November 10

Shozo Kamiya (JHU)

Power and Agency in Spinoza’s Conatus

Abstract: In recent scholarship, many commentators suggest that ‘singular things’, by which Spinoza roughly refers to ordinary physical individuals such as rocks, flowers, dogs, and chairs, have their own causal power and agency. While the view that dogs, human beings, and any ordinary physical individuals have their own power and agency is perfectly consistent with the traditional Aristotelian metaphysical picture, it is debatable whether Spinoza intends to embrace it. Aristotelians maintain that those individuals are independent substances, but under Spinoza’s substance monist framework, they are classified as ‘modes’ and not as ‘substances’. Does Spinoza, despite substance monism, maintain that ordinary individuals are after all some sort of ‘substances’? At least according to one prominent commentator, Don Garrett, they certainly are. Ordinary individuals, for Garrett’s Spinoza, are what Garrett calls quasi-substances. I challenge this interpretation through an analysis of his conatus doctrine. I argue that, strictly speaking, modes, including singular things, are not meant to be the locus of agency, for Spinoza.

Shozo Kamiya is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University with interests in the history of philosophy.

A recording of the session will be made available under “Downloads” for some time following the event.

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