Spinoza y el método general de Martial Gueroult

Deleuze, Gilles. “Spinoza y el método general de Martial Gueroult” (reseña de M. Gueroult, Spinoza I, (Dieu, Ethique I), Aubier-Montaigne, París, 1968), en La isla desierta y otros textos. Textos y entrevistas (1953-1974), ed. David Lapoujade, trad. José Luis Pardo, Pre-textos, Valencia, 2005, pp. 191-203.

Texto aquí:

Spinoza's Letter on the Infinite (Letter XII, to Louis Meyer)

Martial Gueroult

Martial Gueroult, “Spinoza’s Letter on the Infinite,” in Spinoza. A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin (Garden City, New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973): 182-212.

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I. The problem of the infinite and of the indivisibility of substance is treated in Book I of the Ethics, Proposition xii demonstrates infinity; Proposition xiii, its Corollary and its Scholium, and lastly the Scholium of Proposition xv demonstrate indivisibility. Infinity and indivisibility are two unique properties of substance which derive immediately from its fundamental property: causa sui. Indeed, whatever necessarily exists of itself cannot, without contradiction, be deprived of any part whatever of its existence; Consequently, it is necessarily infinite and excludes any partitioning. Infinity and indivisibility being two sides of the same property, there results a radical antinomy between the infinite and the divisible. If we affirm one we must deny the other: the dogmatist,·affirming divisibility, denies the infinite; Spinoza, affirming the infinite, denies divisibility. This is an irreducible conflict, as long as we ignore the nature of substance, but one that is instantly resolved as soon as we know that substance necessarily exists of itself.

Given this, however, the problem is far from exhausted. The antinomy opposing infinity and divisibility, resolved in the Ethics·on the level of substance by excluding the divisible, reappears on the level of the mode, where we must affirm infinite divisibility, that is, both the infinite and the divisible. If it is true that the solution to the second part of the problem is included in that of the first part, the Ethics did not expressly develop it. It is Letter XII to Louis Meyer, called by Spinoza and by his correspondents Letter on the lnfinite [1], which, embracing the problem in its entirety, answers this difficulty as well as many others.

Its character, at once succinct and exhaustive, is emphasized by the author himself: "I have," he wrote toward the end, "briefly ex-

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posed to you… the causes (causas) of the errors and confusions which have arisen on the subject of this question of the Infinite, and I have explained these errors in such a way that, if I am not mistaken, there no longer remains a single question relative to the Infinite that I have not touched upon, nor one whose solution cannot be quite easily found from what I have said" [2].

We see by these last lines that this letter presents above all a refutative quality, and it owes to this a great part of its obscurity. The doctrine is not directly expounded, but indicated through the errors whose causes are exposed.

These causes are first of all confusions among things, and secondly the reason for such confusions, which is itself also a confusion, but among our cognitions.

II. The difficulties relating to the Infinite flow from three kinds of confusions arising from our failure to distinguish between six different cases.

These six cases are divided into three pairs of opposing terms:

First pair:

1. The thing infinite by its essence or by virtue of its definition [3].

2. The thing without limits, not by virtue of its essence, but by virtue of its cause [4].

Second pair:

3. The thing infinite insofar as without limits ]5].

4. The thing infinite insofar as its parts, although included within a maximum and a minimum known to us, cannot be expressed by any number [6].

Third pair:

5. The things representable by understanding alone and not by imagination [7].

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6. The things representable at once by imagination and by understanding [8].

The confusion between the two cases of each of these pairs has made us unable to understand: a) which Infinity cannot be divided into parts and is without parts; b) which, on the contrary, is divisible without contradiction; c) which can, without difficulty, be conceived as larger than another; d) which, on the other hand, cannot be so conceived [9].

We will examine the different cases in this order, keeping for the end the analysis of the geometrical example on which the discussion of the fourth case is based.

Deleuze's ‘Gueroult's General Method for Spinoza’: A Summary

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.