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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who is Spinoza referring to?
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
Latest post here on the difficult question of whether ‘God’, as Spinoza uses the term, has the same reference as when more orthodox theologians use it. Background: Spinoza was excommunicated by the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam on 27 July 1656 for the ‘abominable heresies which he practised and taught’. The official record does not state what these abominations were, but in Spinoza’s anonymously published work he argues, for example, that God is Nature, and he seems to anticipate modernist understandings of scripture arguing that the texts must for the most part be interpreted figuratively. E.g. ‘Spirit of God’ often signifies no more than a ‘dry and lethal wind’.
I argue that when Spinoza quotes scripture, as he frequently does, the reference of the proper names must be the same. Thus if he also asserts that God is Nature, then he is saying that the very same being that the Bible is referring to, is identical with Nature. As opposed to saying that some completely different being is Nature, that is.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
I argue that when Spinoza quotes scripture, as he frequently does, the reference of the proper names must be the same.
I don't think this is true.
Consider the Paraclete in John 14. Trinitarian Christian readers take that to be the Holy Spirit. At least some Muslim spologists take the Paraclete to refer to Muhammad. And Baha'i apologists take it to refer to Baha'u'llah.
Does this mean that the reference of a Muslim apologist quoting the passage is the same as Baha'u'llah? Clearly not.
For what it's worth, I think Kripke is wrong about natural language. Natural language is messy.(*)
As I understand it, it's consistent with Aquinas' theories of language to say that Aquinas believes it impossible to refer directly to God. I don't know whether it's consistent with Spinoza's theory of language to think it's impossible to refer directly to God-or-Nature. I haven't ever heard that Spinoza's theory of language is any more sophisticated than most 17th Century philosophers, so he probably thought he could refer directly. If so, I think he would be wrong: it's more complicated to refer to everything than it is to refer to gold or iron pyrites or George Washington.
Questions about reference are usually easy to analyse when referring to middle-sized dry goods or to embodied individuals. When referring to more metaphysically complex matters I think reference becomes a less simple tool, and it is seldom useful to analyse disputes as being solely about whether a key term does or does not refer to the same entity.
(*) My favourite example (I can't remember the provenance): if everyone else at the party is drinking wine, 'that man drinking water' can potentially secure reference even if he's drinking gin and tonic.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Moo
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# 107
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Posted
Host hat on
Although there Spinoza makes reference to Scripture, the main question in the OP is what did Spinoza mean.
This is not a Keryg topic. I am moving it to Purg.
Hold your hats.
Moo
Host hat off
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See you later, alligator.
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
If I recall from my Biblical Hebrew courses in college, "Spirit of God" and "Mighty wind" are both valid interpretations of the same Hebrew phrase. "Spirit" and "Wind" are the same word, and "of God" can be used as an adjective meaning "great" or "very large." (English uses similar phrases -- we might say an 'almighty' wind when we don't mean it's omnipotent, or that something is "god-awful." In the 80s if someone was the epitome of some trait, we sometimes called them "Lord King God [name of trait]".)
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
My favourite example (I can't remember the provenance): if everyone else at the party is drinking wine, 'that man drinking water' can potentially secure reference even if he's drinking gin and tonic.
Donnellan
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think this is true.
Consider the Paraclete in John 14. Trinitarian Christian readers take that to be the Holy Spirit. At least some Muslim spologists take the Paraclete to refer to Muhammad. And Baha'i apologists take it to refer to Baha'u'llah.
Direct quote: John 14:26 says ‘the Paraclete … will teach you all things’
Indirect quote: In John 14:26 it says that the Paraclete … will teach you all things.
The principle of disquotation says that if sentence ‘p’ has its standard meaning in English, then ‘p’ says that p, where ‘p’ is to be replaced, inside and outside quotation marks, by a standard English sentence whose words are used in the standard way. The problem is whether ‘Paraclete’ has a standard meaning, of course.
[ 07. May 2016, 13:18: Message edited by: peter damian ]
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
The principle of disquotation says that if sentence ‘p’ has its standard meaning in English, then ‘p’ says that p, where ‘p’ is to be replaced, inside and outside quotation marks, by a standard English sentence whose words are used in the standard way. The problem is whether ‘Paraclete’ has a standard meaning, of course.
This is of course true, but limited in its application.
Most standard English sentences have more than one standard meaning. Even setting aside ambiguity, most sentences containing common nouns refer to different entities on different occasions of use. Thus, merely because I accurately reproduce the lexemes and phonemes used in a text it does not follow that I am using the phonemes in the same sense, or if in the same sense with the same reference. I may have misinterpreted the text, or be misrepresenting the text (in which case my statement that x said that p is false); or I may be alluding to the text or using the text metaphorically or to make an analogy.
And all that is assuming for the sake of argument that the meaning of a text is a single determinate meaning to begin with.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
To address the question more directly.
Usually we can say two statements refer to different entities or people if they assign contradictory properties but the truth of one is compatible with the truth of the other. Whereas if they assign contradictory properties and the truth of one rules out the truth of the other, then they refer to the same entity or person.
The truth of Spinoza's entire position is I believe incompatible with the truth of Aquinas'. That implies that the situation is more analogous to them referring to the same concrete entity than to them referring to different concrete entities.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
To address the question more directly.
Usually we can say two statements refer to different entities or people if they assign contradictory properties but the truth of one is compatible with the truth of the other. Whereas if they assign contradictory properties and the truth of one rules out the truth of the other, then they refer to the same entity or person.
The truth of Spinoza's entire position is I believe incompatible with the truth of Aquinas'. That implies that the situation is more analogous to them referring to the same concrete entity than to them referring to different concrete entities.
This makes no sense to me. How can contradictory properties not rule each other out? That's what contradictory means.
Can you give some examples of each of your two scenarios?
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
The principle of disquotation says that if sentence ‘p’ has its standard meaning in English, then ‘p’ says that p, where ‘p’ is to be replaced, inside and outside quotation marks, by a standard English sentence whose words are used in the standard way. The problem is whether ‘Paraclete’ has a standard meaning, of course.
There's two problems here:
1. 'Paraclete' doesn't have a standard meaning; it's a specialty word used only in a very small circle.
2. The sentence we're dickering about is in Greek, not English. The Muslims who made their theory of what this meant (perhaps it's in the Koran? I don't know) were very likely not doing it in English.
[ 08. May 2016, 04:58: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Macrina
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# 8807
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Latest post here on the difficult question of whether ‘God’, as Spinoza uses the term, has the same reference as when more orthodox theologians use it. Background: Spinoza was excommunicated by the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam on 27 July 1656 for the ‘abominable heresies which he practised and taught’. The official record does not state what these abominations were, but in Spinoza’s anonymously published work he argues, for example, that God is Nature, and he seems to anticipate modernist understandings of scripture arguing that the texts must for the most part be interpreted figuratively. E.g. ‘Spirit of God’ often signifies no more than a ‘dry and lethal wind’.
I argue that when Spinoza quotes scripture, as he frequently does, the reference of the proper names must be the same. Thus if he also asserts that God is Nature, then he is saying that the very same being that the Bible is referring to, is identical with Nature. As opposed to saying that some completely different being is Nature, that is.
As I understand it (and I very much look forward to others expanding and sharpening my understanding further as I make no claim to understand this fully) Spinoza is a philosophical monist i.e he believes that everything we can conceive of or perceive or imagine is made of one thing 'substance'.
God is equated with this Substance.
Substance can have many different attributes or extensions eg can be perceived or manifest in many different ways. So human beings are one extension of Substance and have many different attributes.
God is basically Substance with infinite attributes and extensions. So not only the whole physical universe but the whole mental and spiritual and emotional universe is all part of God and relates back to God as it is all one gigantic interconnected thing of which we are a part.
This is horribly confusing and jarring to most of us raised in the Western traditions because we are instinctive philosophical dualists who believe that minds are qualitively different to bodies in some way. From what I read in Dawkins and Harris there is quite a lot of evidence that Humans are naturally 'designed' to be instinctive dualists.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I find these quotations helpful, particularly the first.
Spinoza, Aquinas and the rest of us all suffer from the same inadequacy in our references to and about God. We cannot escape the mystery of God. So every reference we make, and quote, points us to a different issue. We may believe we have a revelation about God, obtained from a Tradition (i.e. authorised in some sense), or the natural world, or personal insight. Use of the same word by any of us in conversation or debate does not mean that we are referring to the same, or similar, understanding of that word. Because of our necessary partial insight, we may be referring to the same "elephant", but some of us may be mistaking an "elephant" for a "rhinoceros". For the present, "we know in part". That is, if we know at all.
My personal viewpoint is Trinitarian, recognising that those who first enunciated it and offered it (Cappadocean Fathers) were only too aware that they were seeking, through contemplation, to say something of value about attributes which left the essential mystery intact.
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
OK let’s test this with another example. In an earlier post I quote from John of Damascus, i.e. I quote his words in direct speech, not using a that-clause. John writes something which (translated in English) is ‘There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book [Quran] which he [Muhammad] boasts was sent down to him from God’.
Note that John is quoting Muhammad indirectly. I.e. suppose Muhammad uttered something like this: ‘The Quran was sent down to me from Allah’. Then John is saying something like ‘Muhammad says that the Quran was sent down to him from God’. Note the use rather than the mention of the word ‘God’, and note the shift from ‘Allah’ to ‘God’. So John has already made the implicit assumption that Muhammad is talking about the very same entity as John is talking about.
Finally, I can report what John says, by saying ‘John says that Muhammad says that the Quran was sent down to him from God’, so I am also buying into the identity assumption of God and Allah.
There are similar things we can say about Spinoza’s text, which I will be looking at shortly.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Usually we can say two statements refer to different entities or people if they assign contradictory properties but the truth of one is compatible with the truth of the other. Whereas if they assign contradictory properties and the truth of one rules out the truth of the other, then they refer to the same entity or person.
This makes no sense to me. How can contradictory properties not rule each other out? That's what contradictory means.
Can you give some examples of each of your two scenarios?
'Wrote My Brilliant Friend' is a property. 'Didn't write My Brilliant Friend' is a contradictory property.
Elena Ferrante wrote My Brilliant Friend.
Margaret Atwood didn't write My Brilliant Friend.
Both statements are true. Therefore, Margaret Atwood isn't Elena Ferrante.
On the other hand, if I say that George Orwell was born in England, and you say that can't be true because Eric Blair was born in India, that implies that George Orwell and Eric Blair are the same person. If Eric Blair and George Orwell can't have been born in different places they must be the same person.
Yes: only a logician would argue in that direction. Sensible people wouldn't do it. This is logical, not sensible.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Finally, I can report what John says, by saying ‘John says that Muhammad says that the Quran was sent down to him from God’, so I am also buying into the identity assumption of God and Allah.
I can't think of any reasonable argument by which Allah, as used by Muslims, does not refer to the God of Abraham.
(At least, I can't think of any that don't assume atheism; even then I think questions about the identity or non-identity of fictional or otherwise non-existent entities can't be adequately answered by a simple 'yes' or 'no'.)
Nevertheless, I don't think the question of whether John or Spinoza is referring to the same entity as Muhammad or Aquinas is can be settled by a single passage out of context.
I think it might help if you were more explicit about which points you agree or disagree with, and why you think your arguments address those points.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I can't think of any reasonable argument by which Allah, as used by Muslims, does not refer to the God of Abraham.
See the comments to this post by Bill Valicella, especially those by Lydia McGrew. And of of course Larycia Hawkins was suspended for claiming the same thing.
As Bill says, and I agree, the problem is to establish criteria by which different occurrences of the same proper name co-refer. If names refer by description, and if people associate different and perhaps contradictory descriptions with the name ‘God’
quote:
I think it might help if you were more explicit about which points you agree or disagree with, and why you think your arguments address those points.
At the moment I’m trying to understand what other people think about a difficult question. One thing I explicitly claim is the validity of disquotation. If a set of words in quotation marks have an agreed and standard meaning, then removing the quotation marks and appending ‘that’, i.e. moving from ‘S utters “p”’ to ‘S says that p’ is valid, on the assumption that the words in indirect quotation also have the standard meaning.
The problem, which is central for Kripke, is the ‘standard meaning’ of proper names. He claims that there is a standard meaning – otherwise we wouldn’t ever know exactly who people were talking about – but concedes this can lead to difficulties.
quote:
I think questions about the identity or non-identity of fictional or otherwise non-existent entities can't be adequately answered by a simple 'yes' or 'no'.)
Quite.
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Yes: only a logician would argue in that direction. Sensible people wouldn't do it. This is logical, not sensible.
??
Sensible and logical converge totally.
‘Fa and not Fb implies a /= b’ is both logical and sensible. If it is true that George Orwell was born in India, and true that Eric Blair was not born in India, then it follows, both logically and sensibly, that Eric Blair and George Orwell are different people.
Also ‘Fa and a = b implies Fb’ is logical and sensible. Thus if George Orwell and Eric Blair are one and the same person, and if George Orwell was born in India, then it follows that Eric Blair was born in India.
quote:
If Eric Blair and George Orwell can't have been born in different places they must be the same person.
Why? What if they were identical twins, born within minutes of each other? Then they can't have been born in different places, but they would not be the same person either.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Usually we can say two statements refer to different entities or people if they assign contradictory properties but the truth of one is compatible with the truth of the other. Whereas if they assign contradictory properties and the truth of one rules out the truth of the other, then they refer to the same entity or person.
This makes no sense to me. How can contradictory properties not rule each other out? That's what contradictory means.
Can you give some examples of each of your two scenarios?
'Wrote My Brilliant Friend' is a property. 'Didn't write My Brilliant Friend' is a contradictory property.
Elena Ferrante wrote My Brilliant Friend.
Margaret Atwood didn't write My Brilliant Friend.
Both statements are true. Therefore, Margaret Atwood isn't Elena Ferrante.
I see now what you mean. Thank you.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I can't think of any reasonable argument by which Allah, as used by Muslims, does not refer to the God of Abraham.
The Muslims' Allah called Muhammed to be his prophet. Given what Muhammed wrote, the God of Abraham could not possibly have called Muhammed to be his prophet.
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The Muslims' Allah called Muhammed to be his prophet. Given what Muhammed wrote, the God of Abraham could not possibly have called Muhammed to be his prophet.
There is a trap to avoid here. X says that David Cameron didn’t lie about his father's offshore fund. Y denies this, saying that David Cameron did lie about his father's offshore fund. Does this mean they have to be talking about different people? Why?
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I can't think of any reasonable argument by which Allah, as used by Muslims, does not refer to the God of Abraham.
As Bill says, and I agree, the problem is to establish criteria by which different occurrences of the same proper name co-refer. If names refer by description, and if people associate different and perhaps contradictory descriptions with the name ‘God’
I think the claim that names refer by definite description is immensely problematic. Let us take Aristotle, pupil of Plato, tutor of Alexander, born in Stagira, flourished in Athens, author of The Nicomachean Ethics, author of The Poetics, author of the Physics, et al. I think any of those descriptions could be falsified and I'd still take it that the name 'Aristotle' referred to the rest of the pattern.
I certainly see no guarantee that whatever description Aristotle amounts to for me is the same that it amounts to for anyone else.
Fundamentally I don't see how one could possibly decide that 'is a Trinity' is or isn't part of the meaning of 'God' for Christians that doesn't rely on some other argument. In which case, it is the other argument that determines the meaning rather than the description.
I cannot see any case for arguing that the Christian God is essentially Triune that doesn't also have the consequence that Old Testament Jews didn't worship the Christian God - and I think 'the God worshipped by the Jews of the late Old Testament' is more important to the reference of the Christian God than 'is a Trinity' is.
It must have been possible for an Arabic speaking Christian or Jew at the time of Muhammad to use 'Allah' to refer to God without having had any mystical experience, by virtue of participation in the same linguistic community. Muhammad's use clearly depends on that linguistic community, and therefore doesn't require him to have any veridical mystical experience to secure that reference.
quote:
One thing I explicitly claim is the validity of disquotation. If a set of words in quotation marks have an agreed and standard meaning, then removing the quotation marks and appending ‘that’, i.e. moving from ‘S utters “p”’ to ‘S says that p’ is valid, on the assumption that the words in indirect quotation also have the standard meaning.
As phrased, you need to allow for indexicals. Cameron: 'you should vote for me' does not entitle Corbyn to say 'Cameron says that you should vote for me'.
I'm inclined to think that indexicals are the paradigm case of reference. A theory of reference that treats indexicals as a special case is probably going to be wrongheaded. That being the case, I think that if the principle of disquotation needs to be adapted for indexicals the same adaptation is probably required for all terms that refer.
So I'm inclined to say that the principle of disquotation applies to valid disquotation; but invalid disquotation is possible.
quote:
The problem, which is central for Kripke, is the ‘standard meaning’ of proper names. He claims that there is a standard meaning – otherwise we wouldn’t ever know exactly who people were talking about – but concedes this can lead to difficulties.
If 'exactly' is taken to mean 'excluding the possibility of error and knowing that we have excluded the possibility of error', I don't think language itself can ever found that degree of exactitude. I don't think the human condition can ever found that degree of exactitude.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Yes: only a logician would argue in that direction. Sensible people wouldn't do it. This is logical, not sensible.
??
Sensible and logical converge totally.
Using 'this green object is a leaf' as evidence that all ravens are black is logical but not sensible.
No sensible argument is illogical. However, sensible arguments need not be logical. A logical argument is one in which the truth of the premises necessitates the truth of the conclusion. For an argument to be sensible the truth of the premises need only make the conclusion more likely than not.
quote:
quote:
If Eric Blair and George Orwell can't have been born in different places they must be the same person.
Why? What if they were identical twins, born within minutes of each other? Then they can't have been born in different places, but they would not be the same person either.
I think that introducing relational properties such as 'identical twins' and 'born within minutes of each other' confuses matters.
Even so, I can specify logical possibility rather than physical possibility. A sufficiently fast vehicle or a teleporter would allow for identical twins to be born in different places.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Fundamentally I don't see how one could possibly decide that 'is a Trinity' is or isn't part of the meaning of 'God' for Christians that doesn't rely on some other argument. In which case, it is the other argument that determines the meaning rather than the description.
I cannot see any case for arguing that the Christian God is essentially Triune that doesn't also have the consequence that Old Testament Jews didn't worship the Christian God - and I think 'the God worshipped by the Jews of the late Old Testament' is more important to the reference of the Christian God than 'is a Trinity' is.
It must have been possible for an Arabic speaking Christian or Jew at the time of Muhammad to use 'Allah' to refer to God without having had any mystical experience, by virtue of participation in the same linguistic community. Muhammad's use clearly depends on that linguistic community, and therefore doesn't require him to have any veridical mystical experience to secure that reference.
I think we agree totally on this, indeed it will be the central thesis of my book. We cannot be people of the book without the book, and this Spinozistic concept of reaching God by some process of logical or natural deduction, somehow aided or supported or not supported by the book, makes no sense.
Interested to hear what others think.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It must have been possible for an Arabic speaking Christian or Jew at the time of Muhammad to use 'Allah' to refer to God without having had any mystical experience, by virtue of participation in the same linguistic community. Muhammad's use clearly depends on that linguistic community, and therefore doesn't require him to have any veridical mystical experience to secure that reference.
I think we agree totally on this, indeed it will be the central thesis of my book. We cannot be people of the book without the book, and this Spinozistic concept of reaching God by some process of logical or natural deduction, somehow aided or supported or not supported by the book, makes no sense.
I should say that I think participating in an Abrahamic linguistic usage is sufficient for reference, but not necessary. Prominent thinkers in all three Abrahamic communities have taken it - I think correctly - that Plato and Aristotle talk about God. I just think the argument there is less obviously correct than the argument that Muslims believe in God. I even think it's correct to say that philosophically inclined Hindus - that is those who believe in a single underlying divine reality - believe in the same God as Christians.
There are problems with any attempt to reach everything by natural deduction (not least that Spinoza was a 17th Century member of a Jewish community rather than an intelligence in a cultural vacuum), but I think it's immensely important to Christian theology to assert that if it is possible to do so, then the Christian God is the God that the project would reach.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
Dafyd, you have confused "logical" with "valid." An inductive argument can be logical; it cannot be valid.
[ 11. May 2016, 03:31: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Dafyd, you have confused "logical" with "valid." An inductive argument can be logical; it cannot be valid.
I wouldn't myself describe inductive arguments as logical: inductive arguments aren't susceptible to formalisation. I don't think there's any criterion that does't involve personal judgement by which you can decide that a particular inductive argument succeeds or fails.
However, I wouldn't use 'illogical' in such a way that inductive arguments count as illogical either. Which is to say that I don't use illogical and logical as logical negations of each other.
I think that's a consistent and clear way of using the words (as opposed to the Star Trek usage where 'logical' means any opinion the current writer thinks it would further the drama for Mr Spock to hold).
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
But unless you're Daniel Webster, you don't get to decide what words mean. Hundreds of colleges and universities offer courses in "Informal Logic" and they certainly don't think it's an oxymoron.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
"Irrational" - or even "Supra-rational" logic courses might be more intriguing!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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