https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/787015
That's the most charitable surmise I can make of Copelston's interpretation of Spinoza. I think one has to study Spinoza directly in order to better comprehend the nuances and depths of his conceptions which are not nearly as Anselmian (i.e. of Catholic scholasticism) as Copelston's mention of "the ontological argument" might suggest. — 180 Proof
What little I know of Spinoza's worldview is second-hand, not directly from the source. Nevertheless, I often note the similarity of his Deus Sive Natura god-model to my own PanEnDeistic model ; which, in my Enformationism thesis, I label with various made-up, un-official, non-committal, non-creedal names : G*D ; Enformer ; First Cause ; etc. Like him, I didn't set out to alienate Atheists or Theists, who hold antithetical views. Instead, my information-based god-model is not beholden to doctrinal "Catholic Scholasticism" or to dogmatic Logical Positivism. So, in view of our uncertain knowledge of Ontology, it is viewed as a sort of BothAnd bridge between those opposite shores. Sadly -- just as Spinoza was condemned by true-believers among both Atheists & Theists -- any moderate view can be taken as an affront by those who have extreme (absolutely certain) beliefs on the topic.
These amateur remarks are based on the Spinoza article in the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/) as quoted below :
"His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. They also lay the foundations for a strongly democratic political thought and a deep critique of the pretensions of Scripture and sectarian religion. " ___SEP
My own secular worldview can be construed as a "critique of the pretensions of scripture", and of traditional religions. But it was also intended to provide a cosmic understanding of the Ontological question (whence Being?) as inferred from 21st century Science. I was not trying to justify any prior religious or philosophical arguments. Yet, my novel postulations are typically critiqued, not on their own merits, but as-if they were merely a recycling of tried & failed solutions to the big-why questions. However, my proposed worldview is also "naturalistic", in that it does not require or allow any miraculous interventions into the heuristic (trial & error) program of Evolution. Yet, it does mandate a hypothetical Programmer to write the algorithmic rules of natural laws.
Spinoza's 17th century science assumed that Nature itself had existed eternally. So equating the creation with the Creator was a no-brainer. However, in view of the 21st century Cosmology of an ex nihilo beginning, I began to refer to the metaphorical fuse-lighter of the Big Bang (a hypothetical First Cause of Nature), as "Transcendent", in order to provide an Information-based explanation for the implicit eternal void (gap) before the "Bang". This is the same "god-gap" that various cosmologists have tried to fill with non-empirical infinite Multiverses (matter), and hyper-mathematical Inflation of a tidal-wave in space-time (energy). My real-world model is not portrayed as eternal though, but limited by the boundaries of space-time (between Big Bang and Long Sigh). Only an unbounded pre-space-time abyss can be logically described as Timeless & Spaceless, yet with infinite statistical Potential.
Therefore, some kind of ultra-mundane cause (Spinoza's Deus ; my Enformer) seems to be necessary to initiate the logical causal chain of evolution (en-formation ; transformation). Darwinian Evolution is obviously not Deterministic, but seems to be exploring many possible forms (mutations) that are "selected" based on some logical criteria. Hence, whence the statistical potential and whither the goal-directed logic? Likewise, Quantum Physics is inherently uncertain & indeterminate (not physical & actual, but merely Potential : probability distribution of possibilities) .
So, to deny the reality of a philosophical Absolute (Deus) is consistent with the dubious nature of Nature. Yet, philosophical god-denials are typically presented as-if based on Scientific Certainty, as-if quoted from some imaginary bible of scientific revelation. One example of such philosophical negation is The Grand Design, by Steven Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow. It proposes to offer scientific answers to several non-empirical philosophical enigmas :
1. Why is there something rather than nothing?
2. Why do we exist?
3. Why this particular set of laws and not some other?
After famously claiming that “Philosophy is Dead”, the authors ironically use non-empirical philosophical arguments to prove their own Model-Dependent Realism. Yet, one book review labels the authors' worldview as metaphysical “anti-realism”*1. That's because their argument denies the existence of an independent source of verification. Hence, like most philosophical reasoning, the truth of their belief is dependent upon the structure of its own internal Logic, not on empirical facts. Therefore, despite their satirical title, the argument denies the possibility of a Designer to produce the “Grand Design”*2 of Nature. Yet, if no Designer, whence the "design" ; no Organizer, whence the "order" ; no Enformer, whence the Information?
TO BE CONTINUED . . . . . .
*1. Anti-Realism :
“In anti-realism, the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism
*2. Einstein's Grand Design :
quote-what-i-see-in-nature-is-a-grand-design-that-we-can-understand-only-imperfectly-one-with-albert-einstein-61-69-22.jpg
↪Ali Hosein
