History of Modern Philosophy Class Blog - Fall 2026

   9/29/2026 [Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave") Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:30 in CAS 436.]   Do you think everything happens for a reason? Is Leibniz harder to understand than Spinoza?         Leibniz agrees with Descartes and Spinoza that God somehow implies maximal reality. But L disagrees with S that this all has to be possessed by God.       S thought there could only be one maximally real substance.   Leibniz (and also Anne Conway) thought maximal reality implies a maximal number of substances, and that this number = infinite.     So, whereas S thought there was one substance, L thought there were infinitely many substances.     For L, substances are not in space. Here’s his argument: 1.            Substances must be ...

   9/24/2026 Can you be in pain and not know it? [Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave") Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:50 in CAS 436.] How can there be modes of modes?         When we say something has properties, we are accustomed to thinking that the word “something” refers to a substance: something that has properties but isn’t itself a property.       So, when I say a hamster is fuzzy, the something is the hamster, and the property is fuzziness. I don’t think the hamster is a property.   But on Spinoza’s view, the hamster IS a property. Specifically, it is property of God (since everything is either God (as substance) or else is a property belonging to God (either an attribute or a mode of an attribute)). All material things are properties (modes) of extension: “particular ways of being extended.”   ...

   9/22/2026 Does Spinoza’s monism have any ethical implications?   [Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave") Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:50 in CAS 436.]   Part 1: Monism     Motion as mode:     Necessitarianism       S thinks necessitarianism follows from his view of God.   God exists necessarily.   God has all attributes necessarily. So, God’s possession of any given attribute is necessary (not contingent).   All modes are modes of attributes, so all modes are “grounded” in God. (1p16c1 and 1p16c2)   Consider any mode M1 found in God.   What explains M1?   M1 must exist in and be conceived through something else (1d5). What is this “something else”?   Two dimensions of answer:   First: Since every mode is a mode under some attribute ...

   9/17/2026 True or false: If x is made up of parts, then x can’t be a substance.     [Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave") Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:50 in CAS 436.]   Here’s another (brief) way of explaining Descartes’ and Spinoza’s opposition to empty space: -       Space has the property of being extended. -       All properties (ultimately) belong to substances. -       Therefore, space is either a substance or a property of a substance. -       But in either case, space can’t be empty.   Alternatively: -       Nothingness has no properties. -       Empty space would be nothingness. -       Empty space has no properties. -     ...