Spinoza on the “Principles of Natural Things”
Alison Peterman, University of Rochester
Abstract This essay considers Spinoza’s responses to two questions: what is responsible for the I begin by elucidating Spinoza’s solution to the problem of variety by considering his comments on Cartesian physics in an epistolary exchange with Tschirnhaus late in Spinoza’s life. I go on to reconstruct Spinoza’s unique account of causation among turns out that Spinoza’s explanations of the variety of bodies, on the one hand, and of only be resolved by taking Spinoza to employ two notions of “existence.” I conclude by offering evidence that this is in fact what Spinoza does.