In his precious introduction to their Dutch version (not present in the Opera Posthuma/Nagelate Schriften) Spinoza’s oldest companion and close friend Jarig Jelles betrays the hesitation: “This TREATISE OF THE EMENDATION OF THE INTELLECT, which we give you here, kind reader, in this UNFINISHED AND DEFECTIVE STATE, was written many years ago now. He always intended to finish it, but hindered by other occupations and finally snatched away by death, he was unable to bring it to the desired conclusion. But since it contains many excellent and useful things, which - we have no doubt - will be of great benefit to anyone seeking the truth, we did not wish to deprive you of them. And so that you would be aware of, and find less difficult to excuse, the many things that are OBSCURE, ROUGH AND UNPOLISHED, we wished to WARN YOU. Farewell.” Further on I will try to explain why this first take-off was according to the master himself a ‘false start’.
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But most energy must be reserved for physics or natural science, which was in his post-cartesian time indicated as ‘MECHANICA’. Why? Because by this technical science (ars) many difficult things can be made easily, and much comfort can be realized. In fact, Spinoza anticipates the big role of technique in modern science. His own contribution consists specifically in OPTICA, in which he acquired great fame. Leibniz addressed him as ‘insignis opticus’, Christiaan Huygens praised his lenses, and he discussed optical theory with the mathematician Hudde.
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Let us fix, then, 1661 as the probable year of its early birth. But on the request of Pieter Balling, who translated the whole PPC and published it in 1664 Spinoza added many elucidations in Dutch to his text. So, he remarked to CM1: “The purpose and upshot of this part is to demonstrate that the customary school logic and philosophy does only serve to exercise and strengthen the memory (...) and in order that we may keep the ideas swerving in our mind, but not that they anyhow help our understanding (verstand)”.
But everywhere in the text we meet precious fragments anticipating the later writings of the master. One example here: “IMAGINING is nothing else than the origin of tracks (vestigia) in our brains as an effect of the motion of fluent particles, impacted in our senses by the objects affecting us. A similar sensation can only be confused. |
Among Spinoza’s learned correspondents one ought certainly not forget Leibniz, who already for quite a long period had been rather curious about this new type of radicalized Cartesianism that he represented. After the appearance of the TTP his waiting for contact became unbearable. He devised a trick that would be uncompromising for his Christian name and introduced himself in a flattering letter (45): “Among the honours that fame has bestowed on you I consider also your excellent expertise in optics (insignem rei opticae peritiam)”, while mentioning irrelevant literature in this discipline and an essay by his own hand, that was not difficult for Spinoza to make short work with in his answer. In fact, Spinoza had already developed to a first rang expert in theoretical and practical optics, who even made microscopes and telescopes with home-turned lenses; cf my article INSIGNIS OPTICUS. SPINOZA IN DE GESCHIEDENIS VAN DE OPTICA (De Zeventiende Eeuw, Jg. 6, 1990). Finally, Leibniz succeeded a few years later to be personally received by the Headfigure of Enlightenment in his apartment in The Hague for further discussion about God. They did not succeed in arriving to a common conclusion, as it appeared at the end of the century when Leibniz sustained and defended his anti-Spinozism against the crypto-spinozistic Leiden professor De Volder and completely lost the fight. See about this my article in LIAS 1988, 191-244. But above all one should read about the relation between the two Matthew Stewart’s unsurpassable bestseller THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC.
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INDIVIDUALITY.
“When bodies of the same or different volume are só coerced by the others on each other that they touch each other (sibi invicem incumbant) or, when moving in different degrees of velocity, they share their motions in a certain proportion, we’ll call them UNITED and assert them to compose an individuum, different from others by this specific unity”. The underlying proposition is here that all identities are the effect of pressure from the environment. Bye bye Newton! |
And indeed: “experience amply (satis superque) demonstrates that men have nothing less in their power than their tongue and cannot moderate their desires” (3/2s).
In this context Spinoza quotes empathically Ovid’s very famous verse: ‘video meliora proboque deteriora sequor” (I see the better and approve it, but choose what is wrong). Two- or three-times Spinoza characterizes the human illusion about his capacity to freely and autonomously regulating of his reactions as “dreaming with open eyes”. No, four times we meet the word ‘SOMNIAMUS’ (we dream). This is clear language. |