Spinoza's Understatement of Religion

Abstract

This paper explores Spinoza’s systematic account in his Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, but more comprehensively in his Ethics as he completes this work, addressing how individuals ought to lead their lives, acquiring knowledge and thereby Freedom in their actions from Passions caused arbitrarily by Nature (Preface, V; IVP65-73 Ethics). In particular, the focus will be on how Spinoza understates Religion's significance in his framework. Whilst Spinoza affirms the Highest Good for an individual is “the knowledge of the union that the mind has with the whole of Nature”, he neglects how Religion is vital to grounding reason and enabling knowledge in domains not deductively intuitive and necessarily true, like maths (Emendation, p10-14). However, science and history, for example, require reasoning our sense perceptions and various testimonies to gather the truth, with such knowledge proving vital for how we understand the Natural realm and thereby act accordingly — which is the very goal of Spinoza’s Ethics and his Highest Good, insofar as the more mind gains knowledge of Nature the less it will be influenced by external forces, but act according to what best serves their interests (IVP65-73). In other words, their minds will be the cause of their actions, rather than external objects (VP42). In this vein, Spinoza overconfidently suggests that truths deductively and thereby necessarily reasoned, like maths, or the necessity of my existence, illustrate how we may learn all of Nature’s truths. Though he thinks science if performed correctly, may also provide invaluable knowledge if it follows logic and deductive reasoning (utilised in maths), nevertheless he underestimates how much people disagree on their sense perceptions and testimony; the very thing relied upon for science, to determine how things behave (IIP40). Moreover, certain domains of knowledge are not learned by deductive reasoning at all but only apply to our sense perceptions and testimony — like history and language. In such domains, it is presumed that, insofar as Nature obeys reason, reason may plausibly learn such truths by applying consistency. Therefore, without Religion, and all unitedly presupposing that there is a necessary set of laws and order that necessarily govern observed phenomena and events, with our conflicting perspectives none of us could agree that Nature, indeed, followed a unique set of laws that inherently governs all phenomena; thereby making a rational inquiry into the knowledge underlying Nature fundamentally misguided, and a life following reason’s dictates seemingly futile (Emendation, p23, 41-42; Ethics, IIP7,18-48, VP10). And so, with Religions, disagreements enable and spark inquiry into the truth and knowledge, because both parties presuppose necessarily that reason dictates Nature operates a certain way and thereby such laws hold true for explaining both of the order of bodies perceived; whereas, without Religion, insofar as we cannot know all of Nature obeys reason, for that would already require knowledge of all of Nature, which undoubtedly none of us possesses from birth, then conflicting propositions may, implausibly, hold equally true (Emendation, p13-16,21,41; Ethics, IIP7,16-18, 40, VP10).