Spinoza and Plato on Ethics and Ontology, Essay Example

A frequent topic for discussion throughout history has been the idea of ethics, the system for determining proper against improper behavior. Often, this is not discussed in basic applied situations, but in broader terms that seek to create a universal model that can be applied to all situations for determining ethical behaviors. To come up with a system like this requires an understanding of the universe, because after all figuring out how one should act in a situation requires understanding that situation. For this reason, universal theories of ethics often rely on universal theories of ontology, which is the part of philosophy that most lends itself to studying the nature of the universe.

Philosophy often examines the broadest and most universal questions that face us as human beings. Perhaps the most basic questions it seeks to answer relate to being itself, as in what is there and how we can categorize what there is. These questions fall under the branch of ontology, which concerns itself with questions regarding the nature of existence. With existence being such a widely experienced phenomenon, it has attracted philosophers from many different contexts. Included amongst the examiners are Baruch Spinoza and his ontology of infinite substance and early philosophers such as Plato, whose ontology was based around his theory of the forms.

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher in the 17^th Century and one of the leading rationalist thinkers of all time. His most known work, Ethics, made him highly controversial within the Catholic Church at the time of its publishing, but it would later become one of the most influential philosophical writings of all time, helping to launch The Enlightenment. This work was written in the form of a proof, definitions and axioms that informed propositions and corollaries. In regards to ontology, it dismissed the dualism that had become popular under Christian thinkers, in which God and the soul were of one type and all material objects of a different type.

The first part of Ethics is about God, and specifically the substances that make up Him and other things in the world. Spinoza defines substances as “that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.” This means that a substance is something that can exist on its own. Essentially, he says that no two substances can share any characteristics, and that God is a substance with infinite attributes, and therefore all things must be of the same substance. If everything is made up of the same substance of God, God must be in everything and there can be nothing outside of him. Therefore, God becomes the cause of all of the universe and in a way that is unchangeable.

This idea of infinite substances within God comes to represent what Spinoza believes human beings are consisted of. The most common view in that time was essentially that of Cartesian dualism, which stated that human beings were made up of two different substances. There was the corporeal substance, making up our bodies, and then there was a second type that made up either the mind or soul. However, in the view of infinite substances, there was not a mind and body split, but both were made up of the same nature all other things were necessarily made up of. The mind and body are different ways of describing that nature, but Spinoza notes that thoughts should not be said to cause bodily actions and material phenomenon cannot be said to cause thoughts.

After fully explaining his idea of what exists in the first two sections of Ethics, Spinoza begins to reflect on the titular topic of his work in the final three sections. “Knowledge”, the third portion discusses two ways the mind, or the material construction of it, operates. Some of the sensations for our mind are acquired passively; these include lower level functions like emotions and feeling. These types of mental functions are incapable of truthful insight, more often leading to belief in falsehoods. Opposed to this is the mental function of reason, which produces what Spinoza refers to as adequate ideas. This process is active, unlike the passive nature of feeling, and adequate ideas are those which do reveal the essence of the object of thought. For this reason, Spinoza believes that human beings have the ability to truly understand God.

Attributing the makeup of a human being and his thoughts entirely to nature has implications regarding free will. This was the opposition to the standard theory of the time in which the soul was in control over its actions, a tenet necessary for Christians who believed in judgment. Emotions and other passive mental activities are more susceptible to external forces, unlike thoughts which he claimed originated in a person’s nature. Spinoza invokes the concept of conatus, in which all things act to preserve themselves and increase their power. Therefore, the goal behind a person’s actions should be control over their own mental space by limiting emotion and replacing it with reason. This will allow a person a greater deal of free will in line with what conatus indicates they should do.

In the final section of Ethics, Spinoza fully lays out his own theory of ethics. Since he believes that it is right for all things to pursue their own goals, he can define ethical behavior as that which attends the motives of the individual. For humans this means using reason as often as possible, so he goes over how humans can at least limiting the power of emotions on them. For one, understanding nature helps someone see the largely deterministic features of the universe which in turn helps someone foresee developments and feel less emotional about them. Those people who have come to this way of thinking will naturally agree with one another and therefore interact with each other in peaceful manners. In other words, the initial understanding of the universe will continue to pay dividends with regards to a more fulfilled existence.

Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher who taught approximately four hundred years before Christ. He was tutored by Socrates and himself tutored Aristotle, the three of whom combine to be perhaps the most influential forces on western philosophy throughout its history. The majority of writings from Plato that survive are Socratic dialogues, in which Socrates is espousing the views of Plato. Usually that meant Socrates would discuss a topic with someone skeptical of his own views, Socrates using his traditional manner of asking questions which ultimately reveal the wisdom behind his own teaching.

One of the most famous Plato works is The Republic in which Socrates narrates a discussion on the most ideal city state possible. Due to this topic, Plato must include details on what he thinks makes a virtuous person as the ideal city state is to be filled with virtuous people who act in certain ways towards each other. Along with ideas such as justice and virtue Plato has Socrates discuss his idea of reality, based around the concept of forms. This is a necessary topic because his idea of reality informs his idea of ethics more than other thinkers.

The ontology of Plato is given in a famous allegory presented by Socrates in The Republic. The Allegory of the Cave is perhaps the most famous metaphor of all the ones introduced in Plato’s writings. It begins with prisoners in a cave who are bound in a way that means they can only look at a wall directly in front of them. That wall displays shadowy images, being produced by a fire and puppeteers behind the prisoners that they are unaware of. At this point, the prisoner is released and is able to turn around and see the source of the shadows. Initially he does not accept the higher level of reality they represent, but comes to understand them as the reason for the shadows he has known. When leaving the cave, the prisoner would see the true life that inspired the puppets before coming to see the sun, the source of that life.

This allegory represents the forms that to Plato are an explanation of the reality that is around us. The forms reside in a different, intelligible realm, and are the ideals around which our reality is based. In other words, the intelligible realm contains the idea of a horse from which every single horse in our realm gains its attributes. These forms in this realm are perfect and unchanging. In the allegory, the shadows represent the things we experience. They are far removed from the true source of reality, but to the prisoners who have seen nothing else these shadows are thought of as the most real thing possible. In fact, the prisoner reacts negatively to the fire and the sun at first as they are brighter than anything else he has ever seen. But, this is what Plato things philosophy is about, presenting evidence that makes people understand how the forms are the basis for existence.

To Plato, the soul is the part of a human being containing our forms; it is what gives each person their essence. This means that the soul is largely the control center for our actions. Plato believed that each object became a better object the more closely it resembled the form it was supposed to be. Therefore, a soul would be better when it acts more like a soul. Objects that act without the inspiration from their form are both less real and less moral. The feature that sets human beings apart and therefore gives them their form is reason. For that reason, a behavior based on reason would be close to the proper form and therefore be the most virtuous way for one to act.

The theories of Baruch Spinoza and Plato on ethics feature many similarities to one another. In both cases, the ultimate answer is for someone to use more reason and less of mental activities such as emotion of appetitive desires. In both accounts, they felt that this was the key to understanding some important large feature of the universe. For Plato this reason allowed someone to understand the Form of Goodness, while for Spinoza reason could unlock the essence of nature, which due to his theory of infinite substance meant understanding the essence of God. In neither case does this seem like a familiar account of ethics, which often feature specific suggestions for individual situations in which two or more people are interacting. Yet, both Spinoza and Plato give an account based on the type of thought one person uses. This is because they feel that the type of thinking they advise will ultimately lead to moral behavior in the situations we often look at morality in.

Ultimately, both of their theories on ethics are based around their ontological theories of the universe, so belief in the ethical theories is dependent on their ontology satisfactorily describing the universe. Plato’s theory of forms states that forms are necessarily unchanging, but the scientific evidence shows that species are always changing. If evolution is carrying organisms further from their initial form, it is difficult to see this as a negative development, even if being less like your form is negative for Plato. Spinoza’s ontology states that one substance makes up the entire universe, and therefore fits greatly in with materialism, a now leading theory within philosophy. Materialism can be seen to lend itself to determinism, but one can see how humans are generally happier with free will theories of their lives and this is what Spinoza tries to promote. It may be simply through Spinoza’s influence that his ideas seem so sensible hundreds of years later, but it does seem that following them would increase one’s happiness without decidedly immoral actions.

Works Cited

“Baruch Spinoza.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Web. 06 May 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/>.

“Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Web. 06 May 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/>.

Spinoza, Benedictus De, and G. H. R. Parkinson. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.

Spinoza, Benedictus De, and G. H. R. Parkinson. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.