Substance Without Attributes: an Objection to Spinoza's Proof

SUBSTANCE WITHOUT ATTRIBUTES: AN OBJECTION TO SPINOZA’S PROOF

FOR SUBSTANCE MONISM1

Abstract

Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to Spinoza’s metaphysics, and particularly the relationship of attribute to substance, I think there is a problem lurking in Spinoza’s proof for substance monism that has been overlooked. In this essay, I argue for the possibility of the existence of a substance, in addition to God, that has no attributes. I aim to demonstrate this possibility through an investigation of Part I and the beginning propositions of Part II of the Ethics with special attention paid to the role of ID4. The position I wish to defend is only that the logical possibility of a substance without attributes is not ruled out by Spinoza’s proof for substance monism. Whether or not such a substance actually exists or may be proven to exist is not the aim of this essay; nor do I think such a substance’s actual existence is relevant. Even the possibility of the existence of another substance is a problem for Spinoza’s substance monism. In the Ethics, Spinoza claims that there can neither be, nor be conceived, any other substance than God. Therefore, the mere conception of another substance is detrimental to Spinoza’s proof for the existence of only one substance.

Introduction

Much has been written on Spinoza’s metaphysics and particular scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship of the attributes to substance.2 Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to this theme, I think there is a problem lurking in Spinoza’s proof for substance monism that has been overlooked; a problem that lies in the metaphysics of the Ethics. In this essay, I will argue that an overlooked objection to Spinoza’s substance monism is the possibility

1 I would like to thank Diane Steinberg for her insight and helpful conversation on earlier drafts of this essay.

2 Jonathan Bennett, 1984, A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 60-70, 143-9; Michael Della Rocca, 1996, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza, New York: Oxford University Press, 3-7, 157-71; Francis S. Haserot, 1972, “Spinoza’s Definition of Attribute,” in Studies in Spinoza: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. S. Paul Kashap, Berkeley: University of California Press, 28-42; Harry Austryn Wolfson, 1934, The Philosophy of Spinoza, Volume 1, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 142-57; Noa Shein, 2009, “The False Dichotomy between Objective and Subjective Interpretations of Spinoza’s Theory of Attributes,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17(3), 505-32; Martin Lin, 2006, “Substance, Attribute, and Mode in Spinoza,” Philosophy Compass 1(2), 144-53; Edwin M. Curley, 1969, Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 118-53; Valtteri Viljanen, 2009, “Spinoza’s Ontology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, ed. Olli Koistinen, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 62-71.

of the existence of a substance, in addition to God, that has no attributes. I aim to demonstrate this possibility through an investigation of Part I and the beginning propositions of Part II of the

Ethics with special attention paid to the role of ID4.3 The first part of this essay consists of an interpretation of ID4 that will serve as a foundation for my argument for the possibility of the existence of a second substance. The second section contains a discussion of the implications of that interpretation of ID4 for the possibility of the existence of a substance with no attributes. In that section, I also take up potential textual obstacles to the idea of a substance with no attributes.

The third and final part of the essay lays out a brief proposal on how one might “solve” this problem for Spinoza as well as some questions for the further development of this project.

The position I wish to defend is only that the logical possibility of a substance without attributes is not ruled out by Spinoza’s proof for substance monism. Whether or not such a substance actually exists or may be proven to exist is not the aim of this essay; nor do I think such a substance’s actual existence is relevant. Even the possibility of the existence of another substance is a problem for Spinoza’s substance monism. IP14 claims that there can neither be, nor be conceived, any other substance than God. Therefore, the mere conception of another substance is detrimental to Spinoza’s proof for the existence of only one substance.

The objection that a substance without attributes is possible may be summarized as follows. IP11dem supposes that if we can conceive of God as a substance consisting of infinite attributes that does not exist, then, by IA7, God’s essence does not involve existence. If God’s

3 References to Spinoza’s Ethics are taken from: Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley, ed. Seymour Feldman, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1992. References such as IP33sch2 should be read as referring to Ethics Part I, proposition 33, second scholium. I will use the following abbreviations: P=proposition, D=definition, A=axiom, dem=demonstration/proof, cor=corollary, sch=scholium, exp=explication.

essence does not involve existence then existence would not belong to the nature of substance which is, by IP7, absurd. What is offered by IP7 is the existence of substance generally but not of one specific substance consisting of infinite attributes. Neither IP7 nor any other premise in

Spinoza’s argument for IP14 rules out the possibility that even if God does exist as defined by

Spinoza another substance consisting of no attributes could simultaneously exist. Nowhere do we find Spinoza claiming that a substance must necessarily have at least one attribute.4 So, it is at least possible, given what Spinoza offers in his argument for substance monism, that God exists and we perceive his essence to be constituted by the attributes of thought and extension as well as some other substance exists whose essence the intellect is unable to perceive – viz., it has no attributes. I will refer to this possibility as the “substance without attributes (SWA) hypothesis”.

The definition of attribute

The SWA hypothesis rests upon my interpretation of ID4, which reads as follows:

ID4′: by attribute I mean that to which an idea of substance leads the

understanding to think of as constituting its existence.

ID4′ leans towards confirming, or at least supporting, a subjectivist interpretation of the relationship of attributes and substance. The subjectivist interpretation takes the attributes to be only that which the intellect perceives (either truly or falsely) of as constituting the essence

4 Bennett seems to be the only commentator to address this issue and his discussion is very brief (Bennett 1996,

64). Bennett presumably finds evidence for the impossibility of a substance with no attributes in IP14dem: “if there were any other substance but God, it would have to be explicated through some attribute of God.” Bennett reads “it would have to be explicated through some attribute of God” to mean that a substance must be somehow explicated. I, on the other hand, think it is possible to read this passage to mean that “if another substance were to be explicated, [then] it would have to be explicated through some attribute of God.” The text allows for such an ambiguity which leaves open at least the logical possibility that substances do not have to be expressed or explicated at all.

of substance though not actually constituting the essence of substance. The distinction between attribute and substance – as well as the distinction between one attribute and another – is merely a conceptual distinction that does not really exist.5

ID4′ is the result of the disambiguation of the terms “intellect”, “perceives”, and

“essence” in ID4. The question that arises from the use of “intellect” in ID4 is whether Spinoza has in mind the finite (i.e., human) intellect or the infinite (i.e., divine) intellect. Several other mentions of “intellect” in the beginning propositions of Part I (IP4, IP8sch2) are of no help in answering this question as they make the same general, ambiguous use of the term as does ID4.

IP30-IP32cor2, however, begin to offer some clarity to the meaning of “intellect” when used without the infinite-finite qualification. IP30 and IP31, taken together with IP31dem, explain that, for Spinoza, the intellect, either finite or infinite, is a modification of the attribute thought.

Continuing in the scholium to IP31, Shirley interprets Spinoza to equate the intellect with the

“very act of understanding, than which nothing is more clearly apprehended by us.”6 IP32dem,

IP32cor2, and L64 all provide further clarification that intellect, finite or infinite, is a mode and must be conceived through the attribute of thought. Since each mode must be conceived under some attribute (IIP6), it should make no difference for the meaning of ID4 whether “intellect” is taken to be finite or infinite. Per the synonymy of “intellect” and “understanding” offered by Shirley’s translation of IP31sch, it seems unproblematic to substitute “understanding” for

5 Thomas M. Lennon, 2005, “The Rationalist Conception of Substance,” in A Companion to Rationalism, ed. Alan Nelson, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 20-2. The objectivist interpretation of the attributes, on the other hand, holds that the attributes are really distinct from each other as well as being really distinct from substance. The attributes are not merely conceptual beings, but separate real things. The difficulty for such a position is to explain how entities that are really and conceptually distinct from substance can constitute the essence of that substance. That is, “if attributes are really distinct from each other, they are also really distinct from substance.”

6 Here Shirley has translated “de ipsa scilicet intellectione” as “the very act of understanding”. So, it is Shirley and not Spinoza who offers a synonym for “intellect” as it appears in ID4, IP21, and IP30.

“intellect” in ID4 without altering its original meaning.

In ID4′, “perceives” is substituted for “that which the idea of…leads [the intellect] to think of…” The grounds for this substitution are found in IID3exp in which Spinoza identifies the difference between “perception” and “conception”:

I say ‘conception’ rather than ‘perception’ because the term perception seems to indicate

that the Mind is passive to its object, whereas conception seems to express an activity of

the Mind.

For the purposes of ID4′, I mean only to paraphrase Spinoza’s passivity of the mind to its object.

Finally, in ID4′, I replace “essence” with “existence”. “Essence” is often used synonymously with “the nature of a thing”, both meaning “what a thing is.” The properties of a thing can be deduced from a thing’s essence but they do not, even taken together, fully constitute the “what it is” of a thing (IP16dem).7 IID2 attempts some clarification as to what is meant by

“essence”. There Spinoza defines essence as that “without which [a] thing can neither be nor be conceived, and vice versa.” How this is supposed to help us understand “essence” throughout

Part I is unclear. Recall that ID3 and IP10 identify both substance and attribute as things which are conceived through themselves.8 It is difficult to see how an attribute can both be conceived through itself yet constitute the essence of something else. For an attribute to constitute the essence of something requires that other something to be part of the conception of attribute, stripping away the conceptual independence of an attribute.

7 See also: Samuel Shirley, “Translator’s Preface,” in Spinoza, op. cit. note 2, 22.

8 IP10 also appears to be the foundation on which theories of the attributes which identify the attributes with substance are founded.

IP20 further complicates the issue of the meaning of essence by introducing a special equivalency between essence and existence. In IP20dem, Spinoza explains that since the attributes simultaneously express both substance’s eternal essence and eternal existence, substance’s essence and existence are the same thing. This seems to clear up the very question at hand by transitively identifying attributes with substance. However, as Bennett notes, there does not seem to be any reason to attribute such an identity thesis to Spinoza since, though he does fail to distinguish attributes from substance in some places,9 Spinoza often writes of attributes as being something that substance has.10 The text of the Ethics does not allow one to definitively conclude either that substance is identical to its attributes or that substance is distinct from its attributes. What we can take from IP20 is that, for the purposes of attempting to reformulate

ID4, it should be unproblematic to substitute “existence” for “essence” in ID4 without altering

Spinoza’s original meaning.11

ID4′, in conjunction with the objection to IP11dem mentioned in the introduction, undermines Spinoza’s proof for substance monism. That is, there could exist a substance with no attributes in addition to God or a substance consisting of infinite attributes. A second substance other than God may be present and possibly perceived; however, it does not follow from the fact that perception requires an object to be present that the presence of that object

9 see IP4dem, IP19, IP20dem, IP20cor2

10 Bennett, op. cit. note 1, 62, 64-66. See also: IP9, IP10sch, IP14cor2.

11 There is a potential problem with this proposition. In IP20cor1 Spinoza writes that from IP20dem it follows that “God’s existence, like his essence, is an eternal truth.” Why would Spinoza not simply say “God’s existence, which is the same as his essence, is an eternal truth”? Why introduce the implication that God’s existence may be something other than his essence in the first corollary of the very proposition that asserts God’s existence and essence to be the same thing? This could charitably be set aside as a mistake; otherwise, I do not think these questions have any good answers. Perhaps one could argue that in the demonstration of IP20, Spinoza seems to say that God’s existence and God’s essence are two distinct things that are only “explicated” by the same things, viz. the attributes. I am wary of this reading, however, as it seems to conflict with the very proposition from which this corollary is supposed to follow.

necessarily leads to a mind’s perception of it. That is, an object may be present that the mind either fails to perceive or perceives to be something that it is not. This leaves open the possibility not only of the misperceptibility of an attribute but also of the imperceptibility of an attribute.

The substance-without-attributes hypothesis

To be sure, only one of these additional substances could exist12 but, obviously, the existence of even one substance other than God is not compatible with IP14. Is the existence of a substance without any attributes really possible? In order to show that this possibility is in fact left open it must be reconcilable with what Spinoza says about substance and attribute in Part I leading up to his demonstration of IP14. In the next part of this essay I will argue that there are no inconsistencies with what Spinoza writes in Part I of the Ethics and the existence of a second substance with no attributes. The main obstacles to the existence of a second “attribute-less” substance are in IP4, IP8, and IP9 with minor obstacles lying in IP11 and IP5. I shall discuss each of these propositions in turn.

IP4 and its demonstration hold that in order for one substance to be distinguishable from another substance there must be a difference in either the attributes or the modes of the two substances. SWA and God are able to be negatively distinguished from one another; that is, they are different in that the former has no attributes and the latter has all possible, or infinite, attributes. The demonstration of IP4 offers support for the idea that a substance could exist yet lack any attributes. Part of that demonstration reads

12 IP4 precludes any additional substances without any attributes as they would not be distinguishable from one another.

nothing exists external to the intellect except substances and their affections [from

ID3 and ID5].

So, substances can exist external to the intellect, or external to the understanding. I argued above that the intellect, or understanding, requires some object to be present to it in order for the intellect to perceive that object. Also, the only objects that could be present to the intellect to serve as the basis for comprehension are attributes or modes. A substance that lacked such attributes (and therefore modes)13 could not present the intellect with any such object to comprehend. However, since substance exists external to the intellect, the imperceptibility of a substance’s attributes does not necessarily preclude the existence of any substance. Furthermore, given that substance is prior to its modes (IP1), or affections, it is not ruled out that a substance could exist without any modes.

IP4dem relies upon ID4 for the claim that substance is identical to its attributes; however, if it is possible that substance can exist without attributes and my reformulation of ID4 goes through, then I think the correct interpretation of IP4dem is one similar to Bennett’s position that the attributes are only perceived to be the basic properties of substance, not identical to substance. Bennett writes:

I say that Nature really has extension and thought, which really are distinct from

one another, but that they are not really fundamental properties, although they

must be perceived as such by any intellect.14

Implicit in this passage is the claim that God’s existence appears as though it is constituted by the attributes because that is the best that can be hoped for through either the finite or infinite

13 IP10dem: “Indeed, nothing in Nature is clearer than that each entity [mode] must be conceived under some attribute....”

14 Bennett, op. cit. note 1, 147.

understanding. Recall that what exists external to the intellect are substance and its modes.

Spinoza did not take the opportunity in IP4dem to say that substance, modes, and attributes all exist external to the intellect. So, attributes are distinctions in the essence of substance which reside in the intellect alone and not in any reality that lies outside of the intellect.15 Support for this position can be found in IIP7sch:

thinking substance and extended substance are one and the same substance,

comprehended now under this attribute, now under that. So, too, a mode of

Extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, expressed in two

ways.

Spinoza offers two different ways to understand substance – viz., the intellect may comprehend substance as either thinking substance or extended substance – while maintaining that there is no real difference between them. Only in the intellect does a distinction between the different attributes present itself.16 The only way in which the intellect can understand the constitution of the essence of substance is through the conception of the attributes. Conception and perception are linked in an important way with comprehension. Conception forms objects of thought which may then be perceived by the intellect. In IP30 and its demonstration, Spinoza asserts that either the finite or infinite intellect “must comprehend the attributes of God and the affections of God, and nothing else.” On its face, “must comprehend” seems to imply that it is impossible

15 See Spinoza’s letter 9. After reiterating ID3, Spinoza continues: “I understand the same [that which is conceived through itself] by attribute, except that attribute is so called in respect to the intellect, which attributes to substance a certain specific kind of nature.”

16 Shein, op. cit. note 1, 526-9. On 529, Shein summarizes his “Cartesian solution” for the relation of attribute and substance in Spinoza: “I propose the following: first, to adopt Descartes’ interpretation of the relation between attribute and substance and apply it to Spinoza, i.e. hold that there is only a distinction of reason between the two; second, not to take ‘real distinction’ in Spinoza to have ontological implications. ... Furthermore, [IP10sch] fits with this interpretation, since the real distinction which holds between attributes claims not that there is something in the substance on account of which they are separated, but only that each attribute must be conceived through itself and is not conceived through another.”

for the intellect to fail to comprehend the attributes or modes of God. However, I think “must comprehend” can be interpreted as Spinoza saying that all the intellect is able to comprehend are the attributes and modes of God.17 In other words, if anything of God is comprehended, that which is comprehended must be either an attribute or a mode of God, nothing else. The demonstration of IP30 seems to preclude the intellect from being able to comprehend substance as substance. Spinoza has therefore not demonstrated that it is impossible for the intellect to not comprehend the attributes or modes of God, but rather that that which the intellect does comprehend must be either an attribute or mode of God. Thus, the incomprehensibility, or imperceptibility, of a substance without attributes is not ruled out. IP4 does not rule out such a substance since, as stated above, a substance without attributes would be able to be distinguished from God through the former’s lack of attributes and the latter’s possession of all the attributes.

I8dem argues that every substance must be infinite because if a substance were finite, another substance would exist that shares one of its attributes, which is impossible (IP5, ID2).

Presumably what Spinoza has in mind when citing ID2 is that the existence of two substances would necessarily disallow any infinite substance. However, the argument offered by ID2 is that only attributes can limit other attributes – i.e., thought limits thought.18 Thus, without the necessary properties required to limit anything else – i.e., attributes – SWA could not limit God, nor vice versa. God’s attributes would not be limited by similar attributes of SWA and, likewise,

SWA would not be limited by any of God’s attributes. Therefore, the SWA hypothesis does not

17 There must be some limits to what can be conceived or perceived even by an infinite intellect since infinite intellect is still a mode of Thought and as such relies upon something else for its own conception. Bennett (1984, 62) takes “intellect” in ID4 to mean “infallible and omniscient” but I do not find any evidence in the Ethics to support this interpretation, especially given Spinoza’s account of inadequate ideas.

18 This is also proved in IP5, where Spinoza argues that it is not possible for two substances to exist because one would have to share an attribute with the other, which is ruled out by IP4.

appear to be inconsistent with IP8.

In IP9, Spinoza argues that the more reality a thing has, the more attributes that thing has.

While it is clear from this proposition that God has more reality than SWA, it is not clear that to have no attributes is to have no reality. It seems that all that can be concluded from IP9 is that

SWA has less reality than God. By IP7, existence belongs to the nature of SWA as well as the nature of God, so SWA must have some degree of reality even if that reality solely consists in the mere conception of SWA. It does not seem possible that existence could belong to the nature of a thing, yet that thing could simultaneously lack any degree of reality. Perhaps, due to its lack of attributes, SWA possesses as little reality as is possible for an existent thing to possess.

Of course, even such an infinitesimally small amount of reality is not equivalent to no reality.

Therefore, all that can be concluded from IP9 is that SWA possesses significantly less reality than God.

Of the three proofs offered in support of IP11 it is the second proof that poses the most difficulty for the possible existence of SWA. The first proof poses no threat to the

SWA hypothesis in that it addresses God’s necessary existence only and does not rule out the possibility of the existence of any other substance. Indeed, IP11dem1 may be used as proof for the necessary existence of SWA as well as God: if one were to conceive that SWA did not exist, then SWA’s essence would not involve existence (IA7); however, this is absurd (IP7) and so

SWA necessarily exists. IP11dem3 also demonstrates the necessary existence of God, following similar reasoning to that of IP11dem1, but does not rule out the existence of another substance with no attributes. IP11dem3 proves the existence of God through the existence of modes of

God. Of course, this demonstration could not be used to prove that a substance without attributes

does exist – as a substance without attributes has no modes – but neither is its existence ruled out by IP11dem3.

The second proof of IP11 poses a slightly more serious threat to the SWA hypothesis.

IP11dem2 asserts that everything that either exists or does not exist does so for a reason. The reason for a thing existing or not existing must be either “contained in the nature of a thing” or external to that thing. Spinoza argues that the reason for a square circle’s nonexistence is that its nature involves a contradiction; whereas the reason for God’s existence is contained in his nature (IP7). So there must be a reason for the existence of SWA that is not precluded by

God’s existence. However, given the argument above for SWA, it should not be surprising that the reasons offered for God’s necessary existence also apply to SWA. SWA and God are two different substances with nothing in common (IP2) and no causal relation between them (IP3,

IP6). SWA’s existence belongs to its nature (IP7) and is self-caused (ID1). SWA must therefore exist since there does not appear to be any reason or cause that prevents it from existing.19 Most importantly, IP7 does not claim that existence is the sole part comprising the nature of substance, but only that substance’s nature involves existence. Thus, even though existence is part of the nature of all substances, each substance’s nature as a whole is not identical to that of the other.

For Spinoza, to have something in common – or to have the same nature – is to share an attribute and, by definition, a substance without attributes has no attributes. Existence is not an attribute and therefore, IP7 poses no problem for the SWA hypothesis.

IP5 presents a similar problem to that of IP4 and the problem can be overcome in much the same way. With respect to IP4, I argued that SWA and God are distinguishable based

19 From IP11dem2: “Therefore if there can be no reason or cause which prevents God from existing or which annuls his existence, we are bound to conclude that he necessarily exists.”

on God’s possession of infinite attributes and SWA’s lack of the possession of those same attributes. Given SWA’s lack of attributes, SWA and God obviously do not share any attributes.

Finally, the demonstration of IP5 relies heavily upon IP4, which, as I argued above, poses no threat to the SWA hypothesis; thus, neither does IP5 threaten the SWA hypothesis.

A potential solution

I think the problem for Spinoza’s proof for substance monism presented by the SWA hypothesis can be remedied by interpreting existence as an attribute. If existence is an attribute,

Spinoza’s argument for substance monism seems to avoid the objection I raised above. That is, counting existence as an attribute offers Spinoza the following argument:

1. Existence is an attribute. [P]

2. There cannot exist any number of substances that share the same attribute

(IP5).

3. God is a substance consisting of infinite attributes (ID6).

4. Existence belongs to the nature of substance (IP7).

5. God necessarily exists (IP11, from 1-4).

6. Therefore, no other substance but God can possibly exist (IP14, from 5).

Counting existence as an attribute necessitates the existence of substance (5). If existence belongs to the nature of substance, existence is an attribute, and God is a substance consisting of all attributes, then it is neither possible for God not to exist nor for any other substance to exist.

Additionally, since no distinct substances can share any attribute, it is not possible for any other substance than God to exist. Interpreting existence as an attribute eliminates the possibility of a substance existing without any attributes in that, if my suggestion goes through, to exist is to have an attribute – that of existence (IP7).

It seems possible that interpreting existence as an attribute may be of some help to resolving the exegetic controversy between “subjectivist” and “objectivist” interpretations of the relation of attribute to substance. Under the proposed interpretation of existence, the textual evidence lends strong support to the objectivist interpretation. For example, IP7 now poses a particularly difficult obstacle for a subjectivist interpretation to clear as it now explicitly names one of the attributes as belonging in fact to the nature of substance. The text of IP7 does not include any psychological language about what the intellect perceives to belong to the nature of substance. IP7 now reads the same as IIP1 and IIP2, in naming particular attributes (thought and extension, respectively) in no uncertain terms. Unless one were willing to deny that it is clear by

IIP1 and IIP2 that thought and extension are in fact attributes, it would be seemingly impossible to deny that IP7 makes clear that existence does really constitute the essence of substance.20

The main challenge in formulating a theory of the attributes that counts existence as one of the attributes is to cogently present the details of the exact relationship between existence and the other attributes. I do not have the space to address this challenge here, but I can offer questions that I hope will guide my further development of this project. For instance, how might the three known attributes (existence, thought, extension) be arranged so that none are conceived through the other? Might there be more than one sense of the word “existence” so that existence in IP7 means something different than any description of the “really existing” modes?21 What sort of modes are there of the attribute existence? Is it possible that all modes are traced back

20 Of course, even if IP7 does rule out a subjectivist interpretation of the relationship of attributes to substance it does not solve all of the shortcomings of the objectivist interpretation. See Lennon, op. cit. note 9, 19-27 and Shein, op. cit. note 1, 521-6 for other problems with the objectivist interpretation. I do not take up these issues here as they lie beyond the scope of this essay.

21 Andrew Youpa, “Spinoza on the very Nature of Existence,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 35 (2011), 311-4. In this passage, Youpa presents the case for Spinoza’s use of more than one sense of “existence” in the Ethics.

to thought or extension and that existence only counts as an attribute in that it constitutes the essence of substance?

The aim of this paper, however, is not to develop a new theory of the attributes. Rather, I present the possibility of the attribute of existence only as a potential solution to what I think is a problem with Spinoza’s proof for substance monism that has been overlooked: that another substance other than God may exist that has no attributes. I have attempted to explicate this problem through a reformulation of ID4 that is consistent with Spinoza’s use of the terms

“perceives”, “intellect”, and “essence” throughout Parts I and II of the Ethics. This reformulation in conjunction with certain propositions mentioned above exposes a weak spot in

Spinoza’s argument for the exclusive existence of a substance consisting of infinite attributes.

That weak spot – the possibility that another substance with no attributes may exist – can, I think, be strengthened by interpreting existence to be an attribute along with thought, extension, and any others.22

22 Though he argues that the human mind can only comprehend the attributes of thought and extension (letter 64), Spinoza does not hold that these are the only two attributes that exist (IIP7sch).

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