Essence, Existence and Power in Part I of the Ethics: The Foundations of Proposition 16

Abstract

In this essay, Matheron investigates the philosophical foundations of Proposition 16 of Part I of Spinoza’s Ethics, which states that God, by virtue of being an absolute infinite being, necessarily produces an infinite number of things and effects. Such a startling claim, Matheron argues, is in fact well founded and can be understood by returning to the important demonstrative moves Spinoza makes in the preceding moments of Part I. By turning to Proposition 7 and its two scholia, Propositions 9 and 10, and the Scholium to Proposition 11, Matheron meticulously reconstructs Spinoza’s argument according to which God is conceived as immanent productive power that inexhaustibly gives rise to all logical structures. In turn, Matheron concludes, the demonstration opens onto Spinoza’s famous theory of conatus.