This is the second 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), 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) From what follows in Spinoza's letter (OP 34) from 7 January 1666, it is clear that Spinoza understands 'unity' here as a kind of monotheism which rules out a plurality of Gods:
But from his true definition (as I have already demonstrated previously from the second and third hypotheses) the necessary existence of many Gods cannot be inferred. There follows, therefore, only the existence of one God. Q.E.D. (Curley 2016: 26)
Hudde was evidently not satisfied, and seems to have written two follow up letters. Spinoza's wording suggests that Spinoza wrote a response (now lost) to the initial follow up (from 10 February 1666), in which expressed his difficulty grasping Hudde's continued problems with Spinoza's argument. (All of Hudde's letters to Spinoza seem to be destroyed.) And after the second follow up (30 March, 1666), Spinoza takes Hudde's true worry to be: [2] "whether there is only one Being which subsists by its own sufficiency or power?" (Curley 2016: 26; Letter 35 OP, 10 April 1666.)
What's interesting about the formulation now attributed to Hudde by Spinoza is that the terminology of 'subsistence' is new here in their discussion. To the best of my knowledge, Spinoza does not use it when discussing substance or god. The one exception I have found is in the Cartesian Principles of Philosophy, in Proposition 16 where the incorporeality of God is demonstrated. (Curley 1985: 260) There Spinoza seems to use 'subsist' and 'exist' interchangeably. But, he is here clearly treating Descartes' position, not his own. And he is using 'subsist' in a conditional mode. So, I am inclined to suspect the terminology reflects Hudde's attempts to grapple with Spinoza's view. (As I noted, if Hudde is responding to Cartesian Principles of Philosophy, the argument is rather cryptic.)
One advantage of this new formulation is that it gets at the worry that [i] it is not obvious why the kind of power that produces God should itself be limited in number. That's subtly different from the original version of the worry (recall) that I attributed to Hudde based on Spinoza's original response: this initial concern is the worry that [ii] it is not obvious why the power that produces God should be limited to producing only one God.*
From the perspective of this re-formulation, Spinoza's new response to Hudde is frustrating. Because rather than focusing on the nature of such power (or sufficiency), Spinoza's new proof relies on the relationship between necessary existence and pure perfection (and we seem, as Wiep van Bunge suggests [in Dutch], in the real of ontological proofs). His fifth step in his new reformulation is: "whatever involves necessary existence cannot have in it any imperfection, but must express pure perfection." (Curley 2016: 27) This is then used to argue that there is only being with such pure perfection.
That Hudde was not fully convinced is clear. But rather than pressing the point about perfection, he seems to have rephrased his concern by splitting it in two as follows:
[3a] 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] why 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: 3o)
What's neat about [3b] is that it shows that (in light of the initial concerns of [i] and [ii]), Hudde de facto accepts something like the identity of indiscernibles.(I put this in Leibnizian fashion because I think [3b] clearly anticipates some of Leibniz's worries about Spinoza's position.) And Hudde concedes a principle like: same perfect power must produce same perfect entity. And so Hudde now recognizes that if there are to be (at least) two gods (self-causing, self-sufficient, necessarily existent, etc.) these must be at least different in nature. (This also shows that Hudde was not convinced by the language of perfection.)
By contrast, the way I understand [3a] is as an instance of a more general worry at least in the vicinity of [3a] about Descartes and Spinoza's general approach when it comes to God/Substance. They seem to hold that one literally cannot be said to really think the denial of certain clear and distinct or adequate ideas, not even, as it were, at arm's length. And Hudde -- who pioneered the use of negative numbers -- clearly seems to think that one can at least conceive the denial of whatever one affirms (even if it is a thing with necessary existence or whose definition involves existence).
The other neat thing about [3a] and [3b], from the perspective of the original worry [1], is that Hudde now is decomposing different levels at which concern about Spinoza's argument might enter in. One is at the level of what can be thought/conceived by the meditator. The other is at level of what God(s)'s nature/identity might be. And what he puts his finger on is that in Spinoza's philosophy these two levels seemingly get intertwined. In my next post, I'll explore Spinoza's final known letter to Hudde in response.
*It is worth noting that Spinoza reminds Hudde that "it can also be demonstrated very easily either from God’s intellect (as I showed in P11 of my Geometric Demonstrations of Descartes’ “Principles”)." As I remarked, Hudde's original question is almost certainly about the scholium that Spinoza attached to the demonstration from this proposition. Spinoza's main proof there is a reductio, and Hudde seems to ignore the proof by reductio throughout the exchange.
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