A Response: Analogia and Ens Rationis

Jacqueline Lagrée

Introduction

In metaphysics, the status of analogy’s meaning and use is related to the question of the equivocity of being by virtue of the fact that the former raises the question of homonymy’s meaning and status. Homonymy can be held to signify either by means of a common term [pros hén: for example, the healthy for health] or by means of analogy by signifying an equality of relations [isotès logon].¹ In the history of metaphysics, the example of the division of the line in Plato’s Republic comes to mind. Socrates maintains that sight is to the body as the intellect is to the soul, and the analogy allows him to maintain the unity of substances in their generic kinship, while also maintaining their specific difference.

For his part, Spinoza makes little use of the term analogia. When Spinoza does employ the term analogia in the Political Treaties in chapter 8, §26 [TP, ch. viii, §26] [coherentiam sive imperii analogiam observare], he does this in order to signify an exact relation. This is why Charles Ramond translates the passage (correctly) as: “To observe its coherence, that is to say, the State’s right proportions” [“observer leur cohérence, c’est à dire les justes proportions de cet État”].² Likewise, in Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy at DPP1p6s, Spinoza denies the possibility of any analogy or congruence between the impossible and the possible, or nothingness and some thing, since “[we] can compare things with one another and know the relation between them only if [we] have a clear and distinct concept of each of them.”³

Because Spinoza maintains the univocity of being, the traditional meaning of analogy in scholastic metaphysics is not pertinent for understanding his philosophy. The better precedent would be found in Stoicism, with the process of formation of common notions, particularly the notion of the good. According to Cicero and Seneca, two authors Spinoza knows, the idea of the good is formed by collatio rationis (“rational comparison”), a Latin translation of analogia.4 For the Stoics, the notion of the good is neither innate nor empirical; rather, it is formed by the mind’s activity on things given by experience. The collatio rationis can function by augmentation (the Cyclops), by diminution (the Pygmy), or by the identity of relations, which is properly speaking an analogy, and it is in this way that all people form the idea of the good. Just as honey is not the sweetest element but the sweet or the soft par excellence, that thing in relation to which all sweet things are determined, similarly the absolute good, which has nothing better than it, is that in relation to which all other goods can be held to be relatively good. This is especially true in virtue of the fact that although one cannot make bad use of the good, other goods (wealth, health, pleasure, honor) are susceptible to both good and bad use.⁵

If we now return to Spinoza, we see that, for him, the good is not a real being, but rather a being of reason.⁶ Good and bad are relative terms,⁷ but the good is neither nothing nor is it a fictive being; rather, it is formed by the association of ideas and in relation to our desire and our utility: “By good here I understand every kind of Joy, and whatever leads to it, and especially what satisfies any kind of longing, whatever that may be.”⁸ Furthermore, for Spinoza, as for the Stoics, there is a Sovereign Good: the knowledge and love of God.⁹ If, properly speaking, Spinoza does not give a definition of the good this is because the term is not univocal, but rather relative to some desire or expectation, and because Spinoza refuses the traditional scholastic definitions of the term.

Therefore, for Spinoza, analogy does not have a technical meaning (like in metaphysics, analogia entis), but it only means a correct proportion, an equality of relations. Aside from the rule of the three, which is a perfectly validated arithmetic analogy, and which serves as a model to illustrate the three types of knowledge, Spinoza notes that the use of analogy is often less than rigorous, grounded as it is in the work of the imagination. When these beings of reason are taken to be real beings, theoretical monsters are born.

I will proceed to examine how this analogical imagination functions within two apparently very distinct domains, namely, mythology and metaphysics. Allow me already to offer some examples of what sorts of things these are: will, nothingness, the One, the good, and desire are entia rationis metaphysica; Pegasus, Adam, and the Devil are entia ficta; and Socrates or the wise man’s freedom are entia realia.

To understand the nature of beings of reason and their theoretical status, it is necessary to ask how they are formed, to wit, if they are produced by the understanding alone, or if the imagination plays a role in their production. We must be careful not to mistake an ens rationis (a provisory tool of thought, inexistent outside the mind) for an ens fictum. An ens fictum results from the arbitrary conjunction of two terms; such a thing can, therefore, be true by accident. A being of reason, on the other hand, is only a pedagogical device, so it cannot be true or false, although it can be good or bad, that is say, efficacious or inefficacious. Whether we are speaking of an ens rationis or an ens fictum, we are making use of the first kind of knowledge.

I will now proceed to analyze three aspects of Spinoza’s theory of analogy, namely the nature of fictive beings and of beings of reason, their respective modes of production, and their respective effects. Again, for the purposes of this analysis, it is important not to confuse a distinction of reason, which may have a pedagogical use (e.g., between an individual and their conatus, or between a body and its movement), with a being of reason, something that we must not endow with a usurped ontological consistency (e.g., the will).

An ens rationis “is nothing but a mode of thinking, which helps us to more easily retain, explain, and imagine the things we have understood.”10 Memory and the imagination, for example, function by resemblance and analogy. The same is true of the understanding when it makes use of comparisons and calls on a being of reason (such as number, time, and measurement) in order to explain things or distinguish among them. For the imagination, Spinoza gives examples cast in the language of privation (e.g., blindness, extremity, shadows). Moreover, in order to consider Natura naturata as a single being, we must consider as analogous the unity of all existing things and the unity of God’s idea or decree that conserves this being. “Si ad analogiam totius naturae attendimus, ipsam ut unum ens considerare possumus et per consequens una tantum erit Dei idea sive decretum de natura naturata.”¹¹ Therefore, the use of analogy is, for Spinoza, nothing but a way of considering things, and a means by which things are envisioned by us, such that they become representable for the imagination and understood more easily. However, analogy is not a rational or divine way of thinking. God does not have ideas of entia ficta vel rationis: God does not comprehend beings of reason as such, although he does comprehend these as features of the human mind, inasmuch as he conserves it.¹² The same can be said of his knowledge of general things, evils, and sins, which God only comprehends inasmuch as these are modes of thought of the human mind. In short, God comprehends singular and positive things, real beings.

A being of reason does not exist in nature, no more than parts and wholes do.13 “Some things are in our intellect and not in Nature; so these are only our own work, and they help us to understand things distinctly. Among these we include all relations, which have reference to different things. These we call beings of reason [entia rationis].”¹⁴ For example, a good clock, for us, is one that gives us the right time of day. For a Surrealist, like Dali, a good clock might be a clock that always would give the wrong time.

Insofar as they are formed by transposal and comparison, beings of reason and fictive beings are produced in a relatively straightforward way. It matters less the specific way that they are produced by the mind than that which they are (or rather, are not) and what enters into play during their production. A fictive being (or any fiction) is formed “when a man, from his sheer freedom alone, knowingly and intentionally … connects what he wishes to connect and disjoins what he wishes to disjoin.”¹⁵ Even if it is a rational procedure and implies equality, the use of analogy is a fictional mode of thought, inasmuch as analogies compare incomparable things according to inexact relations. This is especially salient in the case of miracles: the act of comparing, and treating as similar, becomes a general functional substitute for a system of explaining natural causes.¹⁶ We can see this more clearly if we examine mythological and metaphysical inventions.

The power of some fiction is inversely proportional to true knowledge.¹⁷ It is therefore impossible to forge the fiction of an inexistent God; reciprocally, it is easy to forge a representation of chimeras.¹⁸ We do this by combining features belonging to different animal species. Yet, as with the unicorn, the chimera is a fiction whose existence Nature precludes. The case of Adam is a bit more complex. Adam is a fiction because he is defined in a general manner as being without historical or geographical determination. At E4p68s, Adam symbolizes the birth of man, when his body and inadequate ideas dominate him. He recognizes his likeness in Eve; that is to say, Adam recognizes in Eve that which is most useful to him.¹⁹ If Adam were to remain like this, Adam would be a free man. But Adam does not know how to distinguish between man and animal and he imitates the snake.²⁰ At his birth, Adam was unaware of good and evil. He ceased being free when he ceased obeying the laws of his own nature and when he mistook the snake’s nature for his own nature.

The aptitude to forge fictions and believe in their truthfulness is inversely proportional to true knowledge: “But as we have said, the less men know Nature, the more easily they can feign many things, such as, that trees speak, that men are changed in a moment into stones and into springs, that nothing becomes something, that even Gods are changed into beasts and into men, and infinitely many other things of that kind.”21 Although a fiction is necessarily confused, a fiction is capable of maintaining itself indefinitely, up until it is chased away by a clear idea. Furthermore, habits of the imagination differ from individual to individual: the traces of a horse in the sand will not evoke the same thing to a farmer as to a soldier,²² yet neither will see anything more than the traces of the horse in the sand. The same is true of the aptitude to arbitrarily link ideas together in metaphysics.

Metaphysical inventions are prolific. Spinoza hardly pays much attention to these as he considers them as little less than uninteresting mistakes. But we could show, for example, how the philosophical claim that man possesses multiple souls is a groundless attempt at accounting for the different functions of the mode of thought. Likewise, universal ideas are but beings of reason, not real beings.²³ For example, the will is not the cause of individual volitions; humanity is not the cause of Peter or Paul; desire is only an abstraction of conatus.

The effects of fictive beings and of beings of reason are often negative, although at times their use can be beneficial. Consequently, they can be corrected and oriented as a means of leading us to a happy and free life. Among the negative effects, we can place false beliefs, superstitions, and false explanations, all of which hinder the progress of science. Among the positive effects, we can place the capacity for memorization, with its pedagogical virtues. Is there a way of removing the negative effects?

Take the example of love. Love always begins as a fiction, although it can be elevated and become the amor intellectualis Dei. We might even be able to order the different forms of love according to their correspondence to the different kinds of knowledge:

(1)  Love by hearsay: for example, the love of a father for his son, or of a soldier for their country; the same goes with respect to hatred by hearsay.²⁴

(2)  Love that comes from a true belief: for example, the desire to become the model of a free man leads us to true knowledge and the highest love, the love of humankind. Love aiming to achieve some union with a perishable thing invariably disappoints.

(3)  Love that comes from a true concept: for example, the love of God, which is the same thing as the truth. No more hatred is possible at this level.²⁵

If Spinoza claims that the entia rationis, responsible for misleading so many metaphysicians, are inconsistent, and if, likewise, he carefully avoids making use of these, situating his discourse at the level of the second or third kind of knowledge, he does not however entirely deny to beings of reason or fictive beings a certain pedagogical virtue. Nevertheless, such instruments would only be without risk in the hands of someone who, precisely, would not need them. To refuse to use such instruments is not to lose anything at all, but consists in making a step on the path that leads to liberty and true knowledge.

Notes

Translated by Jack Stetter

1    Cf. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, 1131a31.

2    Translator’s note: Curley’s translation of the relevant passage reads as follows: “Anyone willing to carefully consider how these foundations fit together will easily see their coherence or the proportion of the rule” [G III 319].

3    DPP1p6s [G I 162].

4    Cf. Cicero, De finibus III, §10.

5    Cf. Seneca, Ep. 120, §3.

6    KV, I, ch. x, §2 [G I 49].

7    TIE §10 [G II 8].

8    E2p39s.

9    Cf. E4p28.

10  CM I, ch. i, §3 [G I 233].

11  CM II, ch. vii, §8 [G I 264]. Translator’s note: Curley’s translation of the relevant passage reads as follows: “Finally, if we attend to the proportion of the whole of nature, we can consider it as one being, and consequently there will only be one idea of God, or decree concerning natura naturata.”

12  CM II, ch. vii, §8 [G I 263].

13  Cf. KV, I, ch. ii, §19 [G I 24].

14  KV, I, ch. x, §1 [G I 49].

15  CM I, ch. i, §3 [G I 233].

16  Cf. Henri Laux, Imagination et religion chez Spinoza (Paris: Vrin, 1993), 70.

17  TIE §58 [G I 22].

18  TIE §54 [G I 20].

19  E4p35c1: “There is no singular thing in Nature that is more useful to man than a man who lives according to the guidance of reason.”

20  Spinoza denies the possibility of a community of humans and animals because he takes these to be different in nature.

21  TIE §58 [G I 22].

22  E2p18s.

23  Cf. KV, I, ch. vi, §7 [G I 43].

24  Cf. KV, II, ch. iii, §8 [G I 58].

25  Cf. KV, II, ch. v, §2 [G I 62].