Quotation
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“The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.”
Baruch Spinoza · Rationalism · Early modern · 1677
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as parallelism in a strict sense: the order of ideas and the order of extended things are the same order, expressed under two attributes. A mind is the idea of a body, not a ghost tugging on a machine. A rival reading hears Leibniz's harmony, two worlds arranged to match without meeting, which is a different picture. Proposition 7 is in part two, where the human mind is defined; The sameness is identity of order, not a happy correlation.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part two, proposition 7. One order is conceived under the attributes of thought and extension. It is not two worlds luckily matched. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Ethics II, proposition 7
Approximate date: 1677.
How to use it
A headache on a shift in a warehouse near Warrington is not, on this claim, a mental event that then causes a bodily one, or the reverse, as two stories needing a bridge. It is one thing conceived as idea and as body. The medicine does not wait on the metaphysics; The metaphysics forbids explaining the shift by a mind that floats free of the body doing the work.
A mindset reading
Parallelism is often drawn as two railway tracks, which invites the question of who laid them to match. Spinoza's claim is stricter: there is one order, described in two vocabularies that do not causally jump a gap, because there is no gap. Using the sentence to bless a vague balance of mind and body drops the identity of order he is stating.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is attribute, a way the intellect perceives the essence of substance. Thought and extension are the two he says we know. Proposition 7 says the connection of ideas is the connection of things because it is the same connection. The human mind is the idea of the actually existing body; Curley's English is the guide; The proposition is the hinge of his philosophy of mind.
- mind
- knowledge
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as parallelism in a strict sense: the order of ideas and the order of extended things are the same order, expressed under two attributes. A mind is the idea of a body, not a ghost tugging on a machine. A rival reading hears Leibniz's harmony, two worlds arranged to match without meeting, which is a different picture. Proposition 7 is in part two, where the human mind is defined; The sameness is identity of order, not a happy correlation.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part two, proposition 7. One order is conceived under the attributes of thought and extension. It is not two worlds luckily matched. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Ethics II, proposition 7 Approximate date: 1677.