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In this article, I develop an ‘aspectual’ reading of Spinoza’s doctrine of formal essence, objective being, existence and non-existence, and actuality of things that conforms to his monism understood as a one-level ontology.
- 1 Formal Essences and Existence
- 2 Actual Essences and Existence
- 3 E2p8 Reconsidered
E2p8 is the principal source for Spinoza’s conception of formal essences as existing independently of the existence of singular things in duration.Footnote 11The proposition reads: The corollary continues: These lines suggest a distinction between non-durational and durational manners of existing of singular things. Spinoza says that the distinctio...
According to Spinoza’s conatus doctrine, “Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being [in suo esse perseverare conatur]” (E3p6/G 2:146). Moreover, “The striving [Conatus] by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing” (E3p7/G 2:146). As noted above, Spinoza ...
This brings us back, at last, to Spinoza’s claim in E2p8 that the formal essences of singular things are “contained in” or “comprehended in” God’s attributes whether or not the singular things exist in duration. Since, as we have just seen, essences are eternal, they do not come into and go out of existence depending on whether a singular thing exi...
- Matthew Homan
- matthew.homan@cnu.edu
- 2021
Hubner suggests that E2d2 is defining the relation between an essence as an idea and the object (‘res’) of that essence, so that E2d2 only claims that whenever there is an idea of an essence there must also be its object.
Apr 6, 2020 · The key to resolving Spinoza’s seemingly inconsistent remarks on essences is to recognize the difference between the eternal kind essence and its unique and durational instances in particulars.
The latter essences possess objective reality alone, qua beings of reason [entia rationis] repre-‘ ’ sented by finite minds and constructed by them on the basis of similarities ( agreements) among the properties of formally-real particulars.
Mar 31, 2023 · Essences play a central role in Spinoza’s philosophy, not only in his metaphysics, but also in his philosophy of mind, his theory of affects, and his political philosophy. Despite their importance, however, it is surprisingly difficult to determine what exactly essences are for Spinoza.
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However, given that the terminology deployed by Spinoza varies greatly in the Ethics (e.g. Spinoza uses both ‘formal essence’ and ‘formal being’), one must preliminarily enquire whether there is any difference between the concepts of essence and being in this regard.
