Publication Details

Abstract

The author in his article deals with the question of Spinoza's materialism. He proves that Spinoza was not a materialist, though he was neither an idealist, but a pantheist who tried to reconcile in his system the contradictions of spirit and matter. Spinoza’s substance-nature is not only material, but to an equal extent also spiritual and also infinitely manysidedly else. Spirit and matter are eternal, they are not causally conditioned, they are not superior to each other, etc. But Spinoza, In comparison to Descartes, advanced nearer to mechanistic materialism. Each atribute is, by his opinion, independent and expresses the substance completely truthfully. So does also the material atribute. Matter is eternal, self-sufficient, it explains itself without the help of spirit, the laws of motion are immanent in it, it is infinitely productive, it creates also man (his physique), etc. If Spinoza’s nature were only material, Spinoza would have been a mechanistic materialist. But in his nature also spirit is the same like matter, and thus Spinoza substantially influenced the later idealistic, namely German, classical philosophy