Infinity and Contingency in Spinoza's Philosophy

Abstract

Spinoza’s own words seem to commit him to necessitarianism, or the view that everything that exists does so necessarily. There is overwhelming textual evidence for attributing this view to Spinoza. Nonetheless, necessitarianism is a difficult position to defend. For this reason, arguments have been made to make room for contingency in his system. Two such arguments are Curley (1969), restated in Curley and Walski (1999), and Newlands (2010). It is interesting that all these arguments appeal to Spinoza’s claim that all finite things are locked in an infinite nexus of causal relations obtaining between finite things. The question central to the present paper is whether metaphysical contingency can really be derived from an infinity of causal ancestors. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, I aim to show that Curley’s original proposal (1969) fails. Second, I aim to present an alternative reading of the relation between infinity and Spinoza’s concept of contingency. On the reading I advance, while the infinity of the causal ancestry of finite things does not (as Curley and Walski maintain) ground any objective metaphysical contingency on their part, it is one necessary condition which must obtain if they are to appear as contingent. The other necessary condition is that things must be conceivable as possibly having not existed. Only the natures of things that do not owe their existence to these natures can be conceived of as non-instantiated. So only such things can be thought of as possibly having not existed. Jointly, these two conditions explain why finite things can appear contingent. This appearance of contingency is in turn at the core of Spinoza’s account of the human condition as consisting in slavery to affects.