be constituted only by all these elements together" (151-152a). It
is for this reason that Spinoza claims we must "simultaneously" keep
in mind the definition of God while reading the first eight propositions in
order for them to have their impact. Spinoza does not want to deduce from the
unity of constitutive substances the unicity of the constitutive substance.
Rather,
he invokes the infinite power of an Ens realissimum, and its necessary unicity as substance, to
draw a conclusion about the unity of the substances that constitute it without
losing any of their previous properties. (152b)
The condition that allows substances to function
together as a whole [God's infinite power] is really distinct from these actual
structural elements themselves. They bear this real distinction, which is also
what unifies them, hence it guarantees their "formal correspondence and
ontological identity" (153bc).
We see the "nexus" between the two
series in the role that the notion of self-cause plays in genesis. "Causa
sui is first and foremost a property of each qualified substance"
(152bc). But this leads to a vicious circle: causa sui grounds the
infinite, while at the same time it derives itself from the infinite, because
it is a property of each qualified substance. The circle is untangled when we
take into consideration that causa sui "derives itself from
infinitude as the full perfection of essence, but grounds infinitude as
the absolute affirmation of existence;" [it follows from
substance's essence that substance be self-caused, and self-causation grounds
the infinite substance, because through the self-causation that creates
substance and thereby posits it, substance not only has essence, but existence
as well, so self-causation affirms substance's existence].
Likewise for God or "the unique substance:
its existence is proved first by the infinity of its essence, then by
self-causation as the genetic reason of the infinitude of existence, 'namely
the infinitely infinite power of the Ens realissimum, by which this
being, necessarily causing itself, absolute posits its existence in all its
extension and plenitude, without limit or fault" (152c; Deleuze quoting
Gueroult Spinoza 204, 191-193).
it follows that the genetic construction as a whole is inseparable
from a deduction of its distinctive features, whose causa sui is paramount.
Substance causes itself by means of its essence,
which defines substance as self-causing: this is the genesis of substance's
essence. The genesis of substance itself, as thing or existence, comes about
through knowledge that its essence causes it to be self-caused.
And what holds for the causa sui holds,
in varying degrees, for all the other distinctive features: eternity,
infinitude, indivisibility, unicity, etc., because these are nothing more than
the causa sui itself from
different points of view. (152d; Deleuze quoting
Gueroult Spinoza 206)
There are two series of genesis. [Deleuze might
mean these possibilities: essence and existence; substance and attributes.
Because substance's existence is manifest and expressed through the attributes,
and because substance itself is its essence, we might pair them together to obtain
the series a) substance/essence, and b) existence/attributes]. The causa sui
appears as the "nexus" of these two series, because it causes the
attributes to be identical [because by causing itself, substance causes its
existence, which means it causes its self-causality to be expressed in the
absolutely independent attributes], the causal act
explains the unicity of a single substance existing of itself,
despite the difference of its attributes as to its essence: the attributes are
diverse and incommensurable realities, integrated into an indivisible being
"only by the identity of the causal act through which they give themselves
existence and produce their modes." (153a; Deleuze quoting
Gueroult Spinoza 238, 447)
[As we noted, the causa sui, when taken
from different points of view, is all of substance's distinctive features:
eternity, infinitude, indivisibility, unicity, etc. As self-causing, causa
sui is power]. However the causa sui's power is not entirely
independent, and the distinctive features are not entirely autonomous in
relation to substance's essence. And when we mistakenly think so, "we risk
a misreading as we evaluate the intertwining notions" (153ab). Causa
sui itself is a distinctive feature. When we instead consider it as
belonging to the unique substance, it is because the unique substance's essence
makes use of the self-causation of its attributes' essences. The power to
self-cause is requisite for substance to be unique, but
it is not by virtue of power that the substance is unique, it
is by virtue of its essence: "If by the unicity of power (i.e. the power
of the attributes), we understand how it is possible that the attributes are one despite the diversity of their proper
essences, the reason that grounds their
union in one substance alone is nothing other than the infinite constitutive
perfection of the essence of God." (153b; Deleuze quoting Gueroult Spinoza 379-380)
[So what makes God one is the perfection of His
essence. The perfection of his essence brings it about that substance causes
itself by positing itself in the infinity of attributes that express
substance's infinity, which goes hand in hand with it being self-caused.
Substance's self-causation is its power, which is expressed in the independence
of the attributes. But because they all share substance's same self-causation,
this power to cause itself is requisite for the attributes to be unified in one
substance. However, substance's self-causation is a feature of it's essence;
hence substance's essence it the reason that substance is unique].
so,
power is the inseparable
distinctive feature of essence, and it expresses at once how the essence
is the cause of the existence of substance and the cause of the other things
that derive from it. (153c)
Thus the statement "power is nothing
other than essence" has two meanings:
1) God has no other power than the power of his essence; he
acts and produces only through his essence, and not through an understanding or
a will: he is thus the cause of everything in the same sense that he is
self-caused, since the notion of power expresses precisely the identity
of the cause of every thing with the self-caused;
2) the products or effects of God are properties which derive from
essence; they are thus modes,
whose unity in the different attributes is in turn explained by the theme of power,
that is, the identity of the causal act which posits the properties in each of
the modes. (153c.d)
Because essence and power are so
intertwined, we cannot take essences as models in a creative understanding
[because essences are necessary and infinite], and power cannot be taken as a
raw force in a creative will [because the self-causation is
eternal, hence not created]. Understanding and will can only be modes
(153-154). This devaluation of understanding allows it to take on an ambiguous
meaning when we speak of the "understanding of God:" on the one hand,
God's understanding would be utterly unlike that of finite creatures such as
ourselves, so we could only grasp it analogically. However, by taking God's
understanding as a mode, we take our understandings as being parts to it as a
whole; but moreover, "we establish the adequation of all understanding to
the forms which it includes, since modes envelope the perfections on
which they depend in the same form as the perfections which constitute the
essence of substance. Mode is an effect; but if the effect differs from the
cause in essence and existence, it at least has in common with cause the forms
that it envelopes only in its essence, whereas the forms constitute the
essence of the substance" (154b).
[So even though modal thoughts are caused by
substance and are hence really distinct from it, they also envelop the modal
essences of which they are expressions, and these expressions are of the one
substance; hence modal thoughts are both distinct from substance while being
part of its unity].
Spinoza holds that human understanding may
conceive the essence of God; this is the absolute rationalism of Spinozism
(154c).
There would be no genetic and synthetic method if what is
engendered were not in a way equal to what engenders (thus the modes are
neither more nor less than substance). (154d)
Deleuze concludes by praising Gueroult's book
for establishing "the genuinely scientific study of Spinozism"
(155b).
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