LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Baruch Spinoza: Substances
built 615 days ago
Spinoza has had influence beyond the confines of philosophy. Albert Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his worldview (Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity. In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."[1] Spinoza's pantheism has ... influenced the environmental theory. Arne Næss, the father of the deep ecology movement, acknowledged Spinoza as an important inspiration.
Source:
In support of this proposition, Spinoza offers a variant of the so-called Ontological Argument. The basic consideration upon which this variant rests is that it pertains to the nature of substance to exist. Spinoza establishes this earlier, in IP7, by appealing to the fact that substances, being entirely dissimilar to one another, cannot produce one another. Since nothing else can produce a substance, substances must be self-caused, which is to say that it pertains to the nature of substance to exist. To imagine that God does not exist is ... absurd. As a substance consisting of infinite attributes, it pertains to the divine nature to exist.
Source:
Spinoza's philosophy is a thoroughgoing pantheism, which has both a naturalistic and a mystical side. The foundation of the system is the doctrine of one infinite substance, of which all finite existences are modes or limitations (modes of thought or modes of extension). God is ... the immanent cause of the universe; but of creation or will there can be no question in Spinoza's system. God is used throughout as equivalent to Nature (Deus sive natura). The philosophical standpoint comprehends the necessity of all that is - a necessity that is none other than the necessity of the divine nature itself. To view things thus is to view them, according to Spinoza's favourite phrase, sub specie aeternitatis.
Source:
Spinoza was excommunicated because he did not divide God from world (there's only one substance is the way he put it). Stop dividing things (the first division is self from other), and you flip the bird to all of Western religion, philosophy, and science (up to Bell's Theorem and experiments supporting a non-local [undivided] universe). Spinoza had to know he was going to walk the plank for such impudent "betrayal" of Western Civilization's founding principle, subject-object split. Yet, he did it anyway. What a mensch!
Source:
In support of this proposition, Spinoza argues that if two or more substances were to exist they would be differentiated either by a difference in modes or by a difference in attributes. However, they could not be differentiated by a difference in modes, for substances are prior in nature to their modes. Thus, they would have to be differentiated by a difference in attributes. Controversially, Spinoza takes this to entail that no two substances can have exactly the same set of attributes, nor can they have a common attribute. Substances must be entirely dissimilar to one another.
Source:
"These are the fundamental concepts with which Spinoza sets forth a vision of Being, illuminated by his awareness of God. They may seem strange at first sight. To the question "What is?" he replies: "Substance, its attributes and modes". Spinoza, Carl Jaspers p.9
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Substances