Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

300 RENAISSANCE AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RATIONALISM
permitting himself to repeat his criticism of criteriology in E II P43. Therefore,
he can conclude in II P49: ‘In the Mind there is no volition, or affirmation and
negation, except that which the idea involves insofar as it is an idea.’ This
proposition is then defended against the Cartesian conception of infinite will and
finite knowledge, and against the notion of the indifference of the will. In a way,
Spinoza’s dealing with volition is rather abstract here, only to become
understandable when he moves on to discuss appetite.
Minds and bodies being but modes of attributes and not substances, the
activating principle of human behaviour no longer simply to be identified with
volition, Spinoza argues for the equivalence of mind and body. ‘The very
structure of the human Body, which, in the ingenuity of its construction, far
surpasses anything made by human skill’ (E III P2S) is not to be regarded as an
instrument for use of the mind, nor as its temple, but as much part of nature as
the mind is. The body could not act if it were not determined to act qua body.
However, for Spinoza the notion of ‘thing’ indicates existing objects without
special reference to the attributes. Since he is convinced that all things can be
analysed according to the two attributes we are acquainted with, and that the
order and concatenation of matter is the same as that of ideas, he holds that we
can explain things both ways. For sure, Spinoza does not follow up this principle
in all details. In particular, since we lack precise knowledge about the workings
of the human body, we had better concentrate on human psychology. This is what
happens when Spinoza has introduced his central notion of conatus in E III P6–P9.
P6: Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its
being.
P7: The striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is
nothing but the actual essence of the thing.
P9: Both insofar as the Mind has clear and distinct ideas, and insofar as
it has confused ideas, it strives, for an indefinite duration, to persevere in
its being and it is conscious of this striving it has.
The two attributes are introduced in P9S as follows:
When this striving is related only to the Mind, it is called Will; but when it
is related to the Mind and the Body together, it is called Appetite. This
Appetite, therefore, is nothing but the very essence of man, from whose
nature necessary follow those things that promote his preservation.
Spinoza adds that ‘desire can be defined as appetite together with consciousness
of the appetite’ (emphasis in the original). This is somewhat problematic, since
here Spinoza affirms a quality of things that precedes the thing’s explanation in
terms of the attributes (i.e. conatus or appetite), but at the same time connects it
in a rather complicated way to the attributal explanations. With this introduction
of ‘will’ we have no quarrel, nor with appetite as synonymous with conatus; but