Interpreting Spinoza: The Real is the Rational

Michael Della Rocca

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 53, Number 3, July 2015, pp.
523-535 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2015.0049

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/586413

Access provided at 15 Jul 2019 05:03 GMT from University of Nebraska - Lincoln
 Interpreting Spinoza:
The Real is the Rational
Michael Della Rocca*

in his characteristically generous and searching discussion of my book,

Spinoza, Daniel Garber rightly points out that I structure my interpretation of
Spinoza’s system around the principle of sufficient reason (the PSR). This is the
principle that, as I and others sometimes put it, each fact has an explanation
and is thus not brute, or the principle that each thing has an explanation. The
‘or’ will soon be important. Indeed, it might seem that I am too focused on the
PSR—certainly I seem that way to Garber1—for I seek to use the PSR to unlock
any number of problems that interpreters of Spinoza have faced over the last three
centuries. Garber does a great job of conveying the range of uses to which I put
the PSR in an attempt to bring Spinoza’s system under control, so I will not go into
the details except to say that the interpretation I offer covers not only Spinoza’s
metaphysics, but also his epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, moral and
political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and, in a way, his account of human
salvation. I also will not talk about the crucial two-fold use to which Spinoza puts
the PSR and which leads to some of the idealist strands of my reading. Garber omits
any discussion of the two-fold use, and so I will leave it out here too. The general
point is that, for me, the PSR opens up breathtaking interpretive vistas that reveal
Spinoza’s system to be coherent, defensible, and groundbreaking in unexpected
ways. It is an exciting story, one that I was and am happy to tell.
Garber’s aim in his essay is to challenge my reading of Spinoza both on first-
order interpretive grounds and on second-order methodological grounds. With
regard to the first-order worries, Garber’s main points are that there is no good
evidence that Spinoza is committed to the PSR in the strong—“no brute facts”—
form in which I present it and that Spinoza does in fact allow at least one major
brute fact at the heart of his system. With regard to the second-order worries,
Garber expresses a preference for what he sees as a “direct reading” of Spinoza
over what he sees as my rational reconstructions of Spinoza. His Spinoza is the

Perhaps also to my family, but that is another matter.

1

* Michael Della Rocca is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 53, no. 3 (2015) 523–536

[523]
524 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
“real historical” Spinoza, whereas mine is an ideal type, a superhero but not the
actual philosopher.
I would like to push back a bit against Garber on both the first- and second-
order grounds. With regard to the first-order worries, I reaffirm my textually
well-grounded reasons for seeing Spinoza as espousing a strong form of the PSR,
and I also offer reasons for denying that there is the big brute fact that Garber
finds in Spinoza’s system. With regard to Garber’s second-order, methodological
worries, my main aim will be to try to characterize more accurately some genuine
methodological differences between us and to stress that both Garber’s approach
and my own are valuable ways of getting at the real Spinoza.
Before turning to the first-order skirmishes and second-order methodological
love fest, I would like to offer two observations about the way in which Garber
frames his discussion of my book and of my approach to Spinoza. First, at the
outset, Garber compares the single-mindedness of my PSR-focused perspective
on Spinoza both to the single-mindedness of Russell’s interpretation of Leibniz’s
philosophy as motivated by his logic2 and to the single-mindedness of Bernard
Williams’s interpretation of the Descartes of the Meditations as a “pure enquirer.”3
I am, of course, only too happy for my work on Spinoza to be mentioned in the
same paragraph (or book or library!) as these classic works by Russell and Williams;
and, however inapt the comparison would be in other respects, I regard Garber as
correct in pointing out similarities between the apparently unified interpretations
at work in my book and in these others. I would also say that many other works on
historical figures in philosophy display this kind of unified picture of their target
philosophers. One hope I have is that by attempting here to articulate some of
the virtues of my unified approach to Spinoza, I will also indirectly be offering
a defense of a kind of approach to historical figures that one finds in Russell,
Williams, and others.
My second observation concerns Garber’s opening characterization of the
PSR-driven Spinoza as first appearing in my work. While I would certainly have
liked to be able to take the credit for originating this reading of Spinoza, I cannot
do so. Others before me have seen Spinoza in this rationalist light—in particular
and in some ways most importantly Jacobi who, precisely because he saw Spinoza
as devoted to the PSR and as employing the PSR to reach extreme metaphysical
and moral conclusions, saw fit to reject Spinoza’s rationalism entirely and to adopt
“the perfect conviction that certain things admit of no explication.”4 Jacobi’s
reading, as is well known, helps to give rise to rationalist readings of Spinoza in
German Idealism and, through that, British Idealism. On these kinds of readings
and on my view, the key slogans that describe Spinoza’s philosophy are “to be is
to be intelligible” and “the real is the rational.” One of my aims in the book and
especially subsequent to the book is to rehabilitate important aspects of the reading
of Spinoza that is to be found in some of his idealist interpreters.5

See Russell, Leibniz.

2

See Williams, Descartes.

3

Jacobi, Doctrine of Spinoza, 193. See the discussion in Della Rocca, Spinoza, 283–87.
4

See my paper, “Rationalism, Idealism, Monism.” For further discussion of such interpretations,
5

see Newlands, “Hegel’s Idealist Reading” and “More Recent Idealist Readings,” and Renz, “Der neue
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 525
1. first-order skirmishes
The heart of my reading of Spinoza as what Garber calls a super-rationalist turns
on my attributing to Spinoza the PSR, which I express as the claim that there
are no brute facts. It is worth noting that identifying the PSR as the heart of
rationalism undermines right away the traditional rationalist/empiricist contrast.
Even an empiricist—one who highlights in one way or another the role of the
senses in knowledge—can in principle accept my kind of rationalist commitment
to intelligibility and the denial of brute facts. Rationalism and empiricism are
perfectly compatible on my view. Given this compatibility, I am wary of Garber’s
viewing my Spinoza—the superhero Spinoza—in connection with a rationalist/
empiricist contrast about which I, no less than Garber, though for different reasons,
am skeptical.
One of Garber’s main first-order points against my interpretation is that,
although Spinoza has a general commitment to the intelligibility of the world, the
version of the PSR he espouses is not nearly as broad as the one that I attribute to
him. In particular, Garber calls attention to certain apparent mismatches between
the PSR I ascribe to Spinoza and the textual evidence I offer for such an attribution.
One of the key passages I invoke is Spinoza’s claim in E Ip11d2:
For each thing [res] there must be assigned a cause or reason, both for its existence
and for its nonexistence.

After noting my reliance on E Ip11d2, Garber goes on to make two important

points. First, Spinoza’s claim is explicitly about the explanation of things (res); as
such, it seems to fall “quite short” of the claim that there are no brute facts, that
each fact must have an explanation. Second, Garber points out that a number
of the most central uses to which I put the PSR in my interpretation of Spinoza
require that Spinoza reject not merely things without reason or explanation but,
more generally, facts without reason or explanation. Thus, for Garber, the textual
basis for my seeing Spinoza as endorsing the PSR—understood as a no-brute-facts
thesis—is lacking. Garber says that E Ip11d2 could support the strong, fact-version
of the PSR only if ‘thing’ “is stretched beyond plausibility.”6
I am not convinced that Spinoza would allow a distinction between things and
facts, as Garber’s interpretation requires in drawing a distinction between the
strong and weak versions of the PSR. I would have to see considerable textual
evidence on this point. However, let us grant that Spinoza would draw a distinction
between things and facts. Such a distinction could in principle enable Spinoza to
accept the weak PSR (phrased in terms of things) and not the strong PSR (phrased
in terms of facts). However, I think that Spinoza would accept a pretty direct path
from the weak PSR to the strong PSR. Take a putative fact that would—contrary
to the strong PSR—lack an explanation. Given Spinoza’s substance monism (an
interpretation that Garber does not challenge), according to which God or Nature

Spinozismus.” For an account of some of the others who have recently come to take seriously a radi-
cally rationalist reading of Spinoza, see Mogens Laerke, “Spinoza et le Principe.”
See above, p. 512.
6
526 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
is the only substance, this allegedly inexplicable fact would have to be—as all facts
are on the substance monist picture—expressed as the fact that substance is F for
some property F. For each such fact, there would be at least one corresponding
state (of the substance), and for each state of substance there is a corresponding
fact. So wherever there is an unexplained fact there is an unexplained state of
substance. A state of substance is plausibly seen, on Spinozistic terms, as a thing.
After all, for Spinoza, modes in general are states of God, and Spinoza clearly
regards modes as things (see e.g. E Ip28). Thus if we have an unexplained fact
(and thus a violation of the strong PSR), we thereby also have an unexplained
thing (in violation of the weak PSR). Or equivalently: for Spinoza, if there can be
no violations of the weak, thing-oriented PSR, then there can be no violations of
the strong, fact-oriented PSR.
Of course, to avoid this result, Garber may want to challenge the claim—at
work in the above argument—that modes are states of substance. There has been
a lot of scholarly controversy on this point,7 and I would be only too happy to get
into that debate, but let me close this discussion of Garber’s strong vs. weak PSR
objection by noticing that that objection counsels us not to stretch, on Spinoza’s
behalf, ‘thing’ “beyond plausibility.” This is an odd exhortation to make in the
context of interpreting Spinoza, whose philosophy is all about stretching the
meanings of ordinary terms beyond plausibility.8 Thus consider, for example, ‘God,’
‘mode,’ and ‘cause,’ all of which are terms Spinoza stretches beyond plausibility.
In this light, it is perhaps not so odd to suggest, as I do, that Spinoza may be open
to stretching ‘thing’ beyond plausibility.
Another textual source for my attribution of the PSR to Spinoza is E Iax2:
What cannot be conceived through another must be conceived through itself.

Here is how I invoke E Iax2 in my book:

Here Spinoza says, in effect, that each thing must be conceived through something
(either itself or another thing). For Spinoza, to conceive of a thing is to explain it.
Thus in presupposing in 1ax2 that everything can be conceived through something,
Spinoza presupposes that everything is able to be explained, he builds the notion of
intelligibility into the heart of his metaphysical system.9

In challenging my use of E Iax2, Garber again invokes the fact/thing distinction

(the relevance of which I have already challenged). In addition, he takes issue with
my gloss on what it is, for Spinoza, to conceive of a thing. Garber says,
This interpretation works, though, only if we agree with Della Rocca that “to conceive
of a thing is to explain it.” That seems rather implausible to me, as it has to other
commentators.10

See e.g. Edwin Curley, who denies that modes are states (Curley, Spinoza’s Metaphysics, Behind
7

the Geometrical Method, and elsewhere), and Yitzhak Melamed, who rejects Curley’s interpretation; see
Melamed, “Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Substance” and Spinoza’s Metaphysics. I find Melamed’s arguments
on this point in general compelling.
On Spinoza’s principled reasons for twisting the meanings of terms, see the excellent account
8

in Laerke, “Spinoza’s Language.”

Della Rocca, Spinoza, 4–5.
9

10
See above, p. 512.
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 527
Garber does not say why he thinks this interpretation is implausible, nor does he
mention, or thus challenge, the textual evidence I offer in a note contained in the
passage that Garber and I quote from pages 4–5 of my book. There I point out
that Spinoza’s easy movement between claims about how substance is conceived
and how substance is explained (E Ip10s, E Ip14d, E IIp5) suggests that his notion
of conception is a notion of explanation. (The relevant Latin terms are ‘concipi’
[E Ip10s], ‘explicari’ [E Ip14d], and ‘explicatur’ [E IIp5].)11
I move now to a consideration of what Garber sees as
a brute fact, a fact for which there seems to be no reason, at the center of Spinoza’s
thought that makes it inconsistent with any strong reading of the PSR.12

Before I explore this alleged brute fact, a couple of points are worth making. First,
the mere fact—if it is a fact—that there is a brute fact in Spinoza’s system does not
undermine the PSR reading. At most it shows that Spinoza does not appreciate
that there is this tension in his system between his overarching commitment to
the rejection of brute facts and the alleged brute fact at the heart of his system.
Further, even if there is such a tension, it is far from clear that Spinoza cannot
welcome it, while still adhering to the PSR as fundamental.13
Second, besides the apparent brute fact that Garber discusses (and I will discuss)
at length, Garber mentions, but does not explore, three other potential brute
facts in Spinoza’s system: the apparent fact that we can, for Spinoza, know only
two attributes, “the division between the substance and its attributes,” and “the
distinction among three different kinds of knowledge.”14 It would be interesting
to explore whether these are indeed brute facts and, if so, what implications that
would have for our understanding of Spinoza’s system. In some of these cases
I deny that there is a brute fact in Spinoza’s system. In other cases, I might be
sympathetic to the claim that there is a brute fact in Spinoza’s system;15 but, again,
I would not see the presence of such a brute fact as necessarily posing a threat to
my interpretation.
Nonetheless, it is important to consider Garber’s centerpiece example of a
brute fact in Spinoza, for I think it can be shown that the fact in question is not
in fact, for Spinoza, brute. To invoke Garber’s example, let us say that the series
of finite modes that actually exists contains Harry the Horse but not Eunice the
Unicorn (there are, let us stipulate, no unicorns in the actual series). Garber
grants that, for Spinoza, the existence of Harry is not a brute fact—the reason
for his existence is the nature of God from which the existence of Harry follows.
Likewise (in keeping with E Ip11d2) there is a reason for the non-existence of
Eunice, namely the fact that the series in which Eunice exists does not follow from,
is not entailed by, God’s nature. So far: no brute facts, no facts beyond reasons.
But—Garber claims— such a fact is not far away and it is a big one, namely the fact

Martin Lin gives further evidence in support of a strong PSR at work in Spinoza in “Principle
11

of Sufficient Reason.”
See above, p. 508.
12

This is one theme in my paper, “Violations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.”

13

See above, p. 514.

14

Regarding the second brute fact, see my worry in footnote 17.

15
528 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
not that Harry exists and Eunice does not, but rather the fact that God’s nature
entails that Harry exists and Eunice does not. This fact—the fact of entailment—
is, Garber says, something for which there is no reason. God is self-caused and
self-conceived, but there is, Garber says, no reason “why it is this nature . . . that
is self-caused and self-conceived” rather than another nature—one that entails
Eunice and not Harry—that is self-caused and self-conceived.16
Garber is surely right that the fact that God’s nature entails that Harry exists
and not Eunice is a central feature of Spinoza’s metaphysics. But is Garber right
in thinking that this fact is, for Spinoza, “beyond reasons”? Let us call the fact that
the series including Harry exists “H.” Garber says that, for Spinoza, God’s nature
entails H, but there is no reason that God’s nature entails H. If this is the case,
then it would seem that there is nothing contradictory in its being the case that
some other series including instead, say, Eunice, follows from God’s nature. If
there were such a contradiction, then the fact that there is such a contradiction
would be the reason that E, the series including Eunice, is not entailed by God’s
nature. (In the same way, the fact that the existence of a square circle would involve
a contradiction is the reason that a square circle does not exist, as Spinoza says
in E Ip11d2.) But, for Garber, there is no reason that E is not entailed by God’s
nature, so there is nothing contradictory in saying that E is entailed by God’s
nature, that is, it is conceivable that E is entailed by God’s nature. If there is no
such contradiction, then H’s following from God’s nature and E’s following from
God’s nature are each compatible with God’s nature. That is, H’s following from
God’s nature is conceivable and E’s following is conceivable.
But if E and not H had been entailed by God’s nature, God’s nature would
have had to have been different from what it actually is. God’s nature is actually
such that it entails H, but in the other conceivable situation, it would have been
different, for it would have entailed E instead. Garber admits as much when he
asks why it is this nature (the one that entails H) that is self-conceived rather than
that nature (the one that entails E).
So we seem then to have two conceivable natures of God—the one that entails
H and the one that entails E. But, for Spinoza, any conceivable nature of God or
substance must exist (E Ip7, E Ip11). So if God has, as Garber in effect claims, two
conceivable natures, each would have to exist, and so there would have to be two
different substances or Gods. This, of course, is absurd for Spinoza, given what he
sees as the necessity of substance monism which he argues for in the first half of
Part I of the Ethics. This style of argument is precisely the way Spinoza reasons in
E Ip33d where he rejects the possibility of there being a series of things different
from the actual series that follows from God’s nature. He says there that if there
were two such different possible series, then there would have to be two natures
of God, both of which would have to exist. Thus, for Spinoza, it cannot be the case
that the fact that God’s nature entails H is brute, because otherwise there would
have to be more than one God.

See above, p. 516.

16
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 529
What, then, is the reason that God’s nature entails H? I think that the answer
has to be that God’s nature explains not only H, but also the fact that H follows
from that nature. God’s nature’s explaining facts about God’s own nature is simply
an aspect of the fact that, as Spinoza stresses and as Garber, of course, recognizes,
God is self-caused and self-conceived, a being whose existence follows from its
very nature. What I am suggesting is that, in explaining itself, God explains why
certain things and not others follow from God’s nature. To think that God’s self-
explanatory nature does not explain such facts of following would be to fall afoul
of Spinoza’s line of argument in E Ip33d.17
Garber attempts to bolster his claim that, for Spinoza, God’s nature’s entailing
H is a brute fact by appealing to what Garber aptly calls the “divine good pleasure”
account in E Ip33s2. There Spinoza describes a view according to which, as Garber
puts it,
things happen in the world only because of God’s good pleasure: he does things, but
there is no reason why he does them beside the fact that he just wants to.18

Spinoza does not hold this position himself, but he expresses, as Garber notes,
surprising sympathy for it and says that it “is nearer the truth than that of those
who maintain that God does all things for the sake of the good” (E Ip33s2).
Garber characterizes in the following terms what is right in Spinoza’s eyes about
the divine good pleasure view:
Just as the “good pleasure” theorist does not think that God acts for a reason, Spinoza
holds that there is no reason why God’s nature entails this series or that.19

However, I believe that Garber may mischaracterize what Spinoza likes about
the divine good pleasure account. The context of E Ip33s2 is one in which Spinoza
is considering the view that God acts for the sake of the good. Such a view is to
be opposed, for Spinoza, because it seems “to place something outside God” that
serves as a guide for God’s action. But, of course, on Spinoza’s strict monism,
there is nothing outside God to play this role. Spinoza says that the divine good
pleasure view, which does not presuppose that there is a model outside of God, is
superior in this respect to the view that God acts for the sake of the good, which
does, Spinoza thinks, carry such a presupposition. The context thus makes clear
that it is because the divine good pleasure view is like Spinoza’s own view in not
subjecting God to things external to God that Spinoza expresses some sympathy for
the divine good pleasure view. Nothing in this passage indicates that what Spinoza
likes about this view is that it, like his own view according to Garber, involves a kind
of brute fact when it comes to the divine nature or divine activity.

Speaking for myself, I am not sure that Spinoza’s argument here is good. There may be concerns
17

about whether such internal relations that Spinoza says a substance bears to itself are, in the end,
intelligible. See my paper, “Bradley’s Appearance and Reality.” But I think that it is right to see Spinoza
as rejecting, for the above reasons, brute entailment relations.
See above, p. 518.
18

See above, p. 518.

19
530 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
2. second-order methodological differences
I would like to continue engaging in these and other first-order interpretive
disputes, and I look forward to returning to these matters at some point, but it is
time now to move to the underlying methodological issues which, as Garber and
I both suspect, may be the most interesting of all.
For years, people have told me that there is a significant methodological
difference between Garber’s approach to the history of philosophy and mine.
And I have tended to believe them. But I have found and I continue to find this
difference difficult to pin down. I do think that there are important differences,
and I will try to elicit them here, but I also think that the methodological similarities
may be more significant than any real methodological contrasts.
I would like to begin with what Garber sees as a methodological difference that
I think is not genuine. Garber claims that my appeal to the PSR and presumably
my interpretation in general “is more a rational reconstruction, than a direct
reading.”20 Why does Garber call my reading less than direct? Perhaps it is
because, as Garber rightly notes, I rely on and attribute to Spinoza lines of thought
that are not explicit in the text. Thus I engage in what Garber calls “rational
reconstructions.” It will not surprise anyone to hear that I do not regard rational
reconstruction as inherently problematic. Where I disagree with Garber is in his
characterization of my reading as less direct. There are two points here I would
like to make.
First, my PSR-driven reading is firmly anchored in Spinoza’s texts. Earlier in
this response, I rehearsed some of the reasons for thinking so. Second, I think that
any interpretation—perhaps short of reproducing the text verbatim, and perhaps
not even then—is going to be a rational reconstruction in trying to highlight or
make explicit what the text does not make explicit. We are all in the same business
here: trying to make Spinoza’s saying what he says intelligible, trying to understand
his saying what he says. This does not mean, of course, that we are necessarily
seeking to make what he says intelligible, but we are trying to make the fact that
he says it intelligible. And to do this, we cannot merely receive the text passively
or perceive it directly (if this is indeed possible). Rather, we must do something
to it—for example, we must bring parts of the text to bear on one another in ways
that may not be antecedently obvious, or we must bring other texts or non-textual
factors to bear on whatever work it is with which we are engaging. To this extent,
any interpretation, any attempt—either Garber’s or mine or those of others—to
make Spinoza’s saying what he says intelligible is a rational reconstruction. So I
think that the notions of directness or rational reconstruction do not reveal any
genuine methodological difference between my approach and Garber’s.
A different potential difference emerges at more than one point in Garber’s
essay. In challenging my PSR-driven reading of Spinoza, Garber stresses that
“Spinoza just does not explicitly acknowledge any principles as fundamental” and
that “Spinoza was not really a principle kind of guy.”21 I have acknowledged already

See above, p. 515.

20

See above, p. 513.

21
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 531
that I do see Spinoza as working with a fundamental principle that structures much
of his thought. And there would certainly be a methodological difference between
Garber and me in this connection if I approached Spinoza’s thought with the
preconceived idea that he was “a principle kind of guy” and then just dogmatically
interpreted the texts in this light. But that is not what I do (any more than Garber
dogmatically approaches the texts with the preconceived idea that Spinoza is not
“a principle kind of guy”). Instead, I claim in my book and elsewhere that there
is important textual support for this reading and that this reading goes a long
way toward making Spinoza’s saying what he says intelligible. Of course, Garber
does not agree with this reading, but in this light the disagreement seems less of
a methodological difference than a first-order dispute of a kind we have already
encountered.
Perhaps, though, there is a genuine methodological difference in the
neighborhood. For although I do not without textual evidence claim that Spinoza
operates with an overarching principle, nonetheless I may be more open to the
single-principle reading than Garber is. I am not sure how to measure lesser and
greater degrees of willingness in such matters, but it seems fair to say that I bring to
the text a greater willingness to see Spinoza as operating with a single, fundamental
principle. Such a difference would certainly qualify as a methodological difference.
But even if there is such a difference, I cannot see that it is in any way problematic
that I have this greater willingness or that it is in and of itself distorting Spinoza’s
thought. As long as one is not dogmatic on such matters, a greater willingness to
attribute overarching principles to Spinoza is, in principle, potentially illuminating,
as is a lesser such willingness.
There is another, related potential difference invoked in Garber’s paper. Garber
claims that I fail to see that although Spinoza is concerned with intelligibility and
explicability and sufficient reason, this concern does not provide a central narrative
for the Ethics (if indeed the Ethics has a central narrative at all), much less does
it provide a narrative for Spinoza’s other works such as the Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus, which may be motivated by a set of concerns quite different from those
that actuate the Ethics. Garber says that, besides intelligibility and explanation,
“the real historical Spinoza”
was interested in the nature of the world, in its necessity, in its lack of purposefulness,
in the proper conception of God and God’s relation to the world. The real Spinoza
was driven to understand us as humans, our passions and how we can overcome
them. He was driven to understand politics, how we can come together in stable
civil states that would allow us to flourish as individuals. And perhaps above all, the
real historical Spinoza was driven by a vision of the possibility of human happiness.22

I must say—and I did say and I am happy to say—that I agree totally that Spinoza
has all the aims and motivations Garber lists. Where I differ from Garber is in seeing
the PSR as lying beneath or behind Spinoza’s arguments and conclusions here: the
PSR and the concern for intelligibility sheds light on and helps us to understand
the motivations for each of the areas that Garber cites. Or so I argue in the book,

See above, p. 519.

22
532 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
with supporting textual evidence. Garber obviously disagrees about this role of
intelligibility in Spinoza’s system. Fair enough, but that is a first-order difference
between us, not a methodological one. Again, I have addressed here some of the
textual basis for my reading, and I would love to continue the first-order debate.
There would be a methodological difference between us here only if I were to
assume a priori that Spinoza must be approached in a way that accords him a
single narrative in the Ethics and throughout his other works. But I do not come to
Spinoza with such an a priori presupposition any more than Garber dogmatically
assumes from the outset that Spinoza must be seen in a piecemeal way.
But, as before, perhaps a real methodological difference lurks in the vicinity.
Just as I am perhaps more open to a single-principle reading, so too I am perhaps
more open than is Garber to there being a general narrative that structures not
only the Ethics but also other works of Spinoza. This greater openness may be a
methodological difference, but again I cannot see that it is problematic as long
as one keeps the dogmatism at bay.
Garber’s paper suggests a final potential methodological difference. As Garber
notes, I often draw connections between Spinoza’s thought (or, indeed, the thought
of any great philosopher I study) and contemporary philosophy. For Garber,
my Spinoza “offers us a purity of vision that has the potential to transform even
contemporary philosophy.”23 Near the end of his paper, Garber grants that “ideal
types”—such as my Spinoza—“have a number of roles to play in contemporary
argument,” and he goes on to list some of what those roles might be.24 Garber
makes it clear that he prefers not to bring such contemporary connections into his
work in the history of philosophy. By contrast, I am indeed interested in making
such connections when I work on historical figures. (And I have also been known
to produce other works that are apparently non-historical efforts.)25
Garber is right that there is an important methodological difference between us
in this regard. To understand this difference, it is crucial to see what the nature of
my interest in drawing such connections is. Four points seem particularly relevant.
First of all, I do sometimes draw what, I hope, are illuminating comparisons
between Spinoza (or others) and contemporary philosophy, but my interest is
not just in Spinoza’s connections to contemporary philosophy, but also in his
connections to other periods in philosophy. In particular, of late (and after my
book appeared), I am just as likely to consider connections between Spinoza’s
views and positions in ancient philosophy as I am to take up connections with
contemporary philosophy.
Second, in my book, in thinking of Spinoza in connection with contemporary
philosophy, I do not adopt the following trope which one sometimes finds in
historical studies driven by contemporary philosophy: “Poor old Spinoza—if only
he had had access to Frege’s Grundgesetze or to Russell and Whitehead’s Principia, or

See above, p. 508.

23

See above, p. 521.

24

First subversive footnote: Of course, the distinction between historical and non-historical work
25

in philosophy is one that I sort of reject. But that is a theme for another occasion.
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 533
Carnap’s Aufbau, he could have avoided this or that embarrassing blunder.” More
26

and more, I am inclined to say in response to these kinds of pronouncements, “If

only we could be free of the contemporary philosophical scene which is dominated
by works such as Frege’s and Russell’s and Carnap’s.”27 And more and more I am
also inclined to say that Spinoza’s philosophy can help us to learn or re-learn how
to do philosophy in a more productive vein.
In other words—and this is my third point—often the connections I am
interested in drawing between Spinoza and contemporary philosophy are contrasts
that enable us to criticize contemporary philosophy. In particular, it is, I hope,
by turning to some Spinozistic insights that we may be led away from the kind of
metaphysical atomism that holds sway ironically in Russell, my fellow-travelling
single-minded historian of philosophy, and others. We may also be led away from
the realism—the absolute conception of reality—present again ironically in
Williams, another of my fellow-traveling single-minded historians of philosophy,
and less subtly present in so many areas of contemporary philosophy, particularly
so-called analytical philosophy.
Finally, these connections and contrasts that I draw do not drive my interpretation
of Spinoza. My interpretation—with all its apparent single-mindedness—is driven
by Spinoza’s texts and by the problems that I and others have encountered in
interpreting those texts. The connections and contrasts between Spinoza and
contemporary philosophy (as well as other periods of philosophy) may illuminate
Spinoza’s philosophy and my interpretation of it as well as display Spinoza’s
importance anew. But these connections and contrasts are not the motive force
behind my interpretation.
My greater willingness to draw connections and contrasts to contemporary
philosophy (and other periods of philosophy) forms a genuine methodological
difference between Garber and me. But, as in the previous cases, I do not see this
difference as at all problematic as long as one does not assume in advance that
either approach is the only way to make Spinoza’s texts intelligible.
We can now, I believe, detect a pattern in the three methodological differences
I have identified. These differences, I have argued, consist in a greater or lesser
tendency to see Spinoza (or any other historical figure) in terms of a single
overarching principle that structures his thought, a greater or lesser tendency to
see a unifying theme or themes across different works by the same author and
across different stages of his or her career, and a greater or lesser tendency to
draw connections (and contrasts) between Spinoza and other authors, earlier
or later. This array of differences suggests that the most general and appropriate
way to see the methodological difference between Garber and me is perhaps not
in terms of Garber’s contrast between oversimplifying superhero approaches and
on-the-ground, get-your-hands-dirty, direct grapplings with the texts, but rather

Second subversive footnote: Notice how natural it is to think that contemporary philosophy
26

includes such works, some of which are more than one hundred years old. That ought to tell you
something about the state of contemporary philosophy.
See Della Rocca, “The Taming of Philosophy” and “Bradley’s Appearance and Reality.”
27
534 j o u r n a l o f t h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y 5 3 : 3 j u ly 2 0 1 5
in terms of a contrast between more holistic and more atomistic approaches to
historical figures in philosophy.
While I completely agree with Garber about the variety of motivations driving
Spinoza’s thought and while I see that Garber regards these various motivations
as connected in important ways, I believe that I am less likely than Garber to
emphasize the relative independence of these motivations, and thus their potential
to pull Spinoza’s thought (in a single work or across works) in different or even
incompatible directions. In other words, for me Spinoza’s various motivations may
operate in a more unified direction than they do for Garber. This is one respect
in which there is a greater holism at work in my approach. Another respect of
greater holism is the greater emphasis in my interpretation on connections (and
contrasts) with other philosophers earlier and later. In seeing Spinoza’s views in
light of (say) contemporary views and in seeing contemporary views in light of
Spinoza’s views, I am here emphasizing that these views are, in this respect, not
independent. Thus I am more likely not only to unify various things Spinoza says
but also to bring Spinoza’s thought to bear on the thought of others philosophers
from different periods. I do not deny that there may be other respects in which
Garber’s approach can be seen—as well as mine—as holistic, but I think that in
the respects I have just featured, my approach is more holistic than Garber’s.
Perhaps, then, the methodological difference between us is fundamentally a
difference between approaches that are relatively more holistic or relatively less
holistic in these respects.
Is one of these approaches superior to the other? It is hard to see how. Both
approaches operate with the same fundamental goal of making Spinoza’s saying
what he says intelligible, and there is, as far as I can see, no reason in advance
to think that the more holistic approach is more or less likely to lead us to the
real, historical Spinoza or Descartes or Parmenides or anyone else. Garber urges
that the “real” Spinoza or the “real historical Spinoza” is grasped not through my
more holistic method, but through his more atomistic method. But I cannot see
why this should be the case. It seems to me that neither approach is precluded
from making Spinoza’s saying what he says intelligible, and it also seems to me
that in our business—the business of the study of the history of philosophy—the
real Spinoza is the Spinoza who is (by whatever means) made intelligible, the one
whose actions can (by whatever means) be rationalized. More generally, the real
historical philosopher is the one who can be made intelligible and whose actions
can be rationalized. To revert to my idealist slogans, when it comes to interpreting
historical figures in philosophy—as in Spinoza’s philosophy itself, on my view—the
real is the rational and to be is to be intelligible. The real Spinoza is the Spinoza
whose actions and statements can be rationalized, and Spinoza is the Spinoza
whose actions and statements can be made intelligible. And neither the more
atomistic nor the more holistic approach has a monopoly on giving us this reality.
I believe that this relatively holistic method is a viable method for approaching
historical philosophers generally and not just Spinoza. Perhaps, though, there
is a respect in which the more holistic method is especially appropriate for
understanding Spinoza in particular. To begin to see why, consider a deep and
frequently-made observation about Spinoza’s geometrical method in the Ethics.
 interpreting spinoza: the real is the rational 535
Through Spinoza’s geometrical method, certain conclusions are deduced—follow
from—the definition of God, the fundamental being or substance. Spinoza’s
apparatus of definitions, propositions, and so forth thus mirrors the structure of
reality itself, as Spinoza conceives it, a reality in which, as Garber notes and we have
discussed, particular things follow from the nature of God. As Aaron Garrett puts
it, Spinoza’s procedure is “uniquely suited for his content, as it shows how and that
propositions arise necessarily from a definition [the definition of God].”28 When
it comes to Spinoza’s geometrical method, there is thus a pleasing convergence
of form and content.
In the case of the interpretation of Spinoza, through the more holistic method
I favor, there is another pleasing convergence of form and content: the holistic
form of my approach to Spinoza’s philosophy mirrors the unified monistic content
of that philosophy itself, while the more atomistic approach to Spinoza may, in
this respect, seem somehow, as Hume might put it, “foreign and extraneous” to
the content of the philosophy itself.
It is a nice question how much the nature of one’s approach to a philosophical
text should or should not mirror the content of that text itself. But even without
resolving that question, we can appreciate, I believe, reason to think that a more
holistic approach is particularly apt for interpreting Spinoza.29

Garrett, Meaning, 13.

28

Many thanks to Julia Borcherding, Steven Nadler, Carol Rovane, Barbara Sattler, Henry South-
29

gate, and Ken Winkler for their insightful comments. I am especially grateful to Dan Garber for warmly
proposing this exchange and for much illuminating engagement.