This is the third post in a series triggered by an invite from Karolina Hubner and Justin Steinberg to write on the Spinoza and Hudde (1628 – 1704)) exchange. According to Spinoza (recall this post); and this one), Hudde's original request to Spinoza was to provide [1] "a demonstration of the Unity of God from the fact that his Nature involves necessary existence." (Curley 2016: 25) We can infer from Spinoza's response that in his final letter to Spinoza, Hudde raised two remaining concerns about Spinoza's monism:
[3a] It is unclear why Spinoza seems committed to the claim that it is a contradiction to conceive something whose definition involves existence (or what is the same, affirms existence) under a negation of existence. (Curley 2016: 29)
[3b] Spinoza seems to be unable to rule out the [real] possibility that there could not be many beings, existing through themselves, but differing in nature, just as thought and extension are different, and can perhaps subsist by their own sufficiency... (Curley 2016: 30)
I doubt Spinoza's response to [3a] really would have been satisfying. Spinoza writes:
since the limited denotes nothing positive, but only the privation of the existence of the same nature which is conceived as limited, it follows that something whose definition affirms existence cannot be conceived as limited. For example, if the term extension involves necessary existence, it will be as impossible to conceive extension without existence as it is to conceive extension without extension. And if this is maintained, it will also be impossible to conceive a limited extension. For if it were conceived to be limited, it would have to be limited by its own nature, namely, by extension. And this extension by which it was limited would have to be conceived under the negation of existence.
For, Hudde is not worried with the possibility that something whose definition affirms existence can be conceived as limited. Rather, he is worried that one can hold the idea of something whose definition affirms existence at a kind of arms length by, say, putting it between brackets and negating it. (As I noted before Hudde pioneered working with negative numbers, so I this was not something he would have thought of as mere wordplay.) It's quite clear, also from the Ethics, that Spinoza does not consider this a real possibility because for Spinoza the thinking subject becomes unified in a certain sense with the clear and distinct (or adequate) idea s/he affirms and cannot simultaneously genuinely deny it, say, for the sake of argument. So, here Hudde and Spinoza seem to me to be talking past each other. (I actually wonder if this represents a fundamental in 17th century post-Cartesianism on the way of ideas.)
The point in the last paragraph is non-trivial because in a fascinating (1989) paper on the Hudde-Spinoza Correspondence, Wim Klever has suggested that Hudde is a kind of crypto Spinozist. (What makes the paper so fascinating is that Klever noticed that Hudde and Locke corresponded (via Van Limborch) over the same issues decades later.)+ I strongly doubt we need to infer that Hudde is a crypto-Spinozist from Hudde's position (as presented by Spinoza) and I don't see why we should ascribe crypto-Spinozism to Hudde.
In addition, Klever thinks that Hudde is worried about the substance-like nature of the attributes in Spinoza (which is a natural concern had Hudde read the Short Treatise), and that this motivates Hudde's concern with polytheism. This cannot be ruled out altogether; and to be sure, [3b] is compatible with Klever's reading because in it the self-sufficient subsistence of thought and extension are mentioned. But to me they seem more introduced as analogy not the source of Hudde's concern.
The more natural reading of [3b] is that Hudde is worried about multiple self-causing, self-subsisting substances with different (and non-overlapping) natures or attributes existing simultaneously given Spinoza's commitments. And, in Part II, chapter II, of the Appendix Containing Metaphysical Thoughts of the Cartesian Principles of Philosophy, Spinoza himself had invited this concern in the passage on God's Uniqueness (which I had already suggested in the two previous posts on the exchange must have prompted Hudde's questions on other grounds). For in that passage Spinoza explicitly indicates that God has an open-ended number of attributes (including understanding). And Spinoza goes on to write, "If now you say that there are many Gods, or supremely perfect beings, they will all have to understand, in the highest degree." (Curley 1985: 318)
And what Hudde is noticing is that it not obvious that if there are many Gods, that they all have to understand in the highest degree. Spinoza seems to presuppose that to be a God one must have all the attributes (that is, have unity). So, Hudde's original question, 'why does Unity of God follow from the fact that his Nature involves necessary existence?' makes sense. The tought being that maybe all gods necessarily exist (by their own sufficiciency), but they otherwise have a division of labor involving different infinite attributes and they are unlimited in its own kind. So, again, I doubt Hudde needs to be a Spinozist to raise this proto-Leibnizian objection.
My reading seems to be supported by the first sentence of Spinoza's response: "if we assert that something which is only unlimited in its own kind, and perfect, exists by its own sufficiency." This seems to be Hudde's worry as I understand it. But having said that, the way Spinoza refutes Hudde's worry is, in part, by relying on the idea that multiple substance-like attributes actually imply the existence of a single God/substance only might well be taken to support Klever's interpretation (although I deny that that's required).
Okay, let's now turn to Spinoza's full response to Hudde's [3b]:
if we assert that something which is only unlimited in its own kind, and perfect, exists by its own sufficiency, the existence of a being absolutely unlimited and perfect will also have to be conceded. This Being I call God. For example, if we want to maintain that extension or thought (each of which can be perfect in its own kind, that is, in a definite kind of being) exists by its own sufficiency, we will also have to concede the existence of God, who is absolutely perfect, that is, of an absolutely unlimited being.
Here I should like you to note what I said just now about the term imperfection, namely, that it signifies that something is lacking to a thing which pertains to its nature. For example, Extension can be called imperfect only in relation to duration, position or quantity, because it does not last longer, or does not keep its position, or is not larger.
But it will never be called imperfect because it does not think, since its nature, which consists only in extension, that is, in a definite kind of being, requires nothing of that sort. In this respect only limited or unlimited extension is to be called imperfect or perfect, respectively. And since the nature of God does not consist in a definite kind of being, but in a Being which is absolutely unlimited, his nature also requires everything which expresses being perfectly, since otherwise his nature would be limited and deficient.
Since these things are so, it follows that there can only be one Being, God, which exists by its own force. For if we assert, for example, that extension involves existence, it must be eternal and unlimited , expressing absolutely no imperfection, but only perfection. Therefore, Extension will pertain to God, or it will be something which expresses God’s nature in some way. For God is a being which is, not just in a certain respect, but absolutely unlimited in being and omnipotent. And this, which is said of Extension (as an arbitrary example), will also have to be affirmed of everything we want to maintain as having such a nature.
I conclude, then, as in my preceding Letter, that nothing outside God, but only God, subsists by its own sufficiency. I believe these things suffice to explain the meaning of the preceding letter. But you will be able to judge better than I concerning that. (Curley 2016: 30-31)
If I understand Spinoza correctly, Spinoza simply denies what Hudde takes to be possible on Spinoza's view is possible. And that's because if we conceptualize God and attributes properly, then God must have or express all the attributes: "since the nature of God does not consist in a definite kind of being, but in a Being which is absolutely unlimited, his nature also requires everything which expresses being perfectly, since otherwise his nature would be limited and deficient."
By itself this does not seem very compelling as a response to Hudde's worry as I understand it because it rules out polytheism by stipulation. Yet, Spinoza's position is not mere terminology or question begging against Hudde's proto-Leibnizian worry. The really interesting underlying point in the passage quoted above is that Spinozistic God is not the kind of entity that can figure in a question like, 'is there is one or more.' As Jonathan Bennett first suggested (I believe) in his field metaphysics (but relying on the Ethics not this letter), Spinoza's God is, grammatical appearances to the contrary, not a count-noun, but more like a mass noun (Bennett A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, 1984, p. 104).* I doubt that is obvious if one only read the Metaphysical Thoughts or Short Treatise (and, if one is interested in Spinoza's development, I suspect it may not have been obvious to Spinoza himself before Hudde's challenge).
So, in my view the significance of Spinoza's three responses to Hudde is that they show Spinoza articulating, even developing key features of the PSR and the nature of his monism. I leave open here, to what degree Hudde's later challenges to Locke reflects continued dissatisfaction with Spinoza's responses or an evolved understanding of the issue(s) (or both).
+In her important 2014 paper on the Hudde-Locke correspondence (which pays more attention to Locke's side of the discussion than Klever does), Giuliana Di Biase relies on Klever's judgment that Hudde is a crypto-Spinozist (and that, as Klever suggests), Hudde is worried about the substance-like nature of the attributes in Spinoza (which is a natural reading had Hudde read the Short Treatise). Di Biase has informed me that she does not endorse Klever's views on these matters in work in progress.
*I am agnostic here on the possibility that we're better off thinking of this not as a noun, but as a verb (as Valteri Viljanen suggested in 2007 here.). I am also not claiming that Spinoza's position in the Ethics is identical to the position articulated in the third letter to Hudde.
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