Book Review

Spinoza on Reason, by Michael LeBuffe. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2017. Pp xi + 217.
The concept of reason is central to Spinoza’s philosophy in several ways.
These are explored by Michael LeBuffe in his lucid, challenging, and fascinat-
ing new book Spinoza on Reason.
The book consists of four main chapters, along with a preface, an
introduction, and a short conclusion summarising the argument. Each of
the four main chapters addresses a way in which reason, in some sense
or other, features in Spinoza’s philosophy. The first examines Spinoza’s
metaphysical notion of reasons for the existence or nonexistence of things.
The second examines Spinoza’s theory of reason as a type of knowledge or
cognition. The third examines reason as a source of practical guidance. And the
fourth looks at reason as a source of social order, providing an important
alternative to religious devotion.
The first chapter starts with 1p11dem2 of the Ethics: ‘A cause or reason
[causa seu ratio] for each thing must be found, as much for why it exists as for
why it does not exist’ (p. 12). God is the reason for his own existence in
Spinoza’s theory – so much is relatively uncontroversial. But, LeBuffe argues,
finite individuals, including human beings, are also reasons for their own
existence. In this way, ‘Spinoza endorses a traditional view on which human
beings are, though in a finite way, very like God’ (p. 13). Later, LeBuffe calls
this traditional view ‘theomorphism’ (p. 45).
LeBuffe traces the development of Spinoza’s theomorphism through some
philosophers who influenced Spinoza: Avicenna, Maimonides, and Descartes.
Some Spinoza scholars might be surprised to see Avicenna included on this
list. LeBuffe draws on the work of Kara Richardson to justify the inclusion
(Richardson 2014). For my part, I have also been struck by how many char-
acteristically Spinozistic ideas are found more prominently in Avicenna than
in any other comparable source (Douglas 2015, §3.3), so I was pleased to see
this line of influence traced. In Avicenna LeBuffe finds the Spinozist doctrine
that a reason must obtain for the existence/nonexistence of each thing that
exists/does not exist. In Maimonides, he finds the idea that a finite thing
might be a cause of itself, though only a partial cause, since its existence will
also require the removal of external impediments to its existence. Spinoza
‘endorses precisely this view of the causation of finite things’ at 1p11dem2

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 2 Book Review

(p. 31). Finally, he finds in Descartes the idea that when we say that God is
self-caused we mean that he expresses some active causal power rather than
simply being uncaused, as the phrase was traditionally interpreted. (This, I
note, has been explored by Étienne Gilson and more recently Peter Machamer
and James McGuire – Gilson 1921, pp. 225-6; Machamer and McGuire 2009,
pp. 83-91.) Applying this to Maimonides’s theory changes its significance
dramatically.
We thus arrive at Spinoza’s theomorphic theory: God is a self-caused
being, a being who is his own reason for existing, meaning his nature
expresses some causal force of existing, and finite things resemble God in
this respect. Unlike God, finite things must satisfy another condition to
exist: external impediments to their existence must be absent. But, with
this qualification, all things exist by the force of their own nature in the
same way as God (except for things whose natures prevent them from
existing – for example, beings whose natures involve contradiction).
There are, of course, questions about how this metaphysical theory
works. Does Spinoza, for instance, believe that non-existent objects subsist
in some non-actual realm, where they exercise some weak force of being,
inadequate to overcome some obstacles to their existing? LeBuffe’s main
purpose is not to analyse Spinoza’s metaphysics, so he does not raise such
questions. Instead, he turns to analysing some implications of Spinoza’s
theory.
He makes, for instance, the intriguing suggestion that Curley ’s materialist
reading of Spinoza and Della Rocca’s idealist reading both capture something
correct, though they seem opposed (p. 15). He first defends Curley ’s materi-
alism on the grounds that although a thought is, for Spinoza, what grasps a
reason, the reason itself must belong to the same attribute as what it is
a reason for. Since the attribute to which a body belongs is extension,
this means that the reason for a body must be a mode of extension. Thus
my mind, which is according to Spinoza the thought or idea of my body
(Ethics 2p13), grasps the reason for my existence, which is my body. In this
sense the direction of explanation runs from bodies to minds in Spinoza’s
account of human beings. Curley observes that when Spinoza aims to explain
basic facts about human beings, his explanations always run from physical
facts to their mental counterparts and not vice-versa – a chief example being
the placement of a miniature physics in the scholium to a major proposition
of Part Two of the Ethics – ‘Of the Nature and Origin of the Mind’ (2p13s).
LeBuffe for the most part agrees.
LeBuffe, however, also believes Della Rocca’s idealist reading to be justified
by the fact that Spinoza seems to hold not only that things are the reasons for
their own existence but, more than this, that existing and having a reason for
existing are one and the same. Yet having a reason for existing is the same as
being explicable or intelligible: being, as Della Rocca puts it, ‘available to
thought’ (Della Rocca 2015, p. 13). Thus Spinoza takes existence to be

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 Book Review 3

convertible with intelligibility as Berkeley takes existence to be convertible

with perceptibility – in this sense Spinoza is an idealist. LeBuffe links this
back to his own reading in the following way. Since things are their own
reasons, and reasons comprise availability to thought, things are their
availability to thought: their esse is intelligi.
At first this seems as though it cannot be right, as LeBuffe admits (pp. 35-
7). As we have seen, the reason for the existence of a finite thing is only
partially internal to it – much of the reason for it lies outside itself, in the
absence of impediments. But a thing cannot be partly external to itself. And
so a finite thing cannot be identical with its own reason for existing.
According to LeBuffe, Spinoza is able to avoid this objection ‘by rejecting
the notion that ordinary things are fully real’ (p. 36). Finite things exist only
to the extent that they are their own reasons for existing. And thus we can say
that for a thing to exist is for it to be its own reason for existing. Where the
latter is partial, so is the former. LeBuffe, taking on Della Rocca’s idealist
reading, ends up ascribing to Spinoza the sort of acosmism – the denial of the
(full) reality of finite things – that idealist readings tend to ascribe to him.
(See, for instance, Newlands 2011a, 2011b, Melamed 2010, 2011, Stern 2016.)
There is, of course, vastly more to be said about this, but LeBuffe limits
himself to drawing out an interesting implication that is relevant for later
chapters. This concerns Spinoza’s conatus doctrine (Ethics 3p6). It states that
each thing, ‘quantum in se est’, strives to persevere in its being. The key phrase
is usually translated ‘in so far as it can’, which is idiomatic Latin. (The
idiomatic translation, plus an explanatory footnote, is given in: Spinoza
1985, 1:498n.15.) But it is possible to construe it more literally. LeBuffe takes
the latter path and notes that Spinoza uses ‘in se’ when he defines ‘substance’
at the start of the Ethics. Here the phrase is usually rendered: ‘in itself ’. Thus
LeBuffe translates 3p6 as: ‘each thing, insofar as it is in itself, strives to per-
severe in its own being’ (p. 40). LeBuffe connects this to the idea of things
being their own reasons to exist. The more things are their own reasons to
exist – the more ‘internal’ are their reasons for existing – the more effectively
they strive to persevere in being. In this way Spinoza’s theomorphism – his
view that finite things are like God in the respect of being their own reasons
for existing, or being ‘in se’ – explains both the existence and the behaviour of
finite things.
The chapter goes on to compare Spinoza’s theomorphism with that of
Descartes and Leibniz. It then concludes by returning to the apparent dispute
between Curley and Della Rocca. The two positions are shown to be consist-
ent. Bodies are reasons for existing, whereas thoughts grasp such reasons. In
this sense, extension – material reality – is fundamental. Nevertheless, to exist
is to be grasped in thought. In this sense, thought is fundamental.
The second chapter turns to Spinoza’s theory of reason as a species of
cognition. Reason is, for Spinoza, the second of three kinds of knowledge.
It comes between the first, encompassing ‘scattered experience’ and

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 4 Book Review

testimony, along with whatever psychological associations these bring up, and
the third, ‘scientiam intuitivam’. The third kind, LeBuffe argues, matches the
sort of perfect knowledge ascribed to God and angels in traditional Christian
philosophy, for instance by Pseudo-Dionysus and Aquinas. LeBuffe looks to
these sources to understand the difference between reason and intuition in
Spinoza. Perfect beings, according to the traditional sources, know exclusively
by intuition: they grasp the essences of the things they know directly. Reason
is an approximation to this by an imperfect being, who grasps certain proper-
ties of things in order to know their essences indirectly.
LeBuffe explains how the same theory works in Spinoza. Spinoza distin-
guishes between inadequate and adequate causes, which LeBuffe identifies
using the more modern terms ‘partial cause’ and ‘total cause’ (p. 64).
Next, an adequate idea is one of which the mind is a total cause; an inad-
equate idea is one of which the mind is a partial cause. Since Spinoza broadly
identifies causes with reasons, another way of putting this is: an adequate idea
is one that is wholly explained through the nature of the mind, whereas an
inadequate idea is one that is partly explained through the nature of the mind
and partly explained through the nature of something else.
To understand what ideas of reason are for Spinoza, we must first under-
stand his metaphysics of minds and ideas. At 2p11c Spinoza claims that
‘the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God’. From what
LeBuffe says about this, I believe he interprets it the way I would: minds
are at least partly composed of their ideas. Yet ideas, like Fregean thoughts,
are pure content that can be shared by many minds. Minds that share ideas
thus overlap in their being. And God’s intellect contains all possible cognitive
content; human intellects, which contain considerably less cognitive content,
are then part of God’s intellect. Identity is looser and more fluid in Spinoza’s
philosophy than it is in most philosophy. LeBuffe then goes through
Spinoza’s physical account of how bodies affect each other. When another
body affects mine, the resulting affection expresses the natures of both my
body and the affecting body. This means that the corresponding idea should
be inadequate: since the mental order is parallel to the physical order for
Spinoza, the idea parallel to the affection must be partly explained through
my mind and partly explained through my body. Again, the fluidity of iden-
tity is crucial. For Spinoza, LeBuffe notes, ‘singular things are not wholly
discrete’ (p. 85). They are, as Yitzhak Melamed calls them, ‘weak individuals’
(Melamed 2010, pp. 83–89). And so there can be certain cases in which my
idea, corresponding to an affection of my body by X, is adequate. Although
the idea must be explained by both my mind’s nature and the nature of X, my
mind is not distinct from X, and so in being explained through both it is
wholly explained through one.
Properties of this sort, which pertain to the natures of things insofar as they
are not distinct, are the objects of what Spinoza calls common notions at 2p38c
and following. LeBuffe identifies these, alongside other sorts of ideas (ideas of

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 Book Review 5

properties shared by some but not all bodies (discussed at E2p39) and ideas
that are wholly the effect of the common notions or the 2p39 ideas (discussed
at 2p40)) with ideas of reason. Such ideas have an important limitation.
Properties that pertain to things insofar as those things are not distinct
cannot be properties that define the individual essences of things. An
individual essence makes a given thing distinct from other things. And so
‘a singular thing can never be known adequately by means of reason although
it can be known adequately in intuitive knowledge’ (p. 98). In 1a4, LeBuffe
notes, Spinoza claims that understanding an effect is understanding the
cause: ‘Because a thing’s essence causes its properties … there seems to be
reason to think that in ideas of reason we gain some knowledge of a thing’s
essence’ (p. 98). But the knowledge will be indirect and incomplete. Reason as
a form of knowledge is ‘a means incrementally of acquiring the knowledge
that God has, and that we might hope to attain, all at once, by means of
intuitive knowledge’ (p. 99).
There are many questions left open by this account, of course. But it is
impressively consistent, and it ties together a number of different threads in
Spinoza’s account.
In the third chapter, LeBuffe turns to practical reason. Spinoza identifies a
number of prescriptions as part of the guidance of reason in Part 4 of the
Ethics. But it is not clear what he means in suggesting that reason guides our
actions. LeBuffe begins by distinguishing questions of authority and motiv-
ation. One question is how reason should, if it does, authorize certain actions
as those we are justified in doing. This is a properly normative question.
Another is psychological; it is the question of how reason can motivate us
to behave in certain ways.
To set the scene, LeBuffe begins by examining the accounts of practical
reasoning given by Aquinas and Hobbes. Both philosophers view practical
reasoning as an activity of working out natural laws, which are precepts of
action that can be deduced from the common fundamental desires of human
beings. For Aquinas, there are a variety of such desires installed in us by
divine providence; for Hobbes there is only the fundamental desire to per-
severe in being. But, importantly, neither philosopher regards reason as a
source of knowledge about these fundamental desires (pp. 108-9). Aquinas
(Summa Theologiae 1a-2ae 91.3c) regards the basic principles of morality as
indemonstrable. Hobbes is clear that reasoning can give us knowledge of
conditionals only, not of antecedents or consequents; it can tell us what to
do if certain propositions about human nature and desire are true, but it
cannot tell us whether or not those propositions are true.
LeBuffe points out that on the surface, Spinoza’s account of practical rea-
soning looks similar to that of Hobbes. But this raises a new question. Should
we, like Edwin Curley, regard the guidance of reason in Spinoza as consisting
of moral exhortations (Curley 1973)? Or should we think of it, as Don
Rutherford does, as a simple descriptive account of what people do insofar

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 6 Book Review

as they are rational (Rutherford 2008)? LeBuffe’s take on this is bold and
interesting.
First, he notes that there is a summum bonum for humans, according to
Spinoza. (Curley, I would add here, notes how this sharply distinguishes
Spinoza from Hobbes – Curley 1988, p. 125.) The summum bonum is under-
standing, which LeBuffe reads as meaning not merely an instrument of
self-preservation but self-preservation itself, under the attribute of thought
(p. 116). Understanding is what the mind fundamentally is, so in pursuing it
the mind is pursuing its own perseverance in being. And the pursuit of
understanding grounds the rest of Spinoza’s precepts in Ethics 4. To live by
the guidance of reason is to do what is necessary to understand.
LeBuffe then considers whether ‘reason’ here should be taken in the same
sense as when Spinoza speaks of it as a form of cognition. LeBuffe acknow-
ledges that not everything Spinoza associates with the teaching of reason
derives from the common notions. But the common notions play a very
important role in giving reason its motivating power. For instance, part of
following the guidance of reason is avoiding time-inconsistency; present
goods must not be valued higher than past or future goods simply on account
of being present. Understanding things through the common notions helps
to avoid such irrationality, since the properties that are the objects of com-
mon notions are unchanging over time. The more we understand things
through common notions, the less our ideas of them will be time-variant,
and the more we will avoid time-inconsistency.
In the end, however, ‘reason’ in Spinoza’s practical sense must be broader
than ‘reason’ in his epistemological sense. This is because Spinoza, unlike
Hobbes and Aquinas, believes that reason can discover the fundamental mo-
tivation that grounds moral precepts. For Hobbes, reason cannot show that
self-preservation is the fundamental human motivation. But for Spinoza it
can. LeBuffe’s explanation of this is brief but compelling: ‘[R]eason
commands action for self-preservation. The reason in question just is the
nature of the self, and, as it is a particular manifestation of God’s nature, it is
self-explanatory ’ (p. 133). If ‘reason’ can discover this, however, it must be
able to apprehend the nature of the self, and thus it must encompass more
than ‘reason’ in the epistemological sense, which, as we saw, can only grasp
essences partially and incompletely.
In the fourth chapter, LeBuffe looks at reason in Spinoza’s Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus as contrasted with ‘devotion’ as a source of social har-
mony. A central puzzle for Spinoza scholars concerns an apparent tension
between the Ethics and the TTP. As LeBuffe puts it:
On one view, Spinoza argues in the Ethics that everyone can, and should, lead their
lives under the guidance of reason (even if very few can attain the highest degree of
wisdom); in the TTP he reserves that life for very few and argues that most people
should lead a life devoted to God, imaginatively conceived. (p. 137)

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 Book Review 7

We might think that what Spinoza propounds is a sort of Noble Lie theory,
according to which the elite promote non-rational, religious ideas among the
multitude in order to secure their obedience to civil laws. LeBuffe aims to
reject this reading and to find instead ‘an account of the place of reason in
each individual’s life and in society that is consistent across the two works’
(p. 137).
He begins with an examination of the Noble Lie theory in Plato’s Republic.
He then notes what is, according to Spinoza, the central source of social
difficulty: most people fail to ‘live their lives according to a fixed plan’.
While Spinoza acknowledges cases in which individuals suffer (and are dan-
gerous) on account of monomaniacal obsessions, for him the chief social
pathology is vacillation: the inability of individuals to centre their actions
upon a fixed idea, a set purpose or unchanging notion of the good life. This
theory is remarkably consistent in Spinoza; even the early Treatise on the
Emendation of the Intellect begins by reporting a desire to find a single, un-
changing good on which the mind could fixate to the exclusion of everything
else. There is a great deal of work to be done on why this particular end is so
central for Spinoza. Here, as so often in the book, LeBuffe opens a door to
further research but does not go through it.
Instead, he notes that the common notions are capable of occupying the
mind in a fixed way since, as we saw, they do not change through different
interactions. The question is: are there any inadequate ideas that can do this
also? At first we might think that ideas connected by reliable associations could
work: if I come to make a strong enough imaginative association between many
things and B, I could rely on having the idea of B never far from my mind. But
this, LeBuffe notes, is inadequate to Spinoza’s purpose. Ultimately a reliable
association between ideas could be ‘a systematic account of a way in which
ideas do not remain fixed’ (p. 149, emphasis in original). If I associate A with B,
the result will be a constant passage in my mind from A to B, not a fixation
upon any one idea: ‘Such consistency, however, is not what is required for a
fixed plan: an unchanging idea of something as present or existing’ (p. 149).
It is here that LeBuffe introduces a fascinating interpretative insight. The
one sort of imaginative idea that can play the same role as the common
notions of reason – that is, the role of being the locus of a ‘fixed plan’ – is
the type that is in many ways furthest from reason. The type is: ideas of the
miraculous, that is, of things unlike anything else found in ordinary experi-
ence. It is plausible that one who has witnessed something miraculous will
have the experience stick in one’s mind. But LeBuffe finds distinctively
Spinozist reasons for saying so: for instance, such ideas are so unlike other
ideas that they are unlikely to pass over into them through the mechanism of
imaginative association. LeBuffe finds ample textual confirmation that this is
Spinoza’s view. I have not seen the point made elsewhere in the literature on
Spinoza and judge it to be one of the book’s greatest contributions to
scholarship.

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It leads to a difficulty about Spinoza’s ‘two kingdoms’: theology and phil-

osophy. Spinoza claims, famously, that these kingdoms can peacefully coexist.
But if theology promotes devotion based on religious ideas of the miraculous,
whereas philosophy promotes ideas based on reason, there is an apparent
tension between the two. Reason, as we saw LeBuffe arguing in the third
chapter, delivers specific injunctions to behave in certain ways. But ‘[w]hat
one should do on the basis of [an idea of a miracle] is not clear from the idea
of the miracle itself ’ (p. 163). How can we be sure that theology will not
promote behaviour that is incompatible with the behaviour recommended by
the guidance of reason?
LeBuffe dispenses with an unattractive answer. If the rational elite in so-
ciety learn to manipulate religion to their own advantage, they can make sure
that the multitude is controlled in a way compatible with their own way of
life. This is deeply unattractive, since it amounts to the view that the elite
should harm the many for their own benefit. After all, to maintain control,
the elite would have to ensure that the multitude continue to hold fast to
their religious ideas. But this amounts to depriving them of the opportunity
to develop any truer understanding. And since, as we saw, Spinoza believes
that understanding is the highest human good, this ultimately amounts to a
situation in which the elite deprive the multitude of any possibility of pursu-
ing their highest good.
In place of this unattractive answer, LeBuffe offers a schematic alternative.
Rather than thinking of one group of citizens as possessing rational ideas and
another as possessing religious ideas, Spinoza implicitly recognises that most
citizens possess both sorts of idea. The difference between the religious and
the rational is a matter of motivation. Thus the real hope for a coexistence
between what Spinoza calls ‘theology ’ and philosophy is that it will lead to a
gradual progression of society as a whole towards reason. This is, roughly,
because as people have more peaceful encounters with each other, they will
form more and more common notions and become increasingly motivated to
act by these ideas rather than by their religious ideas:
Initially, the citizen is motivated primarily by religious ideas. In the exercise of
freedom, however, ideas of reason become more and more powerful and
imaginative ideas of the unique become less and less powerful. (p. 172)
While it may be true that Spinoza, to some extent, advocates a Noble Lie, his
position is very different from Plato’s. Plato gives no indication that those
subject to the Noble Lie will ever see beyond it. Spinoza, however, recognises
that religion, in being socially useful, also creates a cognitive environment in
which the religious can move away from religion and towards a higher degree
of understanding.
LeBuffe’s book addresses something of profound interest to Spinoza scho-
lars. But it is also of more general philosophical interest. Terms such as
‘reason’ and ‘rational’ are thrown about in many debates – political and
religious as well as philosophical. But it is rarely clear what is meant.

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In almost any use of such terms, there are connotations of the metaphysical
sense (the ultimate reasons for things), the epistemological sense (reason as a
faculty), the normative sense (practical reason), and the sense in which, es-
pecially since the Enlightenment, ‘reason’ has been used as a general antonym
to ‘revelation’. Spinoza on Reason shows how much Spinoza’s work can speak
to these debates and cut through the confusion.
It is an invitation to further work rather than a completed project. LeBuffe
points out hundreds of fascinating avenues, but the broad sweep of his pro-
ject and the attractive brevity of his book prevent him from following any of
them very far. I would be interested in how Spinoza’s conception of reason
(in its many senses) interacts with those of his contemporaries. Others will
find other parts of the story they want filled in. But in opening up this topic
in the way he has, LeBuffe has done a great service to those who want to write
about Spinoza as well as to those who want to read about him.

References
Curley, Edwin. 1973. ‘Spinoza’s Moral Philosophy ’. In Spinoza: A
Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Grene Marjorie
Glicksman, 354–76. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Curley, Edwin 1988. Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of
Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Douglas, Alexander X. 2015. Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism. Oxford
University Press.
Gilson, Etienne. 1921. Etudes de philosophie médiévale. Strasbourg:
Commission des publications de la Faculté des lettres.
Machamer, Peter, and J. E. McGuire .2009. Descartes’s Changing
Mind. Princeton University Press.
Melamed, Yitzhak Y. 2010. ‘Acosmism or Weak Individuals?: Hegel,
Spinoza, and the Reality of the Finite’. Journal of the History of
Philosophy 48 (1):77–92.
—— 2011. ‘Why Spinoza Is Not an Eleatic Monist (Or Why Diversity
Exists)’. In Spinoza on Monism, edited by Goff. Philip Palgrave.
Rocca Michael Della. 2015. ‘Interpreting Spinoza: The Real Is the
Rational’. Journal of the History of Philosophy 53 (3):523–35.
Newlands, Samuel. 2011a. ‘Hegel’s Idealist Reading of Spinoza’.
Philosophy Compass 6 (2):100–108.
—— 2011b. ‘More Recent Idealist Readings of Spinoza’. Philosophy
Compass 6 (2):109–19.
Richardson, Kara. 2014. ‘Avicenna and the Principle of Sufficient
Reason’. Review of Metaphysics 67 (4):743–68.

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Rutherford, Donald. 2008. ‘Spinoza and the Dictates of Reason’.

Inquiry 51 (5):485–511.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. 1985. The Collected Works of Spinoza.
Translated by Edwin Curley. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Stern, Robert. 2016. ‘“Determination Is Negation”: The Adventures
of a Doctrine from Spinoza to Hegel to the British Idealists’.
Hegel Bulletin 37 (1):29–52.

University of St Andrews ALEXANDER DOUGLAS

axd@st-andrews.ac.uk
doi:10.1093/mind/fzy005

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