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Spinoza and an Ontologiy of Torture
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Spinoza and an Ontologiy of Torture

Dunamis
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1 of 3 people found this post helpful Posted 05/09/08 - 11:14 AM: Subject: Spinoza and an Ontology of Torture	#1
There is a curious shadow in the logic of Spinoza, a dark, foreboding underlogic that comes with its incredible sheen, its recourse to a path of Joy and Rationality. It is not so much a consequence of its argumentation, a conclusion drawable from within its aims, but a manifestation of its logic. What I have in mind is Spinoza’s implicit imperative that Joy follows the aim of becoming more like God. That is, Spinoza’s argument for the path to happiness is that the more that we become like God/Substance, the freer we become, the more active, the least reactionary. This method of analysis is based on the idea that only the entirety of Substance is causa sui, its own cause. All other things are caused through other things. And concordantly, the more we become the causes of our own action, through our better understanding of the forces at play through clearer ideas, the more Joyful and powerful we become. A single example suffices to get at the root of what Spinoza is after. A child is hit by another child, and reacts with anger, or even hate. A man is hit by another man, and in understanding the forces at play (perhaps the history of race, the residual and institutional sadnesses) is able to act, rather than react, in a more powerful and active manner. Each, the child and the adult, experience themselves to be “free”, but one is consubstantially freer than the other: so would argue Spinoza. The result of this imitatio be-like-God-have-clearer-ideas-become-more-powerful-and-free approach is remarkable in the capacities of change that inhabit nearly every situation. Each and every moment is open to mental, and therefore physical, avenues of change. In particular, as beings locked in history, the diachronic unfolding of inadequate ideas, a finite existence which is overrun with imaginary effects, our possibilities become our ability to affectively, and intelligently engage with others. That is, we become more our own cause (like God), insofar as we no longer conceive of ourselves as independent and isolated units. We become more our own cause insofar as we realize ourselves to be part of an assemblage of affective and ideational bodies that are already existing, and that through our awareness, we can intentionally construct. We become our own cause, to the degree that “our own” becomes larger and larger. The political ramifications of this path are striking in their dexterity, and it is for this reason that Spinoza became the first modern proponent of a liberal democracy of intellectual freedoms. All this stems from Spinoza’s idea that we become more Joyous and more powerful, the more we become like God. But as I say, there is a shadow beneath the logic of this argument, a different kind of “becoming like God” that seems to belie the very logic and exemplification Spinoza uses. And I say this as a Spinozist, a firm admirer of the possibilities of his thought. One of the most praised, and disconcerting aspects of Spinoza’s notion of God is that this God has no affects. That is, because for Spinoza an affect is the passing from one degree of perfection, to another degree, God being perfect in the expression of himself can have no affect. For this reason, “He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return” (5p19). That makes for a remarkable ontological set up. We and animals, as finite beings, though we feel, suffer, love, ache, laugh, wonder, etc. as the actual expressions of the Totality that is God, God itself experiences none of these things. In a strange way, we experience them (as a product of our finitude), but God cannot, or does not (which is the same thing for Spinoza). Our very affective state, in its quality, is a kind of illusion which does not register upon the totality as such. What is curious about this set-up is that it bears striking resemblance to one of the more horrific conditions of human social function, that of the Totalitarian Torture State. That is, under some analysis, the State, as necessary condition of its ideological status as an horizon of social determination, actually must torture, to produce the very expression of its condition, an expression which it then represses. Eric Santner in his Study of the first Schizophrenic, Daniel Schreber, describes how the mechanism of political torture functions in this way: Santner wrote: Torture is the way an institution simultaneously confesses and represses its deepest secret: that its consistency, its enjoyment of recognition as a really existing social fact, ultimately depends on the magic of performative utterances, on the force of their own immanent process of enunciation. The abjection produced in the torture victim, his betrayal of everything that matters and is dear to him, his confession of his own putrescence, is, as it were, the “substance” that stands in for the lack of substantial foundations to which the institution might appeal for final and ultimate legitimation. The torture victim’s abject body is the ‘privileged’ site of a politicotheological epiphany, for it is there that the reality of institutions and the social facts they sponsor – contracts, titles, money, property, marriages, and the like – bottoms out, touches on a dimension of vicious circularity that cannot be avowed if these social facts are to continue to enjoy credibility, if the social field structured by them is to remain consistent for the subject. My Own Private Germany: Daniel Paul Schreber's Secret History of Modernity In a Spinozist context there are quite a number of things that stand out. For one, the notion of a “politicotheological epiphany”. There is in Spinoza a remarkable sense of the epiphanic. In readers who have struggled through his precise stackings of propositions, there comes a time when suddenly it all locks into place, and a sudden sheen comes into being. I have experienced this myself. It moves from boring and unlikely logic, to brilliant and revealing clarity. And the marriage of the political and the theological of course speaks to Spinoza’s own Politico-theological treatise, which seeks to show the divine and natural expression of both these realms. Secondly, the enunciative power of the victim is dependent upon the very unaffective status of the torturer (whether it be the person him or herself, or the State). In much the same way, our very affective states, our loud-ringing cries (and laughter), for Spinoza are leveraged off from a non-affective thing, which actually produces them in us. This goes to the very core notion of what an inadequate idea is in Spinoza. An inadequate idea is one which one holds thinking it is about the world, when in fact it is an idea only about oneself (the state of one’s body). In a certain sense, one is confused not only about what an idea (representation) is about, but also “who” is thinking it. For instance, when I think to myself “Sam is a bastard” this idea is really best understood as an expression of my body being in a certain state, and thus in that my body is an extensional expression of Substance, it is an expression made by God, and not me. This illusionary locus of enunciation which marks out the nature of what makes inadequate ideas inadequate, is what shapes the logic of torture under Santner’s description. The victim seems to be crying out a confession of his own experience, but in fact is only expressing a condition of the whole. The victim is confessing-expressing what the State or its torturer cannot, as a matter of its own ontological logic. It is feeling what cannot be felt, as a vector of its own power. The cries and putrescence become immanent to the State. In Spinoza I think this link can be found right at the level of Affects themselves, joys, loves, hates, sadnesses, jealousies, etc. (again, a thing that God cannot have). Spinoza tells us in the General Definition of Affect, that whatever the affect “this [a confused idea], which constitutes the form of the affect, must indicate or express, a constitution of the Body (or some part of it), which the Body (or some part of it) has because its power of acting, or force of existing, is increased or diminished, aided or restrained. Notice the particular form his denomination, the confused idea “must indicate or express”. In the Latin Spinoza uses a word of largely social obligation to convey this representational necessity, “debet” (indicare vel exprimit debet). To translate more literally, it “owes”, it “pays the debt,” to “indicate or express”, “to show or come out of” a condition of the body. And the Latin verb exprimit, to express, can even be a word of near torture, in that it can read that ideas owe it to “squeeze out, press out, extort, wrest from” an organization of the body. The double duty of representation shown here “to indicate or express” has affinities with Santner’s process of enunciation which “confesses and represses”. If one were to draw these terms strictly to each other. Our inadequate ideas which we take as being ideas about the world, and belonging to us, are rather confessions of a God-Substance that cannot feel, and the fact of this confessional character is repressed in the very conscious experience of ourselves as distinct and personal entities. Spinoza’s immanent expression of God in affective beings, becomes the nightmare confessional and repressed torture of political subject. Just as Santner, strips away the mechanism of enunciation in the example of political torture, Spinoza strips away the representational mechanism of expression in the form of affects felt and ideas held. To be fair, what seems at first distinct between these two views is that the State is (unconsciously) invested in a particular kind of horrific enunciation, while God as Substance is not. This becomes clear in Michel de Certeau’s essay “Institution of Rot” whose reasonings Eric Santner is working from: de Certeau wrote: …[the] goal of torture, in effect, is to produce acceptance of a State discourse, through the confession of putrescence. What the torturer in the end wants to extort from the victim he tortures is to reduce him to being no more than that, rottenness, which is what the torturer himself is and knows that he is, but without avowing it. The victim must voice the filth, everywhere denied, that everywhere supports the representation of the regime’s ‘omnipotence,’ in other words, the ‘glorious image’ of themselves the regime provides for the adherents through its recognition of them. The victim must therefore assume the position of subject upon him the theatre of identifying power is performed. “Institution of Rot,” in Psychosis in Sexual Identity: Toward a Post-Analytic View of the Schreber Case, Perhaps one could say, following Spinoza’s ontological-affective logic that the degree to which a totalitarian subject agrees with and expresses joyful statements, it is doing so enunciatively on the behalf of a non-affective State, adding to its glory (thereby, holding adequate ideas), and to the degree that he is not, and is made to suffer, he is enunciatively manifesting the ideological substrate of the State’s “glorious image”. The investment of the State in the most abject subject is a very particular kind of investment which is otherwise a product of a general logic of the State. What is disturbing about this comparison of course is that it is a result that is antithetical the aims of Spinoza’s political imagination. Attempting to be “like God”, the cause of oneself, is supposed to lead to more and more freedom, more and more Joy. But there is an after image of such logic, a way in which “attempting to be like God” results in the more horrific totalitarian processes. For if Spinoza’s vision of an affective and modal expression of a non-affective Totality called God is brought to the formal logic of a Totalitarian State, we see striking correspondence. And that this correspondence is not one of accident, but goes to the most central aspect of Spinozist epistemology (that which makes up an inadequate idea) making it even more ominous. Further, the logic of epiphanic “glorious image” sheen, that the very enunicative and repressional processes of the State produce, “squeezing out from the organization of the body” seems to characterize well what is most remarkable about Spinoza’s achievement of stacked and inter-indexed propositions, the sudden clarity of theo-political power, as expressed by Nature and Mind. In short, what is best in Spinoza seems to sanction in part what is worst in politics, through a logic of onto-epistemic imitation. And what is worst in the political seems to explain what is best in Spinoza. What is one to make of this? Is Spinoza’s really only a vast totalitarian dream projected onto the Universe? Is it that Spinoza, in his reasoned argument for a liberal democratic state not living up to the full de imiatione Dei consequence of his logic? To the first possibility I would answer, I don’t think so. To the second, perhaps. It seems to me that what Santner and de Certeau’s analysis of the logical apparatus of the Totalitarian State reveals about Spinoza’s logic is that there IS a certain epiphanic mechanism employed in his means, a certain redemptive torture of affect which makes of the Totality a “glorious image”. But the value of his thought certainly cannot be reduced to such. What is more important I think is what Spinoza, once this mechanism is exposed, tells us about the liberal state and the path of acting more and more like God. Within such a political process, both doors are open, and perhaps necessary, that of the immanent, body-building, affective sharing that is effectively creative, combinative powers as new bodies that de-centralize identity, across Selves, in a communication of reasons; but also, that there is a certain kind of necessary cruelty to social organization, as at times one is forced to collapse one’s own repressed state into a tortured mechanism of enunciation, which generates the very sheen which gives direction to society, the very epiphany which affectively condenses bodies together and facilitates their assembled state. And perhaps these two passages to social wholes, and communications, are phasal to each other. There is no Golden Rule (as golden as Spinoza was able to write it), which does not contain the possibility of political theophany through enunciative confession-repression. Perhaps this is due to the contingent nature of history, and that beneath, or more distant to, reason, IS this very epiphanic capacity of bodies to assemble affects so as to “make the god appear” through suffering, and that at times such a capacity acts as a resource, a resource needing to be checked, but never eliminable. Or perhaps this is written into the very logic of logic, the very capacity to organize ourselves around reasons, ideas and criteria, the dark, but luminous shadow of rationality itself. Edited by Dunamis on 05/09/08 - 12:24 PM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/09/08 - 12:24 PM:	#2
All this stems from Spinoza’s idea that we become more Joyous and more powerful, the more we become like God. Unfortunately for you, Spinoza never said that. That is a complete and utter bastardization of his work. In fact, it just doesn't make any sense in a Spinozistic framework at all

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Posted 05/09/08 - 12:28 PM:	#3
BDSpinoza wrote: Unfortunately for you, Spinoza never said that. That is a complete and utter bastardization of his work. Then we utterly disagree (and I am forced to wonder what your charge of "bastardization" is based on). God is by definition the only thing that is causa sui, and our asymptotic approach to the state of being causa sui (that is, being like God), by holding more and more adequate ideas, which makes us more and more active, is the very thing that makes us Joyous. This logic of affect and adequacy is so fundamental to Spinoza's project, I cannot even imagine. If needed, here is a quick, bare-bones framework from which this can easily be seen: Spinoza wrote: E1: DEF. 1. By that which is self-caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent. E2: PROP. 11, C.--Hence it follows, that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God. E2: PROP. 35. Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve. E3: PROP. 1. Our mind is in certain cases active, and in certain cases passive. In so far as it has adequate ideas it is necessarily active, and in so far as it has inadequate ideas, it is necessarily passive. E3: DOA. An affect, which is called an affect of the mind, is a confused idea, whereby the mind affirms concerning its body, or any part thereof, a force for existence (existendi vis) greater or less than before, and by the presence of which the mind is determined to think of one thing rather than another. E3: DOA. 2. Joy is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection. Edited by Dunamis on 05/09/08 - 12:54 PM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/09/08 - 01:27 PM:	#4
I'd like to ask whose translation you are using (Shirley, Curley, or Elwes). It is interesting, and quite important, because the neither the Shirley edition (which I own several copies of), nor the Elwes edition (the one freely available on the net) translates that section of The Ethics in that way. It is possible that your translation is Curley's but I am doubtful of that (and though his is the standard translation at the moment, there are many good reasons to dislike his rendering of the language... most notably, he reads Spinoza as a Cartesian, which is just ridiculous)... In any case, the Shirley translation is this: 2. Pleasure is man's transition from a state of less perfection to a state of greater perfection. He then goes on to say: "Spinoza, Explication of Definition of the Emotions 2" wrote: I say "transition," for pleasure is not perfection itself. If a man were to be born with the perfection for which he passes, he would be in possession of it without the emotion of pleasure. And later, in the Preface to Part IV: "Spinoza" wrote: Finally, by perfection in general I shall understand reality, as I have said; that is, the essence of anything whatsoever in as far as it exists and acts in a definite manner, without taking duration into account... It says absolutely nothing about "becoming more like God" or "being like God". That doesn't even make any sense for Spinoza to say... In Spinoza's system there is no such thing as "being like God", we already ARE God insofar as we are modes. He certainly thinks that knowledge of God (not BEING like God, God isn't the sort of entity that can have knowledge in the same way we do, so by definition, our gaining more knowledge of God is certainly not a form of "being" more like God, indeed, it's just God being God already) is a way to gain more "freedom" of a sort... but it's a very limited sort of freedom, one that can NEVER be the ultimate freedom of Deus sive Natura, nor even close to it. "Spinoza, EIVP2" wrote: We are passive insofar as we are a part of Nature which cannot be conceived independently of other parts. ... To be quite honest, your whole post reads really confusedly, and I'm not sure I understand your point. This sentence: This logic of affect and adequacy is so fundamental to Spinoza's project, I cannot even imagine. Makes no sense.

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Posted 05/09/08 - 01:45 PM:	#5
In fact it all boils down to the fact that I think that this is clearly false: "Dunamis" wrote: the more we become the causes of our own action, through our better understanding of the forces at play through clearer ideas, the more Joyful and powerful we become. The Explication of that definition that I quoted for you shows you your mistake. You do NOT become more Joyful (or more "endowed with pleasure" as the translation may be) the more you "become" the causes of your own action (for this is IMPOSSIBLE in Spinoza's system ANYWAY), nor through better understanding of the forces... you're getting mixed up in the temporal order... Joy, or pleasure, as Spinoza says in that explication, arises DURING the TRANSITION... IT is merely the emotion one feels as one transitions from less perfection to more. (That is, Joy just IS the transition). It does NOT follow that one will BE more joyous (or feel more pleasure) at the end of the transition.

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Posted 05/09/08 - 01:51 PM:	#6
BDSpinoza wrote: I'd like to ask whose translation you are using (Shirley, Curley, or Elwes). It is interesting, and quite important, because the neither the Shirley edition (which I own several copies of), nor the Elwes edition (the one freely available on the net) translates that section of The Ethics in that way. It is possible that your translation is Curley's but I am doubtful of that (and though his is the standard translation at the moment, there are many good reasons to dislike his rendering of the language... most notably, he reads Spinoza as a Cartesian, which is just ridiculous)... The translation I quoted in post 3 is largely Elwes because it is the easiest to cut and paste. I re-translated the more important words, for instance, "emotion" as it should be properly "affect". But as you have many translations, you should not really be dependent on the posted translation at all (it was there for your convenience). The translation I operate from, an use in the original post, is that of Curley, which despite you not owning a copy, is probably the best, and but then also I turn to the Latin text itself, when necessary. It says absolutely nothing about "becoming more like God" or "being like God". Which is why I said it is IMPLICIT. Quite clearly, to become more one's own cause is to become more like God/Substance, since God/Substance is the only thing that is causa sui. That doesn't even make any sense for Spinoza to say... In Spinoza's system there is no such thing as "being like God", we already ARE God insofar as we are modes. Clearly there is a difference in the power to act in any particular modal expression, and this difference is expressed in the adequacy of ideas held. Joe, if he holds more adequate ideas than Peter, for instance, is both more like God (more active), and more perfect. Just because Joe "is God" and a rock "is God" does not mean that Joe and a rock have the same degree of being, the same degree of a capacity to act. He certainly thinks that knowledge of God (not BEING like God, You are way too hung up on the idea that one is "like God" as if God were a creature. I've said nothing of the sort. One is like God in that having more adequate ideas, one is closer to the state that God exhibits, which is having ONLY adequate ideas. ... To be quite honest, your whole post reads really confusedly, and I'm not sure I understand your point. This sentence: Makes no sense. Sorry: This logic of affect and adequacy is so fundamental to Spinoza's project, I cannot even imagine where you accusation of "bastardization comes from. So far, your claim that nothing of the sort can make any sense in the "framework" of Spinoza has no bearing at all. What it comes down to is you quibbling over what "like" means. Let's put it this way. God or Substance is defined as perfectly actively, holding only adequate ideas, being its own cause. The more one becomes LIKE this, that is, the more that one becomes more perfect, more active, holding more adequate ideas, more being one's own cause, the more Joyful and powerful one becomes. It really isn't that hard to understand. Edited by Dunamis on 05/10/08 - 01:07 PM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/09/08 - 01:57 PM:	#7
The more one becomes LIKE this, that is, the more that one becomes more perfect, more active, holding more adequate ideas, more being one's own cause, the more Joyful and powerful one becomes. It really isn't that hard to understand. But that's just false! That's a bad reading of what Spinoza actually said. One DOESN'T become more joyful the more one is one's own cause or holds more adequate ideas. He specifically says that joy is the transition. That is an immensely important distinction.

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Posted 05/09/08 - 02:02 PM:	#8
BDSpinoza wrote: But that's just false! That's a bad reading of what Spinoza actually said. One DOESN'T become more joyful the more one is one's own cause or holds more adequate ideas. He specifically says that joy is the transition. That is an immensely important distinction. Who said that he ends up, in any final sense, as joyful. There is nothing final about it. I said one BECOMES more joyful. Becoming is a transition. One experiences JOY. Its not that complicated. As is perfectly clear from the General Defintion of Affect, read it closely.
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/09/08 - 02:14 PM:	#9
I return to your intial bombastic claim: BDSpinoza wrote: Unfortunately for you, Spinoza never said that. That is a complete and utter bastardization of his work. In fact, it just doesn't make any sense in a Spinozistic framework at all Rather than an "utter bastardization" I have explained rather easily that indeed Spinoza did "say" that, if you understand to "be like God" to hold more adequate ideas, to be thus become more active, more one's causa sui. When becoming more like this, one experiences the affect of joy which is an expression of one's degree of perfection, or being. There is no "utter bastardization". And rather than "not making sense in a Spinozist framework AT ALL" it indeed is a conception essential to his framework. But this is a big digression (talk of how many copies of a translation you have on your bookshelf) and sweeping, unsubstantiated claims. I'll leave you with the last word on that matter. If anyone else wants to respond to the idea in the post, I'll be interested in what you have to say. Edited by Dunamis on 05/10/08 - 08:52 AM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/09/08 - 02:20 PM:	#10
Dunamis wrote: BDSpinoza wrote: But that's just false! That's a bad reading of what Spinoza actually said. One DOESN'T become more joyful the more one is one's own cause or holds more adequate ideas. He specifically says that joy is the transition. That is an immensely important distinction. Who said that he ends up, in any final sense, as joyful. There is nothing final about it. I said one BECOMES more joyful. Becoming is a transition. One experiences JOY. Its not that complicated. As is perfectly clear from the General Defintion of Affect, read it closely. It doesn't follow from what Spinoza said that one becomes MORE joyful. He just says that joy is the transition. You're right, it's not complicated... you're making it say more than is said.

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Posted 05/10/08 - 11:14 AM:	#11
BDSpinoza wrote: It doesn't follow from what Spinoza said that one becomes MORE joyful. He just says that joy is the transition. You're right, it's not complicated... you're making it say more than is said. A single citation I suppose should correct this misunderstanding of yours: Spinoza wrote: 5p27 : The greatest satisfaction of Mind there can be arises from this third kind of knowledge. Dem : The greatest virtue of the Mind is to know God (by 4p28), or to understand things by the third kind of knowledge (by p25)...So he who knows things by this kind of knowledge passes to the greatest human perfection, and consequently (by Def. Aff. II) is affected by the greatest Joy (summa laetitia affictur)... [Translation: Curley] Now whether the absolute comparative of summa is "more", in the sense that it is the superlative of a comparative degree seems pretty obvious to me: summa requires superior. To spell it out more fully, in that Spinoza imagines and argues a summa laetitia, he also assumes degrees in which one approaches such a Joy. Thus, "more Joyful" simply means approaching the absolute limit of "most joyful", a state which in Spinoza's strict conception means to be affected by the "greatest, highest, most" Joy (summa laetitia). This is what Spinoza here calls passing to "the greatest human perfection" (summa humanam perfectionem). Edited by Dunamis on 05/10/08 - 01:01 PM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/10/08 - 01:34 PM:	#12
Couldn't one say that the idea of becoming progressively greater, towards a final destination of knowledge completion or something like, to a greater level of Joy, is simply latent in all development? It captures joy and a sense of being present to reality, all the more. Why couldn't science be conceived in this way, or any other knowledge development process? I suspect I have misunderstandings in here...so clarify my bungling matters. Essentially I am saying, if one has a complete vision of how the world should be...or what it is...is that totalitarian? I believe all humans have an opinion of what the world is and should be...generally. Pluralism affirms the idea of hope and development but doesn't presume to dominate or work from authority. How is Spinoza not pluralistic. Explain for this confused soul, please.
_____________________ It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

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Posted 05/10/08 - 01:37 PM:	#13
I feel like you said too much in a little space and some broader sweeping explanations need to come along for us that don't already know the ins and outs of Spinoza.
_____________________ It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

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Posted 05/10/08 - 02:10 PM:	#14
loveofsophia wrote: I feel like you said too much in a little space and some broader sweeping explanations need to come along for us that don't already know the ins and outs of Spinoza. Yes. This really might be the case, as it is a highly techinical, and in the end a critical question (that is, it takes critieria outside those assumed by Spinoza, in order to critique Spinoza). But if I had to put it down to a very simple homology of thought, Spinoza takes modal existence, that is the reality which all of us assume and experience, to be an "expression" of what he calls Substance, which one could call Totality, perhaps. In this way, the things we experience (for instance pain, or happiness) are a kind of illusionary expression of Substance (which he also calls "God"), because Substance does not feel anything. This essential disjunction between a non-feeling Substance/God, and all of its feeling expressions in creatures, has a striking parallel to the internal "logic" of State Torture. That is, at least according to Santner's analysis, the State in an unfeeling way, is expressed through the forced confessions of its victim. Something like, in the most rudimentary sense: 1. God is expressed by affective beings, but does not itself feel. 2. The State is expressed through affective beings, but does not itself feel. This parallel seems to be made more exact on the very particular ways in which representations are handled by Spinoza. Edited by Dunamis on 05/10/08 - 02:15 PM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

Dunamis
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Posted 05/11/08 - 01:01 AM:	#15
While my critique does not stem from this source, it bears some relation to Zizek's own critique of Spinoza, that Spinoza in his failure to positively embrace the negation (as a proper Hegelian, or then a Lacanian should), he is eliciting a Superegoic vision of the world, what he calls the universality of the signifier: Two quotes that present Zizek's position: Zizek wrote: What Spinoza thus rejects is the necessity of what Lacan calls "Master Signifier," the reflexive signifier which fills in the very lack of the signifier. Spinoza's own supreme example of "God" is here crucial: when conceived as a mighty person, god merely embodies our ignorance of the true causality. One should recall here notions like "flogiston" or Marx's "Asiatic mode of production" or, as a matter of fact, today's popular "postindustrial society" - notions which, while they appear to designate a positive content, merely signal our ignorance. Spinoza's unheard-of endeavor is to think ethics itself outside the "anthropomorphic" morality categories of intentions, commandments, etc. - what he proposes is stricto sensu an ontological ethics, an ethics deprived of the deontological dimension, an ethics of "is" without "ought." (What, then, is the price paid for this suspension of the ethical dimension of commandment, of the Master Signifier? The psychoanalytic answer is clear: superego. Superego is on the side of knowledge; like Kafka's law, it wants nothing from you, it is just there if you come to it. "Philosophy, Kant, Hegel and Badiou" Zizek wrote: Lacan says that Kant was right historically about the Spinozian universality of the signifier. It was a kind of false leap, but if your question implies that today's world is paradoxically closer to the neo-Spinozist universality of the signifier, I agree. The ultimate Spinozist idea is that you have a field of knowledge in the Lacanian sense, as the binary signifier without the Master signifier — in speech-act theory we would call it the "order of the performative." I think this was the ultimate Spinozist dream, what he called "love of God'' or "perfect rational knowledge," which is a kind of knowledge that is not obliged to have recourse to a Master signifier, to a point of order, which is performative. "Hidden Prohibitions and the Pleasure Principle" Edited by Dunamis on 05/11/08 - 01:07 AM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

CypressMoon
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Posted 05/11/08 - 02:35 AM:	#16
dunamis wrote: The result of this imitatio be-like-God-have-clearer-ideas-become-more-powerful-and-free approach is remarkable in the capacities of change that inhabit nearly every situation. Each and every moment is open to mental, and therefore physical, avenues of change. In particular, as beings locked in history, the diachronic unfolding of inadequate ideas, a finite existence which is overrun with imaginary effects, our possibilities become our ability to affectively, and intelligently engage with others. That is, we become more our own cause (like God), insofar as we no longer conceive of ourselves as independent and isolated units. We become more our own cause insofar as we realize ourselves to be part of an assemblage of affective and ideational bodies that are already existing, and that through our awareness, we can intentionally construct. We become our own cause, to the degree that “our own” becomes larger and larger. The political ramifications of this path are striking in their dexterity, and it is for this reason that Spinoza became the first modern proponent of a liberal democracy of intellectual freedoms. This is primarily what interests me in the thread. Through awareness of our own causes, we become our own cause. This becoming our own cause is an indefinite becoming, as far as I can tell, Dunamis. You have eluded to this with my emoldenments, I think, so I may just be preaching to the choir. The ontological causal network expands beyond the limits of epistemic capacity, to my thinking. The causes of our "own" actions reach towards infinity in possibilities. An action becomes a violent collision of unconscious and conscious causes. I was sitting here thinking about this as I was writing, and I thought, "if I were to pick up that tin of tobacco in front of me, what would be the causes?" Now, I did indeed not touch the tin of tobacco, but the tin of tobacco, in part, caused me to write about it. This action of writing about the tobacco is a holistic biological-genetic-spatio-temporal-political-socio-meta-psychological-ph ysical-explosion of action, which will reflexively effect, and affect the biological-genetic-spatio-temporal-political-socio-meta-psychological-ph ysical-causal-network. ad nauseum. There is no way to calculate and thus conquer our own ignorance of our causes. It is simply far too complex. It is, however, possible to do it to a degree with an essentialist-absolutist approach, or "short-cut" as with a Freudian meta-psychological model, for instance. Becomining our own cause is impossible, ontologically. Becoming our own cause dwindles into talking about epistemology. Within the limits of what I can know, why did I perform that action? Talk about the economy becomes supurfluous from the absurdly complex nature of the interconnected ontological network. And we begin to talk of the meta-psychological apparatus' to account for our own causes. Becoming like "god" is distancing yourself further and further away from affection between bodies, and into the non-affectionate realm of logos. In my opinion, the intellect will aquire dominion over the sensual intuition. That is, the intellect will dominate and annhialate feeling and expressing the universe. It seems to me, dunamis, that we are caught in a stalemate between the intellect and the bodily-affectionate-intuition. On the one hand, we arrive at some degree of knowledge of our own causes, but we literally lose touch. Edited by CypressMoon on 05/11/08 - 02:40 AM
_____________________ "We stand before the world, not in it." - Rilke "MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual." - Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary) If you have a small child, gently pull the mask over them first, and pull at the ends to tighten the straps.

Dunamis
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Posted 05/11/08 - 10:59 AM:	#17
CypressMoon wrote: The ontological causal network expands beyond the limits of epistemic capacity, to my thinking. To this Spinoza would agree, in an ultimate sense, for humans are inherently "passive" creatures, limited in their being. The causes of our "own" actions reach towards infinity in possibilities. An action becomes a violent collision of unconscious and conscious causes. I was sitting here thinking about this as I was writing, and I thought, "if I were to pick up that tin of tobacco in front of me, what would be the causes?" Now, I did indeed not touch the tin of tobacco, but the tin of tobacco, in part, caused me to write about it. This action of writing about the tobacco is a holistic biological-genetic-spatio-temporal-political-socio-meta-psychological-ph ysical-explosion of action, which will reflexively effect, and affect the biological-genetic-spatio-temporal-political-socio-meta-psychological-ph ysical-causal-network. ad nauseum. There is no way to calculate and thus conquer our own ignorance of our causes. It is simply far too complex. Surely. It is, however, possible to do it to a degree with an essentialist-absolutist approach, or "short-cut" as with a Freudian meta-psychological model, for instance. Yes. I think that there are many "short cuts" and many of them involve affective transmutations. That is, the processing of a multitude of causal relations "in the body" so to speak. Becomining our own cause is impossible, ontologically. Becoming our own cause dwindles into talking about epistemology. Within the limits of what I can know, why did I perform that action? Talk about the economy becomes supurfluous from the absurdly complex nature of the interconnected ontological network. Sure. And we begin to talk of the meta-psychological apparatus' to account for our own causes. Becoming like "god" is distancing yourself further and further away from affection between bodies, and into the non-affectionate realm of logos. In my opinion, the intellect will aquire dominion over the sensual intuition. I don't think this is true. What seems to be in history is that the mind works to formulate connections which brings bodies and people into more and more powerful assemblages, but these assemblages process "reality" primarily at the affective level. The numericity of the body is increased, but the fundamentally affective means of its processes does not seem decreased. Perhaps it is like the expanse of a circle, the circumfrence increases in ratio to it area. That is, the intellect will dominate and annhialate feeling and expressing the universe. It seems to me, dunamis, that we are caught in a stalemate between the intellect and the bodily-affectionate-intuition. On the one hand, we arrive at some degree of knowledge of our own causes, but we literally lose touch. I see no stalemate. Connections are both felt and thought. If we do not "feel" our most sure connections, it is so that we can feel other things at the edge. A blind man may no longer "feel" his cane, but he does not feel it so that he can feel through it, as he touches objects of every kind.
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

BDSpinoza
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Posted 05/11/08 - 04:06 PM:	#18
Dunamis wrote: BDSpinoza wrote: It doesn't follow from what Spinoza said that one becomes MORE joyful. He just says that joy is the transition. You're right, it's not complicated... you're making it say more than is said. A single citation I suppose should correct this misunderstanding of yours: Spinoza wrote: 5p27 : The greatest satisfaction of Mind there can be arises from this third kind of knowledge. Dem : The greatest virtue of the Mind is to know God (by 4p28), or to understand things by the third kind of knowledge (by p25)...So he who knows things by this kind of knowledge passes to the greatest human perfection, and consequently (by Def. Aff. II) is affected by the greatest Joy (summa laetitia affictur)... [Translation: Curley] Now whether the absolute comparative of summa is "more", in the sense that it is the superlative of a comparative degree seems pretty obvious to me: summa requires superior. To spell it out more fully, in that Spinoza imagines and argues a summa laetitia, he also assumes degrees in which one approaches such a Joy. Thus, "more Joyful" simply means approaching the absolute limit of "most joyful", a state which in Spinoza's strict conception means to be affected by the "greatest, highest, most" Joy (summa laetitia). This is what Spinoza here calls passing to "the greatest human perfection" (summa humanam perfectionem). What that says is that the person who knows God via the third kind of knowledge (in Elwes: "This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.") reaches the highest state of joy QUA the transition from knowing less to knowing more. That's NOT to say that one feels more joy the more one is one's own cause or holds more adequate ideas... it's ONLY to say that the sort of joy one WILL feel is GREATER, the greater the breadth of the transition, specifically, via the third kind of knowledge. It isn't that one is more joyous the more perfection one has... Joy is just the emotion one feels during the transition from less perfect to more. I thought that was quite clear.

Dunamis
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Posted 05/12/08 - 08:09 AM:	#19
BDSpinoza wrote: That's NOT to say that one feels more joy the more one is one's own cause or holds more adequate ideas... it's ONLY to say that the sort of joy one WILL feel is GREATER, the greater the breadth of the transition, specifically, via the third kind of knowledge. Who said feels more JOY as if there is a quantity of JOY, like a quantity of money, and 3rd knowledge folks have more of it (is that how you are reading my "bastardization" of Spinoza?). I just said, becomes more Joyful. For Spinoza I believe this is essentially a qualitative measure, not principally a quantitative measure (but they cannot be entirely divorved from each other). Affects are feelings, that is what they are. If one feels the highest greatest Joy, that is in my book feeling a superior, greater Joy than than not feeling that Joy. It isn't that one is more joyous the more perfection one has... I have no idea what you mean by this. If you feel the most joy, when one reaches the most perfection, you feel more joyful the more perfect one becomes. Joy is just the emotion one feels during the transition from less perfect to more. Of course. I am saying nothing other. And when you reach the highest perfection, you feel the highest joy (summa in Latin means greatest, but has strong connotations of height, hence our word "summit"). Now if you want to make a quantitative measure out of a qualitative measure, this too is part of the way we speak of feelings. If my Joy or Sadness is of a more profound nature, it is usual to describe it in quantitative terms, that is, the highest Joy feels like "more" of it. Spinoza uses both senses, attempting to show a correlation between number of causes and size and strength of affect, because numericity is central to his thought that being able to be affected (or affect) in the greatest number of ways as part of the conception of what makes us more free, i.e. results in us becoming more Joyful (that is experiencing more Joy). This is numericity is shown in 4p38 where it is defined by usefulness: Spinoza wrote: 4p38 Whatever so disposes the Body that it can be affected in a great many ways, or renders it capable fo affecting external Bodies in a great many ways, is useful to man; the more it renders the Body capable of being affected in a great many ways, or affecting other bodies, the more useful it is; on the other hand, what renders the Body less capable is harmful. And then, most importantly to our discussion, this numericity used to define the size and strength of an affect: 5p8 The more an affect arises from a number of cause concurring together the greater (maior) it is. Dem A number of causes together can do more than if they were fewer (by 3p7). And so (by 4p5), the more an affect is aroused by a number of causes together, the stronger (fortior) it is, q.e.d. Schol This proposition is also evident from A2 Here we have two comparative adjectives. Magnus, which is mostly a quantitative measure, though it can be used figuratively to mean "great" as in a great man. Given that this proposition is a proposition of numericity, the "greaterness" of the affect is more one of quantitity, they way we would say "the more it is". This is supported by the use of fortis in the demostration. This word simply means more powerful, stronger. There really is no way around this. The summa Joy, is I think for Spinoza the maxima Joy and the fortissime Joy, since Joy is an affect, as follows from this proposition and demonstration. The numericity of ways affected increase the power of action, which is experienced as an increase in the size (magnus) and strength (fortis) of affect, and this is measured on a scale of degrees at the height of which is the summa Joy, the summa perfection. Edited by Dunamis on 05/12/08 - 08:28 AM
_____________________ Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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