Spinozas Theory of Emotions Essays

Spinozas Theory of Emotions Essays Spinozas Theory of Emotions Paper Spinozas Theory of Emotions Paper Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 Analysing and synthesizing passions Aspects of Cartesian and Spinozist method It has often been noted that in the third part of his „Ethicsâ€Å" Spinoza follows in his list of definitions of affects to a great extent the one of passions given by Descartes in his â€Å"Passions de lAme† (apart from divergent evaluations of some of the passions1, like Spinoza? s refusal to include admiratio among them). It also appears that both of them are building a taxonomy of passions that introduces some kind of hierarchical order among these. We find both in Descartes as well as in Spinoza a set of passions2 out or by means of which further, in some sense more complex or specific passions are being developed from. What will be my guiding interest in this essay, is to compare and distinguish the two theories of passion according to the sense in which basic or primary passions are named thus and the way they are being discovered or identified and thereby hinting at a difference on the more general level of methodology. I want to begin with what is a starting point in Descartes? and Spinoza? s defining the passions in a general manner. It is very interesting and insightful to compare the procedures through which they arrive at their different conceptions of passions and at identifying and defining the basic ones. It is true that they both operate with the notion of causa as a starting point for their distinction between action and passion, but we should draw our attention to what follows and what comes in between their principles of causality and the definitions of the basic affects to rightly appreciate the differ ence in their approaches. In reality, though, we already find important differences in the relational structure between the notions of action, passion and cause. In the very first paragraph of the â€Å"Passions de lAme†, Descartes starts with a very general principle, adopted from other philosophers, which consists in distinguishing within the components of a causal event between two things: an 1 As Spinoza, like Descartes, names several of the defined entities in part III of the „Ethicsâ€Å" „passionsâ€Å", except from those actions whose „adaequata possimus esse causaâ€Å" (see EIIID3), I will subsequently continue to talk about pas sions, without differentiation between their being cartesian or spinozist, where this distinction by Spinoza can be applied. The references in my quotations from Spinozas â€Å"Ethics† I will always abbreviate with â€Å"E†, followed by roman num bers for the respective part, then the letters â€Å"D† for â€Å"definitione†, â€Å"P† for â€Å"propositio† plus the respective arabic numbers, â€Å"Sch† for â€Å"scholium†, â€Å"Cor† for â€Å"corollarium† etc. References to the â€Å"Passion de lAme† will be abbrevi ated by â€Å"P† plus â€Å" §Ã¢â‚¬  and the respective number of the paragraph. Also here it is adequate to speak only of passions in Spinoza`s use or the term because indeed in part 3 of the Ethics we find such affects that are derived from tristitia (which is always a passion) and laetitia only as far as „in nobis aliquid fit vel ex nostra natura aliquid sequitur, cujus nos non nisi partialis sumus causaâ€Å" (EIIID2), which means being passive. Whether kinds of active joy or even such with compon ents of passive joy can be derived from the basic affects is another question and we will shortly come back on this again. Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 active and a passive part in relation to which one and the same event may be called either an action or a passion. So in every single case that falls under this kind of structure we necessarily have one active and one passive component that will determine the perspective on the event relating them and decide whether it is an action or a passion. In Spinoza, on the other hand, we find a completely different structure in the relational field among these notions and we may suppose that this will have consequences on his further proceeding. First we have to consider that for Spinoza it is not enough or even wrong to say of a thing that it is active or acting insofar as it is producing an effect on some other thing. Instead, he is connecting the property of being active to self causality, when he writes in part I that God alone, as a free cause, exists and acts solely out of the necessity of his own nature 3. As God is not only causing all the finite modes but unlike these and primarily himself, it would be absurd to say that he is therefore active and passive at once. Thus, we somehow find the paradigm for activity in God? s self-causation. This also means that we can only define action and passion in their meaning for human beings in a different, more specific sense, namely, characterized as affections (and their ideas) that either augment or diminish some body? s potentia agendi. Compared to Descartes then, we also get a different idea of cause and effect, as they are not in every case identifiable as one active and one passive component connected through some affection that is always action and passion at the same time; rather, insofar as we are the adequate cause of this affection in us it is an action and we can be called active, whereas insofar as we are only an inadequate and partial cause of some affection in us we suffer a passion and are passive 4. So, what is a passion and what an action is less seen in relation to a cause and it? s effect as the one acting on the other, but rather in relation to a contextual or local conception of cause. It seems that one and the same affection can be seen in Spinoza? s thinking as action and passion at once just in case that it can be achieved to conceive of the cause in question (an idea for example) as at the same time adequate and inadequate concerning the scope that the idea of this cause comprises 5. As God can never be conceived of as 3 See EIP17Cor I and II. There is of course a very delicate aspect about the use of the words „inâ€Å" and „extraâ€Å" when Spinoza for example writes: „Nos tum agere dico, cum aliquid in nobis aut extra nos fit, cujus adaequata sumus causa ( )â€Å" (EIIID2). One might ask in what sense there can be effects outside of us insofar as we (our ideas, the affections of our body) have to be seen as their adequate causes without which the effect can not be conceived of nor exist (see EIID2, where „es senceâ€Å" is defined which is not easy to distinguish from an adequate cause). What one can follow along such considerations is a certain expansive trait in Spinoza? s theories of body and mind. 5 Therefor Spinoza writes in EIIIP1: „Further, whatever necessarily follows from an idea which in God is adequate, not insofar as He not only comprises the mind of a single man, but also the minds of other things together with the mind of this man, of this [†¦] the mind of this man is not the adequate, but the partial cause, and therefor (according to definition 2 of this part), insofar as the mind has inadequate ideas, it necessarily suffers some things. (Mind that all the English quotations from primary literature will be my translations from the original language (in this case Latin) with support drawn from the respective German translation, which is due to my lack of English edition at the time of writing this essay. ) 2 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 partial cause of himself, he can only be thought of as active. A changing from passion to action in a mode is not being accomplished then by changing the direction in the relation between cause and effect, but by changing the affective condition of the mode by expanding it and transforming it to an adequate cause of the affect that has been a passion. I would like now to concentrate on the two philosophers proceeding in establishing the basic passions; and here I think we can observe some important features that can help us to recognize the pe culiarities of their methodologies which are commonly referred to as analytic in Descartes? ase and geometrical or synthetic in Spinoza? s. Unlike Spinoza, who gives us a ready definition of affects that already includes the two possible versions of them (actions and passions) in the beginning of part III after not even having mentioned them in the preceding text 6, Descartes first has to go through a long process by employing his general principle of action and passion to the relationship between body and soul to arrive at a defini tion of passions. After distinguishing what we can find as the soul? s and the body? proper functions and he makes us realize that there is a number of mental functions that could rightly be called passions of the soul; namely all those perceptions or cognitions (P §17: â€Å"toutes les sortes de perceptions ou connoissances†) which have the body as their cause and not the soul itself (see P §19). Then he goes on to distinguish different sorts of such perceptions among themselves, relying in every step of analysis on criteria of how their formation dependence from soul or body or if they show a relation to a notable and determinate perceptual cause that has been transmitted to the soul by nerves 7. Among the latter sort of perceptions, he again distinguishes and at last finds to which the name â€Å"passions of the soul†, following an ordinary restriction in the use of the expression, can be applied8, defining them in a general manner as follows: â€Å"After having considered in what the passions of the soul differ from all the other thoughts, it seems to me that one can generally define them as perceptions or sentiments or emotions of the soul which particularly referred to her, and which are caused, maintained and fortified by some movement of the animal spirits. (P §27) 6 Apart from one rather nontechnical occurrence in part one and one very general reference to affects as â€Å"modi cogit andi† in the third axiom of part two. 7 See P §21: â€Å"Or encore que quelques unes de ces imaginations soient des passions de lame, en prenant ce mot en sa plus propre plus particuliere signification; quelles puissent estre toutes ainsi nommees, si on le prend en un e signification plus generale: toutefois, pource quelles nont pas une cause si notable si determinee, que les perceptions que lame recoit par lentremise des nerves (†¦), il faut considerer la difference qui est entre ces autres. 8 See P §25: â€Å"Or encore que toutes nos perceptions (†¦) soient veritablement des passions au regard de nostre ame, lors quon prend ce mot sa plus generale signification: toutefois on a coustume de le restreindre a signifier seulement celles qui se rapportent a lame mesme. Et ce ne sont que ces dernieres, que jai entrepris icy dexpliquer sous le nom de passions de lame. † 3 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 We can already see in this process that, what Descartes does, is a systematic and methodical analysis of notions that we usually do not understand properly. We are aware that there is something in each of us that we commonly call passions. But we do not, until now, really understand what they are, in what they consist, how they come about, etc. So if we want to understand our passions, just like with all the other phenomena that our scientific mind can be concerned with, we in the end need to understand their causes. In his monography â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, Gilles Deleuze characterizes Descartes? analytic method as a process of rendering on the basis of clear and distinct ideas of effects the initially confused ideas of their causes clear and distinct. One can even say that the clear and distinct knowledge of a cause depends on the clear and distinct knowledge of its effect9. Spinoza, opposing these basic ideas in Descartes method, conceives of the right way to attain to real knowledge in an entirely different way in thinking that we always have to proceed from adequate ideas of some causes to adequate ideas of their effects and that the former consist in definitions that are appropriate for expressing the essence of this cause and also involve already the essence of its effects. So we can see how from Spinoza? s point of view the whole procedure of Descartes tries to go in a wrong direction. What has to be done first in Descartes method is not to elaborate a definition that adequately expresses the essence of the cause of the things that we want to explain and get to know, but to attain to clear and distinct ideas of those things whose causes we subsequently want to discover, â€Å"and thence show that the effect would not be what we know it to be, did it not have such a cause on which it necessarily depends†10. In Descartes? iew, the synthetic method is nothing more than a way of demonstrating a proof what has been found by means of the analytic method that has the disadvantage of not demonstrating the concrete way in which we really attained to the demonstrated knowledge, how effects really depend on their causes (which can only be achieved by analytic demonstration) and only has the merit of expositing the strict dependency of the propositions befo re discovered11. So, if Descartes demands starting with elaborating a clear and distinct idea of the effect that we want to examine, we can see now how he attains to this in the first part of the â€Å"Passions de lAme†. Descartes speaks of the causes of our perceptions with a different interest before in part two he starts to develop the particular definitions of the single passions. First his aim appears to be exactly to form a clear and distinct idea of the passions in a general sense concerning which the main prob9 See Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, pp. 155-156 10 Ibid. , p. 156. In a footnote to this sentence, Deleuze quotes Descartes third meditation to give an example that is apt to show the extreme difference to Spinoza? method: â€Å"I recognize that it would not be possible for my nature to be as it is, that is, that I should have in myself the idea of God, did not God really exist. † 11 See Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, p. 159; Roth, Leon: â€Å"Spinoza and Cartesianism (II)†, p. 161 4 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 lem seems to be that we usually feel our passions like effects in our soul itself, without seeing any proximate (physical or nervous) cause 12. Only by distinguishing them from the other (passive) perceptions we can have a clear and distinct idea of our passions in general. But in part two Descartes explains that for gaining knowledge of the particular passions this knowledge of the proximate physical cause (some particular movement in the pineal gland) will not suffice and that instead we have to ask for their first cause in order to distinguish the single passions. But, having in mind that Descartes wants to proceed from clear and distinct ideas to their causes and render them clear and distinct as well, the question seems to be again: How can we find the causes of the single passions, if we dont have a clear and distinct idea of them yet? And: Do we not need first the causes of the single passions in order to be able to distinguish them and see them clearly? How do we, so to say, fill the gap which is lurking here? But, as we can see in  §51, there is really a priority of the knowledge of effects over the knowledge of their causes, as Descartes writes: â€Å"( ) still it can be inferred from what has been said that all of these passions can be aroused by the objects that move the senses, and that these objects are their most common and principal causes: from this it follows that, for finding them all, it is sufficient to consider all the effects of these objects. In the next paragraph Descartes specifies that we have to consider, in enumerating and ordering the effects (the passions) in the soul, nothing than the different manners in which their causes have importance or are useful for us, and these manners we can find in the effects themselves before we can know their exact (physical) causes. After having distingu ished the single passions we then can go on to infer their exact causes and define them in a precise way. It is important to notice that the â€Å"passions principales† that Descartes enumerates in the beginning of the second part correlate to the clear and distinct ideas of the effects through which we want to infer their necessary causes, but that there is an additional step in between. It is actually the conclusion from a reduction along these preliminary characterizations to the six passions that are recurring in these everywhere to the reduction to physical causes through which we will be able to explain especially those â€Å"simple primitives† passions, which gives us the sense in which they are conceived as simple and primitive. According to Descartes, we do not need and will not find an independent, distinct cause for each of the principal passions, but as we saw that some of them are contained in the clear and distinct ideas of others and that those few together cover all of them, it will be sufficient to discover their causes alone. The explanations of the â€Å"passions particulieres† (at least in their physiological part) will depend solely on them. Even more, Descartes seems to infer that these six 12 See P §25: â€Å"Les perceptions quon raporte seulement a lame, sont celles dont on sent les effets comme en lame mesme, desquelles on ne connoist communement aucune cause prochaine, a laquelle on les puisse raporter. † 5 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 basic passions are also â€Å"primitive† in a developmental psychological sense when he is tracing back the specific movements of the blood and animal spirits while feeling love, hate, joy, sadness and desire to first experiences of basic physiological processes in the soul after being connected with the body. Thus, the â€Å"primitive passions† are also more primitive as they occur first in every individuals life (see P §Ã‚ §107-111). And in a third sense they are primitive or simple as they can be conceived as simple or pure when we think of their initial occurrences in an individual and also the possibility of their being isolated from certain inclinations and dispositions or their combination/mixture with other primitive passions 13. So, we can read in  §82 about the different kinds of love that, if freed from all desires to possess, the love of a father to his children is pure, as well as can be (especially) admiratio and the other primitive passions. Thus Descartes â€Å"passions particuliers† are found to be complex, secondary passions as a result of his analytical or reductive method: First, they are explainable by means of the definitions or causes of the simple passions. Secondly, they develop in the process of experiences, in the interaction between body and soul out of the primitive passions. Thirdly, they are always mixed out of simple passions, they are their proportions in addition to certain physical inclinations and provoked by cer tain ideas. So, how does Spinoza arrive at defining primary passions and and how does he relate further ones to them? What are the principles behind his taxonomy? As we know, Spinoza does not use the concept of affect in a significant way before his definition in the beginning of the third part. This seems strange and dissatisfying from the perspective of Descartes` method. Does Spinoza just invent a definition? But as inventing does not at all appear like a methodical step in an inquiry, there seems to be a arbitrary element14. There are no conceptual analyses by means of relevant distinctions and no inferences of proximate or first causes from ideas that we can perceive clearly in our mind. What is rather the source for the general definition of affects in part three, the ground on which it rests, is Spinoza`s theory of mind and body, developed in the preceding part, whose major characteristic is its parallelism and which again has its origin in the metaphysics of substance mon 13 Indeed we find in most of the definitions of the particular passions in the third part of the â€Å"Passions de lAme† either an explanation through a certain inclination or disposition of the soul which are caused by a certain movement of the animal spirits in the brain that leave impressions which in return reinforce certain ideas that we form about an object (like in the case of esteem and disdain: see P §149). On the other hand there are those passion that are defined as mixtures of the movements that cause one or the other primitive passion (like in the case of hope and fear: see P §165) 14 See chapter 4 in Jonathan Bennett? s â€Å"A Study of Spinoza? s Ethics†, where he criticizes Spinozas geometrical method as highly self-referential or idiosyncratic and therefore not well founded. I believe that he is misinterpreting what Spinoza himself saw as the merits of his method, on which his â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione† can shed some light. 6 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 ism in part one. Contrary to Descartes in the â€Å"Passions†, he therefore does not grasp an idea, like passion, action, perception and the like, to subsequently try through a process of analysis to arrive at an adequate definition of this concept by distinguishing it from other ideas; but really begins from his definition of substance, God, or Nature, from which he attempts to show that everything else follows. In the â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†, Spinoza stresses that in attaining knowledge through a right method we can only proceed from causes to effects 15 and that we have therefore to start with the best definitions of what we take as a cause: â€Å"Quare recta inveniendi via est ex data aliqua definitione cogitationes formare: quod eo felicius et facilius procedet, quo rem aliquam melius definiverimus. †16. According to this, Spinoza`s way can be described rather like a productive process of construction (truly reminding of the geometrical sense) in which the developed figures are a posteriori given names that have already been familiar to us, like â€Å"action† and â€Å"passion†, â€Å"joy† and â€Å"sadness†. He is less looking for their appropriate content, but rather encounters or meets proceeding along the axioms, definitions and laws that he establishes by and by, and thus with a method – the true natures of those things of which we have always had only inadequate ideas. We can very well observe this procedure in how Spinoza arrives at his definitions of the basic af fects and we can also try to rightly understand the sense in which they are primitive or primary and the others composite or deduced. The crucial step in developing something that can bear the name â€Å"affect† is maybe, when in EIIIP4 first we find the proof (based on evidence) that a thing can only be destroyed by an external cause and then in EIIIP6, Spinoza concludes that, as nothing contrary to a subject? s existence can be part of it, there has to be a strive for self-perseverance in every thing according to its own nature. It is the conscious idea of this strive which explains our first basic affect: desire (cupiditas). The deduced strive for self-perseverance, named conatus, then also serves as the concept by which our two other primary affects can be understood: an alteration in our mind that conforms to our conatus will be called joy (laetitia), while an alteration opposed to it will be called sadness (tristitia). We should note here that between desire on the one hand and joy and sadness on the other there seems to be a certain difference, as Spinoza calls the latter ones in the same passage where he defines them â€Å"passiones†, whereas the former is first characterized only as affect and in 15 See the â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†: â€Å"Nam revera cognitio effectus nihil es, quam perfectiorem causae cognitionem acquirere. (†¦) Sed optima conclusio erit depromende ab essentia aliqua particulari affirmativa, sive a vera et legitima definitione. †, p. 70; and also Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, pp. 157f. An important aspect is that Spinoza correlates a legitimate and true definition to an affirmative essence. There we can see that defining a certain thing can not consist in showing difference to another thing, be it even an essential difference, but only in affirming its positive essence. 16 Spinoza: â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†, p. 70 7 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 deed it seems difficult to conceive of how desire, as being the conscious idea of our conatus could be a passion. But Spinoza will specify (in EIIIP58 f. ) that joy as well as desire must and indeed only they can be called active insofar as their cause consists in an adequate idea. So, although desire might be taken somehow to follow from the two other basic affects, expressing rather a current condition of our mind than a transition into a different state of perfection, the guiding distinction that accounts for Spinoza? exclusive occupation with definitions of passions in part three, separates active desire and joy from passive desire, joy and sadness. Spinoza tells us in the same paragr aph in which he is introducing joy and sadness that he is acknow ledging only these along with desire as the three primary passions and that he will show how all the remaining originate in them 17. But how exactly does he achieve this? The main means which will allow him to account for a diversity of passions will be certain mechanisms or – better – dispositions of the mind by which it is urged to behave in a certain way and to proceed from one idea or one affect to another. The main enetic principles guiding the deduction of the variety of passions in part three are those of attribution of causality (through which love and hate are being defined), associ ation of affects (we can suffer a certain affect just because it has regularly accompanied another one, by which we are affected now, in the past), similarity (unknown things can cause affects in us simply because of their similarity to things we have already been affected by) and imitation (insofar as we have an idea of something similar to us suffering an affect, we will be naturally brought to suffer the same)18. Of great effectiveness are also Spinoza? s assumptions about how the mind will behave in reaction to certain ideas (for example to exclude the existence of a thing which is thought of as the cause of our sadness). These principles seem to suffice to develop the same variety of passions as have been defined by Descartes. But, as we have seen, there is obviously a significant difference between the two methods insofar as Spinoza, so to say, meets our common notions for passions on the way and annexes or almost usurps them for his purposes. The main focus about his method is on the deductive and genetic force of his concepts and definitions. This is why we often have to realize that, in spite of their relative conformity with how we would intuitively describe what our passions consist in, Spinoza is giving quite unconventional definitions that would maybe not convince us if taken out of the context of their interrelation. It is therefore not surprising that in several passages we find con 17 See EIIIP3: â€Å"( ) et praeter hos tres nullum alium agnosco affectum primarium: nam reliquos ex his tribus oriri in seqq. ostendam. † 18 See Renz, Ursula: â€Å"Spinoza: Philosophische Therapeutik der Emotionen†, pp. 322-327. 8 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 iderations concerning the relation between his definitions and our common language for emotions, an aspect that is not at all as noticeable in Descartes because of his analytic approach that allows him to use our common language already before att aining to the knowledge of those phenomena we do have words for. Most remarkably, Spinoza admits that in defining the most important passions he does not want or can not (for some reason which might be very interesting to ask for as an explana tion of this fact) detach himself completely from the usual meanings of the names he adopts: â€Å"Haec nomina ex communi usu aliud significare scio. Sed meum institutum non est verborum significationem, sed rerum naturam explicare easque iis vocabulis indicare, quorum significatio, quam ex usu habent, a significatio, qua eadem usurpare volo, non omnino abhorrent, quod semel monuisse sufficat. † (EIIIDef. XX) On the other hand there is more than one passage in which seems to be completely indifferent to wards any affinities between his definitions and common meanings, as he repeatedly asserts that we can find much more affects than we have words for: â€Å"Et ad hunc modum concipere etiam possumus odium, spem, securitatem et alios affetus admirationi junctos; atque adeo plures affectus deducere poterimus, quam qui receptis vocabularis indicari solent. Unde apparent affectuum nomina inventa esse magis ex eorum vulgari usu quam eorundem accurata cognitione. † (EIIIP52Sch) Here again, it is significant that Spinoza talks of deducing an indefinite number of affects, while Descartes talks about distinguishing (see P §68). We also find the awareness in Descartes that he uses the general and particular words for our passions in a different way than we usually do (which seems always to go along with elaborating a theory). It may as well be supposed that Descartes ex pects there to be new combinations of the primitive passions that might lack a correspondent name in our ordinary language. But my comparison should have shown that the idea about generating new passions is of completely different kind than in Spinoza`s theory. Bibliography Beaney, Michael: Analysis, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed. ), URL = . Bennett, Jonathan: A Study of Spinoza? s Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1984. Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 Deleuze, Gilles: Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, New York: Zone Books 1990. Descartes, Rene: Die Leidenschaften der Seele, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1984. Renz, Ursula: Spinoza: Philosophische Therapeutik der E motionen, in: Klassische Emotionstheori en – Von Platon bis Wittgenstein, Hilge Landweer Ursula Renz (ed. ), Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 2008. Spinoza, Baruch de: Opera/Werke, zweiter Band (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione/Ethica), Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1978. Spinoza, Baruch de: Ethik in geometrischer Ordnung dargestellt, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 2007. 10