# Spinoza and Freedom

## February 10th, 2020

- Pre-class scribblings:

        A new room; with it
        New sounds, a new view
        But still the same people
        Thus, still the same world

        We shall talk of the new things
        In the old ways; unceasing,
        We shall continue making
        The same great acts and mistakes

        We shall continue the virtues
        (surprising) and sinful mistakes

- Alright; you all found the new classroom, and it's actually quiet now! Great! "We can hear ourselves think, in a philosophy class - weird, right?"
    - I also got everyone's submissions for analysis 1; I'll try and grade them in the next 2 weeks and figure out how Canvas works ("I'm used to emailing stuff back")
- Next week, we'll have another correspondence topic on John Locke, so stay tuned
    - On Wednesday, we'll cover Newton and Leibniz; if that's too much reading, just focus on Newton's "General Scholium"
    - "I'm sure it's getting busy for you; it's the same way for your professors this time of semester"
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- Most of class today'll be on Spinoza, but let's take 5 minutes to talk about the handout last week:
    - There were 2 ways I think the genetic fallacy handout might've been confusing, based on questions I've been getting:
        - First, fallacies do NOT usually apply to valid arguments; instead, fallacies are typically reasons why an argument isn't valid at all, particularly for more informal-style arguments
            - An invalid argument isn't *necessarily* bad (e.g. the inductive courtroom "serial liar" example), but it often is
        - Second, I brought up the genetic fallacy because a lot of people ignore thinkers because of their historical baggage and biases rather than because of their actual arguments, and I wanted to help use see that's not a good reason to ignore the people we're reading
            - "Validity is important because we might think an argument is RIDICULOUS, and reject it *before* checking if it makes logical sense - and we might do that only to later realize they were right after all"
            - If we notice an argument is invalid, we can do 1 of 2 things:
                - 1) Say the argument is bad
                - 2) Try to fix it

- Okay; a LOT of people thought Spinoza was saying some ridiculous stuff last class about free will, and while I'm not a Spinozist, I do want to show he responds to a lot of the objections we brought up
    - First off, Spinoza is a DETERMINIST, meaning that he thinks *everything* comes about from direct physical causes
        - "Some people think Spinoza's a compatibilist - I personally think we shouldn't get into that right now"
        - This seems to invalidate moral responsibility, but Spinoza doesn't think so, even if he does think it invalidates free will
        - In law, for instance, many people accidentally cause crimes without being aware of it (e.g. manslaughter), but the person is still charged with the crime *even though* they weren't aware of what they were doing - since they were still the immediate cause that brought that thing about
            - "This goes against our intuitions, but it's not totally ridiculous"
    - So, Spinoza thinks we're externally determined - outside forces cause us to act in various ways
        - There's also INTERNAL DETERMINATION, where something that's inside us causes us to take a certain path; for instance, Socrates voluntarily "chose" to drink hemlock, but in a way it *was* determined because he himself couldn't leave Athens - it would've violated the core of who he was!
            - Similarly (and less violently), you might pick chocolate ice cream because it's *your* favorite flavor - it's inside you, but you wouldn't pick anything else! You couldn't have! You're determined, but it's still your desires in a sense
            - "Spinoza would probably say these are a mixture of internal and external determinations, that external ones can become internal, etc."
    - Our modern selves react against this: if it's not our choice, we're slaves! But Spinoza doesn't think that
        - For Spinoza, he thinks that freedom is about being internally determined rather than externally determined, and about intellectually pursuing the truth on your own - not just accepting external stories you've been told
            - "Spinoza does think we have desires in the sense of animal instincts; we want things, but we can't choose differently"
        - However, this still isn't free will because Spinoza believes you will *always* choose the same, pre-determined thing in a given scenario; there isn't any case where you would've chosen differently if you played it back
            - Spinoza thinks this view is irrational based on the PSR, since every effect has a cause - meaning that if you could've chosen differently with the SAME exact starting state, that principle would be violated; you'd be breaking the laws of nature!
        - So, Spinoza thinks we believe in free will only because we don't understand this, in our ignorance

- Alright, let's go into the textbook at Book I, proposition II
    - Spinoza gives a similar argument for God as Descartes, saying that he *necessarily* exists
        - Spinoza says that all real substances have to actually exist, and that God (or, as he says, nature), as its only substance, therefore must exist; it's not just the 1st domino, but the whole set of dominoes that make it exist

- Okay, let's briefly talk about Spinoza's epistemology
    - "In Book III, Spinoza brings up 'affects,' or emotions"
    - We said this nature can exist in 2 modes: "thought" and "extended matter," and the only reason we don't see them as the same thing is because we're limited pieces of this substance
    - In Book II, proposition 7, Spinoza tries to argue that there's an infinite causal chain of ideas as well (e.g. anger comes from the physical act of being hit, which leads to thinking other things, etc.)

- Alright, Wednesday we'll pick up Leibniz and Newton - thank you for letting me try and explain Spinoza!