Spinoza’s theory of relations

Spinoza’s theory of relations Are modal essences fixed, or do they admit a certain degree of variation? There is in Spinoza’s Ethics what could be described as a double point of view of singular modal essence: sometimes it seems to be fixed to a precisely determined degree; sometimes it seems to admit a certain degree of variation. The problem of resolving this apparent contradiction has been responsible for a variety of interpretations among scholars working in the field of Spinoza studies. In a passage from Spinoza, L’âme (Ethique 2), Martial Gueroult speaks of inferior and superior ‘limits’ of modal essence: ‘All individual humans’, writes Gueroult, ‘have … their own essence which differs from the essence of others by a different relation of movement and rest between the parts of their bodies, but these singular differences remain, in one as in the others, within the limits of the relation which defines the essence of all human bodies’.1 In quantité et qualité dans la philosophie de Spinoza, Charles Ramond suggests that ‘the text of Spinoza argues to the contrary’.2 The argument that Ramond constructs in response to this passage is that: ‘All variation of the precise relation of movement and rest which characterizes an individual should be interpreted as a change of essence, and therefore as the destruction of the individual, the “characteristic relation” of which has changed’.3 Contrary to what Ramond seems to read into this passage, when Gueroult speaks of inferior and superior ‘limits’ of essence, he speaks generally of human essence and not of the specific singular essence of a finite existing mode or individual human being. Gueroult argues that logically all human essences exist within inferior and superior limits, which is an altogether different argument to that which Ramond extracts from the passage. Even though Ramond’s argument in reference to the fixity of modal essence seems plausible, his reading of Gueroult does not. In fact there is nothing in this passage to indicate that Gueroult would disagree with Ramond’s argument for the fixity of individual essences. Rather than defending Gueroult against Ramond, Ramond’s interpretation can function as a point of departure for the introduction of the problem of resolving the apparent

1 Gueroult, Spinoza, l’âme, p. 351.