1632-1677

1. a Jew born in the Netherlands; his family had fled the persecutions in Spain

a. because of his philosophy, he was expelled from the local synagogue and

banished from Amsterdam and settled in The Hague

2. polished lenses for a living; but philosophy was his way of life

3. wrote on "higher criticism" of the Books of Moses

3. most famous books, Treatise on Theology and Politics and Ethics

Main Ideas

1. rationalist who followed a mathematical, demonstrable model (e.g., definitions lead to axioms which lead to propositions)

2. a substance philosopher like Descartes and Leibniz

3. all of reality is unified by substance

1. starts with self-evident definitions then infers axioms and concludes with propositions

a. 8 definitions: self caused--essence involves existence

b. finite after its own kind--limitation of everything

c. substance--conceived in itself

d. attribute--essence of substance

e. mode--conceived through another

f. God--absolutely infinite with infinite attributes

g. freedom--exists by its own nature

h. eternity--existence itself

2. from these 8 definitions he concludes that there can only be one substance, which is God, who is eternal and infinite

1. premise 1--only a substance can cause itself, not a finite thing

premise 2--only a substance can be conceived in itself

premise 3--consequently, only an infinite thing can be self-caused

therefore--God exist as the necessary substance

2. also to say God does not exist is logically contradictory for it would say there is something outside of God, but God is infinite; hence nothing can be outside of God

3. characteristics of God:

a. not transcendent but immanent to everything; there cannot be a pluralism of

substances, because that would mean a plurality of universes and that is

incomprehensible

b. not a creator because that would mean something outside of God

c. God alone is free

d. two modes are mind and body, which are two modes of the divine reality

there are an infinite number of modes to God but we only know

two

e. the attribute of mind is thought and of matter is extension; reality is the

unique combinations of mind and matter

1. there is no freedom because only God is free

2. the highest life is the intellectual contemplation of God, knowing the "nexus of implicatory relations"

(he was called the "God intoxicated Jew)

3. the ethical life is knowing one's place in the universe; a resignation to what is

4. the love of God to us is both our love to God and towards humanity

5. the emotions must be controlled

a. an emotion is a passivity of the soul

b. our desires are the essence of our souls

c. the good is to increase one's power of being with the harmony of one's nature

d. evil decreases our power of being, creating discord with our nature

e. the knowledge of good and evil is the emotions of pleasure and pain

f. need emotions only of necessary things; they are intense and fulfilling

g. virtue is the power we have to live according to our nature, which means we

must live rationally;

the highest virtue is to know and love God

1646-1716

1. born in Germany

2. like Descartes and Pascal, educated in the Scholasticism but didn't reject it as thoroughly as they did; he was not as influenced by Skepticism as they

3. like Descartes and Pascal, started as a mathematician eventually formulating calculus

4. dismayed by the ecclesiastical and political sectarian strife of his day

5. to bring peace he worked towards a universal language through mathematics and logic and towards religious ecumenisn.

6. his most famous book is Monadology

Main Ideas

A. Like Descartes, he was rationalist (i.e., there is at least one idea known to be true and about reality not derived from sense experience)

1. he is a "substance" philosopher (as is Descartes)--there are basic realities upon which all of physical realities depend

2. he rejected Descartes' dualistic substance philosophy; defended a pluralism

1. we understand what a substance is by finding what cannot be divided in each thing

a. rejected Descartes idea of matter as an "extended thing" because what can be

extended can also be divided and extension cannot explain motion

2. the basic reality is force, which is nonmaterial, indivisible, and pure energy

a. rejected Descartes idea of mechanism, i.e., matter moves by physical laws

b. rather matter moves because of basic energy, which is its substance

3. he called this force MONAD

1. each monad is unique, simple, not influenced or influence other monads, "windowless"

2. change is thus internal to things according to the monads of it; mechanics cannot explain motion and teleology

3. a monad is a unit of perception and each differs from others according to a ratio of perception (energy, experiencing center) and consciousness (reflection)

a. there is a hierarchy of monads, with the highest conscious of themselves

b. God is the highest and bodies are aggregates of monads

1. though monads don't affect each other, each carries a principle of harmony in it

a. called "Parallelism"; the universe is like a great number of different clocks

all keeping the same time

1. there must a something which causes the monads to be parallel and harmonious with each other in that they could not arrange it themselves since they are "windowless"

2. God is a necessary "programmer" of the harmony

3. God is the teleological goal of all creation

1. there is a reason for all actions, and that reason is the sufficient explanation of everything

2. since God chose the harmony from God's omniscience, this must be the "best of all possible worlds"

3. Leibniz thought he had joined three things with this principle

a. mechanism and teleology

b. perfection and imperfection

c. necessity and choice