Learning from Six Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume (Vol. 2)

396 Pages·2016·1.29 MB·english

by  Jonathan Bennett

LEARNING FROM SIX PHILOSOPHERS
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Learning from Six Philosophers
Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume
JONATHAN BENNETT
VOLUME 2
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
2001
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Preface to Volume 2
This second half of my two-volume work is mainly concerned with themes in the
philosophies of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, though Leibniz will appear as a
commentator on Locke and (in Chapters 23 and 40) in other ways as well.
Chapter 24 expounds a theory of Descartes’s which I prefer to treat only after
presenting related work by Locke and Leibniz.
Fifteen of the chapters in this volume (the exceptions being 23, 24, and 38–40)
overlap my Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes(1971) in the topics covered and,
to a considerable extent, in what I have to say about them. Except in Chapter 37,
however, hardly a sentence has been carried over intact from the earlier book,
and what I now offer reflects the intervening three decades of further reading and
reflection and of growth as a philosopher.
I respond to some criticisms of my earlier work, where it seems profitable to
do so. But my main concern is to present what I now have to say in as clear and
uncluttered a manner as possible.
Each volume contains the Contents and Abbreviations for the entire work.
The Bibliography and Indexes have been divided, with each volume containing
only what is relevant to it. Each Index of Topics includes references to the ‘six
philosophers’; all other personal references are in the Index of Persons.
A comprehensive treatment of my six philosophers, even on the topics within
their work which I discuss, could not be achieved by one person or presented in
a mere forty chapters. I have chosen topics which I find interesting and nourish-
ing to wrestle with. A reader who stays with me will at the end have some sense
of the overall shape of each of the six, though providing this has not been my
chief aim.
The title Learning from Six Philosophersdeclares my attitude in this work: I want
to learn from these men, which I do by arguing with them. I explain and defend
this approach in the Introduction to Volume 1.
This work arises out of teaching across forty years at several universities—
Cambridge, Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, British Columbia, Syracuse. My intel-
lectual debts to colleagues and students at those institutions are too numerous,
and not clearly enough remembered, for me to acknowledge them in detail; but
I place on record my gratitude for the doctoral programme at Syracuse
University, and for my eighteen happy years of contact with its students and
faculty.
I was also helped by sabbatical leaves in which I was supported by Syracuse
University and (in two) by the National Endowment for the Humanities and (in
a third) by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. To all three organizations
I am grateful.
vi PREFACE TO VOLUME 2
At a late stage in its life, the entire manuscript was read for the Oxford
University Press by Don Garrett, who provided several dozen comments and
suggestions for its improvement. I have availed myself of many of these, and
thank Garrett for the generosity and thoughtfulness of his help.
Readers who have comments, suggestions, or corrections to offer are invited
to send them to me at [email protected].
J.F.B.
Bowen Island, BC
May 2000
Contents
VOLUME 1
Abbreviations xvii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: CARTESIAN AND ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS 11
1. Aristotelian physics: a quick sketch 11
2. Aristotle and Descartes: how many fundamental kinds? 13
3. Aristotle and Descartes: four more differences 15
4. Aristotle and Descartes: teleology 17
5. Descartes and two predecessors 18
6. Aristotle, Descartes and the manifest image 21
CHAPTER 2: MATTER AND SPACE 23
7. ‘Material = extended’: why Descartes wanted this doctrine 23
8. ‘Material = extended’: how Descartes defended this 28
9. Solidity 30
10. Space as extended nothing 32
11. Container space 33
12. Spaces and places 35
13. Space as a system of relations 38
14. The fourth view: space as a separator 39
15. Descartes’s ‘neighbour’ account of motion 41
CHAPTER 3: DESCARTES’S PHYSICS 44
16. Smallness of parts 44
17. Subtleness and speed 46
18. Qualitative variety 48
19. Compression 51
20. The integration problem 53
21. Light and movement loops 55
22. Other work for loop theory 57
23. Traction 59
24. Weight 61
25. Was Descartes a ‘new Stoic’? 63
CHAPTER 4: DESCARTES’S DUALISMS 66
26. Property-dualism 66
viii CONTENTS
27. The indivisibility argument for the ‘real distinction’ 67
28. ‘I am unable to distinguish parts in myself’ 69
29. From conception to possibility 71
30. From possibility to actuality: essences 74
31. From possibility to actuality: individual identity 77
32. The Cartesian concept of man 81
CHAPTER 5: DESCARTES ON CAUSATION 84
33. Causation and similarity 84
34. Varying the causal resources principle 86
35. Tropes 90
36. Descartes against tropes 93
37. Descartes’s non-endurance doctrine 95
38. Body on body 99
39. Mind on body 101
40. Psychology’s invasion of physics 103
41. Body on mind: sense perception 105
42. Mind on mind 107
CHAPTER 6: PREPARING TO APPROACH SPINOZA 112
43. How to read the Ethics 112
44. Spinoza’s dualism 113
45. Spinoza’s monism 117
46. Spinoza’s pantheism 119
47. Spinoza’s a priori argument for God’s existence 122
48. Mind-body parallelism 124
49. Descartes’s robot 128
50. ‘A queer kind of medium’ 130
CHAPTER 7: ONE EXTENDED SUBSTANCE 133
51. The thing thought and the independence thought 133
52. Can a Cartesian body be annihilated? 135
53. Spinoza sees the problem 138
54. Spinoza’s solution and Curley’s challenge 140
55. Spinoza on bodies as modes 142
56. Objections by Curley 145
57. Spinoza’s two levels 147
58. Bodies and motion 148
CHAPTER 8: EXPLAINING THE PARALLELISM 151
59. ‘Idea of’ in Spinoza 151
60. The official arguments for parallelism 153
61. The thing-identity thesis: explaining parallelism 155
62. Trans-attributes qualities 158
63. A difficulty and a suggested solution 159
64. Five problems solved 162
CONTENTS ix
65. A further problem solved: attribute and essence 163
66. Intellectual limitations? 165
67. Expressing 167
CHAPTER 9: EXPLANATORY RATIONALISM 170
68. Causal laws in Spinoza 170
69. Time and eternity 172
70. Is this the only possible world? 173
71. Leibniz’s pursuit of contingency 176
72. Choices, especially God’s 182
CHAPTER 10: SPINOZA ON BELIEF AND ERROR 186
73. Beliefs 186
74. Belief and the will 189
75. Error 190
76. A better account of truth? 193
77. A suggested explanation 195
78. Adequate ideas 198
79. Mutilation 199
80. Confusion 201
81. Spinoza on reason’s infallibility 203
CHAPTER 11: DESIRE IN DESCARTES AND SPINOZA 207
82. Descartes on desire 207
83. Does Spinoza reject all teleology? 209
84. Spinoza’s trouble with thoughtful teleology 210
85. Spinoza’s account of appetite 214
86. The ‘demonstration’ of the conatusdoctrine 217
CHAPTER 12: LEIBNIZ ARRIVES AT MONADS 224
87. Why there are no material substances 224
88. Why there are immaterial substances 227
89. How bodies relate to monads 229
90. Divisibility and substances: some options 232
91. Why monads are mind-like 234
92. An aside on Leibniz’s gradualism 236
93. Further evidence that monads are mind-like 237
CHAPTER 13: CAUSATION AND PERCEPTION IN LEIBNIZ 240
94. The rejection of inter-substance causation 240
95. Leibniz against occasionalism 242
96. God’s conservation of his creatures 244
97. How monads develop 246
98. Perception: the account 247
99. Bottom-up versus top-down 249