This essay focuses on Spinoza’s intention to judge goodness and perfection on the basis of a model of human nature. On Jarrett’s reading, these remarks assert that we can only assess these properties with respect to the model. Jarrett takes this to imply the anti-realist view that these properties do not exist independently of our ideas and beliefs about the model of human nature. Jarrett describes this view as constructivist because it supposes that moral properties only exist with regard to (...) something that we construct or invent, so that moral properties are analogous to social constructions like money, marriage, or property. According to Jarrett, the model is constructed on the basis of the model of the free man. (shrink)

This essay argues that Spinoza sees good and evil as relative in at least three ways. It distinguishes between speaker-relativity, correlativity, and model-relativity. It considers the conceptual and interpretative problems arising in two arguments of the Ethics: one argument attempts to show that rationality is a maximizing principle, that is, that a rational individual will choose the best option available, even among distasteful or bad ones; the other attempts to show that anyone who always had adequate ideas would be incapable (...) of conceiving of goodness. It is shown that both arguments appear to have a confusion of one type of relativity with another. (shrink)

In this paper I will suggest an interpretation of Spinoza's ontological argument on which the argument, properly construed, is valid, and Spinoza, if granted the claim that it is possible that God exists, is successful in obtaining the conclusion of the argument. The interpretations given by H.A. Wolfson, G.H.R. Parkinson, and William A. Earle will then be argued to be deficient on textual and logical grounds. Leibniz’ assessment of the argument, namely that it “permits us only to conclude that God's (...) existence follows if his possibility is already proven,” is thus held to be correct. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to clarify the 'objective' and 'subjective' interpretations of Spinoza's position on the attributes of substance. It is argued that (a) the dispute between objectivists and subjectivists survives resolution of the question concerning correct translation of 'tanquam' in definition iv, Part I of the Ethics , (b) the objective interpretation, unlike the subjective one, requires rejection of the notion of 'absolute' identity, unless Spinoza's position is inconsistent, and (c) the subjective interpretation is best characterized as holding (...) that, although each attribute constitutes the essence of substance, there is only a (Suarezean) distinction of reasoned reason (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae) between the attributes, and between any attribute and God. (Spinoza will depart from Suarez, however, in holding that there can be a distinction of reasoned reason between A and B , when the concepts of and are adequate [or clear and distinct].) The dispute is thus held -to concern Spinoza's conception of identity, and the objectivity of the distinction between the attributes, not the objectivity of the attributes themselves. A partial defense of the subjective interpretation, when conceived in the above way, is then provided. (shrink)

Leibniz’ principal doctrine of truth is an attempt to set out the truth-conditions for a certain syntactically-defined class of propositions. As such, it constitutes an attempt to provide at least one portion of a semantical theory. The doctrine itself is found for example in Elementa Calculi:Every true categorical proposition, affirmative and universal, signifies nothing but a certain connection between the predicate and the subject… This connection is such that the predicate is said to be in the subject, or to be (...) contained in it, and this either absolutely and viewed in itself, or in some particular case. Or in the same way, the subject is said to contain the predicate; that is, the notion of the subject, either in itself or with some addition, involves the notion of the predicate.It is clear, from this work as well as from “First Truths” and “On Freedom”, that the doctrine is not restricted to universal affirmatives, but applies as well to particular affirmatives. (shrink)

The following paper will attempt (i) to set forth a form of materialism that is ‘Spinozistic’ in maintaining that there is a conceptual, but not an ontological distinction between mental and physical phenomena; (ii) to undermine objections to this based on (a) ‘functionalism’ and (b) the conception of (and identity conditions for) an event that has been advocated by Goldman, Brandt, and Kim; and (iii) to explain why, according to the identity ‘theory’, the apparent failure of the indiscernibility of identicals (...) is merely apparent. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to show that in Speech Acts, two of John Searle’s arguments fail to establish his thesis that proper names have sense, or descriptive content. It is argued, by considering counterexamples, that Searle’s test for the analyticity of statements is inadequate, that the argument from the "principle of identification" is therefore mistaken, and that, because of lack of attention to the distinction between meaning and sense, the argument from identity statements fails to establish the (...) conclusion. Hence the arguments based on identification and identity statements are unsuccessful. (shrink)