June 13

Stephen Harrop (Yale University)

Spinoza on Space and Motion

Abstract: While there has been some scholarly treatment of Spinoza's views on space and motion, few truly thorough examinations of either exist. Moreover, the ones that do tend not to discuss how these views interact. In this paper (a shortened version of a longer work) I make three main arguments. First, by an examination of multiple textual and historical lines of evidence (ones often ignored in extant treatments), I conclude that Spinoza was a relationalist about space, going against what is sometimes called the "standard view," that Spinoza is a supersubstantivalist. This, I argue, leaves his system with a potential problem – his accounts of individuation and of identity through change appear to be untenable on this view. Next, by examination of textual evidence, I argue that he was one of the first historical figures to be both a relationalist about space and an absolutist about motion (prior even to one of the first such figures in the early modern period, Leibniz). I then argue that this position lets him avoid the problem raised: He can secure the privileged motions needed for his account of individuation and persistence without relying on absolute space.

Stephen Harrop is a PhD candidate at Yale University, where he intends to defend a dissertation on Spinoza's account of scientific explanation. His interests range from the history and philosophy of science and historical metaphysics (especially those of the early modern period) to contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of physics.

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