Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T05:29:47.091Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Necessitarianism in Spinoza and Leibniz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Michael V. Griffin
Affiliation:
Professor Central European University Budapest
Charlie Huenemann
Affiliation:
Utah State University
Get access

Summary

Necessitarianism is the position that everything actual is necessary, or, that the actual world is the only possible world. Necessity and possibility are understood here as absolute or metaphysical. Bennett calls this a “tremendously implausible” view. And Curley and Walski say, “views that are tremendously implausible should not be attributed to great, dead philosophers without pretty strong textual evidence” (Curley and Walski 1999: 242). However, the textual evidence for attributing necessitarianism to Spinoza appears pretty strong. Moreover, I don't believe Spinoza's necessitarianism is tremendously implausible. I will develop the position I attribute to Spinoza by first looking at Leibniz's arguments concerning necessitarianism. Leibniz spent much more time than Spinoza trying to make his thoughts on the issue clear. However, I believe that the position of these two philosophers, on the question of the necessity of all things, is substantially the same. In brief, both philosophers distinguish between a thing's being intrinsically necessary, or necessary by virtue of its essence or concept alone, and its being extrinsically necessary, or necessary only by virtue of being entailed by something necessary. Both philosophers maintain that God's existence, and only God's existence, is intrinsically necessary. And, I believe, both philosophers are committed to the claim that everything else is extrinsically necessary, because its existence is entailed by the existence of God.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interpreting Spinoza
Critical Essays
, pp. 71 - 93
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×