Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA 297
State’, the then minor William III, should never become a stadholder in the
Republic. But also he was convinced that the regenten were too keen on
‘warming themselves at the coals’ of the burning houses of others.
SPINOZA’S POSITION
Spinoza elaborates his conception of morality and politics against the
background of his predecessors, using their arguments, examples and concepts.
The result of this elaboration is both recognizable and totally different. Spinoza
aims at conceptual integration and reformulates the convictions of spirits kindred
to his own so as to adapt them to his own principles. Notwithstanding the evident
ideological preoccupations of these authors, Spinoza believed that in all
judgements there is some element of truth. We do not correct false statements by
pointing out their falsity, but by improving on their truth, as Spinoza already
explained in his Short Treatise and postulated in E II P35.
Teleology
We have seen how on the foundations of the Leiden Neostoic-Aristotelian
tradition, Velthuysen gave teleology a central place in his moral and political
thought. Spinoza reacts at length to this notion. In E I App, he explains that the
teleological conception of nature is a projection of man, who takes his own goaloriented
behaviour as a paradigm, unconscious of the fact that in reality
everything happens according to causality. This projection leads to awkward
consequences: ‘But while they sought to show that nature does nothing in vain
(i.e. nothing which is not of use to men), they seem to have shown only that
nature and the Gods are as mad as men.’ Indeed, nature has also provided many
inconveniences (storms, earthquakes, diseases etc.) and they are imputed to the
Gods being angry with men. Man may see himself as the maker of things (e.g. a
house) and even form universal ideas or models to which these things have to
conform, but this does not apply to nature.
The reason, therefore, or cause, why God, or Nature, acts, and the reason
why he exists, are one and the same. As he exists for the sake of no end, he
also acts for the sake of no end. Rather, as he has no principle or end of
existing, so he has also none of acting. What is called a final cause is
nothing but a human appetite insofar as it is considered as a principal, or
primary cause, of some thing.
(E IV Praef)
This is typically Spinozistic argumentation. An opinion or imagination is
reinterpreted in terms of a more general theory. The opinion is not denied, but
restricted in its applicability. These opinions cannot be taken as knowledge of
nature, because they are a consequence or part of nature.